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LCMS Convention Workbook St. Louis, Missouri — 2026, Page 358

Scan: The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod
Transcription machine transcription, uncorrected

358

THEOLOGY AND CHURCH RELATIONS

century (namely, Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Vaticanus), contain
texts of the Gospel of Mark with unusual truncations (that is,
visually abnormal endings when compared to the appearance of
other endings of books in the same codex), excluding the last 12
verses, Mark 16:9–20, as they appear in our Bibles; and
WHEREAS, This truncation is unheard of before the writings of
Eusebius of Caesarea (A.D. 339) in the fourth century (and later
those of Jerome [A.D. 420], apparently quoting him) and his
comment about texts that exclude this section does not preclude his
own acknowledgment of that text as authoritative, nor Jerome’s
omitting it in his Latin translation of the Bible, and since 19thcentury scholarship that began to be critical of the inclusion of these
12 verses as well as Moses’ authorship of the Pentateuch has been
well countered by the arguments of scholarship supporting the
church’s and Bible’s claims of its own origins by such scholars as
John Burgan (A.D. 1813–88) and expressed carefully and
exhaustively by modern scholars such as Nicholas Lunn (see
Nicholas P. Lunn, The Original Ending of Mark: A New Case for
the Authenticity of Mark 16:9–20 [Eugene, OR: Pickwick
Publications, 2014]); and
WHEREAS, Churchmen, such as Eusebius and Jerome, being
aware of these texts and their omission in some manuscripts, and
living much closer to the historical context of their appearance, yet
neither speaking against their inclusion, nor themselves excluding
these texts as authoritative from their own use and quotation, were
in a much better position to evaluate their authenticity than the
musings of modern scholars of Scriptures, let alone unbelieving
scholars who have a record of attacking the veracity of the sacred
text; and
WHEREAS, Exclusion of the last 12 verses of Mark by textual
critics renders this Gospel incomplete and prone to erroneous
interpretation as compared to the other Gospels, because the
resurrection would be thus promised by the Lord (Mark 8:31; 9:31;
10:33–34) without witness of its fulfillment, because Christ’s
personal promise of the Holy Spirit and commissioning His
disciples to preach to the world would be missing, and because
lacking both a birth and a resurrection narrative Mark’s Gospel
would invite a Gnostic interpretation; and
WHEREAS, Mark 16:16 is the authoritative statement in Scripture
on Baptism, chosen by Luther to teach about the efficacy of Baptism
in his Large and Small Catechisms, and is a cornerstone of the
doctrine of Baptism that is memorized and used to affirm baptismal
regeneration in all our congregations; and
WHEREAS, Footnotes flagging words and sections of modern
Bibles as missing in ancient versions serve no purpose for laymen,
except to undermine their confidence in God’s preserving the text
of His Word, but only invite them to believe the Bible is flawed and
inaccurate; and
WHEREAS, Our Synod was warned in the events of the Seminex
walkout in 1974 that reason is not to be used to silence or to replace
the Word of God by its judgments (magisterial use of reason), but
is to be used to draw out from Scriptures what God is saying in it
(ministerial use of reason); and
WHEREAS, The Synod affirmed that all Scriptures are inspired by
God and not subject to private interpretation (LCMS CTCR, The
Inspiration of Scripture [March 1975]), but to the interpretation the
Holy Spirit gives in scriptural context, by which the Holy Spirit
gives faith and salvation when and where He will; therefore be it

2026 Convention Workbook

Resolved, That the Synod affirm in convention that all of the
Gospel according to St. Mark (including Mark 16:9–20), as it
appears in over 95 percent of the Scriptures and biblical versions
witnessed in all the history of the church, is not to be demoted to
the status of antilegomenon but affirmed as inspired and
authoritative; and be it further
Resolved, That the Synod exhort Concordia Publishing House to
include in this section of their published Bibles and commentaries:
“Though a few ancient texts omit these verses, they are well attested
in the vast majority of ancient New Testament texts and to the
present day”; and be it finally
Resolved, That the Synod exhort our seminaries thoroughly to
train future pastors in the arguments employed to support inclusion
or exclusion of Mark 16:9–20 in the sacred text and to further
remind them both of Christ’s promise that Scripture would not be
broken (John 10:35) and that His Word would never pass away
(Matt. 24:35) as well as the scriptural admonitions and curses
against adding or subtracting from God’s Word (Deut. 12:32; Rev.
22:18–19).
St. Paul
Brookfield, IL
Ov. 5-37

To Clarify Doctrine of Holy Trinity over against
Eternal Functional Subordination of the Son
WHEREAS, The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod confesses the
doctrine of the Holy Trinity according to the Holy Scriptures and
the ecumenical creeds, especially the Nicene and Athanasian
Creeds, that confess the Son as homoousios with the Father, equal
in power, majesty, and glory; and
WHEREAS, Lutheran orthodoxy has consistently taught that
distinctions within the Holy Trinity are grounded in the eternal
relations of origin, namely, that the Father begets, the Son is
begotten, and the Holy Spirit proceeds, and not in eternal relations
of authority and submission; and
WHEREAS, The teaching commonly known as the Eternal
Functional Subordination of the Son to the Father (EFS), asserts an
eternal relation of authority and obedience between the Father and
the Son within the immanent Trinity, thereby introducing
subordination into the Trinity, which the Scriptures and Lutheran
Confessions assign to Christ only according to His assumed human
nature; and
WHEREAS, A recently published scholarly article, “Eternal
Subordination of the Son: Arianism Past and Present,” (Carl L.
Beckwith, Concordia Theological Quarterly 89, no. 4 [Oct, 2025]:
307–328) has further demonstrated that EFS is incompatible with
the Lutheran orthodox doctrine of the Trinity; and
WHEREAS, This same article exposes the chief proponents of EFS
among evangelicals and further notes, in a documented footnote,
that a book published by Concordia Publishing House (CPH)
(Matthew C. Harrison and John T. Pless, eds., Women Pastors? The
Ordination of Women in Biblical Lutheran Perspective, [CPH,
2008]), had at one time promoted or reflected this false teaching;
and
WHEREAS, The Commission on Theology and Church Relations
(CTCR) report, The Order of Creation (adopted 2022), treats a focal
text for EFS proponents, 1 Corinthians 11:3, in a way that could be
read ambiguously or misleadingly, insofar as the text’s reference to