The public ministry is a divine appointment or ordinance. This follows, as we have shown -
From the practise of the holy apostles, Acts 14, 23, and from their command to their successors to ordain elders, or bishops, Titus 1, 5, so that ministers or pastors (πρεσβύτεροι, ἐπίσκοποι) were regularly appointed at all places where local churches had been established, Acts 20, 17. 18; Titus 1, 5;
b) From the description of the personal qualifications of the public ministers, 1 Pet. 5, 3; 1 Tim. 3, 2-7;
c) From the description of their functions and duties, Titus 1, 9-11; 1 Tim. 3, 5; Acts 20, 28. 21; 1 Pet. 5, 1 ff.; Heb. 13, 17; etc.;
d) From the distinction which Scripture makes between the elders, or bishops, and all other believers, 1 Cor. 12, 28. 29;
e) From the honor and dignity which are ascribed to all who officially teach the Word, Heb. 13, 7; 1 Cor. 4, 1.
We repeat this for the sake of emphasis, since this doctrine, so clearly taught in Scripture and so emphatically set forth by our Lutheran dogmaticians, has been denied also within the external Lutheran Church.
The claim has been made by some, e. g., Hoefling, that the ministry of the Word in its concrete form (Pfarramt) is of human origin or a mere "historical development." They contend that the appointment of elders (πρεσβύτεροι) in the Church, Acts 14, 23; Titus 1, 5 ff., had only a temporary or local significance, since the peculiar conditions prevailing in those early times made bishops, or presbyters, necessary.
To this argument we reply that such a limitation of the apostolic appointment of ministers is nowhere suggested in the text. On the contrary, elders, or bishops, were put in charge of the various churches because it is God's appointment that there should be elders, or bishops (ministers, pastors), who "take heed unto the flock and feed the Church of God," Acts 20, 28-31; "rule well and labor in the Word and doctrine," 1 Tim. 5, 17; "labor among the brethren and are over the believers in the Lord and admonish them," 1 Thess. 5, 12. 13; "watch over their souls as they that must give account," Heb. 13, 17; etc.
Hence it is not optional with believers to organize local churches and to establish the office of the public ministry in their midst, but this must be done because of Christ's institution and ordinance. So also Dr. Walther taught: "The ministry, or pastoral office (Pfarramt), is no human institution, but an office which has been instituted by God Himself." (Kirche und Amt, 193. 211.) The Apology is in full agreement with Scripture when it writes: "Ministerium Verbi habet mandatum Dei."1
It is true, Hoefling and his associates admitted that the public ministry is God's institution and ordinance in the sense that everything that is "reasonable," "proper," and "morally necessary'' may be called a divine ordinance, 1 Cor. 14, 40. But he denied that the public ministry is divinely commanded or appointed (cp. Grundmetze ev. luth. Kirckenverfassung, Erlangen, 3d ed., 1853) since it resulted merely from an "inner necessity" ("mit inner Notwendigkeit'). For this reason he also denied the conclusions which our Lutheran dogmaticians have rightly drawn from such p8.88ages as Acts 14, 23; Titus 1, 5, etc.
However, Hoefling's argument was not based upon any clear Scripture-passage, but upon the unwarranted inference that, if the public ministry is regarded as divinely commanded, then a legalistic or ceremonial element is transferred from the Old to the New Testament, which, however, is not a covenant of commands or laws, but of Christian freedom, Gal. 5, 1-7, and as such incapable of legalistic elements.
But this argument defeats itself by proving too much; for, consistently applied, it would abrogate all divine institutions and ordinances of the New Testament, so that Christians could not be commanded to baptize, to celebrate the Lord's Supper, to preach the Gospel, to follow after holiness, and the like. In that case the New Testament Church ultimately would have to adopt Antinomianism as its only alternative.
The error of Hoefling and his followers originated in their opposition to Romanizing Lutherans (Muenchmeyer, Loehe, Kliefoth, Vilmar, etc.), who claimed that the public ministry is a divine institution in the sense that it has been directly transmitted from the apostles to their successors as a ministerial estate (geistlicher Stand) through the rite of ordination.
Hoefling's opponents thus presented as Lutheran doctrine a caricature of the Lutheran doctrine of the divine institution of the public ministry. In addition, they spoke as though the means of grace were truly efficacious only if they are applied by persons who through the rite of ordination have received their office directly from the holy apostles (cp. Romanism; Episcopalianism: the apostolic succession).
Hoefling correctly rejected this Romanizing doctrine, but erred on the other hand by denying the mandatum Dei of the public ministry. In order to deny Loehe's immediate divine establishment of the public ministry, he regarded it as necessary to deny also its mediate divine establishment, or the fact that it is God's institution and ordinance that Christian believers should confer upon called and ordained ministers the public administration of the Office of the Keys.
In the controversy, men like Stroebel (Zeitschr. f. Zuth. Th. und K., 1852, p. 699) correctly pointed out that it is indeed the divine right under certain conditions even the unavoidable duty of every baptized Christian as a spiritual priest to preach the Word of God to his neighbor, to administer the Sacraments, to forgive his sins, to lay on hands, etc., but that he should exercise this right only in case of need on account of God's established order, with which He is well pleased; otherwise he should make use of the office of pastors who are rightly called by Christ through the congregation. Christian congregations should consider that they must not discard the spiritual office (the pastoral office) instituted by Christ nor allow it to be usurped by a foolish mob or by ecclesiastical or worldly tyrants, but that they should always confer it on capable, faithful, and pious men until the Lord's second coming .... For it is an illogical conclusion to say: "All who have not received the spiritual office the pastoral office directly from the Lord, but through the congregation have received it from men and are therefore servants of men." (Cp. Christl. Dogmatik, III, 508-512; also Lehre una Wehre, 1870, p.161 ff. 174; 1855, p.l ff.)
Apology, one expects the Apology to use the same words, but unfortunately it does not: "For the ministry of the Word has God’s command and glorious promises". It should be noted that The Apology of the Augsburg Confession writes this in connection with "the Number and Use of the Sacraments_. Last remark about the last quotation in latin: This is probably from the original latin version of the Apology. If so the translations in English should be different in both books. ↩