On the Office of the Holy Ministry (Augsburg Confession Article XIV)
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This video is part of our ongoing series which covers the Augsburg Confession. In this video, I discuss the office of the ministry and what it means for a pastor to be rightly called.
The strength of this man's beard never fails to impress me
18:00
The term "priest" is simply the historic term within the Church catholic -- it is the ubiquitous term among churches that claim apostolic heritage. I get the hang-up among (American) Lutherans, but I tend to think we do ourselves a disservice in terms of our shared inherited Catholicity: Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, Anglicans, etc..
If we even cut ourselves off from the terminology of the historic Church, it gives the impression that there was a more radical break at the Reformation han there really was, it makes ecumenical dialogue needlessly trickier, and it makes our apologetic harder (that we aren't schismatic heretics)... After all, the term "Pastor" truly gained more prominence with the rise of Pietism. "Priester" or "Presbyter" was more common in the Age of Orthodoxy.
We ALSO need to avoid the danger of implying that the Minister is in no way a priest, but the laity are. The idea of a Priesthood of the Baptized, on the one hand, and a Ministerial Priesthood, on the other (or perhaps two different ways of being "priest", one lay and the other ordained) seems to me the best way to navigate this issue -- the same priesthood, different way of participating in it.
That's just my thought. Not that we "have" to use the term priest, but that it is part of the inheritance of Catholicity; and we shouldn't be afraid of that inheritance.
I think also in Exodus God established Israel as a Kingdom of Priests and then had the Aaronic priesthood to minister in God’s stead.
@@halo0360 yup. It echoes through both Testaments
Our Confessions use the word priest, “our priests and bishops…”
Absolutely!!! The Augsburg Confession says Bishop and Priest. American Lutherans have let presbyterian and Methodist water their own tradition down to beer drinking banality
I love how you present the question before giving the reasons why the Church is the way it is. Thank you.
Thank you Pastor for this series, very well stated.
God's peace be with you.
Thanks! Enjoyed it while hiking on a crisp November day in New England!
Can't wait to hear through
This is very helpful thank you Dr. Cooper
The necessity (but not absolute necessity) of ordination is akin to baptism. Sure we acknowledge extreme circumstances, but exceptions don't overcome the rule -- that's what Evangelicals do with baptism.
Neither should we allow exceptions to deny the divinely established nature of a thing. (Ordination is established by God, and is even acknowledged as such by the Book of Concord in the Tractate, "...it is manifest that ordination administered by a pastor in his own church is valid by divine law… ")
Really great video! Would love to hear more about this topic. Also ordination as well as you mentioned you wanted to talk about more.
To make matters more complicated..
HE Jacobs, CFW Walther, CP Krauth, etc. all indicate that there is a tertium quid, a thing which stands between the laity and the clergy and that is the "auxiliary" or "diaconal" offices. Deacons (in our own day: Deaconesses, DCEs, Lutheran School Teachers, etc) according to these writers are laity -- both male and female -- unto whom several/some of the "minor functions" of the Pastoral Office are bestowed (mercy work, "waiting tables", some form of teaching, etc), without being bestowed the fullness of the Office itself. This might be called a "minor call", as they are given a Divine Call to that service (and are thus NOT simply _laity_ acting *as laity* in their office), but are also NOT publicly Ordained into the _fullness_ of the Pastoral Office.
Whereas, in any circumstance where a man (and only a man) is extended a Divine Call pertaining to any of the "major functions" of the Ministry (preaching, teaching, administering sacraments, exercising oversight) -- he necessarily must be publicly Ordained into that service (the Office of the Holy Ministry in the _fullness_ ).
In many ways this "minor functions" vs "major functions" distinction corresponds to the Medieval separation of minor and major orders, or 'lesser orders' from Holy Orders itself.
We need an AALC church or small group in NYC!! Praying for the Lutheran clergy to be led in our city
Piepkorn demonstrates that Lutheran Pastor = Bishop, Called Laypeople (Lutheran school teachers, Lay leadership) = Deacons
43:45 -49:01 Thank you! This is such a problem in all the synods right now! Please don't get fired! Rant on!
jonathan edwards requiring a testimony of conversion to join the church?
A. So in a Gospeler [lutheran] church, if an adult joins a church but has *no* testimony of repentence and faith, would they be accepted based on their infant baptism?
