As we approach the observance of Maundy Thursday, we do well to recognize that, by far, the greatest threat to the pure doctrine of the Lord’s Supper, within the Lutheran church, remains “crypto-Calvinism.” The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America many years ago embraced it and thus surrendered the Lutheran Confessions on the Supper. Here are the prophetic words of Hermann Sasse on this point:

Never has a more dangerous enemy of the Lutheran doctrine of the Lord’s Supper appeared than this pure crypto-Calvinism. It is dangerous because this time it has taken hold not only of Electoral Saxony but of a great part of world Lutheranism. It is dangerous because there is scarcely a Lutheran church leader – with or without a bishop’s cross – who grasps its theological significance. It is dangerous because the modern Lutheran Church no longer seems to know how to wield the weapon that alone can overcome this opponent: the Scriptural witness of the “It is written.” Here lies the fundamental reason why the Formula of Concord is today coming under such heavy attack. In it Luther’s doctrine of the Lord’s Supper is formulated in such a way that one cannot give it a new interpretation.

from Hermann Sasse, “The Lord’s Supper in the Lutheran Church” Letter to Lutheran Pastors, No. 6 (May, 1949); Translation by Norman Nagel, published in We Confess.

[Note to readers: Beware historical revisionism that substitutes the phrase "crypto-Philippist" for "crypto-Calvinist." The ELCA's edition of the Book of Concord uses the term "crypto-Philippist" to replace the traditional, and truthful, phrase: "crypto-Calvinist." As the sainted Kurt Marquart put it, "There was nothing "cryptic" about Philip's students and supporters in Wittenberg, but they clearly were trying to hide their Calvinist doctrine!"]

“The high priest brought the blood from the Holy of Holies and sprinkled the earthly altar for incense and the earthly altar for burnt offering (Heb 9:21). In this way he cleansed and consecrated these most holy things. Jesus, the great High Priest, sprinkles the heavenly things with his blood (Heb 9:23); with his own blood he sprinkles the hearts and consciences of those who serve the living God in the heavenly sanctuary (Heb 9:13–14; 10:2, 22; cf. 9:9). In his Holy Supper he brings his blood from his Father’s presence and gives it to his guests to drink for their cleansing and sanctification. Thus, as Pfitzner has shown, Jesus performs an “ongoing ministry of atonement” by the application of his blood on his people.”

John W. Kleinig, Leviticus, Concordia commentary, 348-49 (Saint Louis, MO: Concordia Pub. House, 2003).

It comes as quite a shock to a lot of Lutherans when they finally realize that authentic, confessing Lutheranism *does* actually believe that in the Lord’s Supper, the bread *is* the body of Christ and the wine *is* His blood. I can’t tell you how many times I have read out loud from the Smalcald Articles confessing this reality and heard people gasp when they learn it is a quote from Luther himself, and not merely a private opinion, but rather the formal public doctrine [publica doctrinae] of the Lutheran Church, because it is from the Smalcald Articles, one of the documents in the Book of Concord. The Smalcald Articles state: “We hold that bread and wine in the Supper are the true body and blood of Christ.” (Smalcald Articles, Part III, Article VI).

For far too long, Lutheran congregations have heard pastors discussing the Real Presence by referring to the body and blood of Christ “in, with and under” the bread and wine. It is often said in a way that gives the impression we are qualifying the reality of the presence of Christ’s body and blood, rather than simply speaking in a concrete way about where the Lord’s body and blood in the Sacrament of the Altar is concretely located. The Lutheran Confessions never actually use the words, “in, with and under,” in that precise order, although all three words are used to speak of the Real Presence, in various combinations.

The Lutheran Confessions speak most strongly about the presence of Christ in the Supper by using the term “under” the bread and wine. This is the language of the Small Catechism. This is the most concrete way to “locate” our Lord as He comes to us with His body and blood in the Supper. “In” is also a strong word, but “with” is, by far, the weakest term. Calvinists can speak of Christ being present “with” the elements, but they do so by making sure that they spiritualize that presence to the point that the body of Christ is actually located in heaven, as Calvin finally “comes clean” on in the Consensus Tigurinus. Do not ever let a Calvinist tell you that they do believe in the “Real Presence” for they do not believe the body and blood of Christ are under the bread and wine of the Eucharist.

But, as it has happened, over the years, the quick use of the terms “in, with and under” have been used in a manner that communicates, “Yes, we believe Christ’s body and blood is really present, but in, with and under the bread and wine.” Consider how even attempting to use these terms to qualify the presence of Christ actually doesn’t work either, upon closer examination. What bread? What wine? That which has been, by Christ’s Word, declared to be His body and blood, and becomes so by that all-powerful Word of Christ, spoken through the instrumentality of one of His ministers. When this happens we can be absolutely sure that the bread and wine are the body and blood of Christ. Still bread, and still wine, they are however, by His Word and promise, His body and blood. So, again, when you hear Lutherans talk about “in, with and under” this is not mean to qualify or mitigate the actual presence of Christ’s body and blood, but to concretely locate it. This is why receptionism, the notion that the bread and wine can not said to be the body and blood of Christ until they hit the mouth of the communicant, is so utterly absurd. Any Lutheran Church that dogmatically insists on receptionism, or can not speak in a way that clearly affirms that the body and blood of Christ are truly present, at the moment the pastor consecrates the elements, is speaking in a way that is sub-Lutheran, since it is neither Biblical, nor Confessional.

I suspect there were more than a few Lutherans watching the Divine Service during the LCMS President’s installation gasping as they saw a man genuflecting to the elements of the Lord’s Supper at the moment they were consecrated. Why was He doing that? Because we hold that the bread and wine in the Supper are the true body and blood of Christ. Period.

The Lutheran Confessions cite Chrysostom favorably when they discuss the Lord’s Supper. Here is an excerpt from a new book on Chrysostom that underscores Chrysostom’s realistic way of talking about Christ’s presence in His supper.

“Most of the Doctors of the Church have some one point of the faith of which they are the classic exponents: thus, Saint Athanasius is the Doctor of the Divinity of Christ, Saint Augustine is the “Mouth of the Church about Grace”. By universal consent, Saint John Chrysostom is looked upon as the great defender of the holy Eucharist. He is the Doctor Eucharisticus. The Blessed Sacrament and the Real Presence are the subjects to which he turns most often; his writings on this question form a complete defence and exposition of the teaching of the Catholic Church about her most sacred inheritance. In his homilies On the Sixth Chapter of St John, he develops the ideas that our Lord has given us “Bread from Heaven, that he who eats it may not perish”, that he himself is the “Living Bread that came down from heaven”, that we are to “eat his Body and drink his Blood”. “We must listen”, says Chrysostom, “to this teaching with fear, because what we have to say today is very awful.” He points to the altar and says, “Christ lies there sacrificed” “His Body lies before us”, “That which is there in the chalice is what flowed from the side of Christ. What is the Bread? The Body of Christ.” “Think, man, what sacrifice you receive in your hand [people took the Blessed Sacrament in their right hands], what altar you approach. Consider that you, dust and ashes, receive the Body and Blood of Christ.” We not only see the Lord, “we take him in our hand, eat, our teeth pierce his flesh, that we may be closely joined to him.” “What he did not allow on the cross, that he allows now at the Liturgy; for your sake he is broken, that all may receive.” “It is not a man who causes the Offering to become the Body and Blood of Christ, but he himself who died for us. The priest stands there as his minister when he speaks the words, but the power and grace come from the Lord. This is my Body, he says. This word changes the Offering.” “With confidence we receive your gift,” he says in a prayer, “and because of your word we firmly believe that we receive a pledge of eternal life, because you say so, Lord, Son of God, who live with the Father in eternal life.” (pp. 120-21).”

