Lutherans and Salvation

5aret · Jul 28, 2005

Hello, I am a Roman Catholic, and I'm wondering about what Lutheran doctrine about Salvation. I'm not sure on your position, so maybe someone Lutheran or other can help. What is the Lutheran position on Salvation, and can only Lutherans be saved?

Brother in Christ,
5aret

LilLamb219 · Jul 28, 2005

Lutherans believe that God does it all in salvation. God came to earth as man and lived the perfect life of obedience, died on the cross for the forgiveness of our sins and was resurrected. God gives faith to believe in what was accomplished so that we may have eternal life. Man can reject this though and by man's own doing be damned.

Lutherans do not believe that only Lutherans are saved.

5aret · Jul 28, 2005

Ok, so who else can be saved according to Lutheran Doctrine?

And also, do Lutherans believe that once you are saved, you are always saved, or someone can lose his or her salvation?

Thank you for answering,

Peace in Christ,
5aret-

Protoevangel · Jul 28, 2005

All who have faith in Christ are Justified in God's sight.

One can indeed reject the faith they were given, and therefore "loose" their Justification.

5aret · Jul 28, 2005

What are your views on works?

Protoevangel · Jul 28, 2005

Works are good. But they are not spoken of in the same breath as Justification or Salvation. The true Gospel declares that good works are the embellishment of faith, but that faith itself is the gift and work of God in our hearts. Works are taught, but in their proper order; works do not save us, Christ saves us. Works are indeed good, but when the discussion is about Justification, works have no place whatsoever in the conversation.

Martin Luther said it best in his commentary on Saint Paul's Epistle to the Galatians when he said, "It is not an easy matter to teach faith without works, and still to require works. Unless the ministers of Christ are wise in handling the mysteries of God and rightly divide the word, faith and good works may easily be confused. Both the doctrine of faith and the doctrine of good works must be diligently taught, and yet in such a way that both the doctrines stay within their God-given sphere. If we only teach works, as our opponents do, we shall lose the faith. If we only teach faith people will come to think that good works are superfluous."

5aret · Jul 28, 2005

So, what if someone is a Lutheran Christian and does no good works and just evil works, but still believes in Christ as his savior can still be Saved?
So, theoretically, Adolf Hitler could be saved if he was a Lutheran and believed in Christ as his Savior? As guess he would have to repent from his sins though.

SPALATIN · Jul 28, 2005

5aret said:
So, what if someone is a Lutheran Christian and does no good works and just evil works, but still believes in Christ as his savior can still be Saved?
So, theoretically, Adolf Hitler could be saved if he was a Lutheran and believed in Christ as his Savior? As guess he would have to repent from his sins though.

Hold Everything there!

WHat does scripture say about the tree bearing fruit? We are saying that Works has no merit in salvation. It is not us, but him, however,in santification we would see whether or not Herr Hitler had the faith or not. If his faith is not producing good, but bad we would have to assume it is not the Holy Spirit in him, but rather an evil spirit.

Luther said that as Christians we can't help but do good works as it is what faith in us does. But it is him who enables us to do these good works and very little of our own effort.

Does that help clarify for you?

5aret · Jul 28, 2005

yes, that clears it up. So if someone is not doing good works but bad, than he does not have true faith because obviously the holy spirit is not in him, but he is evil? Ok, I get it. So if you were a true believer and had true faith in Jesus Christ and had the Holy Spirit in you, you would do good works and flee from evil?

Also, what about the time in the Bible when a man came up to Jesus and asked how to attain salvation, and Jesus said "Follow the commandments." and then he said the 2 great commandments were "Love God with all your heart, all your soul, all your spirit." ANd then he said the 2nd great commandment was "Love your neighbor as you love yourself." How do Lutherans explain what Jesus was saying?

SPALATIN · Jul 28, 2005

5aret said:
yes, that clears it up. So if someone is not doing good works but bad, than he does not have true faith because obviously the holy spirit is not in him, but he is evil? Ok, I get it. So if you were a true believer and had true faith in Jesus Christ and had the Holy Spirit in you, you would do good works and flee from evil?