I know it's a lot of work...but... any chance of audiobook releases?
Yas, give me audiobooks!
Great video as always. Off topic question: for an adult convert are his sins forgiven the moment he comes to faith or the moment he is baptized? Similarly, does an unbaptized martyr have his sins forgiven when he comes to faith or in his act of martyrdom? The Fathers seem to indicate the latter in both cases.
Martyrdom has nothing to do with Salvation. Dying for God is a work. No amount of works can save. Works are a result of being saved.
For Lutherans his sins are forgiven upon receiving faith, baptism, absolution, the Supper, remembering his baptism, remembering that Jesus died for him, hearing the gospel and being renewed in faith, and... Grace upon grace from faith to faith.
Martyrdom is the endurance of bodily death in witness to the Christian religion. Therefore three conditions must be verified for martyrdom: a) actual death; b) the infliction of death by an enemy out of hatred for Christianity. c) the voluntary acceptance of death. - The effect of martyrdom is the remission of all sin and punishment, since it is an act of perfect charity.
According to Christian doctrine, martyrdom renders the soul of the martyr worthy of immediate entrance into heaven. The Church prays to the martyrs but has never prayed for the martyrs.
Yes, “Baptism.. now saves you” (1 Pet. 3:21)
From baptism onward, “salvation is worked out in fear and trembling” (Phil. 2:12) and “he who endures to the end will be saved” (Matt. 10:22).
But we are likely to commit wrongdoings again due to the wounds of previous sin. Jesus said to the apostles, “Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them” (John 20:21-23) so that we might experience forgiveness “in the presence of Christ” through the priests and bishops (see 2 Corinthians 2:10).
This is why we have the sacrament of confession.
@@jotunman627 You are claiming RCC doctrine as Christian. A lot of us disagree. Martyrdom is NOT a special status. Purgatory does not exist. Everyone is either saved or not at the moment of their death. Whether their souls are conscious between their deaths and the Resurrection is not clear. Praying for the dead is useless. Praying to the dead is not Biblical.
This is a confessional Lutheran channel. Please take that as the basis of discussion to build on or argue against.
Dr. Cooper, don't you think that american lutherans have a really diminished view of the ministry when compared to european lutherans? I mean, many european lutherans hold to apostolic succession, the episcopacy and Church hierarquy as fundamental (many of them being in the International Lutheran Council, while american lutheranism is in majority congregational.
Pietism just had a larger go within the American Lutheran scene. (Often due to fleeing these state churches and their ideas not gaining ground)
America is in many ways a "Nation of Heretics" -- for better or worse. That's the price to pay when immigrants come to a country seeking religious freedom, often sectarian ideas find ripe soil.
Question:
I get the part about laying of the hands being able to come from pastor to pastor, but from what initial authority do we Lutherans, or *anyone* for that matter, get that authority to begin with? Like, is the initial authority from the Scripture?
I mean, we obviously hold that Luther was unjustly excommunicated. But, when that occurred, did he still have an authority to make people pastors because he already was a pastor or something like that?
I don't know much about this topic.
Piepkorn is the king of this topic among Lutherans. Below I'm pasting my favorite highlights with a link to an audiobook of his most succinct paper about it
"The writings of the Apostle do not agree entirely with the hierarchy which is now in the Church, because they were written at the very beginning. He even calls Timothy, whom he himself made a presbyter, the bishop, because first presbyters were being called bishops becuase when a bishop passed away, a presbyter succeeded him. In Egypt, presbyters even do confirm if the bishop is absent." --Ambrosiaster commenting on Ephesians 4:11-12
St. Willehad the presbyter built churches and ordained presbyters in Lower Saxony starting in 781. He was not made bishop until 787. Nobody thought he was acting wrongly or reconsecrated his presbyters.
Paphnutius the presbyter ordained his own successor, Daniel, according to Cassian.
There's also the famous Letter 146 of Jerome.
The Assyrian Church of the East did not change from a presbyterial to an episcopal structure until the 300s.
These examples have led several Papist scholars to conclude that Presbyterial ordination is not entirely invalid.
Fr. George Tavard concluded that presbyterial successions are a matter of history, and said:
"I would be prepared to go further, and to admit that episcopal succession is not absolutely required for valid ordination…. The main problem, in our ecumenical context, does not lie in evaluating historical lines of succession, but in appreciating the catholicity of Protestantism today."
