Preamble
We do not begin with a doctrine. We begin with a Person.
The God Who Answers, Inc. exists because Jesus Christ is alive. He is not a figure of history whom we admire, nor a system of belief we have adopted, nor the founder of a religion among religions. He is the risen and living Lord, and He is the whole reason this ministry exists. Everything set forth below is testimony concerning Him — who He is, what He has done, what He is doing now by His Spirit, and what He has commanded His people to do until He comes.
This Statement is therefore confession before it is policy. It is adopted by resolution of the Board of Directors, is incorporated by reference into the governing documents of the Corporation, and states the religious character of the Corporation for all purposes, including its charitable and religious purposes as set forth in its Articles of Incorporation. Every director, officer, and worker of the Corporation affirms it. But before it is any of that, it is this ministry’s answer to the question the Lord Himself asked: “But whom say ye that I am?” (Matthew 16:15). All Scripture herein is quoted from the Authorized (King James) Version.
I. The Lord Jesus Christ
We confess Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God, by whom all things were made and for whom all things consist (Colossians 1:16–17); the Word who was with God and who was God, and who was made flesh and dwelt among us (John 1:1, 14); conceived by the Holy Ghost and born of the virgin Mary; truly God and truly man in one Person, without confusion of the two natures; who lived without sin, was crucified under Pontius Pilate as the substitutionary sacrifice for the sin of the world, was buried, and rose bodily from the dead on the third day; who ascended to the right hand of the Father, where He ever liveth to make intercession for us; and who is coming again in glory. He holds the keys of hell and of death (Revelation 1:18). There is none other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved (Acts 4:12).
He is the head of the body, the church, that in all things He might have the preeminence (Colossians 1:18). We hold that preeminence to be the governing principle of this ministry: no work, no gift, no strategy, and no leader may occupy the place that belongs to Him.
“I am he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore.” — Revelation 1:18
II. Knowing Him — Not Religion
We believe that eternal life is not the holding of correct opinions about God but the knowing of God Himself: “And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent” (John 17:3). The word is ginosko — to know by relationship and experience, not by information. With Paul we count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus our Lord, that we may know Him, and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings (Philippians 3:8–10).
We therefore reject religion as a substitute for Christ — the will-worship (ethelothreskeia) and outward form which has a show of wisdom but is of no value against the flesh (Colossians 2:20–23), and the form of godliness that denies the power thereof (2 Timothy 3:5). We take warning from the church at Ephesus, sound in doctrine and tireless in labour, of whom the Lord said, “thou hast left thy first love” (Revelation 2:4). And we take warning from those who prophesied and cast out devils and did many wonderful works in His name, to whom He said, “I never knew you” (Matthew 7:22–23). Gifts are no proof of intimacy. We pursue the Giver.
“That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection.” — Philippians 3:10
III. The Holy Scriptures
We believe the Bible, comprising the sixty-six books of the Old and New Testaments, to be the Word of God: verbally and plenarily inspired by the Holy Spirit, without error in the original writings, and wholly true in all that it affirms. Paul calls it theopneustos — God-breathed (2 Timothy 3:16). It is not a record of men reaching toward God, but the utterance of God Himself carried by the Holy Ghost through men (2 Peter 1:21). We receive every word of it as truth, and we hold it as the supreme and final authority over all doctrine, all conduct, all ministry, and all governance of this Corporation. No experience, no tradition, no revelation, and no leader stands above it or beside it.
And we receive it for the purpose for which it was given: it testifies of Him. The Lord rebuked men who searched the Scriptures diligently, supposing that in them they had eternal life, and would not come to Him that they might have life (John 5:39–40). We will not repeat that error. The Word written brings us to the Word made flesh, or we have not read it rightly.
“Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me: and ye will not come to me, that ye might have life.” — John 5:39–40
IV. The Triune God
We believe in one God, eternally existing in three Persons — Father, Son, and Holy Ghost — of one substance, power, and glory. We confess the faith set forth in the Nicene Creed: one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth; one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all worlds, God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten not made, of one substance (homoousion) with the Father; and the Holy Ghost, the Lord and Giver of Life, who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and glorified. This is the ancient and undivided faith of the Church, and we do not depart from it.
“Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD.” — Deuteronomy 6:4
V. Man, Sin, and Salvation
We believe that man was created in the image of God, fell by willful transgression, and is by nature and by choice separated from God, dead in trespasses and sins, and unable to save himself. We believe salvation is the gift of God, received by grace through faith in the finished work of Jesus Christ — His death, His burial, His resurrection, and His shed blood — apart from the works of the law; that the believer is justified freely, born again of the Spirit, adopted as a son, and sealed unto the day of redemption; and that God calls every believer to a life of holiness, being sanctified by the Word and the Spirit. Salvation is not a transaction completed and filed away; it is entrance into union with a living Person, Christ in you, the hope of glory (Colossians 1:27).
“For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man should boast.” — Ephesians 2:8–9
VI. The Drawing of the Father and the Sovereign Freedom of God
We believe no man comes to Jesus Christ of his own unaided will: “No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him” (John 6:44). The word is helkuo — the same word used of drawing a net full of fishes and of drawing a sword — not gentle suggestion but the effectual pull of God upon a soul. And no man can say that Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy Ghost (1 Corinthians 12:3). Therefore we take credit for no conversion whatsoever. We plant and we water; God giveth the increase (1 Corinthians 3:6–7).
We believe the Holy Ghost is at work in the world far beyond the borders of the church, reproving the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment (John 16:8), going before our preaching to prepare hearts we have never met. He arrested Saul of Tarsus on a road where Saul was hunting believers (Acts 9:3–6). He prepared Cornelius by vision before Peter ever arrived (Acts 10:3–6). He is not confined to our methods, our meetings, or our timing.
We believe therefore that God is sovereignly free to reveal Jesus Christ to whomsoever He will, by whatever means He chooses — including to those bound in other religions, and to those who were not seeking Him at all: “I was found of them that sought me not” (Isaiah 65:1; Romans 10:20). We do not presume to limit Him by our doctrine. Every soul that comes to Christ comes because the Father drew him, and to God alone belongs the glory.
“No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day.” — John 6:44
VII. Repentance Born of the Goodness of God
We believe repentance is necessary, real, and not optional — a turning of the whole man from sin to God. But we believe it is God’s goodness that leadeth thereto (Romans 2:4); the word is chrestos, His kindness, His benignity. Conviction of sin is the work of the Holy Ghost, not of our reproach (John 16:8). Therefore we will not scold men into the Kingdom. We preach the holiness of God and the mercy of God together, we love men as Christ loved us while we were yet sinners, and we trust the Spirit to do the convicting work that belongs to Him alone. Hearts are softened by love; they are hardened by contempt.
“Or despisest thou the riches of his goodness and forbearance and longsuffering; not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance?” — Romans 2:4
VIII. The Holy Spirit — Promised, Purchased, Poured Out
We believe the Holy Ghost is God, a Person and not an influence — the Comforter, the parakletos, called alongside to abide with us for ever (John 14:16). We believe His outpouring was prophesied long before it came: “I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh” (Joel 2:28); “I will put my spirit within you” (Ezekiel 36:27). We believe that promise was purchased at the cross — by the suffering, death, blood, and resurrection of Jesus Christ — for the Spirit was not yet given because Jesus was not yet glorified (John 7:39), and it was expedient that He go away that the Comforter might come (John 16:7). Having been exalted, He shed forth this which we now see and hear (Acts 2:33). The gift is therefore blood-bought, and we hold it as such.
And we hold the Spirit’s own stated ministry as the test of every manifestation: “He shall glorify me: for he shall receive of mine, and shall shew it unto you” (John 16:14). Whatever exalts the Lord Jesus is of the Spirit; whatever exalts a man, a method, or a movement is not, however impressive it appears.
