Altlutheraner

On its website, The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod teaches that “The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod does not teach, nor has it ever taught, that any individual Pope as a person, is to be identified with the Antichrist.” In fact, it calls its distinction between the Papacy and the Pope, according to which individual Popes “could be Christians themselves,” one “which the Lutheran Confessors made.”¹ Now, if this is the case, that the Lutheran confessors distinguished between the Pope and the Papacy such that they acknowledge the possibility of a Christian Pope, surely Luther, Walther, and Pieper must have taught this distinction in their writings.

But in truth none of them knew of this clever distinction of the LCMS. For Luther in his Smalcald Articles (Part II, Art. IV, 10) teaches “that the Pope is the very Antichrist.” And in his book Against the Roman Papacy he says (AE 41, 333): “it [the Papacy] is a blasphemous, accursed office, so that even if one should wish to be pious, one would still have to be a blasphemer and enemy of Christ, because of one’s office.” Walther, our incomparable teacher, second only to Luther, said concerning this distinction that “A clumsier sophistry has hardly ever been made” (Lutheraner 23, 157). And Pieper, the great dogmatician, has a mighty rebuttal of the modern LCMS on this point in Christian Dogmatics, III, 468–469.²

If one would appeal to Melanchthon’s qualified subscription to the Smalcald Articles in order to justify departing from the doctrine of the Lutheran Confessions and the greatest teachers of the Lutheran Church in this matter, then he must be confronted with the remark of Johann Benedikt Carpzov (quoted by Bente in his Historical Introductions, second edition, pp. 125–126): “This subscription [of Melanchthon] is not a part of the Book of Concord [it does not contain the doctrine advocated by the Book of Concord], nor was it approved by Luther; moreover, it was later on repudiated by Philip himself.”

1. It will not go badly if the entire section from the website is brought forth here, but it will rather show strikingly the LCMS’s rejection of its fathers. The lying section on the Pope reads in its entirety (emphasis mine):
“The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod does not teach, nor has it ever taught, that any individual Pope as a person, is to be identified with the Antichrist. The historic view of LCMS on the antichrist is summarized as follows by the Synod’s Theological Commission:
“The New Testament predicts that the church throughout its history will witness many antichrists (Matt. 24:5, 23-24; Mark 13:6, 21-22; Luke 21:8; 1 John 2:18, 22, 4:3; 2 John 7). All false teachers who teach contrary to Christ’s Word are opponents of Christ and, insofar as they do so, are anti-Christ.
“However, the Scriptures also teach that there is one climactic ‘Anti-Christ’ (Dan. 7:8, 11, 20-21, 24-25, 11:36-45; 2 Thess. 2; 1 John 2:18, 4:3; Rev. 17-18) … Concerning the historical identity of the Antichrist, we affirm the Lutheran Confessions’ identification of the Antichrist with the office of the papacy whose official claims continue to correspond to the Scriptural marks listed above.
“It is important, however, that we observe the distinction which the Lutheran Confessors made between the office of the pope (papacy) and the individual men who fill that office. The latter could be Christians themselves. We do not presume to judge any person’s heart.
“Also, we acknowledge the possibility that the historical form of the Antichrist could change. Of course, in that case another identified by these marks would rise.
“In a footnote, the Commission adds:
“To the extent that the papacy continues to claim as official dogma the canons and decrees of the Council of Trent which expressly anathematizes, for instance, the doctrine ‘that justifying faith is nothing else than trust in divine mercy which remits sins for Christ’s sake, or that it is that trust alone by which we are justified,’ the judgment of the Lutheran Confessional writings that the papacy is the Antichrist holds. At the same time, of course, we must recognize the possibility, under God’s guidance, that contemporary discussions and statements (e.g., 1983 U.S. Lutheran-Roman Catholic dialogue statement on ‘Justification by Faith’) could lead to a revision of the Roman Catholic position regarding Tridentine dogma.”

2. Dr. Pieper’s quotation from Luther shows the position of the Missouri Synod even into the twentieth century. He writes:
“This fact [that all the marks of the Antichrist enumerated in 2 Thessalonians 2 fit all Popes] is expressed still more clearly by Luther [than by Joh. Adam Osiander], who shows that here we are concerned not with the viciousness of the Pope, but of the Papacy, the iniquity not of the person, but of the office. ‘There is a vast difference,’ he says, ‘between the sovereignty which the Pope has and all other sovereignties in the whole world. To put up with these, be they good or bad, may do no harm, but the Papacy is a sovereignty that exterminates faith and the Gospel. … Therefore what we condemn is not the wickedness of the sovereign, but the wickedness of the sovereignty, for it is so constituted that it cannot be administered by a pious, upright sovereign, but only by one who is an enemy of Christ.’ (St. L. XVIII, 1530; Opp. v. a. V, 357.)”