Beliefs

Doctrinal Beliefs of Calvary Chapel Grand Rapids:

  1. The Scriptures
    We believe that the sixty-six Books of the Bible (Old and New Testaments) to be the verbal, plenary, confluent, inerrant Word of God; they are the final authority in faith and life.
  2. God
    We believe the Godhead exists eternally in three distinct, coequal Persons: that of the Father, that of the Son, and that of the Holy Spirit. These three Persons are One eternal, uncreated God, having precisely the same nature, attributes, and perfections, without division of substance yet without confusion of subsistence.
  3. Jesus Christ
    We believe in:
    1. His eternal existence as God, eternally One with the Father and the Spirit
    2. His incarnation by means of the Virgin Birth
    3. His two Natures – Human and Divine
      1. United in His one Person, yet unmingled within that one Person
    4. His sinless life and substitutionary death on the Roman cross as a vicarious Atonement for sin
    5. His literal, bodily resurrection from the dead
    6. His ascension to the right hand of he Father, and present intercessory ministry in heaven
    7. His future, imminent, personal return to this earth.
  4. The Holy Spirit
    We believe the Holy Spirit, the Third Person of the Godhead, convicts men of sin, regenerates, baptizes, indwells, seals, and sets apart and empowers believers unto a holy life; that He keeps and empowers believers day by day; that He is he Teacher of the Word of God and the Guide of our daily lives.
  5. Man
    We believe:
    1. Man was created in a state of innocence, a tripartite being with a living spirit, rational soul, and physical body.
    2. Adam fell from that initial state through the sin of disobedience; God had warned Adam that in the day that he partook of the fruit that he would die, and when he rebelled, he died spiritually, which set in motion and later ultimately resulted in his bodily death.
    3. Like begets like; therefore all humans, having their descent through Adam, are born corrupted by original sin in body, mind; and therefore to experience restored fellowship with God, must be spiritually reborn.
  6. Salvation
    We believe:
    1. It is by grace, a free gift of God’s love, through faith in the finished work of Jesus on the Cross, and not by works.
    2. This offer of salvation is open to all who would receive through faith without limitation.
    3. All who receive Jesus by faith are regenerated and sealed for the day of redemption by the Holy Spirit and become the children of God.
    4. True salvation will be manifested by a changed life.
  7. The Future
    We believe:
    1. In the pre-millennial, pre-tribulational Rapture of the Church.
    2. In the personal, visible, bodily return of Jesus to this earth, and in His thousand-year reign from the restored Temple, in Jerusalem, Israel.
    3. In the bodily resurrection of the just to eternal abode in the glory of His presence.
    4. In the bodily resurrection of the unjust to judgment and everlasting punishment in the Lake of Fire.