"And He Gave Gifts to Men"

There prevails within visible Christendom today a remarkable indifference toward the public ministry. Some congregations intentionally go years without a called pastor, simply because they find it cheaper to line up weekly pulpit supply. Fewer and fewer Christian parents encourage their sons to consider entering the ministry, a fact reflected in the declining rates of enrollment at our seminaries. And what was once regarded by both Christians and non-Christians as a high calling is today trivialized by the every-member-a-minister movement. We have ministers of education, ministers of music, and ministers of youth’none of whom is a minister at all, at least not in the biblical sense of a man trained and specially called to preach the gospel and to administer the means of grace on behalf of and for the good of a Christian congregation. We have puppet ministries, book ministries, and even clown ministries. Could anyone infer from the church's contemporary practice that it officially regarded the pastoral office as a necessity and of divine origin?

But what is the debate about pastors and officers in the church really about? Pastors complaining about the diminished regard for the pastoral ministry often come across sounding like churchy versions of Rodney Dangerfield: "We pastors get no respect! No respect at all!" But at stake in changing attitudes toward the public ministry are not pastors' feelings. Nor is the fundamental concern a kind of balance of power. The ultimate issue is the power of God's Word.

Paul writes in Romans 10:

For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. But how are they to call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, "How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!" But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah says, "Lord, who has believed what he has heard from us?" So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.

The verses above make clear that it is the Word of Christ that creates saving faith. "Faith comes from hearing and hearing through the word of Christ." The apostle Paul knows nothing of what the Jesuit Karl Rahner called "anonymous Christians," but only Christians who have been called through the Word. The text says more than this; in fact it says that the entire source and origin of salvation depends on God's sending out a true minister of the Word. The Word that saves, then, is an external Word’a Word that comes to men from the outside and is brought and mediated to them by men. As Luther wrote in his Smalcald Articles (1537), "It must be firmly maintained that God gives no one his Spirit or grace apart from the external Word which goes before." (1) Luther's discussion of the ministry or office of preaching is fundamentally the insistence on the divine power of the Word that is written and read, spoken and heard.

In modern Protestant discussions concerning the pastoral ministry, there sometimes seem to be two utterly separate and even contradictory Luthers: one of whom says that the rights previously treated as the exclusive possession of the ordained actually belong to all Christians; and the other of whom insists that the office of the public ministry is divinely instituted and not to be usurped by ordinary Christians. But if one recognizes the central importance to the Lutheran Reformers of the power of the external Word to create and sustain faith in Christ, the seeming contradiction between a Luther who is all about the universal priesthood and a Luther insistent on the divine mandate for the public ministry disappears. It is not either/or. It is both.

A major accent of the Lutheran Reformation, of course, was the doctrine of the priesthood of all believers. Passages such as 1 Peter 2:9, in which St. Peter calls all Christians a "chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession," were cited by Luther and others to defend the principle that the priesthood belonged generally to all baptized believers and not exclusively to bearers of an ecclesiastical office. They were reacting against the Roman Catholic position that held that God had appointed under the new covenant, as he had in the old, a visible and external priesthood to mediate between the church and Christ, and by the sacrifice of the Mass to placate the wrath of the Father.

The Reformers pointed to the biblical testimony that the sacrifices of the Old Testament were fulfilled and completed by the one sacrifice of Christ, the true High Priest (see especially Heb. 7-9). "He is a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek" (Ps. 110:4). Christ performs the work of a priest by bearing our burden and interceding for us. As Christ's brothers by baptism, however, Christians receive a share in Christ's priestly office. What were the prerogatives of the priestly class of the Old Testament are, now that Christ has come, commonly held and exercised by every member of the community of believers. All who believe in the gospel are priests with Christ’members of a "royal priesthood, a holy nation." As John says in his Revelation, Christ has "made us a kingdom, priests to his God and Father" (1:6).

Luther, in his Second Exposition of Psalm 110 (1539), uses exalted language to describe the priestly status of the baptized: "Every baptized Christian is a priest already, not by appointment or ordination from the pope or any other man, but because Christ Himself has begotten him a priest and has given birth to him in Baptism." (2) "Every baptized Christian is, and ought to be, called a priest, just as much as St. Peter or St. Paul." (3)

But in what ways do Christians participate in Christ's priestly office? "In the prophet Malachi (2:7)," Luther says, "priests are called the angels of God….Hence it is the primary function of a priest, who is called, ordained, and anointed by God Himself, to teach people God's Word and doctrine, not his own….From this you can see that the preaching of the Gospel is really the true priestly office." (4) What is the principal activity of a Christian priest? It is to preach the gospel:

