We get it - authority and office and a sense of the transcendent are both correct and intoxicating.

But justification is the key doctrine, it's not theosis or that God makes you better, but that He forensically declares you "Not Guilty" and also "Perfectly Worthy" on account of Christ's perfect life and death in your place. That's the most important thing, and what the Bible is all about. Christ says the scriptures are all about Him, and that means He's not only acting in the Old Testament as the Second Person of the Trinity, but He's also recapitulating all the failed characters and re-living their lives in their place, from Adam, to Noah, Abraham, Jacob, Israel, you and me.

That's not just key to the story of scripture but to the liturgy. Without Christ's Alien Righteousness declared yours in forensic justification, the liturgy, no matter how pretty and transcendent, is missing the whole point. Just like we don't do the Divine Liturgy because it's old, but because it's cosmic, so too we don't read scripture with the church fathers, but with the invisible church. That is all the saints throughout time and space, in a great conversation. That's how the scriptures themselves interpret, not off alone in a corner, but using the church. Not the visible church, but the Invisible Church. The church fathers are 'old enough', you need to go back to the authors of the text itself.

It's also worth noting that the Greek church fathers are far away from the text of scripture. They didn't know Hebrew or naturally think in the ways of the Old Testament. Remember when Christ says the whole scriptures are about Him, he's saying that about Moses and the Prophets. Even the New Testament is really an extension, fulfillment of the Old Testament. Paul and company were Israelites, writing Hebrew with a Greek pen. If you want church fathers, better to go back to the Aramaic, they're centuries older than the Greeks and much closer to the text. But age isn't a good litmus test. Remember, Peter was there at the time, older than any of them, and he butchered the Gospel until Paul set him straight. Justification is the criteria.

For the advanced, the Holy Spirit proceeding from the Father and the Son is super important too. Not 'just' as core orthodoxy, but it's key to the Old Testament with the Holy Ghost and the preincarnate Christ, as the visible glory cloud proceeded from Christ at creation, in the burning bush, in the pillar of cloud and flame at the Exodus, in the tabernacle and temple, as the Son of Man, all the major Christophanies. (Again, knowing the Old Testament not only helps you with the filioque clause, but also the Trinity acting all throughout scripture in the progressive revelation of Christ's Person & Work.)

See the notes on the Eastern Orthodox above.

Remember that time Peter butchered the Gospel? Or, one could argue historically, aka, which pope was in apostolic succession. There were four at the same time at various points before the retcon. (Don’t have time for history? Just rent the Borgias - the Jeremy Irons one - but make sure to turn your browser to adult mode. And that’s tame compared to actually ongoings.)

But the key, as always, is justification. Christ doesn't die for you, wiping your slate clean, then leaving you to work the rest out yourself through participation in the sacramental system. Rather, you are declared not guilty and perfectly worthy. Nothing left to do, except say thank you, as a response. Roman doctrine calls that a "legal fiction," basically that God can't say something untrue. Note this gets super philosophical, and is really grounded in Aristotlean reason. Luther got super feisty, saying that the philosophers couldn't bind God, or climb up and get a look at the naked God apart from His revelation. That revelation shows us that God's Word creates the thing itself. When He says, "Let there be light," and darkness turns to light. His word undoes, or rather recreates, reality. That's kind of the whole point. The dead rise from the grave, and when He pronounces you "not guilty" and "perfectly worthy," you are really and truly. It's not a legal fiction, but Christ's Righteousness becomes yours through that proclamation of the Gospel and through baptism and the Eucharist.

The point of the Reformation was to reform the church, it's always needed it, from the visible church as Israel, through the council of Jerusalem surprised that God's plan included the gentiles even though that's the promise to Abraham, Israel and Christ told them this repeated, through the middle ages. Scripture, not read off alone in your closet, but with the church, the Invisible Church. So too continuity and succession, not through 'popes' but through doctrine, specifically justification. On that note, not only is justification the criteria, but the Romans have officially declared it heresy, opening the doors post -vatican ii to pages like Plato while anathematizing forensic justification from Luther, Paul, and Christ. This is all before we even get into modern history, scandals, and cultural gospels. The point isn't to make fun of the Roman visible church, as every visible church is a disaster, but that the Romans have the wrong church. It's the invisible church, not the visible, and they overlap but are not the same.

