Now we come to Pieper's portion on Walther's teaching on the Public Ministry, or the "pastoral office".
At this point, Prof. McLaughlin broke this article in Lehre und Wehre into a separate month issue of the Orthodox Lutheran Theologian. So below is what I either call "Part 10" of the OLT or Part 7b of the LuW series. I have given it the title "The Ministry II".
There is much to learn from Walther on not only the Ministry, but also the layman's role in the Church. I have been refreshed as I read each portion. One particular point in this installment refutes the error of Pastor Wilhelm Loehe, a favorite teacher for many in today's LC-MS, especially Prof. John T. Pless. There are other writers today who point out the errors of today's LC-MS in regards to its practice of denying laymen the right to judge and speak on matters of doctrine. The pages of the newspaper Christian News often report of them (search "pro-Loehe" on his site). And Pastor Jack Cascione is an ardent writer on this topic and seems to have a good understanding of Walther's teaching, largely because he defends Universal, Objective Justification.
The next post will be Part 8 – Church Government.
(Part 7a – The Ministry I)
Dr. C.F.W. WALTHER AS THEOLOGIAN
By Dr. Franz Pieper
Translated by Prof. Wallace H. McLaughlin in Orthodox Lutheran Theologian, Vol. 3, 1954, pgs 45-49
from Lehre.und Wehre, Vol. 35, July-August, 1889, pgs 220-227: The Ministry I
(continuation from Part 6b).
In what relation do Church and Ministry stand to one another? That is the second main question which was investigated by Walther with attention to the various antitheses and misunderstandings.
As objection was made to the doctrine that the Church is the congregation of saints and therefore in its essence invisible, that thereby the Church is attenuated into a mere Platonic idea, so also it was claimed that the doctrine of the ministry advocated by Walther did not do it justice. Especially from the so-called “doctrine of commitment” (Uebertragungslehre) did men take occasion to assert that Walther identified the universal priesthood of believers with the public ministry or at least did not properly distinguish them.
But Walther, on the one hand, distinguishes clearly and sharply the office of the public ministry or the pastoral office from the priesthood which belongs to all believers, that he may then indeed, on the other hand, protest just as energetically against a false juxtaposition of the ministerial office and the Christian estate.
Walther teaches first, in opposition to the fanatics of former and recent times, who upon their having come to faith claim that they have also at the same time been made public preachers of the Word, that no one becomes a public preacher either by natural birth or by spiritual rebirth. Walther’s Thesis I on the Ministry in “Kirche and Amt” reads: “The holy ministry, or the pastoral office, is an office distinct from the priestly office, which belongs to all believers”. This he further expounds, l.c., p. 315, “that the spiritual priesthood which all truly believing Christians possess, and the holy ministry, or the pastoral office, are not identical; that neither is an ordinary Christian a pastor for the reason that he is a spiritual priest, nor is a pastor a priest for the reason that he holds the public office of a preacher”. “The Christians have indeed become priests through their Baptism received in faith or grasped by faith, but not public teachers, preachers, pastors, bishops, etc.” (The Buffalo Colloquy, p. 14). In the Scripture proof for the above cited Thesis I we read: “Although Holy Scripture testifies to us that all believing Christians are priests (1 Peter 2:9; Revelation 1:6; 5:10), nevertheless at the same time it teaches us explicitly that there is in the Church an office for teaching, shepherding, governing, etc., which does not belong to Christians by reason of their general Christian calling. For this it is written: ‘….Are all teachers?’ 1 Corinthians 12:29, ‘How shall they preach except they be sent?’ Romans 10:15”. But not only the fanatical total identification of the status of a Christian with the office of a preacher does Walther exclude, but also the teaching of Höfling, according to which “the distinction between clergy and laity…. Belongs merely, though with inner necessity, to the human ordinances of ecclesiastical cultus”, (Grundsätze ev. Luth. Kirchenverfassung, Dritte Auflage 1853, p. 76. Quoted, L.u.W., 16,174. Also Buffalo Colloquy, p.13). To the contrary Walther teaches, Thesis II: “The ministry, or the pastoral office, is not a human ordinance, but an office established by God Himself”. For not only is the office of the public ministry included in the apostolate and with it instituted by God (Matthew 10; Matthew 28:18-20; Mark 16:15, etc.) but the mediately called teachers are represented in Scripture as given of God, (Acts 20:28; 1 Corinthians 12:28-29; Ephesians 4:11) and placed by the side of the holy apostles as brethren in office (1 Peter 5:1; Colossians 4:7; Philippians 2:25; 1 Corinthians 4:1; 1:1). Kirche und Amt, p. 193f.) If, then, the office of the ministry is a divine institution, then it is not an arbitrary office, but its character is such that the Church has been commanded to establish it and is ordinarily bound to it till the end of days. (Thesis III, p. 211.) From Matthew 28:19-20 (“Go ye and teach all nations, baptizing them” etc. “And lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world”) it is evident that by the command of Christ the apostles’ ministry of preaching was to endure to the end of days. Now, if this is to be the case, the Church must continually to the end of days establish the orderly public ministry of preaching and in this ordinance administer to its member the means of grace. (L.c. pp. 211-212.).
