Concordia in Worship, or Worship in the Concordia

Back in 2013(!) I gave a paper at the ACELC Conference (17 April 2013 in Austin, TX). It popped up in something recently, so I thought I would re-post it here for you all. Enjoy, and let me know what you think.

Pastor Bryan Wolfmueller 

A Word of Introduction 

Worship is at the heart of the church of Jesus, and this is because worship is being served by Jesus. Our Savior brings us His saving gifts, His promises, the benefit of His death and resurrection, and we take hold of them by faith, rejoicing at the surprise and delight of this divine kindness.  

Worship belongs to Jesus. He has instituted it, and he has done so for a specific purpose, with a specific end in mind, and that is that we sinners would be forgiven, absolved, comforted by His forgiving, absolving, and comforting Word. The Holy Spirit, then, through the means of the external Word, comforts our conscience. And we can say a bit more.  

I would like, in this essay, to put forth the thesis that the divine service is instituted by Jesus so that the Holy Spirit, through the Word, would create in our conscience a reflection of the heavenly council. This forensic understanding is found in the Scriptures and Confessions, and it is helpful as we consider the words and forms of the liturgy.  

A Strange Definition 

I suspect that the question “What is worship?” would have as many answers as there are people in this room, but I also suspect that none of us would offer the definition that Philip Melanchthon does in our Lutheran Confessions.  

Melanchthon is writing this appendix to the Smalcald Articles because Luther did not offer a detailed defense of the assertion that the pope is the antichrist. Melanchthon picks up the slack, arguing from Scripture and history against the pope’s three claims: (1) that he has primacy in the church by divine right, that (2) he possesses both swords, that is both political and spiritual power on earth, and (3) that it is necessary to believe these things to be saved. About halfway through the treatise Melanchthon has about had enough, and says, “Look, the pope teaches false doctrine, the worst of which is denying the Gospel.” In the midst of this, we find Melanchthon’s strange definition of worship.  

The doctrine of repentance has been utterly corrupted by the Pope and his adherents. For they teach that sins are remitted because of the worth of our works. Then they bid us doubt whether the remission takes place. They nowhere teach that sins are remitted freely for Christ’s sake, and that by this faith we obtain remission of sins. Thus they obscure the glory of Christ, and deprive consciences of firm consolation, and abolish true divine services, namely, the exercises of faith struggling with [unbelief and] despair [concerning the promise of the Gospel]. (Treatise, 44. Triglott, from which the Confessions, unless noted, are quoted.) 

Worship, here, is “faith struggling against despair” (Tappert). This is a surprising and perhaps unexpected definition of divine service, but even more surprising that Melanchthon would drop this definition without further explanation. This definition is not a strain, but right at home in the midst of the Lutheran Confessions.  

Comfort for Terrified Consciences 

Unlike any other confessional texts, the Lutheran Confessions are pastoral, that is, they have as their explicit goal the comfort of terrified consciences.   

On the contrary, by the favor of God, the priests among us attend to the ministry of the Word, teach the Gospel concerning the blessings of Christ, and show that the remission of sins occurs freely for Christ’s sake. This doctrine brings sure consolation to consciences. (Ap XXIV.48) 

But since in this controversy the chief topic of Christian doctrine is treated, which, understood aright, illumines and amplifies the honor of Christ [which is of especial service for the clear, correct understanding of the entire Holy Scriptures, and alone shows the way to the unspeakable treasure and right knowledge of Christ, and alone opens the door to the entire Bible], and brings necessary and most abundant consolation to devout consciences, we ask His Imperial Majesty to hear us with forbearance in regard to matters of such importance. (Ap IV.2) 

Quotations could be multiplied. The pages of the Confessions are filled with comfort. The true doctrine gives all glory to Christ and all comfort to Christians. The false doctrine does the opposite, obscuring Christ’s glory and robbing consciences of comfort. This is why it is bad, and this is why the Lutherans are causing a fuss, even as the Turks threaten the eastern borders of the empire and the Emperor himself is calling for unity.  