From  The Greek Fathers: Their Lives and Writings (Ignatius Press, 2007; orig. 1908).

Our task, dear brothers, is to stir our pastors and congregations up again and to practice that great “instruction” that Article XXIV of the Augsburg Confession requires of us. Let me, in conclusion, say a word about that.

Our first task is to celebrate the Sacrament of the Altar again and again quite seriously but also with the blessed joy of the first Christians (Acts 2:47). Moreover, we Lutherans have the great freedom that exists, as was already mentioned, in the celebration of the Roman Mass. It can take place in utter simplicity but also with the full splendor of the ancient liturgy of the Lord’s Supper, which Luther preserved and the Lutheran Church kept for two centuries with such great love as a priceless treasure.

That’s where the “instruction” comes in. Here we can learn from the liturgical movement of our time. On this point they are clearly right. Our people should know the meaning of the Gloria, the Preface, the Sanctus, the Benedictus and Hosanna, the Consecration as it is expounded in the Formula of Concord, the Agnus Dei, and the Communion. We can explain it to them in special lectures, but we can also do it in sermon and Bible class. So many texts emerge totally spontaneously: the great types of the Lord’s Supper in the Old Testament—Melchizedek, the sacrifice of Isaac, the Passover, manna, the miraculous feeding of Elijah exhausted to the dropping point in the wilderness. Then in the New Testament, besides the specific texts of the Lord’s Supper, there are all the parables and other sayings of the Lord that speak about the future messianic banquet, the Passion history together with the farewell discourses, the first church, the liturgical formulas in the epistles and in Revelation, everything that speaks of the church, and all texts about the high priestly and kingly office of Christ.

What totally new substance our confirmation instruction would receive if it again became sacramental instruction and the Fourth and Sixth Chief Parts did not just make up a more or less unrelated appendage. And don’t let anyone come up with the excuse that the children are not yet mature enough or that they would misunderstand it. Where that sort of thing is said, it may be assumed that the teacher is not yet mature enough. How one can say these things to children one can learn, with the necessary changes, from the Catholic instruction for First Communion. That is what we can do. The rest God must do: awaken the hunger and thirst for the Sacrament, which is always at the same time a hunger and thirst for the Word of God.

Hermann Sasse, Letters to Lutheran Pastors VI, The Lord’s Supper in the Lutheran Church

…or, at least Huldrych Zwingli claimed it was.

On August 17, 1525, Zwingli, a leader in the Swiss Protestant Reformation, published the book “Subsidium sive coronis de eucharistia” in which he defended his novel belief that the bread and wine of the Eucharist were only symbols. He also rejected the idea that the Eucharistic liturgy was a sacrifice, relegating it to merely a “remembrance.” The reverberations of this book cannot be underestimated: today, the vast majority of Protestants accept Zwingli’s view, often not even realizing that it was not the view of Luther or even Calvin.

Let us pray that one day all Christians will be united in the one Eucharistic Body of the Lord, which is no mere symbol, but is truly the Real Presence of Christ among us, with His true body and true blood, under the bread and wine, for our forgiveness, life and salvation.

HT: Eric Sammons

“If the mingled cup and the bread that has been made receives the Word of God and the Eucharist of the blood and the body of Christ is made — and these are the things from which the substance of our flesh is increased and supported — how can they  [the Gnostic heretics Irenaeus is writing against] say that the flesh is incapable of receiving the gift of God, which is eternal life, when the flesh itself is nourished from the body and blood of the Lord and is one of His membes? The blessed Paul declares the same thing in his epistle to the Ephesians: “we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of of his bones.” (Eph 5:30). He does nto speak these words of some spiritual and invisible person, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones. Rather, he is referring to that dispensation by which the Lord became an actual man, consisting of flesh and nerves and bones—that flesh that is nourished by the cup that is his blood and receive increase from the bread, which is his body. And jsut as a cutting from a vine planted in the ground bears fruit in its season, or as a grain of wheat falling into the earth and becoming decomposed rises with manifold increase by the Spirit of God, who contains all things, and then, through the wisdom of God, serves for the use of people, and having received the Word of God, becomes the Eucharist, which is the body and bloof od Christ—in this same way also ou bocies, being nourished by it and deposited in the earth and suffering decomposition there will rise at teir appointed time. The Word of God grnts them resurrection to the glory of God, even the Father, who freely gives to this mortal immortality and to this corruptible incorruption, because the strength of God is made perfect in weakness.”

— Irenaeus, Against Heresies, 5.2.3; ANF 1:528.

The Son of God Himself in this distribution and reception of His body and blood is also giving, applying, and sealing to you all the benefits He gained for us by the giving of His body and the shedding of His blood. Moreover, His new testament of grace sanctifies, confirms, and seals these benefits to you. Furthermore, He bestows His whole being in so intimate a union that He joins Himself to you with that nature with which He is our brother and consubstantial with us, and through which He accomplished the work of our redemption and propitiation.

— Blessed Martin Chemnitz, The Lord’s Supper, p. 64.

“The great doctrinal discussion which should begin between the churches that earnestly want to be Lutheran will have to deal with especially two doctrines: the doctrine concerning the Word of God and the doctrine concerning the Sacraments. Indeed, both doctrines will have to be treated alongside one another; for the means of grace cannot be sundered. Just as they belong together in the life of the church, even so they belong together also in theology. A person cannot at one and the same time have a Calvinistic or Crypto-Calvinistic doctrine concerning the Lord’s Supper and a “Lutheran” doctrine concerning the Word. When recently a pastor (with whom I am unacquainted and who hails from a North-German Lutheran Territorial Church) let it be known that I should ponder the fact that the Lord Christ had not at all spoken the word “is” in the Words of Institution, since Aramaic does not use a copula in that sort of sentence, I do not know what it is at which I should marvel the more: the erudition which does not know how to translate an Aramaic sentence in keeping with its meaning or this broken relation to the Holy Scripture.1 God’s word is, for the church of Christ in all ages, not an original text (Urtext) which is to be discovered behind the Greek and Hebrew words of the New and Old Testaments by scholars; rather, God’s Word is the Bible itself as it was given to us. I adduce this example only in order to show how closely the doctrine of the Real Presence in the Lord’s Supper is connected with the doctrine2 that the Holy Scripture is really (realiter et essentialiter) the Word of God. Corresponding to the est in “Hoc est corpus meum” there is an est in the doctrine of the Scripture. “Hoc est verbum Dei” is what the church must be able to say concerning the Holy Scripture; otherwise it has no Holy Scripture.”

