- The Bible, including both Old and New Testaments as
originally given, is the verbally and plenarily inspired Word of God and
is free from error in the whole and in the part, and is therefore the
final authoritative guide for faith and conduct.
- There is one God eternally existent in three distinct
persons in one divine essence, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
- God the Father has revealed Himself as the Creator
and preserver of the universe, to Whom the entire creation and all
creatures are subject.
- God created Adam and Eve in His image to live in
fellowship with Him. They fell into sin through the temptation of Satan
and thereby lost fellowship with God. Through their disobedience the
entire human race became totally depraved, that is, self-centered
sinners who oppose God, and who by nature are unable to trust, fear or
love Him. They are subject to the devil, and are condemned to death
under the eternal wrath of God.
- Jesus Christ, the Eternal Son, is the image of the
invisible God. To accomplish our redemption, He became fully human,
being conceived of the Holy Spirit and born of the virgin Mary. Jesus
Christ, who is true God and true man, by His perfect obedience and
substitutionary death on the cross, has purchased our redemption. He
arose from the dead for our justification in the body in which He was
crucified. He ascended into heaven, where He is now seated at the right
hand of God, the Father, as our interceding High Priest. He will come a
second time personally, bodily, and visibly to gather the believers unto
Himself and to establish His millennial kingdom. He will judge the
living and the dead and make an eternal separation between believers and
unbelievers. His kingdom shall have no end.
- The Holy Spirit is a divine person eternally one with
the Father and with the Son. Through the Word of God He convicts people
of sin, persuades them to confess their sinfulness to God and calls them
to faith through the Gospel. He regenerates, sanctifies, and preserves
believers in the one true faith. He comforts, guides, equips, directs,
and empowers the church to fulfill the great commission.
- The knowledge and benefits of Christ's redemption
from sin are brought to the human race through the means of grace,
namely the Word and the sacraments.
- Through the Word of the Law God brings sinners to
know their lost condition and to repent. Through the Word of the
Gospel He brings sinners to believe in Jesus Christ, to be justified,
to enter the process of sanctification, and to have eternal life. This
occurs as the Holy Spirit awakens them to see their sin and calls them
to repent and believe, inviting and enabling them to accept God's
grace in Christ. Each one who thus believes is instantly forgiven and
credited with Christ's righteousness. The Word then teaches and guides
the believer to lead a godly life.
- In the Sacrament of Baptism, God offers the
benefits of Christ's redemption to all people and graciously bestows
the washing of regeneration and newness of life to all who believe.
God calls the baptized person to live in daily repentance, that is in
sorrow for sin, in turning from sin, and in personal faith in the
forgiveness of sin obtained by Christ. By grace we are daily given the
power to overcome sinful desires and live a new life in Christ. Those
who do not continue to live in God's grace need to be brought again to
repentance and faith through the Law and Gospel
- Because the sinfulness of human nature passes on
from generation to generation and the promise of God's grace includes
little children, we baptize infants, who become members of Christ's
believing church through baptism. These children need to come to know
that they are sinners with a sinful nature that opposes God. Through
the work of the Holy Spirit, they need to confess their sinfulness,
yield to God and possess for themselves forgiveness of their sin
through Jesus Christ, as they are led from the faith received in
infant baptism into a clear conscious personal faith in Christ as
their Lord and Savior and being assured of salvation, rely solely on
the finished work of Christ, and the power of the Gospel to live as
children of God.
- In the Sacrament of Holy Communion, Christ gives to
the communicants His body and blood in, with, and under the bread and
wine. He declares the forgiveness of sin to all believers, and
strengthens their faith.
- Eternal salvation is available to every living human
being on earth by God's grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone.
This salvation consists of an instantaneous aspect and an ongoing,
continual aspect.
- Justification is God's gracious act by which He,
for Christ's sake, instantaneously acquits repentant and believing
sinners and credits them with Christ's righteousness. At that moment,
God gives each one who believes a new and godly nature and the Holy
Spirit begins the process of sanctification. There is no place for
human effort in justification.
- Sanctification is God's gracious, continual work of
spiritual renewal and growth in the life of every justified person.
Through the means of grace, the Holy Spirit works to reproduce the
character of Christ within the lives of all believers, instructing and
urging them to live out their new nature. The Holy Spirit enables
believers more and more to resist the devil, to overcome the world,
and to count themselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus.
The Holy Spirit produces spiritual fruit in and bestows spiritual
gifts upon all believers. He calls, empowers and equips them to serve
God in the home, in the community, and as part of the Church
Universal. The process of sanctification will be complete only when
the believer reaches glory.
- The Church Universal consists of all those who truly
believe on Jesus Christ as Savior. The local congregation is the
communion of saints or true believers in a certain locality among whom
the gospel is purely taught and the sacraments are rightly administered.
The confessing membership of the local congregation shall include only
those who have been baptized into "the name of the Father, and of the
Son and of the Holy Spirit," confess personal faith in the Lord Jesus
Christ, maintain a good reputation in the community and accept the
constitution of the Church of the Lutheran Brethren. It cannot, however,
be avoided that hypocrites might be mixed in the congregation; that is,
those whose unbelief is not evident to the congregation.
- The Church of the Lutheran Brethren of America
practices the congregational form of church government and the autonomy
of the local congregations. The office of pastor and elder is to be
filled by men only. The Synodical administration has an advisory
function as it relates to the congregation, and an administrative
function as it relates to the cooperative efforts of the congregations.
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