April 8 1996

ARTICLE TOOLS

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"Objective," "balanced," and "fair" sum up what we often hear from readers commenting on what they like about our magazine. While we enjoy hearing these adjectives used to describe our work, they are not the most important criteria for judging our success. The questions that haunt our hallways are not about fairness, or even readers' responses. Every editor here knows our bottom line: Are we honoring God? Are we being true to what he revealed and to what the Holy Spirit is doing today? One way we have to measure our work is our statement of faith. Not all who write for us hold to every tenet, but what they write will not contradict it. So to reveal our bias:

We believe that:

1. The 66 canonical books of the Bible as originally written were inspired of God, hence free from error. They constitute the only infallible guide in faith and practice.
   
   
2. There is one God, the Creator and Preserver of all things, infinite in being and perfection. God exists eternally in three Persons: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, who are of one substance and equal in power and glory.
   
   
3. God created Adam and Eve in his own image. By disobedience, they fell from their sinless state through the temptation by Satan. This fall plunged humanity into a state of sin and spiritual death, and brought upon the entire race the sentence of eternal death. From this condition we can be saved only by the grace of God, through faith, on the basis of the work of Christ and by the agency of the Holy Spirit.
   
   
4. The eternally pre-existent Son became incarnate without human father, by being born of the Virgin Mary. Thus, in the Lord Jesus Christ, divine and human natures were united in one person, both natures being whole, perfect, and distinct. To effect salvation, he lived a sinless life and died on the cross as the sinner's substitute, shedding his blood for the remission of sins. On the third day he rose from the dead in the body which had been laid in the tomb. He ascended to the right hand of the Father, where he performs the ministry of intercession. He shall come again, personally and visibly, to complete his saving work and to consummate the eternal plan of God.