Fr. Harry McSorley concluded, after a thorough study of the Council of Trent:
"We can say without qualification that there is nothing whatever in the Tridentine doctrine on sacrament of order concerning the reality of the eucharist celebrated by Christians of the Reformation churches. Catholic theologians who have maintained that there is no sacrament of the body and blood of Christ in Protestant churches because Protestant ministers are radically incapable of consecrating the eucharist are incorrect if they think this opinion is necessitated by the teaching of Trent."
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@@Mygoalwogel thanks.
I'll look into this more.
Question: if the function of bishops is by 'human right' why does the church have the right to do that? That is, if it developed after the apostles? Thanks.
Do those people who are ordained in confessions that teach against the sacraments have valid orders since they were ordained by a sect and not the Church?
Augsburg VII:
Yep
Also they teach that one holy Church is to continue forever. The Church is the congregation of saints, in which the Gospel is rightly taught and the Sacraments are rightly administered.
And to the true unity of the Church it is enough to agree concerning the doctrine of the Gospel and the administration of the Sacraments. Nor is it necessary that human traditions, that is, rites or ceremonies, instituted by men, should be everywhere alike. As Paul says: One faith, one Baptism, one God and Father of all, etc. Eph. 4:5-6.
Our Protestant friends don’t have our Lord’s Eucharist, thus while they are Christians and part of the eternal Church, their respective assemblies are not part of the “visible Church”:
Solid Declaration VII 34
“-For it does not depend upon the faith or unbelief of men, but upon God's Word and ordinance, unless they first change God's Word and ordinance and interpret it otherwise, as the enemies of the Sacrament do at the present day, who, of course, have nothing but bread and wine; for they also do not have the words and appointed ordinance of God, but have perverted and changed them according to their own [false] notion.”
In your video (12.20) you said that the pietist view which bases assurance of one's faith on one's conversion experience isn't correct (or is problematic) because it should be based upon the means of grace. But in thinking about this it doesn't make any sense to me. How can the means of grace (which are the Word and sacraments) assure a person that he has faith? The Word and sacraments are the means by which a person can come to faith, but they can't assure a person that he actually has faith in Christ. The only thing which can assure one that one truly believes is if one experiences that one truly believes, and this would obviously include being aware that one had been converted to Christ through the Word.
If one asks how does one know that one truly believes or has faith in Christ surely the answer is because one experiences in one's heart that one believes. This is surely what Paul was referring to when he said: Examine yourselves, to see whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Or do you not realize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you? - unless indeed you fail to meet the test! (2 Corinthians 13:5 ESV)
I just want to add that a Christian in addition to experiencing that he has faith in Christ, also experiences in his heart that the Father is his spiritual father. Paul said in Galatians 4:6: And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!”.
If we have true faith then we will have the Holy Spirit in our hearts and we will therefore not only look to Christ as our Saviour, but we will also look up to and honour the Father. So being assured of one's faith and therefore being assured of one's salvation is a matter of experiencing in one's heart that the Father and the Son are our God and Saviour. This experience of course can only come about through the Word and the sacraments, but the latter don't convey salvation mechanically as if simply hearing the Word and receiving the sacraments will somehow guarantee that one will have faith and be saved as long as one isn't aware that one rejects them. Rather one must positively experience that one does actually believe. Because if one doesn't actually experience that one believes then one should conclude that one doesn't actually believe. This doesn't mean that there won't be times when one's faith is so weak that one hardly recognises that one believes, but if one's continual experience is one of not really knowing whether one believes or not, then that to me shows that one doesn't really have faith. And if in addition one convinces oneself that one doesn't need to feel that one believes, because salvation isn't something that needs to be experienced, then I would say that such a person doesn't have faith. Because how can a person go through life and be saved and not be conscious of the fact that he trusts in Christ as his Saviour? It can't happen.
So in order to be assured that one has true faith and so will be saved it's necessary to experience that one has faith, and that one trusts in Christ as one's Saviour.
