Luther on Church and Ministry in His Genesis Commentary:
Did Luther Change?
Is this Study of Luther Valid?
Future Articles Will Prove the Following Conclusions from
the 50 Pages of Data
Current Application of the Data
Caveats
Luther on Church and Ministry in His Genesis
Commentary: Did Luther Change?
About three years, ago a pastor told me if I read Luther's eight-volume set
on Genesis, I would agree that ordination was a sacrament, the pastor is in
charge of the church, Loehe was correct, and Walther was wrong about voter
supremacy.
Dealing with lots of other issues and books along the way, I finally
finished reading Luther's eight-volume set on Genesis, all 3200 pages. With a
yellow hi-lighter, I marked every pertinent passage on church and ministry, 50
pages in all. The pastor who gave me the challenge was wrong.
Beginning June 1, 1535 until his last lecture on November 1545, three
months before he died, Luther completed eight volumes of lecture notes to his
seminary students on Genesis. Luther gives a wealth of information about the
nature of the church, how to be a pastor, and true worship.
To my surprise, a different Luther emerged after all the hi-lighted
citations in the eight volumes on Church and Ministry were cut and pasted into
one file. Concordia Publishing House just released Luther's 55-volume set of
Luther on CD, which made the cutting and pasting a lot easier.
It turned out that Luther is not the same fellow we expect to find in the
debates and proof-texts engaged in by Walther, Loehe, Grabau, Pieper,
"The Abiding Word," and promoters of Church Growth. Simply reading
Luther's comments on Church and Ministry as they occur in his writings, lulls
the reader to read the positions of the experts back into Luther instead of
understanding the real Luther. They quote him to support their positions,
which mean they skip parts that don't apply.
Is this Study of Luther Valid?
Some may ask, why focus on Luther's Genesis Commentary for information on
Church and Ministry?
First, Luther's support for congregational polity and the priesthood of all
believers, also his opposition to identifying ordination as a sacrament and
Episcopal hierarchy are well documented by C. F. W. Walther. However, today,
many pastors in the LCMS, including those of the hyper-euro-Lutheran stripe,
claim that Walther is quoting the "early" and not the
"late" Luther. They say Luther changed. Hence Luther's, Genesis
commentaries are an excellent source to discover if Luther did indeed change
his mind on Church and Ministry.
Second, Luther's Genesis Commentary is a large body of work, gathered over
the last 10 years of Luther's life, not an isolated document or sermon.
Third, Luther's Genesis is actually his lectures given to seminary
students. In the course of the 3200 pages, Luther touches on every doctrine.
He draws these doctrines from the text and then applies them to his students
who are preparing for the pastoral ministry. Along the way, he tells them how
to preach, teach, worship, interpret the Bible, and how to perform a host of
pastoral duties.
Fourth, if the conclusions drawn from this study are skewed, it is because
they are only taken from the writings of the "late" Luther as his
seminary students recorded them. Personally, I do not believe Luther changed
his views on Church and Ministry as found in volumes 39-41, but for the sake
of those who object to Walther's Congregational polity and voter supremacy;
let 's see what we find in his Genesis Commentary. Yes, Luther wrote and
preached other material at the same time, but then we would have to examine
the context and approach of these other books, sermons, and letters. The
Genesis Commentary is a complete body of work delivered to seminary students.
Fifth, is my opinion Luther is clearly the greatest evangelist of the
second millennium, while Constantine is the greatest evangelist of the first
millennium, after the Apostles. Therefore, Luther's comments about Church and
Ministry are worthy of our careful examination. Incidentally, neither of these
two individuals is prominent in the teachings of Church Growth and
contemporary worship.
These are all reasons why these eight volumes make an excellent sampling of
the "late" Luther on the subject of Church and Ministry. Some of his
comments on various subjects are only found in these volumes. In the last two
volumes, he makes reference to his imminent death and gives observations on
what should and will happen after he is gone.
Future Articles Will Prove the Following
Conclusions from the 50 Pages of Data
Over the next few weeks, Reclaim News will publish a series of articles
based on the 50 pages of data drawn from Luther's views on Church and Ministry
as found in his 8-volume Commentary on Genesis. The following points, among
others, will be addressed:
A. Again and again Luther states that true worship and the church
are only based on the Word of God. When there is no Word of God there is no
true worship and no church.
B. Luther wouldn't have published a book on "Church and
Ministry." Church and Ministry is a theological category developed by
later Lutherans. He did however, speak eloquently about "Church and
Ministry For Worship."
C. Luther wouldn't have founded a nationwide church body, such as
the LCMS is today. He despised hierarchy in the church and spoke lovingly of
household churches, local congregations, and regional churches. Universities
and seminaries were to be supported by the State. The pastors and teachers
would seek calls in different regions, each municipality being responsible for
its own doctrine and practice.
