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.
"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
"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