COMMENTS

Dr. C. F. W. Walther:

"Since the congregation or church of Christ, that is, the assembly of believers, has the power of the keys and the priesthood immediately [Matt. 18:15-20, I Pet. 2:5-10] so through it and it alone can the ministry of the Word (pastoral office)....be conferred upon certain competent persons, namely through the election, call, and commission of the congregation.........The office of the holy ministry of the Word cannot essentially be anything else than the authority conferred by God through the congregation..."(Walther On The Church. Tr. John M. Drickamer, p. 86, 89.)

"Ordination is not of divine institution but is an apostolic ecclesiastic arrangement and only a solemn public confirmation of the call." (Ibid. Thesis VI B "Concerning the Holy Ministry." )

Dr. F. Pieper, President of Concordia Seminary, St. Louis from 1887 to 1931, president of Synod from 1899 to 1911, "the foremost instructor of Biblical Dogmatics at Concordia Seminary and the spokesman of orthodox Lutheranism" (What Is Christianity. Forward):

"Only a congregation can establish the public ministry. Smalcald Articles (Power and Jurisdiction of Bishops): 'Wherever the Church is, there is the authority [command] to administer the Gospel. Therefore it is necessary for the Church [the churches, the congregations] to retain the authority to call, elect, and ordain ministers.' (Trigl. 523, 67.)" (Christian Dogmatics. Vol III. Pg. 439.)

"It is Christian teaching that God has commanded the calling of men apt to teach into the public ministry which Christ instituted. But the public ordination of these men according to a formal ritual is no more than an ecclesiastical arrangement which is based on the example of the Apostles." (Ibid. Pg. 116, n27.)

"Ordination to the ministry by the laying on of hands and prayers is not a divine ordinance, but a church custom or ceremony, for, although it is mentioned in Holy Writ, it is not commanded (1 Tim. 4:14; 5:22; 2 Tim. 1:6; Acts 6:6; 8:17). Hence it belongs to the adiaphorous practices. A candidate for the ministry becomes a pastor not by his ordination, but by his call and its acceptance..... (Ibid. Pg.454.)

"...... Luther : 'The whole matter depends on whether the congregation and the bishop are in accord, that is, whether the congregation wishes to be taught by the bishop and the bishop is willing to teach the congregation. This willingness settles the matter. The laying on of hands blesses, ratifies, and witnesses this agreement as a notary public and witnesses testify to a secular matter and as a pastor in blessing groom and bride ratifies their marriage and testifies that they have previously taken one another and made this public.' (St.L. XVII:114.)" (Ibid. Pg. 455.)

"The Smalcald Articles: 'Formerly the people elected pastors and bishops. Then came a bishop, either of that church or a neighboring one, who confirmed the one elected by the laying on of hands; and ordination was nothing else than such a ratification.' ( Trigl. 525, ibid., 70. )" (Ibid.)

"The authority to ordain is, of course, a power delegated by the congregation as the Smalcald Articles say: 'The true Church certainly has the right to elect and ordain ministers since it alone has the priesthood.'( Trigl. 525, ibid., 69)." (Ibid.)

"n.19 - l Cp. Balduin, Baier-Walther, III, 102, likewise Huelsemann: 'The power to ordain does not inhere in some member of the Church, e. g., the bishop, as permanent condition or character, but as a commission and transitory power, such as a plenipotentiary or envoy with a diplomatic mission receives from his chief.' Praelect. in libr. Conc., p. 838.)" (Ibid.)

J. T. Mueller, St. Louis professor of theology:

" ...... our Confessions, in accord with Scripture, Matt. 18,17 - 20; 1 Cor. 5,13; Rom. 16, 17; 1 Pet. 2, 9, expressly teach that the office belongs to the whole Church and that Christian ministers therefore hold their office by virtue of their call from their churches.......... WhiIe, then, aIl Christian ministers who are duly caIled are 'felIow-elders' of the blessed apostIes, 2 John 1; 3 John 1; 1 Cor. 3, 5 - 9, they are eIders and bishops (ministers, pastors) not through any 'apostolic succession' nor through any 'self-propagation of the cIerical estate,' but solely by virtue of the caIl which they have received from their churches. In other words, it is alone the divine call extended to them mediately through the Iocal congregation that makes them 'feIIow-eIders' of the apostIes."