“And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh.” — Joel 2:28
IX. The Baptism in the Holy Spirit and the Ongoing Infilling
We believe the baptism in the Holy Ghost is a distinct work of God available to every believer, subsequent to and distinguishable from the new birth, promised to all whom the Lord our God shall call (Acts 2:38–39), and given to endue the believer with power to be a witness unto Him (Acts 1:8) — the purpose is witness to a Person, not power for its own sake.
We believe this baptism is one: by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body (1 Corinthians 12:13). But we believe the filling is many and ongoing, as the book of the Acts plainly shows. The same believers filled at Pentecost (Acts 2:4) were filled again when the place was shaken (Acts 4:31); Peter, already filled, was filled afresh to stand before the rulers (Acts 4:8); and the disciples at Antioch were filled with joy and with the Holy Ghost (Acts 13:52). Paul commands the church, “be filled with the Spirit” (Ephesians 5:18) — plerousthe, a present continuous imperative: be being filled, and keep on being filled. The walk in the Spirit is therefore not a monument to one past experience but a daily receiving of fresh grace, and we contend for the ongoing infilling as earnestly as for the first.
Concerning tongues: we believe the manifestation of the Spirit is given severally as He wills (1 Corinthians 12:11). We believe some believers receive the gift of tongues and some do not, and that many who have not yet received are open and shall yet receive. We forbid not to speak with tongues (1 Corinthians 14:39); we earnestly desire that every believer be free to receive; and we make it no test of salvation, no measure of spirituality, and no condition of fellowship, membership, or service in this ministry. What is coerced is not of the Spirit.
“But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me.” — Acts 1:8
X. The Gifts of the Spirit
We believe the charismata — the gifts of the Spirit set forth in 1 Corinthians 12:8–10 — are given, active, and operating in the Church today: the word of wisdom, the word of knowledge, faith, gifts of healing, working of miracles, prophecy, discerning of spirits, divers kinds of tongues, and the interpretation of tongues. They are distributed by the Spirit Himself, dividing to every man severally as He will (1 Corinthians 12:11) — not earned, not owned, and not at the disposal of any man’s ambition. We desire earnestly that every believer be free to operate in the gifts, and we impose them upon no one. The gifts are given to build up the body of Christ and to make Him known, and they are never a measure of a person’s standing with God.
“But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man to profit withal.” — 1 Corinthians 12:7
XI. Divine Healing
We believe in divine healing as provided in the atonement of Jesus Christ, who Himself took our infirmities and bare our sicknesses (Matthew 8:17; Isaiah 53:5), and we believe God still heals today in answer to prayer, by the laying on of hands, and by the gifts of healing. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever (Hebrews 13:8). We honor and do not despise the labor of physicians, and we lay no guilt upon the sick or upon those who are not healed; the outcome rests with a sovereign and merciful God, and our confidence is in His character and not in our formula.
“Is any sick among you? let him call for the elders of the church; and let them pray over him.” — James 5:14
XII. Liberty, Order, and Excellence
We believe the whole of 1 Corinthians 14 and receive it as binding instruction, not as suggestion. The Spirit gives liberty (2 Corinthians 3:17), and liberty is not disorder: “the spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets” (1 Corinthians 14:32), and the fruit of the Spirit includes temperance — enkrateia, self-control (Galatians 5:23). We therefore hold that all things be done unto edifying, that prophecy be judged, that tongues in the assembly be interpreted, and that all things be done decently and in order — euschemonos kai kata taxin, a word of ranks drawn up in array. We further hold that whatever is done for the Lord is to be done with excellence, as unto Him and not unto men (Colossians 3:23), after the manner of Daniel, in whom was found an excellent spirit (Daniel 6:3). Order is not the enemy of the Spirit. Order is the Spirit’s own instruction, and God is not the author of confusion, but of peace.
