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Just as rain and snow descend from the skies and don't go back until they've watered the earth, Doing their work of making things grow and blossom, producing seed for farmers and food for the hungry, So will the words that come out of my mouth not come back empty-handed. They'll do the work I sent them to do, they'll complete the assignment I gave them.
- Isaiah 55:10-11-- The Message Bible
We Believe
As Christians, our Lutheran faith is centered in the person and work of Jesus Christ. We believe that God is three in one, or triune. We believe that the Son of God became a human being to suffer and die for the sins of the world so that all who believe in Him will not perish but through His substitution for us on the cross and His resurrection, we are given forgiveness and eternal life. We believe that He did this for all peoples who believe the Gospel to be true with all of its blessings and guidance, from then, now and through all eternity.
We confess Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior and the Gospel as the power of God for the salvation of all who believe that Jesus Christ is the Word of God incarnate, through whom everything was made and through whose life, death, and resurrection God fashions a new creation. We firmly believe the proclamation of God’s message to us as both Law and Gospel is the Word of God, revealing judgment and mercy through word and deed, beginning with the Word in creation, continuing in the history of Israel, and centering in all its fullness in the person and work of Jesus Christ. We believe that our redemption was made possible by this work of Jesus, giving rise to our Lutheran phrase, "Christ Alone!" |
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We believe that we are saved by God's mercy and forgiveness and not by works of morality to make amends for our
past or even by a personal action of deciding to follow Jesus. The work is entirely God's. This gives rise to our Lutheran phrase of "Grace Alone!"
We believe that trust in Jesus is necessary for salvation. However, we understand that such trust is the work
of God the Holy Spirit working through the Scriptures and the Sacraments to create such faith. We understand that simple trust in the promises of God in Jesus Christ are sufficient to secure
one's redemption. This gives rise to
our Lutheran phrase. "Faith Alone!"
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We take our beliefs from the Holy Scriptures and accept the canonical Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments as the written Word of God. Inspired by God’s Spirit speaking through the authors, they recorded and announced God’s revelation centering in Jesus Christ. Through them God’s Spirit speaks to us to create and sustain Christian faith and fellowship for service in the world. This gives rise to our Lutheran phrase of "Scripture Alone!"
In summary, we confess the Gospel, recorded in the Holy Scripture and proclaimed in the catholic confessions of faith in the words of the Apostles’, Nicene, and Athanasian Creeds and consider them to be true declarations of the faith along with the Lutheran confessional writings, as the power of God to create and sustain the Church for God’s mission in the world.
Although we as Lutherans take our various practices from Scripture, we do recognize that God's Word does not address every matter of practice. Our position is that if God's Word has spoken to a matter we follow God's Word on that matter. But where God's Word is silent, there can be liberty for practice as long as it is done responsibly for the sake of proclaiming the Gospel in the world.
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