Shiloh Creed

We in Shiloh believe:

The Triune God

There is one God, self-existent and eternal, infinitely perfect, the Creator, Sustainer, and Ruler of all things.

The Godhead is Triune: one God, three Persons: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. Each Person is fully God, their glory equal and their majesty coeternal.

For his own glory and by his own decree, the triune God created heaven and earth, time, and all things, visible and invisible, living and nonliving, material and nonmaterial.

Our Lord Jesus Christ, the uncreated Creator and only begotten Son of God, took on human flesh to be fully man without ever ceasing to be fully God.

Jesus Christ was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the virgin Mary, and lived a sinless life.

Jesus died on the cross, making a full and satisfactory atonement for man’s sin.

Jesus Christ rose bodily from the dead, ascended to heaven, is currently seated at the right hand of God the Father as our Intercessor, and shall return in person (bodily and visibly) to this earth as Judge of the living and the dead.

The Holy Spirit, the third Person of the Godhead, is Lord and Giver of life, who glorifies our Lord Jesus Christ and convicts the world of sin, righteousness, and judgment.

The Holy Spirit’s work is necessary for sinners to repent and believe in Jesus Christ through the gospel call.

The Holy Spirit lives and works in each believer to produce the fruits of righteousness.

The Triune God has revealed himself in Scripture in the male gender with masculine pronouns and masculine titles such as Father, Son, God, King, Priest, and Prophet.

Scripture

The 66 books of the Bible are the unique, written Word of God. The Bible is divinely inspired, inerrant, infallible, supremely authoritative, and sufficient in everything it teaches. Its assertions are factually true in all the original autographs. Its authority is not limited to spiritual, religious, or redemptive themes but includes its assertions in such fields as history and science.

The final guide to the interpretation of Scripture is Scripture itself.

All things necessary for our salvation are expressly and clearly taught in Scripture.

The view, commonly used to evade the implications or the authority of biblical teaching, namely that knowledge and/or truth may be divided into secular and religious, is unbiblical and therefore should be rejected.

Sin

The special creation of Adam (the first man) and Eve (the first woman) and their subsequent fall into sin is the basis for the necessity of salvation for mankind.

Human death (both physical and spiritual) as well as all animal death, disease, bloodshed, suffering, extinction, thorns and thistles, and all other natural evils (e.g., earthquakes, hurricanes, tsunamis, etc.) entered this world subsequent to, and as a direct consequence of, man’s sin.

All mankind are sinners, inherently from Adam and individually (by choice), and are therefore subject to God’s wrath and condemnation.

Since all of mankind is made in God’s image and also fallen, all humans are equally sinful, equally deserving of eternal punishment, and equally able to receive salvation in Christ.

Man

Mankind, consisting of two genders (male and female), is created in the image of God. Each of these two distinct, complementary genders reflects the image of God.

The special and unique creation of Adam from dust and Eve from Adam’s rib was supernatural and immediate. Adam and Eve did not originate from any other preexisting lifeforms.

All human life is sacred and begins at conception (defined as the moment of fertilization). Each unborn child is a unique, living human being, created in the image of God, and must be respected and protected both before and after birth. The abortion of an unborn child or the active, intentional taking of human life through euthanasia or assisted suicide constitutes a violation of the sanctity of human life and is a crime against God and man.

There is only one race of mankind—the human race or Adam’s race. Adam and Eve were the first two humans. All people alive today are the descendants of Adam and Eve and subsequently Noah.

Since all humans are made in the image of God, all humans have equal dignity and value regardless of age (including the unborn), intelligence, gender, physical ability, shade of skin tone, religion, ethnicity, or any other characteristic.

The concepts of “social justice,” “intersectionality,” and “critical race theory” as defined in modern terminology are anti-biblical and destructive to human flourishing.

Parents are responsible to instruct their children in Christian faith and conduct, to set before them godly and consistent examples of the same, and in every way to “bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord”.