I get the impression that what's at the root of the idea that assurance of one's faith and salvation is to be located simply in the means of grace, and not also in one's experience of actually believing in Christ, is the belief that grace is universal and that unless one deliberately rejects the Word and sacraments then one should assume that one has faith and will be saved. This seems to me to be what is actually being said by confessional Lutherans when they say that one should place one's assurance of salvation in the means of grace.
Where I differ in that case from confessional Lutherans is that I don't accept that Scripture teaches the universal operation of the Holy Spirit in the means of grace. And therefore I don't accept that conversion and the gift of faith is something which can be assumed to exist for everyone who doesn't reject the Word and sacraments. My belief is that the Scriptures teach that only the elect (or mainly only the elect) are regenerated by the Holy Spirit (irresistibly) and are given faith, and that this is because the Father only draws certain people to Christ so that they can believe (John 6:44) and that the rest can't believe (John 6:64,65). So therefore I hold that one must positively experience that one has faith in one's heart otherwise it must be the case that one doesn't have faith and therefore won't be saved. Furthermore I hold that this was what Luther held, and that had he lived beyond 1580 he wouldn't have been found amongst those who subscribed to the Formula of Concord.
Luther said: "if you cling to the Lord Christ, you are certainly one of the many whom God from the beginning has chosen to be his own; otherwise they would not come and would not listen to the revelation and accept it." (What Luther Says, 1359). So Luther placed God's election to salvation as the determining factor in whether one comes to faith and believes. This is in contrast to the doctrine contained in the Formula of Concord where the onus is on people to not resist the Holy Spirit so that the Holy Spirit can bring about their conversion. In this way the determining factor in a person coming to faith isn't God's election, but is man's choice in refraining from resisting. One can see therefore that this corrupts the simple teaching that God chooses who to save in eternity. One observes in confessional Lutheran teaching that there's a pull in the direction of saying that it's man who determines who will be elected to salvation, and that it isn't God's choice, but rather that man has it within his capacity to become elected by not resisting the Holy Spirit.
I simply don't accept that the Scriptures teach that the Holy Spirit attempts to work in everyone through the Word. I don't see that this is taught in Scripture. Rather what I see is that the Holy Spirit is only given by the Father to those He wills to give Him to, and that these are then irresistibly regenerated - which was also Luther's teaching in The Bondage of the Will. It doesn't follow that because Christ died for all and desires to save all that therefore there's a potentiality that all could be saved, as this doesn't take into account God's predestination and the fact that those not predestined by God to be saved are necessarily damned.
The only verse in my eyes which seems to lend support to the confessional Lutheran teaching of the universal operation of the Holy Spirit in the means of grace is Acts 7:51: “You stiff-necked people, uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always resist the Holy Spirit. As your fathers did, so do you". (ESV). But I simply don't accept that this verse is referring to the regeneration of the Holy Spirit. Rather it is referring only to the teaching of the Holy Spirit in Scripture. The Jews rejected that God didn't live in the Temple, and Stephen quoted from the Scriptures showing that He didn't: Yet the Most High does not dwell in houses made by hands, as the prophet says, "'Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool. What kind of house will you build for me, says the Lord, or what is the place of my rest? Did not my hand make all these things?’ ESV. So when Stephen said that the Jews resisted the Holy Spirit he only meant that they refused to heed what Scripture, inspired by the Holy Spirit, teaches. He didn't mean that they were resisting the internal working of the Holy Spirit in conversion.
So I can't accept that the Formula of Concord correctly taught the truth on grace and predestination. I know I'm pitting myself against acclaimed theologians who have endorsed the teaching of the FC over several centuries, but I know in my heart that they’re wrong. One can't build a viable structure on a faulty foundation, and that's what confessional Lutheran teaching on grace and predestination amounts to. It's fatally flawed, and no matter how well it's presented it'll always be that.
