The Aaronic blessing is the benediction with which the Lutheran service ends, and it is the form most Lutherans would name if asked for the last words of worship.
The Agnus Dei is sung during the distribution.
Almsgiving is treated as a fruit of faith rather than as a work that justifies, which is the whole of the Lutheran difference on the point.
Source The Augsburg ConfessionPhilipp Melanchthon
Article XVII confesses the end of the world and Christ's return in judgment, while condemning the expectation of an earthly kingdom of the godly before the resurrection.
Source The Augsburg ConfessionPhilipp Melanchthon
Source Apostolic Lutheran Church of America (Wikipedia)Wikipedia contributors
Source The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised editionF. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.)
Received among the three ecumenical creeds in the Lutheran confessional books.
Source The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised editionF. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.)
The founding confession of the Lutheran churches.
Source The Augsburg ConfessionPhilipp Melanchthon
Baptism is necessary to salvation and by it the grace of God is offered, and the Augsburg Confession condemns those who teach that children are saved without it.
Source The Augsburg ConfessionPhilipp Melanchthon
Luther's instruction to remember one's baptism daily, drowning the old self and rising again, is the central Lutheran account of the Christian life.
The Benedictus is the gospel canticle of Matins.
Nordic and German Lutheran state churches, such as the Church of Sweden, retain the historic title bishop for regional oversight, a use the Augsburg Confession, Article XXVIII, allows without conceding papal jurisdiction.
Source The Augsburg ConfessionPhilipp Melanchthon
Article XVII confesses that Christ will return to judge, will raise up all the dead, and will give eternal life to the godly.
Source The Augsburg ConfessionPhilipp Melanchthon
Source The Constitutional Act of Denmark, Section 4 (The Established Church)
The churching of a mother was retained in the Lutheran church orders of the sixteenth century, stripped of any suggestion that she needed purifying.
Compline stands in the modern Lutheran books as the last office of the day.
Luther retained private confession and absolution and defended it in the catechisms, though the practice fell away in most Lutheran churches in favour of a corporate confession at the start of the service.
Source The Holy BibleAnonymous (multiple authors)
Confirmation was kept as a rite of the church and denied the standing of a sacrament, since it has no command of Christ and no promise of grace attached to an outward sign.
Source The Augsburg ConfessionPhilipp Melanchthon
The covenant is read here through the distinction of law and gospel, the promise given to Abraham and fulfilled in Christ, rather than as a system of covenants ordering the whole of scripture.
Article I confesses one divine essence, creator and preserver of all things visible and invisible.
Source The Augsburg ConfessionPhilipp Melanchthon
Lutheran churches ordain or commission deacons to a ministry of service, and some bodies, including the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, also roster deacons to word and service ministry distinct from the pastorate.
Source The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised editionF. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.)
Source Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland (Wikipedia)
Fasting is kept as an outward discipline that prepares a person to receive the sacrament, and is expressly denied any merit before God.
Source The Augsburg ConfessionPhilipp Melanchthon
Source Encyclopedia of ReligionMircea Eliade (ed.); Lindsay Jones (ed., 2nd ed.)
Source Finnish Evangelical Lutheran Church of America (Wikipedia)Wikipedia contributors
The last of the confessions bound into the Lutheran Book of Concord of 1580.
Source The Creeds of Christendom, with a History and Critical NotesPhilip Schaff
The burial office was retained, with the prayers for the dead removed and the promise of the resurrection put at the centre.
The Gloria Patri closes the psalmody in Matins and Vespers.
Grace as God's unmerited favor, received through faith and not merited by works, is the Reformation's material principle per the Augsburg Confession, Article IV, Of Justification.
Source The Augsburg ConfessionPhilipp Melanchthon
Article I condemns by name the heresies raised against the article on God, listing the Manichaeans, the Valentinians, the Arians, the Eunomians and the Samosatenes.
Source The Augsburg ConfessionPhilipp Melanchthon
Ordination is to the one office of the ministry of word and sacrament, and no man may publicly teach or administer the sacraments unless he is rightly called to it.
Source The Augsburg ConfessionPhilipp Melanchthon
Article I confesses the Holy Ghost as one of three persons of one divine essence, and Article V that the Holy Ghost is given through the word and the sacraments.
Source The Augsburg ConfessionPhilipp Melanchthon
Article III confesses two natures, the divine and the human, inseparably joined in one person, one Christ, true God and true man.
Source The Augsburg ConfessionPhilipp Melanchthon
Article III confesses that the Son of God assumed human nature in the womb of the blessed Virgin Mary.
Source The Augsburg ConfessionPhilipp Melanchthon
Source Encyclopedia of ReligionMircea Eliade (ed.); Lindsay Jones (ed., 2nd ed.)
Infants are baptised, and the Anabaptists are condemned by name in the Augsburg Confession for rejecting it.
Source The Augsburg ConfessionPhilipp Melanchthon
Intinction is practised in many Lutheran churches, though the ordinary manner is to receive the host and then the cup.