Toward Understanding Augustine’s Doctrine of Inspiration, Herman Sasse, Letters to Lutheran Pastors XXIX, Feb. 1953

The following is from the Braunschweig-Woelfenbuettel Church Order of 1569, largely by Martin Chemnitz. Trans. by Andrew Smith. Unpublished manuscript.

“Most beloved in God, since we now desire to consider and conduct the Supper of our dear Lord Jesus Christ, in which is given to us his flesh for food and his blood for drink, not of the body, but of the soul, we should accordingly with great diligence each examine ourselves, as Paul [I Cor. 11:28] says, and then eat of this bread and drink of this cup. For no one should receive this holy sacrament except for a hungry soul, which knows its sin, fears the wrath of God and death, and hungers and thirsts for righteousness. But if we examine ourselves we find nothing in us but sin and death, neither can we in any way help ourselves out of this. For this reason our dear Lord Jesus Christ has had mercy on us, and became man for our sake that he might fulfill the law and suffer what debt we have earned with our sins. And so that we might firmly believe this and that we might joyfully rely upon this, after the supper, he took bread, gave thanks, broke it and said: “Take and eat, this is our body, which is given for you.” As though he would say, “That we [i.e. "I"] became man and everything which we do and suffer, all this is your own, and has happened for you and for your good. As a pledge of this we give you our body for food.” He took the cup likewise and said,”Take and drink from this, all of you. This cup is the New Testament in our blood, which is poured out for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins. As often as you do this, do it in remembrance of me,” as though he would say, “Because we have accepted you and laid your sins upon ourself, we will sacrifice ourself for sin, shed our blood, obtain grace and forgiveness of sins, and thus establish a New Testament, in which sin shall not be remembered. As a pledge of this we give to you our blood to drink. Who now thus eats of this bread and drinks of this cup, that is, who firmly believes these words which he hears and these signs which he receives, he remains in Christ and Christ in him and he lives eternally. Thereby we shall now consider his death and heartily give thanks to him, each take up his cross and follow the Lord [Mt. 16:24] and above all things love each other, just as Christ has loved us [Eph. 5:2]. For there is one bread and we many are one body, all partakers in one bread [I Cor. 10:17] and drinking out of one cup. So that we however all together in accordance with the teaching and admonition now heard may worthily receive the Holy Sacrament in correct, true faith and repentance, we will call on God the Father in the Name of Christ and heartily speak a pious Our Father . . . “

“There in the Supper it is not a mere man who deals with you individually, but Christ, your Savior himself, through his minister [diener]. And he says: “Take and eat. This is my body, which is given for you. Take and drink. This is my blood which is poured out for you for the forgiveness of your sin, etc.” In our flesh nothing good dwells. The sin which works in us many evil desires, hinders the good and often causes us to fall. Christ however in his Supper makes with us the blessed exchange [seligen wechssel]. For he through his holy flesh and blood unites himself with us so that he thus through his power ever more and more may crucify and kill the old Adam. And thus we all become one body in Christ where one member is to love, honor and advance the others. And in summary, he who finds that he is weak in faith has in the Lord’s Supper a blessed, powerful antidote [antidotum] that strengthens faith, etc. If this basis is diligently stressed, pious Christians will find themselves partaking of the Lord’s Supper often and with great devotion. And also on these grounds they can instruct themselves regarding the use, fruit and consolation which poor, troubled consciences find in the right use of the Lord’s Supper. However, if a person will not allow himself to be moved by these reasons one can know what kind of Christian he is.”

There is no good reason not to offer the Lord’s Supper in every Divine Service. There are reasons not to, but they are not good reasons. They are either reasons forced on a parish by a long history of insufficient understanding and practice of the Supper, or they are excuses. But they are not good reasons. We are church that cherishes the means of grace, at least on paper. We all are taught to recite what the Lord’s Supper and what it means. Great words! But then, in too many of our congregations, the Lord’s Supper is only offered every-other-Sunday. The reasons for not offering it more frequently are many, one of the most common is, “But it won’t be special, if we offer it to often.” To that I say to every congregation and every person who put that forward as a reason: “Why do you take up an offering every Sunday? It makes it so less special when you take the offering.” But how many of our congregations always pass the plate, at every service, or, frankly, at any time there are people in the church building for a formal worship service: Wednesdays, Saturday nights, special occasions. We dutifully and without fail pass the plate and allow the people of God to give generously. So why do we not also as diligently give the people of God the chance to receive God’s special gifts in His supper as often as they are given a chance to give gifts back to God? It makes no sense to many any more.

And, when I hear people saying, “We should not offer the Supper every Sunday, for there are people who will feel forced to take it, or feel guilty if they don’t, or don’t want it every Sunday.” I say, as nicely as I can, “We are certainly not demanding anyone receive the Lord’s Supper. If you feel no hunger or desire for it as frequently as it is offered, please do not receive it. But is it right to tell others who do, ‘No, you can’t have it this Sunday, because some of us don’t want it? If a banquet is served, and there are those who do not feel hungry for it, they do not have to eat it, but should that stop us from serving the wonderful feast the Lord provides in His Supper?”

I’ve watched for years as my church body, The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod, has passed resolution after resolution after resolution at Synod conventions “encouraging” congregations to offer the Lord’s Supper every Sunday to all who are there and desire it. That’s the doctrine and practice of the historic, confessing Lutheran Church, as set forth plainly, clearly and unhesitatingly in our Lutheran Confessions. In fact, at the time of the Reformation, Lutherans were nearly, frankly, boasting that the Lord’s Supper is celebrated more reverently and received appropriately and in genuine faith by more people than ever before. Very matter-of-factly, the Lutheran Confessions state: “The Mass is not a sacrifice to remove the sins of others, whether living or dead, but should be a Communion in which the priest and others receive the sacrament for themselves, it is observed among us in the following manner: On holy days, and at other times when communicants are present, Mass is held and those who desire it are communicated. Thus the Mass is preserved among us in its proper use, the use which was formerly observed in the church and which can be proved by St. Paul’s statement in I Cor. 11:20ff. and by many statements of the Fathers. For Chrysostom reports how the priest stood every day, inviting some to Communion and forbidding others to approach.” Augsburg Confession XXIV.34

When Luther was asked by the City Council of Nürnberg, through Lazarus Spengler, about how frequently the Lord’s Supper should be offered Luther had this to say:

Should anyone request my counsel in this way, then I would give this advice: … that you should celebrate one or two Masses in the two parish churches on Sundays or holy days, depending on whether there are few or many communicants. Should it be regarded as needful or good, you might do the same in the hospital too. …you might celebrate Mass during the week on whichever days it would be needful, that is, if any communicants would be present and would ask for and request the Sacrament. This way we should compel no one to receive the Sacrament, and yet everyone would be adequately served in an orderly manner. If the Ministers of the Church would fall to griping at this point, maintaining that they were being placed under duress or complaining that they are unfitted to face such demands, then I would demonstrate to them that no merely human compulsion is at work here, but on the contrary they are being compelled by God Himself through His Call. For because they have the Office, they are already, in virtue of their Call and Office, obliged and compelled to administer the Sacrament whenever people request it of them, so that their excuses amount to nothing; just as they are under obligation to preach, comfort, absolve, help the poor, and visit the sick as often as people need or ask for these services. [Source:Weimar Ausgabe, Briefwechsel, 4:533-34; quoted in John Raymond Stephenson, “The Holy Eucharist: At the Center or Periphery of the Church’s Life in Luther’s Thinking?”, A Lively Legacy: Essays in Honor of Robert Preus, edited by Kurt E. Marquart, Stephenson, and Bjarne W. Teigen (Fort Wayne, Ind.: Concordia Theological Seminary, 1985), pp. 161-62.] Read an entire article on this issue by Pastor David Jay Webber, here, from which these quotes are taken. I’ve appended it to the end of this article in the “more” section.

