LCMS Convention Workbook St. Louis, Missouri — 2004, Page 445

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OTHER PERTINENT DOCUMENTS 445

THE LUTHERAN UNDERSTANDING OF CHURCH
FELLOWSHIP

Office of the President
and Commission on Theology and Church Relations
of The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod
February 2000

ilations from the Lutheran Confessions are taken from The Book of
Concord edited by T.G. Tappert (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1959).
The following abbreviations have been used:

AC — Augsburg Confession

Ap — Apology of the Augsburg Confession

Ep — Epitome of the Formula of Concord

FC — Formula of Concord

LC — Large Catechism

SA — Smalcald Articles

SC — Small Catechism

SD — Solid Declaration of the Formula of Concord

INTRODUCTION

he 1998 convention of The Lutheran Church—Missouri

Synod [LCMS] noted that a growing problem regarding

fellowship exists among pastors and congregations! and
asked its president and the Commission on Theology and Church
Relations [CTCR] to prepare a study to explain the Synod’s posi-
tion. Though the word “fellowship” describes a wide range of ac-
tivities among Christians, this study concentrates on altar and pul-
pit fellowship that allows the pastors of one church to preach and
celebrate Holy Communion in the church of another. Similarly,
when altar and pulpit fellowship exists the laity of one church may
receive Holy Communion from the other church’s pastors.’
Churches in altar and pulpit fellowship share all spiritual things in-
cluding a joint responsibility in maintaining a common confession
of faith.?

It is important to note that this study is offered in its present
form to the District conventions meeting in 2000. The President of
the Synod and the CTCR will receive reactions to this study
through the Discussion Reporting Instrument included at the end
of this booklet.

As we begin this study of fellowship we call attention to the fol-
lowing basic assumptions:

a. The Holy Trinity is the source and pattern for the fellowship Chris-

tians have with one another in “the one holy Christian and apostolic

church” (Latin: una sancta).

The unity that exists among Christians finds its foundation in
the unity that exists among the three persons in the Trinity. The
Son and the Holy Spirit share in the deity of the Father. As the
Nicene Creed states it: the Son is “of one substance with the Fa-
ther” and the Holy Spirit “together with the Father and the Son is
worshipped and glorified.” The triune God, therefore, is an indi-
visible communion of persons by virtue of their common partici-
pation in the one divine substance.

Through the coming of the divine Son into the flesh, this com-
munion of persons in the Trinity is proffered to us. For when Christ
was incarnated, He united Himself indivisibly with human flesh,
so that His flesh became the very instrument for the communication
of His divine nature. When, therefore, Christians are buried and
raised with Christ in Baptism and when they partake of Christ’s
flesh and blood under the bread and wine in the Lord’s Supper,
they become participants “in the divine nature” (2 Peter 1:4) that
Christ shares with the Father and the Holy Spirit. By union with
Christ, we believers become one with the triune God and so be-
come one with one another.

b. The one church, the assembly of believers, is an article of faith.

Like other articles of faith, the church’s unity cannot be seen
but is believed: “I believe in one holy Christian and apostolic
Church” (Nicene Creed). As Christ’s mystical body and temple
(Eph. 2:20-22), the church’s unity is as invisible as her holiness.
Hermann Sasse writes, “The Christians in Corinth had to believe
that they were God’s people and that in, with, and under their visi-
ble assembly the spiritual body of Christ was present—just as they
could not see, taste, or feel that the consecrated bread and the con-
secrated wine in the Lord’s Supper were the true body and true
blood of Christ. They had to believe that.” The Gospel and sacra-
ments are the church’s marks through which the Holy Spirit cre-
ates faith in Christ who is present in them and joins Himself to us
as His church. The one church, the fellowship of all believers, ex-
presses herself outwardly as the assembly around the Gospel and
sacraments. The internal and external fellowship are facets of the
one church. Internal fellowship is constituted by faith and the ex-
ternal fellowship is expressed by confession.

c. The church's internal unity, known only to God (Eph. 1:4), is ex-

pressed by an external or outward fellowship based on confession.

While the church’s internal unity is perfect and known only to
God (Eph. 1:4), the limits of external fellowship are determined by
whether the Gospel is preached purely and the sacraments are ad-
ministered according to Christ’s institution. The Gospel and the
sacraments are in themselves always pure. In this way they create
and preserve the church in her hidden unity throughout the world.
Yet, when church bodies make public confession of the Gospel and
the sacraments, tragically some obscure or explicitly contradict the
teaching of the Gospel and the proper administration of the sacra-
ments.’ For this reason the limits or boundaries of the external fel-
lowship are creeds and confessions. Churches in altar and pulpit
fellowship share the same confession, including the rejection of er-
rors that contradict this confession. Where churches cannot agree
on a common confession, the basis for church fellowship does not
exist. The original form of the Nicene Creed condemned those who
did not believe that the divinity of the Son was equal to the divinity
of the Father. Twelve centuries later the Lutheran Confessions
identified agreements and disagreements with the Roman Catholic
Church. But they also listed their differences with the Reformed,
and in the case of the Formula of Concord, with other Lutherans.

1. Fellowship in the Scriptures

a. In English the word “fellowship” is commonly understood to
refer to friends coming together. In New Testament teaching, how-
ever, one first has fellowship in something or someone, and then
fellowship with others who have fellowship in the same thing. The
Greek term koinonia (fellowship) refers to joint participation in a
common thing: Christians share in the Gospel, Christ, the Holy
Spirit, the one faith, Baptism, Christ’s body and blood, and through
these they have koinonia or fellowship with one another.° Our fel-
lowship is “with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ,” through
whom we have fellowship with one another (1 John 1:3). Jesus
prayed that all Christians may “be one; even as thou, Father, art in
me, and I in thee, that they also may be in us” (John 17:21). Jesus
establishes fellowship with us by the Gospel and the sacraments:
“This is he who came by water and blood, Jesus Christ, not with
the water only but with the water and the blood. And the Spirit is
the witness, because the Spirit is the truth. There are three wit-
nesses, the Spirit [the preaching of the Gospel], the water [Bap-
tism], and the blood [the Lord’s Supper]; and these three agree
(1 John 5:6-8).

By first uniting us with Himself, Christ unites us with one an-
other. He is the Vine and we are the branches (John 15:1-8). Life
flows from Him to the church so that it can bear fruit (John 15:4,
5). Unity among Christians is derived from the unity that connects
God, faith, and Baptism: “There is one body [the church] and one
[Holy] Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope that belongs

2004 Convention Workbook