ROUGHLY EDITED COPY LUTHERAN CONFESSIONS LC2 54 Captioning Provided By: Caption First, Inc. P.O. Box 1924 Lombard, IL 60148 800 825 5234 www.captionfirst.com *** This text is being provided in a rough draft format. Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART) is provided in order to facilitate communication accessibility and may not be a totally verbatim record of the proceedings. *** >> DAVID: Professor, I've been to a lot of different Lutheran churches over the years. The worship service in many of them is similar or even the same. But then I've been to other Lutheran churches where the service is different. When I've asked pastors about this, they say that there's often a difference in adiaphora and that Formula of Concord Article 10 speaks about this. What does adiaphora mean, and what does the Formula have to say about it? >> DR. RAST: That's a well put question and right to the point, David. Adiaphora is a word that crops up awful lot. Sometimes I think we pastors use it to kind of obfuscate matters when you don't know what else to say, say well it's an adiaphora and since nobody knows what you mean, you're all set. But in all seriousness, adiaphora as we've already heard in this course, refers to those things that are indifferent. Neither commanded nor forbidden by the scriptures. Those things that are within the realm of Christian freedom. And specifically here we're talking about the ceremonies, the rites, things of that sort that surround the service of the church. And you put your finger on it in stating that in many cases you've been to church services where the services are very similar, some cases very different. The question is: Are these things commanded or forbidden? How should we handle that. The Augsburg Confession says in article 7 this: "It is enough for the true unity of the church to agree concerning the teaching of the Gospel and the administration of the sacraments. It is not necessary that human traditions, rites or ceremonies instituted by human beings be alike everywhere." Now why did they say that in 1530, and how did this affect the Formula of Concord in 1577? What was Melanchthon after when he said this early on in the Reformation? Well, part of the thing behind this is to say that the many, many, many required rites, ceremonies, offices, vestments, and so forth that the Roman Catholic church had developed over the course of about a thousand years, that Roman Catholic church had claimed that such things were necessary. In fact, in order to be the church, they said, one had to do these things. If one did not, one broke from the fellowship that was the church. Now, of course, the Lutherans appealed to the scripture and said to many of these things, well where does the scripture tell us to do them The Roman Catholic answer was the structure doesn't tell us to do these things. However, the church, the hierarchical church, specifically vested within the Pope has told us to do these things. In other cases it has been councils of the church that says you should and must do these things. The Lutherans in 1530 at Augsburg said these things are not necessary to be church. What creates the church are not human ceremonies, are not human rites, are not those sorts of things. As wonderful as they may be, what creates the church is the proclamation of the Gospel through which the Holy Spirit works to call, gather, enlighten, and sanctify all of God's people. The administration of the holy sacrament through which the Holy Spirit creates and sustains faith. These things are necessary for the church to be church. Well, what came of the argument? Roman Catholicism reached back to its three fold sense of authority to try and carry the argument. In Roman Catholicism, there was the idea that you had scripture, tradition, and the interpretation of the magisterium in regard to scripture and tradition. Usually we say scripture, tradition, and the papacy. And the Pope often did make the determination of what was true tradition and what was not. When the church spoke, therefore, the church had then to do whatever had been passed down from above. Let me give you an example. In the here 1215, at the fourth Lateran council, a number of decrees were issued that had important implications for the Lutherans and their life. One was that the Lord's Supper be distributed to the leity in only one kind as they said. That is, laypeople received the host alone. They were not given the chalice. Later on when Lutherans challenged Roman Catholics on this practice, asking the Roman Catholics, what authority, biblically speaking, do you have for making sufficient a claim, the Roman Catholics responded we don't have a biblical authority for it. We have the church's authority for it and that supersedes in a sense, trumps what the scripture said. In response the Lutherans said Christ is very clear. He says take and eat and take and drink. Obviously, the Roman Catholics did not change their practice on the basis of the Lutheran argument. They had their tradition and it was in place. The Lutherans went to scripture that establish that this was in fact not an adiaphoran at all but an important thing established by the scriptures itself. And so the question became what do we do when we find these kinds of things? First we turn to scripture to determine whether they are scriptural or not. If the scripture forbids the practice or gives us a very clear statement of positive practice on the other side, that is do, this take and eat, take and drink, then we must do those things. Or if the prohibition is there, do not do these things, then we don't do them. But in regard to the many, many other kinds of activities that the church has developed over the centuries, where did we turn? Here the Lutherans are articulated an important position. They said those things fall into the realm of Christian freedom. And we may either continue to do them or not. It's up to us. We use our best judgment in the circumstances in which we find ourselves. So for example what if a pastor wears a robe in a church service or not. Is this commanded by scripture, the Lutherans would say no so therefore, we're free either to do it or not to do it. Why wear a robe some would ask? Well it's not commanded nor forbidden in the scriptures. But it does provide an interesting symbol that can make an important theological point. What do I mean? Simply this: The robe symbolizes the righteousness of Christ, when it is placed around a pastor, you no longer see the distinctive clothing that he himself wears, and, thus, it becomes a symbol of the