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God reveals himself to us in many and various ways. The beautiful complexity of nature is but one evidence of His existence. Also, God has revealed himself to us through prophets, priests and writers of the Old and New Testament books in the Bible. Lutheran faith, (named after the 16th century monk Dr. Martin Luther, who led the reformation against the Roman Catholic church) is based on God's revelation in His Word and finds its truths therein. We believe that God created this world and it was good (Genesis 1). Unfortunately, as humans, we abused the freedom God gave us and broke our right and eternal relationship with him (Gen. 3). Since that time we have experienced a deathly existence without true peace in any relationships because of our separation from God (Rom. 3:23). Nevertheless, our creator loved us and sent his one and only son Jesus into this world to fix our damaged relationships. He taught his followers many doctrines including the importance of baptism and provided in his last supper, the fellowship of communion with him. When it was time, Jesus - God's son - took the punishment for our guilt (Acts 3:18). That punishment was death (Rom. 6:23). And through his innocent human death, Jesus purchased eternal life for all mankind (Rom. 5:8; Jn 3:16). As God, Jesus conquered death and three days later was raised from the grave to proclaim his victory to all. (Lk. 24:46-47). After Jesus' resurrection, he commissioned his followers to "go and make disciples of all nations" (Matt. 28:19) and then went to be with his Father in heaven. He left to prepare a place for us but he did not leave us as orphans (John 14:18). He asked His Father to give us another counselor, a helper during this difficult life. This counselor is the Spirit of Truth, the Holy Spirit, and the rest of the world cannot accept him because it neither sees him nor knows him. But we know him for he lives in us (John 14:16-17. And the "weapon" or "sword" with which he protects us is God's Word (Eph. 6:17). And so we turn away from our broken life, we repent and cling to new life in Christ (Acts 3:19). We summarize our beliefs with similar words to those of St. Paul when he wrote his letter to fellow Christians in Ephesus: "For it is by grace we have been saved, through faith - it is not of ourselves, it is the gift of God - not by works, so that none of us can boast. We are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do" (Eph. 2:8-10).
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What
do Lutherans Believe???