Black Forest Bible Church

The Bible - The Holy Bible is the final authority for faith and practice, and the means through which believers behold Christ.

1. Inspiration: We believe that all the authors of the entire Old and New Testaments wrote under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Those books are completely inerrant and infallible in the original writings.
2. Transmission: As God has supernaturally inspired the writers of the Bible, He has as well insured faithful transmission to all mankind. This would include versions as well as original language copies of the original autographs. Seeing that many corrupt versions and manuscripts are in wide circulation, we advise spiritual discernment.

(2 Timothy 3:16-17; 1 Peter 1:10-12; 2 Peter 1:20-21; 2 Corinthians 3:18; Galatians 1:11-17; 1 Thessalonians 2:13)

God - We believe in one God, eternally existing in three Persons: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. (Matthew 28:18-19; Mark 12:29; John 1:1-2,14, 4:24, 10:30; 2 Corinthians 13:14; Ephesians 2:18; Hebrews 1:1-3; Revelation 1:4-6)

The Father - We believe in His eternal deity. He is the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ and the Father of all who believe in Christ. (John 1:12; Ephesians 1:3; Acts 1:6, 7)

The Lord Jesus Christ - We believe in His eternal deity and Sonship, virgin birth, death for the penalty of the sins of all mankind, bodily resurrection, present intercession for the saints; and in His personal, premillennial, pretribulational, and imminent return. He is both fully God and fully man. (Matthew 1:18-25; Romans 4:25; 1 Corinthians 15:1-8; 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18, 5:1-9; Revelation 3:10, 20:1-6)

The Holy Spirit - We believe in the deity and personality of the Holy Spirit. He convicts the world of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment. He is responsible for the regeneration, indwelling, enlightening, sealing unto the day of redemption, He baptizes each believer into the one body of Christ (the Church) and into the person and work of Christ (His death, burial, and resurrection). He transforms each believer into the image of Christ as the believer beholds Christ in the word of God. (John 3:6, 16:7-11; Romans 6:1-6, 8:9, 29; 1 Corinthians 12:13; 2 Corinthians 3:18; Ephesians 4:30, 5:18; 2 Thessalonians 2:7; 1 John 2:20-27)

Man - We believe that man was originally created in the image and likeness of God, but that he sinned by disobeying God. He thereby incurred spiritual and physical death. Spiritual death, which is separation from God, has been transmitted to the entire human race, the man Christ Jesus being the only exception, so that all are sinners by nature and practice. (Genesis 1:26, 27, 2:17, 6:5; Psalms 14:1-3, 51:5; Jeremiah 17:9; Romans 3:10-19, 5:12-21, 8:6-7; 2 Corinthians 5:21; Ephesians 2:1-3)

Salvation - We believe that because God so loved the world that the Lord Jesus Christ was sent to die for our sins. He took the penalty for our sins upon Himself on the cross, according to the Scriptures. Our redemption from sin has been accomplished solely by His shed blood and death. No repentance, no feeling, no good resolutions, no sincere efforts, no submission to any supposedly spiritual rules, can add in the least degree to the value of the finished work of Jesus Christ. (Isaiah 64:6; Matthew 26:28; John 1:29, 3:5, 18; Romans 3:25-26, 5:6-9; 2 Corinthians 5:14, 21; Galatians 3:13, 6:15; Ephesians 1:7, 2:8, 9; Philippians 3:4-9; Titus 3:5; Hebrews 10:5-14; James 1:18; 1 Peter 1:18-19, 23)

We believe that when any unsaved person exercises faith in the death, burial and resurrection of Christ, he passes positionally from spiritual death into spiritual life and is immediately justified from all things and is immediately accepted before the Father as Christ, His Son is accepted. His personal history in Adam terminated and eternally united and established positionally in Christ, and is one with Him forever. The person who believes is from that moment of belief saved from the penalty of sin, which was due him in the past, is now being saved from the power of sin (nature) in the present life, and will be saved from the presence of sin (nature and practice) when he goes to be with Christ for eternity. Once saved, the believer has a new nature and is positionally separated from and no longer under slavery to the sin nature, but the sin nature indwells the believer until he is present with the Lord. (John 5:24; Acts 13:39; Romans 5:1, 6:1-11; 1 Corinthians 3:21-23, 15:1-18; 2 Corinthians 5:17; Galatians 5:17, 6:15; Ephesians 1:3, 2:4-9; Colossians 2:12, 13; 1 John 4:17, 5:11-12)

