Doctrinal Statement
The Scriptures
We believe that the Scriptures are the inspired Word of God and the sole authority for faith and practice in all matters to which it speaks. Inspiration of the original autographs was plenary and verbal; therefore, the 66 books of the Bible are inerrant.
The God Head
We believe there is one God eternally existing in three persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, each possessing equally the same attributes, nature, perfections, and characteristics of personality.
Yeshua HaMashiach, Jesus The Christ
Section One – The Deity of Messiah
We believe in the full deity of the Lord Yeshua the Messiah, who always was and will be God and did not cease to be God at the incarnation.
Section Two – The First Advent
We believe that the man Yeshua was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the virgin Mary. He possessed both a divine and a human nature distinct and unmixed. He was sinless, yet died as a penal substitution for the sin of all men, was buried and rose on the third day in the same, but glorified body in which He lived and died. He ascended to the right hand of God the Father and by His death provided atonement for all men. This is applicable only to those who believe.
Section Three – The Present Session
We believe that the God-Man Yeshua the Messiah now sits at the right hand of God the Father, functioning as the High Priest for all believers, ever making intercession for them.
Section Four – The Second Advent
We believe in the personal, physical, and bodily return of Messiah for the Church and for Israel.
Ruach HaKodesh, The Holy Spirit
We believe in the personality and deity of the Holy Spirit who is the author and interpreter of the infallible Word. He convicts, regenerates, indwells, empowers, instructs, and guides the believer in living, serving, and worshipping through His gifts. In this age, He baptizes and permanently indwells and seals all believers into one body. His chief purpose is to witness and glorify Messiah. His fullness, power, and control are appropriated in the believer’s life by faith.
The Dispensations
We believe that God administers His purpose on earth through man’s appointed, chronologically successive, and varying responsibilities in specific dispensations. Dispensations test man’s submission to God based on progressive revelation, but are neither means to salvation nor different methods of the administration of the Covenant of Grace. Rather, they are a necessary view of Scripture-based on literal interpretation and a consistent distinction of Israel and the Church. The ultimate purpose of God is His own glorification. In every dispensation, the basis of salvation was always the blood of Messiah, and the means of salvation was always by grace through faith; the object of faith was always God. However, the content of faith changed in different dispensations dependent upon progressive revelation.
Angels: Fallen & Unfallen
Section One – Creation
We believe that God created an innumerable number of sinless beings known as angels, seraphs, and cherubs.
Section Two – Satan
We believe that one of these created beings was the “Day-Star, Son of the Morning.” He was the highest in rank, but sinned through pride, thus becoming Satan the adversary. He is an actual person with all the characteristics of personality and is the originator of sin operating today as the prince and god of this world. He is the arch-enemy of God and God’s people. As the deceiver of humanity, he led the first parents into transgression, causing their fall. He was judged at the cross, pending fulfilment in the lake of fire.
Section Three – Demons
We believe that a great company of angels followed Satan in his fall. Some became demons and are currently active as Satan’s agents in the carrying out of unholy purposes, while others who fell were “reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day” (Jude 1:6).
Section Four – Unfallen Angels
We believe that a great company of angels kept their holy estate and are ministering spirits of God for the carrying out of His purpose, especially to those who inherit salvation.
Man: Created & Fallen
We believe that man was created in the image of God, but that he fell through sin, died spiritually, and became totally depraved in his trespasses and sins. Adam’s fallen nature is transmitted to all of his descendants, with the exception of the man Yeshua the Messiah. Fallen man has no spark of divine life and is unchangeable apart from divine grace.
Salvation
Section One – The Means of Salvation
We believe that salvation is wholly a work of God’s free grace and not the work of man in whole or in part, nor due to man’s goodness or religious ceremony. Salvation is a gift to man received by personal faith at which time the righteousness of Messiah is imputed to the sinner, thereby justifying him in God’s sight. Those saved have been unconditionally elected to salvation in eternity past and have been effectively and irresistibly called by the Holy
Spirit.
Section Two – The Extent of Salvation
We believe that at the point of salvation, the sinner becomes totally accepted by God, fully united with Messiah and, hence, loved and accepted by the Father as Messiah is loved and accepted. The saved sinner is now the recipient of all the riches of divine grace and in possession of every spiritual blessing and, hence, is not to seek a “second blessing” or a “second work of grace.”
Section Three – Eternal Security
We believe that all true believers once saved are eternally secure because of the nature and work of Messiah and the nature of the divine gift of eternal life. All who are saved are privileged and assured of their salvation from the moment they accept Yeshua as their Savior, not based on their own merit, but by the testimony of the Scriptures and the witness of the Holy Spirit.