For since the adversaries understand neither what the remission of sins, nor what faith, nor what grace, nor what righteousness is, they sadly corrupt this topic, and obscure the glory and benefits of Christ, and rob devout consciences of the consolations offered in Christ. (Ap IV.3) 

But, to comfort a terrified conscience you have to find a terrified conscience. Luther and his fellow confessors would often lament that their opponents didn’t care about sin, were not troubled before God, and didn’t care “if God smiled or frowned.”¹ This indifference was lamented even in pastors of the Gospel who had “mastered the fine art of abusing their Christian freedom.”  

The point of this is that a terrified conscience is a rare find, in fact, it is something worked by the Holy Spirit through the preaching of the law. Here it is helpful to consider the difference between a troubled conscience and a terrified conscience. A troubled conscience knows that it has done something wrong. A terrified conscience knows that God is angry with that something wrong. A troubled conscience knows that it has messed up; a terrified conscience knows that it deserved God’s wrath. A troubled conscience confesses that it has sinned. A terrified conscience confesses that it has deserved God’s temporal and eternal punishment. A terrified conscience, then, is a conscience in which our sin is put in the context of God’s holiness.  

This terror is the result of God’s law. A conscience might be naturally troubled, but it must be supernaturally terrified. A troubled conscience might flee for refuge to its own works, its own efforts, or some other help (and in this flight we see the origin of every false religion, from the fig leaves of Adam and Eve to the Islamic Haj to the Environmentalist chaining himself to the trees). Terror, on the other hand, leaves nothing to be done because the real problem is not my sin but God’s anger at my sin. There is nowhere to run. If the trouble I have is with God, then the solution will only be with God.  

The cross, then, is the only hope for fallen mankind. God has to do something with His wrath, and on the cross He does. The profound suffering of Jesus on the cross is not the physical suffering, and not even the shame that He despises (see Hebrews 12:1-2, and Luther’s Introduction to Psalm 22²), but the spiritual affliction to which He is handed over by God, which takes both passive (“My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” Psalm 22, Matthew 27:46) and active (“Smitten by God…” “It pleased the Lord to bruise Him.” Isaiah 53:4,10) forms. This is the “first and chief article, that Jesus Christ, our God and Lord, died for our sins, and was raised again for our justification” (Smalcald II.1).  

Any downplaying of sin has the result of downplaying the cross. But the cross, as an event, is not yet the Gospel. On the cross Jesus wins the forgiveness of sins, but it is now the work of the Holy Spirit to deliver this forgiveness to us.³ “For neither you nor I could ever know anything of Christ, or believe on Him, and obtain Him for our Lord, unless it were offered to us and granted to our hearts by the Holy Ghost through the preaching of the Gospel” (Large Catechism, II.38).  

God brings the benefit of the cross to us in the promise of the Gospel, the forgiveness of our sins. This is the article of justification by faith. 

Justification in Action (or in Suffering): When God is Fighting Against His Own Promises 

The faith that justifies is always in opposition to two things (which are really the same thing): works and sight. “We walk by faith and not by sight,” says Paul (2 Corinthians 5:7). The promises of God always run contrary to sight, and so faith is always in the midst of suffering. This accounts for the rather troubling tendency of the Scriptures to describe our Christian life in terms of suffering.⁴   

For the Lord’s people, though, this suffering takes acute form when God Himself fights against His own promises.  

Consider Abraham. God’s troubling instruction to Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac is compounded because God is asking Abraham to sin not only against the law (“You shall not murder.”) but also against the Gospel (“So shall your descendants be,” Genesis 15:5, “Sarah, your wife, shall have a son,” Genesis 18:10.). Isaac is the child of promise. Isaac is God keeping His promise, not only to Abraham, but also to Adam and Eve (Genesis 3:15), and now the Lord is commanding Isaac to bring the promise to an end. By all accounts, God is fighting against His own promise, but Abraham knows this is impossible, that God can only keep His promises, that through Isaac all the nations of the earth will be blessed, that Isaac could not stay dead (see Hebrews 11:17-19). So Abraham with “hope contrary to hope” (Romans 4:18), raised the knife to “worship” (Genesis 22:5, “the lad and I will go up yonder and worship…”), and became the father and brother of every Christian (Galatians 3:6-9).  

