Sveriges Veterankyrka, the Sweden Veteran Church has its christian faith rooted to a large extent in the Lutheran Christian Faith. One of the uniqueness of Sveriges Veterankyrka is our focus is a church specially grounded and solely focused on WAR VETERANS, FORMER CHILD SOLDIERS AND VICTIMS IN RELATION WITH THESE VICTIMS. This clarifies our uniqueness.
The History of the Lutheran Faith
The Lutheran religion is a major stem of Protestantism having its historical grounding in the theology of Martin Luther, a 16th-century German monk and a reformer. His efforts to reform the theology and practices of the Catholic Church developed into Protestant Reformation.
The split between the Lutherans and the Roman Catholics was made public and clear with the 1521 Edict of Worms. The edicts of the Diet condemned Luther and officially banned citizens of the Holy Roman Empire from defending or propagating his ideas, subjecting advocates of Lutheranism to forfeiture of all property, half of the seized property to be forfeited to the imperial government and the remaining half forfeit to the party who brought the accusation.
The divide centered primarily on two points: the proper source of authouruty in the church, known as the formal principle of the Reformation, and the doctrine of justification, often called the material principle of Lutheran theology.
Lutheranism advocates a doctrine of justification”by Grace alone through faith alone on the basis of Scripture alone”, the doctrine that ´´scripture´´ is the final authority on all matters of faith.
This is in contrast to the belief of the Roman Catholic Church, defined at the Council of Trent, concerning final authority coming from both the Scriptures and Tradition.
Unlike Calvinism, Lutheranism retains many of the liturgical practices and sacramental teachings of the pre-Reformation Western Church, with a particular emphasis on the Eucharist, or Lord’s Supper, though Easten Lutheranism uses the Byzantine Rites.
Lutheran theology differs from Reformed theology in Christology, divine grace, the purpose of God´s Law, the concept of perseverance of the saints, and predestination.
The reaction of the government and church authorities to the international spread of his writings, beginning with the Ninety-five Thesis, dividedWestern Christianity. During the Reformation, Lutheranism became the state religion of numerous states of northern Europe, especially in northern Germany, Scandinavia and the then Livonian Order. Lutheran clergy became civil servants and the Lutheran churches became part of the state.
Traditionally, Lutherans hold the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to be the only divinely inspired books, the only presently available sources of divinely revealed knowledge, and the only infallible source of Christian doctrine. Scripture alone is the formal principle of the faith, the final authority for all matters of faith and morals because of its inspiration, authority, clarity, efficacy, and sufficiency.
Historically, Lutherans understand the Bible to present all doctrines and commands of the Christian faith clearly. In addition, Lutherans believe that God’s Word is freely accessible to every reader or hearer of ordinary intelligence, without requiring any special education. A Lutheran must understand the language that scriptures are presented in, and should not be so preoccupied by error so as to prevent understanding. As a result of this, Lutherans do not believe there is a need to (wait or rely solely )for any clergy, pope, scholar, or ecumenical council to explain the real meaning of any part of the Bible.
Efficacy
Lutherans confess that Scripture is united with the power of the Holy Spirit and with it, not only demands, but also creates the acceptance of its teaching. This teaching produces faith and obedience. Holy Scripture is not a dead letter, but rather, the power of the Holy Spirit is inherent in it. Scripture does not compel a mere intellectual assent to its doctrine, resting on logical argumentation, but rather it creates the living agreement of faith. As the Smalcald Articles affirm, ”in those things which concern the spoken, outward Word, we must firmly hold that God grants His Spirit or grace to no one, except through or with the preceding outward Word”.
Sufficiency
Law and Grace, a portrait by Lucas Cranach the Elder; the left side shows humans’ condemnation under God’s law and the right side presents God’s grace in Christ.
Lutherans are confident that the Bible contains everything that one needs to know in order to obtain salvation and to live a Christian life. There are no deficiencies in Scripture that need to be filled with by tradition, pronouncements of the Pope, new revelations, or present-day development of doctrine.
Law and Gospel
Lutherans understand the Bible as containing two distinct types of content, termed Law and Gospel (or Law and Promises). Properly distinguishing between Law and Gospel prevents the obscuring of the Gospel teaching of justification by grace through faith alone.
Justification
The Lutheran faith preaches that whoever has faith in Jesus alone will receive salvation from the grace of God and will enter heaven for eternity.
