Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Worship and Lectionaries - Also Worth a Post on Lu...":
Luther sagt:
"Let everyone, therefore, who knows himself to be a Christian, be assured of this, that we are all equally priests, that is to say, we have the same power in respect to the Word and the sacraments. However, no one may make use of this power except by the consent of the community or by the call of a superior. (For what is the common property of all, no individual may arrogate to himself, unless he is called.) And therefore this “sacrament” of ordination, if it is anything at all, is nothing else than a certain rite whereby one is called to the ministry of the church. Furthermore, the priesthood is properly nothing but the ministry of the Word—the Word, I say; not the law, but the gospel. And the diaconate is the ministry, not of reading the Gospel or the Epistle, as is the present practice, but of distributing the church’s aid to the poor, so that the priests may be relieved of the burden of temporal matters and may give themselves more freely to prayer and the Word. For this was the purpose of the institution of the diaconate, as we read in Acts 5 [6:1–6]."
Note also AC XIV: Ordination maketh not the pastor. The divine call maketh the pastor.
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GJ - I wonder why some want to insist "ordination is not a sacrament." The Book of Concord disagrees with that claim. I find Lutherans staking a claim on one little part of the plant and calling it the entire Church, something Krauth observed about the sectarians.
If "the call makes the pastor," then almost everyone in WELS is a pastor. Everyone gets a call, even the kindergarten teacher.
WELS and the ELS enablers did their best to enforce a Reformed view of the pastoral ministry. The worst Shrinkers are the ones who are quick to correct anyone who fails to use their terms their way, but they are happy to dream away in Fuller Fantasy land.
The WELS view of the ministry can be called Papo-Babtist. They are eager to be little popes in their parish, but their doctrine is Babtist lite.
4 comments:
From The Defense of the Augsburg Confession
Article XIII. (VII): Of the Number and Use of the Sacraments.
http://www.bookofconcord.org/defense_12_sacraments.php
"3] If we call Sacraments rites which have the command of God, and to which the promise of grace has been added, it is easy to decide what are properly Sacraments. For rites instituted by men will not in this way be Sacraments properly so called. For it does not belong to human authority to promise grace. Therefore signs instituted without God's command are not sure signs of grace, even though they perhaps instruct the rude [children or the uncultivated], or admonish as to something [as a painted cross]. 4] Therefore Baptism, the Lord's Supper, and Absolution, which is the Sacrament of Repentance, are truly Sacraments. For these rites have God's command and the promise of grace, which is peculiar to the New Testament."
"But if ordination be understood as applying to the ministry of the Word, we are not unwilling to call ordination a sacrament. For the ministry of the Word has God's command and glorious promises, Rom. 1, 16: The Gospel is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth. Likewise, Is. 55, 11: So shall My Word be that goeth forth out of My mouth; it shall not return unto Me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please. 12] If ordination be understood in this way, neither will we refuse to call the imposition of hands a sacrament. For the Church has the command to appoint ministers, which should be most pleasing to us, because we know that God approves this ministry, and is present in the ministry [that God will preach and work through men and those who have been chosen by men]. 13] And it is of advantage, so far as can be done, to adorn the ministry of the Word with every kind of praise against fanatical men, who dream that the Holy Ghost is given not through the Word, but because of certain preparations of their own, if they sit unoccupied and silent in obscure places, waiting for illumination, as the Enthusiasts formerly taught, and the Anabaptists now teach."
The BOC was not adamant that Ordination (as applying to the Ministry of the Word) be listed along with Baptism, Holy Communion and Absolution as a Sacrament. "we are not unwilling..." is more of a consolation than a absolute requirement in keeping with a command of God as is the case with Baptism, Holy Communion and Absolution.
Your accurate depiction of the WELS Divine Call Sprinkler (http://s2.thisnext.com/media/230x230/Geyser-Blast-Sprinkler_FEFBD0E1.jpg) shows the error in their doctrine and not the authority of the local congregation to place a divine call or that the man called is then in the Office of the Public Ministry of the Word.
Check this out:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_JAiP75Iog&feature=related
Pretty much everything wrong with the WELS summed up on one webpage. Contemporary worship. Christ-less lyrics. Glorifying of self rather than God. Fundraising. Enthusiasm and ecumenicism (in the comments).
Makes me sick to my stomach.
Yup, too many pastors simply do not get it.
Why don't we call ordination a sacrament? Because the author of the Formula insists it isn't:
Martin Chemnitz, "Ministry, Word, and Sacrament": An Enchiridion
Q. 222
Q: "But why is ordination of ministers of the church not a Sacrament, though the Apostles laid hands on those called to the ministry and through that laying on of hands necessary gifts were conferred on ministers? (1 Ti.4:14; 2 Ti 1:6)
A: No doubt the legitimate call and ordination of ministers of the church is established by the Word of God and confirmed with the promise of divine blessing; and that affords very sweet comfort. But ordination does not have this promise, that he who wants to obtain the grace of God and eternal salvation must be invested with the holy priesthood. For also many who have prophesied will hear this fearful sentence of Christ on that day: I never knew you; depart from Me, etc. (Mt. 7:23). And besides, the laying on of hands has no express command in the Word of God, but the apostles used that ceremony as a thing indifferent, for the sake of public prayers.
And unction, which the papists practice in ordaining elders, has neither any command nor promise in the Scripture of the New Testament; but, contrary to the Word of God, it reduces the ministry of the New Testament to the shadows of Levitical ceremonies. Since, then, the ordination of ministers of the church lacks both the element and the promise of grace, both of which are required for the essence of a Sacrament in the New Testament, it neither is nor can be called a true sacrament.
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