Justification by faith alone, apart from the works of the law, is confessed as the article on which the church stands or falls, per the Augsburg Confession, Article IV, Of Justification.
Source The Augsburg ConfessionPhilipp Melanchthon
Source Encyclopedia of ReligionMircea Eliade (ed.); Lindsay Jones (ed., 2nd ed.)
The proper distinction between law and gospel is native Lutheran doctrine and confessional teaching per the Formula of Concord, Article V.
Source The Formula of ConcordJakob Andreae, Martin Chemnitz, Nikolaus Selnecker and others
Designed with Luther's own involvement specifically as a teaching image for Lutheranism, the tradition he founded, distinct from the broader Protestantism edge on file since this documents its origin within one specific reforming church.
Source Wikipedia, "Law and Gospel (Cranach)"Wikipedia contributors
The liturgical colours were retained, along with vestments, the church year and the historic lectionary, on the ground that such things are matters of freedom and not of salvation.
Source The Augsburg ConfessionPhilipp Melanchthon
The daily office was retained rather than abolished, reduced to Matins and Vespers and put into the language of the people.
Source The Augsburg ConfessionPhilipp Melanchthon
Article III names the Word, that is the Son of God, as the one who took human nature.
Source The Augsburg ConfessionPhilipp Melanchthon
Source About The LCMS (LCMS.org)
LWR is the joint relief and development agency of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, so linked to Lutheranism at the tradition level rather than to either single body.
Source Lutheran World Relief (Wikipedia)Wikipedia contributors
Bound into the Lutheran Book of Concord alongside the Augsburg Confession and the Formula of Concord.
Source The Creeds of Christendom, with a History and Critical NotesPhilip Schaff
LWF World Service is the humanitarian and development arm of the Lutheran World Federation, a global communion of Lutheran churches, so linked to Lutheranism.
Source For Hope and a Future: LWF World Service 2024 Annual ReportThe Lutheran World Federation, World Service
Marriage is a civil estate blessed by the church rather than a sacrament, and Lutheran clergy marry.
Source The Augsburg ConfessionPhilipp Melanchthon
Source Martin Luther (1483-1546), accession 55.220.2 (Metropolitan Museum of Art)
The Masoretic Text is the Hebrew textual basis of Luther's German Old Testament translation, paralleling the role the Vulgate plays for Roman Catholicism and the Septuagint plays for Eastern Orthodoxy.
Source The Biblical Canon: Its Origin, Transmission, and AuthorityLee Martin McDonald
Bach composed it within his own lifelong Lutheran vocation as Thomaskantor of Leipzig, whatever the text itself sets.
Source Mass in B Minor, BWV 232 (Wikipedia)Wikipedia contributors
Matins is kept in Lutheran service books, with the Benedictus as its gospel canticle.
Twenty-seven-book New Testament canon, shared across the Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Anglican and Lutheran traditions.
Source The Biblical Canon: Its Origin, Transmission, and AuthorityLee Martin McDonald
The Nunc Dimittis is sung after the distribution, as the thanksgiving of those who have received. Its placement after communion rather than at Compline is distinctively Lutheran.
Sunday is kept for the sake of good order and of hearing the word, and the Augsburg Confession denies that the observance rests on divine law.
Source The Augsburg ConfessionPhilipp Melanchthon
Article I confesses God as of infinite power.
Source The Augsburg ConfessionPhilipp Melanchthon
Article VIII of the Formula of Concord treats the communication of divine majesty, presence included, to the human nature of Christ. This is the point on which this tradition parted from the Reformed.
Source The Formula of ConcordJakob Andreae, Martin Chemnitz, Nikolaus Selnecker and others
Article I confesses God as of infinite wisdom, and Article XI of the Formula of Concord grounds election in his foreknowledge of all things.
Source The Augsburg ConfessionPhilipp Melanchthon
Article II teaches that since the fall of Adam all who are naturally born are born with sin, and condemns those who deny it.
Source The Augsburg ConfessionPhilipp Melanchthon
Source The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised editionF. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.)
Pastor is the ordinary title for ordained Lutheran clergy, called to the ministry of Word and Sacrament, per the Augsburg Confession, Article XXVIII, Of Ecclesiastical Power.
Source The Augsburg ConfessionPhilipp Melanchthon
The Small Catechism teaches morning and evening prayer, grace at table and the Lord's Prayer as the shape of household devotion.
The Formula of Concord, Article XI, Of Election, teaches election unto salvation as gracious and certain in Christ while explicitly rejecting the Calvinist doctrine of a parallel predestination to damnation, holding that condemnation is caused by unbelief rather than a hidden decree.
Source The Formula of ConcordJakob Andreae, Martin Chemnitz, Nikolaus Selnecker and others
Scriptural prophecy is received as the word of God and read as pointing to Christ, rather than as a continuing office in the church.
Article III confesses that Christ was crucified and died to be a sacrifice not only for original guilt but for all actual sins of men.
Source The Augsburg ConfessionPhilipp Melanchthon
Source The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised editionF. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.)
Article III confesses that Christ truly rose again on the third day, and Article XVII the resurrection of all the dead at his return.
