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Did Luther Change from Congregational Supremacy to Pastoral
Hierarchy? By Rev. Jack Cascione
This is a continuation of "Did Luther Change?" Today, Many Lutheran Lay People Have A False Concept Of the Pastoral Office After being indoctrinated with a distorted view of the pastoral office in the LCMS for more than fifty years, many lay people are responding with their own inevitable misguided conclusions. The chicken has hatched the duck's eggs but they don't chirp very well. The poor lay people are simply confused about their roll and the roll of the pastor. Hence, we hear a plethora of their misdirected desires as they are stretched between to false dichotomies. On the one hand, they follow Church Growth advocates who teach everyone is a minister and the need for spiritual gifts inventories, or on the other hand, they hear hyper-euro-Lutherans teaching the need for submission to the pastor who has the "sacrament of ordination." It's the LCMS Super Bowl featuring the antinomians versus the legalists. Lay people are often heard to clamor, "Oh, to participate in some of the pastor's spiritual gifts and duties!" They sound like they are asking how much do they have to pay in order to paint Tom Sawyer's fence? Or they pray, "Oh Lord, give me grace through your chosen transubstantiated vessel, my Pastor/Bishop." Lay people have been correctly led to believe that the pastor has God's highest office in the church, but they are not being told Luther taught that lay people have a higher divine calling from God than the pastor in their own homes and in the state. 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 299-312). He showed that even though the pastor has the highest office in the church, the lay people as a group outrank the pastor in the congregation. It is time For Lay People To Seek the Life God Intended For Them All must submit to God's word, but did Luther change his mind about congregational self-governance? A schismatic faction of LCMS pastors today claim the late Luther (1535-1545) changed his mind and argued for the authority of the pastor over the congregation. They claim Walther, the Synod's first president, misrepresented Luther when Walther established congregational self-governance and voter supremacy in the LCMS. In his Commentary on Genesis years later, we continue to read about the Luther who loathed and detested Episcopal hierarchy and apostolic succession to the grave. (LW4:30) Luther called these lovers of hierarchy in the church Ishmaelites in the house of Abraham. (LW4:30) They must be thrown out, says Sarah and God says listen to her. As stated in the first installment of this series, all conclusions will be based on Luther's 8-volume Commentary on the book of Genesis. These are the collected class notes the late Luther delivered to seminary students from 1535 to 1545. They are filled with hundreds of pages of pastoral practice and God's intended relationship between church, worship, home, state, laypeople, and pastor. In our day, Luther would be thoroughly confused by laypeople who want to be pastors or the need for spiritual gift inventories. He might have replied, "Get a life" or in his terms, "Get a call to a divine vocation." Luther Didn't Change His Position On The Church: He Expanded It To Home, State, and Church The following data shows that if anything, by 1545, Luther had greatly expanded on his early assertions about congregational self-governance to include a more comprehensive explanation of God's order for home, state, and church. If Walther could have anticipated the confusion of our day, he would have also written more about God's order for home, state, and church. For Luther, the pastor was a servant to home and state by divine decree. The office of the housefather, mother, and nearly any officer in the state had a higher office than the pastor. The pastor is to speak and teach as God's servant in the church, to home and state and is accountable to God to preach and teach God's word correctly. Home, state, and church all spoke for God, not just the pastor! (LW2:271) He also believed that the state should promote and support the church, a very un-American idea, still practiced in Europe. Luther showed the world that the clergy weren't the only ones with divine calls from God. He taught that marriage and parents had a divine call 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 (LW3:128, 3:217, 2:271) and soldiers, (LW2:272) had a divine call from God. 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, Sarah preparing food for the divine guests Gen 18:15, and soldiers being called by governments according to Romans 13:1. After centuries of confusion taught by the Pope, Luther also had to prove from Scripture that the pastors also had divine calls and there was a true church and true worship apart from the papacy. (Subjects for a future article). Evidence That The Home and State Have Authority Over the Church 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). After the fall, the order of authority is reversed to home, state, and church because the church, like Christ, must be the suffering servant of the other two, or, as Luther warns, we return to the inevitable apostasy of the clergy giving themselves pontifical honor. (LW4:76) Luther taught the church should submit to the state like Abraham submitted to Abimelech and Phicol in Gen. 21:22-23. (LW4: 73-76). Over the ten-year period, from 1535 to 1545, Luther's students recorded him explaining the terms; home, state, and church in various contexts and applications. After giving the order of their creation in LW1:102, Luther speaks about the home and state being over the church in the 16 out of 19 examples listed below. It can be argued that at times he simply spoke from the bottom-up instead of the top-down.
