Calvary
Chapel Bible College Statement of
Faith
I. Scripture
We believe the Bible (i.e., the sixty-six
books of the Old and New Testaments) is the
Word of God, comprises the totality of Holy
Scripture, is verbally inspired and
inerrant in the original text, remains
inerrant and infallible in all its
substance, and is sufficient for salvation
and sanctification. Therefore, it is the
supreme, final, and authoritative standard
for faith, theology, and life. We seek to
teach the Word of God in such a way that
its message can be applied to an
individual’s life, leading that person to
greater maturity in Christ. (CCBC affirms
the Chicago Statement on Biblical
Inerrancy)
II. Historicity
We believe in the full historicity and
perspicuity of the biblical record of
primeval history, including the literal
existence of Adam and Eve as the
progenitors of all people, the literal fall
in the Garden of Eden and resultant divine
curse on creation, the worldwide
cataclysmic deluge, and the origin of the
nations and languages at the tower of
Babel.
III. God
We believe that the triune God eternally
exists in one essence and three distinct
persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit; that
He is essentially Spirit, personal,
transcendent, sovereign, life, love, truth,
almighty, simple (i.e., essentially one
without parts), timelessly eternal,
unchangeable, wise, just, holy, relational,
pure actuality, dynamic, infallible in all
things, including His foreknowledge of all
future decisions and events, and that He
created the heavens and the earth in six
literal days.
IV. Jesus Christ
We believe that Jesus Christ is fully God
and fully human, possessing two distinct
natures which are co-joined in one person;
that He was miraculously conceived by the
Holy Spirit, born of the virgin Mary, lived
a sinless and miraculous life, provided for
the atonement of our sins by His vicarious
substitutionary death on the Cross, was
physically resurrected in the same body
that was buried in the tomb by the power of
the Holy Spirit; that Jesus Christ
physically ascended back to the right hand
of God the Father in heaven, and ever lives
to make intercession for us. After Jesus
ascended to Heaven, the Holy Spirit was
poured out on the believers in Jerusalem,
enabling them to fulfill His command to
preach the gospel to the entire world, an
obligation shared by all believers today.
(CCBC affirms the Apostle’s, Nicene, and
Athanasian Creeds).
V. Holy Spirit
We believe the Holy Spirit is the third
person of the Godhead who seals, indwells,
sanctifies, baptizes, teaches, empowers,
reveals, and guides the believer into all
truth. The Holy Spirit gives gifts to whom
He wills, which are valid for today, and
ought to be exercised within scriptural
guidelines. We as believers are to
earnestly desire the best gifts, seeking to
exercise them in love that the whole Body
of Christ might be edified. We believe that
love is more important than the most
spectacular gifts, and without this love
all exercise of spiritual gifts is
worthless.
VI. Mankind
We believe that man is created in the image
of God; however, after the fall of Adam and
Eve, all people are by nature separated
from God and responsible for their own sin,
but that salvation, redemption, and
forgiveness are offered as a free gift by
the Lord Jesus Christ to all based on His
grace alone. When a person repents of sin
and receives Jesus Christ as personal
Savior and Lord, trusting Him to save, that
person is immediately born again and sealed
by the Holy Spirit, all his/her sins are
forgiven, and that person becomes a child
of God, destined to spend eternity with the
Lord.
VII. Salvation
Salvation is initiated, attained, and
procured by God through the death of Christ
on the cross for our sins and His
resurrection from the dead. The salvation
Christ offers is available to all, and is
received freely by grace alone and through
faith in Christ alone, apart from good
works, thereby justifying and indwelling
the believer.
VIII. The Church
The universal Church is an organic body
composed of all believers, both living and
dead, who have been sealed by the Holy
Spirit through faith in Jesus Christ for
salvation. The church has the
responsibility to worship the Lord and
share the good news of Christ’s death and
resurrection to the world, making
disciples, baptizing believers, and
teaching them to observe sound doctrine and
live a morally pure life. We believe church
government should be simple rather than a
complex bureaucracy, with the utmost
dependence upon the Holy Spirit to lead,
rather than on fleshly promotion or worldly
wisdom. The Lord has given the church two
ordinances which are to continue until He
returns — adult baptism by immersion and
Holy Communion. Water baptism is not
necessary for salvation, and cannot remove
sins, but is a picture of the salvation
already received by the believer. We
believe the only true basis of Christian
fellowship is Christ’s sacrificial agape
love, which is greater than any secondary
differences we possess, and without which
we have no right to claim ourselves
Christians.
IX. Worship
We believe worship of God should be
spiritual. Therefore, we remain flexible
and yielded to the leading of the Holy
Spirit to direct our worship. We believe
worship of God should be inspirational.
Therefore, we give great place to music in
our worship. We believe worship of God
should be intelligent. Therefore, our
gatherings are designed with great emphasis
upon the teaching of the Word of God that
He might instruct us how He should be
worshiped. We believe the worship of God
should be fruitful. Therefore, we look for
His love in our lives as the supreme
manifestation that we have been truly
worshiping God in spirit and truth.
X. Christ’s Return
We await the pretribulational rapture of
the church and the second coming of Christ
which will be physical, personal, visible,
and premillennial. This motivates us to
evangelism, holy living, heart-felt
worship, committed service, diligent study
of God’s Word, and regular fellowship.
XI. Eternity
We believe those who are saved by Jesus
Christ will spend eternity with Christ in
heaven in a conscious state of blessedness,
reward, and satisfaction; that those who do
not personally receive the finished work of
Christ by faith will spend eternity
separated from God in a state of conscious
torment.
XII. Satan
We believe there is a real personal devil
of great malevolence, cunning, and power,
who seeks to deceive, tempt, kill, steal
and destroy, yet his power is limited by
God to only what God permits him to do;
that the devil has been defeated
positionally at the cross of Christ, and
will be defeated practically at Christ’s
glorious second coming which will eventuate
in the permanent quarantine and punishment
of the Devil, Beast, and False Prophet, in
the lake which burns with fire and
brimstone.
XIII. We Reject:
(1) The belief that true Christians can be
demon possessed and are helpless against
the craft and wiles of the Devil; (2) any
philosophy or theology which denies that
human freewill can be exercised in the
receiving of Christ’s free gift of
salvation; specifically, we reject the
belief that Jesus’ atonement was limited in
its extent, instead, we believe that He
died for all unrighteous people and that
any perceived limitation rests in one’s
free rejection of Christ’s finished work of
atonement, and we reject the assertion that
God’s wooing grace cannot be resisted or
that He has elected some people to go to
hell; instead we believe that anyone who
wills to come to Christ may do so freely as
a result of the Holy Spirit’s conviction
and wooing persuasion of the heart; (3)
“positive confession,” (e.g., the Faith
Movement, that views faith as a force that
can create one’s own reality or that God
can be commanded to heal or work miracles
according to man’s will and faith); (4)
human prophecy that supersedes or is
contrary to Scripture; (5) any introduction
of psychology and philosophy which is
contrary to Scripture and is in substance
“according to the tradition of men,
according to the basic principles of the
world, and not according to Christ” into
biblical teaching; (6) “Open Theism” or
“Freewill Theism” which reduces God’s
timeless, unchanging, dynamic nature, and
exhaustive foreknowledge of future free
decisions, to creaturely modes of being and
operation; (7) the “Emergent Church”
movement insofar as it departs from the
historic orthodox Christian doctrines in
favor of postmodernism, and (8) the
overemphasis of spiritual gifts,
experiential signs and wonders to the
exclusion of biblical teaching.