Did Luther Change his views from congregation supremacy to Pastoral Hierarchy?

By: Rev. Jack Cascione

In 1523, Luther wrote his famous essay: “That A Christian Assembly or Congregation Has The Right and Power to Judge All Teaching and To Call, Appoint, and Dismiss Teachers, Established and Proven by Scripture.” (Luther’s Works, pages Vol. 39: Pages 299-312).  Luther showed that even though the pastor has the highest office in the church, the lay people, as a congregation, are the highest tribunal in the church.   Today, Luther’s critics in the LCMS claim that the above is the teaching of the young radical Luther.  They claim that as years progressed Luther changed his mind and reaffirmed the necessity for Episcopal hierarchy, the sacrament of ordination, and the pastor having authority over the congregation.  They claim that Walther’s “Church and Ministry” is in error because it only reflects the teaching of the “young” and not the “elder” Luther.  The point of this paper is to show how mistaken these critics are.  Luther didn’t change his teaching on Church and Ministry, rather, the young radical became the old radical who broadened and expanded his position to include home, state, and church.  Walther’s critics on Church and Ministry quote Luther out of context.  In America it was necessary for Walther to abandon implementation of Luther’s teaching on the state.  However, Walther’s understanding of “Church and Ministry” is a clear application of Luther’s teaching on the home and church.

This paper will limit its examination of Luther’s teaching on home, state, and church, to Luther’s last great writing, his eight-volume Genesis Commentary, which was completed a few months before his death.  In this writer’s opinion, Luther’s Genesis Commentary is the single greatest commentary ever written on any book of the Bible.  The Genesis Commentary is the collected transcripts, written down by seminary students, of Luther’s lectures delivered from 1535 to 1545.  They are filled with hundreds of pages on pastoral practice and God’s intended relationship between church, worship, home, state, laypeople, and pastor.

1.  Many lay people in the LCMS are no longer being taught Luther’s and Walther’s views of the pastoral office.

Rather, they are being indoctrinated and stretched between false dichotomies.  On the one hand, they hear Church Growth advocates teach that everyone is a minister, they need spiritual gifts inventories, and they need to be led by CEO/pastors and Boards of Directors if the congregation is going to grow.  On the other hand, they hear Hyper-Euro-Lutherans (those who want to promote 19^th Century, pre-Walther, European, Lutheran hierarchy in the LCMS) teach that the pastor is the head of the congregation because he has the “sacrament of ordination.”  It’s the LCMS version of antinomians versus the legalists.   Lay people are often heard to clamor, “Oh, to participate in some of the pastor’s spiritual gifts and duties!”  Or they pray, “Oh Lord, give me grace through your chosen transubstantiated vessel, my Father-Pastor-Bishop.” They are not being told Luther’s teaching that lay people have a higher divine calling from God than the pastor in their own homes and in the state.

2. Luther taught that the home and state were above the church.

First, all must submit to God’s Word.

Luther loathed and detested Episcopal hierarchy and apostolic succession to the grave (LW4:30).  Luther says about these lovers of hierarchy instead of God’s Word in the church, they are nothing except Ishmael in the house of Abraham  (LW4:30).  “They must be thrown out,” says Sarah and God says, “Listen to her.”

Luther listed the three estates in their proper order of authority, and reversed the order taught by the Catholic Church.

This life is profitably divided into three orders: (1) life in the home; (2) life in the state; (3) life in the church.  To whatever order you belong—whether you are a husband, an officer of the state, or a teacher of the church—look about you, and see whether you have done full justice to your calling and there is no need of asking to be pardoned for negligence, dissatisfaction, or impatience. But if you have conducted your affairs in such a manner that there is no need of saying: “Forgive us our trespasses,” then by all means go out into the desert, and occupy yourself with those showy and difficult works. LW3:217

Before the fall into sin, Luther says the correct order on earth was church, state, and home.

In Genesis 1:16 and 17 Luther comments as follows: 16. And He commanded him, saying: Eat from every tree of Paradise , 17. but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil do not eat.   Here we have the establishment of the church before there was any government of the home and of the state; for Eve was not yet created. Moreover, the church is established without walls and without any pomp, in a very spacious and very delightful place. After the church has been established, the household government is also set up, when Eve is added to Adam as his companion” (LW1:102).

