Discover Orchard Hill Church

We believe that God has clearly revealed His goodness, wisdom, eternal power, and deity to all men in the light of nature and in the works of creation and providence. Although man clearly perceives this revelation, he refuses to acknowledge or give thanks to God, preferring to worship the creature rather than the Creator, thus leaving him without excuse. Because this revelation in nature is insufficient to give man a full knowledge of the will of God and of the way to salvation, it has pleased God to reveal himself in a special way through all things necessary for salvation, faith, and practice that are contained within the Holy Scriptures. Nothing may be added to or taken away from this revelation either by a new revelation of the Spirit or by the tradition of men. The Holy Scriptures consist of the sixty-six books of the Old and New Testaments. We are bound to read, search, and interpret the Holy Scriptures under the guidance and inward illumination of the Holy Spirit,  so that our faith may rest on the testimony of the Holy Scriptures and not on that of tradition or the Church. The infallible rule of interpreting the Holy Scriptures is Scripture itself. The Holy Scriptures are the full and final authority in all matters of faith and practice. 

The Holy Scriptures teach that there is one true God who is indivisible, immutable, infinite, perfect, immense, almighty, eternal, absolute, and self-existent. He is a pure spirit, all-knowing, wise, holy, and truthful. He is good, loving, gracious, merciful, faithful, and long-suffering. This God works all things according to His divine counsel and free will. He is just in His judgments, hates all sin, forgives iniquity and rewards those who seek Him.

In the unity of the Godhead,  there are eternally three Persons, of one substance, inseparable and without confusion, distinguished as the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The undivided essence of the Godhead belongs equally to each of the three Persons, although their operation in the divine Being is marked by a certain definite order. The Father is neither begotten nor proceeds from any other person, the Son is eternally begotten of the Father, and the Holy Spirit eternally proceeds from the Father and the Son. The Trinity can be understood in some of its manifestations, but in its essential nature, it transcends the understanding of the human mind and remains a mystery.

We believe that God from all eternity has sovereignly determined whatever will come to pass, and works His sovereign will in His entire creation, both natural and spiritual, according to His predestined plan. In the plan, God has freely and graciously chosen the Saints whom He wills to save in the Lord Jesus Christ. He has done this without respect for the faith, good works, or perseverance of men, but solely on the basis of His most wise and holy counsel. By this eternal decree, some are called to everlasting life. As God has appointed the believers, so has He foreordained all the means by which they are saved and kept in Christ. All this has been done to the praise and glory of His most precious Name.

We believe that it pleased God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit  to create, out of nothing, the world and all things visible or invisible. After God had created the world and all creatures, He created man, male and female, in body and soul, with knowledge, free will, righteousness, and holiness, after His own image. All this was good to God, who directs, upholds, and governs all His creation by His wise and holy providence. The end of all creation is to glorify God.

We believe our first parents, being seduced by Satan, sinned in eating the forbidden fruit. God permitted this sin although He is neither the author of sin nor approves of it, having purposed to order it to His own glory. By this sin, they fell from their original state of righteousness and communion with God, became dead in sin, and were defiled in all parts of the body and soul. The guilt, death, and natural corruption of this sin were imputed and conveyed to all their posterity, descending from them by ordinary generation. From this original corruption, all people are totally inclined to all evil and do actually transgress against God. Every sin, both original and actual, brings guilt upon the sinner, the wrath and punishment of God, death, misery, and all the curses of the Law. The sinner has lost all ability to will any spiritual good accompanying salvation and is not able, by his own strength, to convert himself.

The first covenant made with man was a covenant of works in which life was promised to Adam and his posterity upon the condition of perfect and personal obedience. Because man, by his fall, had made himself incapable of life by that covenant, it pleased God to make a second covenant, a covenant of grace, in which He freely offered sinners life and salvation by the Lord Jesus Christ. We believe that God, in His eternal purpose and according to His divine promise, chose and ordained the Lord Jesus Christ to be the only Mediator between God and man. When the fullness of time had come, this Son of God took upon Himself human nature, without original sin, being conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit in the womb of the Virgin Mary so that the whole, perfect and distinct natures of the Godhead and manhead were inseparably joined together in one person, without confusion, change, division, or separation. In this way, the Word became flesh, the two natures existing in one person, being fully human and fully divine, the only Mediator between God and man. The Lord Jesus Christ was sanctified and anointed by the Holy Spirit. Full of grace and truth, He submitted Himself to all the demands of the Law and perfectly fulfilled it. He suffered under temptation, having become a curse for us, was crucified, died, and was buried. On the third day, He arose from the dead, with the same body in which He suffered.

He later ascended into heaven  and now sits at the right hand of the Father, making intercession for the elect. By the perfect obedience of His life and the perfect sacrifice of His death, He has fully satisfied the justice of God, reconciling God to man.

He has purchased redemption, gained final victory over all enemies, and guaranteed inheritance in heaven for all those whom the Father has given Him, in all ages, from the beginning of the world. For this reason, there is no satisfaction for God’s justice and wrath but Christ alone.

We believe that all those whom God has called to life, and those only, He has effectually called to grace and salvation by the Lord Jesus Christ. God has done this by His external call, made to all men through the Church, and by His internal call, made to the believer, by which He changes the inner disposition of the soul, illuminates the intellect, and arouses the emotion, enabling the believer to hear His call.

All this is done by the work of the Holy Spirit. Thus, man, who comes freely and passively, is effectually drawn to Jesus Christ. Man is made willing by His grace and becomes a new creation altogether, being made alive by a work of God without any aid or cooperation on the part of man. God then actively causes the regenerate sinner, in his conscious life, to turn to Him in repentance and faith, whereby the regenerate sinner repents in faith, puts away the old life, flees from sin, and strives for holiness of life. Infants dying in infancy and other persons who are incapable of being outwardly called by the ministry of the Word are regenerated and saved by the Lord Jesus Christ through the Holy Spirit, who works when and where He pleases.