LCMS HANDBOOK
(CONSTITUTION AND BY-LAWS) PRIOR TO 1962
"B. ORDINATIONS AND INSTALLATIONS. 4.15 Ordination
of Candidates: A candidate for the ministry may be ordained only when he has received a
legitimate call from and to a certain congregation.... 4.19 The ordination or installation
shall take place in the presence of the congregation which has called the candidate or
pastor."
COMMENTS
Dr. C. F. W. Walther:
"Since the congregation or church of Christ, that is, the assembly of believers,
has the power of the keys and the priesthood immediately [Matt. 18:15-20, I Pet. 2:5-10]
so through it and it alone can the ministry of the Word (pastoral office)....be conferred
upon certain competent persons, namely through the election, call, and commission of the
congregation.........The office of the holy ministry of the Word cannot essentially be
anything else than the authority conferred by God through the congregation..."(Walther
On The Church. Tr. John M. Drickamer, p. 86, 89.)
"Ordination is not of divine institution but is an apostolic ecclesiastic
arrangement and only a solemn public confirmation of the call." (Concerning the
Holy Ministry. Thesis VI B)
Dr. F. Pieper, President of Concordia Seminary, St. Louis from 1887 to 1931,
president of Synod from 1899 to 1911, "the foremost instructor of Biblical Dogmatics
at Concordia Seminary and the spokesman of orthodox Lutheranism" (What Is
Christianity. Forward):
"Only a congregation can establish the public ministry. Smalcald Articles
(Power and Jurisdiction of Bishops): 'Wherever the Church is, there is the authority
[command] to administer the Gospel. Therefore it is necessary for the Church [the
churches, the congregations] to retain the authority to call, elect, and ordain
ministers.' (Trigl. 523, 67.)" (Christian Dogmatics. Vol III. Pg. 439.)
"It is Christian teaching that God has commanded the calling of men apt to teach
into the public ministry which Christ instituted. But the public ordination of these men
according to a formal ritual is no more than an ecclesiastical arrangement which is based
on the example of the Apostles." (Ibid. Pg. 116, n27.)
"The power to ordain inheres in the congregation and other persons have this
authority only by commitment." (Ibid. Pg. 455n19).
"Ordination to the ministry by the laying on of hands and prayers is not a divine
ordinance, but a church custom or ceremony, for, although it is mentioned in Holy Writ, it
is not commanded (1 Tim. 4:14; 5:22; 2 Tim. 1:6; Acts 6:6; 8:17). Hence it belongs to the
adiaphorous practices. A candidate for the ministry becomes a pastor not by his
ordination, but by his call and its acceptance.....
"...... Luther: 'The whole matter depends on whether the congregation and
the bishop are in accord, that is, whether the congregation wishes to be taught by the
bishop and the bishop is willing to teach the congregation. This willingness settles the
matter. The laying on of hands blesses, ratifies, and witnesses this agreement as a notary
public and witnesses testify to a secular matter and as a pastor in blessing groom and
bride ratifies their marriage and testifies that they have previously taken one another
and made this public.' (St.L. XVII:114.)
"The Smalcald Articles: 'Formerly the people elected pastors and bishops.
Then came a bishop, either of that church or a neighboring one, who confirmed the one
elected by the laying on of hands; and ordination was nothing else than such a
ratification.' ( Trigl. 525, ibid., 70. )
"The authority to ordain is, of course, a power delegated by the congregation as
the Smalcald Articles say: 'The true Church certainly has the right to elect and ordain
ministers since it alone has the priesthood.'( Trigl. 525, ibid., 69). (n.19 - l Cp.
Balduin, Baier-Walther, III, 102, likewise Huelsemann: 'The power to ordain does not
inhere in some member of the Church, e. g., the bishop, as permanent condition or
character, but as a commission and transitory power, such as a plenipotentiary or envoy
with a diplomatic mission receives from his chief.' Praelect. in libr. Conc., p.
