What We Believe

At Calvary Chapel Toppenish, we believe in and teach all the fundamental doctrines of the evangelical Protestant church, For example, we believe in the inerrancy of Scripture, that the Bible, Old and New Testaments, is the inspired, infallible Word of God.

We believe that God is eternally existent in three separate persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

We believe that God the Father is the personal, transcendent, and sovereign Creator of ALL things.

We believe that Jesus Christ is fully God and fully human, that He was born of a virgin, lived a sinless life, provided for the atonement of our sins by His vicarious death on the Cross, was bodily resurrected by the power of the Holy Spirit, ascended back to the right hand of God the Father, and ever lives to make intercession for us. After He ascended to Heaven, Jesus poured out His Holy Spirit 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.

We believe that ALL people are by nature separated from God and responsible for their own sin, but that salvation, redemption, and forgiveness of sin are freely offered to all by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. When a person repents (turns away) from sin and accepts Jesus Christ as personal Savior and Lord, trusting Him to save, that person is immediately born again (lives a new life) 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.

We believe in the proper Scriptural exercise of all the gifts of the Holy Spirit in the Bible, the greatest gift of ALL being God's Love.

We believe in the gifts of the Holy Spirit mentioned in the Scriptures, and that they are valid for today if they are exercised within Scriptural guidelines. We as believers are to covet the best gifts, seeking to exercise them in Love  so 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.

We await the pre-tribulation rapture of the Church. Calvary Chapel Toppenish is strongly committed to a belief that the Church will be raptured before the seven year tribulation period described in Revelation chapters 6 through 18. We recognize that other believers hold a different view, but this is the way we see Scripture's teaching on this subject.

We believe that the second coming of Jesus Christ with His saints to rule on the earth will be personal, pre-millenial, and visible. This motivates us to heartfelt worship, committed service, diligent study of God's Word, regular fellowship with other Christians, and participation in both adult baptism by immersion and in Holy communion.

We believe that Church government should be simplistic rather than a complex bureaucracy, and we depend on the Holy Spirit to lead, rather than on fleshly promotion.

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 the Lord Jesus Christ.

We reject: (1) The belief that true Christians can be demon possessed; (2) "5-point Calvinism" (i.e., a fatalistic Calvinistic view that leaves no room for free will; specifically, we reject the belief that Jesus' atonement was limited, instead we believe that He died for all people, 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); (3) "positive confession" (the faith movement belief that God can be commanded to heal or work miracles according to man's will), (4) human prophecy that supersedes the Scripture, (5) the incorporation of humanistic and secular psychology and philosophy into Biblical teaching, and (6) the over-emphasis of spiritual gifts, experiential signs and wonders to the exclusion of Biblical teaching.