Luther taught that the first location of worship before the Fall was the tree of knowledge of good and evil (Gen 1:16 -17), which was nothing less than the proper division of Law and Gospel (LW1:102).  First, the Word of God established the church; then Adam was placed over the state; then marriage and the home were created with Eve. (LW1:102, 104).  Man was created to worship God (LW1:102).

Meanwhile, to be sure, we diligently teach that those two offices, the civil and the ecclesiastical, should be kept separate; but we do so to no avail. Therefore the fact that priests are exalted and thrive is the fault not only of the ambitious bishops but also of the lazy magistrates, who indeed want to have glory and honor, as is proper, but do not want to work. Accordingly, when the very men who have been called for this purpose are unwilling to do their duty, and failures or diseases are perpetual in governments and require a physician, if the pastors of the churches then undertake the care of governmental affairs, they will eventually arrive at pontifical honor by this road. LW4:76   Abraham does not refuse to take the oath, and by his action he teaches that these moral and civil matters should neither be looked down upon nor neglected by the saints under the pretense of their religion. LW4:77

Therefore one should not refuse or shun civic duties under the pretext of religion, as the monks do. LW4:88   There must be rulers in this life, and the church has not been appointed to destroy the household and the government. LW4:88

One must note, however, that the Lord also speaks to us through human beings.  When parents give order to their children, the tasks may seem insignificant and unimportant in their outward appearance; yet when the children obey, they are obeying not so much men as God. LW2:271

Thus when the government, by virtue of its office, calls citizens into military service in order to maintain peace and to ward off harm, obedience is shown to God. For the Lord tells us ( Rom. 13:1): “Let every person be subject to the governing authorities.” But someone will say: “Obedience is dangerous, for I may be killed!” My answer is: “Whether you kill or are killed is immaterial, for you are going as the Lord has told you. It is, therefore, a holy and godly deed even to kill an adversary, provided the government commands it.”

In one’s entire life and in all activities, therefore, one must consider the Word, not only in the church but also in the household and in the government. If you have the Word and follow it, you have obedience also. For they are correlatives; but when one of the correlatives is removed, namely, the Word, obedience is also removed, and there is none. LW 2:274

All too often I’ve heard my Hyper-Euro-Lutheran brethren quote Luther on the pastoral office without telling their listeners the context is that the home and state are above the church.  It doesn’t take much to make Luther sound like a lover of Episcopal hierarchy as we read Luther in the following quotation without the proper understanding of his views on the home and state.

Thus God could rule the church through the Holy Spirit without the ministry, but He does not want to do this directly. Therefore He says to Peter: “Feed My sheep (John 21:16 ). Go, preach, baptize, absolve.” In the state He says to the magistrate: “Watch, defend, use the sword, etc.” Therefore Paul calls the apostles “fellow workmen with God” (1 Cor. 3:9). To be sure He alone works. But He does so through us.  LW8:94

1. church, home, state, LW1:102
2. parents, state, church LW2:83
3. home, state church LW3:217
4. government, home, church LW2:228
5. church, home, state LW2:274
6. parents, government, church LW3:279
7. household, state, church LW4:76
8. parents, government, Word LW4:362
9. parents, government, ministers of the, word LW5:71
10. household, government, priesthood       , LW5:139
11. home, state, church LW5:139
12. household, state, church LW5:143
13. marriage, church, state LW5:189
14. church, state, home LW6:320
15. state, marriage, church LW7: 143
16. church, state, household LW7 146-147
17. fathers, state, church LW7:175
18. household, state, church LW7:312
19. state, household, church LW7:348-349
20. household management, helms of state, sacred assemblies LW8:269

(A) “In the first place, He has entrusted His Word to parents, as Moses often declares: ‘Tell your children these things.’ In the second place, He has given it to the teachers in the church, as Abraham says in Luke 16:29: ‘They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them.’  Where there is a ministry, we should not wait for either an inward or an outward revelation.  Otherwise all the orders of society would be confused.  Let the clergyman teach in the church, let the civil officer govern the state, and let parents rule the home or the household.  God established these human ministries.  Therefore we must make use of them and not look for other revelations.” LW2:83