The New Testament brings this to us in another account, three times quoting the preaching of Habakkuk. Habakkuk stood in Jerusalem in 635, as the Lord was preparing the Chaldeans to roll through the Promised Land and destroy Jerusalem. But Jerusalem, like Isaac, was a place of promise. This was the place where the Messiah was to be born. This was the city from which His rule was to go forth. It was this place that the Lord had prepared so that His might fulfill His promises. And it is this place that the Lord was about to destroy. “For indeed I am raising up the Chaldeans” (Habakkuk 1:6). God, again, is working against His own promises. So Habakkuk preaches, “The righteous shall live by faith” (Habakkuk 2:4).  

Justifying faith stands, then, not only against the righteousness of works, but also against the “promises” or “threats” of sight. This was not lost on the apostles. When “God’s wrath is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness,” (Romans 1:18) the “righteous shall live by faith,” (Romans 1:17, see also Galatians 3:11 and Hebrews 10:37-38). When it looks as if God Himself is hell-bent on destroying His own promises, faith sticks to the promise. We look around and see trouble, but we hear, by faith, that “all things work together for the good of those who love God…” (Romans 8:28). We look around and see sin, but we hear, by faith, the forgiveness of sins. We look around and see death, but we hear, by faith, that we will not die (John 3:16).  

The “Where” of the Promise 

Justification is bound up to faith, and faith is bound up to hearing. “Faith comes by hearing, and hearing the word of God” (Romans 10:17).  

This is captured beautifully in the unfolding of the Augsburg Confession. Justification is introduced in article IV:  

Also they teach⁵ that men cannot be justified before God by their own strength, merits, or works, but are freely justified for Christ’s sake, through faith, when they believe that they are received into favor, and that their sins are forgiven for Christ’s sake, who, by His death, has made satisfaction for our sins. This faith God imputes for righteousness in His sight. Rom. 3 and 4. 

This is the “what” of justification. Article V, then, gives us the “how” of justification:  

That we may obtain this faith, the Ministry of Teaching the Gospel and administering the Sacraments was instituted. For through the Word and Sacraments, as through instruments, the Holy Ghost is given, who works faith; where and when it pleases God, in them that hear the Gospel, to wit, that God, not for our own merits, but for Christ’s sake, justifies those who believe that they are received into grace for Christ’s sake. They condemn the Anabaptists and others who think that the Holy Ghost comes to men without the external Word, through their own preparations and works. 

God delivers the promise in Word and Sacrament, and the Holy Spirit works through the mean of the external word. Article VI, on Good Works, tried to talk about the result of Justification, Good Works, but ends up talking about the forgiveness of sins even more. Now, article VII of the Confession will talk about the “where” of Justification:  

Also they teach that one holy Church is to continue forever. The Church is the congregation of saints, in which the Gospel is rightly taught and the Sacraments are rightly administered. And to the true unity of the Church it is enough to agree concerning the doctrine of the Gospel and the administration of the Sacraments. Nor is it necessary that human traditions, that is, rites or ceremonies, instituted by men, should be everywhere alike. As Paul says: One faith, one Baptism, one God and Father of all, etc. Eph. 4:5-6.  

It has been noted that this is the first dogmatic definition of the church⁶, and more, that this is a liturgical definition of the church.⁷ Where there is right preaching of the Gospel and right administration of the Sacraments there is the Church. There are holy people where there is the holy Word and holy things because the Holy Spirit is busy there holifying sinners.  

When the Lutheran Confessors link up the forensic language of justification⁸ to the public worship of the church they bring courtroom procedures into the temple. Lutheran worship, then, has a distinctively forensic character.  

