1 00:00:00,833 --> 00:00:06,266 Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord Jesus Christ. 2 00:00:08,033 --> 00:00:15,633 One of the risks that you run if you attend chapel at a seminary is that sometimes you 3 00:00:15,633 --> 00:00:20,033 have to listen to sermons that drift in a little bit of an academic direction. 4 00:00:21,366 --> 00:00:26,833 Especially if the sermon is part of a series on catechesis, which this one is. 5 00:00:29,000 --> 00:00:32,966 The topic for today is the church. 6 00:00:34,333 --> 00:00:40,533 And what I'd like to do actually is to take a look at an ecclesiological crisis that occurred 7 00:00:40,533 --> 00:00:47,233 in the fourth century to shed some light on what it means to be the church for us today. 8 00:00:48,033 --> 00:00:52,066 Now there is a scripture reading assigned for today, so let me start with that. 9 00:00:52,066 --> 00:01:01,333 From Acts 2, that they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and fellowship to the breaking of bread and the prayers. 10 00:01:02,266 --> 00:01:08,133 And then Luke goes on to say that the apostles did miracles, that the believers shared their belongings in common, 11 00:01:08,266 --> 00:01:14,333 that they cared for the needy, their hearts were filled with joy and gladness, and everyone liked them. 12 00:01:17,000 --> 00:01:23,833 So it would seem that after Pentecost that Jerusalem was a kind of Garden of Eden for the church. 13 00:01:24,533 --> 00:01:25,600 I mean this is paradise. 14 00:01:27,233 --> 00:01:32,533 But as was the case in the original paradise, it didn't last that long. 15 00:01:33,133 --> 00:01:39,400 Because all you have to do is glance at 1 Corinthians to see the divisions that arose in the church. 16 00:01:39,400 --> 00:01:47,766 The sexual immorality, brothers taking their brothers to court, judging each other on whether to eat meat or not. 17 00:01:47,800 --> 00:01:51,700 They messed up the celebration of the Lord's Supper, they denied the resurrection. 18 00:01:53,766 --> 00:01:59,800 And so when we read of such things, we are naturally filled with a sense of indignation. 19 00:02:00,833 --> 00:02:08,600 And an impulse to say this is not how the church is supposed to look, we want to go back to paradise. 20 00:02:10,100 --> 00:02:13,766 To the church as it looked in Acts chapter 2. 21 00:02:16,766 --> 00:02:20,666 But this is precisely where we need to be careful. 22 00:02:22,166 --> 00:02:26,566 Where we need to learn the lessons of the 4th century. 23 00:02:29,166 --> 00:02:31,000 So what happened in the 4th century? 24 00:02:32,333 --> 00:02:34,266 Well it starts with a persecution. 25 00:02:35,200 --> 00:02:39,733 In about the year 300 you have the very first empire wide persecution of the church. 26 00:02:40,133 --> 00:02:43,500 Now there were local persecutions from the very beginning. 27 00:02:43,766 --> 00:02:48,633 But this is the first time that you have a persecution that extends throughout the Roman Empire. 28 00:02:50,333 --> 00:02:54,866 And in this case what the Romans were trying to do is not so much kill the Christians. 29 00:02:55,766 --> 00:03:03,766 But the Roman soldiers would show up at the church in order to confiscate the scriptures. 30 00:03:05,633 --> 00:03:09,733 They would tell the priest, hand over the holy books. 31 00:03:12,666 --> 00:03:17,500 Now parenthetically, this is one reason why it was really important to have a canon. 32 00:03:18,233 --> 00:03:25,433 That is an authoritative list of which books are sacred scripture and which ones are not. 33 00:03:25,500 --> 00:03:29,033 Because if you're faced with a Roman soldier who's telling you to hand over the Bible, 34 00:03:30,766 --> 00:03:32,733 well you could give him the Shepherd of Hermes. 35 00:03:33,866 --> 00:03:36,966 I mean he's a Roman soldier, what does he know? 36 00:03:38,866 --> 00:03:45,666 But as it turned out, some priests resisted the persecution. 37 00:03:47,500 --> 00:03:49,466 But others caved in. 38 00:03:50,500 --> 00:03:55,300 There were others who actually handed over the holy books to the Roman soldiers. 39 00:03:56,466 --> 00:04:01,433 And once that persecution had ended, it left the church in crisis. 40 00:04:02,333 --> 00:04:06,233 Because what are we going to do? We've got all these priests who denied the Lord. 41 00:04:07,833 --> 00:04:09,433 I mean what do you do with that? 42 00:04:11,433 --> 00:04:15,766 And in particular there was a very strict group of Christians in North Africa. 