Here's what we're on about
Our Beliefs
A Reformed Evangelical Community
Eternity Church is a part of the Presbyterian Church of Queensland – we’re a Reformed Evangelical Community.
Like other Presbyterian Churches we hold to the Westminster Confession of Faith, as the best understanding of what the Scriptures, the Bible, teaches. This is one of the several great summaries of doctrine that emerged out of the Protestant Reformation in the 16th and 17th centuries. Below is a few key snap shots of that doctrine which might be helpful in knowing what we believe.
The Church
We believe in the Church. That the Church are the people of God, those who believe in Jesus Christ, united to God by the Holy Spirit through faith, & united to every other Christian by that same Spirit & faith. The Church is a movement of God’s people, who don’t stop being the Church during the week, but who are devoted to meeting together & building one another up to following Jesus, empowered by the Holy Spirit, to engage our world with the message of the Gospel – the Good News of Jesus.
The Bible
We believe that the Bible is the Word of God; God’s living, breathed word to us, written by human hands but inspired & orchestrated by God. Because the Bible is the Word of God it carries with it the authority of God, without error in all that it affirms, & it’s God’s Spirit, the Holy Spirit who reveals to us what it means, helping us to understand the good news that it contains, as it pertains to all things about life & godliness. See the Bible teaches us the Gospel, it’s central to all that we do because through reading the Bible we Hear the Gospel, the good news of Jesus Christ, through proclaiming Jesus life, death & resurrection to us. The Bible teaches us about Jesus, & as we come to believe that what the Bible says is true & come to put our faith in Jesus as Lord & Saviour we can find salvation; the forgiveness of sin, eternal life in Heaven, & right relationship with God.
We believe in preaching; that the Gospel of Jesus needs to be proclaimed, & something we need to hear continuously. Alongside reading the Bible, we believe that the Bible should be taught, applied, & preached to all who are listening because it’s words have the power of God to save. At Eternity we seek to teach the Bible through preaching fully, wholeheartedly, humbly, respectfully, & clearly, by men who are pastorally minded, theologically trained, & suitable to teach. Also, as with all that we do, we also seek to preach & teach in a way that encourages Bible literacy & a confidence that individuals can read their own Bibles for themselves.
God
We believe there is one God; eternal, self-existing in three persons (Father, Son & Holy Spirit) who are to be equally loved, honoured, obeyed and adored, who are one in substance, equal in power, & glory.
We believe God created all things; out of nothing, by the sovereign command of his Word. He originally created all things including humanity in a state of perfection–without sin & defect.
Sin
We believe all of mankind is fallen; from a state of right relationship with God. Being united with Adam, the first man, having participated in his fall from his sinless state, humanity is lost in sin & totally unable by any human effort to return to God in right relationship.
Salvation
We believe in a Sovereign God, who for no other reason than his own love & mercy, has chosen lost sinners from every nation to be rescued by the life-giving power of the Holy Spirit & through faith in the atoning death & resurrection of His Son, Jesus Christ.
We believe in justification by faith. A sinner is justified (gains a state of “being right”) before God by the initiative of God’s grace which is appropriated by faith. This comes about as a consequence of Hearing the Gospel of Jesus Christ & responding in faith, prompted by God’s Holy Spirit, unhardening their heart to respond in faith.
We believe in sanctification. Holiness & conformity to Christ’s character in the life of the Christian, is one of the primary goals of God’s saving work. Through faith-based obedience, & a reliance on God’s Spirit, the Christian lives, works, & serves ,growing in maturity as they do.
We believe genuine Christians, “the Saints”: will persevere. Those sinners, whom the Spirit awakens through unhardening their hearts, come to believe in Christ as Saviour by the Word of God, are born again, become sons of God, & will faithfully continue to the end.
Baptism
We believe in Baptism; for all those who come to faith in Jesus as Lord & Saviour, as something for them & their family to partake in, as a sign of Jesus redemptive & regenerative work through his death & resurrection, & as a seal of God’s covenantal promises that welcomes them into the family of God, both now & for eternity.
Lord's Supper
We believe in the Lord’s Supper; or otherwise called Commuinion, in rememberance of Jesus death, an opportunity for Christians to stop, reflect, & participate in this reminder of what Jesus has done, what that means, & what Jesus as won for those who have their faith in him. It stands as that very visual & very spiritual reminder that points us to Jesus & to the life we must now live as Christians, but also as a testimony to those who aren’t yet Christians, of the amazing sacrifice of Jesus, & the union with God that Jesus offers, where we are no longer ourselves, but where we are united to Jesus in his death & his resurrection, with a great hope of eternity in Heaven.
The Lord’s Supper symbolizes the meal Jesus had with his disciples, his last supper before his death, where he described the bread being like his body being broken for us, & the wine being like his blood being poured out for our forgiveness, & so we remember that Jesus death brings us forgiveness. But as we’re to do this until Jesus returns, The Lords Supper reminds us that by faith we are united to Jesus in his death, & his resurrection, where we are welcomed into God’s family, to live a life that proclaims Jesus in all that we do.
By sharing in The Lord Supper, we’re proclaiming Jesus death that has forgiven us, we’re declaring the life we’re to live in union with him, we are committing ourselves afresh to Jesus in trust & to one another here in our Church family as members of Jesus body, & we are fixing our eyes on his return. So to participate our heart must be right with him, & so for those who don’t yet know Jesus, we ask that you let the bread & the juice pass by, & let this Communion be a challenge to you, to look to Jesus in faith. Likewise for those who have unsettled grievances with a brother or a sister, we also ask that they let the bread & the juice pass by, & let it be an encouragement to you to make that grievance right.
The Lord’s Supper reminds us of why we can celebrate being Baptised.
Eternal Life
We believe in life after death; that the Christian’s soul passes immediately into the presence of God, with the hope of resurrection to life at the end of the age (i.e. Heaven). The unbeliever’s soul, having rejected God, is eternally separated from him under condemnation & is resurrected to an eternal separation from God (i.e. Hell)
We believe that Jesus will return; to earth, visibly & bodily, after the Gospel of salvation through Jesus Christ has been proclaimed to the entire world, to conclude history & the eternal plan of God. Following this, Christians will enjoy the blessing of everlasting life with God, in eternity.
