Our highest purpose is to glorify God in the exaltation of Christ, delighting in him forever.

Only the Word of God contained in the Old and New Testaments of the Bible tells us all we need to know about God, and what he wants from us and for us, and how we can glorify him and find in him our joy and satisfaction.

The central theme of the whole Bible is Jesus Christ and God's gracious salvation through Him and for His glory.

The central theme of the Bible is unfolded as God brings about His kingdom through covenants, ultimately installing His Son, the Lord Jesus, as the true and final King over a redeemed people, in the New Covenant.

God is the first and preeminent being.

God is a Spirit, infinite, eternal and unchangeable in His being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness and truth.

Nature and God's works plainly show there is a God; but only His Word and Holy Spirit do so fully and clearly enough for the salvation of sinners.

There is one God only, the true and living God, who subsists in three Persons: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, each having the whole divine essence, while the essence remains undivided.

The decrees of God are His eternal purpose, according to the counsel of His will and for His own glory, in which He has predetermined all that happens.

God carries out His decrees in the works of creation and providence.

Creation is God's making of all things from nothing by His powerful word, and all very good.

God created humankind, male and female, after His own image - in knowledge, righteousness and holiness - and gave them a nature suitable for their purpose and dominion over the animals.

Providence is the holy, wise and powerful way in which God upholds and directs all things, so that nothing occurs apart from God's will.

God appointed Adam as the representative of the human race and forbade Adam from eating fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Disobedience would result in death, both for Adam and for all humanity thereafter.

No, they did not live with this honor for very long. Satan, through the serpent's cunning, deceived and enticed Eve, then by her enticed Adam, who both sinned by breaking God's command, and fell.

Sin is any disobedience to the revealed demands of God.

Because Adam was the representative of the whole human race, all people fell with him in his first sin (except the Lord Jesus who was conceived by the Holy Spirit).

Because of the fall, we are now conceived in sin and by nature deserving of wrath, under God's curse, enslaved to sin, corrupted in all our faculties, and subject to death and other miseries in this world and the next, unless the Lord Jesus Christ sets us free.

No. From all eternity, God chose many to inherit everlasting life, and promised to deliver them from their sin and to save them by a Redeemer who would crush the head of the serpernt.

The only Redeemer of God’s elect is the Lord Jesus Christ. Being the eternal Son of God, he became truly human while remaining truly righteous, and so was and continues to be God and man in two distinct natures and one person forever.

Because in obedience to the Father, He redeemed God's elect from their bondage to sin and death by giving Himself as a ransom and becoming a curse in our place, purchasing us with His precious blood to satisfy the justice of God.

Because He saves us from our sins and because salvation cannot be found in anyone else.

Because He has been ordained by God the Father and anointed with the Holy Spirit to be our chief prophet and teacher who perfectly reveals God’s will to us, our only high priest who by His one sacrifice has set us free, and our eternal king who governs and protects us and keeps us in the freedom He has won for us.

God’s justice demands that human nature, which has sinned, pay for its sin; but one sinner could never pay for others.

So that by the power of His divinity, He might bear the weight of God’s anger in His humanity and earn for us and restore to us righteousness and life.

Christ, the Son of God, became a man by taking on a human body and soul, being conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit in the womb of Mary while she was still a virgin, and being born to her, yet without sin.

Christ our Redeemer executes the offices of prophet, priest, and king, both in His state of humiliation and of exaltation.

This number and order of offices is necessary, for we need Jesus as our prophet since we are otherwise ignorant of the truth; and we need Him as our priest since we are otherwise separated from God; and we need Him as our king since we are otherwise opposed to God.

Christ executes the office of a prophet by revealing to us through His word and Spirit the will of God for our salvation.

Christ executes the office of a priest by His offering Himself as a sacrifice of atonement, once for all, to satisfy divine justice and reconcile us to God, and by continually interceding for us.

Christ executes the office of a king by subduing us to Himself, by ruling and defending us, and by restraining and conquering all His enemies.

Christ’s humiliation consisted of His being born, and in a low condition; being put under the law; experiencing the hardship of human life and then the wrath of God and the cursed death of the cross; and in being buried and remaining under the power of death for a time.

Christ’s exaltation consists of His resurrection from the dead, His ascension into heaven, being seated at the right hand of God the Father and appointed head over everything for the church, and in coming to judge the world on the last day.

