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The liturgy ensures that the gospel is never something inward, merely a thought or sentiment of the believer.
In The Rebirth of Orthodoxy, Thomas C. Oden defines orthodoxy as the “integrated biblical teaching as interpreted in its most consensual period” or, more simply, the “ancient consensual scriptural teaching.” [1] And of what, exactly, does orthodoxy (i.e., right belief) consist? If nothing else, from St. Luke to St. Augustine and beyond, orthodoxy consists of the Divine Liturgy because the liturgy preserves and promulgates “the apostles teaching, the communion in the breaking of the bread, and the prayers” (Acts 2:42). Christ designed the liturgy to be a gospel lockbox.
The Bible’s liturgy remains the means of divine grace behind and through which God Himself acts to save and sanctify by applying the redemptive benefits of Christ crucified and resurrected. In other words, the liturgy is God’s sacramental actions of (1) transformative self-giving and (2) justifying speech-acts through Jesus the Son in the power and presence of the Holy Spirit. In both Scripture and the ancient church, we learn that the liturgy given by God is not merely the vehicle of sanctification for believers but salvation for unbelievers.
Oden has given us a good starting point, but one that leaves a person a bit uncomfortable. Something ancient, something settled in terms of content and meaning, is not easily domesticated and only diminishes when altered. Remove something from the liturgy, and something is lost. Add something to it and another thing is displaced. The liturgy is to be preserved and respected because it possesses integrity, which is God’s own possession. Consequently, one cannot readily fit the settled Christian synthesis of revamped synagogue worship and a reconstituted Paschal meal (i.e., the liturgy of Acts 2:42) into modern categories of altar calls, skit evangelism, and technological mediums. Instead of a wax nose or “order of service” for experimentation, all Christians are called to get comfortable and be at home with the liturgy by which God protects and provides for his people.
The liturgy, as they saw it, was not a style of worship but a theology of Christological worship through which God is present for the sinner in the promise of the gospel.
For those committed to the principles of the Reformation, this “ancient consensual scriptural teaching” of the Patristic period is the creedal orthodoxy behind confessional orthodoxy and, as Martin Luther vigorously contended, has a greater degree of missional pudding-proof than means unbounded to the liturgy. This is why Luther and the Lutheran confessions are liturgical conservatives, not worship progressives. Indeed, Luther, Melanchthon, Jonas, Bugenhagen, Chemnitz, and even Hermann Sasse argued that within the ancient theology-laden liturgy, one finds God’s multifaceted means for efficacious missional enterprise. This is because the liturgy, as they saw it, was not a style of worship but a theology of Christological worship through which God is present for the sinner in the promise of the gospel.
The liturgy, then, preserves the Christological determination of saving sinners and transforming saints. Christ determines the liturgy, both content and context. In fact, the Reformation started because of liturgical misuse and abuse. Luther recognized, from Scripture, that Christ’s determination of the liturgy required that it be a gospel lockbox. The problem as he saw it with the sacrament of penance was that Rome placed a law-obstacle (“works of satisfaction”) right in the middle of the liturgical rite that Christ Himself determined to be gospel (John 20:22-23). The same could be said with respect to Holy Communion: the extra-biblical obligation to believe in the doctrine of transubstantiation superseded the Christ-determined gospel of his real presence given “for the forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation” (VI Chief Part, Small Catechism). The Church had no authority to obstruct Christ’s gospel action with its own canon-law requirements. The Reformation, in the first instance, was a liturgical reformation. Luther recognized the liturgy as gospel action and that Christ intended the liturgy to be a gospel safebox.
We, therefore, get it wrong when we think of “orthodoxy” (true and biblical Christianity) as if it were only about a canon of right belief, only about doctrine. It is not and never was. Orthodoxy is comprised and expressed through God’s liturgical actions, all of which, in the new covenant, are gospel gifts to us. Orthodoxy languishes as a dead letter outside of the living liturgy.
Law dressed up as gospel stinks of death, and the dung of human sin and feigned righteousness is sniffed out.
Philipp Melanchthon had no time for any doctrine that did not keep the gospel good news. For him, new covenant doctrines were only those that met a dual criterion: they must extol the necessity of Christ’s blood atonement and comfort the soul therewith. But it is that last clause—and comfort the soul—where the gospel is set to action. The word (or biblical doctrine) must be performed. And here, necessarily, enters the liturgy as gospel action. The right news is “ritely” performed. Luther referred to Melanchthon’s dual criterion as a theological dung detector that goes off when an alleged new covenant doctrine consists of an “If you/then God” scenario. Law dressed up as gospel stinks of death, and the dung of human sin and feigned righteousness is sniffed out.
The sweet scent of orthodoxy says, “When God/then you” or, as in Ephesians 2:4, “But God/now you.” The Wittenberg tandem was making the point that new covenant orthodoxy consists of doctrines within a liturgy that is exclusively gospel-oriented; and if gospel-oriented, then inherently missional for the ingathering of sinners and the sanctifying of saints. For in the gospel means of grace, God holds out and applies his promised gifts in Christ to be received in faith.
The liturgy ensures that the gospel is never something inward, merely a thought or sentiment of the believer. But neither is the gospel an in-house possession reserved for scholastic debate or popular piety. Instead, the liturgy as God’s gospel action is always outward.
It goes out from the Church to its people but also to the marketplace, establishing the forum of salvation within which the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit bring a rule of grace and peace to bear on those in need of justification and regeneration. For the baptized, it brings the realities and expectations of the kingdom of Christ. Simply put, the gospel is for proclamation and application or—to say the same thing—that which orthodoxy does. The new covenant liturgy thus ensures gospel proclamation and administration in word and sacrament. In this way, the liturgy itself is inherently missional because orthodoxy, by its very nature, proclaims good news to the entire world and it is also transformative for the Christian because Christ gives himself through it. Pastors, therefore, have a mandate to cultivate within the people of God a deep devotion to the Christ of the liturgy, indeed, the Christ of the Eucharist.
Whether in the public reading of the gospels, preaching the gospel of the kingdom, pronouncing holy absolution, baptizing, partaking in Holy Communion, or undergoing Holy Matrimony, the Divine Liturgy is orthodoxy in the act of mission and transmission. God, it seems, has engineered orthodoxy with content that cannot be anything else but missional because its message is always good news for the public domain. Since Christ determines the content and context of the liturgy, we possess the comfort of knowing he’s engaged in gospel action.
[1] Thomas C. Oden, The Rebirth of Orthodoxy: Signs of New Life in Christianity (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 2003), 29.
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