All controversy over the doctrine of the church and the ministry can be boiled down to one specific problem: confusion (real or pretended) over the distinction that exists between an office of the ministry that is "entered into" and an office of the ministry that is "conferred." It is what separates episcopalianism from congregationalism. Once the distinction is recognized and understood all else begins to fall into place.
No amount of pushing, pulling, twisting or turning will suffice to blend the two systems together, as so many people are intent on doing. Creative as one might be, when all is said and done all efforts to this end fail because they attempt the impossible: imposing episcopal practices on principles that are at the heart of the congregational system. It cannot be done. It is oil on water.
In his paper delivered at the 2002 Walther Conference Rev. Rolf Preus joins the Lutheran throng that has, generation after generation for the better part of a century, been attempting the impossible. And like so many before him his efforts are doomed from the start because he either cannot or will not acknowledge that the term "church" is defined specifically in Scripture in ways that are not open to private interpretation. Whichever the case, he side-steps any definitive discussion of "church" by declaring that "our topic today....is the pastoral office so let's focus specifically on the ministry."
The official position of the LCMS recognizes that the term "church" is employed in Scripture in only three senses: 1. the "invisible" Church, the holy Christian Church, the communion of saints. 2. the Church Universal, "the visible sum total of all who have been called, that is, to all who profess allegiance to the Word of God that is preached and make use of the holy Sacraments." 3. local congregations, "particular divisions of (the Church Universal)....in which the Word of God is preached and the holy Sacraments are administered."
This position also recognizes that Scripture teaches that every Christian has been granted the power to forgive sins and to withhold the forgiveness of sins, that Jesus provided them with the means by which they are to exercise that power, namely, the Word and the sacraments, and that it is their right and duty to establish local congregations and appoint men to administered the office of the keys publicly in their stead: 1. "The ministry of preaching is conferred by God through the congregation, as holder of all church power, or of the keys, and by its call, as prescribed by God." 2. "The holy ministry is the authority conferred by God through the congregation, as holder of the priesthood and of all church power, to administer in public office the common rights of the spiritual priesthood in behalf of all."
These are the main points of the Missouri Synod's position regarding the church and the ministry. It has held to this position throughout its history notwithstanding the assaults that have been and continue to be waged against it, within and without. It is a position emphatically rejected by Rev. Preus in his essay.
After summarizing this position himself, faulty as his understanding of it is in several particulars, Rev. Preus states, "There is much that argues against this paradigm. The first objection I would like to raise is that it does not follow the pattern of thought set down plainly in the Holy Scriptures. It is not based on the Bible. It is rather based on a theological system." "The paradigm I am proposing adheres more closely to the literal sense of the Scriptures. This is the literal sense of the Augsburg Confession as well." "This debate [divinity of the office,with the WELS] forced Missouri into a rigidity of definition unwarranted by the biblical text or the history of the church." "I believe and I hope to show to you this afternoon that this paradigm [his], rather than the other [Walther/Missouri's], is biblical and confessional."
"The theological debates on the ministry," he begins, "are so cluttered by contradictory definitions as well as a multitude of undefined terms....... that productive conversation is nearly impossible." He then launches his corrective to Luther, Walther and a host of other orthodox Lutheran theologians leaving a trail of his own clutter along the way.
The first thing that we need to do, Rev. Preus tells us, is rid ourselves of the misguided notion that "Jesus was telling every Christian to preach the gospel and administer the sacraments," that is, to exercise the office of the keys, the "peculiar" church power that He gave to his church on earth to forgive or to withhold the forgiveness of sins. "That's not what happened.........(it) cannot be shown from Scriptures."
According to Rev. Preus, neither the passages that speak of going into all the world to preach the gospel nor those in which the keys are given refer to all Christians. Rather those passages are to be understood as Christ instituting the holy office of the ministry of Word and sacraments and granting the power to forgive sins and to withhold the forgiveness of sins exclusively to the apostles. The office, however, He gave to the whole church.
"The fact that He gave this concrete office to the whole church is sufficient proof that in this giving He also gave to all Christians individually the same gospel, baptism, absolution, and Supper that He entrusted to the public office." A contradiction? Not for him. He explains: "How does the Christian receive these treasures if not through the public preaching and administration of the sacraments by the called and ordained pastors?" All Christians, in other words, have not been charged by Christ with actively administering the forgiveness of sins by means of the Word and the sacraments. No, the forgiveness of sins conveyed by the means is theirs only passively as they receive it from those who are the exclusive recipients of the power of the keys. Only in this way can it be said that all Christians have been given the keys and the means of grace. Talk about clutter.
