LCMS Convention Proceedings St. Louis, Missouri — 2001, Page 89

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CONVENTION ESSAYS AND REACTIONS
fulness to the doctrine that God has given us in the Scriptures.
Moreover, we should realize that when we are faithful
in our practice of fellowship and do not have joint worship
services with the pastors and congregations of other church
bodies, we have an opportunity to instruct people regarding doctrinal differences in Christendom that threaten the
Gospel and to offer a witness to others about those matters
in which they teach falsely.
Of course, it is extremely important that such instruction and witness not proceed from a spirit of arrogance but
out of sincere concern for the spiritual well-being of people.
But unfortunately, it is very hard, practically impossible,
to avoid being labeled “arrogant” or “mean” or “unloving”
in an age that has no use for the uncomfortable truths of
religion. Attitude is everything today and truth is nothing.
But as members of a church still committed to the Scriptures, we need to maintain the truth of the Scriptures and
to support one another in that task, if we still believe, really
and truly believe, that God has communicated doctrinal
truth in His Word—and that that communication matters.
If we do, then we will not want to confuse people by inviting
into our pulpits representatives of churches that do not
teach correctly.
In fact, out of concern for the church—which the Holy
Spirit brings into being by the Word—we need to avoid all
sorts of projects that involve proclaiming the Gospel when
there is no agreement in the gospel, i.e., “in doctrine and in
all its articles,” as the Lutheran Confessions describe it (FC
Ep. X.5). As a Synod, we are committed to working together
to establish Christian schools, to publish religious materials (hymnals, Bible studies, and the like), and to carry out
mission work of all sorts. These are essential to the task of
the church to “preach the Word,” and so we do them together in doctrinal unity. But when we engage in these
sorts of activities with other churches, even at a local level,
and there is no agreement in doctrine, we make it possible,
indeed likely, for error to intrude into the proclamation of
God’s Word. This we cannot permit, for God saves people
through the truth and not through false doctrine.
Besides the pure preaching of the Word, as Lutherans
we have also committed ourselves to the right administration of the sacraments (AC VII)—a commitment that is the
basis for our practice of close (or closed) Communion. In recent years, close Communion has become an issue for some
in our Synod; so it is necessary for us to explore the connection between our Communion practices and our commitment to God’s truth.
As many of you probably know, our Synod has a long
history of dealing with this issue, for even in the early days
of the Synod’s history, there were many in America, including many American Lutherans outside the Missouri
Synod, for whom close Communion represented the “epitome of an intolerant and unevangelical Christianity.”9 For
them, Communion was the application of God’s forgiveness
in Christ to the individual sinner and nothing more. There
are still many people who think this is the case today; and
therefore, the practice of close Communion makes no sense
to them. Once again, it appears arrogant and loveless. But
in point of fact, the Lord’s Supper is something more than

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application of the Gospel; it is also an outward sign of an
inward fellowship. Let me explain.
Clearly, the Lord’s Supper is a means of grace, a principal vehicle by which God conveys to sinners the body and
blood of Jesus for the forgiveness of their sins. This is its
basic and chief purpose; but that does not mean that this
is its only purpose. It has a secondary purpose, a result of
the first purpose really, and that is to demonstrate the
bond of fellowship that exists between those who commune
together. In other words, going to Communion signifies
both the relationship of God to the individual communicant
and the relationship of the communicants to each other.
This is different from preaching the Word. The direction
of preaching is entirely one way—a message from God to
sinners about their sin and especially their salvation in
Christ; and since we are all sinners, we make no distinctions among those who can hear the preaching in our
churches. All are welcome, whatever church they belong to
and even if they belong to no church at all.
But what does the Holy Spirit accomplish by that Word?
He works faith in the heart by the Word, and in so doing,
He establishes new relationships—not only between God
and the sinner but also between the believers themselves.
They are one with each other as well as with God in Christ.
We are brothers and sisters in the Lord.
Like the Word, the Lord’s Supper nurtures and sustains
both of these relationships—between God and man and between each other. But unlike the Word, it also reveals the
relationships. Hearing the Word is passive and invisible—
we cannot see the Word enter the ear and convert the
heart; but we can see people kneeling together to partake of
the Lord’s body and blood. The Lord’s Supper is visible and
external as well as invisible and internal. It marks us as
belonging to God and to each other; it marks us as belonging to the church.
St. Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 10:17, “Because there
is one loaf, we, who are many, are one body, for we all partake of the one loaf.” Thus, when we Christians eat together the bread that is the body of Christ, we all become
one body—and not just symbolically—but mystically, spiritually, really—the body of Christ. All of us are one in Christ
and through Communion are bound more tightly together
than are body and soul in one person. One God dwells in
us; one Spirit rules in us; one Lord Jesus Christ is our
Life.10
Of course, the question immediately arises that if the
Lord’s Supper is a bond between believers, that is, Christians, and not just Lutherans, how is it that we refuse to
commune any except those in our fellowship? The answer
lies in our earlier discussion regarding the importance of
true doctrine as the basis for our Gospel proclamation,
since to commune those who do not belong to our church is
to confirm them in the errors of the churches to which they
do belong, errors that threaten the very oneness that we
have in Christ.
Now, of course, as soon as we say something like this,
we immediately run afoul of contemporary attitudes again
regarding truth and error in religion and whether, in particular, it is possible to identify one church as correct in its
doctrine and another wrong. So let’s be honest with one an200l Convention Proceedings