LCMS Convention Workbook St. Louis, Missouri — 2007, Page 267

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SYNOD STRUCTURE AND GOVERANCE 267

8-23

To Rescind 2004 Res. 8-01A
and Submit Issues to Seminary Faculties

Preamble

In its 2001 convention, The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod
directed its Task Force on Structure to make suggestions for im-
provements in various parts of the Synod’s structure, including the
Synod’s procedures for resolving disputes between its members.
From 2001 to 2004, the task force worked to complete this assign-
ment. In its 2004 convention, these suggestions were laid aside in
favor of the 26-page resolution produced by a floor committee ap-
pointed by the Synod’s President. The Synod in convention then
adopted the floor committee’s resolution, which was numbered 8-
O1A and now appears in the 2004 edition of the Synod’s Hand-
book, primarily under Bylaw 1.10, pages 36-49, and Bylaws 2.13
through 2.17, pages 59-90. (See also Today’s Business, July 13
[2004], Issue 4, Part B, pp. 307-332; and 2004 Convention Pro-
ceedings, pp. 161-185.)

This congregation has examined Res. 8-01A and has discovered
that the floor committee—and thus the convention in adopting Res.
8-01A—have inadvertently grounded the precepts and procedures
of that resolution on a faulty understanding of the Holy Scriptures
and the Lutheran Confessions. The motivation for using Matt.
18:15-16, a portion of God’s own inspired Word, as an unassail-
able ground and guideline for the Synod’s Bylaws on “Ecclesiasti-
cal Supervision and Dispute Resolution” is certainly to be com-
mended in cases of nonpublic sins and offenses. However, when
the Synod attempts to lay down mandatory rules for resolving cases
of widely known public sins, especially publicly disseminated doc-
trinal offenses while basing these mandates on Matt. 18:15—16,
then it is implying that Jesus Himself, as our Substitute, had to fol-
low the steps of Matt. 18:15—16 in dealing with each and every
Pharisee or other opponent. And since He generally omitted those
steps when the sins were public (as will be shown), the clear im-
plication is that Jesus Himself sinned against Matt. 18:15~16 and,
thus, could not serve as our sinless Substitute. Therefore, the di-
rectives of that resolution, which have now become part of the of-
ficial Bylaws of the Synod, are contrary to the Gospel of Christ; to
the Synod’s Constitution (especially Art. IT; III 1; Art. VI 1; and
XI B 2); also to its Articles of Incorporation (especially Art. II a
and Art. III); and to the Synod Bylaws (including 1.3.4; 1.5.12.1
[b]; 1.6.1; 1.7.1; 2.2.1 [b]; 2.4.1 [b]; 2.10.4; 3.3.1.1.1 [b] and [c};
3.3.1.2 [a] through [c]; and 3.9.3), along with direct and indirect
implications of various other bylaws.

We, therefore, offer the following resolution:

Wuereas, Barna opinion polls have recently shown that 44 per-
cent of the population of the United States believe that our Lord
Jesus Christ was a sinner. This causes widespread confusion and
doubts which, step by step, seriously threaten to destroy the very
heart of the Gospel, namely, His substitutionary atonement for all
sinners; and

WHEREAS, If Jesus “slipped up and sinned” even once, as a
number of those polled opined, He could not have lived a life of
righteousness in the place of our unrighteousness nor could He
have substituted for us under God’s wrath and redeemed us “with
His holy, precious blood and His innocent suffering and death,” as
the Small Catechism reminds us; and

Wrereas, If Jesus actually were a sinner, He would have had to
join the rest of fallen humankind in His own need of a sinless sub-
stitute under God’s wrath upon sin; and

WHEREAS, If Jesus were a sinner, then all the precious “domi-
noes” of the saving Gospel would be knocked down, one against
the next, with the result that there would be no forgiveness of sins,
and thus no benefit in preaching the Gospel; no value in the Sacra-
ments; no Holy Trinity; no true incarnation; no active obedience of
Christ to replace our disobedience; no passive obedience that
would substitute for our deserved death and damnation; no victory
over death; no fact-based hope of salvation; no reality in prayer or
worship; no reason to live a Christian life and, thus, no third use of
the Law; no holy Christian Church; no resurrection of the body—

except to eternal damnation; no basis or motive for evangelism,
missions, or even Ablaze!; no reason for the existence of congre-
gations, pastors, synods, seminaries, connections with fellow Chris-
tians around the world; no Lutheran or Christian world relief. In
fact, we and all humankind would be totally “without hope and
without God in the world”; and

