LCMS Convention Proceedings St. Louis, Missouri — 1965, Page 278

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278 SUPPLEMENT TO CTCR REPORT

Canon XXXVIII, still concerned with the Jews, says:

It is not lawful to receive unleavened bread 39 from the

Jews, nor to be partakers of their impiety.

Finally, Canon XX XIX addresses itself to the ques-
tion on religious fellowship with heathen:

It is not lawful to feast together with the heathen, and

to be partakers of their godlessness.

It is evident that heretics, Jews, and heathen, were
all excluded from fellowship with catholics, because all
were considered outside the one, holy, catholic and
apostolic church, and therefore not members of the body
of Christ, outside the kingdom of God. They were dark-
ness, while the church was light, and, as the Synod of
Laodicea declares, “Light hath no communion with
darkness.” 31

B. THE REFORMATION AND THE LUTHERAN
CONFESSIONS IN THEIR BEARING ON THE
QUESTION OF CHURCH FELLOWSHIP

The Reformation began as an attempt to reform the
Roman Catholic Church, which, as pious men had com-
plained long before Luther, was in need of a reforma-
tion in head and in members.

The attempt to reform the Roman Catholic Church
as a body failed, and Luther and his adherents were ex-
communicated as heretics.

The Lutherans drew up the Augsburg Confession,
which they believed to be wholly in harmony with the
teachings of the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church,
but at variance, as they well knew, with the Church of
Rome. The Augsburg Confession, and the remaining
confessions which were in time drawn up to explain and
to defend the Augsburg Confession, departed from
Roman Catholic doctrine most visibly in this, that they
set forth the Biblical doctrine of justification by grace,
for Christ’s sake, through faith, and declared it to be
the central article of the Christian faith.

This departure from Roman Catholic doctrine was
inevitably accompanied by a doctrine of the church
which differed markedly from the Roman Catholic con-
ception. Instead of stressing membership in a visible
organization under the rule of the Roman Catholic
hierarchy, the Lutheran Confession says:

The church is the assembly of saints in which the
Gospel is taught purely and the sacraments are ad-
ministered rightly.32

Properly speaking, the church is the assembly of
saints and true believers.33

We do not concede to the papists that they are the
church, for they are not. Nor shall we pay any attention
to what they command or forbid in the name of the
church, for, thank God, a seven-year-old child knows
what the church is, namely, holy believers and sheep
who hear the voice of their Shepherd.34

1. The Marks of the Church (Notae Ecclesiae)

Of the greatest importance for the understanding of
the historical Lutheran position on pulpit and altar fel-
lowship is what the Lutheran Confessions say concern-
ing the marks by which this church, which consists of
“saints,” “true believers,” “the holy believers and sheep
who hear the voice of their Shepherd” may be recog-

nized. These marks, or notae ecclesiae, are “the pure
teaching of the Gospel and the administration of the
sacraments in harmony with the Gospel of Christ.”

The church is not merely an association of outward ties
and rites like other civic governments, however, but it
is mainly an association of faith and of the Holy Spirit
in men’s hearts. To make it recognizable, this associa-
tion has outward marks, the pure teaching of the Gospel
and the administration of the sacraments in harmony
with the Gospel of Christ.35

These marks of the church, though without this
specific designation, are already referred to in Augus-
tana, Art. VII.

It is taught also among us that one holy Christian church

will be and remain forever. This is the assembly of all

believers among whom the Gospel is preached in its
purity and the holy sacraments are administered accord-
ing to the Gospel. For it is sufficient for the true unity
of the Christian church that the Gospel be preached in
conformity with a pure understanding of it and that the

sacraments be administered in accordance with the divine
Word.36

These notae, or marks of the church, to be sure, de-
scribe the church of the pure Word, and the unadulter-
ated sacraments. They are not, however, meant to deny
that the church can exist also where the Gospel is partly
obscured by error. Nevertheless they have throughout
the history of orthodox Lutheranism served to establish
the limits of pulpit and altar fellowship, and to dis-
tinguish the Lutheran Church from other churches.

Simultaneously with the Lutheran Church and its
confessions the Reformed Church, an outgrowth of
Zwingli’s reformatory efforts, came into being with con-
fessions of its own. All efforts to unite the Lutherans
and the Reformed in doctrine failed.

A little later the Roman Catholic Church acquired
a Roman Catholic confession in the Canons and Decrees
of the Council of Trent.

The so-called left wing of the Reformation produced
a number of sects which did not identify themselves
with either of the three chief divisions in western
Christendom.

In the Preface to the Book of Concord the Lutheran
confessors first of all affirm their continued adherence
to the Augsburg Confession, which according to their
conviction presents nothing but the pure teaching of the
orthodox Christian church and of the ancient ecumen-
ical creeds:

They (the Lutherans) have held fast and loyally to the

doctrine that is contained in it (the Augsburg Confes-

sion), that is based solidly on the divine Scriptures, and
that is also briefly summarized in the approved ancient
symbols, recognizing the doctrine as the ancient con-
sensus which the universal and orthodox church of

Christ has believed, fought for against many heresies and
errors, and repeatedly affirmed.37

In the Preface to the Book of Concord the Lutheran
confessors also define their attitude toward other
churches, particularly the Reformed, and toward heresy
and heretics. It is evident from the following quotation
that they did not hereticize whole churches in which
error was taught, but only “false and seductive doctrines
and their stiff-necked proponents and blasphemers.”

With reference to the condemnations, censures, and re-
jections of false and adulterated doctrine, especially in the