Every Christian has the right and the duty to teach, instruct, admonish, comfort, and rebuke his neighbor with the Word of God at every opportunity and whenever necessary. For example, father and mother should do this for their children and household; a brother, neighbor, citizen, or peasant for the other. Certainly one Christian may instruct and admonish another ignorant or weak Christian concerning the Ten Commandments, the Creed, or the Lord's Prayer. And he who receives such instruction is also under obligation to accept it as God's Word and publicly to confess it. (5)

And just as it is precisely in the preaching of God's Word’the speaking to another the Word of forgiveness through Christ Jesus’that a Christian exercises his rights as a royal priest, the ecclesiastical priest who fails to preach God's Word renounces his claim to the title. "The priestly office consists of three parts: to teach or preach God's Word, to sacrifice, and to pray….If anyone does not exercise these functions of the office, but still wants to be called a priest or pope, he does not deserve this beautiful and glorious name." (6) True, evangelical "priests" "attend to the ministry of the Word. They teach the gospel about the blessings of Christ, and they show that the forgiveness of sins takes place on account of Christ. This teaching offers solid consolation to consciences. In addition, they teach about the good works that God commands, and they speak about the value and use of the sacraments" (Apology, XXIV.48). (7) For their part, rather than deny the charge, the Roman Catholics protected the position that priests need not proclaim the gospel by cursing its critics: "If anyone says that those who do not preach are not priests at all, let him be anathema" (Trent, 23rd Session, "Decree Concerning Holy Orders," Canon 1).

The Ordained Ministry

And yet the emphasis placed by the Lutheran Reformers on the universal priesthood was animated not by a resentment against ecclesiastical hegemony per se, but by a concern for the proclamation of the Word. The gospel of Christ is the means by which men are saved. The medieval clergy, who had been entrusted with preaching that gospel and administering the means of grace, had instead obscured the proclamation of the gospel with an emphasis on works, had transformed the gift of the Lord's Supper into the sacrifice of the Mass, had burdened consciences with manmade laws and traditions, and had in many other ways withheld rather than delivered the Word that brought people to saving faith in Christ.

One of the ironies about the modern invocation of the priesthood of all believers is that it is often presented simply as a mandate for the kind of activities that Christians should already be engaged in. Pietists, for instance, talk about the obligation of Bible reading, though they have abandoned the belief that the words of Scripture are means by which the Holy Spirit kills and brings to life alive. In this light, Bible reading becomes almost a monastic discipline, a rote obligation to prove one is a Christian priest. Likewise, they speak of the obligation of spreading the gospel, while denying that any Christian could effectively proclaim the forgiveness of sins to another with a divine word of absolution. At the heart of the sixteenth-century debate over the priesthood of all believers, however, was the conviction that there is in fact power to the Word.

The evangelical insight that the Holy Spirit creates and sustains faith through the Word’a Word that comes to people from the outside’also finds practical reflection in what the Lutheran Reformers taught concerning the pastoral office. That all Christians are, by virtue of their baptism, royal priests does not preclude the necessity of investing special persons with the office of the public ministry. Christ himself commanded that there be a public ministry’that is, a particular office whose bearer executes the rights and privileges of the spiritual priesthood on behalf of the congregation: "When he ascended on high he led a host of captives, and he gave gifts to men….And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ" (Eph. 4:8, 11-12).

The heavenly Christ has given gifts to his church, among them, pastors and teachers for the equipping of the saints. Luther brings in Ephesians 4 in his commentary on Psalm 110:

Out of the multitude of Christians some must be selected who shall lead the others by virtue of the special gifts and aptitude which God gives them for the office. Thus St. Paul writes: "And His gifts were that some should be apostles, etc." For although we are all priests, this does not mean that all of us can preach, teach, and rule. Certain ones of the multitude must be selected and separated for such an office. And he who has such an office is not a priest because of his office but a servant of all the others, who are priests. (8)

More than a position established by the congregation for the sake of good order, the pastoral office was seen by Luther and the Reformers as established by God for the sake of the Word. As Melanchthon pointed out in The Treatise on the Power and Primacy of the Pope, "Among those gifts belonging to the church he lists pastors and teachers and adds that such are given for serving and building up the body of Christ." (9) How are the saints equipped? How is the body of Christ built up, whether recent converts or the established church? Through the preached Word of Christ: "To this end Christ sent the Holy Spirit; to this end Christ himself called and gave the Holy Spirit to the apostles and their successors, ministers, preachers and teachers, as Paul tells us; who are to exercise the Word, that the Word may resound always and everywhere in the world, reaching to children's children, and on down to future generations" (Luther, Church Postils, Sermon for the Sunday after Easter). (10)

Over the years, much ink has been spent arguing over Ephesians 4:11-12. Does the phrase "work of the ministry" go back to the main clause and therefore refer to a function of the apostles, prophets, evangelists, and pastor-teachers in verse 11? Or is "for the work of ministry" to be linked with the previous phrase "to equip the saints" so that the activity described is a function of the saints’that is, all Christians? Is ergon diakonias to be translated "the work of the ministry" or "works of service"? Luther, for his part, translated the passage, "He gave some to be apostles, etc., in order to prepare the saints for works of the office through which the body of Christ is to be built up."