“Let all things be done decently and in order.” — 1 Corinthians 14:40
XIII. The Spirit and the Flesh; True Worship
We believe that the flesh profiteth nothing (John 6:63); that they that are in the flesh cannot please God (Romans 8:8); and that a work begun in the Spirit is not perfected by the flesh (Galatians 3:3). We renounce every substitute for the Spirit’s working — human machinery, manipulation, emotional pressure, showmanship, and the arm of flesh. We believe the Father seeketh true worshippers who worship Him in spirit and in truth (John 4:23–24), and that neither spirit without truth nor truth without spirit is the worship He seeks. Worship is not performance offered about Him; it is communion offered to Him.
“It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing.” — John 6:63
XIV. Marriage, Family, and Human Sexuality
We believe God created mankind in His own image, male and female created He them (Genesis 1:27), and that this distinction is His good design and not a human invention. We believe marriage is the covenant union of one man and one woman, instituted by God at the creation and affirmed by the Lord Jesus Himself: “For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh” (Matthew 19:4–6; Genesis 2:24). We believe God ordained the family, that children are an heritage of the LORD (Psalm 127:3), and that fathers and mothers are charged to bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord (Ephesians 6:4).
We believe sexual intimacy is the good gift of God, given for the covenant of marriage alone, and that within marriage it is holy and to be received with thanksgiving. “Marriage is honourable in all, and the bed undefiled” — amiantos, unstained (Hebrews 13:4). Husband and wife are not to defraud one another, except it be with consent for a time, that they may give themselves to fasting and prayer (1 Corinthians 7:3–5). For every creature of God is good, and nothing to be refused, if it be received with thanksgiving (1 Timothy 4:4). We reject both the world’s corruption of this gift and the false piety that treats it as shameful within the marriage God ordained.
We believe the Scriptures are plain that all sexual activity outside the marriage of one man and one woman is sin — porneia in its full biblical breadth — together with adultery, and with the lust of the heart which the Lord names adultery already (Matthew 5:28). We hold this as the plain teaching of the Word of God, not as a matter of culture, preference, or era.
And we hold it as we hold every other article: in love, and in the knowledge of our own mercy received. We receive every person as one for whom Christ died; we scold no one into the Kingdom (Article VII); and we remember the apostle’s word to a church full of the once-immoral: “And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God” (1 Corinthians 6:11). The gospel is not that we were never sinners. It is that He is mighty to save.
“Marriage is honourable in all, and the bed undefiled.” — Hebrews 13:4
XV. The Church, the Bride Made Ready, and the Return of Christ
We believe the Church is the body and the bride of Christ, composed of all who are born again of the Spirit, in every nation, tribe, and tongue. She is not an institution but a betrothed people — a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people (1 Peter 2:9), built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God by Jesus Christ (1 Peter 2:5).
We believe the readiness of the bride is her own responsibility, and that she bears it. John saw the marriage of the Lamb come, “and his wife hath made herself ready” (Revelation 19:7) — hetoimasen heauten, an active verb joined to a reflexive pronoun: she prepared herself. The Church is not carried passively to that day. She is charged to purify herself: every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as He is pure (1 John 3:3); and let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God (2 Corinthians 7:1). We take the ten virgins as a warning — five were wise and took oil, and five were not, and the door was shut (Matthew 25:1–13). Readiness is not assumed. It is pursued.
And in the very next verse it is written, “to her was granted that she should be arrayed in fine linen, clean and white: for the fine linen is the righteousness of saints” (Revelation 19:8). The garment she wears she did not weave; it was granted her. Therefore we hold both together and will surrender neither: Christ gave Himself for her that He might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the word, and present her to Himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing (Ephesians 5:25–27) — and she makes herself ready. We work out our own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God which worketh in us both to will and to do of His good pleasure (Philippians 2:12–13). To deny the bride’s responsibility is presumption; to deny that her righteousness is granted her is pride. We reject both errors, and we call the people of God to the labour of readiness.
