Western Orthodox Ecclesiology: Confessional Lutheran Non-Sectarianism

A former Lutheran pastor once remarked to me that the Confessional Lutheran position is that only Lutherans are saved. The wrongness of this opinion is quite excessive. The present exposition of the Confessional Lutheran position aims to make it abundantly clear that our ecclesiology is not sectarian, but is properly catholic.

To begin, Martin Chemnitz and Jakob Andreae, in the Preface to the Book of Concord, deny as false the reading that only Confessional Lutherans can be saved. The Lutheran Church believes, teaches, and confesses:

"20 As to the condemnations, censures, and rejections of godless doctrines, and especially of that which has arisen concerning the Lord’s Supper, these indeed had to be expressly set forth in this our declaration and thorough explanation and decision of controverted articles, not only that all should guard against these condemned doctrines, but also for certain other reasons could in no way have been passed by. Thus, as it is in no way our design and purpose to condemn those men who err from a certain simplicity of mind, but are not blasphemers against the truth of the heavenly doctrine, much less, indeed, entire churches, which are either under the Roman Empire of the German nation or elsewhere; nay, rather has it been our intention and disposition in this manner openly to censure and condemn only the fanatical opinions and their obstinate and blasphemous teachers, (which, we judge, should in no way be tolerated in our dominions, churches, and schools,) because these errors conflict with the express Word of God, and that, too, in such a way that they cannot be reconciled with it. We have undertaken this also for this reason, viz., that all godly persons might be warned diligently to avoid them. For we have no doubt whatever that even in those churches which have hitherto not agreed with us in all things many godly and by no means wicked men are found who follow their own simplicity, and do not understand aright the matter itself, but in no way approve the blasphemies which are cast forth against the Holy Supper as it is administered in our churches, according to Christ’s institution, and, with the unanimous approval of all good men, is taught in accordance with the words of the testament itself."

Similarly holding to this conviction, we can also look to the prince among orthodox Lutheran theologians, Johann Gerhard. He states in his Commonplace 25: On the Church:

“Meanwhile, if Baptism and some chief parts of doctrine are still preserved unharmed in the corrupt condition of a visible church, and even amid an assembly of heretics, God gathers to Himself an invisible church of the elect through the aforementioned means.” (141) 

We could expand this sentiment still further with references to paragraphs 185, 186, 188, and 189. Living in the 17th Century, he even lists churches all over the planet, from Africa and the Far East to the "New World" (America), that contain real Christians, though it is clear that they are not Confessional Lutherans, even affirming real Christians can be found living under the yoke of the Papacy and the teaching of the Jesuits!

Turning now to Confessional Lutheranism in America, Walther states in his 32nd Evening Lecture, giving Thesis 20:

“In the sixteenth place, the Word of God is not rightly divided when a person’s salvation is made to depend on his association with the visible orthodox Church and when salvation is denied to every person who errs in any article of faith.”

He explains further:

“Its worst feature, however, is undeniably this: Making a person’s salvation depend on this membership in, and communion with, the visible orthodox Church means to overthrow the doctrine of justification by faith. True faith has been obtained by people before they join the Lutheran Church. It is a fatal mistake to think that Luther before becoming a Lutheran — sit venia verbo! — did not have the true faith. Though we esteem our Church highly, may this abominable fanatical notion be far from us, that our Lutheran Church is the alone-saving Church! The true Church extends throughout the world and is found in all sects; for it is not an external organism with peculiar arrangements to which a person must adapt himself in order to become a member of the Church. Any one who believes in Jesus Christ and is a member of His spiritual body is a member of the Church. This Church, moreover, is never divided; although its members are separated from one another by space and time, the Church is ever one.”

The foregoing goes to show just how erroneous the opinion is that Confessional Lutheranism is radically sectarian and institutionalist. 

But to make the case all the clearer, a contemporary of Walther, Adolf Hoeneke, also affirms this position in his Evangelical Lutheran Dogmatics. Copiously citing Gerhard, Quenstedt, and Luther, not to mention the Book of Concord, Hoeneke concludes of the Confessional Lutheran position: 

“Here is now a chief principle of our church: Also in the impure, corrupt church, children of God can be born, and thus people can be saved, if only God’s Word is still essentially taught in it and Baptism is administered in an essentially correct manner, i.e. according to the order of the Lord.” (Vol IV, pg 168)

Hoenecke clarifies:

“Thus the Lutheran church understands the statement, ‘Outside of the church there is no salvation’ (extra ecclesiam nulla salus), differently from the Roman church [and we add the Eastern Orthodox church]. The Roman church [and the Eastern Orthodox] understands it to mean the particular church of Rome [or the Eastern Orthodox churches]. But the Lutheran church understands it to mean the entire group of the called…” (ibid, pg 169, cf. 167-171) 

Hoenecke even condemns the opinion of “those romanizing Lutherans who insist that the marks of the church must always be present in their ideal completeness,” and who end up practically excluding all others by reducing the boundaries of the Church to “the particular church that teaches Lutheran doctrine purely” (ibid, pg 174). Even here, however, there remains a possibility “that all real children of God who are outside of the visible Lutheran church still truly have the whole teaching of the Lutheran church” (ibid). 

But lest someone object by saying that the foregoing are merely older writers who have been abandoned today for a more sectarian position, the same position can be confirmed in Kurt Marquart’s excellent work, Confessional Lutheran Dogmatics: The Church and Her Fellowship, Ministry, and Governance. An Associate Professor of Systematic Theology at Concordia Theological Seminary in Fort Wayne, IN, Marquart states:

“It is perfectly true, moreover, that there are believers, dear children of God, in heterodox churches, if only the Gospel is still somehow ‘getting through’ to create and sustain faith” (pg 61).

Implying a self-conscious and intentional continuity with earlier Lutheran Fathers, citing Walther he shows that, “Refusal of church fellowship does not mean excommunication” (pg 66). Walther is further quoted here as stating:

“By their exclusion from the celebration of the Holy Supper in communion with the Lutheran Church, members of erring communions are not being excommunicated, much less declared to be heretics and condemned” (ibid).

In fact, Marquart grounds his claim in the consistent Lutheran response to this issue, which is itself rooted in Scripture:

“The old Lutheran theologians always cited 2 Samuel 15:11, about the two hundred men who followed Absalom, ‘quite innocently, knowing nothing about the matter,’ to illustrate the situation of sincerely misguided believers, trapped in heterodoxy” (ibid, pg 67).

Marquart also quotes Luther to this effect, that even under the papacy there remains “the very choicest Christendom and many pious and great saints” (ibid, pg 62f), and he (Luther):

“recognizes under the papacy the continued existence of the body of Christ, with the ‘true Spirit, Gospel, faith, baptism, sacrament, keys, the office of the ministry, prayer, holy Scripture, and everything that pertains to Christendom’” (ibid, pg 65).

Luther even affirms that:

“we must admit that the enthusiasts have the Scriptures and the Word of God in other doctrines. Whoever hears it from them and believes will be saved, even though they are unholy heretics and blasphemers of Christ” (ibid, pg 65).

In conclusion, it has been shown that there is a clear continuity of teaching and sentiment from the 16th Century to today. From Martin Luther to Martin Chemnitz and the Book of Concord to Johann Gerhard to C.F.W. Walther to Kurt Marquart, the argument that Confessional Lutheranism is ecclesiologically sectarian is conclusively null and void.