Also, what about the time in the Bible when a man came up to Jesus and asked how to attain salvation, and Jesus said "Follow the commandments." and then he said the 2 great commandments were "Love God with all your heart, all your soul, all your spirit." ANd then he said the 2nd great commandment was "Love your neighbor as you love yourself." How do Lutherans explain what Jesus was saying?

Let me ask you how do Roman Catholics explain it?

You give me your explanation and I will be happy to give you mine.

5aret · Jul 28, 2005

Ok, Catholics beieve that there are 2 things necessary for Salvation:

1. First and most important of all, you must accept Jesus Christ as your personal Savior and repent from your sins

2. In result of this, we must be the best Christian we can be. IE: By doing good works, pleasing God, obeying the Gospel, abstain from sin, etc..

Now, Catholics believe that if you reject Christ and expect to be saved through good works, you will not attain Salvation. You must do good works and be a good Christian not for the reason of attaining Salvation, but we do good works because we want to serve and obey God, and God commanded us to do good works. We believe that if you do no good works and be evil, you will be blured from the truth of Christ and the Holy Spirit will leave your soul. Therefore, you may think you believe in Christ, but deep down you do not. That can only happen by doing evil works and disobeying God.

We should do good works just to please God and obey him, Not to get to heaven. We believe Jesus died for our sins, but if we let Jesus pay our price, we must now become one with Christ also. We do this by obeying and pleasing God by going to mass, praying often, doing good works for your neighbor, etc.

As far as the sacraments go, We do the sacraments to greatly streangthen our relationship with Christ and God, and it is just another way of pleasing God. While the Sacraments are Very importent to us, you may not lose your salvation over it. Especially if you are a sincere believer in Christ, you may be saved.

Now if you are confused over why Paul has said sometimes that you need just faith and no works, and other times he says we need works with faith. This is how we explain it:

There are 2 types of Good Works:

1. Works in the system of Law

2. Works in the system of Grace

Works in the system of law pretty much is doing good works with you expecting God to repay you for it. IE: heaven, blessings, etc..
If you do good works this way, you will not attain salvation, because all have fallen from the glory of God.

Works in the system of Grace is doing Good Works and obeying God without expecting anything in return and just obeying and pleasing him in faith and love. If you do good works and obey God in this way in addition to repenting for you're sins and accepting The Lord Jesus Christ as your personal lord and savior, you can be saved.

So what is your view?

SPALATIN · Jul 28, 2005

5aret said:
Ok, Catholics beieve that there are 2 things necessary for Salvation:

1. First and most important of all, you must accept Jesus Christ as your personal Savior and repent from your sins

2. In result of this, we must be the best Christian we can be. IE: By doing good works, pleasing God, obeying the Gospel, abstain from sin, etc..

Now, Catholics believe that if you reject Christ and expect to be saved through good works, you will not attain Salvation. You must do good works and be a good Christian not for the reason of attaining Salvation, but we do good works because we want to serve and obey God, and God commanded us to do good works. We believe that if you do no good works and be evil, you will be blured from the truth of Christ and the Holy Spirit will leave your soul. Therefore, you may think you believe in Christ, but deep down you do not. That can only happen by doing evil works and disobeying God.

We should do good works just to please God and obey him, Not to get to heaven. We believe Jesus died for our sins, but if we let Jesus pay our price, we must now become one with Christ also. We do this by obeying and pleasing God by going to mass, praying often, doing good works for your neighbor, etc.

As far as the sacraments go, We do the sacraments to greatly streangthen our relationship with Christ and God, and it is just another way of pleasing God. While the Sacraments are Very importent to us, you may not lose your salvation over it. Especially if you are a sincere believer in Christ, you may be saved.

Now if you are confused over why Paul has said sometimes that you need just faith and no works, and other times he says we need works with faith. This is how we explain it:

There are 2 types of Good Works:

1. Works in the system of Law

2. Works in the system of Grace

Works in the system of law pretty much is doing good works with you expecting God to repay you for it. IE: heaven, blessings, etc..
If you do good works this way, you will not attain salvation, because all have fallen from the glory of God.