D. Not once in the eight-volume set does Luther pray for or praise
the institutional church like we pray for the LCMS. He never gives a plan on
how his students should organize local congregations into districts and a
national Synod. He was not interested in these things.
E. He believed in a three-tiered society, home, state, and church,
the church and the local pastor being third in authority. Hence, without the
involvement of the State in America, Walther easily justified the housefathers
forming an assembly directly governing the congregation. On this basis,
Walther planned his all male voters' assemblies and voter supremacy.
F. Later Lutherans, particularly Chemnitz, had to systematize Luther
if there was going to be a Lutheran Church. If anything, Luther's theology was
more integrated than it was systematized, categorized or cut up in parts. Part
of his brilliance was demonstrating the relationships between text, doctrine,
and practice. This is also what sets the Smalcald Articles and his Large
Catechism apart from other writings in the Lutheran Confessions.
G. Walther quotes Luther accurately in his writings on Church and
Ministry, but is certainly guilty of taming Luther down. Luther the radical,
would not have relished building a nation-wide autonomous church body. He died
with one fist in the pope's face proclaiming, "By faith alone" and
another in the Sacramentarians faces proclaiming, "This is My Body."
He concluded that because of the fallen nature of the flesh, the larger the
institution, the more corrupt the institution. Therefore, Luther writes about
small, local, congregations under the control of homes, hamlets, and local
municipalities.
H. Those who look to the "later" Luther for support for
Loehe and clergy supremacy understand their quotes apart from the context of
the "housefather" being over the pastor. Luther argued that every
Christian could baptize, absolve, communicate the Word of God, and was a
prophet of God. He also argued that the pastor spoke for God just as
housefathers spoke for God.
From my observation, Walther avoids some of Luther's more radical ideas in
this area. Luther believed that the father of the local family was above the
parish pastor. People had calls from God to be miners, carpenters, government
workers, and pastors. God calls people to be pastors through the church,
public servants through the government, and parents through Genesis, etc.
Hence, God calls everyone to his or her own station in life through means and
all vocations are under the second table of the Law. In other words, the
mailman is just as called by God for his service through the government as the
local congregation calls the pastor to the office of the Ministry.
I. Luther had one goal for the doctrine of Church and Ministry,
namely true worship. This is all that mattered.
Current Application of the Data
Can the Lutheran Church exist without Luther? The answer is no, because he
must teach us all. Without Luther's understanding of worship the Lutheran
Church will cease to exist, because it will have no purpose or defense for its
purpose.
Today, Walther's attempt to govern a Synod by congregational polity has
been largely abandoned by the COP, the Synod, and all its institutions. The
LCMS Convention votes take place to satisfy the masses, while the Synod Inc.
follows its own agenda. The Synod's goals are oriented toward
self-preservation rather than serving congregations. Hence, the Synod reached
the top of its parabolic curve around 1967.
The Synod, as an institution, will more than likely be separated from local
congregations within the next 50 years. All of this is taking place because
the Synod is not keeping Luther's goal, "true worship" as its
primary focus. Walther was interested in defining and identifying the true
local visible congregation only for the purpose of achieving Luther's goal of
"true worship."
Ironically, Lutheranism in America, what may be left of it in the next 50
years, may take on many of the characteristics of Luther's original
understanding of the household, local, regional congregations and church
bodies. Lutheranism will survive only in those locations where fathers
instruct their children at home in the small Catechism and in the Bible, as
envisioned by Luther. Luther taught that the church could not exist without
the pastoral office. But who can there a pastoral office without
"housefathers" to given a call.
Caveats
Luther is different than Walther. If Walther were describing dinner, he
would speak about the steak, carrots, salad, appetizer, wine, water, and
desert all adding up to a true dinner. Luther, on the other hand, would have
asked, "Was it dinner," and "Did you eat?"
To compare Luther and Walther too closely is to take them out of their
historical setting. Luther is arguing to turn the State, home, and Church
against the Pope and the Sacramentarians. Walther is justifying the existence
of the Lutheran Church without the authority of the State.
Luther only deals with the most primary structure of church government. He
keeps repeating fundamental issues. The State ran the church, so there was
little need to go any further than the basics.
Luther would not understand our view of government and society because he
never lived in a republic or a democracy. Too often he convinces us that he
knows our current circumstances because he speaks so well about the timeless
Scriptures. However, when he moves to current applications, they are his own
and not ours.
We don't have the right to parse Luther up to the level of the Bible. Nor
do we have the right to expect the same kind of consistency from a man than we
do from the Bible.
Continued in "Did
Luther Change from Congregational Supremacy to Pastoral Hierarchy?"