Let me let Hermann Sasse have the last word, for now, on this subject. Please give these beautiful comments your prayerful consideration.

The Lutheran doctrine of the consecration assumes that every celebration of the Lord’s Supper is an unfathomable miracle, just as the first Lord’s Supper was not, as the Reformed Church supposes, a parabolic action but also a miracle. Every Lord’s Supper that we celebrate is a miracle, no less than the miracles that Jesus did during His days on earth. The same is true, although in another way, of Baptism. As the preaching of the Lord was accompanied by His signs and wonders, so the proclamation of His church is accompanied by the sacraments. And as the deeds of Jesus were the dawn of the coming redemption (Luke 4:18ff.; Matthew ll:4ff.), so in Baptism and in the Lord’s Supper we are already given what belongs to the coming world. As often as the church gathers around the table of the Lord it is already the “day of the Lord,” i.e., the day of the Messiah (cf. Amos 5:18), the day of His return. This is the original meaning of Sunday as the “day of the Lord,” on which John (Revelation l:9ff.) in the Spirit could participate in the heavenly divine service, while the churches of Asia were gathered for the Lord’s Supper (cf. 3:20). Sunday is an anticipation of the parousia. It is this because on that day the Lord comes to His church in the Word and in the Sacrament of the Altar. For this reason the church greets Him before the consecration with “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest.” The old Lutheran Church of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries still celebrated the divine service in this sense, which Article XXIV of the Augsburg Confession defends with the words: “We are unjustly accused of having abolished the Mass. Without boasting, it is manifest that the Mass is observed among us with greater devotion and more earnestness than among our opponents.” [Ap. XXIV.9] This honor is long past, since late orthodoxy neglected the liturgical instruction of the people, Pietism destroyed the Lutheran concept of sacrament, and rationalism nullified faith in miracles. Will the Lutheran Church recover the divine service to which its Confession bears witness? It cannot be a matter of repristinating an unrepeatable past but only of understanding anew the teaching of the Holy Scriptures about the Sacrament of the Altar as confessed in the Confession. Everything else will come of itself. It is an experience of the history of Lutheranism in the nineteenth century that generally, wherever Luther’s doctrine of the Real Presence is again understood and believed, hunger for the Sacrament of the Altar wakens afresh, and the liturgy is renewed. We see beginnings of such an experience even today. No liturgical movement can help our church unless it is inspired with Luther’s profound understanding of the consecration. In the consecration Jesus Christ is speaking and no one else. He speaks the Word of divine omnipotence: “This is My body,” “This is My blood,” and of divine love: “Given and shed for you for the forgiveness of sins.” And this Word creates what it says, the true presence of His body and blood and the forgiveness of sins. So both forms in which the Gospel appears meet in the consecration, the spoken and the acted Gospel, the Word and the Sacrament. In this sense the consecration is the Gospel itself.

Hermann Sasse, Letters to Lutheran Pastors XXVI, 1952.

Read more…

Now that we are through Holy Week, let’s reflect on a few practices that have arisen in recent years and examine to what extent they truly do serve the best interest of the Gospel. One of these is Christians having a Passover Seder.  I would say that while perhaps some kind of demonstration with explanation of a Passover Seder is an interesting teaching tool, I think that a congregation that institutes a regular practice of having a Passover Seder during Holy Week is making a mistake. We have no indication from the New Testament that after Jesus instituted the Lord’s Supper, the Church continued to observe the Passover. The whole point of the “new” testament is precisely that, in Christ, everything the Passover pointed toward, has been fulfilled. Rev. Dr. Daniel Gard raises a number of very valid objections that I think are well worth our time and attention. Let me know what you think of this practice, in light of Dr. Gard’s concerns.

“Is it appropriate for a Lutheran congregation to celebrate a Passover Seder?  This is not an unimportant question since the practice has become rather widespread in our Synod.  In fact, it has even been promoted (complete with Eucharist!) by the Synod’s Board for Evangelism (A Passover Haggadah for Christians , ed. Bruce J. Lieske, no date).  But can it be historically or theologically sustained?

“The historical question is rather complex, as the history of liturgical forms generally are.  To begin with,  we have no manuscript of a Seder Haggadah  which is early than the tenth century A.D. (Siddur Rav Saadya Gaon ).  Nearly a millennium exists between the time of Jesus and the earliest extant text.   Passover Haggadoth  have never been standardized but have always been shaped and reshaped by circumstances and time.  The ritual has been extraordinarily versatile since the tenth century A.D. and in all likelihood was just as versatile in the preceding centuries.  The claim that any ritual now in existence is identical with that used by Jesus is both anachronistic and historically suspect.

“The theological questions are equally complex.  Even if it were proven (which it has not been) that a specific extant Haggadah  is identical with that used by Jesus,  these problems remain.  The Lord’s Supper was instituted by Jesus with the words “the blood of the new  covenant.”  He commanded that we “do this in remembrance of Me.”  But, to do what?  Celebrate a Seder?  Or celebrate His Sacrament?  The two are simply not the same.  On the night in which He was betrayed,  the Blessed Savior gave His disciples something new.  All that came before converged and found fulfillment in Him.  All that has happened since that night has grown from that same point of convergence and fulfillment.  The Galatian Christians failed to understand the radical nature of the new order found in Christ;  as a result, St. Paul found it necessary to correct their Judaizing error.

“It makes no more sense for Christians to gather around a Passover Seder than it does to gather around another sacrificial lamb.  The very Lamb of God has been slain, once and for all.  We would not and could not offer another sacrifice.  The final Sacrifice was offered on Calvary.  We now celebrate only that Lamb’s own feast as instituted and commanded by Him.  It is the Passover of Jesus, and only the Passover of Jesus, which the Church legitimately celebrates.
One final question might be asked.  Why, given the historical and theological questions,  do some parishes regularly or even occasionally sponsor a Seder?  Two responses have sometimes been given.  First, to teach Christians about the context of the Last Supper.  But given the historical uncertainties of the Haggadah , what anachronisms are being taught as historic facts?  Simply teaching our people a biblical and Lutheran Sacramentology and Christology is difficult enough;  why confuse the issue?

“A second rationale is to reach out and build bridges to the Jewish community.  But is a “Christian” Seder not as offensive to Jewish people as a “Jewish” Eucharist would be to Christians?  Communication with any group of people is rarely enhanced by misappropriating their beloved traditions.  Those Lutherans who use a Seder do so with commendable intentions.  But the inherent problems of the practice result in more harm than good.”

