A Simple Explanation of the Articles of the Augsburg Confession
Of Ecclesiastical Order they teach that no one should publicly teach in the Church or administer the Sacraments unless he be regularly called.
This short article is highly controversial today. The LCMS officially has endorsed “lay ministers,” an oxymoron in the traditional Lutheran understanding of the public ministry. Our Lutheran confessions, though, speak of the call to the one office of Christ, the public ministry of the Word. Even if we give ordained church leaders different names and titles, there is only one ministry of Christ to “publicly teach in the Church or administer the Sacraments.” There is one divine ministry which distributes the forgiveness Christ won publicly (Holy Communion is always a public sacrament). The office exists not for itself, but for the sake of the Gospel which must go out into all the world. The pastoral office is one of service to Christ and His Word. This is why we honor it, not because pastors are better Christians or more spiritual.
There are pastors, who are to preach, and laymen, who are to hear. When every layman thinks he must be a pastor, confusion results, and no one wants to hear the pure Word. What makes a pastor is not education, the ability to speak or teach, ordination, or knowledge of God’s Word. Those things are good and necessary, but the call of Christ is what makes a pastor. Only the public call gives the responsibility and divine duty to care spiritually for Christ’s flock at a certain place. Pastors should know they are called by Christ and must answer to Him for what they teach.
So retired pastors are called “pastors” only out of respect, since they have resigned Christ’s call to serve. Without a call they are not technically pastors anymore, but laymen who need to be served by a publicly-called pastor. Christ works through men to give His Gospel gifts. This is the order He designed. So the call is very important and should be honored as Christ’s will. Pastor’s do not energize or make the effective the Gospel, but that is the divinely ordained order and God’s will for the church. The call is for the comfort of pastor and congregation alike.
The word “publicly” is critical. All Christians are to teach, use God’s Word, and forgive sins in their vocations. Parents especially have this call (which does not expire when kids leave the house) to instruct their children in the Word. But when Christians gather together as an assembly, who is to teach? One with a call from God, or else there will be chaos and God’s Word will be buried.
The call is God’s will and intention. It comes today through the congregation though, not directly from Christ as it did for the apostles. However the divinity of the call today is no different than when Christ called His disciples by name verbally. The call is Christ’s will, and therefore your pastor is put in place by Christ Himself to minister to you with His Word with authority. “The one who hears you hears me, and the one who rejects you rejects me, and the one who rejects me rejects him who sent me” (Luke 10:16).
Some pastors do not carry out this call faithfully and should be admonished for a time and then run off, if they do not teach rightly (as is God’s will). But congregations sin in treating pastors as hired hands, thinking that the Word of God is not enough—they must have the right man as pastor before they can succeed. To undue, deny, and work around the call is to work against Christ’s will. But hearing the Word (and preaching it) is the highest worship and most holy thing we do. The call gives gravity and weight to what pastors are to do. It allows all attention and honor to be given to the Word, rather than the person in the office. The called man is in the office of Christ, and he is to be treated as such, even though he is a weak sinner and nothing like Christ in his daily life.
Christians sometimes like to blame or praise pastors unduly. But Christ is the head of the Church. He does not make mistakes in giving and taking away pastors. Christ’s will is above our own. If God wants to take away a pastor, He will. So the call, while it looks very unimpressive in practice, because it is Christ’s will, is a great gift to the Church.
How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!” (Rom 10:14-15).
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