way righteousness of Christ covers all our sins. You can make a good theological point out of this. On the other hand, is it commanded? No. Is it forbidden? No. Can you make an issue of that as to whether or not a person is truly you a Christian or not on the basis of whether they wear the robe or not? No. It is an indifferent thing. Another case in point: Another example, in many cases during the celebration of the Lord's Supper, sometimes pastors will take the host, the large piece of bread and they will break it. Why do they do this? Well, Jesus in the upper room on Maundy Thursday took bread and broke it. What if you don't break it? Is that okay? Yeah. If you do break it, is that okay? Yeah. It's a matter of Christian freedom. Neither commanded nor forbidden. The Lord didn't say do this, namely, break it. He said do this, take and eat. So these things are adiaphoran in the proper sense of the word. And Lutherans have said in these kinds of issues we will find variety within the church and we dare not make them requirements in order for the church to be the church. Because, if we do that, then we simply create a new law. And we add something to the Gospel. Works that must be done. That compromises and confuses the Gospel once more. Okay. So the Lutherans were pretty clear on this. Until the Augsburg and Leipzig Interims in 1548. When these were imposed upon the Lutherans, some of the things that the Roman Catholics required were forcible returns to some of the older ceremonies blessing oil, forcing priests to wear certain kinds of vestments, forcing things upon the church that had really become indifferent matters before. Elevation of the host, things of that sort. And at that point some Lutherans began to say, as soon as we are forced into these circumstances, particularly when we're forced by external governmental agency, then we must not to them. Other Lutherans said well yeah, we can compromise on it since it's not part and parcel of the Gospel. It's not part and parcel of our salvation. And that's where the controversy emerged that really affected and brought forth Article 10 of the Formula of Concord. "The chief question," they say, paragraph 2 of the epitome, "concerned a situation of persecution in a case in which confession is necessary, when the enemies of the Gospel refused to come to terms with us. The question was whether in that situation, in good conscience certain ceremonies that had been abolished could be revived under the pressure and demands of the opponents and whether a compromise with them in such ceremonies and in different matters would be proper. One party said yes. The other party said no." How did they resolve this? The formulators were very careful to make yet again a distinction between the proper understanding of an adiaphoron. They said embracing the idea of Christian freedom, that these things do in fact remain within the realm of the church making decisions for itself. And the answer given as to whether it is appropriate to do these things or not may differ given the circumstances. However, they do affirm the fact that when pressure is brought, particularly political pressure is brought to bear upon the church to do certain things, it becomes no longer a matter of Christian freedom, but a state of confession. And it becomes necessary, if you will, for your Christian freedom to not do the thing they demand. Now what do we mean by this? I'll give you a case in point. We talked about the breaking of the bread and the Lord's Supper before. Later in Lutheran history, there were some circumstances where the Reformed churches required or at least attempted to force the Lutherans to break the bread in the Lord's Supper saying if you did not break the bread, the Lord's Supper was of no value, was of no use. Because Christ was only spiritually present, in order for our faith to be exercises and to be brought up to him to feast on him by faith in heaven, we needed to reenact what happened on Maundy Thursday as carefully as possible, otherwise people would not understand, would not be moved in remembrance, would not be moved in their faith to feed upon. Thus, they demanded and I use that word intentionally demanded that the bread be broken. Now, again, the Lutherans said this is an indifferent thing. Doesn't matter one way or the other. You can break bread, you cannot break bread. But when the Reformed began to insist upon the breaking of the bread in order for the sacrament to be efficacious, to be useful, the Lutherans said we won't break the bread. Why did they do this? Well they used their Christian freedom to say the breaking or nonbreaking of the bread is not what the sacrament is all about. Rather, they went back to Luther's catechism, their understanding of what the Lord's Supper is about, and said "We gather together in the sacrament of the altar to experience the truly present Christ who by virtue of his word is in our midst forgiving our sins and strengthening us in our faith.". It is the word that gives the sacrament its power, its efficacy, its usefulness. Not whatever ceremonies go along with it. And so when the Reformed said you must do this, the Lutherans responded saying we will not so that we can make a statement of what we believe, teach and confess. That was what was at stake within the context of Article 10 of the Formula of Concord. Thus they would say, paragraph 6 of the epitome, "We believe, teach, and confess that in a time of persecution when an unequivocal confession of the faith is demanded of us, we dare not yield to opponents in such indifferent matters. We must," quoting the apostle here, Paul, "stand firm in the freedom for which Christ has set us free and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.". So the Lutherans once again are trying to steer a course between two positions saying there is in fact the reality of our Christian freedom and God has given us that freedom to exercise to the best of our ability in our circumstances. However, at points when those indifferent things become challenged, it becomes our responsibility to stand up for the sake of the Gospel and make the good confession. A careful distinction. But by now we've become used to these theologians making those kinds of distinctions. They're going to make one more big one for us before we finish this course. And it doesn't have to do with the controversy that erupted at their time. It has to do with a doctrine of election, predestination. And they wrote their article on this in the hope of avoiding any future problems. Did they? We'll see in a few minutes.