This is behind Luther calling the Romans antichrist, in that they claimed they were not only the visible church but the invisible church, just like the Israelite high priest did when Christ cut off Israel and shut down the temple. Christ is the great high priest, not the pope, and His church is all believers throughout time and space, from Adam to Abraham, the Apostles & Paul, to Luther and your loved ones who have died believing that Christ earns the status from God of "well pleased" and credits this to you.

Okay, hang with this, but it's basically the same thing as the Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholics.

Not in how it looks, smells, or feels, but in how they take half of justification and leave you to do the rest. Christ died for you, removes your sin, and now it's up to you to get the perfectly worthy part. Maybe you do it through sacramental economies like the Romans, maybe it's through following a method of sanctification like Wesley, maybe it's super spiritual practice like higher life stuff, or maybe it's just cultural evangelicalism like throwing out the chardonnay, going into your prayer closet regularly, and whatever else showcases you as team good Christian.

Again, justification is Christ died for you, and also lived for you. He kept the full will and law of God, finished it down to the smallest jot and title, crossing the t and dotting the i. You get an F and He gets an A. He pays the penalty for your F on the cross, and grants you not just neutral status, but perfectly worthy - aka A+, and credits that to you.

And He does that through word and sacrament. It's supernatural. You don't have to do anything to get it, because you can't. Faith like a little child doesn't mean goo goo ga ga, it means you can't do jack diddly. If He can raise up the dead through a word that creates light and life, so too He can create faith in a little baby. The story actually has him acting in the Old Testament. Paul says Moses was baptized into Christ in the Exodus. All of them, men, women, and babies went into those waters, through death, and back up into life. It's a core part of the story. The rock was split in judgement, as God emptied Himself of status to take the punishment of His rebellious people, smashing the rock then using His smashed shards to bring dead people life with water. Same thing from Exodus as on the cross. Same person. Paul says that rock was Christ. It's no metaphor but real. If you believe in creation from nothing, the incarnation of God, a virgin birth, this shouldn't surprise you. God does the impossible using matter all the time. The Eucharist isn't a memorial of something we do, but where God shares Himself, Christ's body, blood, and benefits. Yes, the text says it, but we see this type of thing everywhere in the story. Eden has a curse attached to the act of physically eating the wrong tree. In the eucharist, we eat a blessing, Christ, the good fruit of the tree of eternal life.

One other core difference, of course, is about the church and the world. The Divine Liturgy isn't something we make up, where we're free to do whatever, but it's cosmic. God has a heavenly temple with a heavenly liturgy, and He brings it to us. Our worship reflects that, not our own preferences. The world is fallen but not evil. God created it good. Alcohol is a good gift that makes the heart glad. We know God's a good God because He gives us the good stuff at the messianic banquet, at Isaiah's vision of the Day of the LORD, at Christ's inaugural banquet feast where He comes as groom to resurrect His bride, and here today. That's not the culture (AKA the problem isn't that the world needs to be christianized). That's the visible church. It doesn't work out well. Israel, the nation-state, was for a specific time and place, and Christ cut that off literally when He cursed the fig tree. His kingdom is the invisible church. Both the Roman Catholics and the Evangelicals have not only the same theology of salvation (take a little step and God will meet you halfway / to those who do what is within them God doesn't deny grace), but also the same theology of the church and world. It is not that the church must be sequestered from the world / transformed into the visible church. The biblical picture is of two kingdoms, with Christians in the world but not of it, serving Christ in his church and their neighbors in the world.

Some say the best trick the devil ever did was to convince the world that he doesn't exist.

Maybe. The real play is to get people to think they know their Gospel when they don't. To join a church based on justification, then forget half of it. To base their identity on the motto on always reforming, but then refuse to do it themselves. Demonic inoculation.

