Throughout the history of the WELS and the Lutheran faith, many men have gone to great lengths and very deep explanations of our faith and what we believe. There are several historical and very lengthy documents for all to read regarding our faith. That being said, we decided to summarize them here in the following statements:

We believe Jesus Christ is true God and true man born of a virgin being conceived by God himself through the work of the Holy Spirit. We believe that Jesus Christ lived a perfect life in our place and was the perfect sacrifice to atone for our sins. We believe that Jesus Christ was crucified. He then died our death for us, being completely separated from God, and his body was placed in a tomb. His body saw no decay (he came to the presence of Satan to proclaim his victory over sin and eternal death.) He was resurrected three days later. We believe Jesus did this freely of his own will, solely out of his Mercy, Love, and Compassion for us, in our body, mind, and spirit.

We believe that, as mere human beings, we cannot come to faith in Jesus Christ as our Savior through our own want or power and actively “accept” his gift of salvation. We believe that we can only come to faith through the prompting of the Holy Spirit. We believe that the gift of Salvation is just that, a gift, freely given and ready for our possession. It is nothing that we ourselves can obtain through taking, accepting, or doing on our own. Once prompted by the Holy Spirit we should believe. We can only refuse this gift in unbelief.

We believe that good works are a result of belief and faith that the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ’s death on the cross is the only good work we dare believe in. All others are a testament of our love and faith in our Savior, and not a means by which we obtain the Lord’s grace and forgiveness.

We believe in the Triune God. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We believe all existed from eternity.

We believe the Holy Bible is the only pure, inspired, Word of God and should only be interpreted by and through itself without reason. All conclusions reached through scripture however unreasonable by human standards, must be an article of faith; and must not be overruled by human logic or reason.

We believe the Sacraments of Holy Communion and Holy Baptism are to be administered according to the direction of our Savoir Jesus Christ in the Holy Bible and not left to human logic or reason.

We believe that all who partake in Holy Communion should be in fellowship with one another. All should believe as one. We believe we receive the body and blood of Jesus Christ with, through, and under the bread and wine and with them the forgiveness of sins. This we do in remembrance of  the atoning sacrifice of Christ’s death on the cross.

We believe the Word and Sacraments are a means of Grace by which God in his Mercy and Love for us, gives to all repentant and believing sinners, the gift of eternal life with Him in heaven in spite of our total unworthiness.

As you can see, this statement contains no direct scriptural quotes. They have been omitted for the sake of brevity. You can find all of them and a very detailed, in depth de scription of our faith here: This We Believe