Hell in Heaven on Earth: Job  

Have you considered the Lord’s servant Job? The book of Job opens with the declaration of Job’s righteousness. “There was a man in the land of Uz whose name was Job, and that man was blameless and upright, one who feared God and turned away from evil” (Job 1:1). This is not a description of Job. Job was a sinner, as the rest of the book he wrote will plainly demonstrate. The blamelessness of Job was an alien blameless; his uprightness an external uprightness, spoken of Job by God in heaven. We, in fact, get a glimpse into the heavenly council to hear the Lord declare Job righteous: “And the Lord said to Satan, ‘Have you considered my servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, who fears God and turns away from evil?’” (Job 1:8). It is troubling that Satan is standing there in front of the Lord, but this courtroom has an accuser. Still, Job is righteous because the Lord declared him righteous. Job was justified. But how does Job know this? The sacrifice.  

“His sons used to go and hold a feast in the house of each one on his day, and they would send and invite their three sisters to eat and drink with them. And when the days of the feast had run their course, Job would send and consecrate them, and he would rise early in the morning and offer burnt offerings according to the number of them all. For Job said, ‘It may be that my children have sinned, and cursed God in their hearts.’ Thus Job did continually” (Job 1:4-5).  

The Lord makes know the declaration of righteousness through the sacrifice, through the liturgy. This is how we are to understand the tabernacle and the temple and everything that accompanied it: the priesthood, the altars and sacrifices, the feasts and festivals, all of these are shadows of the heavenly reality, a delivering of the verdict pronounced in the heavenly council.  

Now the remainder of the text of Job shows the prophet fighting to believe what he knows from the altar when everything around him testifies to the opposite. Job loses everything but his life, and now he sits on a pile of ashes scraping his sores with a scrap of pottery, and the devil gathers a cloud of witnesses around him to testify: “Job, you are a sinner. God must hate you.” All that is left for Job is the altar, the quiet testimony that flies in the face of everything he sees. “No,” Job is left to say, by faith, “I am righteous. The blood is shed in my place. God loves me. I am justified.”  

Job gives us a glimpse of the competing councils, the heavenly council where sinners are declared righteous, and the earthly council where sinners are judged apart from the sacrifice. Job, then, is the picture of faith struggling against despair, clinging to the echo of the heavenly verdict he hears in the divine service. And, in the end, Job’s friends are brought out of Satan’s council into the heavenly council, as Job includes them in the sacrifice. Now they, too, are declared forgiven and innocent (see Job 42:7-9)!  

Here, though, we see clearly that the divine service delivers the heavenly verdict of righteousness.  

Lutheran Exceptionalism: The External Word: Why No One Worships Like a Lutheran 

Luther (in what I consider the most profound theological insight outside the Scriptures) reduces every false doctrine down to one word: enthusiasm. That is a rejection of the external Word (and normally replacing it with the internal Word).  

And in those things which concern the spoken, outward Word, we must firmly hold that God grants His Spirit or grace to no one, except through or with the preceding outward Word, in order that we may [thus] be protected against the enthusiasts, i.e., spirits who boast that they have the Spirit without and before the Word, and accordingly judge Scripture or the spoken Word, and explain and stretch it at their pleasure, as Muenzer did, and many still do at the present day, who wish to be acute judges between the Spirit and the letter, and yet know not what they say or declare. For [indeed] the Papacy also is nothing but sheer enthusiasm, by which the Pope boasts that all rights exist in the shrine of his heart, and whatever he decides and commands with [in] his church is spirit and right, even though it is above and contrary to Scripture and the spoken Word. 

All this is the old devil and old serpent, who also converted Adam and Eve into enthusiasts, and led them from the outward Word of God to spiritualizing and self-conceit, and nevertheless he accomplished this through other outward words. Just as also our enthusiasts [at the present day] condemn the outward Word, and nevertheless they themselves are not silent, but they fill the world with their pratings and writings, as though, indeed, the Spirit could not come through the writings and spoken word of the apostles, but [first] through their writings and words he must come. Why [then] do not they also omit their own sermons and writings, until the Spirit Himself come to men, without their writings and before them, as they boast that He has come into them without the preaching of the Scriptures? (Smalcald III.VIII.3-6) 

Then:  

