Lutheran view of the church

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Roman_Catholic_1

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Can someone provide me some reading, or simply educate me, on the Lutheran view of the Church? Do they believe in a visible aspect of Christ’s Church or just an invisible aspect made up of all believers? I am also curious how they define the term ‘catholic’ as used in the Nicene Creed.

I have no motives for this thread other than to know what the Lutheran view is. It is not a baited thread where I try to get you to tell me so I can tear it apart. I promise (no fingers crossed) 😉

Thank you and God bless
 
Article VII of the Augsburg Confession states that the church exists where the Gospel is preached and the sacraments are administered, so those are visible elements of the church, but there is also an invisible element because the gospel and the sacraments are not limited to any one particular church. This article from the LCMS website talks more about the distinction between the visible and invisible church:

lcms.org/pages/internal.asp?NavID=2701
 
IowaJay said:
Article VII of the Augsburg Confession states that the church exists where the Gospel is preached and the sacraments are administered, so those are visible elements of the church, but there is also an invisible element because the gospel and the sacraments are not limited to any one particular church. This article from the LCMS website talks more about the distinction between the visible and invisible church:

lcms.org/pages/internal.asp?NavID=2701
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Thank you IowaJay. That answers my question about the visible aspect according to the Lutherans, but I do have more questions (of course). Who makes up the visible aspect of the Church? Just where the Gospel is preached and the sacraments are administered? Does the Lutheran church have a view on which churches offer valid sacraments? Or is any Church which offers the two Lutheran sacraments (baptism and communion) part of the visible church despite any differences in their beliefs (ie would the baptist’s understanding of the two sacraments (which differ from the Lutherans) prevent them from being considered part of the visible church in Lutheran eyes?)

God bless you
 
Roman_Catholic said:
Bumpity-bump.

God bless
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I’ll bump it again for you because I’m not really sure of the answers to your follow-up questions. I could speculate, but would rather not. There seems to be a decent number of Lutherans posting at the present time so maybe they’ll see this thread and have some ideas.

And may the Lord bless you also!
 
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