The key doctrine, or material principle, of Lutheranism is the doctrine of justification. Lutherans believe that humans are saved from their sins by God’s grace alone (Sola Gratia), through faith alone (Sola Fide), on the basis of Scripture alone (Sola Scriptura). Orthodox Lutheran theology holds that God made the world, including humanity, perfect, holy and sinless. However, Adam and Eve chose to disobey God, trusting in their own strength, knowledge, and wisdom. Consequently, people are saddled with original sin, born sinful and unable to avoid committing sinful acts. For Lutherans, original sin is the ”chief sin, a root and fountainhead of all actual sins”.
To this end, ”God sent his Son Jesus Christ, our Lord, into the world to redeem and deliver us from the power of the devil, and to bring us to Himself, and to govern us as a King of righteousness, life, and salvation against sin, death, and an evil conscience”, as Luther’s Large Catechism explains. Because of this, Lutherans teach that salvation is possible only because of the grace of God made manifest in the birth, life, suffering, death, resurrection, and continuing presence by the power of the Holy Spirit, of Jesus Christ. By God’s grace, made known and effective in the person and work of Jesus Christ, a person is forgiven, adopted as a child and heir of God, and given eternal salvation. Christ, because he was entirely obedient to the law with respect to both his human and divine natures.
Lutherans believe that individuals receive this gift of salvation through faith alone. Saving faith is the knowledge of, acceptance of, and trust in the promise of the Gospel. Even faith itself is seen as a gift of God, created in the hearts of Christians by the work of the Holy Spirit through the Word and Baptism. Faith receives the gift of salvation rather than causes salvation. Thus, Lutherans reject the ”decision theology” which is common among modern evangelicals.
Since the term ”grace” has been defined differently by other Christian church bodies. Lutheranism defines grace as entirely limited to God’s gifts to us, which is bestowed as pure gift, not something we merit by behavior or acts. To Lutherans, grace is not about our response to God’s gifts, but only His gifts
Lutherans believe in the Trinity, rejecting the idea that the Father and God the Son are merely faces of the same person, stating that both the Old Testament and the New Testament show them to be two distinct persons. Lutherans believe the Holy Spirit proceeds from both the Father and the Son. In the words of the Athanasian Creed: ”We worship one God in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity; Neither confounding the Persons, nor dividing the Substance. For there is one Person of the Father, another of the Son, and another of the Holy Ghost. But the Godhead of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost is all one: the glory equal, the majesty coeternal.”
Lutherans believe Jesus is the Christ, the savior promised in the Old Testament. They believe he is both by nature God and by nature man in one person, as they confess in Luther’s Small Catechism that he is ”true God begotten of the Father from eternity and also true man born of the Virgin Mary”.
The Augsburg Confession explains:
[T]he Son of God, did assume the human nature in the womb of the blessed Virgin Mary, so that there are two natures, the divine and the human, inseparably enjoined in one Person, one Christ, true God and true man, who was born of the Virgin Mary, truly suffered, was crucified, dead, and buried, that He might reconcile the Father unto us, and be a sacrifice, not only for original guilt, but also for all actual sins of men.
Lutherans adhere to divine monergism, the teaching that salvation is by God’s act alone, and therefore reject the idea that humans in their fallen state have a free will concerning spiritual matters. Lutherans believe that although humans have free will concerning civil righteousness, they cannot work spiritual righteousness in the heart without the presence and aid of the Holy Spirit. Lutherans believe Christians are ”saved”;that all who trust in Christ alone and his promises can be certain of their salvation.
According to Lutheranism, the central final hope of the Christian is ”the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting” as confessed in the Apostles’ Creed rather than predestination. Lutherans disagree with those who make predestination—rather than Christ’s suffering, death, and resurrection—the source of salvation.
Judgment and eternal life
Lutherans do not believe in any sort of earthly millennial kingdom of Christ either before or after his second coming on the last day. Lutherans teach that, at death, the souls of Christians are immediately taken into the presence of Jesus, where they await the second coming of Jesus on the last day. On the last day, all the bodies of the dead will be resurrected.[162]
Their souls will then be reunited with the same bodies they had before dying. The bodies will then be changed, those of the wicked to a state of everlasting shame and torment, those of the righteous to an everlasting state of celestial glory. After the resurrection of all the dead, and the change of those still living, all nations shall be gathered before Christ, and he will separate the righteous from the wicked.
Christ will publicly judge all people by the testimony of their deeds, the good works of the righteous in evidence of their faith, and the evil works of the wicked in evidence of their unbelief. He will judge in righteousness in the presence of all people and angels, and his final judgment will be just damnation to everlasting punishment for the wicked and a gracious gift of life everlasting to the righteous.
Total depravity: Humanity possesses ”free will”, but it is in bondage to sin, until it is ”transformed”.[182]
Original Sin: Humanity possesses free will in regard to ”goods and possessions”, but is sinful by nature and unable to contribute to its own salvation.
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