On the other hand the office of the ministry is not to be placed into an improper opposition to the estate of Christians. “The ministry of preaching is not a peculiar order, set up over against the common estate of Christians, and holier than the latter, like the priesthood of the Levites, but it is an office of service” (Thesis IV, p. 221.) All believing Christians, and only these, are priests, or of priestly estate (1 Peter 2:9, etc.). Among the believers of the New Testament in general there is no difference of order (Galatians 3:28; Matthew 23:8-12); those who possess the public ministry of preaching are not priests on that account or priests before others, but they are only the ministering persons among a priestly people (1 Corinthians 3:5; 2 Corinthians 4:5; Colossians 1:24-25). (Kirche und Amt, pp. 221,222.) When Loehe says of the ministerial office: “The office stands in the midst of the congregation like a fruitful tree which has its seed in itself; it perpetuates itself”, and when Loehe in consequence calls the preachers a “holy aristocracy”, then Walther judges: “Hereby Loehe manifestly makes the preachers an order, like the Levitical priesthood. Loehe’s view is Romanizing error”. (L.u.W, 16, 176-178.)
But the most disputed question was and is the question concerning the origin of the office of the ministry in concreto or the question: “How do the individual persons come into the office?”
That the office is granted or conferred by God is admitted on all sides, though this admission on the part of those who deny the divine institution and ordinance of the office of the ministry is meant in a somewhat different sense. The question that is in controversy to this day within the Lutheran Church is the question, which are the human media through whom certain individual persons obtain the office of the ministry. Loehe, as already noted, lets the ministerial office perpetuate itself, since he calls it a fruitful tree standing in the midst of the congregation, “which has its seed in itself”. Loehe further says of the ministry “that it perpetuates and propagates itself from person to person, from generation to generation. Those who have it pass it on, -- and he upon whom it is conferred by its incumbents has it also by divine commission….. The office is a stream of blessing which flows from the apostles to their disciples, and from these disciples to their successors, and so down through the ages….. Where the Lord’s office is to be propagated the Lord’s chosen servants, the bearer of His office, are in charge”. According to Loehe, then, the office of the ministry is committed by the ministerial order through ordination. The Christian congregation may express “reasonable wishes”, it may even be permitted to choose and call. No one, however, comes into the office of the ministry by election and call of the congregation, but this is conferred solely by ordination at the hands of those “who were elders (preachers) before him”. (L.u.W., 16, 178) Grabau called ordination at least one of the two feet upon which the office of the ministry stands. (Buffalo Colloquy, p. 26.) Against this Walther teaches: the office of the ministry is conferred not by an order of the ministry, also not by a church government or a committee in the church, but by those to whom God originally and properly entrusted all spiritual power, blessings, and gifts in the Church, namely, by the believing congregation. Hence Walther says in Thesis VI of the Ministry: “The ministry of preaching is conferred by God through the congregation, as holder of all church power, or of the keys, and by its call, as prescribed by God”. Thus the question through whom the office if the public ministry is conferred goes back to the question: who on earth properly possesses all spiritual power? To whom on earth did Christ originally and properly entrust all spiritual blessings and hence also the office of the public ministry? Walther answers: Not to individual persons or a privileged order in the Church but to the Christian congregation. Of the Christian congregation the apostle says, 1 Corinthians 3:21 f.: “All things are yours; whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come; all are yours; and ye are Christ’s.” Here it is “clearly taught: all that a Paul and a Peter possessed were nothing but goods from the treasury of believing Christians, or of the Church”. (K.u.Amt., p. 31.) “Accordingly we read that even the apostle Matthias was not elected to his exalted office only by the eleven apostles but by the entire gathering of the assembled believers, about a hundred and twenty of whom were present, Acts 1:15-26. (K.u.A., p. 245.) At this point we cannot deny ourselves a reference to an exposition of Walther on 1 Corinthians 3:21 which is found in a sermon upon this text (Brosamen, p. 589): “All is yours, says the Apostle. Accordingly nothing is excepted, there is simply nothing which the believing Christians do not have by faith; and indeed what is hereby clearly attributed to them is not only the use and benefit of all things, but the very possession itself. The Christians, accordingly, are not merely, so to speak, tenants and lessees of God’s property, but they are here declared to be the only rightful