The Faith We Confess
Annunciation holds unconditionally to the Lutheran Confessions as contained in the Book of Concord (1580).
Our teaching is not determined by the preferences of a particular pastor, the votes of a synod, or the spirit of the age — it is determined by what the Lutheran church publicly confessed in 1580, in agreement with the Holy Scriptures. What follows is a summary of what that means in practice.
The Holy Scriptures
The Bible — the sixty-six books of the Old and New Testaments — is the inspired and inerrant Word of God, the only rule and norm of Christian doctrine. All teaching in the church must be tested against Scripture. The Lutheran Confessions derive their authority from Scripture; they are authoritative insofar as they faithfully summarise what Scripture teaches.
Justification
The article on which the church stands or falls
A person is declared righteous before God — justified — not by anything they have done, felt, or decided, but solely by grace alone, through faith alone, on account of Christ alone. God forgives sinners and credits them with Christ’s righteousness. This is a gift, not a wage. It is received through faith, which is itself a gift of the Holy Spirit.
This means that the preaching of the church exists to proclaim this gift — not to motivate, improve, or instruct in the practical management of life, but to announce what God has done for the ungodly in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
“We believe, teach, and confess that sinners are justified before God by grace alone, for Christ’s sake, through faith alone.”
Formula of Concord, Epitome III
Law and Gospel
The Lutheran tradition is defined by the careful distinction between the Law and the Gospel. These are the two words God speaks to us in Scripture, and they must not be confused with each other.
Everything God demands of us. It shows us what we owe God and neighbour, and it exposes how completely we have failed to pay that debt. The Law does not save; it accuses. This is its proper work: to silence every claim of human righteousness before God.
The announcement of what God has done in Christ to remedy exactly that failure. It gives what it promises — forgiveness, life, and salvation — entirely apart from our merit or effort. Where it is proclaimed to a repentant sinner, it gives life.
The Means of Grace
God does not leave the delivery of his promises to our interior spiritual experience. He has attached his grace to concrete, external means: the preached Word, Holy Baptism, and the Lord’s Supper. These are the means through which the Holy Spirit creates and sustains faith — not signs of a grace received elsewhere, but the very instruments through which God gives it.
Holy Baptism
Baptism is not a public declaration of a decision already made; it is the act through which God delivers what he promises: the forgiveness of sins, rescue from death and the devil, and eternal salvation (Mark 16:16; Acts 2:38). The water joined to the Word of God is not ordinary water — it does what it says.
This is why Lutherans baptise infants. Infants are sinners in need of grace; Baptism delivers grace; infants need Baptism. Grace is not conditioned on a decision.
The Lord’s Supper
Communicant members receive with the bread the true body of Christ, and with the wine his true blood — given and shed for the forgiveness of sins. This is what Christ said: This is my body. This is my blood. We take him at his word.
We confess that in, with, and under the bread and wine, Christ’s body and blood are truly given and received. The Supper is not a memorial of an absent Lord; it is the reception of the present Christ, for the forgiveness of the communicant’s sins.
The Historic Liturgy
Annunciation observes the Divine Service as set out in the CASEA Missal. This is not a preference for nostalgia or aesthetics. The historic liturgy of the Western church is itself a form of doctrinal proclamation. Its structure enacts what the Lutheran Confessions teach: grace comes from God to us — in the readings, the absolution, the sacrament — and we respond in the creed, the prayer, the hymns. The liturgy cannot be replaced without changing what is being said.