(B) “This life is profitably divided into three orders: (1) life in the home; (2) life in the state; (3) life in the church.  To whatever order you belong—whether you are a husband, an officer of the state, or a teacher of the church—look about you, and see whether you have done full justice to your calling and there is no need of asking to be pardoned for negligence, dissatisfaction, or impatience.” LW3:217

(D) “These, then, are the three hierarchies we often inculcate, namely, the household, the government, and the priesthood, or the home, the state, and the church.” LW5:139

(E) “We know that there are three estates in this life: the household, the state, and the church.  If all men want to neglect these and pursue their own interests and self-chosen ways, who will be a shepherd of souls?  Who will baptize, absolve, and console those who are burdened with sins?  Who will administer the government or protect the common fabric of human society?  Who will educate the young or till the ground?  Yet these duties, which have been commanded and approved by God, have been scorned and cast aside in the papacy, and the devil has foisted those monstrous acts of the monks upon men with horrible fury.”  LW7:312

3. Luther taught that lay people have a divine call from God.

Luther showed the world that the clergy weren’t the only ones with divine calls from God.  He taught that marriage and parents had divine calls like Jacob seeking a wife. (LW5:189)  He taught that those born to leadership, appointed, or elected to a position in the state, as well as children, mothers, (LW3:128, 3:217, 2:271) and soldiers, (LW2:272) all had divine calls from God.

But the following definition is truer and is complete: “Marriage is the lawful and divine union of one man and one woman. It has been ordained for the purpose of calling upon God, for the preservation and education of offspring, and for the administration of the church and the state.” LW5:189

Thus every person surely has a calling.  While attending to it he serves God.  A king serves God when he is at pains to look after and govern his people.  So do the mother of the household when she tends her baby, the father of a household when he gains a livelihood by working, and a pupil when he applies himself diligently to his studies. LW3:128

Home, state, and church are all human ministries with a divine call. These human ministries were established by God.  Therefore we must make use of them and not look for other revelations.”  Thus God only warned the world through Noah in Gen 7:1. (LW2:83)

This respect toward the king is memorable, for one must conclude that the state is an ordinance of God, just as marriage and the church are from God, and whatever good is done in those stations is divine and has been obtained from God by the prayers of the godly. LW7:143

As in the above, Luther points out examples of those carrying out the seemingly mundane duties of their divine calls, such as Abraham obeying God’s command in Gen. 17:9 (LW3:128), Sarah (who has a higher call than Jerome and the Hermits LW3:217) preparing food for the divine guests in Gen 18:15, and soldiers being called by governments according to Romans 13:1(LW 2:272.)

After centuries of confusion taught by the Pope, Luther had to prove from Scripture that the pastors also had divine calls and that there was a true church and true worship apart from the Papacy.

Every pastor would have taught the Word of God in his parish; and the church would have felt satisfied with the Word, Baptism, the Lord’s Supper, absolution, and solace in death and life. Then everyone would have done his duty in his civil and household activities, whether he was a servant or a master, an officer of the state or a subject. Those monstrous papistic abominations would never have crept into the church. LW4:181

Luther says that God speaks to us through the home, the government, and the church, just as God spoke through Adam (Gen. 2:23-24) who was in charge of all three (LW4:362).  As shown above, the clergy are not the only ones speaking for God!  Yes, the clergy have divine calls, but so do the home and state and every vocation in them. (LW2:271, 3:128, 3:217, 3:279, 4:181, 7:143, 7:312, 8:94, 8:269)

4. Who Should Govern The Church In The Absence of The State In America ?

The estate of marriage has a divine call, is over, and governs the local congregation.  This is why Luther tells us in the Catechism that the family is responsible for teaching God’s Word with the words “as the head of the family should teach it in a simple way to his household,” instead of “as the state,” or “as the church,” or “as the pastor” should teach the children. 

It also naturally follows that if marriage administrates the church, it also does so through the the ’ Assembly.  Therefore, the Voters must speak for the congregation.  Don’t tell me Walther changed Luther.

The Hyper-Euro’s holler, “God rules the congregation.”  Yes, through the Word, and the home is the final tribunal.  A gathering of Voters in an assembly is a gathering of homes.  Now, fear grips the Hyper-Euro’s, “What if they do the wrong thing?”  My reply is, “Teach them God’s Word.”  If they will not listen to God’s Word, all the pastoral authority in the world will not be a sufficient substitute.

