# LCMS Convention Workbook_St. Louis Missouri_1969_S538 # Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration) THEOLOGY OF FELLOWSHIP * Preamble The document Theology of Fellowship grew out of studies initiated by a resolution of The Lutheran Church — Missouri Synod at the St. Paul convention in 1956. The resolution requested a restudy of the question of “fellowship, prayer fellowship, and unionism.” (See Proceedings of the Forty-Third Regular Convention, St. Paul, 1956, p. 550.) The presidents of the two semi- naries appointed a committee of two members from each theological faculty to make the study. This committee searched the Scripture, particularly the New Testament, with great care to glean from it all passages which have a bearing on fellowship. The findings of this committee are embodied in Theology of Fellowship, Part I. Another committee then prepared a Part II, which was to speak to the practical problems in the area of fellowship, and to study in particular the passages which have been traditionally quoted in our circles against unionism and against prayer fellowship with men who are considered to be in error in matters of doctrine. The work of this committee was revised and adopted at a meeting of the joint faculties in October 1960 and then disseminated to the church. Suggestions and criticisms from the field, also from sister synods overseas, suggested that the doctrine of the church and its marks (Apology VII) had not been sufficiently taken into consideration in the above-men- tioned Part II. The Forty-Fifth Convention of The Lutheran Church — Missouri Synod, assembled at Cleveland in 1962, as- signed the Theology of Fellowship to the newly created Commission on Theology and Church Relations for re- vision or replacement by a new document (see Proceed- ings, pp. 110f.). The commission instructed certain of its members, aided by theologians outside the commission, to prepare a historical study, which was to show how the concept of church fellowship developed in church history and what the Lutheran Confessions have to say on the ques- tion. The results of this study are embodied in the pres- ent Part II of Theology of Fellowship. The original Part II should therefore not be used as having any standing in The Lutheran Church — Missouri Synod. The exegetical and practical questions originally treated in the now superseded Part II were restudied, and the results are embodied in Theology of Fellowship, Part III. The whole document is herewith submitted to the Synod by the Commission on Theology and Church Relations for reference and for guidance. PART ONE I. God Created the Fellowship A. GOD CREATED MAN FOR FELLOWSHIP 1. With God God created man for fellowship with Himself (Gen. 1:26). He made man in His own image (Gen. 1:27), 527 and Himself breathed ‘he breath of life into his nostrils (Gen. 2:7). He blessed man with the power of procre- ation (Gen.1:28a) and entrusted to him a share in the government of the creature world (Gen.1:28b). Thus He made man, as it were, a partaker both in crea- tion and government, yet under God and responsible to Him (Gen. 2:16-17). This was a personal fellowship and involved communication with the Creator (Gen. 1:29, 31). 2. With Man God, who created man for fellowship with Himself, also created man for fellowship with his fellowman (Gen. 2:18,20b). When God created Eve, Adam at once recognized her as a creature designed for fellow- ship with himself (Gen. 2:23). By this creative act God not only ordained the fellowship of husband and wife (Gen. 2:24) but also laid the basis for the larger fel- lowship of the whole human family (Mal. 2:10a; Acts 17:26 a). B. MAN DESTROYS THE FELLOWSHIP 1. The Fall into Sin a. With God The fellowship for which God had created our first parents, and into which He had placed them, and in which He sought to preserve them by hedging them round about with a commandment (Gen. 2:16-17), Adam and Eve themselves broke when they yielded to the temptation of Satan and transgressed God’s com- mand (Gen.3:1,6). That man had destroyed his fel- lowship with God through sin became evident from the fact that he fled from God and attempted to hide from Him (Gen. 3:8) and that God drove him from the gar- den (Gen. 3: 22-24). b. With Man The fall into sin also destroyed the fellowship of man with his fellowman (Gen. 3:12; 4:5, 8, 9). 2. Fallen Man Continually Negates the Fellowship Man has continued to negate this fellowship with God and man for which he was created (Gal. 5:19-21). God continues to reveal Himself to fallen man through His works, but man’s response to this revelation is a continually renewed revolt and a continual breaking of the divinely willed fellowship between God and man (Rom. 1:18-32). Similarly, God’s revealed Law, which clearly dem- onstrates God’s will that man should live in communion with Him and with his fellowman (Matt. 22:37-40), pro- vokes enmity and rebellion (Rom. 8:7), which in turn leads to separation instead of fellowship (Is. 59:2; 64: 6-7). * Adopted at the 47th regular convention (New York, 1967) “as a synodical document for reference and guidance.”