We believe that the Scriptures are the inspired Word of God and the sole authority for faith and practice in all matters to which it speaks. Inspiration of the original autographs was plenary and verbal; therefore, the 66 books of the Bible are inerrant.

We believe one God eternally exists in three persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, each possessing equally the same attributes, nature, perfections, and personality characteristics.

Section One – The Deity of Messiah

We believe in the full deity of the Lord Jesus the Messiah, who always was and will be God and did not cease to be God at the incarnation.

Section Two – The First Advent

We believe that the man Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the virgin Mary. He possessed both a divine and a human nature, distinct and unmixed. He was sinless yet died as a penal substitution for the sin of all men. He was buried and rose on the third day in the same but glorified body in which He lived and died. He ascended to the right hand of God the Father and, by His death, provided atonement for all men. This applies only to those who believe.

Section Three – The Present Session

We believe that the God-Man Jesus the Messiah now sits at the right hand of God the Father, functioning as the High Priest for all believers, ever making intercession for them.

Section Four – The Second Advent

We believe in the personal, physical, and bodily return of Messiah for the Church and Israel.

We believe in the personality and deity of the Holy Spirit, the author and interpreter of the infallible Word. He convicts, regenerates, indwells, empowers, instructs, and guides the believer in living, serving, and worshipping through His gifts. In this age, He baptizes, permanently indwells, and seals all believers into one body. His chief purpose is to witness and glorify Messiah. Faith appropriates his fullness, power, and control in the believer’s life.

We believe God administers His purpose on earth through man’s appointed, chronologically successive, and varying responsibilities in specific dispensations. Dispensations test man’s submission to God based on progressive revelation but are neither means to salvation nor different methods of administering the Covenant of Grace. Instead, they are a necessary view of Scripture based on literal interpretation and a consistent distinction between Israel and the Church. The ultimate purpose of God is His glorification. In every dispensation, the basis of salvation was always the blood of Messiah, and the means of salvation was always by grace through faith; the object of faith was always God. However, the content of faith changed in different dispensations dependent upon progressive revelation.

Section One – Creation

We believe that God created an innumerable number of sinless beings known as angels, seraphs, and cherubs.

Section Two – Satan

We believe one of these created beings was the “Day-Star, Son of the Morning.” He was the highest in rank but sinned through pride, thus becoming Satan the adversary. He is an actual person with all the characteristics of personality and is the originator of sin, operating today as the prince and god of this world. He is the arch-enemy of God and God’s people. As the deceiver of humanity, he led the first parents into transgression, causing their fall. He was judged at the cross, pending fulfilment in the lake of fire.

Section Three – Demons

We believe that a great company of angels followed Satan in his fall. Some became demons and are currently active as Satan’s agents in the carrying out of unholy purposes. Others who fell were “reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day” (Jude 1:6).

Section Four – Unfallen Angels

We believe that a great company of angels kept their holy estate and are ministering spirits of God to carry out His purpose, especially to those who inherit salvation.

Man: Created & Fallen

We believe that man was created in God’s image but fell through sin, died spiritually, and became depraved in his trespasses and sins. Adam’s fallen nature is transmitted to all his descendants except Yeshua, the Messiah. Fallen man has no spark of divine life and is unchangeable apart from divine grace.

Section One – The Means of Salvation

We believe that salvation is wholly a work of God’s free grace and not the work of man in whole or part, nor due to man’s goodness or religious ceremony. Salvation is a gift to man received by personal faith, at which time the righteousness of Messiah is imputed to the sinner, thereby justifying him in God’s sight. Those saved have been unconditionally elected to salvation in eternity past and have been effectively and irresistibly called by the Holy
Spirit.

Section Two – The Extent of Salvation

We believe that at the point of salvation, the sinner becomes accepted by God, fully united with Messiah, and hence, loved and accepted by the Father as Messiah is loved and accepted. The saved sinner is now the recipient of all the riches of divine grace and in possession of every spiritual blessing and, hence, is not to seek a “second blessing” or a “second work of grace.”

Section Three – Eternal Security

We believe that all true believers, once saved, are eternally secure because of the nature and work of Messiah and the nature of the divine gift of eternal life. All who are saved are privileged and assured of their salvation from the moment they accept Yeshua as their Saviour, not based on their merit but by the testimony of the Scriptures and the witness of the Holy Spirit.

