Seminario ESEPA

ESEPA Doctrinal Statement

We believe in the divine inspiration of the Jewish and Christian Holy Scriptures. These constitute the supreme and final authority of doctrine, faith and conduct of the people of God.

We believe in one eternal God, existing in three persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit, creator and sustainer of all things visible and invisible, by his love, wisdom, word and power.

We believe in the deity of our Lord Jesus Christ and in his real incarnation by the virginal conception of Mary by the work of the Holy Spirit.

We believe in the work of our Lord Jesus Christ, his sinless life, his example, his teaching and his miracles. We believe in his sufferings, his death on the cross, the shedding of his precious blood and his bodily resurrection. We believe that our Lord Jesus Christ ascended into heaven and was seated at the right hand of the Father, where he acts as Advocate and the sole Mediator between God and men. He will return to destroy every dominion, authority and power, and to put his enemies beneath his feet.

We believe that by the disobedience of Adam and Eve, our first parents, sin entered all mankind; and that by it every person is spiritual dead, under the control of sin. He is incapable of saving himself and is abandoned to eternal condemnation. We believe that he can be saved only by the grace of God, through the knowledge of the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, through repentance of sin and through putting faith in the expiatory work of our Lord Jesus Christ on the cross of Calvary, which allows that person to experience the new birth by the power of the Holy Spirit unto a transformed life and to obey the divine will.

We believe in the existence of Satan, sin, and the evil powers, but we affirm that there is only one God, who has supreme power and authority; and that in Christ all those powers have been defeated.

We believe in the deity of the Holy Spirit, who comes to us from our Lord Jesus Christ; in his work of regeneration, illumination, sanctification and the giving of spiritual gifts to equip the believer in Jesus Christ to serve God, the church and his neighbor.

We believe in the universal priesthood of all believers in Jesus Christ.

We believe in the holy universal church, made up of all those in every time and place who have been redeemed by the blood of Jesus Christ and united in the Body of Christ by the Holy Spirit. We believe that local congregations are the expression of the Body of Jesus Christ, and ought to be guided by the principles taught in the Holy Scriptures.

We believe and practice the two ordinances that the Lord Jesus left us: baptism in water, following the conversion of the individual, as the privilege and the responsibility of every believer, the expression of his faith and the symbol of having died to sin and risen to a new life in Christ; and the Lords Supper, with bread and wine, the symbols of His body given for us, and of His blood shed for the remission of our sins, participating in its elements in memory of Him and as a regular announcement of His return.

We believe in the bodily and visible return of our Lord Jesus Christ with power and great glory, when he will rapture his church, with all those powers that are his as Lord, and that he will initiate the full manifestation of his kingdom.

We believe that God will summon every person to final judgment. We believe in the bodily resurrection of the saved and of the lost, the former to eternal life and the latter to eternal condemnation.

We confess the separation of Church and State, as both have their own different functions given by God. The church respects patriotic symbols and the civil authorities and prays for them, but in its faith, government, testimony and action acts in an independent way.