The Holy Ministry

36 logia
church by incorporation of those who are not yet a part of the
people of God. The idea that the Confessions teach a static
view of the ministry needs to be overturned. We do not need to
look to the proponents of “Church Growth” for our agenda
(Tr. 67).
The functional and dynamic understanding of the Office
of the Ministry is affirmed and taught in the Confessions (not
exclusively, however!). The symbolical books teach that apart
from the actual in-the-flesh minister of the Word and Sacraments,
there is no ministry. This is to say that there is no such
thing as ministry in the abstract. It is the will of the Lord that
the preaching of the Word will happen through human beings
whom the church has chosen and ordained to the Holy Ministry.
The ministers of Word and Sacraments are human
instruments through which the Holy Spirit sanctifies and governs
the church. Thus, the authority of the minister of the
Word and Sacraments is a divine right to all who rule over the
church of God (Tr. 60-61).
In the preaching of the Gospel, the
servant of the Word is to proclaim not
only the saving grace of God in Jesus
Christ, but also the Word of God as
judgment. The Word preached, taught,
and proclaimed, is therefore
rightly divided into Law and
Gospel, and the inclusion of
both Law and Gospel is what
the Confessions are speaking about
when they discuss the preaching
of the Gospel.
The Holy Ministry is a service. It is a ministerium, a
diakoniva. It is not, therefore, a source of power or prestige. As
I indicated earlier, the words diavkono" and diakoniva (“servant”
and “service”) found in the New Testament (in the Pastorals
with the technical meaning of “deacon”) should in most
cases be translated as “service” and not “ministry.”
While a functional understanding of the Holy Ministry
was emphasized in nineteenth and twentieth century American
Lutheranism, it needs to be noted with some vigor that the
Confessions call the Ministry of the Word and Sacraments an
“order.” Many would suggest that a wiping out of all distinctions
between laity and clergy would be a good and beneficial
thing. “Good” or “beneficial” one may argue on other grounds,
but you cannot use the Confessions to bolster that argument.
The Office of the Ministry is called an ordo and a Stand (Ap.
XIV, 11-12; XXII, 13; SA III, XI, 1), and the Table of Duties speaks of
“heilige Orden und Stände” (SC IX, 1).
The minister of the Word and Sacraments is a representative
of God and of Jesus Christ. In his preaching and teaching,
application of the Gospel, and administration of the Sacra-
ments, he is standing in the place of Christ and not acting on
his own person. He is another Christ, a “vice-Christ,” a vicar of
Christ. The Confessions affirm that God is preaching through
the chosen pastor and that it is God himself who baptizes. The
absolution that the pastor pronounces is to be believed as
nothing other than the voice from God himself. To hear the
voice of the pastor saying “your sins are forgiven” is to hear
Christ saying it and firmly to believe and not to doubt it. At the
celebration of the Lord’s Supper, the words spoken by the
mouth of the priest are by the power and grace of God (FC SD
VII, 76; cf. 77-81). When he says “This is my body” it is the
Word of God that consecrates the elements set before us in the
supper. The immorality or unbelief of a pastor, then, does not
invalidate the Gospel that he preaches or the Sacraments that
he administers. It is the Lord’s Word that he speaks and uses,
and when he speaks and uses the Lord’s Word, it is the Lord
who is speaking, not the person of the pastor.
The authority of pastors or bishops is an ecclesiastical or
churchly authority. It is the responsibility for the public
proclamation of the Word and the administration of the Sacraments.
The Confessions do maintain the traditional distinction
between the power of order (potestas ordinis) and the authority
of jurisdiction (potestas jurisdictionis). According to the power
of order, the pastor/bishop has all that he needs to proclaim
the Word and administer the Sacraments. In the power of
jurisdiction, he is given the competence according to the Word
of God to excommunicate and discipline the manifest and
impenitent sinners, and again, when they repent, to restore
them to the fold of God.
The Office of the Holy Ministry is therefore seen as an
identifying mark of the church. Apology VII/VIII identifies the
signs of the church as the Word of God and the Sacraments. It
calls the “pure teaching of the Gospel and the Sacraments” the
“signs” or “marks” of the church (notae ecclesiae). But the
Gospel must be preached, the Sacraments administered. Therefore,
since the proclamation and administration of the Word
and Sacraments is the task of the Holy Ministry, the Holy Ministry
itself becomes a mark or characteristic of the church.
Contrary to popular belief, nowhere in the Confessions is
there an attempt to derive the Office of the Holy Ministry from
the universal priesthood. In reality, the teaching of the universal
priesthood recedes into the background. As I have noted
earlier, the 1 Peter 2:9 “royal priesthood” passage is used only
once in the Confessions, and that to affirm the right of the
church to elect and ordain its own ministers apart from their
appointment by the papal office.
The connection of the Office of the Holy Ministry to the
Levitical priesthood of the Old Testament—usually denied
with great vigor by modern American Lutheran theologians—
is not so clearly denied in the Confessions. The Confessions do
reject the notion that the Christian priesthood perpetuates the
Levitical priesthood in offering sacrifices that earn forgiveness
of sins. However, the Confessions do identify the sacrifices of
the Levites foretold in Malachi 3:3 with the sacrificial activity of
those who preach the Gospel of the New Covenant. The Confessions’
rejection of the Levitical priesthood seems to involve
merely the rejection of the misunderstanding that it earned