Luther States Ordination Is Not a Sacrament:
Churches Make Pastors With A Call
By Rev. Jack Cascione

Ordination is not a Sacrament.

In the LC-MS only the Congregation makes, calls, and confers the pastoral office through Supreme Voters' Assemblies.

The 2001 LC-MS Convention is being asked to reaffirm Voter Supremacy as the final authority in the congregation that issues calls and makes pastors by virtue of their divine call.

One of the primary reasons some pastors in the LC-MS are now opposed to Voter Supremacy is because they see the pastor as a higher order of Christian, by virtue of his ordination. Hence, these Hyper-Euro-Lutheran pastors believe that God is opposed to Voters' Assemblies because their ordination gives them right to rule the faith of the congregation. They want to return to pre-Walther European Lutheran hierarchy.

These pastors are wrong. Their duty is to administer the Means of Grace in behalf of the congregation. The congregation never surrenders its authority to the pastor.

Luther was adamant that ordination granted nothing to the pastor and that the Call from the congregation, a gathering of the royal priesthood around the Means of Grace Mat.18:20 , is God's Call through the congregation and only through them.

We have a number of quotes which took considerable time to assemble on these two related subjects.

Ordination is not a Sacrament

"The order [the pastoral office] is not a sacrament, but a ministry and a calling of the ministers of the church. 1Cor. 12: 28 It is no promise of the remission of sins." LW34:357

"Of this sacrament [ORDINATION] the church of Christ knows nothing; it is an invention of the church of the pope. Not only is there nowhere any promise of grace attached to it, but there is not a single word said about it in the whole New Testament." LW36:106-107

"I therefore admit that ORDINATION is a certain churchly rite, on a par with many others introduced by the church fathers, such as the consecration of vessels, houses, vestments, water, salt, candles, herbs, wine, and the like. No one calls any of these a sacrament, nor is there in them any promise." LW36:108

"It clearly follows that their sacred ORDINATIONS make no one a priest or minister in the eye of God, but only confer certain mask of falsehood and vanity so that they offer where there is no sacrifice, and grant absolution where there is not accusation. It is as if some actor laughed and gesticulated in a empty theater." LW40:13

"So it follows naturally that Christ has been made the first priest of the New Testament without shaving, without anointing, and so without any of their 'character' or all the masquerade of Episcopal ordination. He made all his apostles and his disciples priests, [members of the priesthood of all believers] but through no such masks. So this mask of ORDINATION is unnecessary." LW40:20

"Does ordaining such babbling priests make one a bishop? Or blessing churches and bells? Or confirming children? Certainly not! Any deacon or layman could do as much. It is the ministry of the Word that makes the priest the bishop. Therefore my advice is: Be gone, all of you that would live in safety; flee young men, and do not enter upon this holy estate, unless you are determined to preach the gospel, and can believe that you are made not one whit better than the laity through this 'sacrament' of ORDINATION!" LW36:115

"However, no one may make use of this power except by the consent of the community or by the call of a superior. (For what is the common property of all, no individual may arrogate to himself, unless he is called.) And therefore this 'sacrament' of ORDINATION, if it is anything at all, is nothing else than a certain rite whereby one is called to the ministry of the church. Furthermore, the priesthood is properly nothing but the ministry of the Word-the Word, I say; not the law, but the gospel." LW36:116

In the LC-MS only the Congregation makes, calls, and confers the pastoral office through Supreme Voters' Assemblies.

"The keys belong to the whole church and to each of its members, both as regards their authority and their various uses." LW40:27

"But let us go on and show from the priestly offices (as they call them) that all Christians are priests in equal degree. For such passages as, 'You are a Royal priesthood' (1Peter 2:9) and, 'Thou has made them a kingdom and priests' (Rev. 5:10), I have sufficiently treated in other books." LW40:21

