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LCMS Convention Workbook St. Louis, Missouri — 2026, Page 5

Scan: The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod

Transcription machine transcription, uncorrected

OFFICER, BOARD, AND COMMISSION REPORTS
You are baptized. The resurrection is yours now. The new life—
resurrection—has hold of you now. Christ is risen! Alleluia!
Let’s go.
Matthew C. Harrison, President
R1.1

Church Relations
Holding to God’s Word Alone in Christ!
Holding to God’s Word alone in Christ is the basis of our faith,
the biblical principle for ecumenism, and the means for recognizing church body fellowship. This is not Gospel reductionism; it is
God’s powerful Word conveying its own meaning, movement, and
purpose. It is how the Holy Trinity works out salvation history and
creates church fellowship in the Son.
God the Father Almighty created heaven and earth (Gen. 1:1).
The Scriptures testify that as the Spirit hovered over the waters,
God spoke and by the power of His Word created light and life,
flora and fauna, Adam and Eve (Gen. 1:2–31). With the fall into
sin, there came two ways to understand God and His will for His
people: to hear God’s Word as true and trustworthy, or by human
reason and experience to fashion an alternative god and purpose.
Clearly, if one believed that God created the world by His Word, it
would make sense to take that Word to heart. That did not stop humanity from seeking alternative meaning and purpose by projecting
human reason and experience into a garden, later into a pantheon
of gods, and today into self-glory and human redefinition. Creation,
brought into being by the Word, brings God’s meaning and purpose
in that Word, but some take stock in their own fabricated foundation.
God the Son—the eternal Word—took on human flesh from the
womb of the Virgin Mary to be our Redeemer. He came to keep the
Law’s requirements and fulfill the Gospel promises recorded in the
inspired, inerrant Word of God. This the Old Testament prophets
foretold and to this the New Testament apostles testified. As our
Redeemer and out of divine love, Christ lived to obey the Law in
our place, died to atone for sin, rose to justify sinners, and ascended
into heaven to send His Spirit. Into the pastoral office He ordained
and installed His apostles to preach the Gospel, forgive sin, administer the Sacraments, and teach the fullness of His Word (Matt.
28:17–20; Mark 16:15–16; Luke 24:46–49; John 20:21–23).
The risen Christ teaches that all Holy Scripture is about the
redemption He brings: “Everything written about me in the Law
of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled. …
Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third
day rise from the dead, and that repentance for the forgiveness of
sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations” (Luke 24:44,
46–48). Nonetheless, apart from and against the Word, the Scriptures warn that some teachers shape another Christ, denying Gospel
(Gal. 3:1–2) or Law (2 Peter 2:12–22) or incarnation (2 John 7) or
atonement (Heb. 10:19–26).
God the Holy Spirit works through the Word and Sacraments of
Christ to be our Sanctifier. By these means, the Spirit creates and
sustains saving faith, forgives sins, empowers the fruits of faith,
unites believers to Christ, conforms them through suffering to the
Son’s image, and seals them unto the resurrection of the dead and
the life everlasting. This work of sanctification is truly a divine gift
to the individual, but not an individualistic deposit—it is the Spir-

it’s gift as He creates, preserves, and extends the holy Christian
Church. The Church lives by the Word of Christ and confesses forgiveness, life, and salvation in Him: “You are the Christ, the Son of
the living God” (Matt. 16:16).
What holds true in the first two articles of the Creed (for creation and redemption) also holds true here in the third (for sanctification and the life of the Church): The Word conveys its own meaning, movement, and purpose. Nowhere is this clearer than in the
doctrine and practice of church fellowship. The Word that creates
faith is the same Word that unites the faithful. In His High Priestly
Prayer, Christ reveals the Word as the divine instrument of love that
creates saving faith and binds His Church together through a united
confession of His Word: “Holy Father, … I have given them your
word. … Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth … that they
may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they
also may be in us … so that the world may believe that you sent me
and loved them” (John 17:11–23).
The New Testament witnesses understand church fellowship
as confessional unity in the Word, which includes the Sacraments
instituted by Christ’s Word. The 3,000 baptized on Pentecost “devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the
breaking of bread and the prayers” (Acts 2:42). In St. Paul’s locus
on Communion fellowship, he defines the Sacrament as “the communion of the blood of Christ … [and] the communion of the body
of Christ” (1 Cor. 10:16 NKJV) and concludes, “For we, though
many, are one bread and one body; for we all partake of that one
bread. … Are not those who eat of the sacrifices partakers of the
altar?” (1 Cor. 10:17–18 NKJV). Yes, those who partake thereby
confess their unity in what that altar stands for. Similarly, St. Paul
says that in communing, you are making a proclamation of what
you believe: “You proclaim the Lord’s death” (1 Cor. 11:26). The
reverse also holds: Those not agreed in the divine doctrine are not
recognized for fellowship. “Watch out for those who cause divisions and create obstacles contrary to the doctrine that you have
been taught; avoid them” (Rom. 16:17).
The Lutheran Confessions follow this biblical teaching. Church
body fellowship is based on agreement “in the doctrine [of the
Gospel] and all its articles” (FC SD X 31), that is, in all doctrine
pointing to and flowing from the Gospel. The Solid Declaration’s
Comprehensive Summary (CS) explains this: “For thorough, permanent unity in the Church, it is necessary, above all things, that
we have a comprehensive, unanimously approved summary and
form of teaching. The common doctrine must be brought together
from God’s Word and reduced to a small circle of teaching, which
the churches that are of the true Christian religion must confess”
(FC CS 1). The Solid Declaration understands that its own articles
convey this “small circle of teaching,” in accord with the original
meaning of the Augsburg Confession and the other confessional
documents, and that the Old and New Testaments provide “the only
true standard or norm by which all teachers and doctrines are to be
judged” (FC CS 3).
Church body fellowship based on confessional unity does not
undercut the unity that all Christians have with the Triune God in
Christ Jesus. Faith unites the baptized with Christ (unio mystica)
and with each other as His Body, the one holy Christian and apostolic Church (una sancta). Church fellowship takes that unity
seriously, requiring that the Gospel in all its articles—God’s means
to create and sustain saving faith—be taught purely by a church
before recognizing fellowship and sharing Word and Sacrament
ministry, lest the Word of God and salvation in Christ be corrupted.
2026 Convention Workbook