Christian Pure
Denominations Compared92 articles

Lutheran vs Presbyterian: What Is the Difference?

Christian Pure Team

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Summary

  • Lutherans and Presbyterians both teach that sinners are made right with God by grace through faith, and they differ most on the Lord’s Supper, predestination, church government and worship.
  • Lutherans teach that Christ’s true body and blood are present under the bread and wine, while the Westminster Confession says believers receive Christ “really and indeed,” but spiritually, by faith.
  • The Westminster Confession teaches that God chose some to everlasting life and passed by others, and the Lutheran Formula of Concord rejects the idea that anyone is ordained to condemnation regardless of their sins.
  • Both churches baptize infants, but Lutherans teach that a believer can fall from faith, and the Westminster Confession teaches that the elect persevere to the end.
  • Presbyterian churches are governed by elders in sessions, presbyteries and general assemblies, while Lutheran churches vary, with bishops in the ELCA and a Synod president in the LCMS.
  • The ELCA, with 2,066,620 confirmed members at the end of 2025, and the PCUSA, with 1,019,003 active members, agreed to full communion in 1997, while the LCMS practises closed Communion.

Lutherans and Presbyterians both come from the Reformation, and both teach that sinners are made right with God by grace through faith. They part on four things: the Lord’s Supper, where Lutherans hold that Christ’s body and blood are present in the bread and wine; predestination; how the church is governed; and how much ceremony belongs in worship. The sharpest of those differences is about a meal, and it is almost five hundred years old. When Luther and Ulrich Zwingli,…

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Bibliography (Click to show)
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