Section Four – Sanctification
We believe that sanctification is a setting apart unto God and that it is threefold:
1) Positional sanctification, in which the believer is viewed by God as completed “in Messiah” and united with Him
2) Progressive sanctification, whereby the believer retains his sin nature throughout this life, needing to grow in grace and continually becoming more and more conformed to the image of the son of God
3) Ultimate sanctification, in which the believer is fully sanctified by Messiah, occurring only when the believer sees the Lord and will be like Him.
Israel
We believe that God called a people to Himself who are the physical descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Israel is the wife of Jehovah, unfaithful in the past, divorced in the present, and to be reunited in the future. God made four unconditional covenants with this elect nation that remain unfulfilled. God intends to fulfil all His promises to Israel in a literal way, just as His warnings and judgments were fulfilled in a literal way. A believing remnant according to the election of grace has always existed in Israel’s history of unbelief, and national regeneration of Israel will occur at which time all of the provisions of the unconditional covenants will be fulfilled, including the seed, land, and blessing aspects of the Abrahamic Covenant.
The Church
Section One – The Organism
We believe that the Church is the body and bride of Messiah and that it is composed of all Jewish and Gentile believers from Pentecost to the rapture. The entrance into this body is by Spirit baptism. The Church is distinct from Israel. Although the Church shares with Israel in the spiritual blessings of the Jewish covenants, it neither fulfils them nor has taken possession of them from Israel.
Section Two – The Ordinances
We believe that an ordinance is a practice that is commanded by Messiah, practised in the book of Acts, and expounded in the epistles. We believe that only two ordinances exist: baptism by immersion and the Lord’s Supper, both of which are limited to believers only.
Section Three – The Believer’s Responsibility
We believe that all believers are obligated to assemble together to participate in the ordinances, to be taught the Scriptures by gifted men, to edify each other, and to worship God. Assembling is to be organized as a local church under authoritative leadership. The believer is called to holy living in the power of the indwelling Spirit, to fighting the spiritual warfare against the world, the flesh, and the devil and to using his spiritual gifts for the purpose of
building up of the local body of Messiah. Based upon the tenets of our beliefs, Ariel defines marriage as the permanent, exclusive, comprehensive, and conjugal “one flesh” union of one man and one woman, intrinsically ordered to procreation and biological family and in furtherance of the moral, spiritual, and public good of binding father, mother, and child (Genesis 1:27-28; Genesis 2:18-24; Matthew 19:4-9; Mark 10:5-9; Ephesians 5:31-33).
Ariel Ministries believes that sexual acts outside marriage are prohibited as sinful. Consequently, Ariel students, faculty, administration, and staff must resist and refrain from any and all sexual acts outside marriage, including same-sex sexual acts (Exodus 20:14; Leviticus 18:7-23; Leviticus 20:10-21; Deuteronomy 5:18; Matthew 15:19; Matthew 5:27-28; Matthew 15:19;Romans 1:26-27; 1 Corinthians 6:9-13; 1 Thessalonians 4:3; Hebrews 13:4; Galatians 5:19; Ephesians 4:17-19; Colossians 3:5).
Ariel Ministries believes that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God; therefore, redemption, forgiveness, and spiritual cleansing is available for all sins, including those mentioned above. Ariel personnel must welcome and treat with respect, compassion, and sensitivity all who experience same-sex attractions or confess sexually immoral acts but are committed to resisting sexual temptation, refraining from sexual immorality, and conforming their behaviour to the Ariel Policy on Marriage and Human Sexuality. However, the ministry retains the right to refrain
from hiring individuals who live a lifestyle contrary to our policy or to discipline and/or dismiss from employment Ariel personnel who violate our Statement of Faith. Likewise, Ariel staff will officiate at marriage ceremonies only that are in accord with this Statement of Faith.
Section Four – The Great Commission
We believe that it is the responsibility of both the local church and the individual believer to evangelize and disciple all nations both actively (doing the work of evangelism) and passively (supporting those doing the work of evangelism). The specific procedure for discipling the nations in all active and passive evangelism is “to the Jew first” (Romans 1:16).
The Rapture
We believe that Messiah will return into the air for the purpose of gathering to Himself both dead and alive believers. This event is imminent and pre-tribulation and is the blessed hope of the Church.
The Tribulation
We believe that sometime after the rapture, the tribulation of Daniel’s Seventieth Week will occur for a period of seven years. It is a time of judgment of all humanity, bringing to an end the times of the Gentiles and resulting in the national regeneration of Israel.