LCMS Convention Workbook St. Louis, Missouri — 2001, Page 365

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THEOLOGICAL DOCUMENTS—COMMISSION ON THEOLOGY AND CHURCH RELATIONS 365

with heterodox teaching among them. The most drastic abuses of
the Lord’s Supper have resulted in divine judgment and those
abuses must stop at once. But as long as the lines of communication
are open, as long as the Corinthians acknowledge that Paul is in-
deed “called, an apostle of Christ Jesus through the will of God”
(1 Cor. 1:1), Paul regards them as those who confess his doctrine
and he deals with them primarily as individuals.

Here is an example once again for pastoral practice today.
When the pastor deals with his members who have made a public
confession of the apostolic faith, he assumes that they are “confes-
sors” and of one faith with the congregation. But as their individual
needs, problems, sins and errors may arise, he deals patiently with
them as “individual believers,” not arbitrarily barring them from
the Sacrament but teaching and warning, guiding and exhorting.

How would Paul think about communion fellowship with “out-
siders,” that is, with Christians who specifically rejected his doc-
trine of Baptism or Scripture or the Lord’s Supper itself? Again,
we must speak carefully since no Pauline text brings these two is-
sues together in explicit terms. But this much is clear. Paul did not
tolerate doctrinal diversity. His teaching was that of one sent by
Christ Himself and his hearers were to accept it as such. Moreover,
the Eucharist was the congregation’s sacrament of unity, and divi-
sions were to be dealt with before mutual communing took place.
The biblical evidence leads to this conclusion: unity in apostolic
doctrine is appropriate and necessary among those who commune
together at the Lord’s Supper."

II. THE LUTHERAN CONFESSIONS

A. Introduction: Who Should Not Commune?
Two Answers

The survey of biblical teaching above found it necessary to in-
troduce the two-fold distinction of “communing as an individual”
and “communing as a confessor.” The conflicts reflected in
| Corinthians were intra-congregational and the Corinthians’ rela-
tionship with Paul had not yet degenerated to the point of the
“painful visit” and the “sorrowful letter” (2 Cor. 2:1—3) that took
place sometime after the writing of | Corinthians. Paul still re-
garded the Corinthians to be under his pastoral care, and he wrote
to correct abuses and errors in their midst. He assumed (not entirely
correctly, perhaps) that they were “confessing” his authority and
doctrine, and he wrote to them as individuals. The patience, love,
and teaching of a pastor are evident throughout the letter and
specifically in 1 Cor. 11:17-34. He deals with the communicants
there as individual Christians and with an eye toward their com-
muning worthily. How Paul regarded communion practice with ref-
erence to heterodox believers of a different “confession” simply
nowhere comes to explicit expression in his writings. On the basis
of the New Testament’s attitude toward heterodoxy, however, we
concluded that the corporate unity implied in the very act of the
Lord’s Supper itself could scarcely ignore the presence of contra-
dictory confessions (Acts 2:42; Rom. 16:16-18).

The distinction between communicants as “individuals” and as
“confessors” will be helpful in examining the Lutheran Confessions
as well. The Confessions are often intensely pastoral documents,
constantly keeping in view the consolation of sinners and the spir-
itual well-being of Christians, in other words, viewing those who
commune as “individuals.”

At the same time, however, statements in the Confessions make
it clear that communion fellowship with those who adhere to a het-
erodox confession (that of Rome or of the Reformed") is out of the
question.** While it is a possibility that an individual Christian may
be personally prepared to receive the Lord’s Supper worthily and to
his or her own personal blessing, we may not classify Christians
only as individuals. Rather, all Christians adhere to a confession
(or choose to reject all formal confessions), and the terrible doctri-

nal divisions in the visible church must, tragically, be reflected in
the teaching concerning admission to the Lord’s Supper.

B. How “Christians as Individuals” May Commune Worthily
Through “Faith in These Words”

The classic statement on “communing worthily” comes from
the Small Catechism’s teaching concerning “The Sacrament of the
Altar”:

Who, then, receives this sacrament worthily?

Answer: Fasting and bodily preparation are a good external discipline,

but he is truly worthy and well prepared who believes these words: “for

you” and “for the forgiveness of sins.” On the other hand, he who does
not believe these words, or doubts them, is unworthy and unprepared,

for the words “for you” require truly believing hearts. (SC VI, 9-10:

Tappert, 352)

Faith, as that means by which a sinner receives the gifts of God,
takes front and center in al] of the confessional teaching regarding
the reception of the Eucharist in a worthy manner (that is, to one’s
blessing). Faith in these words is necessary, and faith in these
words is sufficient for an individual to commune worthily. This em-
phasis on the necessity and the sufficiency of faith corresponds to
the Confessions’ “dual horizon” of responding both to Roman
Catholic error and Reformed false doctrine.

On the one hand, faith is emphasized as necessary over against
the Roman Catholic teaching that the sacraments work their bene-
fits merely by being performed (ex opere operato) apart from faith.
But faith in the heart is that faculty which receives the gifts of God
that are present in the Eucharist. Apology XIII makes this clear:
“Thus we teach that in using the sacraments there must be a faith
which believes these promises and accepts that which is promised
and offered in the Sacrament.” This is said in response to “the
whole crowd of scholastic doctors who teach that unless there is
some obstacle, the sacraments confer grace ex opere operato...
(Ap XIII, 18; Tappert, 213). The Apology goes on to say:

Here we are talking about personal faith, which accepts the promise as

a present reality and believes that the forgiveness of sins is actually

being offered, not about a faith which believes in a general way that

God exists. Such use of the sacrament comforts devout and troubled

minds.

Words cannol describe the abuses which this fanatical notion, about
the sacraments ex opere operate wilhoul a good disposition in the one
using them, has spawned in the church.... No one can produce a single
word from the Fathers that supports the scholastics on this question. In
fact, Augustine says the opposite: that faith in the sacrament, and not
the sacrament, justifies. (21-23; Tappert, 214)

On the other hand, the Confessions (especially those chrono-
logically later) emphasize that faith is sufficient over against the
Reformed teaching that, in some sense or to some degree, virtue or
external preparations enable a person to commune in a worthy
manner.

We believe, teach, and confess that the entire worthiness of the guesis at

this heavenly feast is and consists solely and alone in the most holy obe-

dience and complete merit of Christ, which we make our own through
genuine faith |wahrhaftigen Glauben] and of which we are assured
through the sacrament. Worthiness consists not at all in our own virtues
or in our internal and external preparations. (FC Ep VII, 20; Tappert,

484; emphasis added)

Likewise, [we reject] the teaching that even true believers who have

and retain a true, genuine, living faith, but who fail to meet their own

self-devised standard of preparation, may receive this sacrament for

judgment, just like unworthy guesis. (FC SD VII, 125; Tappert, 591;

emphasis added)

Thus, the emphasis of the Lutheran Confessions on faith as that
means by which guests at the Lord’s Supper are able to commune
worthily stands in a position between errors on either side: those
emanating from Roman Catholic teaching, and from Reformed
false doctrine. The “antitheses” of Article VII of the Epitome of
the Formula of Concord, which specifically delineate Roman
Catholic and Reformed errors, demonstrate this by their introduc-

2001 Convention Workbook