What We Believe
The Bible
The Bible is God’s Word, inspired by Him, from first to last (2 Timothy 3:16-17). While Scripture does not address all of the questions we may have in this life, everything it does say is factual, trustworthy, and completely accurate (Matthew 24:35). While God used men as agents to write the Scriptures, He remains its proper primary author (2 Peter 1:21). Since God is perfect and makes no mistakes, so too, His Word is inerrant (without mistakes), infallible (incapable toerring), and verbally inspired (the very words of Scripture are the words of God Himself) by Him. As such, Scripture is the sole source for all that we believe, teach, and confess to be true (1 Corinthians 4:6).
God
There is only one true God (Isaiah 43:10) who exists as three distinct persons throughout Scripture: the Father (1 Corinthians 8:6), the Son (John 20:28), and the Holy Spirit (Acts 5:3-4). Each person is God inasmuch as each shares the same divine nature and attributes. This God is the creator (Genesis 1:1) and sustainer of all things (Colossians 1:17) and is worthy of our thanks and praise for all He has done (Revelation 4:11).
Jesus Christ
God became a sinless human being in the person of Jesus of Nazareth (John 1:1; 14) in order to perfectly fulfill His divine law on behalf of all humanity (Galatians 4:4-5), die as the perfect substitute for all sinners in order to take away sin (John 1:29), and rise again from the dead in order to defeat the forces of sin, death, and the devil for all humankind (Romans 1:4). Jesus (called the Christ, that is, the Messiah) is the Savior and Redeemer of the world (Acts 13:23).
Sin
While God created humanity in righteousness and innocence (Genesis 1:27), our first parents, Adam and Eve, soon rebelled against God (Genesis 3), plunging the entire human race into sin and imperfection (Psalm 51:5). Our sin acts as a barrier between us and God (Romans 3:23), cutting us off from fellowship with the Holy One (Revelation 22:15), and causing us to deserve His divine wrath in the form of physical and spiritual death (Ezekiel 18:4).
Salvation
If left to ourselves, all of humankind would be lost. Yet God, who is rich in mercy, sent His only Son, Jesus, to live the perfect life that we could never live thereby fulfilling the law for all people (Romans 10:4), to take upon Himself the punishment of death in order to pay the price that we could never pay (Matthew 20:28), and to rise again in order to defeat the spiritual enemies of mankind (Colossians 2:15). The benefits of Jesus’ work on behalf of sinners (eternal life, salvation, and the forgiveness of sins) are received only by faith (Romans 3:28; Galatians 2:16).
The Means of Grace
Because sinners are unable to exercise faith on their own (John 6:44; 65), God has instituted certain means by which He creates (and sustains) faith and forgives sins; namely, through the proclamation of His Word (Romans 10:17; John 15:3) and the administration of His sacraments: Baptism (Acts 2:38) and the Lord’s Supper (Matthew 26:26-28). These means (Word and sacrament) are not additions to the gospel, they are the very means by which Christ gives to us, personally and individually, what He has won for all mankind in His life, death, and resurrection.
The Church/Worship
The Church is that gathering of believers in which the gospel is rightly taught and the sacraments are rightly administrated according to Jesus’ mandate (Matthew 28:18-20). As the church, we gather together to receive Christ’s gifts of life, salvation, and forgiveness through Word and sacrament (Acts 2:42), responding in prayer (Acts 1:14), praise (Romans 15:11), and thanksgiving (Philippians 4:6).
Good Works
While good works cannot save or redeem a sinner (Romans 3:20) we nevertheless rejoice in performing them because God has commanded them (Exodus 20:1-17) and because our neighbors stand in need of them (Matthew 22:39). Our primary motivation in performing good works is not to get anything from God (Romans 11:6), but instead, to demonstrate our gratitude for all that we have been freely given in Christ (Ephesians 2:8-10).
The End Times
There is a time coming when the Lord Jesus will return, bodily and visibly (Revelation 1:7), in order to resurrect the dead (Revelation 20:11-13), execute judgment on all mankind (Matthew 25:31-46), and usher in His Kingdom where believers will dwell with Him eternally (Revelation 21:1-4) while unbelievers will spend eternity separated from His grace, love, and mercy in hell (Revelation 20:14-15).
The Lutheran Confessions
As Lutherans, we believe in the historic Reformation principle of sola Scriptura; that is, that the Bible alone dictates what we must believe. From Scripture we draw everything which we teach, believe, and confess. All of our beliefs regarding the teachings of Scripture can be found in a collection of documents called the Lutheran Confessions, known collectively as the Book of Concord. These documents are not intended to add to or take away from God’s inspired Word, instead, they simply summarize the teachings of Scripture and clarify what we believe on the basis of Scripture itself.