Kwacha Baptist Church

Charles H. Spurgeon said,           “We believe that the Baptists are the original Christians.

We did not commence our existence at the reformation, we were reformers before Luther and Calvin were born.

We never came from the Church of Rome, for we were never in it, but we have an unbroken line up to the apostles themselves.

We have always existed from the days of Christ, and our principles, sometimes veiled and forgotten, like a river which may travel under ground for a little season, have always had honest and holy adherents.

Persecuted alike by Romanists and Protestants of almost every sect, yet there has never existed a Government holding Baptist principles which persecuted others, nor, I believe, any body of Baptists ever held it to be right to put the consciences of others under the control of man.

We have ever been ready to suffer, as our books of martyrs will prove, but we are not ready to prostitute the purity of the Bride of Christ to any alliance with Government, and we will never make the Church the despot over the consciences of men."

Our statement of beliefs is based on the 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith and the Baptist Faith and Message of 2000.

It suffices to say that we believe:

1. The Scriptures, the Bible:
The Bible or the Scriptures is our final authority and perpetual sufficiency in all matters of faith, church order and personal and social conduct of our daily living.

The Scriptures or the Bible is a full and verbal inspiration of God, all the Old Testament and New Testament Scriptures as originally given, and these alone, are in themselves the complete Word of God, without error, and wholly reliable in both fact and doctrine.

2. The Trinity:
There is only one true and living God, inexpressibly glorious and infinite in all his attributes and worthy of all honour, love and obedience. The Sovereign God is the Creator, Provider, Preserver, and Redeemer of the universe.

The one true and living God has manifested Himself in the unity of the Godhead and divine co-equality of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit eternally.

3. God The Son
God the Son is the true and proper deity of our Lord Jesus Christ, Had a virgin birth, His real and perfect manhood, the authority of His teaching and the infallibility of all His utterances.

Our Lord Jesus Christ died a substitutionary death on the cross as being the full, sufficient and only atonement for sins. He arose in bodily resurrection, He ascended into Heaven and is present priestly interceding for His people and He will personally return in glory.

4. God the Holy Spirit
The work of the Holy Spirit is a person and not a force and He is essential for a true understanding of the Scriptures and for regeneration and conversion of the sinner, by leading an individual to repentance towards God and saving faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and He indwells the believer from the moment of salvation.

The Holy Spirit continues His work for the sanctification of those regenerated and converted or the redeemed in Jesus Christ and equips the church with the various gifts for the edification of the church to the glory of God.

5. The Fall of man
The total depravity of human nature is in consequence of the fall of man from the original state of perfection in which he was created. The fall of man is that event in history when our forefathers, Adam and Eve, disobeyed the commandment of God not to eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

The fall of Adam and Eve has led to all mankind being in a state of condemnation and separation from God such that deliverance is only by the divine intervening work of regeneration and conversion by the Holy Spirit.

6. Election
Those whom God has predestined unto life, He is pleased in His appointed, and accepted time, to effectually call by His Word and Spirit, out of that state of sin and death in which they are by nature, to grace and salvation by Jesus Christ.

God does this by enlightening their minds spiritually and savingly to understand the things of God taking away their heart of stone and giving to them a heart of flesh, renewing their wills, and by His almighty power determining them to that which is good, and effectually drawing them to Jesus Christ and yet so as they come most freely and yet being made willing by His grace.

The Biblical doctrine of Election is the gracious purpose of God, according to which He regenerates, sanctifies, and glorifies sinners and it is a glorious display of God's sovereign goodness, is infinitely wise, holy, and unchangeable and excludes boasting and promotes humility.

The biblical doctrine of Election is consistent with the free agency of man, and comprehends all the means in connection with the end that those whom God has accepted in Christ, and sanctified by His Spirit, will never fall away from the state of grace, but shall persevere to the end.