Works in the system of Grace is doing Good Works and obeying God without expecting anything in return and just obeying and pleasing him in faith and love. If you do good works and obey God in this way in addition to repenting for you're sins and accepting The Lord Jesus Christ as your personal lord and savior, you can be saved.

So what is your view?

Your question was about the Rich young man who asked what he must do to attain salvation. If you look at the 10 commandments they can be pretty much split into 2 groups. The first group of commandments are how we are to revere God. So by loving him with your heart, mind, soul and strength you will put him above all other Gods, not take his name in vain, remember his sabbath day and keep it holy.

The second commandment is Love your neighbor as yourself. If you look at commandments 4-10 they are directed at our relationships with our family and friends and neighbors. If we Love our neighbors in this way we are not likely to Steal from them, Murder them, bear false witness against them, covet their wife or covet anything else that belongs to them. We also will honor our mother and father.

Jesus had summarized the main law into these 2 commandments. Can we then without the aid of the Holy Spirit live these laws? no we can not. We will instead run away from God and choose our own way. We are only attracted to Christ through first hearing his word and in hearing his word we are introduced to the Holy Spirit in that he begins his work to convict us that we can not live up to these laws and fall short of God's glory. Once we come to that realization we can then express that we are sinners.

The Gospel gives us the wonderful news that God loves us and that he has provided a way for us to be free of the sins that have convicted us in the past and present and gives future assurance that repentance will bring further forgiveness.

Only the Holy Spirit can write God's laws on our heart. We also would not say that we "accept" Christ as the word "accept" denotes an action on our part.

MORTANIUS · Jul 28, 2005

One thing worth mentioning about Salvation is as follows.

Baptism, Communion, Repentence before God, honouring the New Covenant that is set before us by Lord Jesus etc. = Faith. All these things are required for example.

However, even though someone does all these things doesn't excuse them from going against God and lapsing in their faith. Salvation isn't given by God for those who refuse it.

A sinner can become a righteous man or woman, just as easily as a rigtheous man or woman can become a sinner.

Salvation has been granted to humanity if humanity so wishes to accept this beautifula and merciful gift from God Almighty.

SPALATIN · Jul 29, 2005

MORTANIUS said:
One thing worth mentioning about Salvation is as follows.

Baptism, Communion, Repentence before God, honouring the New Covenant that is set before us by Lord Jesus etc. = Faith. All these things are required for example.

However, even though someone does all these things doesn't excuse them from going against God and lapsing in their faith. Salvation isn't given by God for those who refuse it.

A sinner can become a righteous man or woman, just as easily as a rigtheous man or woman can become a sinner.

Salvation has been granted to humanity if humanity so wishes to accept this beautifula and merciful gift from God Almighty.

Mortanius,

It may be just a matter of the correct word used here. We don't "accept" but we do receive this beautiful and merciful gift from God Almighty through his son. The word receive is a passive word whereas the word "accept" is an active verb which denotes synergy rather than monergy.

5aret · Jul 29, 2005

Yes, You could not follow the 10 commandments without the Holy Spirit's Aid. And if the Holy Spirit is in you, you probably believe in Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior. I get that.

SPALATIN · Jul 29, 2005

Actually 5,

Christians don't follow the 10 commandments as given to the Jews by Moses. We are Gentiles and Paul said that we were living the law in our hearts. So we didn't need to be captive to the law the Judaizers were trying to force on us.

5aret · Jul 29, 2005

Than why did Jesus tell us to follow the commandments? The 2 great commandments were based off of the 10 origional.

Also, which 5 commandments?

Qoheleth · Jul 29, 2005

SLS said:
Christians don't follow the 10 commandments as given to the Jews by Moses. We are Gentiles and Paul said that we were living the law in our hearts. So we didn't need to be captive to the law the Judaizers were trying to force on us.

Your not implying that we no longer obey the Commands of our Lord, are you?

Q

5aret · Jul 29, 2005

Thats what I was wondering.

LilLamb219 · Jul 29, 2005

We are not required to follow the 10 commandments as all of the Law has been fulfilled for us. BUT, we do want to follow them as the Law is good and is beneficial to our neighbor and ourselves (not for gain). The Law helps maintain order here on earth.

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