Luther On Ministers Affecting* The Sacrament Without Voters
By Rev. Jack Cascione

 

Can the minister affect the sacrament without the agreement of the Voters' Assembly in the LC-MS? Luther shows us that without the Voters' agreement the real presence cannot take place in an LC-MS congregation.

The issue of affirming Voters' Assemblies at the 2001 Convention is really whether the laity are concerned that their congregations will remain true visible churches.

First, we offer the following quotation from Luther, which states that even if the minister is a scoundrel, the real presence in the Lord's Supper takes place through the congregation's correct confession of God's Word.

Luther states: "I take the case of a minister who is quite a scoundrel, and even an epicurean, and who believes that he administers nothing but bread and wine, although the entire church believes that it is body and blood. What should be done in this case? I answer: The mouth is deceived; but faith is not deceived. Nevertheless, if the minister should say the words [of institution] so that the church hears them, it is the unbelieving priest who is in peril and not the church which believes the words and receives what the words say and faith relies upon, so long as there is no public preaching against the sacrament, as there is today among the sacramentarians. For where a church is taught that there is only bread and where it may be that there are one, two, or three persons who believe, the people don't receive the body of Christ. . . . But if only one person is unbelieving, this doesn't take anything away from the sacrament." LW54:100

"Accordingly, when there is a confession of the Word, no matter what kind of knave the minister may be, this detracts not at all from the sacrament." LW54:101

"The sacramentarians get rid of the substance and have nothing but the bread and wine." LW54:101

Second, we offer a quote from Luther when he was asked if the faith of the individual would receive the real presence of Christ's body and blood in the sacrament even if the minister says the real presence is not there. In more contemporary terms, could a Lutheran receive the real presence in a Methodist church if all the words are said correctly and the Lutheran visitor believes correctly? Luther's answer is, "No."

Can the Minister Affect the Sacrament? "[The question was asked] whether it would be permissible to receive the sacrament from a minister who himself thinks and teaches that the body and blood [of Christ] are not in the sacrament, but Christ is present spiritually, as he is present everywhere in his grace? Some say yes on the ground that there should be no respect of persons or of the worthiness of these who administer the sacrament. Dr. Martin [Luther] said No on the ground that in this instance it is not the worthiness of the person but the thing itself that would cease."

"'There's no sacrament there,' he said. 'Likewise if the minister doesn't observe the sacrament in the right way, the people dare not act contrary to the Christ who shed his blood for them. O Lord God, anybody who can't believe that Christ is in the bread, in the grain of wheat, will believe the creation even less! That all of creation was made from nothing is a higher article of faith.'" LW54:471

In both cases above, Luther shows that the real presence in the Lord's Supper is only affected when the congregation hears and confesses the correct words about the Sacrament. In the LC-MS the pastor is a Member of Synod and the Congregation is a Member of Synod. The individual members of the congregation are not members of Synod. The pastor can't believe for the congregation or write his own constitution.

If the pastor invents and submits his own church constitution to the Synod that makes him a member of Synod twice over and it makes him his own church. It is like the song, "I'm My Own Grandpa." So does he issue himself his own call and then agree with himself when he accepts it?

The Bible and the Lutheran Confessions are a dead letter if the people don't confess them. But Christ says His Word cannot return to Him void. 2 Corinthians 3:3 "Forasmuch as ye are manifestly declared to be the epistle of Christ ministered by us, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not in tables of stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart." No Confession = No Church = No Means of Grace! Now reverse this and you have God's order for the creation of the local congregation. The Gospel will always be true, but no one goes to heaven without believing it.

The congregation must confess the Word and Sacraments correctly if it is going to be a true visible church. The only way that a Missouri Synod congregation can make a confession is through the Voters' Assembly, just as the only way a Missouri Synod congregation can call and "make" a man into a pastor is through the Voters' Assembly.


* A smart aleck 4th year LC-MS seminary student sent the following response to this article. He writes as follows:

"Spelling, unbelieveable (hahaha)

effect the sacraments, not affect

effect, efficacious

I have higher authority than Luther for your point.

Tappert, p. 635, FC, Article XII, (SD, 35)

Erroneous articles of the Schwenfelders: 7. That a minister of the church who is himself not truly renewed, righteous, and pious cannot teach profitably nor administer genuine and true sacraments."

We reply: First, yes we have had spelling errors in the past and we will have them in the future but in this case we used the title found on page 100 of "Luther's Works" volume 54.

Yes, the proper word is "effect" if we are talking about instituting Christ' s body and blood in the sacrament through the words of institution. However, was it Luther's meaning that was misspelled by the publisher or does Luther really mean "affect" because he is talking about the minister's personal confession and not the Word of God?

In other words, teaching a lie about the sacrament in the church and people agreeing with that false teaching would negate the real presence in the sacrament. The Word of God "effects" (or causes) the real presence but a lie about the sacrament "affects" or changes the sacrament and thus prevents the real presence. Grace can be resisted. Only God's Word can "effect" but our changes can only be a negative "affect" because no one can improve on God's "efficacy" through the Word.

If the Voters' Assembly confesses the correct words about the Lord's Supper in their church constitution God's Word effects the real presence but if they do not confess the proper words they have negated the real presence and thus affected the Supper negatively. The problem here is how many people are aware of the distinction between these two words, "effect" and "affect" in theological discourse?

If anyone has the German could they please tell us what the correct German word says? If the title is translator Theodore G. Tappert's interpretation of Luther's statement "affect" is what Tappert thought Luther meant.

So for our Sem IV student we have Tappert plus Luther, therefore, we have a higher authority.


Rev. Jack Cascione is pastor of Redeemer Lutheran Church (LCMS - MI) in St. Clair Shores, Michigan. He has written numerous articles for Christian News and is the author of Reclaiming the Gospel in the LCMS: How to Keep Your Congregation Lutheran. He has also written a study on the Book of Revelation called In Search of the Biblical Order.
He can be reached by email at pastorcascione@juno.com.

February 13, 2001