838.)" (Ibid. Pgs. 454-455)
J. T. Mueller, St. Louis professor of theology:
" ...... our Confessions, in accord with Scripture, Matt. 18,17ù20; 1 Cor. 5,13;
Rom. 16, 17; 1 Pet. 2, 9, expressly teach that the office belongs to the whole Church and
that Christian ministers therefore hold their office by virtue of their call from their
churches.......... WhiIe, then, aIl Christian ministers who are duly caIled are
'felIow-elders' of the blessed apostIes, 2 John 1; 3 John 1; 1 Cor. 3, ù9, they are
eIders and bishops (ministers, pastors) not through any 'apostolic succession' nor through
any 'self-propagation of the cIerical estate,' but solely by virtue of the caIl which they
have received from their churches. In other words, it is alone the divine call extended to
them mediately through the Iocal congregation that makes them 'feIIow-eIders' of the
apostIes."
"The ordination of called ministers is not a divine institution, or ordinance, but
a church rite; for while it is mentioned, Acts 14, 23, it is not commanded in Scripture.
We therefore rightly classify ordination among the adiaphora and affirm that not the
ordination but the call makes a person a minister.
"For this reason the confessional Lutheran Church does not practice the so-called
absolute ordination, that is, the ordination of a person who as yet has received no call,
since this might create the wrong impression as though by the ordination the ordained
person were received into a 'spiritual estate' and made a consecrated priest. who is
eligible for a call by a congregation just because of special virtues conferred by the
ordination. ( Cp. WaIther, Pastorale, p. 65. )
"It goes without saying that also the right of ordination is originally vested in
the local churches, as the Smalcald Articles declare: 'Wherever there is a true church,
the right to elect and ordain ministers necessarily exists.'" (Christian Dogmatics.
Pgs. 574-575)
E. E. Foelber: "Here and there in the Lutheran Church some have held that
the method of electing and calling by the congregation is not the correct one; they
advanced the theory that the Office is actually filled by the clergy. In support of their
claim they point to Titus 1:5, where Paul says: 'For this cause left I thee in Crete, that
thou shouldest . . . ordain elders in every city, as I had appointed thee.' But, as Luther
points out, this passage must be interpreted in the light of Titus 1:7 and I Tim. 3:2 and
Acts 6:S, 6, showing that the congregations called and the Apostles ordained.
"....... since the Lutheran Church, too, practices ordination, it is perhaps not
superfluous to state that our Synod has never considered it to be a divine ordinance nor a
sacrament in the true sense, but rather a rite or ceremony that has come down to us from
the days of the Apostles. It is an ecclesiastical form denoting the public and solemn
confirmation of the call. (Lehre und Wehre, 1870, p. 179; 1878, p. 267.)
"C. C. Schmidt calls attention to the fact that sometimes our Confessional
Writings use the word ordain in a double sense, occasionally for the word call by the
congregation; again for the public confirmation of the call through the servants of the
Church. Both usages, however, indicate that always the congregation is the body or
authority that makes the act valid. The ordination, therefore, is dependent upon the
election and call. What the marriage rite is to the engagement, the ordination is to the
call. (Central, 1880, pp. 71 - 72. )
"In his illuminating essay on Walther as a theologian, Dr. Pieper declares that
the ordination ceremony is an apostolic, ecclesiastical rite , but not instituted by God,
for the Scriptures do not speak of it as so ordered. It has nothing to do with the
creation of the Office of the Public Ministry.....( Lehre und Wehre, 1889, pp. 226-227. )
" (Abiding Word. Vol. II, Pg. 489 - 490.)
LCMS
HANDBOOK FOLLOWING THE 1962 SYNODICAL CONVENTION
"B. ORDINATIONS AND INSTALLATIONS
4.15 Prerequisites for Ordination
a. A candidate for the office of the pastoral ministry in the Lutheran Church-Missouri
Synod may be ordained when the following prerequisites have been met [emphasis added. CN]
:
...2. He shall have received endorsement by the proper faculty or the Colloquy Board for
the Pastoral Office and in every respect have been declared qualified by them for
the office of the ministry of Word and sacrament in the church.
