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What Do We Believe?
Zion Lutheran is proud to be a Confessional Lutheran Church.
- What does it mean to be "Church"?
- As "Church", we preach the Word of Jesus Christ--both Law and
Gospel--and we administer the Lord's
Sacraments rightly as they are prescribed in the Bible.
- What does it mean to be "Lutheran"?
- As
"Lutheran", we follow the teachings of the Evangelical Lutheran Church
as they were rediscovered through the Protestant Reformation of the
sixteenth century under teachers like
Martin Luther,
Philip Melanchthon,
Martin Chemnitz and others.
As members of the Lutheran Church--Missouri Synod,
we align ourselves with other congregations in the United States who
hold to the same teachings as further described by such teachers as
C.F.W. Walther
and Francis Pieper.
- What does it mean to be "Confessional"?
- As "Confessional", we abide by the teachings of the Bible as they are expounded in the
Book of Concord,
first published in 1580. The writings found in the Book of Concord are:
These writings we hold to be a true exposition of the Holy Scriptures.
More Definitions
The Bible - The entire Old and New Testaments are the inspired Word of God. The Bible does not merely contain God's Word; it is
God's Word. It is the only source of revealed truth regarding Christ,
faith, and salvation. The Bible contains no contradictions or errors.
It is composed of Law and Gospel.
The Law of God shows us our sin and how we
cannot reconcile ourselves with the righteous God. It serves three
purposes: (1) a curb to ---; (2) a mirror to show us our sin; (3) a
guide for the reborn Christian to live a sanctified life.
The Gospel of Jesus Christ shows us what Jesus has done for us men and for our salvation.
- The Sacraments
- A sacrament is a rite of the Church that has God's promise of
salvation delivered through means. There are properly two sacraments:
Baptism and the Lord's Supper.
Baptism
Baptism is not simply plain water. Instead it is water enclosed in God?s command and connected with God?s Word.
What then is this Word of God? Answer:
Where our Lord Christ says in Matthew 28[:19?*?], ?Go into all the world, teach all nations,
and baptize them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
What gifts or benefits does baptism grant?
It brings about forgiveness of sins, redeems from death and the devil, and gives eternal salvation to all who believe it,
as the words and promise of God declare.
What are these words and promise of God?
Where our Lord Christ says in Mark 16[:16?*], Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved,
but whoever does not believe will be damned.
Lord's Supper (The Sacrament of the Altar)
What is the Sacrament of the Altar?
It is the true body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ under the bread and wine, instituted by
Christ himself for us Christians to eat and to drink.
- God
- The only God is the Triune God of the Bible, who has created,
redeemed, and sanctified all of his children. The Triune God may not be
understood in terms that indicate something other than the fact that
there are three Persons- the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit- in one God.
- Man
- Man was created holy and innocent, but of his own free choice he fell into sin, thus separating himself from God.
- Sin
- We believe sin is every transgression of God's Law and has made man
deserving of death and eternal damnation. Man is conceived and born in
sin and therefore does not have any power to make himself right with
God. Neither can man, because of his sin, make a decision for his Lord in order to be saved.
- Redemption
- Redemption is the act of God revealed in the Bible and proclaimed
by the Church by which Jesus Christ, the Son of God, died for the sins
of the world and rose again from the dead.
- Faith
- Faith in Jesus Christ is the gift of God to man through which man is declared righteous before God and forgiven of all his sins.
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For more information, you can see the LCMS Web site
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