Today, the implications of Luther’s claim of a divine call for “human ministries” may be shocking to Lutherans.  However, there are also numerous quotations in the eight volumes where Luther adamantly defends God’s institution of the pastoral office, the pastor speaking about, acting in behalf of, and representing God to the congregation. (LW8:269)

Yes, the pastor speaks for God, but he is under the authority of the congregation.

“Marriage . . . has been ordained for the purpose . . . of administration of the church and the state.” (LW5:189)

Luther places the ministry of the Word in the hands of the congregation when he says: “. . . Baptism, the Keys or the ministry of the Word—for these must not be separated—which in itself is also a visible sign of grace bound to the Word of the Gospel in accordance with Christ’s institution (Matt. 18:18): ‘Whatever you [the two or three of the congregation] loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.’” (LW3:124)

Just as officials and soldiers are called to serve the government, Luther says to the pastors, “You must have the same conviction about the general call, when you are called to the ministry of teaching: you should consider the voice of the community as the voice of God, and obey. LW 2:272

All claims about the importance of ordination must be understood in the context that Luther compares marriage and ordination as divine ordinances, not as sacraments taught by the Catholic Church.

God, for the sole reason that we may testify that there is a divine ordinance both in these and in all other estates of the church, of the state, and of the household. LW7:146-147

Is ordination a sacrament or a human rite?  Luther views ordination, like marriage, to be a divinely instituted human rite and not a sacrament.

The pastor’s mouth and hands are instruments of the means of grace, but Luther doesn’t teach that the minister himself possesses the sacrament of ordination.

But when sermons are delivered there, when the sacraments are administered and ministers are ordained to teach, then say: ‘Here is the house of God and the gate of heaven; for God is speaking, as 1 Peter 4:11 states: ‘Whoever speaks, as one who utters oracles of God; whoever renders service, as one who renders it by the strength which God supplies (LW5:248).

Ordinarily, and for the sake of order, only the pastor preaches, teaches, and administers the sacraments because these are the duties of the office.

Just as in marriage God says, “What I have joined together,” so through the minister God says, “I forgive you.”   Just as Pharaoh governed Egypt by God’s ordinance [not sacrament] in Genesis 41:16, likewise Luther claims marriage and the pastoral office govern by God’s ordinance.

In Luther’s day, there was no separation of church and state.  The home, state, and church operated in the kingdom of the left (power) and right (grace).  This is an abhorrent idea to Americans who adhere to the separation of church and state.

Luther argued that the Catholic Church should have no authority over the home and state.  He writes: “Meanwhile, to be sure, we diligently teach that those two offices, the civil and the ecclesiastical, should be kept separate; but we do so to no avail” (LW4:76).

Luther shows that the church should submit to the state in the kingdom on the left just like Abraham submitted to Abimelech in Gen. 21:23 (LW4:76).

5. For Luther, the ideal church is governed by households.

In the absence of the state’s involvement in the church in America , Walther simply moved to a two-tiered instead of a three-tiered society for the kingdom on the right, namely an assembly of divinely instituted, supreme housefather-voters governing the congregation.   In practical terms, many of the LCMS clergy have rebelled against the authority of the home over the local congregation as originally taught by Luther and Walther.

In this respect, the current advocates of PLI, CEO/pastors, boards of directors, Leadership Training, the Church Growth Movement, and those who advocate a return to pre-Walther-19^th century-European-Lutheran-Episcopal-hierarchy have all abandoned Luther.

Luther knew there is a little Pope in all of us.  We only have to look at the CTCR document, “Women in the Church,” to reasonably assume that the CTCR’s goal is the eventual Synodical control of congregational property.  They throw Luther out the door with the following quotations: “...the pastoral office has oversight from God over the congregation, the household of God. . . ” (p. 41)  “Since a ‘headship’ over the congregation is exercised through these functions unique to the office of the public ministry, . . .” (p. 42).  For Luther, the “household of God” was under the authority of the home.