possessors, owners, and lords of all things; yes, while they still do not exactly enjoy all things in fact, yet they possess them all by faith. The apostle hereby calls out to them: Yours is all which God the Father hat created, yours is all which God the Son hath merited, yours is all which God the Holy Ghost hath wrought. Yours is God Himself, yours the heaven, and yours the earth. Yours are all treasures and means of grace and all fruits of the reconciliation and redemption; yours the liberty from sin, death, devil, and hell; yours all forgiveness established, yours all righteousness won; yours the divine sonship and all hope of eternal life; yours is the Word and the holy Sacraments; yours the keys of paradise and of hell; yours all offices and rights and powers which Christ hath purchased for sinners with His blood. Yours is finally every gift and comfort of the Holy Ghost, in short, ‘all’ says the apostle himself, ‘whether Paul or Apollos’, “ etc. That the congregation of believers is the proper and only holder and bearer of all spiritual blessings, rights, powers, and offices which exist in the Church, is further, and principally, expressed in the fact that Christ, according to Matthew 16:15-19; Matthew 18:18; John 20:22-23, has given to the congregation of believers the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven. For the expression “keys of the Kingdom of Heaven” includes in itself all church rights and powers, every function, power, and authority, whereby are performed all things that are necessary for the Kingdom of Christ or the governing of the Church (K.u.A., pp. 42,43.), especially also the office of the Word and the Sacraments. (L.c., p.38.) When, furthermore, the communion of believers is called the bride of Christ (John 3:28-29; 2 Corinthians 11:2, etc.), the thought is thereby expressed that this communion is also the true holder of the possessions of Christ, its Bridegroom. If in Galatians 4:26 “Jerusalem which is above”, that is, the Christian Church, is called “the mother of us all”, then that whereby children of God are born, Word and Sacrament, and whereby Word and Sacrament are put to use, belongs to the Church. (K.u.A., pp. 30,31.) Finally St. Peter writes to the believing Christians, 1 Peter 2:9: “Ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people, that ye should show forth the praises of Him who hath called you out of darkness into His marvelous light”. Thus God has commanded the entire true holy Christian Church to proclaim His precious Gospel. Hence, wherever a group of believing Christians or a true church exists this church has the command to preach the Gospel; but if it has this command then it naturally has also the power, yea, the duty, to ordain preachers of the Gospel. (K.u.A., pp. 31,33.) – Now if the situation is indeed such that the congregation or church of Christ, i.e., the assembly of believers, possesses the keys and the priestly office immediately, being the bride of Christ and mother of all believers, to which everything that is in the Church belongs originally, then it is likewise the congregation, and it can be only the congregation, by which, namely, by its election, call, and commission, the ministry of preaching, which publicly administers the office of the keys and all priestly offices in the congregation, is conferred on certain persons qualified for the same. The example of this truth placed before the Church for all times is to be found, among others, in the instance recorded in Acts 6:1-6. (K.u.A., pp. 245, 246.) Herewith Walther has proved the above cited Thesis VI. He designates the relation which the church and office-holders in the church bear to the office of the ministry also thus: “It is the doctrine of our Church in accordance with God’s Word that Christ gave the office and all blessings and powers earned by Him, just as He gave the Gospel, immediately to His Church, as the original and first possessor; so that the Church has the office not mediately, by virtue of Christ’s having conferred it upon certain persons in the Church, who then should perpetuate it and administer it indeed for the benefit of the Church. Just the reverse: it is not the Church which has the office as mediated through the office-holders, but it is the office-holders who have the office as mediated through the Church, which as the communion of believers and saints, as the body of Christ, bears all this within herself”. (K.u.A., p.33.) Walther quotes Luther with the following emphases and insertions: “The Christian Church alone has the keys, no one else, although the bishop or the pope can use them, as those who have been charged with this duty by the congregation. A pastor exercises the office of the keys, baptizes, preaches, administers the Sacrament, and does other duties whereby he serves the congregation, not for his own sake” (that is, not on his own authority), “but for the congregation’s sake” (that is, as one to whom it has been delegated by the congregation, who does it by command of the congregation).” For he is the minister of the entire congregation, to which the office of the keys is given, even if he is a rascal. For what he does in the stead of the congregation, that the Church does”. (Die Rechte Gestalt, p. 18.)