This is the fruit of His Passion: He justifies and saves from death and sin and frees from the power of the devil. Such is the office of this Servant. He is to serve us in His Passion. How are we justified? How and in what way do we come by the fruit and the purpose of this work? In no other way and manner than by its soul (anima) or the knowledge (notitia) of it. Thus Peter explains it, and correctly so: "Grow in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ" (2 Peter 3:18) . . This knowledge is faith itself, not only a historical faith, which the devil also has and with which he confesses God as the heretics do, too. It is rather a knowledge which rests on experience, and faith. This word "knowing" means as much as: "Adam knew his wife" (Gen. 4:1) , that is, he "knew" her by the sense of feeling, he found her to be his wife, not in a speculative or historical way but by experience. A merely historical faith does not act in this way. It does not add the experience of feeling and the knowledge that is a personal experience. To be sure, it says: I believe that Christ died and that He did so also for me; but it does not come to this personal feeling, this experimental knowledge. (What Luther Says, 1387)
St. Augustine observed that “every man is certain of his faith, if he has faith.” This the Romanists deny. “God forbid,” they exclaim piously, “that I should ever be so arrogant as to think that I stand in grace, that I am holy, or that I have the Holy Ghost.” We ought to feel sure that we stand in the grace of God, not in view of our own worthiness, but through the good services of Christ. As certain as we are that Christ pleases God, so sure ought we to be that we also please God, because Christ is in us. And although we daily offend God by our sins, yet as often as we sin, God’s mercy bends over us. Therefore sin cannot get us to doubt the grace of God. Our certainty is of Christ, that mighty Hero who overcame the Law, sin, death, and all evils. So long as He sits at the right hand of God to intercede for us, we have nothing to fear from the anger of God. This inner assurance of the grace of God is accompanied by outward indications such as gladly to hear, preach, praise, and to confess Christ, to do one’s duty in the station in which God has placed us, to aid the needy, and to comfort the sorrowing. These are the affidavits of the Holy Spirit testifying to our favourable standing with God. (Luther's Commentary on Galatians 4:6)
What's lacking with confessional Lutherans in general is that although they say that they believe that Christ died for them they don't have this inner personal experience that Christ is their Saviour, and therefore they don't see the importance of being assured of their salvation because they have this faith in their hearts. They say one should place one's assurance of salvation only in the Word and sacraments, as if it's not necessary to have the inner witness of the heart that one is a child of God.
Confessional Lutherans on the whole don't have true faith. They don't genuinely love the truth, and they wouldn't be prepared to die rather than compromise it. Many present day confessional Lutherans have sunk so low that they would happily become members of other denominations (which they admit don't teach the Word purely) if they couldn't attend their present church. So they would happily compromise the true doctrine, showing that they regard the truth as only of secondary importance. This shows that they're not true Lutherans. They will be disowned by Luther in the next life, and more importantly of course they will be disowned by Christ as those He never knew (Matt 7:23).
When it comes to the things that Chemnitz said in the Formula of Concord in defense of his position that God has only predestined people to be saved and hasn't predestined anyone to be damned, they're based on false reasoning and are inherently unscriptural. He said for instance with reference to Romans 9:22 that if God had prepared the vessels of wrath for destruction then He wouldn't need to endure them with much patience: These are his words:
Here, then, the apostle clearly says that God endured with much long-suffering the vessels of wrath, but does not say that He made them vessels of wrath; for if this had been His will, He would not have required any great long-suffering for it. The fault, however, that they are fitted for destruction belongs to the devil and to men themselves, and not to God. (para 80, section XI Election, FC)
Chemnitz by saying this completely overthrew Paul's whole argument in Romans 9 which is that God has determined who will be saved and damned not man or the devil:
Romans 9:18-23 ESV
So then he has mercy on whomever he wills, and he hardens whomever he wills. [19] You will say to me then, "Why does he still find fault? For who can resist his will?" [20] But who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, "Why have you made me like this?" [21] Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable use? [22] What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, [23] in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory -
Chemnitz directly contradicted Paul who clearly stated that God is like a potter who makes both the vessels of honour and the vessels of dishonour - representing the saved and the damned. Paul brought up the objection in verse 19 that if God hardens people in unbelief so that they're damned then why does He hold them responsible for their unbelief as if they could believe if they wanted to, which Paul answered by saying that God can do what He wants because He's like a potter who makes both vessels of honour and vessels of dishonour (e.g. vases and chamber pots).
Chemnitz argued the opposite. He argued that God doesn't harden people in unbelief simply because He wills to but rather because they've deserved it, then he argued to the effect that God doesn't make the vessels of dishonour like a potter, and then he argued that God wouldn't need to endure the vessels of dishonour if He'd actually made them. That's just to completely contradict Paul. Chemnitz's argumentation in the FC in the section on election is all very clever and carefully constructed but it's basically false.