Doctrinal Statement of Faith for SoundWitness
The Bible, including both the 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 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 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 benefit of Christ's redemption from sin is brought to the human race through the means of grace, namely the Word and the sacraments.
The One, Holy, Universal, and Apostolic Church consists of all those who truly believe on Jesus Christ as Savior. The local congregation is an assembly of believers in a certain locality among whom the Gospel is purely taught and the sacraments are rightly administered. It cannot be avoided that hypocrites might be mixed in the congregation; that is, those whose unbelief is not evident to the congregation.
We joyfully and tenaciously proclaim and adhere to the confessional writings of the Lutheran Church as found in the Book of Concord. These confessional writings, or symbols, are an accurate and faithful summary of the doctrine found in the Bible, our only rule and norm according to which all teachings should be evaluated and judged. The Book of Concord contains the following documents: the Apostles’ Creed, the Nicene Creed, the Athanasian Creed, Martin Luther’s Small and Large Catechisms, the Augsburg Confession, the Apology of the Augsburg Confession, the Smalcald Articles, the Treatise on the Power and Primacy of the Pope, and the Formula of Concord.