Although those who have received Jesus Christ as their Saviour may fall into sin through neglect and temptation, whereby they grieve the Spirit, impair their graces and comforts, and bring reproach on the cause of Christ and temporal judgments on themselves, they shall be kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation

7. Salvation
There is no salvation apart from personal faith in Jesus Christ as personal Saviour and Lord and it is by the sovereign grace of God by which His free and unmerited favour, He chose certain sinners to have been predestinated to salvation that is only in His Son Jesus Christ.

This salvation of the elect is not by their own free will and power but as a result of the irresistible grace of God, through the work of the Holy Spirit and hence the justification of the sinner is solely by faith, through the atoning merits of Christ.

Salvation involves the redemption of the whole man, and is offered freely to all who accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour, who by His own blood obtained eternal redemption for the believer.

Salvation includes regeneration, sanctification, and glorification.

Regeneration, or the new birth, is a work of Gods grace whereby believers become new creatures in Christ Jesus.

It is a change of heart wrought by the Holy Spirit through conviction of sin, to which the sinner responds in repentance toward God and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.
Repentance is a genuine turning from sin toward God and Faith is the acceptance of Jesus Christ and commitment of the entire personality to Him as Lord and Saviour so that Repentance and faith are inseparable experiences of grace.

Justification is Gods gracious and full acquittal upon principles of His righteousness of all sinners who repent and believe in Christ. Justification brings the believer into a relationship of peace and favour with God.

Sanctification is the experience, beginning in regeneration, by which the believer is set apart to Gods purposes, and is enabled to progress toward moral and spiritual perfection through the presence and power of the Holy Spirit dwelling in him. Growth in grace should continue throughout the regenerate person’s life.

Glorification is the culmination of salvation and is the final  abiding state of the redeemed.

Salvation was began in the past in justification, it is being continued in the present in sanctification and will be completed in the future at the coming of Jesus Christ in glorification.

8. Good Works
Salvation of mankind is totally dependent upon the sovereign grace of God and through faith in Jesus Christ. It is available to all who believe in Jesus Christ as their personal Saviour and Lord in their heart.

The salvation of the saints will lead them into a godly desire to do good works which will result from salvation and the believers know that these works, with or without faith, have no saving value, but are the fruits and evidences of a true faith.

True or genuine believers manifest their thankfulness, strengthen their assurance, edify their brethren, adorn the profession of the gospel, stop the mouths of the adversaries, and glorify God, whose workmanship they are, by good works to which they were called and created to do in Christ Jesus

The ability of the believers to do good works is not at all of themselves, but wholly from the Holy Spirit of Jesus Christ who enables them to do good works, besides the graces they have already received from the same Holy Spirit, to work in them to will and to do of his good pleasure and is not done in boasting or pride, but in humility for the good of the Kingdom of Christ to the glory of God.

9. The Local Church
The Lord Jesus Christ has the sole authority and prerogative over His Church through the Holy Spirit speaking in His inspired Scriptures, in all matters pertaining to the government of the local church.

The local church is autonomous, that is, it is self governing, self supporting and self propagating and that every member is equal and each member is responsible and accountable to Christ as Lord.

The scriptural officers of the local church are pastors and deacons. While men and women are gifted for service within the church, the office of the pastor is limited to men as qualified by Scripture.

God has given the pastor as a gift to the church to oversee, lead, preach, teach, correct, and pray for the church and the church is to respect, follow, obey, accept correction from, and pray for the pastor.

The observance of the ordinance of baptism of believers by immersion, as being instituted by Christ, in loving obedience and as an act of witness, but not as conveying any regenerating grace.

The observance of the Lord's Supper is a commemoration of our Lord's death but not as being a sacrifice for sin or involving any change in the substance of the bread and wine.

10. Perseverance of the Saints
The final perseverance of all those who are chosen by the Father, redeemed by the Son and sanctified by the Holy Spirit is true that not one of them shall ever perish but shall have everlasting life.

11. The Judgment Day
The final day will come when there will be the resurrection of the body, the judgment of the world by our Lord Jesus Christ with the eternal blessedness of the redeemed and the conscious eternal punishment of the unrepentant.