In the following 5 examples Luther, actually numbers the correct order of home, state, and church lest there be any questions about his teaching as follows: (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: [Here Luther assumes the home and state together over the church.] '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 (C) "God has appointed three social classes to which he has given the command not to let sins go unpunished. The first is that of the parents, who should maintain strict discipline in their house when ruling the domestics and the children. The second is the government, for the officers of the state bear the sword for the purpose of coercing the obstinate and remiss by means of their power of discipline. The third is that of the church, which governs by the Word. By this threefold authority God has protected the human race against the devil, the flesh, and the world, to the end that offenses may not increase but may be cut off. Parents are the children's tutors, as it were. Those who are grown up and are remiss the government curbs through the executioner. In the church those who are obstinate are excommunicated." LW3:279 (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 After Luther, the rise of Consistories was a natural growth of his three-tiered society. Consistories were groups of respected citizens; lawyers, bankers, merchants etc., state officials, clergy who interviewed and screened pastors and issued calls to local congregations. As long as they all followed God's Word, this was an acceptable practice. By the 1800' s most Consistories did not follow God's Word. Lay People Have A Divine Call From God 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) Again, Luther says that God speaks to us through the church, the government, and the home, 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, and 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) The following quotation from Luther is incomprehensible to most Lutherans today, "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) For Luther, without marriage, there would be no home, no state, and no church. He simply connects the dots. The estate of marriage has a divine call and is over and governs the local congregation. This is why Luther tells us in the Catechism that the family 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 voters' assembly. Therefore, the voters must be church. Don't tell me Walther changed Luther. 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 8 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) Yet, every one of these quotations to which the hyper-euro-Lutherans gravitate must be understood in the context that the pastor has less authority than the home, state and the congregation as a whole. Yes, the pastor speaks for God, but is under the authority of the congregation. (LW2:272) All claims about the importance of ordination must be understood in the context that Luther compares marriage and ordination not as sacraments, according to the Catholic Church, but as divine ordinances. (LW7:146-147) Just as Pharaoh governed Egypt by God's ordinance (not sacrament) in Genesis 41:16, so God governs by divine ordinance through marriage and the pastoral office. Who Should Govern The Church In The Absence of The State In America? 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 to get the Catholic Church out of the home and the state in the kingdom on the left. 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." Luther shows the church should submit to state in the kingdom on the left just like Abraham submitted to Abimelech in Gen. 21:23. (LW4:76) He also argued to keep the home and state over the church in the kingdom on the right as shown in the examples listed above which include the home's responsibility to teach God's word, a higher call than the pastoral office. 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. Today, we hear from both LCMS Seminaries that in America, only the church operates in the kingdom on the right. Somewhere in the last two generations, the LCMS clergy have also been able to throw off 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's, boards of directors, leadership training, the Church Growth Movement, those who advocate a return to pre-Walther-19th 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. For Luther, The Ideal Church is Governed By Households 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 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) It was the Cains, Hams, Ishmaels, Esaus, Simeons and Levis that were always usurping authority in the saintly household churches and introducing new forms of worship. Luther speaks about this subject with such repetition; because he saw it as the ideal alternative to the corruption and abuse of power he experienced his entire life at the hands of the Catholic Church. In a future article, we will address Luther's love for true worship and the abolishment of all bureaucracies. He 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 be just 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 never have tried to unite a nation wide, centrally headquartered church body like the LCMS. He wanted Seminaries and Universities who 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. Quotations From Luther's Genesis Commentary on the Authority of Home, State, & Church On 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 Therefore after the establishment of the church the government of the home is also assigned to Adam in Paradise. But the church was established first because God wants to show by this sign, as it were, that man was created for another purpose than the rest of the living beings. Because the church is established by the Word of God, it is certain that man was created for an immortal and spiritual life, to which he would have been carried off or translated without death after living in Eden and on the rest of the earth without inconvenience as long as he wished. LW1:104 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. These human ministries were established by God. Therefore we must make use of them and not look for other revelations. LW2:83 For we hear that after the division of languages not only governments and the affairs of the home but also the church was thrown into disorder in various ways. LW2:228 "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." 