Faith Alone
We believe that the Scriptures teach that by His suffering and death as the substitute for all people of all time, Jesus purchased and won forgiveness and eternal life for them. However, only those who believe this Gospel have the eternal life that it offers. That God's universal grace can be appropriated by human beings only through faith in Jesus Christ and His resurrection, apart from any meritorious human actions, is the point where Luther's decisive break came with the Roman Catholic Church.
The implications of justification "through faith alone" permeate everything we Lutherans believe and teach. One important example of this is that we teach that faith itself is a gift of God and not the result of any human effort or decision to believe. "Through faith alone" also implies that it is only through the proclamation of the good news of God's salvation in the Gospel that we come to faith. The proclamation of the Gospel Word in public preaching therefore occupies a central position in our Lutheran theology. Missouri Lutheran churches are preaching churches. But we are also sacramental churches, for the sacraments -- Baptism and the Lord's Supper -- are the Gospel made visible to us.
Justification is an act, a declaration. It is not a process. Through faith in Christ, and only through faith, sinners are declared to be forgiven and to be perfectly right with God. This declaration is whole and complete, totally independent of any inherent goodness in us sinners. In short, because of God's act on the cross received through faith, we sinners are declared to be perfect saints in God's sight.
Because of our emphasis on justification through faith alone, we Lutherans have sometimes been understood to advocate taking sin for granted and ignoring concern for a life of holy living. But such notions are a perversion of what we believe. The Lutheran Confessions bear witness to the Bible's command that "Love and good works must also follow faith.because God has commanded them and in order to exercise our faith" (Apology of the Augsburg Confession IV, 74 and 189). In other words, we believe that good works are necessary -- but they are not necessary for salvation.