The only legitimate marriage, based on the creation ordinance in Genesis 1 and 2, sanctioned by God is the joining of one naturally born man and one naturally born woman in a single, exclusive union as delineated in Scripture. God intends sexual intimacy to only occur between a man and a woman who are married to each other and has commanded that no sexual activity be engaged in outside of a marriage between a man and a woman. Any form of sexual immorality, such as adultery, fornication, prostitution, homosexuality, lesbianism, bisexual conduct, bestiality, incest, pornography, abuse, or any attempt to change one’s gender, or disagreement with one’s biological gender, is sinful and offensive to God.

Gender and biological sex are equivalent and cannot be separated. A person’s gender is determined at conception (fertilization), coded in the DNA, and cannot be changed by drugs, hormones, or surgery. Rejection of one’s biological sex (gender) or identifying oneself by the opposite sex is a sinful rejection of the way God made that person. These truths must be communicated with compassion, love, kindness, and respect, pointing everyone to the truth that God offers redemption and restoration to all who confess and forsake their sin, seeking his mercy and forgiveness through Jesus Christ.

Salvation

The doctrines of Creator and Creation cannot ultimately be divorced from the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Freedom from the penalty and power of sin is available to man only through the sacrificial death and shed blood of Jesus Christ and his complete and bodily resurrection from the dead.

Salvation is by God’s grace alone, a gift received by faith alone in Christ alone.

The one who is born of God has repented, recognized the death of Christ as full payment for sin, received the risen Christ as Savior, Lord, and God, and sealed with the Holy Spirit for the day of redemption.

Church

The church of Jesus Christ is composed of all who are united with him in saving faith and who are thus members of the body of which he is the head.

Those who do not believe in Christ are subject to everlasting, conscious punishment in hell, but believers are secure to enjoy eternal life with God in heaven.

All Christians are to live in fellowship in person with a local, Bible-believing church (as portrayed in the New Testament), uniting in its worship of the triune God, supporting the great commission, and loving one another with pure and sincere hearts. Online church and meetings held remotely using technology are not a substitute for this call to meet and fellowship in person locally.

Christ’s Return

Our Lord Jesus Christ will personally and bodily return in glory as He has promised, and He will consummate His kingdom. Christ will judge the living and the dead at His return.

Those who have died in Christ to eternal life will be welcomed into heaven and those who have rejected him will be sent to conscious and everlasting punishment in the lake of fire (hell).

Satan, who is a personal spiritual adversary of both God and mankind, will be judged and cast into the lake of fire (hell) for eternity.

We adhere to a literal interpretation of scripture holding to a pre-millennial view of eschatology. The doctrine that Jesus's Second Coming will immediately precede the millennium.

Governing Authorities

Because all Earthly governing authorities are established by God we are commanded to be subject to them, but not above God, to avoid God's wrath and for good conscience. Regardless of the persecution, burden, injustice, we are never to take vengeance into our own hands “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” We are called to respond to evil not with more evil (including war, violence, killing, torture, slander, riots, black-mailing, hatred, etc.) but blessings, peace, love, hospitality “if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.” We are called to follow Jesus's example, overcoming evil with good (love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control) offering our bodies as a living sacrifice holy and pleasing to the Lord, unto our own death if it comes to it. In light of evil laws we must obey God rather than men unto our own detriment as we are individually responsible for our actions before the Lord when judgment day comes.

We publicly denounce movements inciting rebellion against tyrannical governments. Governments like these are no different than those that brutally murdered and persecuted the Apostles and early Christian Church. Jesus and the Apostles never patterned for us to organize as militia, mercenaries in response to tyranny. We denounce the taking up of physical weapons and instead take up spiritual weapons as scripture commands us because our battle is not against flesh and blood, but against spiritual forces of evil. We denounce movements that mirror the Zealots during Jesus' lifetime. These include Christian Nationalism, Dominion theology, Theonomy, Christian Reconstructionism, Dominion Now.