Section Four – Sanctification

We believe that sanctification is a setting apart unto God and that it is threefold:

1) Positional sanctification, in which the believer is viewed by God as completed “in Messiah” and united with Him
2) Progressive sanctification, whereby the believer retains his sinful nature throughout this life, needing to grow in grace and continually becoming more and more conformed to the image of the son of God
3) Ultimate sanctification, in which the believer is wholly sanctified by Messiah, occurs only when the believer sees the Lord and will be like Him.

We believe that God called a people to Himself who are the physical descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Israel is the wife of Jehovah, unfaithful in the past, divorced in the present, and to be reunited in the future. God made four unconditional covenants with this elected nation that remain unfulfilled. God intends to fulfil all His promises to Israel in a literal way, just as His warnings and judgments were fulfilled in a literal way. A believing remnant according to the election of grace has always existed in Israel’s history of unbelief, and the national regeneration of Israel will occur at which time all the provisions of the unconditional covenants will be fulfilled, including the seed, land, and blessing aspects of the Abrahamic Covenant.

Section One – The Organism

We believe the Church is the body and bride of Messiah and is composed of all Jewish and Gentile believers from Pentecost to the rapture. Entrance into this body is by Spirit baptism. The Church is distinct from Israel. Although the Church shares with Israel the spiritual blessings of the Jewish covenants, it neither fulfils them nor has taken possession of them from Israel.

Section Two – The Ordinances

We believe an ordinance is a practice commanded by Messiah, practiced in the Book of Acts, and expounded on in the epistles. Only two ordinances exist: baptism by immersion and the Lord’s Supper, both limited to believers.

Section Three – The Believer’s Responsibility

We believe that all believers are obligated to assemble to participate in the ordinances, to be taught the Scriptures by gifted men, to edify each other, and to worship God. Assembling is to be organised as a local church under authoritative leadership. The believer is called to holy living in the power of the indwelling Spirit, to fighting the spiritual warfare against the world, the flesh, and the devil, and to using his spiritual gifts to build up the local body of Messiah. Based upon the tenets of our beliefs, Birkdale Bible Chapel defines marriage as the permanent, exclusive, comprehensive, and conjugal “one flesh” union of one man and one woman, intrinsically ordered to procreation and biological family and in furtherance of the moral, spiritual, and public good of binding father, mother, and child (Genesis 1:27-28; Genesis 2:18-24; Matthew 19:4-9; Mark 10:5-9; Ephesians 5:31-33).

Birkdale Bible Chapel believes that sexual acts outside marriage are prohibited as sinful. Consequently, believers must resist and refrain from any sexual acts outside marriage, including same-sex sexual acts (Exodus 20:14; Leviticus 18:7-23; Leviticus 20:10-21; Deuteronomy 5:18; Matthew 15:19; Matthew 5:27-28; Matthew 15:19; Romans 1:26-27; 1 Corinthians 6:9-13; 1 Thessalonians 4:3; Hebrews 13:4; Galatians 5:19; Ephesians 4:17-19; Colossians 3:5).
Birkdale Bible Chapel believes that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God; therefore, redemption, forgiveness, and spiritual cleansing are available for all sins, including those mentioned above. Birkdale Bible Chapel must welcome and treat with respect, compassion, and sensitivity all who experience same-sex attractions or confess sexually immoral acts but are committed to resisting sexual temptation, refraining from sexual immorality, and conforming their behaviour.
Birkdale Bible Chapel will officiate at marriage ceremonies only when they align with this Statement of Faith.

Section Four – The Great Commission

We believe that it is the responsibility of the local church and the individual believer to evangelise and disciple all nations both actively (doing the work of evangelism) and passively (supporting those doing the work of evangelism). The specific procedure for discipling the nations in all active and passive evangelism is “to the Jew first” (Romans 1:16).

We believe that Messiah will return to gather believers, both dead and alive, into the air to bring them to Himself. This event is imminent and pre-tribulation and is the Church’s blessed hope.

We believe that sometime after the rapture, the tribulation of Daniel’s Seventieth Week will occur for seven years. It is a time of judgment for all humanity, ending the times of the Gentiles and resulting in Israel’s national regeneration.