Lutheranism, in common with Arminianism, rejects the Calvinist teaching of Limited Atonement, the doctrine that Christ’s death sufficiently atoned for the sins of SOME people (God’s chosen or elect) and not for ALL people. Lutherans however do not accept the Arminian position that Christ’s death, while it was not sufficient for the salvation of anyone, did open the possibility of salvation for ALL people.
While Calvinism contends that the difference-maker in salvation is God’s will, and Arminianism contends that the difference-maker is each individual person’s will, Lutheranism chooses not to accept either of these positions and instead “embraces paradox” being left without an answer for the question “why are some saved and not others?”
This, however, soon runs into a problem. Lutheranism contend that “Christ died for all” but rejects universalism (that all will be saved). When these two positions are held (1 – that Christ died for all, and 2 – that not all will be saved) the question naturally arises, “why the disconnect?” Ultimately, since Lutheranism rejects Universalism, they must admit some limiting factor on salvation. I contend that they inevitable put this factor — whether they agree with me or not — on the work of the Holy Spirit. Ask a Lutheran this question and they cannot answer: is the Holy Spirit always effective in His work to bring saving faith in Christ to all that He comes to? Because they believe Christ died for all, if they answer in the affirmative, then they have universalism. But if they say no, then they have limited the atonement not at Christ’s intent but at the work of the Spirit.
To say this another way, my critique of Lutheranism is that it is actually necessitates a limited atonement, not at the point of Christ’s death but at the point of the Holy Spirit’s effectual calling.
That is the ultimate problem with Lutheran soteriology. They claim that “Christ died for ALL” but are forced to admit that the Holy Spirit only works effectually on SOME. This then puts the will of Christ at odds with the will of the Holy Spirit, which they (as orthodox Christians) claim are unified in will. Hence a contradiction. Hence their position is false.