"The ordination of called ministers is not a divine institution, or ordinance, but a church rite; for while it is mentioned, Acts 14, 23, it is not commanded in Scripture. We therefore rightly classify ordination among the adiaphora and affirm that not the ordination but the call makes a person a minister.

"For this reason the confessional Lutheran Church does not practice the so-called absolute ordination, that is, the ordination of a person who as yet has received no call, since this might create the wrong impression as though by the ordination the ordained person were received into a 'spiritual estate' and made a consecrated priest. who is eligible for a call by a congregation just because of special virtues conferred by the ordination. ( Cp. WaIther, Pastorale, p. 65. )

"It goes without saying that also the right of ordination is originally vested in the local churches, as the Smalcald Articles declare: 'Wherever there is a true church, the right to elect and ordain ministers necessarily exists.'" (Christian Dogmatics. Pgs. 574-575)

E. E. Foelber: "Here and there in the Lutheran Church some have held that the method of electing and calling by the congregation is not the correct one; they advanced the theory that the Office is actually filled by the clergy. In support of their claim they point to Titus 1:5, where Paul says: 'For this cause left I thee in Crete, that thou shouldest . . . ordain elders in every city, as I had appointed thee.' But, as Luther points out, this passage must be interpreted in the light of Titus 1:7 and I Tim. 3:2 and Acts 6:3, 6, showing that the congregations called and the Apostles ordained.

"....... since the Lutheran Church, too, practices ordination, it is perhaps not superfluous to state that our Synod has never considered it to be a divine ordinance nor a sacrament in the true sense, but rather a rite or ceremony that has come down to us from the days of the Apostles. It is an ecclesiastical form denoting the public and solemn confirmation of the call. (Lehre und Wehre, 1870, p. 179; 1878, p. 267.)

"C. C. Schmidt calls attention to the fact that sometimes our Confessional Writings use the word ordain in a double sense, occasionally for the word call by the congregation; again for the public confirmation of the call through the servants of the Church. Both usages, however, indicate that always the congregation is the body or authority that makes the act valid. The ordination, therefore, is dependent upon the election and call. What the marriage rite is to the engagement, the ordination is to the call. (Central, 1880, pp. 71 - 72. )

"In his illuminating essay on Walther as a theologian, Dr. Pieper declares that the ordination ceremony is an apostolic, ecclesiastical rite , but not instituted by God, for the Scriptures do not speak of it as so ordered. It has nothing to do with the creation of the Office of the Public Ministry.....( Lehre und Wehre, 1889, pp. 226-227. ) " (Abiding Word. Vol. II, Pg. 489 - 490.)

END NOTES

Pieper: "Astounding things are taught about ordination within visible Christendom. Rome asserts there is no other way of becoming a "priest" than through ordination received from a bishop created by the Pope.....The Episcopalians, needless to say, omit the Pope...... Also Romanizing Lutherans, who refuse to concede that the call extended by a congregation makes a man a minister, but conceive of the ministry as a 'distinct Christian order' which perpetuates itself by conferring the office on new members at their initiation, naturally declare ordination to be a divine ordinance." (Christian Dogmatics. Vol. III. Pgs. 454 - 456.)

J. T. Mueller: "Since the mediate call is extended through men (the Church), we must consider also the question who the men are by whom God duly calls His ministers. The Romanists claim that only the Pope has authority to create bishops and their assistants. The Episcopalians teach that ordination by the bishop confers the highest orders. Romanizing Lutherans hold that Christian ministers owe their pastoral authority to 'the estate of the ministry' , which is self-propagating......." (Pg. 571.)

"The error of Hoeflng and his followers originated in their opposition to Romanizing Lutherans (Muenchmeyer, Loehe, Kliefoth, Vilmar, etc.), who claimed that the public ministry is a divine institution in the sense that it has been directly transmitted from the apostles to their successors as a ministerial estate (geistlicher Stand) through the rite of ordination..... ( Pg. 568)

"While the Episcopalians do not acknowledge the Pope as the vicar of Christ on earth, they nevertheless teach that ordination is the only means by which the apostolic succession, and with it the true ministry, can be transmitted.

"Finally also the Romanizing Lutherans, who regard the ministry as a 'special spiritual estate, which is self-propagating, change the church rite of ordination into a divine institution, or ordinance. These Romanizing Lutherans emphatically deny that the Christian minister receives his office through the call of the congregation, though this doctrine is clearly taught in Scripture." (Christian Dogmatics. Pgs. 576.)