Luther on Church and Ministry in His Genesis Commentary:
Did Luther Change?
By Rev. Jack Cascione

 

Luther on Church and Ministry in His Genesis Commentary: Did Luther Change?

Is this Study of Luther Valid?

Future Articles Will Prove the Following Conclusions from the 50 Pages of Data

Current Application of the Data

Caveats


Luther on Church and Ministry in His Genesis Commentary: Did Luther Change?

About three years, ago a pastor told me if I read Luther's eight-volume set on Genesis, I would agree that ordination was a sacrament, the pastor is in charge of the church, Loehe was correct, and Walther was wrong about voter supremacy.

Dealing with lots of other issues and books along the way, I finally finished reading Luther's eight-volume set on Genesis, all 3200 pages. With a yellow hi-lighter, I marked every pertinent passage on church and ministry, 50 pages in all. The pastor who gave me the challenge was wrong.

Beginning June 1, 1535 until his last lecture on November 1545, three months before he died, Luther completed eight volumes of lecture notes to his seminary students on Genesis. Luther gives a wealth of information about the nature of the church, how to be a pastor, and true worship.

To my surprise, a different Luther emerged after all the hi-lighted citations in the eight volumes on Church and Ministry were cut and pasted into one file. Concordia Publishing House just released Luther's 55-volume set of Luther on CD, which made the cutting and pasting a lot easier.

It turned out that Luther is not the same fellow we expect to find in the debates and proof-texts engaged in by Walther, Loehe, Grabau, Pieper, "The Abiding Word," and promoters of Church Growth. Simply reading Luther's comments on Church and Ministry as they occur in his writings, lulls the reader to read the positions of the experts back into Luther instead of understanding the real Luther. They quote him to support their positions, which mean they skip parts that don't apply.


Is this Study of Luther Valid?

Some may ask, why focus on Luther's Genesis Commentary for information on Church and Ministry?

First, Luther's support for congregational polity and the priesthood of all believers, also his opposition to identifying ordination as a sacrament and Episcopal hierarchy are well documented by C. F. W. Walther. However, today, many pastors in the LCMS, including those of the hyper-euro-Lutheran stripe, claim that Walther is quoting the "early" and not the "late" Luther. They say Luther changed. Hence Luther's, Genesis commentaries are an excellent source to discover if Luther did indeed change his mind on Church and Ministry.

Second, Luther's Genesis Commentary is a large body of work, gathered over the last 10 years of Luther's life, not an isolated document or sermon.

Third, Luther's Genesis is actually his lectures given to seminary students. In the course of the 3200 pages, Luther touches on every doctrine. He draws these doctrines from the text and then applies them to his students who are preparing for the pastoral ministry. Along the way, he tells them how to preach, teach, worship, interpret the Bible, and how to perform a host of pastoral duties.

Fourth, if the conclusions drawn from this study are skewed, it is because they are only taken from the writings of the "late" Luther as his seminary students recorded them. Personally, I do not believe Luther changed his views on Church and Ministry as found in volumes 39-41, but for the sake of those who object to Walther's Congregational polity and voter supremacy; let 's see what we find in his Genesis Commentary. Yes, Luther wrote and preached other material at the same time, but then we would have to examine the context and approach of these other books, sermons, and letters. The Genesis Commentary is a complete body of work delivered to seminary students.

Fifth, is my opinion Luther is clearly the greatest evangelist of the second millennium, while Constantine is the greatest evangelist of the first millennium, after the Apostles. Therefore, Luther's comments about Church and Ministry are worthy of our careful examination. Incidentally, neither of these two individuals is prominent in the teachings of Church Growth and contemporary worship.

These are all reasons why these eight volumes make an excellent sampling of the "late" Luther on the subject of Church and Ministry. Some of his comments on various subjects are only found in these volumes. In the last two volumes, he makes reference to his imminent death and gives observations on what should and will happen after he is gone.


Future Articles Will Prove the Following Conclusions from the 50 Pages of Data

Over the next few weeks, Reclaim News will publish a series of articles based on the 50 pages of data drawn from Luther's views on Church and Ministry as found in his 8-volume Commentary on Genesis. The following points, among others, will be addressed:

A. Again and again Luther states that true worship and the church are only based on the Word of God. When there is no Word of God there is no true worship and no church.

B. Luther wouldn't have published a book on "Church and Ministry." Church and Ministry is a theological category developed by later Lutherans. He did however, speak eloquently about "Church and Ministry For Worship."

C. Luther wouldn't have founded a nationwide church body, such as the LCMS is today. He despised hierarchy in the church and spoke lovingly of household churches, local congregations, and regional churches. Universities and seminaries were to be supported by the State. The pastors and teachers would seek calls in different regions, each municipality being responsible for its own doctrine and practice.

