Concerning the Teaching of the Local Church and Living Stream Ministry

As Christians, our faith is centered on Christ as the incarnate God, and our first confession concerning Jesus Christ is that He is the true God. Of course, in declaring this item of our faith, we imply that God is triune and are again pointed to the Triune God as the capital truth of Christian faith. Christ is complete God and perfect man, possessing both the divine and the human natures. We believe that the two natures in Christ are preserved distinct and that each nature maintains its distinct qualities without confusion or change and yet without separation. As God, He is God's only begotten Son and the Word of God (John 1:1, 14, 18); He is distinctly the image of the invisible God (Col. 1:15) and the effulgence of His glory and impress of His substance (Heb. 1:3), existing in the form of God and being equal with God (Phil. 2:6; John 5:18). In Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead (Col. 2:9; 1:19). Through incarnation Christ became a genuine human being. So genuine is Christ's humanity that the Bible boldly declares that He "became flesh" (John 1:14). We believe that He is like us in all respects, yet He is without sin (Heb. 4:15). In His perfect wisdom God sent the Son in the likeness of the flesh of sin to condemn sin in the flesh (Rom. 8:3), and in dying on the cross for our sins, Christ has become our Redeemer, who has brought us back to God. Jubilantly we declare that Christ was raised from the dead, both spiritually and bodily, on the third day, and as the resurrected Christ He is our Savior, who saves us not only from our sins judicially but more importantly in His life organically (Rom. 5:10 "much more we will be saved in His life"). We believe that after His resurrection He ascended bodily to the Father, who exalted Him to His right hand as Lord of all (Acts 5:31: 10:36). Today He is in glory as the ascended Lord, still human and always God.