Authority
Evidently some people are squeamish about the idea that the Office of the Ministry carries authority with it. Ascension Day seems a good time to set things straight on that score.
Dr. Jeffrey Kloha, formerly a professor at the St. Louis seminary, is now part of the Institute of Lutheran Theology and its creation of an online-only M.Div. program known as the Center for Missional and Pastoral Leadership (CMPL), whose aims, as I have indicated previously, are in rather sharp contrast to the residential seminary training for which the LCMS has historically been known.
It turns out, not surprisingly, that Dr. Kloha has also demonstrated a flawed understanding of the authority of the Office of the Ministry, in an article he recently posted, entitled, “Ministry,” “Congregation,” and “Authority” (including all those quotation marks). The opening words present this flawed understanding, so you needn’t read the whole thing to find it (though if you want to, here it is). The flaw may be seen right here:
My church body, the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod, is in its three-year cycle of convention, elections, and various overtures from across the church body. The overtures are now published, so I will be commenting on items from my background and interest in New Testament and its interpretation. The LCMS confesses the “plenary verbal inspiration” of the Scriptures and declares that the Scriptures are the “only source and norm of faith and life.” So it is worth exploring what this actually looks like, in practice, in the overtures presented to the convention.
This is a piece that a [sic] wrote, apparently, in 2012 and posted on a then-functioning blog site of the institution where I was teaching at the time. I refer to a specific article in an official publication of my church body (for a popular audience), but that article is no longer online, I don’t remember the author, and it doesn’t really matter. What I’m trying to get at in this piece is the false pitting of “office of the ministry” against—and especially over—the congregation. There is also a helpful reminder that “authority” is a word reserved (in the NT anyway) for Jesus Christ. I think any reasonable reading of the New Testament would cause a follower of Jesus to flee from having any kind of “authority.” (emphasis mine).
As it happens, the article in question is in fact still available online (scroll to page 7). “The Lord’s Office” was written by Rev. Seth Clemmer and it appears in the November 2012 issue of Lutheran Witness (LW). And it really does matter, because Dr. Kloha’s claim that it falsely pits “office of the ministry” against the congregation simply isn’t true. The LW article is a short piece, and it’s a well-written explanation of the kind of authority the ministry has and exercises. I find nothing false in the article, and in fact there’s no indication of the office being exercised against or over the congregation, but only for the congregation’s benefit.
Dr. Kloha has attacked a straw man, and he’s done so by referring to an article that supposedly promotes an oppressive kind of authority over people (it doesn’t), and then himself claiming, falsely, that followers of Jesus ought to flee from having any kind of “authority.”
What an odd thing to say. Although there are certainly some kinds of authority from which followers of Jesus ought to flee, it would be wrong for them to flee from any kind of authority. Indeed Dr. Kloha’s own prior sentence refers to the authority of Jesus Christ! While Christ’s authority is not a dictatorial or lording-it-over kind of authority, it is most certainly authority, of another kind. What kind? Jesus himself defines it over against the wrong kind of authority, when he says, “Ye know that the princes of the Gentiles exercise dominion over them, and they that are great exercise authority upon them. But it shall not be so among you: but whosoever will be great among you, let him be your minister; And whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant: Even as the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many” (Matt. 20:25-28). But Jesus also commands certain things: “[Teach] them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you” (Matt. 28:20). And so it was that the Apostles went forth teaching with this authority, insisting upon the teachings they received from him. Not only are the preachers sent forth with authority, but with the knowledge that he who sent them did so immediately upon declaring, “All power has been given to me in heaven and in earth” (Matt. 28:18). That word power (Greek ἐξουσία) is also commonly translated authority. What Jesus is saying in his final discourse—which happened to be on Ascension Day; in fact this saying seems to be St. Matthew’s only reference to the Ascension—is this: since all authority in heaven and on earth, therefore I am authoritatively sending you to preach the Gospel: “Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. Amen” (Matt. 28:20). Lest anyone think these preachers have no authority, Jesus says that he is with them when they exercise their office of baptizing and teaching, meaning this: not only authority, but all authority in heaven and on earth is attached to the preaching of the Gospel.