I found this on a Roman Catholic apologetics site and enjoyed it. We Lutherans who confess the manducatio oralis [oral eating] of the body and blood of Jesus should enjoy it. It is a jarring reminder of how the classic and orthodox understanding of Christ’s actual presence in the Eucharist is not merely or only a “spiritual” presence.

It is very common for Calvinists and those who follow in his general school of thought, such as Baptists, that they do not reject the presence of Christ in the Lord’s Supper, but it is all really a matter of disagreeing how Jesus is present. Often I have watched Baptist bloggers and others swat down any conversation about the Real Presence by saying, “We are not going to get into an argument about how Jesus is present, we’ll just agree that he is in some way that none of us can adequately describe.” That rings with just enough of the truth as to mislead a great many people.

In fact, Calvinism clearly rejects that there is a real, actual presence of Christ under the bread and wine of the Lord’s Supper. Let this much be clear. Hermann Sasse put matters well when he wrote, many years ago:

For Calvin, the body of Christ as a truly human body exists in finite form and must, therefore, after the exaltation, be as far removed from us as heaven is from earth. The Lord’s body thus cannot simultaneously be present in heaven and on earth, and in multiple locations on earth. Calvin is not in a position to substantiate these assertions from the Bible, for he did not derive them from the Bible. These are metaphysical statements and ideological presuppositions that he uses to explain the Supper texts. No sign testifies with such infallible certainty the death throes of a congregation, or a whole church, as the decline and decay of the celebration of the Eucharist. This is, however, the deadly serious situation in which a very large segment of these Protestant churches of the world finds itself. This refusal on Calvin’s part to concede the presence of the body and blood of Christ under the bread and wine made clear to the Lutherans that the point at issue was not a mere question de modo praesentiae, [the mode of the Lord's presence] involving just “the how” of the presence. Against this understanding of the dispute, they always objected that this method would permit any theological controversy to be dismissed as a tempest in a teapot. Even Arius and Athanasius were agreed that “God was in Christ” and that “in Him the whole fullness of Godhead dwells bodily.” They only disagreed de modo praesentiae, that is, on the question of how the whole fullness of Godhead might be in Christ.

Now, here’s a thought, one that will be the subject of a blog post in the future. If we, as Lutherans, do confess that our Lord Christ is present under the bread and wine in His Supper, how does that give shape, form and definition to our celebration of the Supper? Will we look, to outside observers, not very dissimilar from Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox who confess the actual presence of Christ under the Eucharistic host? And what does it mean about our confession of the Supper, when we do not? But, can we, in zeal to affirm these realities, take matters too far? Yes, we can. Some do.

A traditional practice among conservative Lutherans is the practice of “closed communion.” This is a practice that historic Lutheranism shares in common with Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy. Simply put, it means participation in the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper is limited to those who have been instructed in the confession and belief of the Lutheran Church on the doctrine and use of the Lord’s Supper, and have given public confession and testimony of their personal agreement with these teachings.

Lutheran congregations that, as a matter of routine and policy, admit to the Supper those Christians who are communicant members of other church bodies are not practicing closed communion, but are practicing open communion. This is not a practice that is faithful to Scripture or the Lutheran Confessions, nor in line with the historic doctrine and practice of The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod.

This is a “hot button” issue among many Lutherans and other Christians today. It is helpful to review what previous faithful teachers of the Lutheran Church have said about the practice of closed communion. What follows is an anthology of quotes from doctrinal literature of The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod.

Comments Regarding Altar Fellowship from Doctrinal Literature of The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod

C. F. W. Walther

“Anyone who does not confess the faith that the true body of Jesus Christ is truly and really present in the holy Supper and so is received by all communicants, worthy and unworthy, cannot discern the body of the Lord (1 Cor. 11:29) and so is not to be admitted to the holy Supper under any circumstances (see Gerhard, op cit., p. 222). But even one who confesses that cannot ordinarily* [Footnote to the word ordinarily: Namely, except for the case of the fatal emergency, with which we will deal later]be admitted if he is and wants to remain, not a member of our orthodox church, but rather a Separatist Romanist, Reformed so-called Evangelical or Unionist, Methodist, Baptist, in short, a member of an erring fellowship. For the Sacrament, as it is a seal of faith, is also the banner of the fellowship in which it is administered.

Mich. Mueling writes: “The holy Sacraments are symbols, watchwords, ensigns of the Christian confession of the heavenly truth, of the living faith, and of the true fellowship of the Church of Christ. So those who assent to false, erring doctrine cannot use the holy Sacraments without an evil conscience and name, indeed, without giving offense to those weak in the faith. (Dedekennus’ Thesaur. Vol. 1, p. 2, f. 364).*

Footnote: See Theses on Supper Fellowship with Those Who Believe Differently, in the Proceedings of the 1870 convention of the Western District of the Missouri Synod.

- Pastoral Theology, Drickamer translation, p. 149.

C. F. W. Walther

“The Holy Supper is one of the marks, one of the banners of the church, one of the seals of the doctrine and the faith (Rom. 4:11; see 1 Cor. 10:21; Ex. 12:48). In whichever church one receives the Holy Supper, one is confessing that church and its doctrine. There cannot be a more inward, brotherly fellowship than that into which one enters with those in whose fellowship he receives the holy Supper. The apostle says, “For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do shew the Lord’s death until he come” (1 Cor. 11:26). And “For we being many, are one bread, and one body: for we are all partakers of that one bread” (1 Cor. 10:17).

There is a big difference between once hearing a sermon with them in a strange church fellowship and participating there in the celebration of the Holy Supper. One might sometimes hear the sermon there, perhaps to become familiar with their doctrine, without participating in the false-believing worship. But the holy Communion is an act of confession. If one communes in a strange church, one is actually joining it, presenting himself as a witness for its doctrine, and declaring its members to be his brothers and sisters in the faith.

On the basis of that understanding, what is to be thought of inviting everyone present, without distinction, to receive the holy Supper, and admitting them without examination?-It is quite natural for that to be done by preachers who do not believe that the body and blood of God’s Son is present in the holy Supper and is received by all communicants; preachers who consider the holy Supper a mere memorial meal, a mere ceremony, such as the Reformed, the Methodists, and most of the Union-Evangelicals. But it is inexcusable if those operate this way who want to be Lutheran preachers and are convinced of the truth of the Lutheran doctrine of the holy Supper.”

- Pastoral Theology, Drickamer translation, p. 110-111

C. F. W. Walther

“Every preacher has the precise instructions that God’s Word gives him about the administration of the Sacrament. It is obvious that all those with whom Christians cannot maintain any brotherly faith fellowship, should also, according to God’s Word, not be admitted to the reception of the Sacrament, by which the most inward brotherly faith fellowship is established and expressed.

What are those preachers doing who admit anyone without distinction? They are proving that they are unfaithful, frivolous stewards over God’s mysteries. They are interfering wiht God the Lord in His office and setting themselves up as lords over His holy Sacrament, when they should be its ministers. If they do not come to their senses in time, woe to them forever and eternally!”

