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Summary
- Lutherans and Calvinists (the Reformed) both teach justification by grace through faith alone and agree that the fallen will cannot turn to God by its own strength.
- On the Lord’s Supper, Lutherans confess that Christ’s true body and blood are present in, with and under the bread and wine; the Westminster Confession teaches that believers receive Christ “really and indeed” but spiritually.
- The Formula of Concord (1577) limits predestination to election to salvation; Calvin, the Westminster Confession and the Canons of Dort also teach a decree concerning the lost.
- Lutherans teach that Christ died for all, that grace can be resisted and that believers can fall away; Reformed confessions teach that Christ’s death is effective for the elect and that the elect persevere.
- Lutheran churches keep crucifixes and altarpieces; the Heidelberg Catechism forbids images in churches.
- In 1997 the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America entered full communion with three Reformed churches; the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod did not.
Bibliography (Click to show)
- Scripture quotations are from the King James Version (1611), text of Project Gutenberg eBook no. 10 (Exodus 20:4; Matthew 26:26; Ephesians 1:4; 1 John 2:2). https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/10
- The Augsburg Confession (1530), Articles IV, IX, X, XII, XVIII, XXI and XXIV. Triglot Concordia translation (1921). https://bookofconcord.org/augsburg-confession/
- Formula of Concord (1577), Epitome, Articles II, VI, VII, VIII and XI. https://bookofconcord.org/epitome/
- Formula of Concord (1577), Solid Declaration, Articles VII and XI. https://bookofconcord.org/solid-declaration/
- Luther, Martin. Small Catechism (1529), the Ten Commandments. https://bookofconcord.org/small-catechism/
- Calvin, John. Institutes of the Christian Religion, Book 3, chapter 21, section 5. Translated by Henry Beveridge. Christian Classics Ethereal Library. https://www.ccel.org/ccel/calvin/institutes.v.xxii.html
- The Westminster Confession of Faith (1646), chapters 3, 9, 17, 21, 28 and 29. https://thewestminsterstandard.org/the-westminster-confession/
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- The Heidelberg Catechism (1563), Questions and Answers 96–98. Christian Reformed Church in North America. https://www.crcna.org/welcome/beliefs/confessions/heidelberg-catechism
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- Council of Trent. Session VI (13 January 1547), Canon 9, and Session XIII (11 October 1551), Canons 1 and 2. Translated by J. Waterworth (1848). Hanover Historical Texts Project. https://history.hanover.edu/texts/trent/ct06.html; https://history.hanover.edu/texts/trent/ct13.html
- A Formula of Agreement between the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), the Reformed Church in America and the United Church of Christ (1997). https://www.ucc.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/formula-of-agreement-1997.pdf
- The Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod, Commission on Theology and Church Relations. The Formula of Agreement in Confessional Lutheran Perspective, with an evaluation by the Department of Systematic Theology, Concordia Theological Seminary, Fort Wayne (1999). https://files.lcms.org/dl/f/F48A3E67-2AD6-4002-AD21-F1DC14AE2624
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