What We Believe

I
Christ as Savior and Lord

We believe, teach and confess that Jesus Christ is our Savior and Lord, and that through faith in Him we receive forgiveness of sins, eternal life and salvation. We confess that “our works can­not reconcile God or merit forgiveness of sins and grace, but that we obtain forgiveness and grace only by faith when we believe that we are received into favor for Christ’s sake, who alone has been ordained to be the mediator and propitiation through whom the Father is reconciled”.

We believe that Jesus Christ is the only way to heaven and that all who die without faith in Him are eternally damned. We believe that those who believe in Christ will enjoy a blissful relationship with Him during the interim between their death and His second coming, and that on the last day their bod­ies will be raised.

II
Law and Gospel

We believe that the two chief doctrines of Holy Scripture, Law and Gospel, must be constantly and diligently proclaimed in the church of God until the end of the world, but with due dis­tinction.

The Law, as the expression of God’s immutable will, is to be used by the church to bring men to a knowledge of their sins as well as to provide Christians with instruction about good works.

The Gospel receives the primary emphasis in the ministry of the New Testament, for it is the mes­sage that God forgives them all their sins through Christ, accepts them for His sake as God’s children, and out of pure grace, without any merit of their own, justifies and saves them.

III
The Mission of the Church

We believe, teach and confess that the primary mission of the church is to make disciples of every nation by bearing witness to Jesus Christ through the preaching of the Gospel and the admin­istration of the Sacraments.
Other necessary activities of the church, such as ministering to men’s physical needs, are to serve the church’s primary mission and its goal that men will believe and confess Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior.

IV
Holy Scripture

The Inspiration of Scripture
We believe, teach and confess that all Scripture is given by the inspiration of God the Holy Spirit and that God is therefore the true Author of every word of Scripture. We acknowledge that there is a qualitative difference between the inspired witness of Holy Scripture in all its parts and words and the witness of every other form of human expression, making the Bible a unique book.

The Purpose of Scripture
We believe that all Scripture bears witness to Jesus Christ and that its primary purpose is to make men wise unto salvation through faith in Jesus Christ. We therefore affirm that the Scriptures are right­ly used only when they are read from the perspective of justification by faith and the proper distinction between Law and Gospel.

Since the saving work of Jesus Christ was accomplished through His personal entrance into our history and His genuinely historical life, death and resurrection, we acknowledge that the recognition of the soteriological purpose of Scripture in no sense permits us to call into question or deny the historicity or factuality of matters recorded in the Bible.

The Gospel and Holy Scripture (Material and Formal Principles)
We believe, teach and confess that the Gospel of the gracious justification of the sinner through faith in Jesus Christ is not only the chief doctrine of Holy Scripture and a basic presupposition for the inter­pretation of Scripture, but is the heart and center of our Christian faith and theology  We also believe, teach, and confess that only the Word of God shall establish articles of faith, and that he prophetic and apostolic writings of the Old and New Testaments are the only rule and norm according to which all doctrines and teachers alike must be appraised and judged. The Gospel, which is the center of our theology, is the Gospel to which the Scriptures bear witness, while the Scriptures from which we derive our theology direct us steadfastly to the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

The Authority of Scripture
We believe, teach and confess that because the Scriptures have God as their author, they possess both the divine power to make men wise unto salvation through faith in Jesus Christ, as well as the divine authority to serve as the church’s sole standard of doctrine and life. We recognize that the authority of Scripture can be accepted only through faith and not merely by rational demonstration. As men of faith, we affirm not only that Holy Scripture is powerful and efficacious, but also that it is the only judge, rule, and norm according to which, as the only touchstone, all doctrines should and must be understood, and judged as good or evil, right or wrong.

The Canonical Text of Scripture
We believe, teach and confess that the authoritative Word for the church today is the canonical Word, not precanonical sources, forms or traditions, however useful the investigation of these possibilities may on occasion be for a clearer understanding of what the canonical text intends to say.

The Infallibility of Scripture
With Luther, we confess that “God’s Word cannot err”. We therefore believe, teach and confess that since the Holy Scriptures are the Word of God, they contain no errors or contradictions but that they are in all their parts and words the infallible truth.

The Unity of Scripture
We believe, teach and confess that since the same God speaks throughout Holy Scripture, there is an organic unity both within and between the Old and New Testaments. While acknowledging the rich variety of language and style in Scripture and recognizing differences of emphasis in various accounts of the same event or topic, we nevertheless affirm that the same doctrine of the Gospel, in all its articles, is presented throughout the entire Scripture.

Old Testament Prophecy
Since the New Testament is the culminating written revelation of God, we affirm that it is decisive in determining the relation between the two Testaments and the meaning of Old Testament prophe­cies in particular, for the meaning of a prophecy becomes known in full only from its fulfillment. With the Lutheran Confessions, we recognize the presence of Messianic prophecies about Jesus Christ throughout the Old Testament. Accordingly, we acknowledge that the Old Testament “promises that the Messiah will come and promises forgiveness of sins, justification, and eternal life for His sake”  and that the patriarchs and their descendants comforted themselves with such Messianic promises

.Historical Methods of Biblical Interpretation
Since God is the Lord of history and has revealed Himself by acts in history and has in the person of His Son actually entered into man’s history, we acknowledge that the historical framework in which the Gospel message is set in Scripture is an essential part of the Word.

Furthermore, we recognize that the inspired Scriptures are historical documents written in various times, places and circumstances. We therefore believe that the Scriptures invite historical investigation and are to be taken seriously as historical documents. We affirm, however, that the Christian interpreter of Scripture cannot adopt uncritically the presuppositions and canons of the secular historian, but that he will be guided in his use of historical techniques by the presuppositions of his faith in the Lord of history, who reveals Himself in Holy Scripture as the one who creates, sustains, and even enters our history in order to lead it to His end.
 

V
Original Sin

We believe, teach and confess that God, by the almighty power of His Word, created all things. We also believe that man, as the principal creature of God, was specially created in the image of God, that is, in a state of righteousness, innocence and blessedness.

We affirm that Adam and Eve were real historical human beings, the first two people in the world, and that their fall was a historical occurrence which brought sin into the world so that “since the fall of Adam all men who are propagated according to nature are born in sin” (AC, II, 1). We confess that man’s fall necessitated the gracious redemptive work of Jesus Christ and that fallen man’s only hope for salvation from his sin lies in Jesus Christ, his Redeemer and Lord.