Declaration

I, Allison Franklin Staples, truly deserve the wrath of God, and, under the laws of perfect justice I should spend eternity in the lake of fire. Thanks be to God that He has written, “Pardoned in Full by the blood of Jesus Christ” across my sentence. Amen.

My Personal Statement of Faith

I am a Christian, a small “d” disciple of Jesus Christ. I was once an alien and an outcast, a sinful, imperfect man, not in the likeness of God, but in the likeness of Adam and condemned to hell by the perfect Law of the Holy and Righteous God. Now I am a “sinner saved by grace,” washed in the blood of the precious Lamb of God, the Lord Jesus Christ, indwelt by the Holy Ghost, being transformed once again into the likeness of God by the “new birth”, and a presently-earthbound citizen of Heaven.

1. I believe the Bible to be the inspired , infallible, inerrant Word of God, and I further believe it to be preserved faithfully and inspirationally in one, and only one, exact translation into the English language, namely that translation of the Sacred Scriptures into the English language made at the behest of James I, by the grace of God King of Great Britain, France, and Ireland, Defender of the Faith, in the year of our Lord, AD. 1611, and known today as the Authorized or King James Version.

2. I believe that if I hold an opinion that differs from the clear teaching of the Bible it is I, and not the Book, who am wrong, and that my understanding of the passage is therefore flawed or incomplete.

3. I believe in the one true and Living God, Creator and Sustainer of the universe, both seen and unseen, existent in three distinct Persons: Father, Son and Holy Ghost.

4. I believe that the Jesus of the Bible is God manifested in human flesh; that He was conceived of the Holy Ghost; that He was born of a Virgin; that He lived a perfect sinless life as a man; that He was crucified, thus becoming a transgressor of the Law that He might bear in His body the sins of all mankind; that His death paid the full penalty for my sins and those of all who will place their trust in Him; that He was buried in a sealed tomb and that He rose bodily from the grave three days later; that He ascended bodily into Heaven where He now sits at the right hand of God the Father as our Intercessor and great High Priest; and that He is coming again as King of Kings and Lord of lords.

5. I believe that the Jesus called the Christ of the New Testament is the great “I AM” of the Old Testament, as evidenced by the facts (1) that Moses talked with Him “face to “, yet He Himself declares that no man (that includes Moses) has seen God (i.e. God the Father) at any time (John 1:18); (2) that John describes Him as the “Word” (Greek, Logos, the Spokesman) by whom all things were created (John 1:1-3); and (3) that by His own testimony He is the “I AM” (Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I AM ) (John 8:58 KJV) That is to say that whenever God (i.e. Yahweh or Jehovah) speaks directly in the Old Testament, the One whom we know as Jesus Christ is the Spokesman.

6. I believe that there is coming a period of trouble and distress on this earth which the Bible refers to as the time of great tribulation, at the end of which Jesus Christ will return to this earth in power and great glory to set up a literal kingdom which shall last for a thousand years, and I believe that the Church of Jesus Christ will be taken out of the world (raptured) before the Great Tribulation.

7. I believe that the Church of Jesus Christ, as described in the Holy Scriptures, is, and always has been, a unified Church under the Headship and Lordship of that same Jesus Christ and I am therefore categorically and unequivocally anti-ecumenical.  (To say that the True Church lacks unity is to claim that God did not answer the prayer of His Only Begotten Son, Jesus Christ, made in His great high-priestly prayer as recorded in the Gospel of John, Chapter 17, verses 11 and 22.)

8. Strange as it may seem, I am not necessarily against denominationalism. We do not always agree on non-essentials. I can worship with any group of true believers in Jesus Christ who agree on the essentials: salvation by grace, baptism by immersion, the observance of the Lord’s Supper, the Headship of Jesus Christ as regards the Church, and the Lordship of that same Jesus in the life of the individual Christian.

Now that narrows it down quite a bit, doesn’t it? But remember that Jesus said, “...straight is the gate and narrow is the way  which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.”  (Matthew 7:14, emphasis mine)

To quote an unknown author. “If God said it, I believe it, and that settles it.” Even that statement is somewhat flawed, because it really matters not whether I believe it. The true fact of the matter is, “If God said it, that settles it.”

To put it in my own words, if God is for it, I am for it; if God is against it, then so am I.

Allison F. Staples
1991