LCMS Convention Workbook St. Louis, Missouri — 2019, Page 13

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OFFICER, BOARD, AND COMMISSION REPORTS
Christian life. Dr. C. F. W. Walther wrote, “Let us never forget
that through Holy Baptism we have all joined the mission society
which God Himself has established.”14 Baptism is best thought of
as present tense; hence, “I am baptized” and not “I was baptized.”
Luther notes, “I am baptized, and through my baptism God, who
cannot lie, has bound himself in a covenant with me.”15 Baptism
is the triune God’s gift whereby He demonstrates His mercy by
bestowing on us a new birth (see John 3:3–6; 1 Pet. 1:3–5; Titus
3:4–7). Baptized into His own name (Matt. 28:18–20), we have
God’s own pledge and witness that we belong to Him through the
forgiveness of sins (see Acts 2:38–39) and are heirs according to
the promise (Rom. 6:1–11; Gal. 3:26–29; Col. 2:12–14). Therefore,
Baptism will not be withheld from infants or from new converts
to the faith. Since it is by Baptism that we are joined to the body
of Christ (see 1 Cor. 12:12–13), this Sacrament is foundational
for our life together.
15. Lord’s Supper. Hermann Sasse described the Sacrament of
the Altar as “the church’s heartbeat.”16 In this Sacrament, Christ
gives His body and blood under bread and wine for us Christians
to eat and to drink. It is His testament in which He bestows the
fruits of His saving sacrifice on the cross: His body given into
death and His blood shed for the forgiveness of our sins. Luther
underscores the forgiveness of sins in the Small Catechism as he
engages in a threefold repetition of the words “given for you” and
“shed for the forgiveness of sins.” These words show us that the
Sacrament of the Altar is the testament of God’s sure mercy for
sinners. When we come to eat and drink Christ’s body and blood,
we come as beggars to the feast of heaven. In this Sacrament, we
are not accessing Christ by liturgical mimesis;17 rather, we are proclaiming the Lord’s death until He comes (see 1 Cor. 11:26). Eating
and drinking in the Lord’s Supper does not create life together
(koinonia) but it does confess and express this unity we have in the
proclamation of Christ’s death. Life together (koinonia) in confessing Him is always Christ’s work and Christ’s gift by His Word.
Hence, the practice of closed Communion is a necessary corollary of the doctrine of the Lord’s Supper.18 Bringing contradiction
in teaching or life in the Holy Communion fails to give witness
to Christ and what He gives us in and with His body and blood.
16. Priesthood of the baptized. The apostle Peter writes to those
who have been “born again to a living hope” (1 Pet. 1:3), that is,
to those who are baptized into Jesus’ death. He describes us as
“living stones” that are built up as a “spiritual house, to be a holy
priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through
Jesus Christ” (1 Pet. 2:5). This priesthood is holy, that is, it is cut
off from the uncleanness of sin and set apart to live by faith in
Jesus Christ. Notice that the New Testament does not speak of us
as individual priests, each going his or her own way and doing the
work of a priest for ourselves. Rather, the New Testament speaks
of our lives lived within a company of priests, a priesthood.
The priesthood offers spiritual sacrifices. These are not sacrifices that atone for sin. Jesus did that once and for all on the cross
(see Heb. 7:27). The sacrifices that we offer are spiritual sacrifices,
the sacrifice of a broken heart and contrite spirit (see Ps. 51:17).
This is the life of repentance: daily dying to sin and living in the
newness of Christ’s forgiveness. In other words, the whole life of
the believer is one of sacrifice. This is the point that Paul makes in
Rom. 12:1, where he writes, “I appeal to you therefore, brothers,
by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice,
holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do
not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal

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of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of
God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.”
Everybody in the ancient world knew that sacrifices were dead,
not living. Jerusalem’s temple resembled a slaughterhouse more
than a church. The priest, smattered with blood, looked more like
a butcher than a clergyman. Paul’s words must have jarred his
original readers, for he writes of a living sacrifice. We present our
bodies as living sacrifices, for we have died to sin in Baptism and
now live in Christ’s resurrection (see Rom. 6:1–11).
This priestly life is our vocation, our calling. We live it out in
our daily callings in the congregation, in civic community (citizenship), the family, and the place of work. Here we who have
received mercy from the Father show forth that mercy in our dealings with others, and it is here that we bear witness to Christ by
“proclaiming the excellencies of Him who called us out darkness
into His marvelous light” (1 Pet. 2:9).
Going about our daily vocation as baptized members of
Christ’s royal priesthood, we testify to Christ, speaking His saving Word, the same Word we regularly hear in preaching and the
same Word we read for ourselves in Holy Scripture (e.g., through
personal and family devotions). The content of our witness is
always Christ, crucified and raised from the dead for all. In so
doing, we are inviting others into the same life we have received
from Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, the only real life there is: that
given in Word and Sacrament. Baptized believers will often be
found urging others, believers and unbelievers alike, to “come
and see” (John 1:39) what Christ has done for them and for all.
17. Office and offices. There is one office that Christ has instituted for the proclamation of His Word and the giving out of
His Sacraments. This is the Office of the Holy Ministry (see John
20:21–23; AC V XIV, XXVII). Through the call of the Church,
the Lord places qualified men into this office (see 1 Cor. 14:33–38;
1 Tim. 2:8–14). The men who serve in this office are to be properly
trained and capable (see 1 Tim. 3:1–7; 2 Tim. 2:1–7; 4:1–5; Titus
1:5–9) of the task of being stewards of the mysteries of God (see
1 Cor. 4:1–2). The church may not be without this office, for it is
to this office that Christ has entrusted the preaching of His Word
and the administration of His Sacraments. No one puts himself
into this office, nor does the church have the right to refashion the
office into something other than what the Lord has instituted or to
put men into the office without being called and ordained (see AC
XIV). The church does live in freedom to create offices that assist
those who are placed in the one divinely mandated office of the
ministry of Word and Sacrament. These helping offices (auxiliary
offices) would include deacons, deaconesses, evangelists, schoolteachers, catechists, cantors, parish nurses, workers of mercy, and
the like. These are valuable offices of service to the Body of Christ
and the world, but they are not to be confused with the Office of
the Holy Ministry itself. The Office of the Holy Ministry might
be said to be the office of faith as Christ instituted it so that faith
might be created in the hearts of those who hear the preaching
of Christ crucified. Helping, or auxiliary, offices are the offices
of love for through these callings the love of Christ is extolled in
word and deed as His mercy is extended to those in need.
Those whom Christ through His Church has placed in the
Office of the Holy Ministry do not lord it over the priesthood of
the baptized, but they stand among the baptized, as one of them,
holding an office of service, seeking only to give out the Lord’s
gifts as He intended (1 Cor. 4:1–2).
2019 Convention Workbook