...4. He shall have received and accepted a call to a position the incumbent of
which may be ordained according to the regulations of the Synod.
5. He shall have received and accepted a call extended through the proper
channels to assume full-time work in the church.
6. He shall have...submitted a request for ordination to the proper official of the
board through which the call was extended.
...b. Graduates who wish to continue their professional studies shall be assigned and
ordained upon their request under the following conditions: 1. A call shall have been
extended by a congregation or a proper board expressing preference for a particular
candidate to be assigned to the function of pastor or other synodically approved
office......." (all emphases added. ed.)
COMMENTS
John C. Wohlrabe, Jr., LCMS chaplain:
"Finally, between 1952 and 1962, the Missouri Synod's College of Presidents
decided to redefine the synod's long-held definition of ordination.....The Missouri Synod
had long maintained that ordination was the public ratification of the call into the
pastoral ministry in a local congregation.....The Missouri Synod, including Walther, had
maintained that the pastoral office was established only within and by a local
congregation of believers......At its 1962 convention the Missouri Synod endorsed the
change made by the College of Presidents and, from that point on, one was ordained when he
was certified by the synod, no matter where he was called (administrative position,
teaching position, chaplaincy, or parish pastorate). Thus, the synod took on a churchly
function that had been reserved for the local congregation since Walther's time. Also, the
synod had become more than an advisory body. Various forms of Americanization within the
Missouri Synod have brought on a change of both Walther's understanding of the doctrine of
the church and the polity which he helped establish in 1847." (Concordia
Theological Quarterly. January, 1988.)
(All emphasis added in what
follows. ed)
Commission on Theology and Church Relations (CTCR):
"In considering the office of the public ministry one must consider the
relationship between 'parish pastors' and 'non parish pastors.' Some would deny the
necessity for any distinction. To them only those whose office of the public
ministry is carried out as pastors of congregations that are geographically
locatable are really in the ministry of Word and sacrament.....
"However, District presidents who are charged with the oversight of the
overseers of the flock, or professors who are charged with the oversight of men who
are preparing to be shepherds of the church,or men who are charged with the oversight
of the faith and life of the church's youth on a college campus or in the military can be
properly said to be serving in the office of the public ministry of the
church........
"Ordination......is a solemn ecclesiastical rite by which a duly qualified member
of the body of Christ who has accepted a valid call from the church is presented to
the church as a gift of the Holy Spirit and publicly declared to be a holder of the
office of the public ministry..... As a matter of uniform nomenclature and in
accordance with common understanding, the term "ordination" should be reserved
for a man's entry into the office of the public ministry."
"We stress the fact that ordination is the declaration of the whole
confessional fellowship. In the end, a single congregation or an agency
representing larger segments of the church does issue the call. Nevertheless, in a
synod of congregations bound by a common confession and loyalty, good order demands that admission
into the pastoral office......is not the act of a single congregation or agency.......
"Since ordination is a public statement of the whole church body, one
cannot say that it must take place in the location of the calling congregation........ It
is fitting that the calling agency of the church should be involved in the
ordination......
"Agency calls should contain clear descriptions to indicate that the
call is of such a nature that the candidate may assure himself that the call is
truly within the scope of the office of the public ministry......."
"1. Are calls always permanent?
There is no Scriptural evidence to indicate that all calls are necessarily permanent
or tenured. Calls to the colleges and seminaries of the Synod are generally not
tenured at first........
"The office of the public ministry cannot be terminated in a congregation.
Moreover, to attempt carelessly or surreptitiously to terminate a call to this office (by
either the congregation or the one who has the call) is to manifest a disregard for the
divinity of the call........
"2. Are elected District or synodical officials 'in the ministry'?
