Statement of Faith
The uniqueness of Sovereign Grace Bible Church (SGBC) Lagos is its simplicity. We are not seeking to fulfill a hundred-and-one different objectives. Our goal is simple: To glorify God through the preaching of Christ and Him crucified for the edification of the saints and the salvation of lost sinners.
We take the whole Bible, the 66 commonly received books of the Old and New Testaments, as our confession of faith. Although we accept no man-made confession as finally authoritative, we receive the 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith as true to the Bible, and adopt it as the fullest expression of our faith. We present below a summary of what we believe the Bible teaches to instruct and guide our members and to preserve us against false doctrine.
1. THE HOLY SCRIPTURE
Holy Scripture is the written revelation of God, verbally inspired of the Holy Spirit through the instrumentality of holy men, self-testifying, infallible, and authoritative in all that it says, forming the complete canon of the Old and New Testament, which is necessary and sufficient for a proper knowledge of God, self, and salvation.
2. GOD
God, who in one essence subsists in three coequal and coeternal persons—namely, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit–is without mixture and without division a holy, absolute, infinite, immutable, personal, spiritual, omnipotent, omniscient, and righteous being, who in His own eternal and independent counsel, ordained all that transpires in time, created all that has and will exist in space, and sovereignly governs them providentially to their final, predestinated purposes and destinations.
3. MAN & SIN
God created the first man and woman, Adam and Eve, by a definite creative act, after His own image. The historic fall from the original righteousness in which mankind was created is the source of all the evil in the world. The guilt of Adam’s sin is reckoned to all his descendants, so that all men are conceived in a state of guilt, corruption, separation from God and condemnation to eternal death. This state is known as original sin, and from it proceeds all actual transgressions. Therefore, although completely responsible to God to perform what He has commanded, man is completely unable of himself to do any spiritual good, not even to repent of sin and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.
4. CHRIST
Jesus Christ, who is one in essence with God, was conceived by the Holy Spirit, and born of a virgin in His incarnation, having without mixture or confusion a divine and human nature in one person. He is the only Savior of the world, and the Redeemer and Head of the Church–anointed by the Spirit as Prophet, Priest, and King in His baptism, establishing righteousness by obeying the covenant of works in His life, legally propitiating for the sins of His people in His death, bringing forth life in His resurrection (establishing the gospel of the covenant of grace), and being exalted by God with all power, authority, and honor in His ascension, where He continues to mediate and reign in heaven until He subdues all of God’s enemies underneath His footstool.
5. HOLY SPIRIT & SALVATION
Salvation is the work of the Holy Spirit (who has been sent by Christ into the world to testify of Christ Jesus, and to convict the world of sin) whereby He graciously and effectually applies the redemptive benefits of the cross to the elect by imparting faith through the power of the gospel (which legally unites believers to the imputed righteousness of Christ for the forgiveness of sins and brings them into the adoption as children of God) in regenerating and indwelling them (which establishes a holy nature that leads to the mortification of the flesh and progressive sanctification) as He continues to strengthen them in the knowledge of the Lord so they persevere in repentance, faith, and good works with the assurance of future glorification and life eternal with God.
6. SANCTIFICATION AND PERSEVERANCE
Sanctification is two-fold –
a) Definitive: at conversion believers are united to Christ in His death to sin and resurrection to new life. As a result, the rule of sin in their lives is broken and they willingly seek to be ruled by the Word of God.
b) Progressive: sanctification, which is the process of being entirely conformed to the image of Christ, will be perfectly completed only on the last day. It is the work of the Holy Spirit in us through our mortifying sin and obeying the commands of God. Because of indwelling sin, all believers experience a constant warfare between the flesh and the Spirit. However, the indwelling of the Spirit is the seal and guarantee that every true believer will persevere in the faith until the end.
7. THE CHURCH
The church is the universal and invisible body of Christ that consists of all the elect throughout history that is visibly manifested in time through local fellowships of believers who have committed to be accountable to one another under the headship of Christ by collectively submitting, instructing, admonishing, and caring for one another under the oversight of their ordained leaders; as they have been spiritually united together in Christ Jesus to uphold the truth in holiness by worshiping God through preaching and teaching, singing, reading the Word, observance of the ordinances (Baptism and Lord’s Supper), the exercise of spiritual discipline and seeking to make disciples of the nations through active evangelism and missions.
8. LAST THINGS
Though Christ Jesus has already fulfilled many of the Old Testament prophecies when He engrafted believing Gentiles with believing Jews into the Kingdom of God at His First Coming, the church still awaits the consummation of the Kingdom, the general resurrection of the dead, the Day of Judgment, and the creation of the New Earth which will occur at the Second Coming of Christ.