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 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 "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 There are very few who live satisfied with their lot. The layman longs for the life of a cleric, the pupil wishes to be a teacher, the citizen wants to be a councilor, and each one of us loathes his own calling, although there is no other way of serving God than to walk in simple faith and then to stick diligently to one's calling and to keep a good conscience. LW3:128 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 God has appointed three social classes to which he has given the command not to let sins go unpunished. The first is that of the parents, who should maintain strict discipline in their house when ruling the domestics and the children. The second is the government, for the officers of the state bear the sword for the purpose of coercing the obstinate and remiss by means of their power of discipline. The third is that of the church, which governs by the Word. By this threefold authority God has protected the human race against the devil, the flesh, and the world, to the end that offenses may not increase but may be cut off. Parents are the children's tutors, as it were. Those who are grown up and are remiss the government curbs through the executioner. In the church those who are obstinate are excommunicated. LW3:279 Accordingly, the three celestial hierarchies about which the asinine sophists prattle so much are nothing else than the life in the household, in the state, and in the church. Those who live outside these three orders live in a self-elected kind of life which, throughout the prophets, God rejects and condemns. LW4:23 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 There must be rulers in this life, and the church has not been appointed to destroy the household and the government. LW4:88 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 I have often deplored the misuse of these terms, "spiritual goods" and "spiritual persons," as they call their priests. I would gladly have retained them in their true and proper use, but they became lost to us because of their misuse; and now revenues, taxes, houses, towns, and lands-things that pertain most of all to the state-are called spiritual gifts by the papists. But a spiritual man is he who believes and has been baptized, whether he is a layman or is in an ecclesiastical office; it does not denote a priest who has been anointed, shaved, and ordained for sacrifices for the benefit of the dead. LW4:200 Therefore the words of Adam are the words of God. Similarly, to this day whatever the church, full of God, says should not be received any differently from the way one should receive it if it had been spoken by God Himself. Thus God commands that we should obey our parents and the government, and that we should listen to His Word from them. In the same manner the Lord spoke to this most saintly matriarch through Shem, who, over and above the usual discernment of faith, was full of prophecy. LW4:362 For they are without the Word. For God speaks with us and deals with us through the ministers of the Word, through parents, and through the government, in order that we may not be carried about with any wind of doctrine (Eph. 4:14). Children should listen to their parents, citizens to the government, a Christian to the pastor and the ministers of the Word, a pupil to his teacher. LW5:71 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 For you will be assailed in the household, in the state, and in the church. LW5:143 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 The same perversity is also today running through all ranks in the church, state, and home. For all men are grumbling against those who remind them of what is right, and they are indignant with those who reprove faults and sins, even enormous public sins. One must not oppose anyone but allow everyone to do what he likes! LW6:320 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 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 It is not for nothing, therefore, that special rites are employed in the church to unite men and women in matrimony, likewise for ordaining ministers of the Word. For we bless the bridegroom and the bride; we recite the words of the divine ordinance; we call upon God to be pleased to protect this estate. We lay hands on the ministers and at the same time pour forth prayers to 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 You also see in this present history how splendidly God honors and exalts those who wait for the Lord and are able to bear a father's hand and rod. Therefore this example should be carefully inculcated and set before all men in the state and in the church, in order that they may learn to wait and29 to endure in trial. Hold fast! Hold fast! "If you believe," says Christ to Martha, "you will see the glory of God" (cf. John 11:40). LW7:175 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 The same thing usually happens at all times, and today the world stands and empires are preserved for no other reason than that God gathers a church for Himself in the midst of a perverse nation. The existence of a state and its administration must not be credited to princes or kings, who are generally ungodly and the very worst of men; but all things are preserved on account of the Word, Baptism, and the holy seed that is left in the church. For if the world were without godly men and those who are to be saved, it would not stand; and when the last saints are living, the Last Day will soon come. For God has no concern for the state and the household except for the sake of the church. LW7:348-349 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 The church also has its punishment, which is excommunication, although less attention is paid to it than to the punishment the state inflicts. Thus Reuben, because of his crime, was set before others as a mirror into which stubborn and uncontrollable sons who disgrace their parents might look, in order that this exceedingly evil offense might be obviated. God did not want this to be unpunished in the state. And if at any time the government is remiss, evildoers are carried off to punishment by God. LW8:206 Therefore when I am drunk and have the Holy Spirit in His gifts, in faith, and in the knowledge of Christ, Baptism, and the Word-gifts that are the greatest and most precious of all, gifts that lead to life-I also have a bath for the old man. Then the Lord God thrusts me out into His harvest. In this way our Lord God puts me at the wheel and at the grindstone. For there must be ministers of the church to teach the Word. The ministry is necessary; one cannot do without it. Not all can devote themselves to the Holy Scriptures. The requirement of this life demands that there be craftsme n, smiths, and potters, as Sirach 38:24 ff. testifies. Without all these a city is not built. Not all should leave the fields, household management, the helms of states, and the other duties of common life. Therefore certain days have been designated for sacred assemblies. On these days the laity comes together to hear the Word of God. Here indeed the eyes must be red, and the teeth must be white. LW8:269 Note: The reference "Luther's Works" and "LW" in all quotations and the body of this article refer (via volume and page number(s)) to the American Edition of Luther's Works, jointly published by Fortress Press and Concordia Publishing House. Continued in "Luther and the Presence of God in the Genesis Commentary"
February 1, 2002 |