- Pastoral Theology, Drickamer Translation, p. 114

C. F. W. Walther

“When one says there are Christians also in false-believing churches, that indeed has its measure of truth: There are Christians in them-but weak Christians, namely such as are caught in an error without knowing it. But it is hypocrisy if they are convinced of the error, remain in the sect, and yet want to be regarded as weak. They are either lukewarm or Epicurean religious cynics…

“Therefore one who says that our evangelical Lutheran doctrine and church is correct, but nevertheless remains in the false church and does not join us, burdens himself with a serious condemnation. He then knows the way of truth all right, but does not walk in it…

- Theses on Communion Fellowship with the Heterodox, Walther, Essays, I:213.

C. F. W. Walther

“The main purpose of the holy sacraments is indeed to be tools and means through which the promises of grace are offered, communicated, and appropriated, as seals, testimonies, and pledges through which these promises are sealed. However, subordinate to this main purpose, they have also this purpose: to be distinctive signs of confession and bonds of fellowship in worship. Communion fellowship is therefore church fellowship….

“All should indeed come to preaching, but only Christians who confess the proper Christian faith with their mouth should come to Communion. Therefore one who goes to Holy Communion in a Lutheran church declares openly before the world: I hold with this church, with the doctrine that is preached here, with the faith that is confessed here, and with all the confessors who belong here. The pastor who administers the Sacrament to him declares the very same thing.

“In Acts 2:42, 46 and 20:7 the Holy Spirit points out with praise how the Christians in Jerusalem and at Troas in Asia Minor showed their oneness in faith and their brotherhood in the breaking of bread, i. e., in the celebration of Holy Communion. Now then, if heterodox Christians come to our Communion with our knowledge, then they and we are hypocrites. They appear to be Lutherans, but they are not….

“As necessary and important as it therefore is to testify above all over against the Reformed and union churches [Walther's term describing the General Synod and General Council Lutherans] that the sacraments are true means of grace and pledges for our faith, yet the time has now also come when we must confess over against the unionistic Lutherans that the sacraments are also marks and bonds of worship [fellowship] and of fraternal fellowship in faith….

“A Communicant becomes a preacher in that, as I said, where he communes he declares his allegiance as to the true church. The spokesmen of the Church Council [General Council] themselves also admit that Baptism and Holy Communion are distinguishing marks of the orthodox church. It is therefore so much the more grievous and a lie in the name of God when they impress the seal of orthodoxy on those who believe differently by receiving them to Holy Communion. In an attempt to justify themselves they in return accuse us now again of excommunicating and banning, as it were, those heterodox Christians whom we refuse altar fellowship with us. But this charge is thoroughly false. We have often said, and we say it again, that there are still true Christians also in heterodox churches. But they stand under a false banner and sign. Now, we cannot and will not give them the true spiritual banner until they also with us declare allegiance to it.

“Our opponents indeed object that the Sacrament, and even the mutilated Sacrament of the sects, is a distinctive mark of confession of Christianity…But this too is wrong. For is the sacraments are marks of confession, as they are, then they are marks of pure confession.

- Theses on Communion Fellowship, idem, p. 215-217.

C. F. W. Walther

“I consider it absolutely correct not to continue forever to admit those people to Communion who live in the parish but do not want to join the congregation. I would admit them only for a limited time. This is a different matter than joining a synod. The latter is of human law, the former by divine law. Participation in Communion sponsored by the congregation is indeed the highest privilege of a member and is participation in the innermost fellowship with the congregation, yet is not actual joining. To this belongs, also according to the Word of God, the actual affiliation with the congregation in its function as the higher tribunal (Matthew 18:15-18), as well as participation in its meetings and not only those in which the Word of God is proclaimed through the public ministry, but also the mutual admonition, observance, and provocation to love and good works (Hebrews 10:24-25). God obviously will not only the invisible but also the visible church, as Baptism and the Lord’s Supper already show. He wills not an unregulated, random, occasional gathering together, but rather regulated congregations with church tribunals. Whoever does not want anything to do with these latter things, sets himself against God’s clear will, or if he only wants to use these benefits but without participating in the work, he is a self-seeking individual who, spiritually speaking, reuses to eat his own bread. Others are to work for him, to provide, to contribute, to stand at the breach, ad to counsel, but he himself wants to be only an idle observer, enjoying it all without work.

One also has to consider that, in such a case, withholding Holy Communion is not something absolute, it is not declaring that such a one is unworthy, it is not a ban, but only a suspension, as is the case with one who becomes aware of the fact that his brother has something against him (Mt. 5:23-24). It is not a question of exclusion from offering a gift, but rather has to do with the necessary proceeding fulfillment of a condition for a God-pleasing offering. But in any case, the church order always ought to leave the pastor some leeway to prolong the time according to certain circumstances and certain spiritual conditions. For love must always be the empress of all church order and law, but conversely freedom may not be used as a cover for wickedness, in this case for greed, for improper conduct, and for injury inflicted on the church.”

- from Walther Selected Letters in Selected Writings of C. F. W. Walther (Concordia Publishing House, 1981), p. 124-125

C. F. W. Walther

“Our pastors accept only such people into the congregation, for attendance at Holy Communion, who believe in the Word of God and want to be Lutherans and live a Christian life. We do not have anything to do with religious syncretism and with false church union. Our pastors also will not admit anyone to Communion attendance who has not first come to them for announcement, for we will not cast holy things before dogs nor pearls before swine, which is something the Lord so earnestly forbade us. The people should not think that thereby we want to exercise lordship over them, for we detest from the heart every type of clerical authoritarianism and all popery, and on this account we have already had many a battle and suffered much. But we want to build up proper Lutheran congregations which stand on solid ground, and not merely loose aggregates of human beings which may hold together today and dissolve tomorrow.”

- Letters, ibid., p. 69.

George Stoeckhardt

Commenting on 1 Corinthians 10:16-18, Stoeckhardt wrote: “Through our participation at the Lord’s Table we express our most intimate communion with Christ. That we many are one body, eat one bread, is not meant to prove that the true and body and blood of Christ are in the Sacrament. Such a conclusion one must not draw from the “for” (hoti-v. 17) which does not refer back, but sets up a new claim. As there is but one bread, one loaf, from which we eat, so are we who are eating of this loaf one body. The eating of one and the same bread of loaf unifies us to one body. So this is a new thought: Our participation in the Lord’s Supper is a public profession on our part that we are not only in fellowship with Christ, but that we also are in fellowship with those with whom we commune at the Lord’s Table. We all eat the same bread, the body of Christ. Through that ct we indicate that we belong together. All of us Christians who in the Lord’s Supper eat the body of Christ and drink His blood present ourselves as one spiritual family. What they eat and drink together, Christ’s body and blood, ties them together more closely than the bonds of blood. They declare themselves as brothers and sisters in Christ. Upon this Bible passage do we base our ecclesiastical dictum: Altar or Communion Fellowship is Church Fellowship. …

“This passage strikes a crushing blow at unionism. To admit the heterodox to our Communion and so to our church fellowship is a contradiction in itself. For those that approach the same altar together profess to be one, one in all points of Christian doctrine and practice, while in reality they disagree. It would be shameful hypocrisy on our part if we would have those to join us at the Lord’s Altar, when they actually profess a different faith than we do.”

- Exegetical Lectures on the First Epistle of Paul to the Corinthians, Translated by H. W. Degner (Fort Wayne: Concordia Theological Seminary Print Shop, 1969), p. 60-61.