Luther repeatedly speaks about the excellent way Adam, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Judah, and Joseph ruled their homes, their household churches, and led the worship as illustrated in the following quotation: “What beautiful, fraternal love there was in the household church of Jacob together with the excellent discipline of the patriarchs when the older patriarch Isaac was still living with Jacob!” (LW6:325)

Luther speaks about household churches with such repetition because he saw them as the ideal alternative to the corruption and abuse of power he experienced his entire life at the hands of the Catholic Church.  Luther lived and died a revolutionary.  He never gives directions or plans for the administration and organization of a grand, nationwide Lutheran Church of Germany such as the LCG.

This is an argument from silence, but not once in the eight volumes does Luther praise or ask for God’s blessing for a nationwide church body.  Such a church body, in his opinion, would just be another opportunity for corruption in the hands of people whose flesh is always tempted.   Luther does speak positively about household churches, small congregations, and small regions of congregations, owned and controlled by homes, cities, and small towns.   Unlike Walther, Luther, in a different time and place, would not have tried to unite a nationwide, centrally headquartered church body like the LCMS.  He wanted seminaries and universities that supplied pastors, but each family region, city, local government, and congregation was to carry on with the work of the church in their location like those ideal household churches of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

Luther doesn’t write in the categories of “Church and Ministry” as we understand them today.  Rather, he relates one thing to another.  Hence, he speaks about the presence of God in the means of grace and in the office of the ministry at the same time.  The ministry is God’s office; therefore, God must be present in His office.

Luther maintains the distinction between the office of the ministry and the flesh of the man who holds the office, a distinction that had been totally lost in the Catholic Church.  The Catholic Church makes the priest a living sacrament and a transubstantiated Jesus in the flesh.

In maintaining this distinction, Luther writes: “Judas, for his person, did not belong to the church; yet he was in the ministry of the church, and those who were baptized by him were rightly baptized” (LW4:32).  Luther taught that Christ actually is the One who baptizes through all ministers as well as through Judas, while Judas himself was eternally damned.

Luther shows no restraint in explaining that God Himself appears to us through the office of the ministry, as He does through parents and the state officials.  However, the office holder receives no special grace or sacrament at ordination.  Rather, through the administration of the office of the ministry, God shows Himself to us in the means of grace, including the words that proceed from the minister’s mouth. Luther says the ministry of the Word is a visible sign of God’s grace, (LW1:309, 3:124, 3:220) an image of Christ before us. (LW2:46)

Therefore even though we do not see or hear Him but see and hear the minister, God Himself is nevertheless truly present, baptizes, and absolves. (LW3:220)

Baptism is a sufficiently manifest and clear appearance. So are the Eucharist, the Keys, the ministry of the Word.  They are equal to—yes, they even surpass—all the appearances of all angels, in comparison with which Abraham had only droplets and crumbs.” (LW4:126)

. . . God calls us back to the place where the memory of His name is, to our tabernacle, which is the ministry of the Word. (LW4:179)  Here Luther compares the office of the ministry with the Tabernacle of God.

Besides, you have the ministry of the Word and teachers through whom God speaks with you. (LW5:21)

Thus the imposition of hands is not a tradition of men, but God makes and ordains ministers.  Nor is it the pastor who absolves you, but the mouth and hand of the minister is the mouth and hand of God.” (LW5:249)

Thus it is actually God, not the minister, who nourishes and feeds us. (LW8:145)

As adamant as Luther is in explaining that God presents Himself through the office of the ministry, the office doesn’t have a monopoly on God’s presence in the congregation.  Luther believed that God also presents Himself through the priesthood of all believers.

Luther writes, For if we have been absolved through the mouth of a brother or a minister, we must not look at the human being who is speaking. (LW5:130)  Notice Luther says from a “brother,” that is, another Christian, in addition to the office of the ministry.

And, again, Luther makes the astounding statement that God presents himself through women and children: For is it not a great gift and great glory that in case of necessity even a woman can baptize and say: ‘I deliver you from death, the devil, sin, and all evils, and I give you the gift of eternal life; I make a son of God out of a son of the devil’?  But by daily use, that abundance of the Spirit has become commonplace. Yet it is true that a minister of the Gospel who teaches and baptizes is a greater prophet than Jacob or Moses. (LW8: 309)

And again he writes: For today even a child or a woman can say to me: “Have confidence, my son. I announce to you the remission of sins. I absolve you, etc.” (LW8:310)

Soli Deo Gloria