We receive this redemption when it is applied to us by the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit applies this redemption to us by producing faith in us, and through our faith uniting us to Christ in our effectual calling.

Effectual calling is the work of God’s Spirit that results in regeneration, or being born again. In so calling us, the Spirit of God convinces us of our sin and misery, enlightens our minds in the knowledge of Christ, and renews our wills, enabling and persuading us to embrace Jesus Christ as freely offered to us in the gospel.

We who are effectually called by God experience justification, adoption, sanctification, and any related blessings.

Justification is an act of God’s free grace, in which He pardons all our sins and accepts us as righteous in His sight, due only to the righteous work of Christ on the cross imputed to us, and received by faith alone.

Adoption is an act of God’s free grace, in which God our Father receives us as His own children through our union with His Son, so that we, as co-heirs with Christ, have a right to all the privileges of sonship.

Sanctification is a work of God’s free grace, in which our whole selves are renewed in the image of God, and are enabled more and more to die to sin and live for righteousness.

The blessings that flow from our salvation include assurance that God loves us, a clear conscience, peace, joy, increasing grace, and perseverance to the end.

The souls of believers at their death are made holy and immediately pass into glory; and their bodies, still united to Christ, remain in the grave till the resurrection.

At the resurrection, believers will be raised up to glory and openly acknowledged, acquitted on the Day of judgment, and made perfectly blessed in soul and body, in the full enjoyment of God for eternity.

The souls of unbelievers at their death will be held by the Lord for punishment on the Day of judgment.

On the Day of judgment, the bodies of unbelievers will be raised and reunited with their souls, they will give account of themselves to God, and will be justly sentenced to the lake of fire and everlasting destruction.

God requires that all people, in faith, obey his revealed demands, which may be called God’s law.

The essence of God’s law is the two greatest commandments: To love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind; and to love your neighbor as yourself. Every administration of God’s law depends on these.

No. As the essence of divine law, the two greatest commandments are required by God of everyone in every age, and though people may suppress the truth, they still, being made in God’s image, instinctively understand these two commandments to one degree or another.

Yes. Different administrations of God’s law have included temporal requirements that were afterwards set aside. But in all cases, God’s demands are consistent with his righteous character, so that many moral principles persist through every version of God’s law.

No. All of God’s dealings with humanity have been part of God’s one eternal purpose to establish his kingdom on earth by reclaiming for himself a special people through the work of the promised Redeemer, Jesus Christ.

It was God’s intent that in the outworking of his unchanging purpose, a series of covenants, each imposing unique obligations on those with whom it was made, would reveal more about him, further establish his saving reign, and in a variety of ways prepare the world for the arrival of Christ at the culmination of the ages.

Jesus Christ ushered in the New Covenant, in his blood, of which he is the mediator. This New Covenant is also called the everlasting covenant, for as the fulfillment of all previous covenants it never ends, and the covenant of peace, for through it we are reconciled to God.

The founding document and principal law of the Old Covenant was the Ten Commandments. These were extended and applied by a larger body of ordinances to govern Israelite society and anticipate spiritual realities of the New Covenant.

No, we are not under the Ten Commandments because the Ten Commandments were expressly part of the covenant between God and the people of Israel. That covenant is no longer in effect, having been wholly fulfilled and superseded by a new and better covenant that constitutes a new people of God.

Yes, we are always subject to the demands of God, whose righteousness is unchanging, and are called not only to obey but to delight in and meditate on whatever law from God is over us.

The law in the New Covenant is called the law of Christ.

They were required to obey God. Moreover, the Old Covenant was a legal covenant which promised favor only upon obedience and curses upon disobedience. Since the people disobeyed, the Old Covenant ministry brought death. Yet God graciously passed over the sins of those who had true faith in the promise of the gospel until the time when the blood of Christ was poured out for them.

We are also required to obey God, and we obey out of faith and love, as those with new hearts. Yet the New Covenant is a gracious covenant in which our Savior and Substitute has done away with our sin by his sacrifice so that God’s favor toward us is secure in Christ, and not conditioned on our obedience.

They too are required to obey God. Because no one is able to do this apart from God’s grace, those who are not in Christ face God’s judgment on their own merits, and having no intercessor are laid bare before the God to whom we all must give account, to face his wrath.

The law of Christ includes the example and commands of Christ and the instructions given by his apostles. Yet the law of Christ may be summed up in Christ’s new commandment that we love one another the way he loved us. Therefore, our new life in Christ should exhibit Christlikeness.

