The Church and the Office of the Holy Ministry

Thesis II — The preaching office or the pastoral office is not a human institution but an office that God Himself has established.

PART TWO – CONCERNING THE HOLY PREACHING OFFICE OR THE PASTORAL OFFICE

Thesis I The holy preaching office or pastoral office is an office distinct from the office of priest, which all believers have.

Every Christian for the sake of his salvation is in duty bound to acknowledge and adhere to orthodox congregations and orthodox preachers, wherever he can find such.

To obtain salvation, only fellowship in the invisible Church, to which alone all the glorious promises regarding the Church were originally given, is absolutely necessary.

Thesis VIII Although God gathers for Himself a holy church of elect at a place where His Word is not taught in its complete purity and the Sacraments are not administered altogether according to the institution of Jesus Christ, if only God’s Word and the Sacraments are not denied entirely but both essentially remain, nevertheless every believer is bound, at the peril of losing his salvation, to flee all false teachers, avoid all heterodox congregations or sects, and confess and adhere to orthodox congregations and their orthodox preachers wherever such may be found.

A. Also in heterodox and heretical churches there are children of God, and also there the true Church is made manifest by the pure Word and the Sacraments that still remain.

B. Every believer for the sake of his salvation must flee all false teachers, and avoid fellowship with heterodox congregations or sects.

C. Every Christian for the sake of his salvation is in duty bound to acknowledge and adhere to orthodox congregations and orthodox preachers, wherever he can find such.

Thesis VII As visible fellowships that still have the Word and the Sacraments essentially according to God’s Word bear the name “church” because of the true invisible Church of genuine believers that is found in them, so also they possess the authority that Christ has given to His whole Church on account of the true invisible Church hidden in them, even if there were only two or three [believers].

Thesis IV It is to this true Church of believers and saints that Christ gave the Keys of the kingdom of heaven, and it is the proper and only possessor and bearer of the spiritual, divine, and heavenly gifts, rights, authority, offices, and the like that Christ has procured and are found in His Church.

Thesis V Although the true Church in the proper sense of the word is in its essence invisible, nevertheless its existence can be (definitely) recognizable, namely, by the marks of the pure preaching of God’s Word and the administration of the Sacraments according to Christ’s institution.

Thesis III The Church in the proper sense of the word is invisible.

Thesis IV It is to this true Church of believers and saints that Christ gave the Keys of the kingdom of heaven, and it is the proper and only possessor and bearer of the spiritual, divine, and heavenly gifts, rights, authority, offices, and the like that Christ has procured and are found in His Church.

Thesis I The Church in the proper sense of the word is the congregation of saints, that is, the entirety of all those who, called out of the lost and condemned human race by the Holy Spirit through the Word, truly believe in Christ and by faith are sanctified and incorporated in Christ.

Thesis II To the Church in the proper sense of the word belongs no wicked person, no hypocrite, no unregenerate person, no heretic.

¹ That we may obtain this faith, the Ministry of Teaching the Gospel and administering the Sacraments was instituted. For through the Word and Sacraments, as through instruments, ² the Holy Ghost is given, who works faith; where and when it pleases God, in them that hear ³ the Gospel, to wit, that God, not for our own merits, but for Christ’s sake, justifies those who believe that they are received into grace for Christ’s sake.