In a word, enthusiasm inheres in Adam and his children from the beginning [from the first fall] to the end of the world, [its poison] having been implanted and infused into them by the old dragon, and is the origin, power [life], and strength of all heresy, especially of that of the Papacy and Mahomet. Therefore we ought and must constantly maintain this point, that God does not wish to deal with us otherwise than through the spoken Word and the Sacraments. It is the devil himself whatsoever is extolled as Spirit without the Word and Sacraments. (Smalcald III.VIII.9-11) 

This is Luther’s most emphatic sola, Sola Verba, and it is not the Bible as the only rule and norm, more: it is that the external Word is the only way God deals salvifically with us. It is only in the external Word that a reliable account of the heavenly verdict is heard. Only by the external Word does the Holy Spirit work faith in the sinful heart of man.  

And because this is true, that the means of the Lord’s working are singular, that there is really only one mean of grace⁹, we know that the devil’s attacks will all find their unity here. The devil attacks the external Word to such an extent that only the Lutheran church teaches this. We stand alone, among all the various confessions, confessing that the Holy Spirit works only through the Word, the Gospel rightly preached and the Sacraments rightly administered.  

The external Word is God’s verdict. The Law is the verdict passed on our sin, and the Gospel is the verdict passed because of Jesus death. The external Word is an operative Word, an Absolving Word, a living and active Word, that is: a Word of promise from God, a blood-saturated promise of forgiveness, and nothing else will do. In fact, everything else that claims to be from the Spirit apart from the external Word finds as its source the devil.  

“The Word, the word, the word,”¹⁰ cries Luther and the Lutheran church to souls wrecked on works righteousness and mystical subjectivism and whatever else disconnects the Spirit from the Word. But this singular cry is also for us. There is a beautiful simplicity to our Lutheran understanding of the Scriptures, our understanding of the Church, our understanding of worship. 

Consider the First Lutheran Church of Some Deserted Island. They have a terrible website. A band of Christians who know nothing of church history, nothing of the various denominations, nothing of the ACELC conference in Austin, Texas; they have never heard of Luther. They are sitting on the beach eating coconuts and reading the Bible. How would they worship? First, they would see that the Son of God has suffered and died, and that He did this for sinners. They, then, must be these sinners, and sinners need forgiveness. This would send them to the Bible looking for those places where the Lord has promised forgiveness. They would find baptism¹¹, and the Lord’s Supper¹², the Absolution and the preaching of the word¹³. They would conclude that what they need is the Gospel is rightly preached and the Sacraments are rightly administered.  This is where you end when you start by looking for the promise of forgiveness. The Word hands you over to the Word.  

It is precisely the external Word that delivers the heavenly verdict of our external righteousness. And it is precisely this that defines what uniquely Lutheran Worship is.  

Revelation 12, and How this Fight ended up in My Conscience 

Jesus had been ascended for 58 years when John was exiled by Domitian to the pleasant but lonely Patmos. Jesus promise that “in this world you will have trouble” had proven true, but the “be of good cheer, I have overcome the world” was not as obvious. In fact, the temptation the devil brings to the persecuted church is doubting the ascension of Jesus. The devil orders things so that it looks as if he is seated on the throne.  

In the Revelation Jesus brings this comfort to His church: He pulls back the curtain and gives John a glimpse of heaven, and sure enough, He is on the throne. “And between the throne and the four living creatures and among the elders I saw a Lamb standing, as though it had been slain” (Revelation 5:6). Jesus will also show John the full horror of the things on this earth, but when we’d had our fill of beasts and dragons and whores, Jesus will give John another peak into heaven, and sure enough, Jesus is there, surrounded by saints and angels.  