The keys of the Kingdom of Heaven, and therewith all spiritual power, belongs to each local congregation, the smallest as well as the largest, in like measure, as Christ expressly testifies, Matthew 18:17-20 (“Tell it unto the church”… “Where two or three are gathered together”, etc.) “That a congregation, in order to possess and exercise all church rights, must be outwardly with other congregations and stand with them under one church government, and thus be dependent upon other congregations, is an error upon which the papacy is based”. (Die rechte Gestalt, pp. 13-20). That each congregation, also the smallest, has all church rights and all church power, that the entire church and any aggregation of congregations has not more power than the smallest local congregation, yes, no more power than the individual Christians, is evident from the fact that the Christians possess everything as Christians or believers, not insofar as there are more or less of them. (Die rechte Gestalt, p. 15.) Some have wanted to interpret the well-known words of the Smalcald Articles: “In addition to this, it is necessary to acknowledge that the keys belong not to the person of one particular man, but the (entire) Church”, as though here nothing were said of the “congregation”, but only of the “Church”, and indeed of the “entire Church”. But Walther rightly remarks: “To distinguish (here) between congregation and Church is a pure invention!” The Smalcald Articles themselves promptly define the “Church” which has all power as the local church or local congregation, when they go on to say” “And Christ speaks in these words, ‘Whatsoever ye shall bind’, etc., and indicates to whom He has given the keys, namely, to the Church: ‘Where two or three are gathered together in My name’, etc. “When the Smalcald Articles speak of the entire Church they intend to say, as the context indicates: not only this or that (member), but all members of the Church”. (L.u.W., 16: 179.)
So it is the congregation, as the holder of all church power, through whose call God confers the office of the ministry. As regards ordination, it is an apostolical church ordinance. Holy Scripture testifies that the holy apostles made use of ordination and that at that time the communication of glorious gifts was connected with the laying on of hands. But ordination is not by divine institution. For Scripture is silent regarding a divine institution of ordination. “But whatever cannot be proved by God’s Word as having been instituted by God cannot without idolatry be declared to be, and accepted as, an establishment of God Himself.” Hence ordination, as a good church ordinance, is indeed to be retained, for when it is joined with a prayer of the church, based on the glorious promises that have been specially given to the ministry of preaching, it is not an empty ceremony but is accompanied by an outpouring of heavenly gifts upon the believing recipient of ordination, but ordination has nothing to do with bringing about the essence of the ministerial office. “Our fathers testify (S.A., Of the Power and Jurisdiction of Bishops, Mueller, p. 342; Triglotta, p. 524) that the divine ordinance of the ministerial office is properly brought about through the call and election of the Church, that ordination does not create this work of God, but where it has already taken place publicly acknowledges, attests, and ratifies it.” (K.u.A., p. 289.) Quite otherwise Loehe, who regards ordination as being of divine institution and sacramental character, and makes it “not only a conditio sine qua non, but the only actual factor of the office.” (L.u.W., 16, 178.) Also Grabau taught: “Ordination itself is no adiaphoron or unessential matter. It belongs to the obligatory divine order and has divine and apostolical command.” (Buffalo Colloquy, p. 26.)
After Walther has presented the relation of the spiritual priesthood and the office of the ministry to one another, and also the fact that the ministry, like all other spiritual blessings and powers, belongs originally to the believing congregation, which according to God’s ordinance and command commits the office to certain persons qualified for the same, he states in Thesis VII what the office of the ministry is in its essence: “The holy ministry is the authority conferred by God through the congregation, as holder of the priesthood and of all church power, to administer in public office the common rights of the spiritual priesthood in behalf of all.” (K.u.A., p. 315.) The correctness of this thesis is evident from all of the above, as Walther also states for further confirmation in the following recapitulation: “A reminder may be in place here that Holy Scripture exhibits to us the Church, that is, the believers, as the bride of the Lord and the mistress of His house, to whom have been committed the keys and therewith the right and the access to all courts, sanctuaries, and treasures of the house of God and the authority to appoint stewards over it; furthermore, that every true Christian, according to Holy Scripture, is a spiritual priest and hence is entitled and called not only to use the means of grace for himself but also to dispense them to those who as yet have them not and hence do not as yet possess like priestly rights with himself. Scripture, however, teaches that, where all possess these rights, no one may arrogate these rights as inhering in him exclusively; but wherever Christians dwell together in a community, the priestly rights of all are to be administered publicly in the common interest only by those who have been called by the communion in the manner prescribed by God. The incumbents, then, of the ministerial office in the Church are for this reason also called in God’s Word not only servants and stewards of God, but also servants and stewards of the church, or congregation, and are thus represented as persons who administer, not their own, but the rights, authorities, possessions, treasures, and offices of the Church, hence are acting, not only in the name of Christ, but also in the name and in the place of His bride, the Church of the believers”. Cf. The further exposition in the place cited.
(To be continued.) Franz Pieper, translated by W.H.M.
(Part 7b – The Ministry II)
Dr. C.F.W. WALTHER AS THEOLOGIAN
By Dr. Franz Pieper
Translated by Prof. Wallace H. McLaughlin in Orthodox Lutheran Theologian, Vol. 9, 1954, pgs 109-113
from Lehre.und Wehre, Vol. 35, July-August, 1889, pgs 227-235: The Ministry II
(continuation from Part 7a).
