Thank you. I must admit to not knowing too much about Lutheran interpretations.
The question however does not change in essence. It just becomes: Why do so few people receive the word of God? Why does he make his message so unclear and hidden, so that so few receive it?
In Lutheranism we have something called the Crux Theologorum, literally "the Cross of the Theologian", that is, the burden that the theologian must bear. It refers to an unanswerable paradox, namely: If it is the will of God that all be saved, and salvation is only by grace through faith (that is, from God alone apart from our will or effort), then has God then chosen actually to damn some? Not at all, for again, God desires that all be saved? Why then is not everyone saved? Because some choose their own destruction, preferring this over the life of God.
If these ideas seem to be in conflict and, in fact, contradict then you're right. That's the Crux Theologorum. It's the fact that we read in Scripture conflicting statements which, rather than choosing one over the other as Calvinists and Arminians do, we assert both are true, but do not try to reconcile them together or explain how they can be true together. It remains a paradox and a contradiction.
Because God has not revealed all things to us, we don't have all the answers. Often the answer to many tough theological questions is "I haven't the foggiest."
Which is also why we shouldn't be dogmatic in certain areas: We confess that salvation is found in Christ alone on account of Christ alone, by God's grace alone, through faith alone which He alone gives; this faith comes through the Means of Grace, His Word and Sacraments not of ourselves and our own strength. We confess this; but to confess the opposite--that all who have not heard God's Word, all who have not received His Sacramental gifts, are immediately damned--we cannot say this. Luther, for example, states that we cannot and do not say that unbaptized children are damned, even though we confess that Baptism is necessary for salvation. Because the ordinary and normative means does not exclude the extraordinary and the absolute ability of God to work and to act beyond and outside of the ordinary as suits His purposes without having told us. So we must instead confess what is revealed, and admit and entrust to God's judgment and mercy all else.
-CryptoLutheran
