04-2 Hermeneutics.pdf

76 LOGIAPUBLIC ABSOLUTIONThe Common Service Book of the Lutheran Church, authorizedby The United Lutheran Church in America, 1917, pp. 242–243,directs the pastor to proclaim the following words after the publicconfession of sins by the congregation (note especially the secondparagraph):Almighty God, our Heavenly Father, hath had mercyupon us, and for the sake of the sufferings, death and resurrectionof His dear Son Jesus Christ, our Lord, forgivethus all our sins. As a Minister of the Church ofChrist, and by His authority, I therefore declare unto youwho do truly repent and believe in Him, the entire forgivenessof all your sins: In the name of the Father, and ofthe Son, and of the Holy Ghost.On the other hand, by the same authority, I declareunto the impenitent and unbelieving, that so long as theycontinue in their impenitence, God hath not forgiventhem their sins, and will assuredly visit their iniquitiesupon them, if they turn not from their evil ways, andcome to true repentance and faith in Christ, ere the dayof grace be ended.One suspects the hymnal committee attempted in this way tocircumvent the problem of making a general declaration of absolutionto a congregation in which the impenitent might be numbered.The effect of this form, however, appears to make absolutionconditional. The troubled conscience might still be left wonderingwhether he be truly penitent and thereby forgiven—wonderingwhether the absolution was really for him. Pieper notes:“Writing against Paul Tarnov, who defended the conditional formof absolution, Christian Chemnitz pointed out that then also Baptismand the Lord’s Supper would have to be dispensed in a conditionalform, that then the certainty of the forgiveness of sins wouldrest on the contrition and faith of the penitent instead of resting onthe objective gracious promise of the forgiveness for Christ’s sake.Cp. Lehre und Wehre, 1876, p. 193 ff.: ‘Is Absolution to be PronouncedCategorically or Hypothetically?’” (Christian Dogmatics2:540, n. 73).Corporate absolution in services of The Lutheran Hymnal andLutheran Worship without Holy Communion casts similar shadows.This absolution concludes with “Grant this, Lord, to us all.”Should the pastor turn away from the congregation and to the altaras if a prayer as opposed to a declaration? Reed says: “The Declarationof Grace as a sacramental act should be pronounced in a firmtone of assurance. The final sentence, ‘Grant this, O Lord, unto usall,’ is in effect a prayer, but it contains an element of admonition,and the minister should not turn to the altar at this point. Theentire declaration should be regarded as a unit and be said facingthe congregation” (The Lutheran Liturgy, Philadelphia: MuhlenbergPress, 1947, p. 259). What does such alchemy hope to accomplishwhich mixes absolution and admonition together in onebreath? How should a general absolution be declared—if it shouldbe declared at all?Luther, in an April 1533 letter to the Nurnberg city council(AE 50:75–77; see Pieper 2:531, n. 57), sought to nullify Osiander’smain argument against general, public absolution. In a footnoteto his translation of this letter, Gottfried Krodel comments thatOsiander was afraid that through a public absolution, people(“thieves and crooks”) might be absolved of sins that should beretained. Be-cause of pastoral concern, Osiander insisted on privateconfession and absolution, especially in view of the Lord’sSupper and the necessity of practicing ecclesiastical discipline.Luther agreed that private confession and absolution were necessary,but he did not for that reason wish to eliminate corporateconfession and absolution:The preaching of the holy gospel itself is principally andactually an absolution in which forgiveness of sins is proclaimedin general and in public to many persons, orpublicly or privately to one person alone. Therefore absolutionmay be used in public and in general, and in specialcases also in private, just as the sermon may take placepublicly or privately, and as one might comfort manypeople in public or someone individually in private.Even if not all believe [the word of absolution], thatis no reason to reject [public] absolution, for each absolution,whether administered publicly or privately, has to beunderstood as demanding faith and as being an aid tothose who believe in it, just as the gospel itself also proclaimsforgiveness to all men in the whole world andexempts no one from this universal context. Neverthelessthe gospel certainly demands our faith and does not aidthose who do not believe it; and yet the universal contextof the gospel has to remain.Regarding the idea that no one might desire privateabsolution if one has public absolution and keeps it inuse, we say that this is definitely a weighty issue, [but] thatconsciences nevertheless are in need of this special comfort.For one has to instruct consciences that the comfortof the gospel is directed to each individual particularly;therefore, as you people who understand these mattersknow, the gospel has to be applied through Word andsacrament to each individual particularly, so that eachindividual in his conscience is tossed about by the questionwhether this great grace, which Christ offers to allmen, belongs to him too.Under these circumstances it can easily be understoodthat one is not to abolish private absolution in favorof public absolution; also, this application makes moreclear the meaning of the gospel and the power of the keys.For very few people know how to use public absolutionor apply it to themselves, unless in addition this applicationreminds them that they also ought to apply the generalabsolution to themselves as if it belonged to eachindividually; for this is the true office and task of thegospel: definitely to forgive sins by grace.For these reasons we do not consider that generalabsolution is either to be rejected or to be abolished, butthat nevertheless the personal application and [private]absolution should be maintained.We do well to keep these aspects of the neglected “third”sacrament of Holy Absolution before Christendom, especially inthese days wherein private absolution has fallen into disuse and