With this doctrine of the origin of the office of the ministry in concreto and its implications many who want to be Lutherans have found themselves unable to agree. And a reason for such disagreement they have pointed to the very expression “conferred” as objectionable. Walther never insisted on this expression as a Shibboleth of the correct doctrine. He showed, on the one hand, that this expression was not new but had been used by the old orthodox teachers. On the other hand, he is willing to acknowledge as orthodox on this point everyone who holds that the congregation originally possess the office, and that it is not conferred by one minister upon another, but comes through the election and call of the congregation. He remarked on this point in 1873: “It is continually objected against us, even on the part of best-intentioned critics, as by Pastor Lohrmann in Müden, that we seem to make a particular ‘form of the conferral theory our Shibboleth, and thereby threaten to decline into a peculiar separatistic position over against all the rest of the Lutheran Church upon earth’. But, thank God, it is not so! In whatever form other Lutherans may speak of the office and of its conferral we will offer them the hand of church fellowship if only they confess with us the office of the keys as it is laid down, over against the papacy, in our Confession, particularly in the Smalcald Articles, and thus do not deny that not the office-holders but the Church, originally possesses the keys or the office and confers it through the call, so that the pastoral office is not a privileged self-perpetuating order which exists alongside of the Church. But whoever denies this, or, although he makes a pretence of admitting it, nevertheless declares our doctrine to be fanatical, while he, for instance, hides behind the invisible Church as a whole, and thus shows that he fundamentally still holds an essentially different doctrine to be correct, with such indeed we cannot work together”. (L.u.W., 19:366 f.)
Against the matter itself it has been contended that one becomes involved in contradictions by the doctrine of a conferral of the office of the ministry on the part of the congregation. It has been put this way: If the Christians confer the office of the ministry as something which they had before and which the minister is to conduct in their stead, they must all previously have been minister or pastors. This oft repeated objection is not exactly very clever. For it ignores the most ordinary analogies. The American citizens through their vote confer the presidency of the United States upon a particular individual without any necessity of their having previously been presidents themselves. But let us hear Dr. Walther. He writes: “We also assert that the calling Christians are not pastors but simply the priestly generation of the New Testament, in whom all ecclesiastical power of office originally rests, through the conferring of which upon certain persons for the public exercise of the same according to God’s ordinance these persons become something which the Christians are not, namely pastors; even as free citizens possessing the right of suffrage are not civic officials but simply the free citizens in whom all civic power of office originally rests, through the conferring of which upon certain persons for the public exercise of the same these persons likewise become something which the citizens are not, namely, civic officials”. (L.u.W., 19: 365f.)
Another form of this objection is as follows: Since the Christians are supposed to possess the office of the keys through Baptism and faith, they could not get rid of the office of the keys without the necessity of “washing away their Baptism” and “rooting out their faith”. Besides, the circumstance that the Christians bear the Gospel upon their lips would indicate that they still had the office of the keys. Otherwise a division of the office of the keys would have to be assumed. Then the question would arise: “According to what proportion and relation” the division should take place. Walther answers: “The solution of all the above named difficulties and contradictions in which the doctrine of conferral is supposed to involve its adherents lies simply in the fact that the ministers are servants of the congregation. As the mistress of the house is not ‘stripped’ of her power when she engages servants to whom she commits its exercise, so also the Church of the believers is not deprived of anything; with this difference, that, whereas it is at the option of the mistress of the house whether she chooses to engage such servants, the Church has a mandatum divinum (divine order) to this effect. The question ‘according to what proportion and relation’ the Christian has and holds the office over against the minister is answered by the Fourteenth Article of the Augsburg Confession”. (L.u.W. 16:182.)
Concerning the relation of the office of the ministry to the ministry to other offices in the Church Walther teaches: “The ministry is the highest office in the Church, from which, as its stem, all other offices of the Church issue”. (K.u.A., Thesis VIII, p. 342. Walther and the Church, p. 27) The correctness of this Thesis, which is found verbotenus (word-for-word, Ed.) also in the Lutheran Confession (Apology, Art XV., Müller, p. 213. Triglotta, p. 327) is clear already from the fact that the office of the ministry has the public administration of the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven, which comprise in themselves all ecclesiastical power. So there can be no office in the Church which stands above the office of the ministry. Rather is every other office in the Church merely an auxiliary office, which stands at the side of the office of the ministry, whether it be the office of such elders as do not labor in the Word and doctrine (1 Timothy 5:17), or the office of ruling (Romans 12:8), or the diaconate (office of serving, in the narrower sense), or whatever other offices in the Church may be committed to certain persons for their particular administration. Hence those who administer the office of the holy ministry in the Church are called in Scripture elders, bishops, overseers, stewards, etc., and the holders of a subordinate office are called deacons, i.e., servants, not only of God, but also of the congregation and of the bishop, and only of the latter in particular is it said that they take care of the Church of God and watch over all souls as they that must give account (1 Timothy 3:1, 5,7; 5:17; 1 Corinthians 4:1; Titus 1:7; Hebrews 13:17). Thus also there can be no jure divino (by divine right) superiority and subordination among those who hold the office of the ministry, but all are on the same level. Any superiority or subordination is only of human right. (K.u.A. p. 342 f.).