Right in the heart of these comforting visions the Lord gives John a glimpse into the heavenly court proceedings. John sees the woman pregnant with the Son of the promise, and a dragon waiting to devour this Child (Revelation 12:1-4). This Child is Jesus, who in verse five is born, lives, is crucified, died and was buried, and on the third day rose from the grace, and ascended into heaven. Now Jesus enters the heavenly council with His blood. Like in Job, Satan is there, the “accuser of our brothers …who accuses them day and night before our God” (Revelation 12:10). But when Jesus comes into this courtroom with His blood, a war breaks out, and Satan and his angels are removed from before the Lord, “there was no longer any place for them in heaven” (Revelation 12:8). The death of Jesus on the cross means that the devil has no grounds to stand on; he has nothing left of which he might accuse you. The evidence of the blood of Jesus makes the evidence of your sin inadmissible in this court. The verdict has been passed, your sins are forgiven in heaven. But this joy is followed with a woe.  

“Now the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ have come, for the accuser of our brothers has been thrown down, who accuses them day and night before our God. And they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death. Therefore, rejoice, O heavens and you who dwell in them! But woe to you, O earth and sea, for the devil has come down to you in great wrath, because he knows that his time is short!”  

The devil’s voice is no longer heard in heaven, so he brings his accusations down to earth, down to you. The devil now is doing his sataning in your conscience. The verdict of your righteousness has been spoken in heaven, it is left for it to be heard in your heart, and the devil has now mustered all his forces to oppose this hearing of faith, to snatch up the Word before it takes root.   

Two Divine Defense Attorneys and the Courtroom of Your Conscience 

The Biblical counterpart to Satan, the Accuser, is the Paraklete. Jesus is our Paraklete (Advocate) with the Father (1 John 2:1), where He stands interceding for sinners, presenting His blood as evidence on our behalf. And from this heavenly council, Jesus sends forth the Holy Spirit to be our Paraklete on earth (see John 16:7-11). The Holy Spirit, then, speaks the heavenly verdict on earth. He stands in the courtroom of our conscience and testifies on our behalf, and the Holy Spirit accomplishes this through the Word, the Absolution (another forensic word).  

It is in the Divine Service, where the Word is rightly preached and the sacraments rightly administered, that the Holy Spirit delivers the heavenly verdict to our conscience. It is where the heavenly declaration of righteousness is heard on the earth. It is where our conscience is made good, that is, it becomes a reflection of the heavenly council, the devil removed, his accusations silenced, and the blood and word of Jesus winning the day. It is for this purpose that Jesus has establish His church, and has instituted worship, so that he might deliver to us His righteousness.  

Consider Romans 8 in this light: 

For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.  

What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? … 

No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. 

The devil presumes to be against us, to bring a charge against us, to condemn us, to separate us from the love of God in Christ, but Jesus has triumphed over the devil. Because Jesus has prevailed over sin, death, and the devil in His death and resurrection, so the Word of Jesus prevails over our sin, death, and the devil, both before the Father in heaven and also in our own conscience.  

In this way, the divine service is delivering the external Word of promise, and in this way, terrified consciences are comforted with the Lord’s promise. It is our great joy to extoll the external Word and the work that Holy Spirit accomplishes through it.  

Public (Word) Enemy #1: Calvin’s Two Species of Calling 

It is also left to the pastors of the church the difficult task of identifying the enemies of the external Word. We find one such enemy in the teaching of John Calvin, especially his “two species of calling.” Calvin separates the work of the Holy Spirit for the preaching of the external Word:  

The expression of our Savior, “Many are called, but few are chosen,” (Mt. 22:14), is also very improperly interpreted (see 3.2.11, 12). There will be no ambiguity in it, if we attend to what our former remarks ought to have made clear—viz. that there are two species of calling: for there is an universal call, by which God, through the external preaching of the word, invites all men alike, even those for whom he designs the call to be a savor of death, and the ground of a severer condemnation. Besides this there is a special call which, for the most part, God bestows on believers only, when by the internal illumination of the Spirit he causes the word preached to take deep root in their hearts. (Calvin’s Institutes, 3.24.8, emphasis added.) 

This distinction is the fount of all Protestant errors, namely, that the external preaching of the Word is not to be trusted, and the real spiritual activity is found internally. The fruit of Calvin’s “two species” is the separation of baptism and salvation, the separation of the Lord’s Supper and forgiveness, and the rejection of the Absolution. The Bible is reduced to information that takes effect only when acted upon. Salvation is a possibility to be accepted, and so forth. The external Word is not a Word of promise, after all, this Word might not be for you.  