George Stoeckhardt

“A Christian congregation is an assembly of believing Christians and so presumes that those who wish to join likewise are Christians and possess a certain measure of Christian knowledge. And where that is lacking it instructs them through the pastor in Christian truth before accepting them. And a truly Lutheran congregation will not welcome into membership Reformed, United, and such like, who are totally indifferent to matters of doctrine in the hope that later on, after they have spent a little time in the Lutheran Church, they, too, will become good Lutherans. A Lutheran congregation is a fellowship of Lutheran Christians and therefore expects those who wish to join to some extent to be familiar with true doctrine and when they transfer from an unorthodox church, to take this step of inner conviction, and wherever lacking, to receive the necessary knowledge before being accepted.”

- From Potpourii, Translated by Erwin Koehlinger from Der Lutheraner 49 (Fort Wayne: Concordia Theological Seminary Press, n.d.), p. 297.

Francis Pieper

“On the one hand, they are not permitted to introduce “Open Communion”; on the other hand, they must guard against denying it to those Christians for whom Christ has appointed it… (p. 381)…To keep the pastor from denying the Lord’s Supper to those weak in Christian knowledge, or frightening timid souls away…the person registering should not be subject to rigorous examination, but be induced by way of a friendly interview to reveal the state of his Christianity and to tell what the Lord’s Supper is and why he desires to partake.” (p. 387). [This statement from Pieper has been mistakenly quoted to modify the practice of close communion in regard to members of heterodox church bodies. For Pieper clearly states in the same section in his dogmatics:]

“Furthermore, since Christians are forbidden to adhere to teachers who deviate from the Apostolic doctrine (Rom. 16:17: “Avoid them”; R. V.: “turn away from them”), it is self-evident that members of heterodox churches must have severed their connection with the heterodox body and have declared their acceptance of the true doctrine before they may commune with the congregation. Fellowship in the Lord’s Supper certainly is fellowship in the faith or church fellowship…Walther is right in holding that by practicing “Open Communion” a pastor becomes “an unfaithful, careless, and unscrupulous shepherd….The ‘admission as guests’ involves a self-contradiction. When Lutherans synods in America indeed wanted to cling to the rule, “Lutheran altars for Lutheran communicants only,” but then wanted exceptions to the rule granted, they were again making admission to the Lord’s Supper a matter of human caprice and were thus in fact dropping the divine rule.”

- Pieper, Christian Dogmatics, III:385-386.

John Fritz

“In our Lutheran Church we practice close communion, insisting that only members of the Lutheran Church in good standing be permitted to partake of the Sacrament…When a person communes at the altar of any church, he thereby, by a public act, confesses the faith of that church and at once enters into fellowship with those with whom he communes. …There is no closer fellowship than that of the Communion table. “The heterodox shall not be admitted to the Sacrament. He who does not believe that Christ gives us His true body and blood in the Sacrament and that these are received by the mouth of the communicant, whether he be worthy or unworthy, does not discern the body of Christ, 1 Cor. 11:29, and shall under no circumstances be admitted to the Sacrament. But even he who confesses the true presence of Christ’s body and blood shall not have the Sacrament administered to him if he is not, and will not be, a member of the true Evangelical Lutheran Church, but desires to remain a Roman Catholic, a Baptist, a Presbyterian, a Methodist, or a member of anyone of the other Reformed churches, unless it be that he is at the point of death….It must be remembered that he who communes at the altar of a church thereby confesses the faith of that church (Abendmahlsgemeinschaft ist Glaubensgemeinschaft). We have a right to assume that those who commune at our Lutheran altars confess the faith of the Lutheran church. The Lord Himself demands that every Christian should believe all the Word of God and not only some of it, MT 28:20. See Synodalbericht d. Westl. Distr., 1870 [Walther's Theses on Communion Fellowship].

-Fritz, Pastoral Theology, St. Louis: CPH, 1932, p. 135.

Edward W. A. Koehler

“While we use the Sacrament primarily to be assured of the grace of God and be strengthened in our faith, we also confess our faith when we partake of the Lord’s Supper. “For as often as ye eat this bread and drink this cup, ye do show the Lord’s death until He come,” 1 Cor. 11:26. Going to Communion, we confess by this very act that we trust for grace and salvation in the merits of Christ’s death, and that we personally regard the doctrines of the church, where we commune, as the true teachings of the apostles, Acts 2:42. At whose altar we worship, his religion we confess. 1 Cor. 10:18. For this reason a person who is known to be an unbeliever, or who does not agree with us in the confession of our faith should not be admitted to our altar. Neither may a Lutheran commune in any church which according to its public confession upholds false doctrines…

“The Lord’s Supper was instituted for Christians. Christ gave the Supper not to the general public promiscuously, as He fed the five thousand, John 6, but to His disciples. In the Apostolic Church the Gospel was preached to all that would listen, but the Sacrament was given to baptized Christians only, Acts 2:42; 1 Cor. 11: 20; 10:176.

- Koehler, A Summary of Christian Doctrine, River Forest: Koehler Publishing, 1939

Ottomar Krueger

“Whereas the Lord commanded His disciples and church for all times to come to evangelize the world by baptizing them and teaching them, and opened the preaching of the Gospel and Baptism to all human beings. He celebrated the Lord’s Supper in closed company of the twelve; the attendance was restricted. Thus today also, Holy Baptism and the holy Gospel are distributed, preached and applied publicly to all who have a desire, but the Eucharist is for those who already believe, who can examine themselves for their spiritual worthiness or unworthiness, and to those who can testify by participation of the unity of their faith…

“We insist therefore that there are certain groups of people who cannot be entitled to partake of the Lord’s Supper in our church or with us at the altar…In the Old Testament no stranger who was not united with the Israelites in their faith and belief was permitted to eat the Passover with them. Therefore we contend today that the Lord’s Supper in our Lutheran churches is not to be administered to those of a heterodox faith, be that what it may. …

“The Lord’s Supper is a testimony of the unity of our faith, and going to Communion together means a fellowship which we have with all participating. Those who partake together enter into a most intimate communion according to 1 Cor. 10:17 and 21, where we are called one bread and one body, and in verse 18 the apostle asks: “Are not they which eat of the sacrifices partakers of the altar?” There can be no denial of this intimate relationship into which we are brought and confess to stand when we partake of the Lord’s Supper together.

- The Abiding Word, III:468-469.

Commission on Theology and Church Relations

Inasmuch as Communion fellowship Biblically embodies the confession of a common faith (1 Corinthians 10:17; Acts 2:42)-for it is a theological definition of the one true faith, not a sociological-empirical description of whatever faith a group finds itself agreed in-it is necessary for the church to guard itself from doctrinal fractures of that fellowship (1 Tim. 1:3-11). To indiscriminately admit even well intentioned people to Holy Communion is neither to honor God nor love our fellowmen (1 Cor. 11).

Scripture requires both a knowledge of the Lord’s Supper sufficient for its proper reception and a contrite faith which trusts Jesus’ word. It is neither loving nor responsible for a pastor or church to sacrifice theological considerations for social pressure or custom. If, for example, an individual is admitted to Holy Communion simply because he is a relative or friend of a member, and that person participates in the sacrament to his/her judgment (1 Cor. 11:29), the officiant will one day be asked to give an account of his sacramental stewardship (cf. 2 Tim. 4:1-8).