Justification is not only Christ dying on the cross for you, forgiving your sins. That's exactly what you'll hear above from the Eastern Orthodox, roman catholic, evangelicals. The vast majority of Lutherans don't know, don't regularly hear, can't articulate justification as not guilty and perfectly worthy. Sure they say it's "faith, not works," but everybody says that. They can't go beyond into alien righteousness expressing itself through Christ's words and deeds as recapitulation. They may know the word active obedience, but don't know what it means, how it drives scripture, and what it means today as God serves us in word and sacrament. If they know it, they certainly don't regularly teach, preach, or share it. Even though Christ seems to think it's pretty important. Aka it's not just the temptation where Christ is the new Adam, but in every action, every thought, word, and deed, as the catechism says. They'll know that phrase, just not what it means. Perfect inoculation.

TLDR. Contemporary Lutherans are largely like evangelicals (check notes above). They don't know justification, and their worship can be totally evangelical , which gets framed as historical, rather than cosmic.

Still, it's the best explanation of biblical teaching on paper. And was formed attempting to reform the church back to justification - both passive and active, removing the need for indulgences and the like. And it's worship done right is cosmic with Christ really and truly present in word and sacrament. And preaching not 'just' law and gospel, but alien righteousness as the key (at least Luther said it was for him). Namely, that the law shows you you can't fulfill it. So you need a savior. Not just because you are sinful. But in order to stand before a perfectly holy God, you need to be perfectly righteous. You need the righteousness of another, someone else, another, or alien righteousness. Not just a savior to take away your sins on the cross, but a sacrifice to share his Righteousness. The reformation breakthrough, the return to Paul and the scriptures, was that God supplies His own righteousness in Christ. That's what Paul means when he says Christ became sin, and Christ is the Righteousness of God, not a metaphor, not as one side of the coin, but merit for which God says He's well pleased and He proclaims you perfectly worthy.

Now we're cooking. This is the worldview of the people in the scriptures.

The cosmic beings are real, territorial, in spiritual communion with physical effects, and in a constant struggle with their creator, vying for supremacy. The question is who is good and who is bad. At Babel, God divorced Himself from the nations and allotted supernatural rules over the nations. This is universal in the ancient world, from Egypt, to Babylon to Plato and Greeks, and Romans. Israel's mission was to bring the nations back, and not only did they fail, but the supernatural rules also failed, taking worship unto themselves. Christ had to be both God and man for the resurrection, God for life and death of infinite worth to endure punishment for the world, and man as federal representative in our place. But the Christ, the God-man as messiah, also does something else. He undoes Babel and the various other supernatural rebellions. The former arrangement is null and void, says Paul, instead all authority on heaven and earth given to the messiah to rule. Not as a nation state of visible church, but ruling the nations by defeating the powers and principalities and the messiah on the cross.

The old arrangement done, now anyone, anywhere can come directly to God through the only mediator, Christ. This is a huge part of what the gospels are talking about, going to certain places, satan falling like lightning, going to the temple of Zeus and the grotto of Pan and gates to the underworld at Baal's mountain. Casting out the spirit of Python, and the Imperial cult of Augustus at Ephesus, etc. Same thing as early days with Egyptian 'gods' defeating their domains in the plague and uncreating their territory. This is Paul's mission to undo the table of nations, Babel, going out to the gentiles, from Jerusalem to border lands, to nations, to barbarians that don't even speak Latin at Malta. After Christ, even according to the pagan sources, the Oracle at Delphi falls silent.

Ironically, if you're supernatural evil, the question is how to stall the requiem. It's not so much by practicing paganism, but by stalling the church's great commission. You might not 'beat' God, but you can go on almost indefinitely, just prevent the gospel from going to the ends of the earth. How to do that, perhaps start with justification. Have folks forget it. Cherry on top is the people who should know it.

If you're a pagan, you might be closer to Christ's world than modern Christians. The supernatural is real. Christ conquered those powers and broke open the gates of hell. He's visited Tartarus to bind the adversaries in chains of gloomy darkness. And promises to recreate this physical world as a new heavens and earth to pick back up the plan with Edenizing. Saints are real holy ones or sons of God in the heavenly council. Come join in where heaven meets earth.