What We Believe
Lutheranism is a major branch of Protestant Christianity that identifies with the teachings of the sixteenth-century German reformer Martin Luther. Specifically, Lutheranism advocates a doctrine of justification "by grace alone through faith alone because of Christ alone." Unlike the Reformed Churches, Lutherans have retained many of the sacramental understandings and liturgical practices of the pre-Reformation Church. Lutheran theology differs considerably from Reformed theology in its understanding of divine grace and predestination to eternity after death. Today, nearly 70 million Christians belong to Lutheran churches worldwide; furthermore, the world's 400 million Protestant Christians can trace their tradition, at least in part, back to Luther's reforming work.
Lutherans believe that the Bible, as a divinely inspired book, is the source of all revealed divine knowledge. Scripture alone (Sola scriptura) is the formal principle of the faith, the final authority for all matters of faith and doctrine. Lutherans have understood the Bible as containing two distinct types of content, termed Law and Gospel (or Law and Promises). The Law, consisting of biblical commands, first governs all people and orders society and second shows Christians their guilt and need for salvation. The Gospel, consisting of God's promises of salvation, assures Christians of forgiveness. In the Lutheran view, properly distinguishing Law from Gospel allows a Christian to clearly understand the biblical message of justification by faith alone.
The key doctrine, or material principle, of Lutheranism is the doctrine of justification. Lutherans believe that humans are saved from their sins by God's grace alone, through faith alone. Lutherans believe that this grace is granted for the sake of Christ's merit alone. For Lutherans, original sin is the "chief sin, a root and fountainhead of all actual sins."
Lutherans teach that sinners are not capable of doing any good works that can satisfy God's justice. Because of this, all humanity deserves eternal damnation in hell. God has intervened in this world because he loves all people and does not want anyone to be eternally damned. By God's grace, made known and effective in the person and work of Jesus Christ, a person is forgiven, adopted as a child and heir of God, and given eternal salvation. For this reason, Lutherans teach that salvation is possible only because of the grace of God made manifest in the birth, life, suffering, death, and resurrection, and continuing presence by the power of the Holy Spirit, of Jesus Christ.
Lutherans believe that individuals receive the gift of salvation through faith alone — a full and complete trust in God's promises to forgive and to save. Even faith itself is seen as a gift of God, created in the hearts of Christians by the work of the Holy Spirit through his means of grace, which are the Word.
Traditionally, Lutherans have accepted monergism, which states that salvation is by God's act alone, and reject the doctrine that humans in their fallen state have a free will concerning spiritual matters. Lutherans believe that although humans have free will concerning civil righteousness, they cannot work spiritual righteousness without the Holy Spirit, since righteousness in the heart cannot be wrought in the absence of the Holy Spirit. Lutherans believe that the elect are predestined to salvation. Lutherans believe Christians should be assured that they are among the predestined. However, they disagree with those that make predestination the source of salvation rather than Christ's suffering, death, and resurrection.
Lutherans hold that within Holy Communion, also referred to as the Sacrament of the Altar or the Lord's Supper, the consecrated elements of bread and wine are the true body and blood of Christ "in, with, and under the form" of bread and wine for all those who eat and drink it.
Lutherans believe that all who trust in Jesus alone can be certain of their salvation, for it is in Christ's work and his promises in which their certainty lies. The central final hope of the Christian is "the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting" as confessed in the Apostles' Creed, but Lutherans also teach that, at death, Christians are immediately taken into the presence of Jesus, where they await this resurrection and the second coming of Jesus on the Last Day.