All of God’s Word contains wisdom and examples of faith that instruct us in righteousness. But as the New Covenant defines our relationship with God, so the law of Christ controls how the Old Testament instructs us, so that we bear in mind the difference made by the cross, and act in accordance with the truth of the gospel.

No, for the Father and the Son sent us a helper, the Holy Spirit, who regenerates us, unites us to Christ and to each other, indwells us, seals us, teaches us, gifts us for service in the church, and enables us to pursue holiness.

Christlikeness is characterized by the true worship of God and by self-giving service to others, in love, after the pattern of the Lord Jesus. Because this way of life is the work of Christ’s Spirit within us, it will increasingly demonstrate the fruit of the Spirit.

The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.

No, everyone fails to perfectly love God and neighbor in thoughts, words, and actions. This is why all people stand in need of forgiveness.

To be saved from the wrath of God, we must repent and put our faith in Jesus Christ. We may then take full advantage of the practical means Christ uses for the spiritual growth and encouragement of believers.

Repentance is a saving grace by which sinners who understand their sin and the mercy of God, with contrition and a hatred of their sin, turn from a life of sin to God. By this the old nature dies and the new nature comes to life.

Faith in Jesus Christ is a saving grace by which we receive him and rest in him alone for salvation, believing his promises and trusting that he is able to save completely those who come to God through him.

The practical means Christ uses for the spiritual growth and encouragement of believers are his ordinances, especially the fellowship of believers, the Word, baptism, the Lord’s Supper, and prayer.

For the Word to really change us, we should attend to it diligently and with prayer, receive it with faith and love, store it in our hearts, and practice it in our lives.

Baptism and the Lord’s Supper become effective means of blessing not by any inherent virtue, or the virtue of the one administering them, but by the blessing of Christ and the working of the Spirit in those that by faith receive them.

Baptism and the Lord’s Supper were specially instituted by Christ to represent the unique blessings of the New Covenant to members of the church by visible and tangible signs.

Baptism and the Lord’s Supper should only be administered to those who profess repentance toward God and faith in Jesus Christ.

Baptism is a rite for the church instituted by the Lord to be the pledge of a clear conscience toward God, in which a washing with water in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit symbolizes fellowship with Christ in his death, burial, and resurrection; being grafted into Christ; and forgiveness of sins.

The Lord’s Supper is a rite for the church instituted by the Lord, in which by receiving bread and wine according to Christ’s instruction, we remember him, proclaim his death, and partake of his body and blood, as it were, to our spiritual nourishment and growth in grace.

The church is the body of Christ, made up of all people who are united to him by the Spirit through faith. It was inaugurated only after the resurrection and ascension of Jesus and the pouring out of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost.

Prayer is offering our praise and desires to God in faith, in the name of Jesus and with the help of the Holy Spirit, with confession of sin and with thankfulness.

The whole Bible is useful to direct us in prayer, but the special guideline for prayer is the prayer that Christ taught his disciples, often called the Lord’s Prayer.

Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread. And forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.

The preface of the Lord’s Prayer, “Our Father in heaven,” teaches us to draw near to God with reverence and confidence, as children to a father who is able and ready to help us.

In the first petition, “Hallowed be your name,” we pray that God would enable us and others to glorify him in every way he reveals himself, and that he would turn all things to his own glory.

In the second petition, “Your kingdom come,” we pray that Satan’s kingdom may be destroyed and that the kingdom of grace may be advanced, ourselves and others brought into it and kept in it, and that the kingdom of glory may come quickly.

In the third petition, “Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven,” we pray that God by his grace would make us able and willing to know, obey, and submit to his will in all things, as the angels do in heaven.

In the fourth petition, “Give us today our daily bread,” we pray that as a gift from God we may receive an adequate portion of the good things of this life and enjoy his blessings with them.

In the fifth petition, “And forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors,” we pray that God, for Christ’s sake, would freely pardon all our sins. We are encouraged to ask this because by his grace we are able to forgive others from the heart.

In the sixth petition, “And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one,” we pray that God would keep us from being tempted to sin and support us and deliver us when we are tempted.

That I am not my own, but belong—body and soul, in life and in death—to my faithful Savior Jesus Christ, who gave himself for me, and set me free from my sins and from the tyranny of the devil, and watches over me for my good, and who by his Spirit assures me of eternal life and makes me willing to live for him.