"This is the way to distinguish between the office of preaching, or the ministry, and the general priesthood of all baptized Christians. The preaching office is no more than a public service, which happens to be CONFERRED upon someone by the entire congregation, all the members of which are priests. . . . But after we have become Christians through faith, then each one, according to his calling and position, obtains the right and the power of teaching and confessing before others this Word, which we have obtained from Him. Even though not everybody has the public office and calling, every Christian has the right and the duty to teach, instruct, admonish, comfort, and rebuke his neighbor with the Word of God at every opportunity and whenever necessary." LW13:332

"Thus I ask the dear tyrants: if bishops are made by the election and call of their own congregation, and if the pope is pope without confirmation by any other authority and by election alone, why should not a Christian congregation, too, MAKE A PREACHER by its call alone?" LW39:313

"For a priest, [a Christian] especially in the New Testament was not made but was born. He was created, not ordained. He was born not indeed of flesh, but through a birth of the Spirit, by water and Spirit in the washing of regeneration. Indeed, all Christians are priests, and all priests are Christians." LW40:19

"Christ gives both the power and use of the keys to each Christian, while he says, 'Let him be to you a Gentile' Matt.18:17. For who is this 'you' to whom Christ refers when he says, 'Let him be to you.' The pope? Indeed, he refers to each and every Christian." LW40:26

"Let this passage be your sure foundation, [1Cor.14:31] because it gives such an overwhelming power to the Christian congregations to preach, to permit preaching, and to call. Especially if there is a need, it [this passage] calls everyone with a special call-without a call from men-so that we should have no doubt that the congregation which has the gospel may and SHOULD ELECT AND CALL from among its members someone to teach the word in its place." LW39:311 [The 1985 CTCR document "Women in the Church" contradicts Luther and says 1Cor.14:31ff is speaking about the pastor in the worship service and not the congregation.]

"Neither Titus nor Timothy nor Paul ever instituted a priest without the CONGREGATION'S ELECTION AND CALL." LW39:312

"How much more, then, does not a certain community as a whole have both right and command to commit BY COMMON VOTE such an office to one or more, to be exercised in its stead. With the approval of the community these might then delegate the office to others." LW40:36

". . . then it but remains either to let the church perish without the Word or to let those who come together CAST THEIR BALLOTS and elect one or as many as are needed of those who are capable." [2Tim. 2; Acts 18: 24ff; 1Cor.14: 30; Titus 1:6ff.] LW40: 37

"Let everyone, therefore, who knows himself to be a Christian, be assured of this, that we are all equally priests, that is to say, we have the same power in respect to the Word and the sacraments." LW36:116

"Hence, wherever there is a true church, the right to elect and ordain ministers necessarily exists. Just as in a case of necessity even a layman absolves, and becomes the minister and pastor of another; as Augustine narrates the story of two Christians in a ship, one of whom baptized the catechumen, who after baptism then absolved the baptizer." Lutheran Confessions Trig. SA Par. 67, page 523

"Thus there is only an external difference because of the office to which one is called by the congregation to do preaching. Before God, however there is no distinction, and only a few are selected from the whole group to administer the office in the stead of the congregation. They all have this office, but nobody has any more authority than the other person has. . . . one person must be chosen from the whole group and appointed." LW30:55

In this view of the ministry, the so-called 'indelible character' vanishes and the perpetuity of the office is shown to be fictitious. A minister may be deposed if he proves unfaithful. On the other hand he is to be permitted in the ministry as long as he is competent and has the favor of the church as a whole, just as in civil matters any administrator is treated as an equal among his brethren." LW40:35

"If you believe, then you are called and numbered among those who believe and confess. Thus they give proof of their calling. They were, first of all gathered into a Christian congregation through Baptism, and now they are in possession of the Sacraments and absolution. Thus we are the Christian Church, or a segment of it. This church has the power to engage pastors. . . .only one is to preach to the entire congregation. Thus the ministry is not mine; it belongs to all the others; it is a public office and confession." LW22:480

"Now a new way of sending was instituted, which works through man but is not of man. We were sent according to this method; according to it we ELECT and send others, and we install them in their ministry to preach and to administer the Sacraments. This type of sending is also of God and commanded by God. Even though God resorts to our aid and to human agency, it is He Himself who sends laborers into His vineyard." LW22:482