That depends upon the call of the church. If the office is such that it is an exercise
of the office of the public ministry by virtue of its functions, or if the functions
are definable as directly auxiliary to the pastoral ministry, then a person
accepting such a call retains ministerial status in the church. No rule can be
given to cover all offices. We have previously mentioned that a District president remains
in the pastoral ministry by virtue of his being called to oversee the
pastors and churches, and a theological professor or a professor in one of the colleges of
the Synod may be called as an 'overseer'.........." (The Ministry, Offices,
Procedures, and Nomenclature. September 1981.)
J. M. Drickamer, Translator, Walther On The Church:
"I am writing to express my dissent from the CTCR document "The Ministry,
Offices, Procedures, and Nomenclature." It is a departure from the historic Lutheran
(and Missourian) position which I consider thoroughly Biblical. This document is not
Biblical but takes certain ideas that have developed quite recently and declares that they
are doctrinally correct. They are not. The following lists my major complaints about the
document.
"The document keeps talking about the church when it means the synod (confessional
fellowship). That is the Wisconsin doctrine of the church as I have come to know it
from personal discussions with men from that synod. The synod is not a church in any
Biblical sense of the word, but to try to make it a church leads to many doctrinal
confusions......
"The only divine call is a call to a divinely instituted office. How can there be
a divine call to a human office? But the congregation is the only divinely instituted
visible church. The only divine call is the pastor's call. Only the pastor is in the
ministry, the public ministry. A professor or administrator is not a clergyman unless he
has a congregational call.
"On p.15 it says, 'It may exist in various forms, that is, the "flocks"
to which a man ministers may have various forms, and the office may be designated by a
number of names, but it remains an office mandated by God . . . ' That is the Wisconsin
Synod doctrine of the church today--that the congregation is not any more divinely
instituted than is the synod or, for that matter, any group of Christians gathered
together for any purpose. The Wisconsin Synod, deviating from their roots in the
Synodical Conference, teaches that any group of Christians is a church. That is the basis
for saying that administrators and professors are in the ministry, and it is false
doctrine.
"Pp. 20-21 is the real seat of the Wisconsin Synod doctrine of the church
in this booklet. A non-parish pastor is, terminologicalIy, like talking about non-money
dollars. The congregation is the only divinely instituted visible church (Matthew 18).
Churches may, in Christian liberty, get together as a synod. But the synod is a human
institution. It is good but it is not divine in origin.
"It really is simple . A divine call can be issued only by a divinely instituted
agency and only to a divinely instituted office. And to call something divinely
instituted, there must be in Scripture the narration of its institution. So the only
divine call is a call to the specific ministry of the word (distinct from the priesthood
of all believers) by a congregation. Only in Matthew 18 is there any sense of church as
divinely sanctioned and instituted except in terms of the invisible church. So a pastor is
in the ministry of the Word instituted by God. But a full-time district president or a
professor of theology without a congregational call is in a humanly instituted auxiliary
office. It may be well and fine and God-pleasing. It may be the best arrangement. It may
be a wonderful application of God-given wisdom. But it is still a human institution.
"On p. 30 it says that 'those who are "called" must be under the
supervision of the whole church.' This is both Romanism and Wisconsinism (to coin a term).
This makes the visible church something above the congregation, which is precisely the
error we most need to guard against in his whole area. The only Lutheran, the only
Missourian, the only Biblical position is that the congregation is subject to God and His
Word but is autonomous with respect to any human authority such as the Synod. The same
false doctrine is evident at different places on p.30, especially when it says 'this
approval of the whole church' and 'the transparochial nature of the ministry.' That does
not make any sense at all. Compare Acts. 20:28. Only the apostles were called to the whole
church.
"On p.31, #6 has absolutely no Biblical warrant. Dr. Walther, in explaining one of
the theses on the ministry, said that it would be idolatry to say that something is
divinely instituted when the divine institution cannot be shown from Scripture. I am not
making an accusation of idolatry here. I am simply pointing to the danger of this
direction with all its implications.
"On p. 33, the answer to #1 contains false doctrine. A divine call is permanent
until and unless God intervenes with another call or a disability (age or illness). The
answer to #2 is also wrong. District and synodical officials are not in the ministry
unless they are also called to serve as parish pastors. There is no word in Scripture
about a divine institution of synod and its administration. The term "call" may
be used for an office besides the ministry only if we understand that we are talking about
a human call.