Source The Augsburg ConfessionPhilipp Melanchthon
Source Encyclopedia of ReligionMircea Eliade (ed.); Lindsay Jones (ed., 2nd ed.)
Article III confesses that Christ suffered and died to reconcile the Father to us, and Article IV that we are received into favour for his sake.
Source The Augsburg ConfessionPhilipp Melanchthon
Source Encyclopedia of ReligionMircea Eliade (ed.); Lindsay Jones (ed., 2nd ed.)
Sanctification and good works are taught to follow justifying faith as its necessary fruit, though they do not merit favor before God, per the Augsburg Confession, Article VI, Of New Obedience.
Source The Augsburg ConfessionPhilipp Melanchthon
Source The Reformation: A History (MacCulloch)Diarmaid MacCulloch
Source Encyclopedia of ReligionMircea Eliade (ed.); Lindsay Jones (ed., 2nd ed.)
Article IV states that people cannot be justified before God by their own powers, merits or works, but are justified freely for Christ's sake through faith. This is the article on which this tradition was founded.
Source The Augsburg ConfessionPhilipp Melanchthon
Sola scriptura, scripture as the sole rule and norm of doctrine, is confessional Lutheran doctrine per the Formula of Concord's preface, which names scripture the only judge of all teachers and teachings.
Source The Formula of ConcordJakob Andreae, Martin Chemnitz, Nikolaus Selnecker and others
Article III is titled Of the Son of God and confesses him true God and true man in one person.
Source The Augsburg ConfessionPhilipp Melanchthon
Source St Matthew Passion, BWV 244 (Wikipedia)Wikipedia contributors
Lutheranism follows the thirty-nine-book protocanonical Old Testament of the Hebrew canon, reviving Jerome's Hebraica veritas principle against the wider Greek Septuagint list used by Rome and Constantinople.
Source The Biblical Canon: Its Origin, Transmission, and AuthorityLee Martin McDonald
Source Reformation: Europe's House Divided 1490-1700Diarmaid MacCulloch
The Book of Concord opens by receiving the three ecumenical creeds in their Western form, and the Athanasian Creed printed there confesses the Spirit as proceeding from the Father and the Son.
The breaking of the bread stands in the modern Lutheran books as a distinct action of the rite.
Source Encyclopedia of ReligionMircea Eliade (ed.); Lindsay Jones (ed., 2nd ed.)
The kingdom is understood as Christ's spiritual reign through word and sacrament, held apart from the civil realm by the doctrine of the two kingdoms.
Article XVII confesses a final judgment at Christ's return, with everlasting joy for the godly and condemnation for the ungodly.
Source The Augsburg ConfessionPhilipp Melanchthon
The Small Catechism explains the Lord's Prayer petition by petition and sets it in the household as well as in the church.
Lutherans keep the liturgical shape but drop the language of sacrifice, teaching that Christ is truly present in, with and under the bread and wine, a presence distinguished from both transubstantiation and a merely symbolic view.
Source The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised editionF. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.)
Luther argued from 1520 that every baptised Christian is of the spiritual estate, and the ministry is grounded in the call of the church rather than in a separate priestly order.
Source Encyclopedia of ReligionMircea Eliade (ed.); Lindsay Jones (ed., 2nd ed.)
Kept on August 6 and, in much Lutheran use, also on the last Sunday after the Epiphany, where it closes the season and turns the year toward Lent.
Article III confesses Christ born of the Virgin Mary.
Source The Augsburg ConfessionPhilipp Melanchthon
The words of institution are the heart of the rite, and Lutheran theology locates the presence of the body and blood in Christ's own words rather than in a prayer of the church.
Source The Formula of ConcordJakob Andreae, Martin Chemnitz, Nikolaus Selnecker and others
Article XI of the Formula of Concord holds God's foreknowledge of all things while denying that God is the cause or the author of sin and evil.
Source The Formula of ConcordJakob Andreae, Martin Chemnitz, Nikolaus Selnecker and others
Article VIII of the Formula of Concord holds that Mary is rightly called the mother of God, on the ground of the union of the two natures in one person.
Source The Formula of ConcordJakob Andreae, Martin Chemnitz, Nikolaus Selnecker and others
Article I confesses God as eternal, without body and without parts, and in the same breath as the creator and preserver of all that is.
Source The Augsburg ConfessionPhilipp Melanchthon
Article I of the Augsburg Confession receives the decree of Nicaea on the unity of the divine essence and the three persons, and condemns by name the errors raised against it.
Source The Augsburg ConfessionPhilipp Melanchthon
Two Kingdoms is native Lutheran doctrine, God's two ways of ruling, spiritual through the Gospel and temporal through civil authority, per Luther's Temporal Authority: To What Extent It Should Be Obeyed, 1523.
Source Temporal Authority: To What Extent It Should Be ObeyedMartin Luther
Vespers is kept in Lutheran service books, with the Magnificat as its gospel canticle.
Where the Ninety-five Theses were published and where Luther is buried.
Source The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised editionF. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.)