(St. Louis:
Concordia Publishing House, N.D.)
[Adopted 1932]
6. We teach that the first man was
not brutelike nor merely capable of intellectual
development, but that God created man in His own image,
Gen. 1:26, 27; Eph. 4:24; Col. 3:10, that is, in true
knowledge of God and in true righteousness and holiness
and endowed with a truly scientific knowledge of nature,
Gen. 2:19-23.
7. We furthermore teach that sin
came into the world by the fall of the first man, as
described [sic] Gen. 3. By this Fall not only he
himself, but also his natural offspring have lost the
original knowledge, righteousness, and holiness, and
thus all men are sinners already by birth, dead in sins,
inclined to all evil, and subject to the wrath of God,
Rom. 5:12, 18; Eph. 2:1-3. We teach also that men are
unable, through any efforts of their own or by the aid
of "culture and science," to reconcile
themselves to God and thus conquer death and damnation.