# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1851 12 09_S58
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

58

plain as the sun to everyone's eyes that the LORD Christ regards His Church, that is, the congregation of those who truly believe in Him, of whatever station, age and sex they may be, not as it were as a temple of stone in which the keys of the kingdom of heaven are to be wielded, or which perhaps is itself first opened by the key of loosing; but the words run simply thus, that He imparts to this His congregation, though, according to v. 20, there were but two or three gathered in His name, the power of binding and loosing, that is, of retaining sins and forgiving sins; and indeed it is to be so with this power imparted by Him, the Master of the house, to His Church, as to His household, that when, on the ground of the Holy Scripture, she lets His voice resound and also in brotherly admonition and rebuke keeps His order indicated in vv. 15-17, her binding is His binding and her loosing is His loosing.

And from this it is already evident that this power of the keys bestowed by Christ upon the Church does not of itself pertain, through some special ordinance of His, to any members of the church favored and endowed by Him, since He Himself, according to John 20, 21-23, did not have regard to the persons of the assembled disciples or to the gifts of grace and miracles which they received only later for the discharge of their apostolic calling, but to their faith in Him, as a congregation of believers, as the Church.

The same, however, is testified also by St. Peter to the "strangers scattered abroad," that is, to the Christians converted from among the Jews, who lived in dispersion in various provinces of Asia Minor (1 Pet. 1, 1) and in all likelihood were not partakers of the spiritual benefit of the regularly established office of preaching. For he writes to them, 1 Peter 2, 9, thus: "But ye (in contrast to the Jews who remained unbelieving, vv. 7. 8) are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light."

Here too it clearly appears that and how these and those locally scattered little flocks of believers, though they lie ever so much "covered with shame" under the cross, are not merely such little flocks in and at which the keys show themselves effective through the office of preaching, so that they would have to conduct themselves in the matter only passively and receptively, but the Holy Ghost proves, mightily and irresistibly, through the mouth of St. Peter exactly the contrary.

For here also it is manifest that to all these little flocks, since they were through the Holy Ghost by means of faith in Christ and He in them, the power of the keys was entrusted, by virtue of which they, as the holy Christian people, the holy Christian estate, were now also empowered to proclaim Christ and His virtues in every manner.

From this it is therefore evident that also the power of the public proclamation of the Gospel, together with the attached administration of the holy Sacraments, or the church ministry, the pastoral office, has been laid by Christ into the congregation of His believers, and not, as it were, let down immediately from heaven and thrust in as a kind of pope or priestly and mediating estate between Christ and the congregation.

But in deed and truth: if this service and office does not flow from the congregation — if the housewife has not received from the Master of the house the power to appoint stewards for the discharge of this service and for the public administration of the keys according to the order prescribed by Him: then nothing else remains than the legalistic "Levitical episcopalian-papistical assumption, which, however, runs straight against the evangelical fundamental conception of the nature of the Church of God, that from the apostles on, as the first specially sanctified office-bearers and, by their kind, officials set over the congregation, there is propagated through ordination, as a sacramental priestly consecration, yes, a spiritual begetting from generation to generation, a spiritual estate of nobility and priesthood exalted above the common Christian estate, to which, as such, the keys and their public administration belong by divine prerogative, so that the congregation, that is, the non-priests, have a share in the blessings of salvation and the benedictions of the Gospel only through the mediation of this estate. For between this legalistically contrived delusion, which has spiritual pride for its father and spiritual lust of domination for its mother, and that evangelical fundamental truth, according to which the power of the keys has been entrusted by Christ to His Church, that is, not merely to the totality of all Christian congregations, but also to any little flock of believers whatever (Matth. 18, 20), there is no tenable position in any way, mediating as it were between the two.

Now this truth, that the assembly of believers, be it locally here and there, great or small, has the power of the keys and is not merely an object for their public administration, is established, as indicated above, not only by the Holy Scripture, but precisely on the ground of the latter it is also testified by our ecclesiastical Symbols. First, Smalcald Articles, Part 3, Art. 7: "The keys are an office and power given to the Church by Christ, etc.," likewise in Luther's Small Catechism, to the question: "What is the office of the keys?" It is the peculiar power which Christ has given to His Church on earth, etc.; finally, in the Appendix to the Smalcald Articles, "Of the Power and Jurisdiction of Bishops," and further in the Appendix: Of the Power and Authority of the Pope (p. 473), it reads thus:

"Over and above this, it must needs be confessed that the keys do not belong to one man alone, but to the whole Church and are given to her, as indeed this can be sufficiently proved with clear and certain reasons. For just as the promise of the Gospel belongs certainly and without means (immediate) to the whole Church, so the keys belong without means (that is, without the mediation of a priestly estate originally set over the Church by Christ) to the whole Church, since the keys are nothing else than the office by which such promise is imparted to everyone who desires it, as it is indeed before our eyes in the work that the Church has power to ordain ministers of the Church. And Christ says with these words: whatsoever ye shall bind, etc., and indicates to whom He has given the keys, namely to the Church: "Where two or three are gathered together in my name, etc. Likewise Christ gives the highest and last judgment to the Church, when He says: Tell it to the Church; for where the Church is, there is the command to preach the Gospel. Therefore the churches must retain the power to call, elect and ordain ministers of the Church. And such power is a gift which has been properly given by God to the Church and cannot be taken from the Church by any human power, as St. Paul testifies, Eph. 4, where he says: "He ascended up on high, and gave gifts unto men," and among such gifts which are peculiar to the Church he reckons pastors and teachers, and adds that they are given for the edifying of the body of Christ." Therefore it follows that where there is a true Church, there also is the power to elect and ordain ministers of the Church, as indeed in necessity*) even a common (ordinary) layman can absolve another and become his pastor, as St. Augustine writes a history, that two Christians were together in a ship, one of whom baptized the other and was afterwards absolved by him.

*) Necessity, however, does not engender a right and power of the spiritual priesthood of believers which they did not already possess originally through faith, but brings the same, in its essence and extent, only to light where there is no minister of the Church and where, therefore, his right and power, derived and transferred to him by the congregation, that is, the public administration of the keys, is not infringed.

To this belong the sayings of Christ, which testify that the keys are given to the whole Church and not to certain special persons (by whom Melanchthon means the bishops), as the text says: "Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them." (Matth. 18, 20.)

Finally, this is also confirmed by the saying of Peter, where he says: "Ye are a royal priesthood, etc. (1 Peter 2, 9.) These words concern properly the true Church, which, since it alone has the priesthood, must also have the power to elect and ordain ministers of the Church."

Here, then, the spiritual priesthood of believers is quite clearly indicated as the mediate cause from which then, as its effect, the church ministry or pastoral office flows forth, which by regular call — of which