While we are a church that recognises and values creeds and confessions,
membership requires only submission to our constitution and leadership, and
affirmation of the Gospel as articulated in our statement of faith below.

Our Statement of Faith

  1. We believe in one God, existing eternally of himself in three Persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit; limited by nothing apart from his own nature and character, which is holy, righteous, good, severe, loving and merciful.

  2. We believe that God made all things, visible and invisible; that he made man very good, male and female; and that he commissioned them to extend his heavenly dominion into the earth; yet the first man, Adam, broke faith with God, and in so doing separated himself and all his progeny from Life and Light, becoming dead in sin, and unable to love his maker; bringing upon mankind the judgment of eternal death.

  3. We believe in Jesus Christ our Lord, fully God, eternally begotten of the Father, made fully man by birth of the Virgin Mary; the seed of David and inheritor of God’s covenant promises; who lived a life of faith without blemish, wholly pleasing to his Father; bore the penalty for our sin by death on a cross; descended to the dead; and the third day was raised bodily by the Holy Spirit for our justification, and declared to be the Son of God now in power. He ascended to the right hand of the Father, with every authority on earth and in heaven being subjected to him; from whence he now reigns until all his enemies are put under his feet.

  4. We believe in the Holy Spirit, fully God, eternally proceeding from the Father and the Son, who breathed out and preserved the Bible as his own very words; our only ultimate and infallible authority, sufficient to fully equip all men with wisdom for salvation and godly living.

  5. We believe that salvation is wrought by the Holy Spirit adopting us as sons of God, indwelling us as his temple, and uniting us with Christ wholly apart from our own works; whereby we receive everything that is his—from faith, by which we receive his righteousness reckoned to us and rely completely on him to pardon us—to faith, by which we subject ourselves to his rule and represent him in obedient lives, through the power of that same Spirit.

  6. We believe in one baptism for the forgiveness of sins, and that all so baptized are united into one holy, catholic and apostolic Church, the body of Christ; in which, if they persevere to the end, they will certainly be saved.

  7. We believe in the bodily return of the Lord Jesus to judge the living and the dead; whereupon we who are his, having our sin covered by him, will be acquitted, with our lives of faithful obedience serving as proof that his verdict is just, and as the basis for our heavenly rewards; as we rule forever with him and his elect angels in the new heavens and the new earth. The rest of mankind, along with Satan and his angels, will be rightly condemned according to their works and cast into hell, where they will endure just punishment forever.

This Statement of Faith is that of the Redwood Reformation Church, Rotorua, used with permission.

This Statement of Belief articulates well the overlap and common ground shared by the creeds and confessions recognised by our constitution.

To read more about the creeds and confessions, click here. To read a draft constitution for Stratford Reformation Fellowship, click here.