LCMS Convention Workbook St. Louis, Missouri — 2023, Page 215

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THEOLOGICAL DOCUMENTS­­—COMMISSION ON THEOLOGY AND CHURCH RELATIONS

215

The Order of Creation
THEOLOGY, HISTORY, DEFINITION

COMMISSION ON THEOLOGY AND CHURCH RELATIONS
THE LUTHERAN CHURCH—MISSOURI SYNOD | OCTOBER 2022

Abbreviations used:
AC

Augsburg Confession

Ap

Apology of the Augsburg Confession

CCM

Commission on Constitutional Matters

CTCR

Commission on Theology and Church Relations

FC SD

Formula of Concord: Solid Declaration

KW

Robert Kolb and Timothy J. Wengert, eds. The Book of Concord: The Confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church
(Minneapolis: Fortress, 2000).

LC

Large Catechism

LSB

Lutheran Service Book (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 2006).

LSCwE Luther’s Small Catechism with Explanation (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 2017).
LW

Luther’s Works, American Edition, ed. Jaroslav Pelikan, Helmut T. Lehmann and Christopher Boyd Brown, 75 vols.
(Philadelphia and St. Louis: Augsburg and Concordia Publishing House, 1955–).

SA

Smalcald Articles

SC

Small Catechism

© 2022 The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod 1333 S. Kirkwood Road St. Louis, MO 63122 888-THE LCMS • lcms.org
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permission. All rights reserved.

Cover Image: Trinity Lutheran Church, Algona, Iowa. LCMS Communications/Erik M. Lunsford

I. Order of Creation in Scripture, Luther and Lutheran Theology

The Order of Creation

While the term “order of creation” is not found in Scripture, it is nonetheless a biblical concept. This theological
term describes repeated instances where the New Testament appeals to the creation and fall in Genesis 1–3 as
precedent for conduct in the church and Christian home. The order of creation is then complemented by the “order
of redemption,” a term that traditionally refers to the new creation initiated by Christ’s death and resurrection and the
consequences that new creation has for life in the temporal realm. The order of redemption does not negate the order
of creation, but it provides a new perspective from which to view the order of creation and freshly envision how we
might live in accordance with God’s design for humanity. At the same time, the order of creation as God established
it in the Garden of Eden can never be fully restored due to the effects of the fall into sin. Only after Christ’s return will
God finally remove forever the wicked adversaries of his creation — sin, death and the devil — though nowhere does
Scripture promise that the order of creation will be restored in exactly the same way as it existed before the fall.

THEOLOGY, HISTORY, DEFINITION

T

he term “order of creation” is not found in Scripture. This does not mean it is unbiblical, let alone
that we should not consider it a Lutheran idea that, properly understood, contributes to our understanding
of God’s wise and benevolent design for His creation. On the contrary, the order of creation is a theological
concept that Lutherans — among others — have used to make sense of New Testament references to the story of
creation as a basis for relationships today, particularly those relationships between men and women in the church
and in the Christian home. While it is tempting to dismiss this concept as antiquated or to view it through the lens
of current cultural debates regarding gender, marriage and sexuality, the theology behind the order of creation seeks
to state clearly the traditional, biblical Christian view of a Creator God who has established and who governs all
things according to His loving, unchanging will. This includes the fundamental goodness of all He has made, the
creation of man and woman in the image of God, the distinctiveness of man and woman, the indissoluble bond of
man and woman in matrimony, and the Christian home and Christian church as reflections of God’s divine order
for humanity, among many other relationships that touch the whole of Christian life. With the current virulent
cultural assault on traditional Christianity, it is important — maybe now more than ever — to ground our moral
views not in historical precedent, judicial or legislative politics, or pragmatic reasoning, but in God’s institution at
creation and what He has revealed about it in Holy Scripture.
It is in this light that the 2016 convention of The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod passed Resolution 5-14 (“To
Reaffirm Biblical Teaching on Man and Woman in the Church”), which requested that the Commission on Theology
and Church Relations (CTCR) produce “a biblical, confessional, and historical study of the concept of the order of
creation, examining its relevance to various questions about the service of men and women in the church and society
today and also taking into account continued disagreements and discussion in the Synod about the service of women
in certain lay positions and offices of leadership (e.g., congregational chairman or vice-chairman).”1 Implicit in this
resolution are two different but related sets of questions. First, what is the order of creation, and where does it come
from — Scripture, Luther, Lutheran theologians, the Synod? Second, what role does the order of creation play in how
Christians organize our churches and homes, and what implications might it have for society more broadly, including
the involvement of women in various occupations, politics, the military or law enforcement? While both sets of questions have been addressed in various ways during the recent history of the Missouri Synod, it is the contention of this
report that answering the first set of questions by clarifying the theology of the order of creation will resolve many of
the tensions inherent in the second set of questions.
This report, then, seeks to fulfill the requirements of 2016 Resolution 5-14 through a substantial biblical,
theological and historical study of the order of creation. The first section will present a brief survey of the biblical
references for the order of creation, its use in Luther and post-Reformation Lutheranism, and its development
among theologians inside and outside the Missouri Synod in recent centuries. The second section will detail the
term’s formal adoption by the Missouri Synod in 1956 and its application to various ecclesiastical matters by Synod
conventions and the CTCR since then, including women’s suffrage, women’s ordination and women’s service in the
church in various ways. On the basis of this historical review, the document will then seek to provide a succinct
definition of the order of creation (and related terms) consistent with the Synod’s historic usage and understanding,
which may help to facilitate and support responsible catechetical instruction, charitable Synod discussions and
faithful public witness.