With regard to the rights of the office of the ministry it is to be said that reverence and unconditional obedience is due to this office when the minister speaks God’s Word. Upon this Walther most urgently insists. He has been accused of having made the ministers servants of men, with whom the congregations could deal according to their own pleasure, through his teaching concerning the relation of the office of the ministry to the Christian estate. This accusation is completely unjustified. Walther from the beginning until his end never surrendered a jot or tittle of the rights which God’s Word ascribes to the office of the ministry. But let us hear his own words: “Although the incumbents of the public ministry do not form a more holy order, distinct from the ordinary order of Christians, but merely exercise the universal rights of Christians, with the public and orderly administration of which they have been commissioned, still they are not servants of men on that account. The principal efficient cause of the ordinance of the public office of preaching is God, the Most High, Himself. This ordinance is not an arrangement which men in their wisdom have instituted for propriety’s sake and for salutary reasons, but it is an institution of the Triune God, The Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. Therefore, when official authority has been conferred on a person by the congregation by means of a regular, legitimate call, that person has been placed over the congregation by God Himself, although it was done through the congregation, 1 Corinthians 12:28; Ephesians 4:11; Acts 20:28. The person installed is henceforth not only a servant of the congregation but at the same time a servant of God, an ambassador in Christ’s stead, by whom God exhorts the Christian congregation, 1 Corinthians 4:1; 2 Corinthians 5:18-20. Accordingly, when a preacher is ministering God’s Word in his congregation, whether he be teaching or admonishing, reproving or comforting, publicly or privately, the congregation hears from his mouth Jesus Christ Himself and owes him unconditional obedience as to a person by whom God wants to make known His will to them and guide them to eternal life. The more faithfully the preacher discharges his office, the greater must be the reverence of which the congregation deems him worthy.” (K.u.W., p. 360f. “Walther and the Church, p. 80). Therefore also Walther from the beginning protested against the calling of ministers until further notice (auf Kündigung) which had become a rather general custom in America. This he denounced as a shameful contempt of the divine order of the ministerial office and a degrading of the ministers to the position of servants of men. The congregation can and should depose a minister from his office only when it is evident that the principal cause of the office of the public ministry, namely God Himself, has deposed him from office, that is, in cases where the minister has become guilty of false teaching or offensive life. Walther says on this subject, l.c.: “Moreover the congregation has no right to take away his office from such a faithful servant of Jesus Christ; if it does so it thereby rejects Christ Himself in whose name he presided over the congregation. Only then can the congregation remove an incumbent of the office from his office when it is evident from God’s Word that the Lord Himself has deposed him as a wolf or hireling”. In his “Pastorale” (p. 41f) Walther treats in detail of the usage obtaining specifically in America, “that the ministers are called only temporarily, that is either with the provision that they may be dismissed at will, or only for a specific term of one or more years, or ‘until notice’, so that at a specified interval from the day the notice is given they are to withdraw from office”. Walther’s judgement is that a congregation has neither the right to issue such a call nor is a preacher authorized to accept it. “Such a call conflicts, in the first place, with the divinity of a rightful call to an office of ministry in the Church, which is clearly attested in God’s Word (Acts 20:28; Ephesians 4:11; 1 Corinthians 12:28). For if God is really the one who calls the ministers, then the congregations are only the instrumentalities for the selection of persons for the work to which the Lord has called them (Acts 13:2). When this selection has now taken place, then the minister stands in God’s service and office, and no creature can depose God’s servant from his office or dismiss him unless it can be proved that God Himself has deposed him from his office and dismissed him (Jeremiah 15:19 compared with Hosea 4:6), in which case the congregation does not really depose or dismiss the minister, but only carries out God’s deposition or dismissal which has become evident to it.
If the congregation nevertheless does this at its own pleasure, it then makes itself, instead of God’s instrument, a mistress of the office and usurps God’s own rule and economy….. But the minister who gives to a congregation the right thus to call and dismiss him at its pleasure (discretion) thereby makes himself an hireling and a servant of men”. Such a call conflicts also with the “honor and obedience, which the hearers are to render to the holders of the divine office of the ministry in accordance with God’s Word (Luke 10:16; Hebrews 13:17; etc.); for if the hearers really possessed that assumed fullness of power, then it would stand entirely in their own power to release themselves from the rendering of that honor and which God requires of them”.