43 00:04:15,766 --> 00:04:20,933 We call them the Donatists because they followed a man named Donatus. 44 00:04:22,666 --> 00:04:29,866 And their view was that these priests have by definition lost the Holy Spirit. 45 00:04:31,466 --> 00:04:36,833 They are traditors, which is a Latin word that means someone who hands something over 46 00:04:36,833 --> 00:04:40,766 because they handed over the scripture, but it also means they're traitors. 47 00:04:42,633 --> 00:04:49,766 And they have lost the Holy Spirit. So not only that, but anyone that they baptized isn't really baptized. 48 00:04:52,233 --> 00:04:57,833 And the argument is really simple here. If you don't have the Holy Spirit, then you can't give the Holy Spirit. 49 00:05:00,633 --> 00:05:05,233 Now their main opponent was another North African named St. Augustine. 50 00:05:06,533 --> 00:05:12,800 And Augustine's view was that baptism does not depend on the holiness of the one who administers it, 51 00:05:12,866 --> 00:05:15,033 but rather on the power of the word of God. 52 00:05:17,100 --> 00:05:23,666 And this is actually the view that's expressed in the Augsburg Confession in Article 8 when it says 53 00:05:23,666 --> 00:05:29,233 that the sacraments, even though they are administered by unrighteous priests, are nevertheless efficacious. 54 00:05:29,933 --> 00:05:32,900 We basically endorse Augustine's view here. 55 00:05:32,900 --> 00:05:41,033 Now this is how Donatism is usually described. The controversy is described as a controversy about baptism. 56 00:05:44,133 --> 00:05:52,033 But underneath the two views of baptism are two very different views of the Church. 57 00:05:53,800 --> 00:06:00,033 One is the Donatus view, which emphasizes that the Church should be pure. 58 00:06:01,466 --> 00:06:08,700 And so we cannot tolerate having these traitor priests running around baptizing people when they don't even have the Holy Spirit. 59 00:06:08,833 --> 00:06:09,766 We need a clean house. 60 00:06:12,533 --> 00:06:19,933 The other is St. Augustine's view, which is a view that focuses on grace. 61 00:06:20,900 --> 00:06:25,866 That the Church is a place for sinners to come and to be healed by God's grace. 62 00:06:28,566 --> 00:06:33,700 Now when I put it that way, it's pretty obvious that Lutherans are going to side with St. Augustine. 63 00:06:36,133 --> 00:06:39,266 And yet I think the spirit of Donatism is still very much alive. 64 00:06:40,833 --> 00:06:47,700 And so I'm going to give you some examples of attitudes that might reflect a spirit of Donatism. 65 00:06:50,833 --> 00:06:53,000 We are strict in their lax. 66 00:06:56,066 --> 00:07:03,466 And I think the word strict because I've on a number of occasions seen the word strict being used to describe the Missouri Synod. 67 00:07:04,333 --> 00:07:08,433 Now this is admittedly by outsiders. I don't know how we feel about the adjectives strict. 68 00:07:09,000 --> 00:07:13,033 But I think sometimes we can think of ourselves in these categories. We're strict and their lax. 69 00:07:14,833 --> 00:07:21,766 And if that happens, it may be that the spirit of Donatism is hovering in the environment. 70 00:07:23,633 --> 00:07:30,533 Or maybe we wring our hands at the horrible state of the culture and at the inroads that the culture is making on the Church. 71 00:07:30,666 --> 00:07:34,033 Because the sin of the culture is polluting the Church. 72 00:07:36,766 --> 00:07:40,066 And the spirit of Donatism is whispering in your ear. 73 00:07:43,500 --> 00:07:48,633 Or we look at the state of the Church and we can't possibly be the Church in the way we are now. 74 00:07:48,633 --> 00:07:57,066 Because we have to return to paradise. To be pure like the Church of Acts 2 or the Church of Wittenberg. Pick your paradise. 75 00:07:58,133 --> 00:08:01,033 But we have to be pure in order to be the Church. 76 00:08:03,066 --> 00:08:04,233 Donatus would be proud. 77 00:08:07,033 --> 00:08:10,966 So maybe you've experienced the temptation to think like this. 78 00:08:12,000 --> 00:08:14,833 Or maybe not. But how about this one? 79 00:08:16,300 --> 00:08:17,100 Pure doctrine. 80 00:08:21,933 --> 00:08:28,466 Now I believe that our Church body's emphasis on pure doctrine is one of our greatest strengths. 81 00:08:30,666 --> 00:08:34,766 And therefore, it is also one of our greatest temptations. 82 00:08:36,233 --> 00:08:43,433 I had a student who came to us from the Evangelicals who made the observation that Evangelicals want to know if you are saved. 83 00:08:45,400 --> 00:08:47,733 Lutherans want to know if you're right. 