The order of creation as a theological theme is derived from numerous New Testament passages. The primary two
instances occur in 1 Corinthians 11 and 1 Timothy 2. In 1 Corinthians 11:3, St. Paul says that “the head of every man
is Christ, the head of a wife is her husband, and the head of Christ is God.” He then goes on to ground this — and the
custom of women wearing head coverings in worship — in the sequential ordering of creation, beginning with man,
followed by woman: “For a man ought not to cover his head, since he is the image and glory of God, but woman is
the glory of man. For man was not made from woman, but woman from man. Neither was man created for woman,
but woman for man. That is why a wife ought to have a symbol of authority on her head” (1 COR. 11:7–10). St. Paul makes
a similar comment in 1 Timothy 2:11–14, “Let a woman learn quietly with all submissiveness. I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet. For Adam was formed first, then Eve;
and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor.” In this passage, however, he
intones not only the sequence of creation, but also the sequence of the fall — man was created before woman, woman
was deceived before man.
A parallel passage that incorporates both of these arguments, yet without explicit reference to creation, is found
in 1 Corinthians 14: “As in all the churches of the saints, the women should keep silent in the churches. For they are
not permitted to speak, but should be in submission, as the Law also says. If there is anything they desire to learn,
let them ask their husbands at home. For it is shameful for a woman to speak in church” (1 COR. 14:33–35).2 While no
passages in the Gospels directly refer to the order of creation, Christ Himself does cite creation (over the Mosaic Law)
as precedent for God’s intention that marriage be indissoluble:
He answered, “Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female,
and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall
become one flesh’? So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man
separate.” They said to him, “Why then did Moses command one to give a certificate of divorce and to send
her away?” He said to them, “Because of your hardness of heart Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but
from the beginning it was not so. And I say to you: whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and
marries another, commits adultery.” (MATT. 19:4–9; SEE MARK 10:2–9)
In these examples, the New Testament does not appeal to natural law (“the work of the law is written on their
hearts,” ROM. 2:15); the moral, sacrificial or civil regulations of the Mosaic Law; or ancient Greek or Roman custom.
On the contrary, it appeals to the divine arrangement — revealed throughout Scripture — of human relationships as
they were constituted at creation and, ultimately, confounded by the fall. After the creation of man and woman on the
sixth day of creation in Genesis 1, God gave humanity authority over all animals of land, sky and sea (GEN. 1:28), and He
placed all vegetation — fruit and plant life — under humanity to be used for food (GEN. 1:29).3 God first gave animals to
It should be said, however, that the New Testament does not always describe male headship or female submission in terms of creation. St. Paul just as readily uses the
relationship between Christ and the church as basis for both headship and submission (EPH. 5:22–33). In a similar way, St. Peter grounds submission of Christians to the
Emperor, or submission of servants to masters, in Christ’s own unjust suffering (1 PETER 2–3).

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CTCR, Together with All Creatures: Caring for God’s Living Earth (St. Louis: The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod, 2010), 40.

Proceedings of the 66th Regular Convention (St. Louis: The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod, 2016), 162–63.

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THE ORDER OF CREATION

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