Whether "ministry" or "service" refer back to "the apostles, etc." or to "the saints," the point remains that the gifts of the ascended Lord here are the men doing the proclamation of the gospel in order to equip the saints. The question of how the remaining clause gets translated is somewhat secondary. Insofar as the insistence that "ministry" be linked with "saints" is intended to diminish the importance of pastors and teachers, it is really an attempt to say the saints can be equipped in some other way of our own preference. And that is to reject the Lord's gifts.

Paul says that the prophets, apostles, evangelists, pastors and teachers are gifts of the ascended Lord. We might have expected him to say that Christ, after he ascended, gave the Holy Spirit. Instead, he says that he gave these men. This, however, is not a contradiction of the Lord's giving of the Holy Spirit. He gives the Holy Spirit through the preaching of the gospel, which takes place through the men God sends.

It was pointed out above that in contemporary discussions of the ministry, Luther is often pitted against himself. Which is it? Is the church a priesthood of all believers? Or does it depend on the office of a called minister? That the answer is both is tied directly to the Lutheran appreciation for the efficacy of the Word. In the Smalcald Articles, Luther writes, "We now want to return to the gospel, which gives guidance and help against sin in more than one way, because God is extravagantly rich in his grace." He goes on to list "the spoken word, in which the forgiveness of sins is preached to the whole world (which is the proper function of the gospel)"; "baptism"; "the holy Sacrament of the Altar"; "the power of the keys"; and "the mutual conversation and consolation of brothers and sisters." (11) There is but one gospel, and yet God, who is extravagantly rich in his grace, delivers it to us in many ways.

It is not for the Christian to pick his favorite means of grace and then despise the others or reject them as unnecessary. Christians should not set the pastoral office against the priesthood of all believers. Both the pastoral office and the mutual consolation of the brethren deliver God's grace to the hearer. They are two different things, to be sure. Not every Christian, though a priest, is or can be a pastor, as Luther acknowledges in his commentary on Psalm 110. The pastor (shepherd) bears a unique office, in which he proclaims the Word, by which all Christians are made, on behalf of the congregation (flock). His ministry is public not simply because he speaks out in the open, but because he speaks and administers on the basis of an acknowledged call on behalf of the community. And yet the Word of the gospel the pastor preaches is no more sure a Word than that which the individual Christian proclaims in the context of his or her vocation, "at every opportunity and whenever necessary." Both are the gospel, the power of God unto salvation.

It might be asked if it is possible for the church to survive in the absence of one of the means of grace or in the absence of called ministers. Churches in the time of the Soviet Union, for instance, because of the ban on Christianity and the criminalization of the priesthood, went years without an ordained minister serving them. The church did survive; Christians remained faithful during that time of persecution, sustained by the reading of Holy Scriptures, baptism, and the mutual consolation of the brethren. But one dare not justify on the basis of emergency situations the rejection of God's gifts under circumstances that do not require it. Apart from some necessity or cross imposed by Christ himself, to reject one or the other means of grace is to reject the gift of God. This most certainly applies to the pastoral office. It is as though, after hearing that the risen Lord has given one a certain gift, one says in response, "No thank you. I've got a better way."

What a tremendous effect Paul's word to the Ephesians should have on the church today! Ephesians 4 teaches that the gifts of the ascended Lord are the men doing the proclamation in order to equip the saints. Pastors and teachers are in the same list as apostles and prophets. We surely accept that the apostles and prophets were gifts from God. The pastor is not an apostle, and yet Holy Scripture declares that he is no less a gift from God than the apostle Paul. Pastors, do you hear that? Your ministry is given you by God Almighty! Lay Christians, do you hear that? Your pastor is God's gift to you, to equip you for eternal life!

The recognition that the key concern for Luther and the Reformation was the external Word, which alone has the power to effect salvation, helps us better understand why the Reformers were not caught up as so many are today in a kind of power struggle. For the Reformers, it was not a matter of carving out boundaries of power, as though pastors preaching the Word in public and individual Christians bearing witness to the Word in their vocations were mutually exclusive alternatives. The doctrine of the universal priesthood did not in any way diminish the necessity for or undermine the divine founding of the pastoral office.

And it should not do so for us today. Would that both pastors and congregations embraced as the Lutheran Reformation did the apostle's word in Ephesians 4 that the pastoral office is divinely given. The pastor holds a particular office, in which he delivers to those entrusted to his care that which alone can bring us to Christ and through him eternal life’the gospel. "What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you believed" (1 Cor. 3:5).