We believe in the personal, bodily, and glorious return of the Lord Jesus Christ, in the resurrection of the dead, and in the judgment to come. We believe He is coming, and coming soon; and we do not know the day nor the hour (Matthew 24:36). Therefore we watch — gregoreite, keep awake (Matthew 24:42; 25:13) — and we occupy till He come (Luke 19:13) as faithful stewards of all He has entrusted, that we may be found so doing when He appears. We do not bind the conscience of any believer to a particular scheme of the times and the seasons, which the Father hath put in His own power (Acts 1:7). We labor to see the Church purified, prepared, and made ready for the coming of her Lord — not made ready for an event, but for a Bridegroom.
“Let us be glad and rejoice, and give honour to him: for the marriage of the Lamb is come, and his wife hath made herself ready.” — Revelation 19:7
XVI. The Discipleship of Every Believer
We believe the commission is to make disciples, not converts only — teaching them to observe all things whatsoever Christ commanded (Matthew 28:20). A disciple is not a student of a curriculum but a follower of a Person: “Follow me” (Matthew 4:19). We believe every believer, without exception, is to be discipled and in turn to disciple others, and that the faithful men taught are to be such as shall be able to teach others also (2 Timothy 2:2). We reject any ministry model that gathers crowds and leaves them untaught, and any clergy-laity division that reserves the work of the ministry to a few; the saints are to be perfected for the work of the ministry (Ephesians 4:11–12). We call men to Christ, never to ourselves.
“Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.” — Matthew 4:19
XVII. Love, the More Excellent Way
We believe love — agape — is the greatest of these (1 Corinthians 13:13) and the more excellent way (1 Corinthians 12:31). We believe that tongues without love are sounding brass, that prophecy and all knowledge and all faith without love are nothing, and that the giving of all our goods without love profiteth nothing (1 Corinthians 13:1–3). Therefore love is not one value among ours; it is the measure of everything else we do. We love because He first loved us (1 John 4:19) — it is His love received and returned, not a virtue we generate. We hold that the lost are reached through the love of Christ, that hearts are softened by it, and that by this shall all men know that we are His disciples, if we have love one to another (John 13:35). Where the gifts operate without love in this ministry, we have failed, whatever else may be reported.
“And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.” — 1 Corinthians 13:13
XVIII. Unity and the Great Commission
We believe the prayer of the Lord Jesus in John 17 — that they all may be one (hen osin), as the Father is in the Son and the Son in the Father, that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that Thou hast sent Me (John 17:21). We mark the purpose clause: unity is not sentiment; it is evangelistic. A divided Church preaches against its own message. We therefore endeavour to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace (Ephesians 4:3), acknowledging one Lord, one faith, one baptism, and receiving as brethren all who are born of the Spirit and hold the faith once delivered to the saints, whatever their affiliation. We labor with the whole body of Christ toward the completion of the Great Commission, that the gospel be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations — until He comes.
“That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me.” — John 17:21
Concerning the Limits of Our Knowing
We hold what God has plainly revealed with firmness, and we do not legislate where He has been silent. “The secret things belong unto the LORD our God: but those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children for ever, that we may do all the words of this law” (Deuteronomy 29:29). Now we see through a glass, darkly; we know in part (1 Corinthians 13:9, 12). God is not bound by our systems, and where His working exceeds our understanding we will worship rather than explain. This Statement is a confession of what we have received. It is not a fence around what God is permitted to do.
Concerning Denomination
The God Who Answers, Inc. is an independent, non-denominational ministry and is not affiliated with, governed by, or accountable to any denominational body. This Statement of Faith is our answer to the question of what we believe. We hold the historic, orthodox Christian faith confessed by the whole Church, together with the full and present operation of the Holy Spirit and His gifts as set forth above. We receive as brethren all who are born of the Spirit of God, and we labor gladly alongside believers and congregations of every background who confess the Lord Jesus Christ. Our allegiance is to a Person, not to a party.
Adoption and Affirmation
This Statement of Faith was adopted by resolution of the Board of Directors of The God Who Answers, Inc., and stands as the doctrinal statement of the Corporation until amended by the Board in accordance with the Bylaws. The officers of the Corporation affirm it as the confession of their own faith.
