As Lutherans, we believe that:
Since the fall of Adam and Eve into sin, all people are born
alienated from God, separated from the Source of life and joy and
peace, and that they are helpless to do anything about this!
Nevertheless, through his totally undeserved love, the Triune God has had compassion on the human race and sent his Son into our own flesh and blood, to win forgiveness of sins for all people and to give us a share in his own divine nature.
Jesus Christ won this forgiveness of sins for all people by his life
Of perfect love and by his suffering and death on the cross. His
resurrection was God the Father's public proclamation that His Son's sacrifice of love was accepted and that it avails for all!
This salvation, won by Jesus Christ upon the Cross, is bestowed on us through God's specially appointed means: preaching of the Gospel and the administration of Holy Baptism, Holy Absolution, and the Sacrament of the Altar. Through these, God the Holy Spirit is at work, providing and strengthening the faith to accept the joyful salvation our God there gives.
This salvation is the cause of endless joy for believers as they
contemplate the great love that it reveals to be in the heart of God
toward them and the hope that it gives: a loving heavenly Father, an eternal home, a place at our Father's table for all eternity, the
healing of all earthly sorrows, and a joyful reunion with all
believers in heaven.
Our gracious and loving God wants all people to have a share in this joy, and is grieved when people refuse and reject it and consign themselves to unspeakable sadness of an eternity cut off from him (hell).
