If there is a God, can we prove He exists? If God exists, how do we speak about Him? How do we come to know God? If God is almighty, why is there suffering and evil in the world? Many questions about God have been asked throughout the history of mankind. Do we have all the answers to questions about God? Where do we go for the answers and how do we know what's true?

Does it matter whether The New Testament documents are reliable or not? Is it so very important that we should be able to accept them as truly historical records? Where does the Church of the New Testament find this Word of the Apostles with certainty?

Before the "beginning" there was neither time nor space nor any pre-existing material, form which this world was fashioned; but there was only God, who "is before all things.."

We believe, teach, and confess that the distinction between the Law and the Gospel is to be kept in the Church with great diligence as a particularly brilliant light. By this distinction, according to the admonition of St. Paul, God's Word is rightly divided.

Instead of insisting that human beings attain perfection, Lutheran spirituality begins by facing up to imperfection. We cannot perfect our conduct, try as we might. We cannot understand God through our own intellects. We cannot become one with God. Instead of human beings having to do these things, Lutheran spirituality teaches that God does them for us—He becomes one with us
in Jesus Christ; He reveals Himself to our feeble understandings by His Word; He forgives our conduct and, in Christ, lives the perfect life for us.

Faith justifies not because it is such a good work or because it is so beautiful a virtue; it justifies because it lays hold of and accepts Christ's merit in the promise of the Holy Gospel. For this merit must be applied and become ours through faith if we are to be justified by it.

In this Sacrament, we cling to and trust God's Word alone. Jesus does not lie to us or deceive us. Therefore, when He tells us the bread and wine are His body and blood. they are what He says. The key to understanding the benefit of the Sacrament is Christ's words "for you." What we receive in the Sacrament is a great "treasure": forgiveness of sins.

It is wrong to say that good works are necessary for salvation. It is also wrong to say that they are harmful for salvation. Just as wrong, however, is to avoid the discussion of good works altogether. Perhaps the best analogy for good works--and a biblical one at that--is to think of them as fruit on a tree.

Jesus reveals one final sign in Matthew 24:30: "They will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory." This is the final sign, but it is not a sign of warning; it is the end of the warnings. Christ has promised that He will return visibly to the earth. As Hebrews summarizes it, He "will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for Him."