To be sure, the enjoining and commanding on the part of the ministers and the obedience on the part of the congregation extend only as far as God’s Word. For anything which is not commanded in God’s Word the preacher may demand no obedience. If he does this he usurps a lordship in the Church for his own person and overthrows the cardinal principle that the Christians are subject only to Christ but among themselves are brethren.
Hence also the so-called constitutive ecclesiastical power, that is, the power to arrange matters of indifference, belongs not to the minister, but to the entire congregation, that is, to the minister with the congregation. (Pastorale, p. 365 ff.) The demand on the part of the preacher that by virtue of the Fourth Commandment he is entitled to obedience also beyond the Word of God is papistical error. Walther sets up the Thesis in his “Kirche und Amt”: “The preacher may not dominate over the Church; he has accordingly no right to make new laws and to arrange indifferent matters and ceremonies arbitrarily”. In the “Proof from the Word of God” he cites the passages, Matthew 20:25-26; Matthew 23:8; John 18:36, and continues: “We see from this that the Church of Jesus Christ is not a dominion of such as command and such as obey, but it is one great, holy brotherhood in which no one can dominate and exercise force.
Now, this necessary equality among Christians is not abolished by the obedience which they render to the preachers when these confront them with the Word of Jesus Christ; for in this case, in obeying the preachers, they do not obey men but Christ Himself. Just as certainly, however, this equality of believers would be abolished and the Church would be changed into a secular state if a preacher would demand obedience also when he presents to the Christians, not the Word of Christ, who is his and all Christians’ Lord and Head, but something which by virtue of his own understanding and experience he considers good and appropriate. Hence the moment there is a discussion in the Church about matters indifferent, that is, such as are neither commanded nor forbidden in God’s Word, the preacher may never demand unconditional obedience for something which appears best just to him. In such a case it is rather the business of the entire congregation, of the preacher together with the hearers, to decide the question whether what has been proposed should be accepted or rejected. It is, however, due the preacher, by reason of his office of teacher, overseer, and watchman, to guide the deliberations that have been instituted, to instruct the congregation regarding the matter, to see to it that in settling indifferent matters and arranging order and ceremonies of the church nothing is done in a trifling manner and nothing harmful is adopted”. (K.u.A., p. 370f. – Walther and the Church”, p. 81 f.) The holy apostles forbid the preachers to lord it over the people, that is, the congregations: 1 Peter 5:1-3; 2 Corinthians 8:8; 1 Corinthians 7:35. “When the holy apostles, notwithstanding these statements, among other things write this: ‘The rest will I set in order when I come’, 1 Corinthians 11:34, it is evident from the foregoing that they made arrangements in regard to indifferent matters not by way of commands but by offering their advice and with the consent of the entire congregation”. As is well known, the recent Romanizing Lutherans ascribe to the ministers the power to make ordinance in the Church on their own authority alone, for which they appeal partly to passages such as Hebrews 13:17: “Obey them that have the rule over you, and submit yourselves” (So Grabau: “Lutheran Christians know that when God’s Word says, ‘Obey them that have the rule over you, and submit yourselves’, it deals not only with preaching, but with all good Christian matters and occasions which God’s Word brings with it and requires, and which pertain to the good government of the churches and also to Christian welfare in life and work, and that honor, love, and obedience according to the Third and Fourth Commandments is demanded…. Here the required obedience is in every respect a matter of conscience; but through the Holy Ghost also a willing and cheerful obedience on account of the believing recognition of what is good in the grace of Jesus Christ”. (Colloqium, p. 20), and in part adduce such passages as 1 Peter 2:13: “Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord’s sake”. (So Superintendent Münchmeyer. L.u.W., 16, 184.) With regard to the first passage Walther says with the Apoligy: Here nothing is said of the ordinances of men, but of teaching the Word of God. "“o also this passage does not establish a rulership apart from the Gospel”. (K.u.A., p. 373.) With regard to the application of 1 Peter 2:13 Walther says: “To understand under ‘ordinances of man’ in this place the arrangements made by a preacher is a perversion which exceeds all bounds”. (L.u.W., 16, 184.) This passage speaks of the ordinances of civil government in secular affairs!
In de-limiting the sphere of authority between congregation and office of the ministry Walther thoroughly examined in particular two points. They are the questions: “To whom belongs the right to impose excommunication?” and “Who has the right to pass judgement on doctrine?” Both questions had to be discussed in connection with the controversy with Pastor Grabau. (Cf. Buffalo Colloquy, p. 21,22.)