"On p.36 it says that the church determines the eligibility for calls, explaining
"church" to be "synod." This is false and amounts to a popistic idea
of power. Dr. Walther taught that a congregation may call anyone who meets the Biblical
requirements whether or not he is acceptable to the synod. Of course, in that case when a
man called would be unacceptable to synod, the congregation would be forfeiting its
synodical membership. But since the synod is only a human institution, that is only a
matter of Christian liberty. It is not of eternal consequence.
"In short, I think that this document is an attempt to baptize and to canonize
current practices as doctrinally sound when they are really not. Some good and thorough
study in what Walther and Pieper and especially what Chemnitz and Luther said about the
ministry would reveal that they taught the same things I am saying -- which is the
Biblical doctrine." (Letter to CTCR. January, 1982.)
Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod:
"Antithesis: We hold it to be untenable to say that the local congregation is
specifically instituted by God in contrast to other groupings of believers in Jesus' name;
that the public ministry of the keys has been given exclusively to the local congregation.
"Antithesis: We hold it to be untenable to say that the pastorate of the local
congregation (Pfarramt) as a specific form of the public ministry is specifically
instituted by the Lord in contrast to other forms of the public ministry." (Doctrinal
Statements of the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod. 1970.)
David Scaer, Ft. Wayne Seminary professor, summarizing his view of ordination:
" I personally find it very difficult to designate as a human rite or adiaphoron
any ceremony in which God is the Giver and the Holy Spirit is the recipient, which can
only be administered under certain stringent conditions, which carries with it a threat,
which makes the acting participant in the rite responsible for the activities of the
recipient of the rite, and which gives the recipient a gift which remains." (Ordination:
Human Rite or Divine Ordinance. CTS Press. Fort Wayne, Indiana.)
Ft. Wayne Seminary faculty committee: "The Call is not consummated until
the ordination/installation of the candidate." (Letter to the students.
December, 1985.)
Rev. E. E. Erickson, Midland, Michigan, responded: "Anyone who understands
English will correctly say: 'This means that the Divine Call to a congregation is not
completed or perfected until the candidate is ordained or installed.' (This) is entirely
contrary to Scriptures, the Lutheran Confessions, and the Brief Statement (Missouri
Synod's former orthodox doctrinal position)." (Christian News. February 17,
1986.)
Norman E. Nagel, St. Louis Seminary professor (his reading of Walther's The
Form of a Christian Congregation):
"The election and call are confirmed and put onto effect by ordination. A call
is without doubt divine, but it is not divine by itself. Nor is ordination divine all
by itself. There can be no ordination without the preceding call; no call is operative
until put into effect by ordination. ( Pg178.)
"While being in class three (as something we are told the apostles did) does not
necessarily make ordination divine, being in class two (as something the apostles charged
to be done) clearly does so, and being in class one (as something done according to the
Lord's mandate) removes all doubt. (Pg. 172.)
"Walther leans more heavily, however, against clerical tyrannyùso heavily,
indeed, as to speak of ordination in a way which falls short of the confessions.
There the unshakable grounding is the divine mandate and institution, with the
divine promises ringing in to describe it by way of the gospel and not merely as
legitimate. ( Pg 178.)
"What was divine in his election, call and ordination has not become
less divine, but he has departed from it and so may make no claim upon it. (Pg.176.)
"After election and the call - when the call has been accepted -comes ordination, where
the call is validated, and on that basis the one declared properly called is given to
do what the office is there to do....The work is completed. When it is completed according
to the Lord's words and mandate, it is beyond doubt divine. When we started at the
beginning with the first things being done, which led on to the other things, we were
uncertain as to when one of those things could be called divine. When all the things
were done which make a pastor, no uncertainty remained. What was done was done by
the Lordùclearly so when done according to His words and mandate. (pg
180.)
