The Wittenberg Trail
Your Path to the Authentic, Historic & Catholic Faith
Martin Luther
"If it is not in accordance with My Word, it is not the Christian Church. For what could induce the Christian Church to change and undermine the Word of its Lord? The true Church would say: I cling to the Word of my dear Lord Christ. I insist on this. According to this Word I will make my decisions. I will not hold with those who do otherwise. This the Christian Church has always done in previous times. It condemned heresy and all false doctrine not according to its own opinion, as the pope and his people do, but according to the Scripture and Christ's Word."
Wittenberg Trail
Bookstore
Evangelical Liturgical Lutheran
Congregations
The Book of Concord - The Lutheran
Confessions
Lutheran Online - Law & Gospel for
the Internet Generation
Word
& Sacrament
Holy Scripture"When a Lutheran is asked "When were you saved?" the answer is often something on the order of "about two thousand years ago, when Jesus died on the cross and then rose from the dead"
...Other Christians, including those who call themselves evangelicals, consider that they were saved when they "made a decision for Christ" or were converted or experienced an encounter with the Holy Spirit or the like. Lutheran evangelicals, while certainly believing in conversion, do not talk that way. Looking at salvation in terms of decisions and experiences shifts the focus away from what Christ has done to what I have done. We are back to the unevangelical dilemma of having to save ourselves - by what we decide or what we experience or what we do. This lands us back into moralism and its accompanying failures and uncertainties and self-deceptions. Instead of building our hope on the shifting sands of our own works or inner lives, we can have the confidence that what Christ did for us is a fact.
Lutherans are thus always wrenching their attention from themselves to remember the concrete objectivity of what God has done for them in Christ."Veith
"For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast." (Ephesians 2:8-9)
There
are different views of God's Word and the Sacraments among
Christians. As you continue on the
Wittenberg Trail,
here is information on how Lutherans view Word and
Sacrament.
What
are the Means of Grace?
The
Christian Cyclopedia
defines
the Means of Grace as:
"The term “means of grace” denotes the divinely instituted means by which God offers, bestows, and seals to men forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation. Properly speaking, there is but 1 means of grace: the Gospel of Christ (Ro 1:16–17); but since in the Sacraments the Gospel appears as the verbum visible (visible Word) in distinction from the verbum audible (audible Word), it is rightly said that the means of grace are the Gospel and the Sacraments.
The Law, though also a divine Word and used by the Holy Spirit in a preparatory way to work contrition, without which there can be no saving faith, is not, properly speaking, a means of grace. It is the very opposite of a means of grace, namely a “ministration of death,” 2 Co 3:7. Prayer is not a means of grace, but faith in action."
Articles
Luther: Word, Doctrine and Confession
The Power of God's Word
The Bible is the Authoritative Word of God
Lessons from Luther on the Inerrancy of Holy Writ
The Ten Commandments of Bible Interpretation
The Gospel and the Scriptures
Understanding the Fullness of the Gospel - Part I
Understanding the Fullness of the Gospel - Part II
Visit
The Wittenberg Trail Online Community
What
is a Sacrament?
Rev.
Ernie Lassman, pastor of Messiah Lutheran Church in
Seattle, WA, posted this video on both his
church website and
on
YouTube.
Is all Scripture the inspired Word of
God?
Rev.
Ernie Lassman, pastor of Messiah Lutheran Church in
Seattle, WA, posted this video on both his
church website and
on
YouTube.
Visit
The Wittenberg Trail