We believe that God is completely good. God consists of love in His very being and lives in loving community Himself (the Trinity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit). In an act of generosity He created a beautiful world, full of different types of life. And He created humanity to live in relationship with Him and to care for this world, in a way that reflects His own character and values.
However, we were unable to live this out and chose to put ourselves and our own desires first. As a result this world has fallen into disrepair: our relationship to God, to each other as human beings, and to the natural world have all been affected. We know that the world is not as it should be.
God did not give up on the world after this but chose to rescue it. Amazingly God still wanted to work through people, valuing the dignity and status with which we were created. He blessed and led one family and then one nation so they would be a light to the world. However, continual failures to follow God and pursue justice showed that we just can’t do it by ourselves.
Enter Jesus. God himself came into our world, becoming a human being called Jesus, born and raised in ancient Israel. This Jesus, both fully human and divine, was the one person who was able to live this life with and for God. Furthermore, He began to change this world as He went, restoring it as His good Kingdom, through teaching, healings and miracles. But full victory required defeating the forces of selfishness and sin; only this would free humanity and eradicate evil from a new world.
God would have to judge sin, for the injustice it caused, in the territory it had made its own: our distorted humanity. So God’s justice would not fall on his beloved people, Jesus offered himself as their representative, on a wooden cross. He rose again on the third day, demonstrating His victory and winning forgiveness for His followers from their collusion with these powers.
This world changing project is clearly not yet complete. Jesus continues this work now through His church, a community of all those who follow Him. He teaches us by the Scriptures and enables us by His Spirit to live a new life like His. And we believe that one day Jesus will return and bring a new world with Him. It will be good and perfect again, and even surpass the original creation. Evil and injustice will be fully removed, so that true justice, freedom and beauty can reign unimpeded.