"If we then move back from the point of completion, that which was the basis for
the comorobatio, if clearly done according to the Lord's words and mandate, may
also be called divine. Hence the divine call is the call that emerges as the final
result of the election and is recognized at the ordination. Can the election then
be called divine as well? If we refuse to ignore the chicaneries that may be observed
going on in some such processes, we may well hesitate to call the election divine. Yet
there are those who would maintain that also the voting here of the congregational
assembly must be regarded as divine. (pg.180.)
"Walther helps us when he speaks of the call within the coherence of those things
which are to be done in making a pastor. From the point of all of them having been done,
the application of 'divine' washes back over the things which were the basis of what
followed, until they begin to blur together. The process does not work the other way
around. The call recognized at a man's ordinationùand because of which the
ordination proceedsùmay without doubt then be called divine. Doubt enters only if
one thinks of separate pieces. Did the call become divine when it was accepted? Was it
divine if the man was not ordained? To such isolated questions we have never
answered "yes"........ Where pastoral activity goes on without ordination,
there talk of a "divine call" runs hollow and prompts derision."
(pg. 181.) (Concordia Theological Quarterly. July, 1995)
Kurt Marquart, Ft. Wayne Seminary professor:
"Since the church consists of hearers and preachers together-not one set without
the other-hearers and preachers act together in calling a qualified man into the
office. Since the office is divine, putting a man into it is part of the
divine institution.... In this sense [both thus being able to be considered divine?
ed.] "call" and "ordination" are synonyms. And to underscore
the divinity of the Gospel-preaching office-as opposed to the humanly invented
order of mass-sacrificers-Apology XIII is prepared to call ordination into that holy
office a "sacrament." But there is no divinely prescribed ritual by which
such entry into the ministry is accomplished. The laying on of hands is an apostolic
custom with rich Old Testament background, and should on no account be omitted; but it is
not as such a divine institution or a sacrament. (For the Life of the World.
October, 1999. The Gospel Ministry - In the Lutheran Confessions.)
END NOTES
Pieper: "Astounding things are taught about
ordination within visible Christendom. Rome asserts there is no other way of becoming a
"priest" than through ordination received from a bishop created by the
Pope.....The Episcopalians, needless to say, omit the Pope...... Also Romanizing
Lutherans, who refuse to concede that the call extended by a congregation makes a man a
minister, but conceive of the ministry as a 'distinct Christian order' which perpetuates
itself by conferring the office on new members at their initiation, naturally declare
ordination to be a divine ordinance." (Christian Dogmatics. Vol. III. Pgs. 454
- 456.)
J. T. Mueller: "Since the mediate call is extended through men (the
Church), we must consider also the question who the men are by whom God duly calls His
ministers. The Romanists claim that only the Pope has authority to create bishops and
their assistants. The Episcopalians teach that ordination by the bishop confers the
highest orders. Romanizing Lutherans hold that Christian ministers owe their pastoral
authority to 'the estate of the ministry' , which is self-propagating......." (Pg.
571.)
"The error of Hoeflng and his followers originated in their opposition to
Romanizing Lutherans (Muenchmeyer, Loehe, Kliefoth, Vilmar, etc.), who
claimed that the public ministry is a divine institution in the sense that it has been
directly transmitted from the apostles to their successors as a ministerial estate
(geistlicher Stand) through the rite of ordination..... ( Pg. 568)
"While the Episcopalians do not acknowledge the Pope as the vicar of Christ on
earth, they nevertheless teach that ordination is the only means by which the apostolic
succession, and with it the true ministry, can be transmitted.
"Finally also the Romanizing Lutherans, who regard the ministry as a 'special
spiritual estate, which is self-propagating, change the church rite of ordination into a
divine institution, or ordinance. These Romanizing Lutherans emphatically deny that the
Christian minister receives his office through the call of thecongregation, though this
doctrine is clearly taught in Scripture." (Christian Dogmatics. Pgs. 576.)
Posted to Luther Quest website
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Submitted for publication to Christian News
Copy to LCMS Council of Presidents