Statement of Faith

For the time being, the fol­low­ing is a sum­mary of the PAOC’s larger state­ment of Fun­da­men­tal and Essen­tial truths (.pdf) which can be found here.

Our Core Beliefs

1) Holy Scriptures

All Scrip­ture is given by inspi­ra­tion of God ¹ by which we under­stand the whole Bible to be inspired in the
sense that holy men of God were moved by the Holy Spirit to write the very words of Scrip­ture. ² Divine
inspi­ra­tion extends equally and fully to all parts of the orig­i­nal writ­ings. The whole Bible in the orig­i­nal is,
there­fore, with­out error and, as such, is infal­li­ble, absolutely supreme and suf­fi­cient in author­ity in all
mat­ters of faith and prac­tice.³
The Bible does not sim­ply con­tain the Word of God, but is, in real­ity, the com­plete rev­e­la­tion and very
Word of God inspired by the Holy Spirit. Chris­t­ian believ­ers today receive spir­i­tual illu­mi­na­tion to enable
them to under­stand the Scrip­tures,⁴ but God does not grant new rev­e­la­tions that are con­trary or addi­tional
to inspired bib­li­cal truth.⁵

2) The God­Head
The God­head exists eter­nally in three per­sons: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. These three are
one God, hav­ing the same nature and attrib­utes and are wor­thy of the same homage, con­fi­dence, and
obe­di­ence.⁶

2.1 The Father
The Father exists eter­nally as the Cre­ator of heaven and earth, the Giver of the Law, to whom all
things will be sub­jected, so that He may be all in all.⁷

2.2 The Son
The Lord Jesus Christ, the eter­nal and only begot­ten Son of the Father, is true God and true man.⁸
He was con­ceived of the Holy Spirit, born of the Vir­gin Mary,⁹ and by His sin­less life, mir­a­cles and
teach­ing, gave full rev­e­la­tion of the Father.¹⁰
He died upon the cross, the Just for the unjust, as a sub­sti­tu­tion sac­ri­fice. [11.Rom. 5:6,8; 1 Cor. 15:3; 1Pet. 3:18] He rose from the
dead.[12.Matt. 28:6; 1 Cor. 15:4,20] He is now at the right hand of the Majesty on high as our great High Priest.¹¹ He will come
again to estab­lish His king­dom in right­eous­ness and peace.¹²

2.3 The Holy Spirit
The Holy Spirit is also God, per­form­ing actions and pos­sess­ing the attrib­utes of the Deity.¹³ His
per­son­al­ity is shown by the fact that He has per­sonal char­ac­ter­is­tics and that indi­vid­u­als may relate
to Him as a person.[16.John 16:13–14]

3) Man
Man was orig­i­nally cre­ated in the image and like­ness of God.[22.Gen. 1:26; 2:7] He fell through sin and, as a
con­se­quence, incurred both spir­i­tual and phys­i­cal death.2¹⁴ Spir­i­tual death and the deprav­ity of human
nature have been trans­mit­ted to the entire human race¹⁵ with the excep­tion of the Man Christ Jesus.¹⁶
Man can be saved only through the aton­ing work of the Lord Jesus Christ.¹⁷

4) Sal­va­tion

4.1 Atone­ment of Christ
Sal­va­tion has been pro­vided for all men through the sac­ri­fice of Christ upon the cross.¹⁸ It is the
only per­fect redemp­tion and sub­sti­tu­tion atone­ment for all the sins of the world, both orig­i­nal and
actual. His aton­ing work has been proven by His res­ur­rec­tion from the dead.¹⁹ Those who repent
and believe in Christ are born again of the Holy Spirit and receive eter­nal life.²⁰ Fur­ther­more, in the
atone­ment, divine heal­ing was pro­vided for all believ­ers.²¹

4.2 Repen­tance and Death
Man can be born again only through faith in Christ. Repen­tance, a vital part of believ­ing, is a
com­plete change of mind wrought by the Holy Spirit,²² turn­ing a per­son to God from sin.

4.3 Regen­er­a­tion
Regen­er­a­tion is a cre­ative work of the Holy Spirit by which man is born again and receives spir­i­tual
life.²³

4.4 Jus­ti­fi­ca­tion
Jus­ti­fi­ca­tion is a judi­cial act of God by which the sin­ner is declared right­eous solely on the basis of
his accep­tance of Christ as Sav­iour.²⁴

5) The Chris­t­ian Experience

5.1 Assur­ance
Assur­ance of sal­va­tion is the priv­i­lege of all who are born again by the Spirit through faith in
Christ,²⁵ result­ing in love, grat­i­tude and obe­di­ence toward God.

5.2 Sanc­ti­fi­ca­tion
Sanc­ti­fi­ca­tion is ded­i­ca­tion to God and sep­a­ra­tion from evil.²⁶ In expe­ri­ence it is both
instan­ta­neous²⁷ and pro­gres­sive.²⁸ It is pro­duced in the life of the believer by his appro­pri­a­tion of
the power of Christ’s blood and risen life through the per­son of the Holy Spirit;[38.Rom. 6:11,13,14,18] He draws the believer’s atten­tion to Christ, teaches him through the Word and pro­duces the char­ac­ter of Christ within him.²⁹ Believ­ers who sin must repent and seek for­give­ness through faith in the cleans­ing
blood of Jesus Christ.[40.1 John 1:9; 2:1–2]

5.3 Bap­tism in the Holy Spirit
The bap­tism in the Holy Spirit is an expe­ri­ence in which the believer yields con­trol of him­self to the
Holy Spirit.³⁰ Through this he comes to know Christ in a more inti­mate way³¹ and receives power to
wit­ness and grow spir­i­tu­ally.³² Believ­ers should earnestly seek the bap­tism in the Holy Spirit
accord­ing to the com­mand of our Lord Jesus Christ.³³ The ini­tial evi­dence of the bap­tism in the
Holy Spirit is speak­ing in other tongues as the Spirit gives utter­ance.³⁴ This expe­ri­ence is dis­tinct
from and sub­se­quent to the expe­ri­ence of the new birth.³⁵

5.4 The Gifts of the Spirit
The gifts of the Spirit are super­nat­ural abil­i­ties given by God through the exer­cis­ing of which
believ­ers are enabled to min­is­ter effec­tively and directly in par­tic­u­lar situations.[47.1 Cor. 12:4–11] They serve the
dual func­tion of build­ing up the church and of demon­strat­ing the pres­ence of God within His
church.³⁶

5.5 Divine Heal­ing
Divine heal­ing pro­vided in the atone­ment of Christ³⁷ is the priv­i­lege of all believ­ers. Prayer for the
sick and gifts of heal­ing are encour­aged and prac­tised.³⁸