# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1967_S69 # Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration) ory on OF WoW uO OD WwW WN eb mee 0 rh ED OO tt 1 ears RE OS woul ow we Yea age i sQS Ly Pee Li 58. THE DOCTRINAL ESSAY 69 Augsburg Confession sets up as the yardstick to de- termine what is necessary for catholicity: what is “nec- essary for righteousness before God.” Again we are brought face to face with the cardinal doctrine of the church: justification by grace through faith in Jesus Christ. Doctrine and Life The catholicity of the church is expressed in the doctrine and life of the church. Both doctrine and life must be in conformity with the pure understanding of the Gospel; that includes the administration of the sac- raments. Wherever the Gospel has been turned into a new law, promising salvation to men in conformity with certain regulations rather than by the gift of God in Christ, the catholicity of the church is immediately threatened. Whenever the sacraments become an ex- pression of law rather than of the Gospel, the catholicity of the church has immediately been put under a cloud. Martin Luther again confirmed the catholicity of the church with his “grace alone, faith alone, and Scripture alone.” This is the teaching of the church catholic, and by it the church lives. The church catholic is made up of men and women scattered throughout the world who agree on the Gospel and have the same Christ, the same Holy Spirit, and the same sacraments. “They gather locally in large congregations, and are scattered in lonely places, in all the world, in various kingdoms, islands, lands and cities, from the rising of the sun to its setting” (Apology VII, 20, from the German). The church catholic exists. “Catholic” Equals “Christian” Lutherans invested the word “catholic” with Chris- tological content. Christ is everything. He is all in all. Therefore the Lutheran Confessions could render the word “catholic” simply with the word “Christian,” which is not an institutional designation but advances the idea that the church exists wherever the Gospel is preached. Schlink says: “The catholicity of the church is the catholicity of its Lord, who is present and active wherever the Gospel is preached according to His com- mission and the Sacraments are administered.” What about all the false people and the false teachers in the church, the wicked and the hypocrites, who ob- viously do not follow Christ? It cannot be said that the presence of such people in the church did not bother the professors at Augsburg, because it did — but it did not shake their faith in Christ or their confident asser- tion of the catholicity of the church. It is the Gospel that builds the church, and it is the Gospel that deter- mines the catholicity of the church. Though the wicked may be members of the church, they are not members of Christ. Even though they are “within the church” itself, it must be said of them that since they “belong to the kingdom of the devil, they are not the church.” (Apology VII, 17) Not “Ecumenical” The term “catholic” therefore, as we understand it, ‘includes all whom God has given to Christ. We do not ‘identify the word “catholic” with “ecumenical,” which means simply “worldwide” and is limited to this earth. Indeed, the word “ecumenical” has come to have so many meanings that it might be better for us to refer to the ecumenical creeds as the catholic creeds, just as the Athanasian Creed described the faith believed and proclaimed by the catholic church as the catholic faith. In so doing we concede nothing to the Roman Catholic Church. Indeed, we deny to any church body the ex- clusive prerogative of calling itself, and itself alone, catholic. The catholicity of the church exists in spite of the fragmented nature of Christendom. The fragmentation is serious. In many cases it is not just historical or tradi- tional but has to do with the heart of the life of the church, its doctrine. No single church body and no single denomination can lay full or exclusive claim to the title or the attributes of the church of God as it is described in the New Testament. Yet the catholicity of the church remains. No Jigsaw Puzzle The ecumenical movement, good as have been some of its intentions, has often been characterized by the mistaken idea that the catholicity of the church has to be restored by putting together somehow the pieces of the church as if it were a gigantic jigsaw puzzle. The trouble with this approach is that the pieces do not fit the picture of the church as it is portrayed in the New Testament. What is needed is that the ecumenical movement be infused with the spirit of true catholicity, the reality and power of which come to the church from Christ Himself, being transmitted to the church through the God-given means of grace, the Gospel and the sac- raments. The activity of Christ through Word and sac- rament produces the reality of catholicity by the power of the Holy Spirit. The Augsburg Confession says, echoing St.Paul: “There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call, one Lord, one faith, one baptism.” Foretaste The catholicity of the church on earth is a foretaste of something greater to come. Catholicity will always be insecure in history, something never to be taken for granted. The fullness of catholicity will always remain a hope on earth to be realized in all its fullness in heaven. This is nothing new. It is characteristic of all the Christian life and includes the eternal life, to which we lay claim now but will realize in all its fullness in heaven. What we must remember is that the people whom we shall meet in heaven are the same ones who share in the catholicity of the church here. Since it always remains a hope, catholicity is always a pressing forward to the historical realization, at least in part, of what will become apparent in all its fullness at the end of time. Church Universal — The body of Christ in all places and in all ages is the church universal. That church universal makes its presence known in the local congregation to the local