That is exactly the authority the Office of the Ministry exercises, and whose holders are responsible for exercising in their teaching; they aren’t exercising earthly authority here; they aren’t ordering people around; the authority of Christ is embedded in the Gospel they preach, which is precisely why we are to hold this preaching sacred and gladly hear and learn it. This is also explained in the LW article Dr. Kloha finds odious: “Therefore, the pastor is the Lord’s servant to His Church, speaking His words of forgiveness and delivering His gifts, all under the authority of Jesus.” Indeed the key feature of this authority is spelled out succinctly in the Small Catechism: “What is the Office of the Keys? The Office of the Keys is that special authority which Christ has given to His church on earth to forgive the sins of repentant sinners, but to withhold forgiveness from the unrepentant as long as they do not repent.” And this authority is carried out by the ministers: “when the called ministers of Christ deal with us by His divine command, in particular when they exclude openly unrepentant sinners from the Christian congregation and absolve those who repent of their sins and want to do better, this is just as valid and certain, even in heaven, as if Christ our dear Lord dealt with us Himself.” That’s a pretty clear exercise of authority, and it brings me back to Dr. Kloha’s claim that “any reasonable reading of the New Testament would cause a follower of Jesus to flee from having any kind of ‘authority.’” Well, here’s a reasonable reading of the New Testament, upon which the claim of the catechism is based: “St. John the Evangelist writes in chapter twenty: The Lord Jesus breathed on His disciples and said, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive anyone his sins, they are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.’ (John 20:22–23)”
But Dr. Kloha says an emphasis on this reading is due to “picking” John 20 over Matthew 18:
Pick your passage? John 20 or Matt 16 or Matt 18? Sasse points out this is the starting point of the problem. If you only take Matt 18, you have church but no pastors; only Matt 16 or John 20 you have pastors but no church. Unfortunately, this is one of the shortcomings of the November, 2012 Lutheran Witness article. The only bestowal of the Office of the Keys cited is from John 20. Granted, the piece is short, not exhaustive, and aimed at a popular audience. Nevertheless, there is a danger (which the article flirts with) in removing from the church (the baptized) the gift of forgiveness given to all the baptized to share.
In addition to its leveling of another unfair slight against the LW article, there appears to be some obfuscation here, since the Matthew 18 passage (“Tell it to the church” as the last tribunal of jurisdiction) is not opposed to John 20, as he seems to suggest. Rather, the Matthew 18 passage needs to be interpreted in light of John 20, which is to say, the people in the congregation cannot be seen as authorities over the ministers. Besides, if that were so, the ministers would be their hirelings, a relationship against which Jesus warns (John 10:12-13).
Perhaps what Dr. Kloha believes, falsely, is that every Christian is a minister, as is claimed by those who want to remove the comma from Ephesians 4:12 (against which removal I have previously argued). When he says that “the gift of forgiveness [is] given to all the baptized to share,” he shows his hand. The gift of forgiveness is for all the baptized to receive, and in which to rejoice, but in saying it’s for all the baptized to share—something they must do, as opposed to something they should believe—he deemphasizes the gift itself, and it is he, not the LW author, that “flirts with” removing from the church (the baptized) the gift of forgiveness. To be sure, the baptized are taught to pray for forgiveness as they also forgive one another, but there’s a difference between the word of absolution spoken by the pastor and the forgiveness a Christian offers his neighbor. The pastor authoritatively announces forgiveness for sins against God, while Christians learn to forgive one another, as they should, for sins against themselves. When authority is removed from the Office of the Ministry, so is the authoritative guarantee of God’s forgiveness, which we are to regard “as valid and certain as if Christ our dear Lord dealt with us Himself” (Small Catechism, Office of the Keys). Instead of having pastors who preach the Gospel of forgiveness for Christ’s sake, the churches get pastors whose emphasis shifts from the comfort of the Gospel to equipping the people for them to do “ministry” (again, there’s the result of the mischievous removal of that comma!).
Rightly does the Lutheran Church forbid a layman, when of necessity conducting a service in the absence of a pastor, from pronouncing the absolution. It must be a pastor who says, “Upon this your confession, I as a called and ordained servant of the word announce unto you the grace of God, and in the stead and by the command of my Lord Jesus Christ I forgive you all your sins in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” That’s authority in spades.