Imagine the difference this makes in worship and in preaching. There is not Absolution, only the “Assurance of Pardon.” Preaching is turned into teaching. The Christians are directed to themselves for assurance, to their faith, or their works, or their feelings, or something else subjective. And, when Calvinism meets the revivalists, the work of the Holy Spirit is completely internalized. The Altar Call is for those who “feel the Holy Spirit tugging on their hearts.” The music is shaped to create an experience of the presence of God, and so forth.  

Calvin’s “two species” create a void of comfort and objectivity that is filled with other new measures, and this “two species” distinction is the reason the Lutheran worship, liturgy, and hymnody has historically been distinct from the Protestant denominations. Calvin makes the external Word unsure, and the Christian is left to find sureness elsewhere.  

Public (Word) Enemy #2: The Ex Operator 

The other great enemy of the external Word is the Romanist doctrine of ex opera operato, that is, “From the working of the work.”¹⁴ This dogma developed in the middle ages, presumably against a Donatism that wanted to find the efficacy of the sacraments bound up to the piety or holiness of a priest. It is good to know that my baptism is a true baptism even if it is administered by a scoundrel. The teaching, though, developed into a teaching that the sacraments conferred grace apart from faith, and apart from the external Word of promise to which faith clings.  

Calvin ends up extolling faith without the Word. Rome extolls the work without faith. Here are a few of the Confessional objections to this teaching:  

The adversaries nowhere can say how the Holy Ghost is given. They imagine that the sacraments confer the Holy Ghost ex opere operato, without a good emotion in the recipient, as though indeed, the gift of the Holy Ghost were an idle matter. (Ap. IV.63) 

Likewise, what need will there be of faith if the Sacraments justify ex opere operato, without a good disposition on the part of the one using them, without faith? Now, a person that does not regard faith as necessary has already lost Christ. (Ap VII & VIII.22) 

It is still more needful to understand how the Sacraments are to be used. Here we condemn the whole crowd of scholastic doctors, who teach that the Sacraments confer grace ex opere operato, without a good disposition on the part of the one using them, provided he do not place   hindrance in the way. This is absolutely a Jewish opinion, to hold that we are justified by a ceremony, without a good disposition of the heart, i.e., without faith. And yet this impious and pernicious opinion is taught with great authority throughout the entire realm of the Pope. Paul contradicts this, and denies, Rom. 4:9, that Abraham was justified by circumcision, but asserts that circumcision was a sign presented for exercising faith. Thus we teach that in the use of the Sacraments faith ought to be added, which should believe these promises, and receive the promised things, there offered in the Sacrament. (Ap. XIII.18-19) 

It is by faith that the promises of God make their way into our conscience. It is by faith that the promises have their saving effect. It is faith that fights against despair. It is by faith in the promise that we are accounted righteousness.  

Rome would present our operations as evidence of our righteousness, and this is idolatry, and this is why Lutheran worship, liturgy, hymnody, and preaching have historically been distinct from Rome. The end is a conscience comforted by the faith that holds forth the sacrifice of Jesus, His blood, as our only hope in life.  

Calvin attacks the promise. Rome attacks faith. The church extolls both faith and the promise, and true worship is both, bound up by Jesus, given to us for our justification and our peace.  

The Liturgy of the Gospel 

In the midst of the Apology to the Augsburg Confession’s great argument on Justification, Melanchthon breaks off into a consideration of worship. It is here, in the divine service, that the distinction between the law and the Gospel finds its most important home.  

And the difference between this faith and the righteousness of the Law can be easily discerned. Faith is the latreia [divine service], which receives the benefits offered by God; the righteousness of the Law is the latreia [divine service] which offers to God our merits. By faith God wishes to be worshiped in this way, that we receive from Him those things which He promises and offers. (Ap. IV.49) 

Jesus speaks. We listen. He promises. We believe. The voice of Jesus which is now heard before the Father in heaven is heard in our churches, and heard in our consciences. And in this promising and believing faith is fighting against the devil, faith is struggling against despair. And by the Holy Spirit, faith wins. And this is true worship. Amen.   

