LCMS Convention Workbook St. Louis, Missouri — 2007, Page 363

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THEOLOGICAL DOCUMENTS—COMMISSION ON THEOLOGY AND CHURCH RELATIONS 363

ated.”® Luther may well have had such criticism in mind when he
broached the matter of his conflict with the papacy in explaining
the Eighth Commandment.

The concern for the Gospel as a motive for criticism of the pa-
pacy was clearly shared by other reformers and is reflected in nu-
merous other texts. For example, the issue of papal authority was
critical as the Lutheran princes decided how to respond to the pope’s
call for a general council in 1536. Luther penned the Smalcald
Articles for the occasion of this meeting. There he addressed issues
surrounding the papacy at great length and, as usual, tied his criti-
cism to the proclamation of the Gospel.

This business shows overwhelmingly that [the pope] is the true end-
times Antichrist, who has raised himself over and set himself against
Christ, because the pope will not let Christians be saved without his au-
thority (which amounts to nothing, since it is not ordered or commanded
by God). This is precisely what St. Paul calls “setting oneself over God
and against God.” Neither the Turks nor the Tartars, despite being great
enemies of the Christians, do any such thing. They allow whoever de-
sires it to have faith in Christ... . The pope, however, will not allow
faith, but asserts instead that anyone who is obedient to him will be
saved. We are unwilling to do this, even if we have to die in God’s name
on account of it (SA II, The Fourth Article, 10-12).'°

Although Luther’s text was not formally adopted at the meet-
ing, similar concerns were addressed in the text commissioned by

the princes from his colleague Philip Melanchthon, the Treatise on ~

the Power and Primacy of the Pope.

Even if the Roman bishop possessed primacy and superiority by divine

right, one would still not owe obedience to those pontiffs who defend

ungodly forms of worship, idolatry, and teaching inimical to the gospel.

On the contrary, one should regard such pontiffs and such rule as anath-

ema (Treatise, 38).!'

Later in the same text Melanchthon summed up his accusation
against the popes by saying, “Thus they have transferred the bene-
fit of Christ to human traditions and have completely destroyed the
doctrine of faith” (Treatise, 48).'* His concern, too, was for pastoral
care. “These errors are not to be taken lightly. Truly they do harm
to the glory of Christ and bring souls to ruin” (Treatise, 48).'° This
was not hyperbole. Melanchthon’s portrayal of papal claims and be-
havior was in deadly earnest. As such, it bears witness to the scope
and magnitude of the sin that provoked Luther’s comment in his ex-
planation of the Eighth Commandment.

-II. The Scriptures

Both Jesus and His apostles gave instructions to the church for
the preservation of its communal life and for the restoration of those
who sin against God and their fellow Christians. The New Testa-
ment has much to say about how believers should deal with one an-
other generally and about the burden of spiritual care laid upon all
Christians for each other—those “for whom Christ died” (Rom.
14:15; 1 Cor. 8:11). Such spiritual care conscientiously undertaken
also includes the necessity of public rebuke of public sin in certain
circumstances, which is amply illustrated by the examples of Jesus
and Paul. While the focus here is on public rebuke of public sin
within the Christian community, examples can also be given from
the Scriptures to illustrate the general principle that public censure
of false teaching that stands in opposition to the Gospel is not only
appropriate but necessary.

In addition to brief commentary on Matthew 18, and in keeping
with the specific purpose of this document, we include in what fol-
lows discussion of texts that illustrate public rebuke of public sin.

A. Matthew 18

In the case of public sin, as Luther observed, a Christian is not
obligated to follow the steps outlined in Matthew 18. Referring to
these steps in his previous discussion of Matthew 18 in the Large
Catechism, Luther is quite clear: “‘All of this refers to secret sins.
But....” (284). Because Matthew 18 has been invoked so often in

the life of the church and has been applied to so many different sit-
uations, even though the text itself does not support a wide appli-
cation, Luther’s restrained approach deserves notice, and even
emphasis. C. F. W. Walther agreed with Luther’s assessment,
though he provided aslightly different rationale. Walther concluded
that the steps of Matthew 18 did not apply in the case of a sin that
was known to the entire congregation because “in this case the con-
gregation is a single person.” Thus a public rebuke would not vio-
late the first step but would represent the response of that single
person, the congregation.'*

In a recent detailed examination of the context and application
of Matthew 18, LCMS professors Jeffrey Gibbs and Jeffrey Kloha
have cautioned against misuse of this text and have appealed for its
contextual application. They state: “[T]he situation envisioned in
Jesus’ teaching involves a sin directly committed against a fellow
Christian. The context in which the sin occurs is that of the €xxAn-
ota (ecclesia), that is, alocal community of the disciples of Jesus.”
The point of Jesus’ teaching is to exert every effort to gain an of-
fending fellow believer. The reason for a confrontation is the wel-
fare of the offender rather than the welfare of the one who was
offended."

That there may be cases where the procedure outlined in
Matthew 18 does not directly apply and public rebuke is deemed
necessary does not mean that concern for the spiritual welfare of
the offender can be set aside. Following Walther, J. H. C. Fritz, for
example, wrote in his Pastoral Theology under the heading “Pro-
cedure if Public Offense has been Given”:

The highest Iaw, however, is under all circumstances the law of Chris-

tian charity (love). If Christian charity therefore demands that a public

offender be spoken to privately, it would be unjust to proceed at once

against him publicly; for the purpose of church discipline is to bring a

sinner to a knowledge of his sins and to true repentance.’’

Thus, while there is no requirement to follow the steps outlined in
Matthew 18 in cases where the text does not apply, this does not
mean that steps outlined by Jesus in this text are prohibited in any
case, Following the steps of Matthew 18 in cases beyond their di-
rect application may in fact be beneficial to the church and its ad-
ministrative structures and therefore advisable in the given case. But
the church should neither assume nor insist that Scripture requires
the procedure in every instance of public sin.

B. Matthew 23

The most sustained public rebuke of religious teachers and their
erroneous doctrines contained in the Gospels appears in Matthew
23. In this chapter Jesus directs “seven woes” against the scribes
and Pharisees. While the chapter begins with Jesus speaking to the
crowds and His disciples (23:1), His direct second-person address
to the Jewish leaders in 23: 13-36 indicates that they are the primary
audience, whether actually present in the crowds or not. Prior to this
public indictment, the chief priests and the Pharisees had begun to
plot against Jesus because they knew His parables had been spoken
against them (Matt. 21:45-46). The intensity of their opposition
mounted so that we find Pharisees and Sadducees in the previous
chapter attempting to humiliate Jesus publicly by confronting Him
with difficult questions (Matt. 22:23-40).

Jesus introduces each of His denunciations with the formula
“Woe to you....” The Pharisees stand under judgment because in
their scrupulous adherence to man-made laws, they neglected what
was truly important. They followed the letter of their own law but
not the spirit of God’s Law. Not only had they done this themselves,
but they taught others to do the same. Jesus’ first indictment of them
is perhaps the most severe: “You shut the kingdom of heaven in
people’s faces. For you neither enter yourselves nor allow those
who would enter to go in” (Matt. 23:13). Nothing less than the king-
dom of heaven is at stake in this rebuke. Remarkably, Jesus pref-
aced His rebuke by saying, “The scribes and the Pharisees sit on

2007 Convention Workbook