Our Faith
What does ACS believe?
The Atlanta Christian Students believe
Bible
That the Bible, written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit word by word, is the complete and only written divine revelation of God to man (2 Peter 1:21; 2 Tim. 3:16; Col. 1:25*).
God
That there is one God (1 Tim. 2:5; Deut 6:4; 1 Cor. 8:4b; Isa. 45:5a), who is triune—“the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit” (Matt. 28:19; 2 Cor. 13:14)—distinctly, yet inseparably, coexisting and coinhering (Matt. 3:16-17; John 14:10-11) from eternity to eternity.
Christ—person & work
That Christ, the Son of God, even God Himself, became a man by the name of Jesus (John 1:1, 14), possessing both the complete divinity and the perfect, sinless, humanity (Rom. 9:5; 1 Tim. 2:5).
That Christ died for our sins, was raised bodily on the third day (1 Cor. 15:3-4), was then exalted to the right hand of God as Lord of all (Acts 5:31), and will come again to receive His believers to Himself and to rule over the nations (Rev. 22:20; 19:7; 11:15).
Salvation
That whenever a person repents to God and believes into the Lord Jesus Christ (Acts 20:21), he or she is justified before God (Gal. 2:16) and is born of God (John 1:12-13), becoming a member of the universal church—the unique Body of Christ (Eph. 1:22-23; Rom. 12:5)—with all the believers in a city composing the local church in that city (1 Cor. 1:2; Rev. 1:11).
And that all the believers in Christ, as the New Jerusalem, will eternally partake of the divine blessing in the new heaven and new earth (Rev. 21:2; 22:4-5).
The common faith
These items—concerning the Bible, the Triune God, the person and work of Christ, and salvation—represent what we hold as “the common faith,” which is “the faith once for all delivered to the saints” (Titus 1:4, Jude 3). Even though our beliefs concerning other, secondary items are based on the Bible, in our earnest desire to keep the oneness of the Spirit (Eph. 4:3) while recognizing that throughout history genuine believers have held to many differing interpretations of secondary items, we receive all those whom the Lord has received (Rom. 14:3; 15:7) and happily welcome fellowship from all the believers in Christ based on this common faith.