Lutherans vigorously reject a view of the Lord’s Supper which would claim divine blessings for those who receive the Lord’s Supper in a merely ritualistic fashion…Also rejected by the Scriptures and the Confessions is that observance of the sacrament which would use it merely as a tool toward closer human fellowship rather than as a thankful celebration of that Christian fellowship which God has given. St. Paul in 1 Corinthians details the abuse which occurred when men sought to serve their social goals rather than the Lord who instituted the Sacred Supper…

Thus there is a great continuity of concern from our Lord’s words of guidance to His apostles, though Paul’s admonitions in the epistles, through the practice of the early church, to the practices of the Reformation church and of confessional Lutheranism today.

The catechetical enterprise, whether of the Didache or Luther’s Catechism, is not non-Biblical legalism but rather Biblical realism (1 Cor. 11:17ff). Its aim is not the exclusion of certain individuals from the sacrament, but the honoring of God’s Word and the true benefit of a fallen humanity.

Close Communion (Note: While the term “closed communion” has a longer history (cf. W. Elert, ch. 7) and is regarded by some as theologically more proper than “close communion,” the latter term, which has been used in more recent history by writers in The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, may also properly be employed as a way of saying that confessional agreement must preceded the fellowship of Christians at the Lord’s Table. Whatever term is used, it is clear that the LCMS’ official practice is consistent with the historic practice of the church, which has regarded unity of doctrine as a prerequisite for admission to the sacrament (cf. 1967 Res. 2-19).

The practice of refusing Communion to certain Christians and the general population at Lutheran altars is called close Communion. This practice serves the Gospel, and even those refused, by its reverence for our Lord’s last will and testament….It is a desire to honor and obey the word of Christ which has led Christians to reserve the sacrament for those who share that desire and understanding [belief in the Real Presence]. Chemnitz, with Luther and the Lutheran Confessions, specifically defends the Real Presence in the Lord’s Supper against the errors of human interpretation in various Christian fellowships of his day.

Since fellowship at the Lord’s Table is also a confession of a common faith, it would not be truthful for those who affirm the Real Presence and those who deny it to join one another. Their common Communion would indicate to the non-Christian community that the last will and testament of Christ could be interpreted in contradictory ways. Indeed, the non-Christian might rightly ask whether it was Jesus’ word which determined the church’s position and practice or simply a human consensus.

Therefore it is true that “No one who truly accepts the Real presence as the very Word of God can grant a person the right to deny it and to commune with him at the same table. Just so, no Presbyterian, for example, who declares that there can be no real eating and drinking of the body and blood of Christ, could really want to receive the Supper at an altar where just this impossible thing to him is confessed and taught.” [Hamann, Studies in Holy Communion, p. 12].

Close communion seeks to prevent a profession of confessional unity in faith where there is, in fact, disunity and disagreement. It would be neither faithful to the Scriptural requirements for admission to Holy Communion (1 Cor. 11:27ff; cf. 10:16-17) nor helpful to fallen humanity if the Christian Church welcomes to its altars those who deny or question clear Scriptural teachings.

The reasons for the practice of close Communion are often misunderstood by Christians who have been accustomed to an “open Communion” policy. In a tract entitled, “Why Close Communion?” the rationale for the practice of close communion is explained in this way:

“So it is not that a Lutheran congregation want to bar fellow-saints from the blessings of the Eucharist when they practice Close Communion. It is not that they want to be separatistic, or set themselves up as judges of other men. The practice of Close Communion is prompted by love and is born of the heartfelt conviction, on the basis of Scripture alone, that we must follow Christ’s command. This means refusing the Lord’s Supper to those whose belief is not known to us. It is not showing love to allow a person to do something harmful, even though he may think it is for his own good. It also means if they are members of a Christian body which departs from the full truth of the Scripture in some of its doctrines, that we must not minimize the evil of this false teaching by opening our fellowship to any and all Christians who err in the faith. [Deffner, Why Close Communion?, 1955, p. 14.] In keeping with the principle that the celebration and reception of the Lord’s Supper is a confession of the unity of faith, while at the same time recognizing that there will be instances when sensitive pastoral care needs to be exercised, the Synod has established an official practice requiring, “that pastors and congregations of The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, except in situations of emergency and in special cases of pastoral care, commune individuals of only those synods which are now in fellowship with us. By following this practice whereby only those individuals who are members of the Synod or of a church body wiht which the Synod is in altar and pulpit fellowship are ordinarily communed, pastors and congregations preserve the integrity of their witness to the Gospel of Christ as it is revealed in the Scriptures and confessed in the Lutheran confessional writings.

[Note 28: Res. 2-19. See also 1969 Res. 3-18 and 1981 Res. 3-01. Cf. Francis Pieper, Christian Dogmatics, III, p. 381. Pieper begins his discussion concerning who is to be admitted to the Lord's Supper by stating: "Christian congregations, and their public servants, are only the administrants and not the lords of the Sacrament...On the one hand, they are not permitted to introduce 'Open Communion'; on the other hand, they must guard against denying the Sacrament to those Christians for whom Christ has appointed it." To be sure, a heavy responsibility rests on pastors in making decisions as they evaluate those exceptional cases of pastoral care where persons who are members of denominations not in fellowship with the LCMS desire to receive the Lord's Supper. However, part of the pastor's responsibility in such situations involves informing individuals desiring Communion also of their responsibility regarding an action which identifies them with the confessional position of the church body to which the host congregation belongs and their willingness to place themselves under the spiritual care of the pastor in that place]. As congregations practice close Communion, much care should be taken and energy expended in articulating the rationale of this practice. An evangelical and winsome effort should be made to present the Biblical claims, so that the church’s posture does not appear to be a mere institutional accruement. Procedures for admitting guests to the Lord’s Table should be such that the appearance of unknown communicants at the altar is minimized as much as possible. Further, the Office of the Keys is less than faithfully exercised when admission to the sacrament is granted to all who come to the altar regardless of their faith and congregational and/or denominational affiliation. The practice of “open” Communion renders it difficult, if not impossible, for church discipline to be exercised in a way that honors the ministrations being carried out by those to whom the responsibility of spiritual care for a member of God’s flock has been entrusted (Heb. 13:17; cf. John 20:22-23; Acts 20:27-28; 1 Cor. 4:1-2).

- Theology and Practice of the Lord’s Supper, 1983, pp. 19-23.

Mueller and Kraus

“Because altar fellowship is the most intimate expression of confessional unity, those who commune at the Lutheran altar are those who are in complete confessional agreement and fellowship with the other communicants. This practice, referred to as close communion, is an evangelical expression of the Lutheran church’s love for the communicant and for Christ’s supper. We do not wish to allow those who are not members of our confessional fellowship to be misled or confused by their participation in the sacrament at our altars. As Fritz points out, “Abendmahlsgemeinschaft ist Glaubensgemeinschaft.”

- Pastoral Theology, St. Louis: CPH, 1990.

The Rev. Paul T. McCain

February 1997 edition