Our Doctrinal statement is forged from our core values, which are convictions derived from the Scriptures.
•The Trinity. The triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, is worthy of the worship of all people in all places of His dominion, and this fact must be the fundamental motive for every human activity.
•The Bible. Scripture, as the “very Word of God written,” is absolutely authoritative (infallibility) and without error (inerrancy). Scripture is necessary, sufficient, and clear to reveal the only way of salvation in Jesus Christ, which is discovered in the Scripture with the help of the Holy Spirit. Scripture is the final authority on all matters of faith and life.
•The Historicity. The full historicity and perspicuity of the biblical record of primeval history, including the literal existence of Adam and Eve as the progenitors of all people, the literal fall and resultant divine curse on the creation, the worldwide cataclysmic deluge, and the origin of nations and languages at the tower of Babel.
•Biblical Creation. Special creation of the existing space-time universe and all its basic systems and kinds of organisms in the six days of the creation week.
•The Son. Jesus Christ is fully man, perfect and sinless, and fully God, united in one person. His humanity and divinity are evidenced in His virgin birth, in His sinless life, in His miracles, in His vicarious atonement through His shed blood, in His bodily resurrection, and in His ascension to the right hand of the Father in heaven. As divine-human person, Jesus is the only mediator between God and man.
•Satan. Satan is real and acts as a tempter, for whom the place of eternal punishment was prepared, where all who die outside of Christ shall be confined in eternity.
•Man. God created man according to His image, in knowledge, righteousness, and holiness, and made them to rule over the other creatures. However, at the temptation of Satan, Adam chose to disobey God and fell into sin, which corrupted every part of his being so that he could not be saved from his sin without the regeneration of the Holy Spirit.
•Salvation. God has chosen His people in Christ before the creation of the world, loved them, and made them holy and blameless, and predestined them according to His good pleasure. God desires to give salvation freely to everyone, and thus calls on people to repent of their sins and receive Christ as their Savior, trust and obey Him, and live according to God’s revealed will. Personal salvation is provided solely by the grace of God and to be received only through personal faith in the person and work of Jesus Christ.
•The Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit comes from God the Father and the Son and causes people to be saved and to realize their sin and misery, enlightens their hearts to know Jesus Christ, strengthens their will, encourages, empowers them, and causes them to receive Jesus Christ and bear fruits of righteousness.
•Last Things. The future, personal, bodily return of Jesus Christ to the earth to judge and purge sin, to establish His eternal Kingdom, and to consummate and fulfill His purposes in the works of creation and redemption with eternal rewards and punishments. Both the saved and the lost will be resurrected—the saved unto the resurrection of life in heaven and the lost unto the resurrection of damnation in hell.
•Biblical Method. Biblical theology (in the tradition of Geerhardus Vos) and pre-suppositional apologetics (in the tradition of Cornelius Van Til) are among the crucial methods to be used in interpreting and applying the teaching of Scripture and in developing a biblical worldview.
•Church. The Church, of which Christ is the head, is established by God to gather and to nurture the believers to grow into the body of Christ, which is the fullness of Him that fills all in all. This Church is the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ, the house and family of God, out of which there is no ordinary possibility of salvation. God has given the visible Church the ministry and the ordinances of God for the gathering and the perfecting of the believers.
•Sacraments. Christ established two sacraments: Baptism and Holy Communion. In baptism, a believer is baptized with water and cleansed in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and it signifies and seals the union with Christ. This sacrament is given to those who confess their faith in Christ, and to their children, and the Holy Communion is done in remembrance of Christ’s death, and this is a sign which signifies the benefit which they receive from Christ’s death.
•Christ’s Lordship over All Areas of Life. Christ is Lord not only of salvation but of all creation. Therefore, Christians are called to bring all aspects of life under Christ’s authority. This is called the cultural mandate. In Christ, Christians have both the privilege and the calling to take every thought captive and make it obedient to Christ, not only in “spiritual” matters, but every aspect of a person and every aspect of our culture.
•Christ’s Lordship over Church and State. Christ is Lord not only of the Church but also of the state. The state has the obligation to protect the Church as well as the general peace and justice of the commonwealth. Otherwise, the state should not interfere with the Church. On the other hand, as individuals, Christians should fulfill their duties as citizens and contribute to the peace and justice of the land.
•Christ’s Lordship over the Whole Person. Christ is Lord not only over our minds but over our affections and will. Evangelia’s theological education, therefore, is a holistic education with the aim of not only equipping the students with a Reformed world view, but of forming “holy affections” in the manner described by Jonathan Edwards, and of training our wills to submit to Christ.
•Great Commission. Christ is Lord not only of the saved people but also of all people. Christ has called upon the church to go to the ends of the earth to teach all nations of Christ’s commandments, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Spirit, and finally to make disciples of Jesus. The church is called to not only to reach out to people and bring them into the kingdom of God, but to nurture them in the Lord. Furthermore, we are called not only to reach out to people of other cultures, but also to make them to be Christ’s disciples, i.e., transform their cultures. This mandate calls for ministers of God’s Word is to be trained both to cross cultural boundaries as well as to transform cultures, both our own, and that of the others, by applying the eternal Word of God to the changing world.
•Unity and Diversity within the Body. While Evangelia is committed to the fulfillment of its own purposes and distinctiveness, it resolves to “make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace,” to maintain openness to and appreciation for Christians in differing denominations and organizations in a loving spirit, in order to “build up the whole body of Christ.”