84 00:08:51,766 --> 00:08:52,900 Are we okay with that? 85 00:08:54,266 --> 00:09:03,566 Is it possible that a concern for purity, even in the form of pure doctrine, could manifest the spirit of Donatism? 86 00:09:06,166 --> 00:09:07,433 Well it depends. 87 00:09:09,066 --> 00:09:12,500 In systematics we learn that you're supposed to distinguish between law and gospel. 88 00:09:12,733 --> 00:09:17,966 And one of the ways that we do that is asking Kolb's famous question, why do you want to know? 89 00:09:19,566 --> 00:09:23,166 So in this case, why do you want purity? 90 00:09:26,800 --> 00:09:31,766 And whether it's pure morals or pure doctrine, why do you want purity? What good is it? 91 00:09:33,666 --> 00:09:43,066 And the way you answer that question is going to reveal whether you are animated by a spirit of Donatism or animated by the Holy Spirit. 92 00:09:45,766 --> 00:09:49,533 The spirit of Donatism would say, I want to be pure! 93 00:09:50,400 --> 00:09:59,166 Because my purity is a badge of identity that distinguishes me from those bad people out in the world or those bad people in the other part of the Church. 94 00:10:01,766 --> 00:10:09,766 I marvel at how people could be so wicked or blind or stupid as to take contrary positions to the truth. 95 00:10:12,466 --> 00:10:15,833 The spirit of Donatism operates from a posture of contempt. 96 00:10:18,633 --> 00:10:25,866 So, how could the Evangelicals be so blind that they cannot see the doctrine of the sacraments laid out clearly in scripture? 97 00:10:25,866 --> 00:10:34,066 How could the Pietists be so insane as to base their assurance of salvation on some interior experience? 98 00:10:34,966 --> 00:10:40,133 How could the Liberals allow the morality of the culture to infiltrate the Church? 99 00:10:41,566 --> 00:10:45,033 They are traitors, traditors. 100 00:10:47,066 --> 00:10:50,866 The spirit of Donatism operates from a posture of contempt. 101 00:10:53,433 --> 00:10:58,833 But the Holy Spirit wants purity as well. 102 00:10:59,533 --> 00:11:06,200 I mean, after all, Luther tells us in the large catechism that the reason he is called Holy Spirit is because he makes us holy. 103 00:11:08,066 --> 00:11:12,333 But the Holy Spirit operates from a posture of compassion. 104 00:11:14,333 --> 00:11:20,066 Why do you want purity? Why do you want people to live a chaste and decent life in word and deed? 105 00:11:21,633 --> 00:11:26,900 Because that's how God designed them and you want people to flourish as human beings. 106 00:11:27,433 --> 00:11:29,533 Why do you want pure doctrine? 107 00:11:31,766 --> 00:11:37,533 Because pure doctrine is the word of Jesus that he gave to the Church. It's our treasure that we guard. 108 00:11:39,333 --> 00:11:43,500 At its base, it is the promise of forgiveness of sins. 109 00:11:44,833 --> 00:11:49,566 And because of the magnitude of our sins, it's all we've got. 110 00:11:50,466 --> 00:11:55,233 It's our life. It's our only hope. And so of course we want to hold on to it. 111 00:11:55,466 --> 00:12:01,633 And we want to reject doctrines that threaten to obscure this promise that gives us life. 112 00:12:03,933 --> 00:12:12,133 And so when threatened by a spirit of Donatism, I think the correct course is just to realize what is the true nature of the Church to begin with. 113 00:12:12,500 --> 00:12:17,333 The Church is the place where you go to receive forgiveness. 114 00:12:20,233 --> 00:12:26,833 And this is outlined for us in the Augsburg Confession. If you take Articles 4 through 7 as a chunk, 115 00:12:28,233 --> 00:12:31,300 and you can actually see this a little better if you read them backwards. 116 00:12:32,333 --> 00:12:39,933 So Article 7 defines the Church as the believers who are gathered around word and sacrament. 117 00:12:41,033 --> 00:12:42,333 Well how do you get word and sacrament? 118 00:12:43,366 --> 00:12:49,400 Article 5 tells us, well God instituted the office of preaching, giving the Gospel and the sacraments. 119 00:12:51,466 --> 00:13:01,366 And why did He do that? In order to obtain the faith that is described in Article 4, which is our righteousness before God. 120 00:13:02,133 --> 00:13:06,833 So justification is the very heart of the Lutheran definition of the Church. 121 00:13:09,400 --> 00:13:20,900 And so the way to be delivered from the spirit of Donatism is to know and believe that you are part of this Church. 122 00:13:22,633 --> 00:13:28,533 Not because you are pure, but because you are forgiven. Amen.