5 Problems with Lutheran Ecclesiology

The Lutheran Small Catechism with Explanation (ESV) provides a classic Protestant look at ecclesiology (how one views the Church), but I find it very unconvincing and full of problems. My conclusion is that the Lutheran alternative does not seem plausible, and it most certainly can not disprove the claims of the Church.

A single institutional Church is necessary, because some doctrines are "hard to understand" (2 Peter 3:16) and they need to be consistently preserved and articulated.

3. This Lutheran Catechism also makes the points that the Church's "one and only head is Christ" and the Church "belongs to Christ and is built on Him alone", but this is misleading and an intentional jab at the Church.

Christ is the now-invisible head of the Church, in that He fills Her with grace and protects Her from grave error, but the Church must have a visible head to represent Him: the Vicar (representative) of Christ, the Successor of St. Peter -- the Pope.

It is true that only Christ could lay the foundation for His Church (1 Corinthians 3:11) and that He is the cornerstone (Ephesians 2:20), and the Church absolutely recognizes this. He laid the foundation when He appointed Peter as the visible head of the Church (Matthew 16:18-19) and He is still the cornerstone -- without Christ, the Church would crumble.

Because only Christ can lay the foundation of a Church, Martin Luther had no authority to start his own sect -- unless, of course, there is some sort of evidence that definitively shows that Christ transferred His authority to him. Naturally, this evidence does not exist.

Also, remember that not everyone is "called" to Church leadership (Hebrews 5:1-4).

4. Additionally, this Catechism teaches that "the holy Christian church is to be found where 'the Gospel is purely taught and the Sacraments are correctly administered' (Augsburg Confession VII 1)".

I absolutely agree with this point, because only an organization that distributes the sacraments is a "Church" in the proper sense, though it may not be in communion with the Church. "Christ's Spirit uses [them] as means of salvation, whose power derives from the fullness of grace and truth that Christ has entrusted to the Catholic Church." (Catechism of the Catholic Church, #819)

However, even after taking this into account, I also realize that the Lutheran understanding of both the Gospel and the sacraments is distorted.

Lutherans typically believe that there are only two sacraments (Baptism and Communion). Catholics, meanwhile, recognize a total of seven: Baptism, Communion (the Eucharist), Confession (Penance), Confirmation (or Chrismation), Marriage, Anointing of the Sick, and Holy Orders. Lutherans usually think of these other five as rites that do not necessarily contain God's grace, but are still historically practiced.

Just one example of the Lutheran sacramental problem is that they hold to sacramental union (Christ is "in, with, and under" the bread and wine), while the Church holds to transubstantiation (the bread and wine become the literal Body and Blood of Christ), which is the traditional view. The Lutheran departure from the historical view seems to reveal "a morbid interest in controversial questions and disputes about words" (1 Timothy 6:3-5). Is their emphasis here more important than unity?

Meanwhile, Lutherans also debate over whether or not Confession is a sacrament. Martin Luther said one thing, but the official Defense of the Augsburg Confession says another.

5. Protestant ecclesiology has wrecked the doctrinal and visible unity that God demands.

In Galatians 5:16-21, St. Paul condemns "dissensions" and "factions" as "deeds of the flesh" that will result in the causers "not inherit[ing] the kingdom of God," and in Romans 16:17, he teaches that Christians should "turn away from" them. Protestants have, unfortunately, disobeyed this command.

Unity is Christ's prayer for us (John 17:11), so let us become unified again, visibly and invisibly.

There is no Scriptural support for a single global visible church, let alone an invisible earthly church. There are, as in the NT, only local visible churches, composed of both regenerate believers and unregenerate believers, with local church officers of elders and deacons.

The only church invisible to us (but not to God nor to Satan and his angels from afar, nor to saints gone into Glory with God's singing angels) is the general festal gathering and summoned deliberative body in Heaven, mentioned in Hebrews 12:23. Jesus announced:

"My Kingdom is not of this world system . . ." (Jn 18:36b).

Jesus certainly did not give Simon bar Jonah (Peter) any more authority than He gave any of the other disciples, or that He has given to any regenerated believer-disciple-priest today, for in Mt. 18:18 He said:

"Verily I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. "

(The correct grammatical exegesis her is that He is saying that whatsoever you-all--not just thou, Peter, but all of you--shall bind on earth is that which is already bound in heaven; and whatsoever yo-all shall loose on earth is that which is already loosed in heaven.)

Here, the "you" is plural, and he is addressing the entire company (including Judas of Kerioth), and perhaps even more, including women, who kept company with them.

Christ, in Mt. 16:19, never said that the keys of the kingdom were restricted to Peter alone, for the keys that open the way to the Kingdom of The God are the articles of The Faith given by preaching the Gospel, and though a herald may exercise the keys of the Gospel, with The Holy Ghost opening the eys of one's understanding, the hearer chooses whether to enter, not the preacher. Nor can the herald/preacher close the gates for the enterer.

Furthermore, take notice that at this point in time, none of these disciples were yet saved as Christians, for the first prototype local church at Jerusalem was not yet formed. In fact, Peter himself was not yet converted, let alone regenerated (born of the Spirit), for Jesus said, on the very night previous to His slaughter, he commanded Simon:

"And the Lord said, Simon, Simon, behold, Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat: But I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not: and when thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren" (Lk 22:31-32).

Then, subsequently, Peter denied him six times--thrice before the first chortle of the rooster, then three times more after the first and before the second rooster's crow. One may assume that Peter, not having foreknowledge, concluded that his salvation was lost, for had he not been clearly taught by Jesus the Anointed One, The Master:

"If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple" (Lk. 14:26);

and:

"Whosoever therefore shall confess me before men, him will I confess also before my Father which is in heaven. But whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before my Father which is in heaven" (Mt. 10:32-33).

And, altogether, Simon left off following Christ six times, IIRC, as well as denying Him 6 times just before the Sacrifice of the Only Lamb whose Blood could wash away sins.

Though Simon Peter was the first to exercise the keys on the day of Pentecost, and 3,000 more entered into the Kingdom and were added to the Jerusalem church, later on he was not the local ruling elder; James was. Nor was Peter accorded a ministry beyond supervising the evangelism to the Jewish segment. It was Paul, trained both in gentile liberal arts and in theology by ben Gamaliel and later by Christ, that was assigned to the evangelism mission to the rest of human society. Peter as a "Pope"? Nah.

The faith summed in the above article won'tr hold Bible truth any more than a sieve will hold water. IMHO.

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