With regard to the first question Walther insists: “The preacher has no right to impose and execute excommunication alone, without a previous verdict of the entire congregation”. (Thesis IX, C.; K.u.A., p.383). Walther & the Church., p. 83). Walther, as is characteristic of him, first gives fitting emphasis to the rights of the ministerial office. For him it is certain “that the power of the keys in the narrower sense, namely, the power to loose and to bind”, and then hence “according to the Word of the Lord and His sacred ordinances the public execution of excommunication belongs to, and must remain with, the incumbent of the public ministry”. Nevertheless, “according to the express prescription and order of the same Lord, the investigation preceding the execution of excommunication and the final judicial verdict must come from the entire congregation, that is, from the teachers and hearers”, Matthew 18:15-20. After citing this passage Walther continues: “Evidently here Christ, as our Confessions put it, gives the highest jurisdiction to the church, or congregation, and wants a sinner in the congregation to be regarded as an heathen man and a publican, and the awful judgement of excommunication to be executed upon him, only after several fruitless private admonitions and after he has been admonished in vain also publicly, in the presence of, and by, the whole congregation, and therefore his expulsion from their fellowship has been unanimously resolved upon by them and has been executed by the preacher of the congregation. In accordance with this procedure, then, even Paul would not excommunicate the incestuous person at Corinth without the congregation, but, in spite of his having declared this great sinner worthy of excommunication, he wrote the congregation that this must be done by them “when they were gathered together’, 1 Corinthians 5:4.” (K.u.A. p. 384). Walther and the Church. P. 83) Hence Walther also passes the judgment: “An excommunication which has been resolved by a mere majority to the exclusion of the minority, not unanimously, with even the silent consent of all members, is illegitimate and invalid”. (Pastorale, p. 348.)
But also here Walther is very careful not to go beyond the rightful bounds. An excommunication which has been imposed by a presbytery or consistory with the knowledge and consent of the people he declares to be valid and legitimate. He remarks (K.u.A., & Walther and the Church, l.c.): “It will go without saying that what the congregation through ‘many’ and ‘before all’ (2 Corinthians 2:6; 1 Timothy 5:20) did at the time of the apostles can be validly and legitimately done also where the ruling congregation is represented by a presbytery or consistory, composed of clergymen and laymen, so that the presbytery or consistory alone renders the verdict of excommunication, provided only that is done with the knowledge and consent of the people”. And yet Walther most decidedly advises against the introduction of this arrangement in our American congregations. And this he does also for the reason that the right to exclude impenitent sinners may not in this manner get away from the congregations altogether, as it has for the most part come about in the State Churches. As concerns the right to judge doctrine, “no-proof”, says Dr. Walther, “is needed” that also this belongs to the office of the public ministry.” According to divine right the function of passing judgment on doctrine belongs to the ministry of preaching”. Indeed, without this function the preachers could not at all discharge their office. It is certainly the duty of the office of the public ministry not only to present the correct doctrine, but also to expose, refute, and warn against the false doctrine, if it is to achieve its purpose of leading souls, in spite of all sorts of seduction, unto final salvation. But by the establishment of the special office for passing judgment on doctrine this right has not by any means been taken away from laymen. (Loehe and Grabau wanted to grant a seat and voice in ecclesiastical tribunals and councils (synods) to pastors only. The latter says: “You shall leave the judgment of doctrine to those to whom according to the Twenty-eighth Article (?) of the Augsburg Confession it properly belongs”. (Zweiter Synodalbrief. Colloqium, p. 22.) Rather does Scripture make the exercise of this right their most sacred duty. This is proved, first, by all those passages of Holy Scripture in which this judging is enjoined also upon ordinary Christians. For instance, thus writes the holy Apostle Paul: “I speak as to wise men’ judge ye what I say. The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ?” etc., 1 Corinthians 10:15-16. Again: “Try the spirits whether they are of God”, 1 John 4:1. Cf. 2 John 10-11; 1 Thessalonians 5:21. The proof is furnished, furthermore, by all those passages in which Christians are exhorted to beware of false prophets, such as Matthew 7:15-16; John 10:5, in such passages in which they are praised for their zeal in testing doctrine, Acts 17:11. Lastly, we have an account in the Acts of the Apostles stating that at the first apostolic council laymen were not only present but also spoke, and that the decisions reached on this occasion were made by them as well as by the apostles and elders and were sent in their name as well as that of the apostles. Hence there is no doubt that laymen have a seat and voice in church jurisdiction and at synods with the public ministers of the Church. (K.u.A., p. 298 f. Walther and the Church, p. 85 f.) To take away or even to diminish this right of the laymen is an accursed church-robbery and has as its consequence that it becomes impossible any longer to withstand the intrusion of false doctrine. (K.u.A. p. 400 f.)
-Dr. Fr. Pieper, translated by W.H.M.
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