DOCTRINAL STATEMENT

The doctrinal position of VCU is historically that of conservative reformed theology, evangelical Christianity, and The Westminster Confession. VCU rests firmly upon the integrity and inerrancy of the Holy Scriptures and, therefore, wholeheartedly accepts the great basic doctrines of the historic Protestant Christian faith. Traditionally, VCU graduates stand for these great truths, and it is the desire of VCU to continue to provide personnel for service in these ranks. VCU will maintain its theological position.
	To guarantee that VCU will maintain its theological position, each member of Board of Trustee, Faculty, and Teaching Staff is required initially and annually to engage in and subscribe to the following Statement of Belief and Covenant. Also the Doctrinal Statement, which every board, administration, staff and faculty member must sign, is the following Statement of Belief and Covenant:

1. We believe in the scriptures of the Old and New Testament as the inspired Word of God, the only inerrant and infallible rule of faith and practice. Scripture inerrancy means that the original documents were without error. To describe inspiration as verbal and plenary is to explain not how Scripture was inspired by God the Holy Spirit. but what resulted from that activity of God the Holy Spirit.

All the words of Scripture and all portions of it, as originally written, were God-breathed. It came from God the Holy Spirit, to be sure, but he employed finite humans to write down his message and to recognize it as God's Word. The human writers God selected to pen his Word were not sinless humans, either.

2. We believe in the triune God revealed as eternally existing in three equal persons, God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. There are three persons in the Godhead, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit: and these three are one God, the same in substance, equal in power and glory.

"In the unity of the Godhead there be three persons, of one substance, power and eternity; God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. The Father is of none, neither begotten nor proceeding; the Son is eternally begotten of the Father, the Holy Spirit eternally proceeding from the Father and Son"( Westminster Confession. II-3).

The Bible presents a consistent picture of three distinct persons, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, all of whom are assigned status as deity, who relate to each other on a coordinate level, who share in works of creation, redemption, and sanctification, and who in every way are related to by New Testament believers, each in turn and all in unison, as God. Yet they are consistently presented not as three Gods but as one-unitas(not numberal one).

3. We believe in the deity of the Lord Jesus Christ. We believe in the Lord Jesus Christ's Preexistence and Eternity: Only of the Son of God the Father can it be said that his birth did not signal his beginning. He existed as God the Father's Son before he was born of Mary. God the Son always existed, being as eternal as God himself. The truth is, he is both. He is the God-man. Both Christ's perfect humanity and his undiminished deity are absolutely essential to the Scriptural portrait of him.

4. We believe in the Holy Spirit as a divine person, a personality distinct from God the Father and God the Son. We worship God in three persons who is one(unitas) in three and three in one(unitas). The Triune God exists in three personal distinctions - God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.

By the deity of the Holy Spirit is meant that He is One with God, and One in the God-head, co-equal, co-eternal, and con-substantial with God the Father and God the Son. Works are assigned to the Spirit which only God can perform, thus arguing for his full deity. The Holy Spirit was involved in the work of creation(Gen.1:2). Both the revelation and inspiration of Scripture were the result of the work of the Holy Spirit(2 Sam.23:2). In many unmistakable ways, God, in His word, distinctly proclaims that the Holy Spirit is not only a Person, but a Divine Person.

5. We believe that God created an innumerable host of angels, some of whom followed the lead of Lucifer, now called Satan, in rebelling against God, thereby bringing sin into the universe. We believe in Satan's complete defeat by the Lord Jesus Christ.

6. We believe that man was created in the image of God, that he sinned and thereby incurred not only physical death but also that spiritual death which is separation from God; and that all human beings are born with a sinful nature and, in the case of those who reach moral responsibility, become sinners in thought, word and deed. And with such a nature, they are incapable of producing anything acceptable to God. We believe in man's need of repentance, redemption and justification through faith alone in Christ crucified and risen from the dead.

7. We believe that Jesus Christ was begotten of the Holy Spirit, and born of the virgin Mary, and is true God and true man. We believe that He died for the sins of men as representative and substitutionary sacrifice and that His death was a sufficient expiation for the guilt of all men. We believe in the resurrection of the crucified body of our Lord, in His ascension into heaven and in His present life there for us as High Priest and Advocate and also as the King of kings. We believe in the personal return in glory to consummate His Kingdom.

8. We believe that men are justified by grace through faith, on the ground of the shed blood of Christ, and that all who receive the Lord Jesus Christ as Savior are born again of the Holy Spirit and thereby become children of God the Father.

9. We believe in the bodily resurrection of the just and the unjust, the everlasting conscious blessedness of the saved and the everlasting conscious punishment of the lost.

10. We believe that it is the duty of each believer to live a holy life unto God, keeping himself unspotted from the world, and that it is God's intention that this shall be accomplished in the believer's life by his constant dependence on the divine ennoblement of the indwelling Holy Spirit. We believe in the illuminating, indwelling and sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit enabling the Christian to witness effectively to the gospel and to serve responsibly in the world.

11. We believe that the Church of Jesus Christ is composed solely of believers; it is the Body and Bride of our Lord; and it will be completed as believers fulfill their duty by making Christ known. We believe in one, holy, and universal church as the body of Christ, and see her essential tasks as worship, preaching, fellowship, praying, service, and mission.

12. We believe the souls of the righteous, being then made perfect in holiness, are received into the highest heavens, where they behold the face of God in light and glory, waiting for the full redemption of their bodies; and the souls of the wicked are cast into hell, where they remain in torment and under darkness, reserved for judgment at the great day. Beside these two places for souls separated from their bodies the Scripture acknowledges none

13. We believe in the resurrection of all men either to eternal life or to eternal death as God shall judge them in justice and love.

14. We believe in the responsibility of the church in transforming people and culture in the contemporary context, in obedience to God according to the Scriptures all, to the realization of the kingdom of God.

15. We believe in the personal, bodily and victorious return of our Lord Jesus Christ. He will then set up His kingdom upon the earth, after which He will deliver the Kingdom to God the Father, that the Godhead may be all in all. The certainty of Christ's return, of the future resurrection and judgment, ought to have its effect upon our lives. Believers do have hope, hope that is based on divine certainty. Death does not end it all. A day of reckoning and accounting will come. There is no second chance after death.

16. We believe in the bodily resurrection of all men, the saved to eternal life, and the unsaved to judgment and everlasting punishment. The bodies of the unjust shall, by the power of our Lord Christ, be raised to dishonour; the bodies of the just("saints"), by the Holy Spirit of Christ, unto honour, and made conformable to his own glorious body.

17. We believe in the perseverance of the saints. Saints who have accepted in his Beloved, effectually called and sanctificatied by his Holy Spirit, can neither totally nor finally fall away from the state of grace; but shall certainly persevere therein to the end, and be eternally saved (Phil.1:6. John. 10:28-29).


How should we then live in view of the biblical message about the future ?

We should live according to Scripture, live as though we would appear before the our Lord God in a matter of minutes or hours. As we so live, we should view every opportunity as though it might be the last one we will ever have. The Bible does not teach God's people to fold their hands and wait idly for Christ return. Rather, it emphasizes the need to be actively serving while we wait for God's Son from heaven.