Eternal Security of Believers - We believe that every one who is born again is kept by God’s power and is secure in Christ forever. The assurance of salvation through knowledge of God’s Word is the privilege of every believer. (John 5:24, 10:27-30, 13:1, 14:16-17, 17:11; Romans 8:29, 35-39; 1 Corinthians 1:4-8; Hebrews 7:25; 1 Peter 1:5; 1 John 2:1-2, 5:13)

Satan - We believe in the personality and subtlety of Satan. He is the devil, the author of sin, and the adversary of God and man, but as a created and fallen being he is not equal to God. Satan is a judged and defeated foe, thus rendered powerless in a believers life by the cross of Christ. Satan is alive and well and tempts believers and blinds the minds of the unsaved so that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ. The Lord strengthens and protects believers from Satan and the believer’s battle against Satan is entirely in the standing in who we are Christ. Satan shall be eternally punished in the lake of fire, (Job 1:6-7; Isaiah 14:12-17; Matthew 4:2-11, 25:41; John 12:31, 16:11; 2 Corinthians 4:3-4; Ephesians 6:10-17; Colossians 2:15; 1 Thessalonians 3:5; 1 Timothy 3:7; 2 Timothy 2:26; Hebrews 2:14; Revelation 20:2, 10)

The Eternal State - We believe that the soul and human spirit of those who have believed in the Lord Jesus Christ for salvation do, at physical death, immediately pass into His presence to be forever with the Lord and that the believers physical body will be resurrected as a glorious spiritual body and reunited with the believer’s soul and spirit. The souls of unbelievers, however, remain after death in conscious misery until the final judgment at the Great White Throne at the close of the millennium, when they shall be cast into the lake of fire, separated eternally from the presence, power and glory of God. (Luke 16:19-31, 23:43; 1 Corinthians 15:35-44; 2 Corinthians 5:8; Philippians 1:23; 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18; 2 Thessalonians 1:7-9; Revelation 20:11-15)

The Church - We believe that the Church, which is now the body and shall be the bride of Christ, is a spiritual organism made up of born-again persons, originated at Pentecost and to be taken up bodily at the rapture. (1 Corinthians 12:12-14; 2 Corinthians 11:2; Ephesians 1:22-23, 5:25-27; Colossians 3:14-15)

God has instituted baptism by water (immersion), and the Lord’s Supper to be observed until His return. (Acts 2:47, 14:27, 20:17, 28-32; 1 Corinthians 11:23-26)

We believe that the establishment, continuance and biblical leadership of local Churches is clearly taught and defined in the New Testament. (Acts 14:23, 20:17, 27-32; 1 Timothy 3:1-13; Titus 1:5-11; 1 Peter 5:1-4)

Dispensational Interpretation - We believe that Scripture is to be interpreted according to its grammatical and historical context, including that God, Who does not change, deals in a different manner with the Gentile nations, the people of Israel, and the God-created body of heavenly saints called “the Church”. We believe that all who are saved of all time are saved entirely by faith, either looking forward or back to the cross. (John 14:6; Acts 4:12; Romans 11:1, 2; 1 Corinthians 9:17, 10:32; Ephesians 1:10, 2:11-22, 3:2; Colossians 1:25)

The Life and Walk of Believers - We believe that every believer possesses the life of Christ and grows in the grace and knowledge of Christ through the Holy Spirit, who fills the believer with the things of Christ. This occurs as the believer beholds Christ in the word of God, as he walks by faith, moment by moment abiding in Christ. The believer is to walk and rest in the eternally established identity that he possesses by virtue of his faith in the crucified, buried, resurrected, ascended and seated person of Christ (his position) and his identification with Him in these things. Christ’s life is then lived in the believer, which is evident to those who do not know Christ and to those who share Christ’s life. (John 14:1-5, 17:22; 1 Corinthians 16:20; 2 Corinthians 3:18, 9:7; Galatians 2:19, 20; Ephesians 5:17-18; Colossians 2:6-7, 3:1-4, 16; Hebrews 11:6; 2 Peter 3:18)