We can now understand Rev. Preus' reluctance to discuss in depth the subject of "church". It goes without saying, keeping in mind the three uses Scripture makes of the term, that the office of the ministry can be established only after a congregation is established, which means that if there were no men in the whole world upon whom to confer the office there could be no office but the congregation would remain with all its authority intact. In Rev. Preus' world it is just the opposite. The office of the ministry exists apart from a congregation, which means that if there were no congregations in the whole world there would still be a holy ministry. In fact, even if there were no men in the whole world to fill this office the office would remain, waiting, with all its functions intact. This churchless ministry is part and parcel of all anti-Waltherian arguments. It is not to the advantage of anti-Waltherians to have it highlighted. But highlight it we must before we go on.
The office of the ministry under an episcopal system of church government - and it isan episcopal system that Rev. Preus touts - can be likened to a tool shed that a fully-qualified, union-authorized tradesman enters to take in hand the tools of his trade stored there. The shed is on his customer's property but is owned by the customer's neighbor who has authorized the use of both the shed and its contents by the tradesman. The tradesman is qualified to use all the tools but uses only those tools necessary to perform the work he has been hired to perform . The customer chooses the work to be performed but has no control over the journeyman status of the tradesman and no control over the toolshed and the tools stored there.
Translated into episcopal-speak, a seminary graduate is inducted into a special society or order of clergymen by the rite of ordination performed by members of the society. He is now fully empowered to perform all the functions associated with being a clergyman, including but not limited to publicly administering the forgiveness of sins by preaching the gospel and administering the sacraments. A congregation or any other agency engaged in churchly work of one kind or another chooses men out of this pool of ordination-empowered clergymen to come into their midst to serve them by carrying out the clergy-type functions associated with the work their organization is engaged it. Men so engaged are said to have a Divine Call. The calling agency has authority to designate the work to be done but has no control over the clergyman status of the one employed and no control over the clergyman-type functions he performs.
Not so with the congregational system of church government. Here the office of the ministry is not some entity one enters or is placed into. Rather, office is understood in the sense of a duty performed or an authority exercised, e.g., the office of the medical profession is to heal; the office of the ministry is to forgive sins. God has granted each and every Christian the power of the office of the keys to forgive sins and to withhold the forgiveness of sins, has provided them the means by which this is to be accomplished, the Word and the sacraments, and has charged them with the responsibility of taking the good news of His forgiveness to the whole world.
This charge mandates that Christians join together in congregations specifically for the purpose of administering the power of the office of the keys publicly by means of preaching the gospel and administering the sacraments. A congregation elects a man to discharge this public duty on its behalf and, by its call, confers on him - grants him - the authority to forgive sins, the office of the ministry. This call, issued as it is by a congregation to the end that the duties mandated by God be properly discharged, is truly a Divine Call.
We must now go back and ask, since according to Rev. Preus a congregation has neither keys nor means, how men placed into his office come by their authority to publicly forgive sins? There can be only one answer: either in a world without congregations, or in a world with, say, 6000 congregations, the only means by which men placed into this office can possibly come by their power to forgive sins is - let's shout it - ORDINATION. Ordination by the ordained: the making of a society of ecclesiastics that is apart from and out from under the control of.............well, anybody. Episcopalianism!
Furthermore, since this is an office that exists independent of any congregation, and since it is an office the essence of which is churchly functions, only one of which is administering the Word and the sacraments, then there is no reason why any organization of Christians that is engaged in some kind of churchly work cannot place ordination-empowered men into this office. Since the office is divine it follows that the calling organization's call must be considered a Divine Call.
To sum up, the office of the ministry of Scripture, C. F. W. Walther, and, officially, the LCMS, the office of the ministry of Word and sacraments instituted by Christ when He called the apostles, that office is conferred exclusively by a congregation of believers each member of which has been granted the power of the office of the keys to forgive sins and has been directed to go into the whole world to exercise that power by preaching the gospel and administering the sacraments, telling the world of the wonderful deeds of Him who called us out of darkness into His marvelous light.
Rev. Preus' office of the ministry of churchly functions, instituted by Christ when He invested the apostles with the power to forgive sins and sent them out into the world armed with the means of exercising that power, the office filled by an organization's Divine Call to one empowered by ordination, that office of the ministry is a figment of the imagination. No such office exists.