D. Not once in the eight-volume set does Luther pray for or praise the institutional church like we pray for the LCMS. He never gives a plan on how his students should organize local congregations into districts and a national Synod. He was not interested in these things.

E. He believed in a three-tiered society, home, state, and church, the church and the local pastor being third in authority. Hence, without the involvement of the State in America, Walther easily justified the housefathers forming an assembly directly governing the congregation. On this basis, Walther planned his all male voters' assemblies and voter supremacy.

F. Later Lutherans, particularly Chemnitz, had to systematize Luther if there was going to be a Lutheran Church. If anything, Luther's theology was more integrated than it was systematized, categorized or cut up in parts. Part of his brilliance was demonstrating the relationships between text, doctrine, and practice. This is also what sets the Smalcald Articles and his Large Catechism apart from other writings in the Lutheran Confessions.

G. Walther quotes Luther accurately in his writings on Church and Ministry, but is certainly guilty of taming Luther down. Luther the radical, would not have relished building a nation-wide autonomous church body. He died with one fist in the pope's face proclaiming, "By faith alone" and another in the Sacramentarians faces proclaiming, "This is My Body." He concluded that because of the fallen nature of the flesh, the larger the institution, the more corrupt the institution. Therefore, Luther writes about small, local, congregations under the control of homes, hamlets, and local municipalities.

H. Those who look to the "later" Luther for support for Loehe and clergy supremacy understand their quotes apart from the context of the "housefather" being over the pastor. Luther argued that every Christian could baptize, absolve, communicate the Word of God, and was a prophet of God. He also argued that the pastor spoke for God just as housefathers spoke for God.

From my observation, Walther avoids some of Luther's more radical ideas in this area. Luther believed that the father of the local family was above the parish pastor. People had calls from God to be miners, carpenters, government workers, and pastors. God calls people to be pastors through the church, public servants through the government, and parents through Genesis, etc. Hence, God calls everyone to his or her own station in life through means and all vocations are under the second table of the Law. In other words, the mailman is just as called by God for his service through the government as the local congregation calls the pastor to the office of the Ministry.

I. Luther had one goal for the doctrine of Church and Ministry, namely true worship. This is all that mattered.


Current Application of the Data

Can the Lutheran Church exist without Luther? The answer is no, because he must teach us all. Without Luther's understanding of worship the Lutheran Church will cease to exist, because it will have no purpose or defense for its purpose.

Today, Walther's attempt to govern a Synod by congregational polity has been largely abandoned by the COP, the Synod, and all its institutions. The LCMS Convention votes take place to satisfy the masses, while the Synod Inc. follows its own agenda. The Synod's goals are oriented toward self-preservation rather than serving congregations. Hence, the Synod reached the top of its parabolic curve around 1967.

The Synod, as an institution, will more than likely be separated from local congregations within the next 50 years. All of this is taking place because the Synod is not keeping Luther's goal, "true worship" as its primary focus. Walther was interested in defining and identifying the true local visible congregation only for the purpose of achieving Luther's goal of "true worship."

Ironically, Lutheranism in America, what may be left of it in the next 50 years, may take on many of the characteristics of Luther's original understanding of the household, local, regional congregations and church bodies. Lutheranism will survive only in those locations where fathers instruct their children at home in the small Catechism and in the Bible, as envisioned by Luther. Luther taught that the church could not exist without the pastoral office. But who can there a pastoral office without "housefathers" to given a call.


Caveats

Luther is different than Walther. If Walther were describing dinner, he would speak about the steak, carrots, salad, appetizer, wine, water, and desert all adding up to a true dinner. Luther, on the other hand, would have asked, "Was it dinner," and "Did you eat?"

To compare Luther and Walther too closely is to take them out of their historical setting. Luther is arguing to turn the State, home, and Church against the Pope and the Sacramentarians. Walther is justifying the existence of the Lutheran Church without the authority of the State.

Luther only deals with the most primary structure of church government. He keeps repeating fundamental issues. The State ran the church, so there was little need to go any further than the basics.

Luther would not understand our view of government and society because he never lived in a republic or a democracy. Too often he convinces us that he knows our current circumstances because he speaks so well about the timeless Scriptures. However, when he moves to current applications, they are his own and not ours.

We don't have the right to parse Luther up to the level of the Bible. Nor do we have the right to expect the same kind of consistency from a man than we do from the Bible.

Continued in "Did Luther Change from Congregational Supremacy to Pastoral Hierarchy?"


Rev. Jack Cascione is pastor of Redeemer Lutheran Church (LCMS - MI) in St. Clair Shores, Michigan. He has written numerous articles for Christian News and is the author of Reclaiming the Gospel in the LCMS: How to Keep Your Congregation Lutheran. He has also written a study on the Book of Revelation called In Search of the Biblical Order.
He can be reached by email at pastorcascione@juno.com.

January 18, 2002