Collection › LCMS Convention Workbook (St. Louis, Missouri) › 1969 · 48th Convention › Sheet 564
LCMS Convention Workbook St. Louis, Missouri — 1969, Sheet 564

Scan: The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod
Transcription machine transcription, uncorrected

THEOLOGY OF FELLOWSHIP 533

With such a concept of the church the doctrine of jus-
tification, which is the heart and core of New Testament
teaching, had of necessity been obscured and corrupted.
The church was believed to consist of those who, within
the visible limits of the Roman Catholic Church, gave
allegiance to the pope, and agreed with the doctrines
taught by that church. Those who separated from this
church, no matter how faithful they were to the teach-
ings of Scripture, were either heretics or schismatics,
and were without hope of salvation unless they returned
to Mother Church.

Such was the development of the doctrine of the
church, and such was the understanding of heresy and
schism from the time of Augustine until the Reforma-
tion. The practice of church fellowship was determined
by the understanding of the nature of the church, and
of the nature of heresy and schism. Catalogs of heretics
and heresies were drawn up time after time, beginning
with St.Irenaeus, in order that Catholic Christians
might know what doctrines and whose fellowship to
avoid. Bishops gave letters of recommendation to clerics
who traveled, in order that they might be accorded the
privileges of fellowship.

Being in fellowship with the one, holy, catholic, and
apostolic church entitled the layman to participate in
the sacraments: it enabled one cleric to officiate in the
parish of another, with proper permission. But above
all things, church fellowship was altar fellowship.*® This
understanding is still preserved centuries later by the
prince of Lutheran dogmaticians, John Gerhard, when
he says in his Loci:

So there is a threefold koinonia (fellowship) laid down

by the apostle: (1) the sacramental participation in

Christ’s body and blood, which takes place by way of

the bread and wine that has been blessed, 1 Cor. 10:16;

(2) the spiritual apprehension of the entire Christ and

all His benefits, which takes place by true faith, 1 Cor.

11:26; (3) the fellowship of the church as a body (com-

munio corporis ecclesiae), 1 Cor. 10:17: “We many are

one bread, one body, for we all partake of the one
bread.” The first fellowship (koinonia) is the foundation
of the others, because the spiritual participation in Christ
and His benefits is confirmed and sealed in the believers
through the sacramental fellowship (koinonia). The fel-
lowship of the church as a body can, for the sake of
teaching. be designated as twofold: namely, as external
and as internal; the external fellowship exists among all
who embrace the same doctrine and make use of the
same sacraments; the internal fellowship exists among
those only who truly believe, who have the Spirit of

Christ. The external fellowship of the church as a body

arises from the sacramental fellowship (koinonia); the

internal, however, arises from the spiritual fellowship
(koinonia).

(Volume V, Locus XXI, Cap. XI, ed. Preuss, p. 98)
Other phases of fellowship, however, came in for
some consideration. The Council or Synod of Laodicea,
of uncertain date, though falling into the latter half of
the fourth century, therefore antedating St. Augustine
somewhat, forbade among other things prayer with
heretics and fellowship with Jews and heathen at their
religious feasts.

Canon VI of this synod states:

It is not permitted to heretics to enter the house of God
while they continue in heresy.

Canon IX forbids catholics to worship with heretics:

The members of the Church are not allowed to meet in
the cemeteries, nor attend the so-called martyries of the
heretics, for prayer service; but such as do, if they be
communicants, shall be excommunicated for a time; but
if they repent, and confess that they have sinned they
shall be received.

Concerning prayer with heretics, Canon XXXIII

says:
No one shall join in prayer with heretics or schismatics.

Canon XXXVII concerns itself with fellowship be-
tween Christians and Jews:
It is not lawful to receive portions sent from the feasts

{religious feasts are meant] of the Jews or heretics, nor
to feast together with them.

We note in Canon XXXVII that Jews and heretics
are linked together, as being under the same condemna-
tion. Both were outside the one, holy, catholic, and
apostolic church, and therefore without hope of sal-
vation.

Canon XXXVIILI, still concerned with the Jews, says:

It is not lawful to receive unleavened bread 3° from the
Jews, nor to be partakers of their impiety.

Finally, Canon XXXIX 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.” *}

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-