1. See LC I.31. In opposition to KristerStendhal and the so-called “New School” of Paul which flowed forth from him, which asserts that Luther’s interpretation of Paul grew out of a medieval piety obsessed with sin. See Krister Stendhal, “Paul and the Introspective Conscience of the West” Harvard Theological Review, 56:3 (1963) 199-215.
2. Luther’s Introduction to Psalm 22 may be found online here: http://www.hope-aurora.org/docs/Psalm22LutherIntro.pdf)
3. You cannot find a more wonderful explanation than this: “So that our readers may the better perceive our teaching I shall clearly and broadly describe it. We treat of the forgiveness of sins in two ways. First, how it is achieved and won. Second, how it is distributed and given to us. Christ has achieved it on the cross, it is true. But he has not distributed or given it on the cross. He has not won it in the supper or sacrament. There he has distributed and given it through the Word, as also in the gospel, where it is preached. He has won it once for all on the cross. But the distribution takes place continuously, before and after, from the beginning to the end of the world. For inasmuch as he had determined once to achieve it, it made no difference to him whether he distributed it before or after, through his Word, as can easily be proved from Scripture. But now there is neither need nor time to do so.“If now I seek the forgiveness of sins, I do not run to the cross, for I will not find it given there. Nor must I hold to the suffering of Christ, as Dr. Karlstadt trifles, in knowledge or remembrance, for I will not find it there either. But I will find in the sacrament or gospel the word which distributes, presents, offers, and gives to me that forgiveness which was won on the cross. Therefore, Luther has rightly taught that whoever has a bad conscience from his sins should go to the sacrament and obtain comfort, not because of the bread and wine, not because of the body and blood of Christ, but because of the word which in the sacrament offers, presents, and gives the body and blood of Christ, given and shed for me. Is that not clear enough?” (Martin Luther,“Against the Heavenly Prophets”Luther’s Works, vol. 40: Church and Ministry II,ed. J. J. Pelikan, H. C. Oswald & H. T. Lehmann (Philadelphia: Fortress Press.1999), 213–214.
4. See Psalm 119:50, 67, 71; Matthew 5:10-12; Luke 9:23; 2 Corinthians 4:7-11, 16-18; Philippians 1:29 and 1 Peter 1:7, 4:13-16.
5. The “they” is the Lutheran theologians. The Augsburg was being read by the princes to the emperor. This accounts for the use of the third person.
6. Kurt Marquart, The Church and Her Fellowship, Ministry and Governance (Ft Wayne, IN: The International Foundation for Lutheran Confessional Research,1995),9.
7. Pr.John Pless suspects he got this insight from Dr.John Kleinig.
8. On the insistence of “justification” being forensic, see Ap.131, and especially Chemnitz extended and masterful discussion in his Loci under the title “The Vocabulary of Justification.” Martin Chemnitz, Loci Theologici, trans. J. A. O. Preus (St.Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1989), II.475-485
9. Understanding that baptism and the Lord’s Supper are means of grace (or better “means of the Spirit”) precisely because the Lord has joined His Word to the Water, and to His Body and Blood.
10. “The Word, the Word, the Word. Listen, lying spirit, the Word avails. Even if Christ were given for us and crucified a thousand times, it wouldall be in vain if the Word of God were absent and were not distributed and given to me with the bidding, this is for you, take what is yours.” Martin Luther, “Against the Heavenly Prophets” Luther’s works, vol. 40: Church and Ministry II, ed. J. J. Pelikan, H. C. Oswald & H. T. Lehmann.(Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1999), 212–213.
11. I.e. Acts 2:38, “Be baptized for the remission of your sins.”
12. I.e. Matthew 26:28, “…this is My blood of the testament, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.”
13. i.e. John 20:22 and Romans 1:16-17.
14. “ex opera operato” became official Roman dogma at Trent.