God and His Revelation - Creation, Man and Sin - Christ and Redemption - Justification by Faith - Good Works and Prayer - The Means of Grace - The Church and its Ministry - The Church and the State - Jesus' Return and the Judgment


God and His Revelation

  1. We believe that there is only one true God (John 17:3). He has made Himself known as the Triune God, one God in three persons. This is evident from Jesus' command to His disciples to baptize "in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit" (Matthew 28:19). Whoever does not worship this God worships a false god, a god who does not exist, for Jesus said, "He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father, who sent Him" (John 5:23).

  2. We believe that God has revealed Himself in nature, for "the heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of His hands" (Psalm 19:1). "For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities - His eternal power and divine nature - have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made" (Romans 1:20). So there is no excuse for the atheist. However, we have in nature only a partial revelation of God and one that is wholly insufficient for salvation.

  3. We believe that God has given us the full revelation of Himself in His Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. "No one has ever seen God, but God the only Son, who is at the Father's side, has made Him known" (John 1:18). Particularly has God revealed himself in Jesus as the Savior God, who "so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life" (John 3:16).

  4. We believe that God has given the Holy Scriptures to proclaim His grace in Christ to man. In the Old Testament God repeatedly promised His people a divine Deliverer from sin, death and hell. The New Testament proclaims that this promised Deliverer has come in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. The Scriptures testify of Christ. Jesus Himself says of the Scriptures that they "testify about Me" (John 5:39).

  5. We believe that God gave us the Scriptures through men whom He chose, using the language they knew and the style of writing they had. He used Moses and the prophets to write the Old Testament in Hebrew (some portions in Aramaic) and the evangelists and apostles to write the New Testament in Greek.

  6. We believe that in a miraculous way that goes beyond all human investigation, God the Holy Spirit inspired these men to write His Word. These "men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit" (2 Peter 1:21). What they said, was spoken "not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit" (1 Corinthians 2:13). Every thought they expressed, every word they used was given them by the Holy Spirit by inspiration. St. Paul wrote to Timothy: "All Scripture is God-breathed" (2 Timothy 3:16). We therefore believe in the verbal inspiration of the Scriptures, that is, a word-for-word inspiration. This, however, is not to be equated with mechanical dictation.

  7. We believe that Scripture is a unified whole, true and without error in everything it says, for our Savior said: "The Scripture cannot be broken" (John 10:35). We believe that it, therefore, is the infallible authority and guide for everything we believe and do. We believe that it is fully sufficient, clearly teaching us all we need to know for salvation, making us "wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus" (2 Timothy 3:15), equipping us for every good work (2 Timothy 3: 17). No other revelations are to be expected.

  8. We believe and accept Scripture on its own terms, accepting as factual history what it presents as history, recognizing a metaphor where Scripture itself indicates one, and reading as poetry what is evident as such. We believe that Scripture must interpret Scripture, clear passages throwing light on those less easily understood. We believe that no authority, be it man's reason, science or scholarship, may stand in judgment over Scripture. Sound scholarship will faithfully search out the true meaning of Scripture without presuming to pass judgment on it.

  9. We believe that the three ecumenical creeds, the Apostles', the Nicene and the Athanasian, as well as the Lutheran Confessions as contained in the Book of Concord of 1580 give expression to the true doctrine of Scripture. Since the doctrines they confess are drawn from Scripture alone, we feel ourselves bound to them in our faith and life. Therefore all preaching and teaching in our churches and schools must be in harmony with these confessions.

  10. We reject any thought that makes only part of Scripture God's Word, that allows for the possibility of factual error in Scripture, also in so-called nonreligious matters (for example, historical, geographical).

  11. We reject all views that fail to acknowledge the Holy Scriptures as God's revelation and Word. We likewise reject all views that see in them merely a human record of God's revelation as he encounters man in history apart from the Scriptures, and so a record subject to human imperfections.

  12. We reject the emphasis upon Jesus as the Word of God (John 1:1) to the exclusion of the Scriptures as God's Word.

  13. We reject every effort to reduce the confessions contained in the Book of Concord to historical documents that have only relative confessional significance for the church today. We likewise reject any claim that the church is bound only to those doctrines in Scripture that have found expression in these confessions.
This is what Scripture teaches about God and His revelation.
This we believe, teach and confess.


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