Wuereas, Anything that states or even inadvertently implies
that Jesus was a sinner turns the entire Christian faith and Christian
history with all that flows from it into mere fantasy; and

WHEREAS, Precisely this has been done inadvertently by The
Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod in its 2004 convention when it
adopted Res. 8-01A, which repeatedly averred that its new proce-
dure for settling internal disputes was based on the steps of Chris-
tian discipline in Matt. 8:15—I6. By this, they clearly but inadver-
tently imply that Jesus Himself had sinned many times by publicly,
even emphatically, accusing His enemies of the sins of false doc-
trine and hypocrisy without any indication that He had previously
gone individually, face-to-face, to each person who had sinned
against Him and shown that person “his fault just between the two
of” them (e.g., especially Matt. 23:1~36; but also Matt. 6:16; 9:34;
11:20-24; 12:24-25a and 34; 21:23a and 28-45; 22:18; Mark
7:5-8; 12:37-40; Luke 11:42—12:1; 13:14-16; 13:32; 19:45-46;
20:9-19; 20:45—47; and John 8:44—-47); and

Wrereas, Res. 8-01A inadvertently also condemns by implica-
tion John the Baptist (Matt. 3:7-8), St. Paul (Gal. 2:11-14; 1 Cor.
5:1-5), St. John (3 John 9-10), and St. Jude (Jude 4-5), who seem
to have known much about certain persons who claimed to be
Christians (some of whom may actually have been believers) but
who were guilty of false doctrine in word or deed and who could
not, in fact, have been visited face-to-face in every case by those
saints before the latter made these very public statements as would
have been required by Res. 8-01 A; and

WHEREAS, We are deeply thankful to God that the Scriptures
forcefully and clearly state in many places (e.g., Matt. 3:17; John
8:29, 46a; Heb. 4:15; 9:14; 1 Peter 2:22) that our Lord Jesus was
the only human being who was born without sin and specifically
“under the Law” for us (Gal. 4:4-5) and who lived a perfectly sin-
less life under the Law with the result that He actually could and
did substitute before God for us and all men and that, in fact, His
holy, precious blood truly “purifies us from all sin” (1 John 1:7)}—
all this in spite of the fact that He so forcefully and publicly con-
demned many persons who were guilty of public sins and open
false doctrine without first going to each one privately beforehand
(see passages cited above); and

WHEREAS, Our Synod’s CTCR in its document on church disci-
pline correctly cites 1 Tim. 5:19-20 (“Those who sin are to be re-
buked publicly that others may take warning” [NIV]) to show that
one of the purposes of church discipline “‘is that it serves as a warn-
ing to others;” and

WHEREAS, The Scriptures cited previously make it clear that
when a sin, especially a spoken or demonstrated false doctrine,
openly affects plural numbers of souls for whom Christ died, ei-
ther directly or as a bad example which could then lead others to
conclude that the sin is acceptable before God, that sin must be
wamed against clearly and publicly without going through the first
two steps in Christian discipline as outlined in Matt. 18:15—16 (see
the passages cited previously); and

WHEREAS, We as members of the Synod have sworn before God
that we will believe, teach, and confess the doctrine taught in the
Lutheran Confessions because it is wholly in accord with the Scrip-
tures; and

WHEREAS, The Large Catechism of Martin Luther, which is part
of the Lutheran Confessions, clearly states under the Eighth Com-
mandment, paragraph 284:

“All this refers to secret sins. But where the sin is so public that the
judge and everyone else are aware of it, you can without any sin shun
and avoid those who have brought disgrace upon themselves, and you
may also testify publicly against them. For when something is exposed
to the light of day, there can be no question of slander or injustice or
false witness. For example, we now censure the pope and his teaching,
which is publicly set forth in books and shouted throughout the world.
Where the sin is public, appropriate public punishment should follow