Encore Post: Every Sunday, we confess that we believe in the “communion of saints.” This phrase is not about the Lord’s Supper (yes, I know we sometimes call it Holy Communion!) It refers to the fellowship between members of their invisible church, both in the paradise with the Lord and with us on earth.
Theologians call Christians who have died trusting in Jesus for their salvation the Church Triumphant. They have been cleansed of their sin. God has dried every tear in their eyes. They praise the Lamb of God night and day with great joy. In Jesus, they have conquered sin, death and the power of the devil. On the last day, God will raise them from their graves and we will join them forever at the Marriage Feast of the Lamb.
The Christians in this world, who still fight every day with the Devil and his forces, the world and its pressures to worship other gods and the old Adam, are called the Church Militant. The word is Latin for “to fight like a soldier.” When the Christian dies, he or she enters the Church Triumphant. William W. How describes the relationship between the two states of the church well in his beloved hymn, “For All the Saints:”
O blest communion, fellowship divine
We feebly struggle, they in glory shine;
Yet all are one in Thee, for all are Thine.
Alleluia! Alleluia! (TLH 463 Stanza four)
When a Christian dies and enters eternal life, they no longer are aware of this world. We do not pray for them, because they no longer need prayer. We do not pray to them, because they do not answer, nor is there anything they can do for us. We pray to the Father and the Son and sometimes the Holy Spirit. They are where help can be found.
But there is a time when we pray with them. When we gather for worship, we are not just praying with those in the room with us. We pray together with the whole church — both the Church Militant around the world of all nations, races, languages and places, with Angels and Archangels, and the Church Triumphant, the whole company of heaven. The day will soon enough come — today, tomorrow, decades from now, or at the end of time — when we will worship in the presence of God as members of the Church Triumphant. For now, we join them every time we gather to praise God. It is why theologians often call Sunday the eighth day of the week. It is a time outside of time itself in eternity, when the clock stops for us until the pastor makes the sign of the cross at the end of worship and we realize about an hour has past in the world around us!
Rev. Robert E. Smith
Concordia Theological Seminary
Fort Wayne, Indiana
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While your post on the Communion of Saints expresses the common understanding of that term, there are those who disagree. Both Dr. Herman Sasse in his book “This is my Body”, Appendix II “Sanctorum Communio”; and Dr. Werner Elert in his book “Eucharist and Church Fellowship in the First Four Centuries”, Excursus II “The Origin of the Formula Sanctorum Communio” both have a different take. Basically, it boils down to the fact that the phrase does not refer to people at all, but to the “sacred things” used in communion.
I’ll go with the consensus. See Franz Pieper, Christian Dogmatics 3:410: “3. The Church is holy (sancta ecclesia, communion of saints), (a) because by faith in Christ all members possess the perfect righteousness of faith (iustitia fidei imputata). Phil. 3:9: “Not having mine own righteousness, which is of the Law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith”; (b) because all members have also a true, though imperfect, righteousness of life (iustitia vitae) as fruit of this faith. Rom. 6:14: “Sin shall not have dominion over you; for ye are not under the Law, but under grace.
AS I said in my original post, there are those who disagree. I prefer to agree with Elert and Sasse that each line in the creed refers to a different thing. The prior line “the holy catholic church” encompasses all that Pieper says about “communion of saints”. The next line must be about something different. Anyway, whatever the reality is, we should consider and confess both that there exists the holy church, a holy people, and holy things the church uses.
You are free to do so. I find it safer to stay with the consensus of the Church, whose confession it is.
Also: Chemnitz, Loci Theologici 3.17.1: In the [Apostles’] Creed there is also the addition of the words koinōnia tōn hagiōn (the communion of saints). This expression the Augsburg Confession, arts. 7 and 8 [Tappert pp. 32–33], interprets as the assembly and congregation of saints or true believers. And this can be understood of the true and living members of the church of Christ; likewise of the church which still struggles under the cross in this life and which already p 695 triumphs in heaven after [these] conflicts. See Heb. 12:22.
Luther in the Large Catechism likes the phrase “Community of saints” Tappert
Pages 416-417 “ I believe that there is on earth a little holy flock Or community of pure saints under one head,Christ.”
There are a variety of ways to translate the creed’s language. When the thing I quote is a well and often used and memorized text, I normally just go with the traditional translation. i.e. “Our Father, who art in Heaven, hallowed be thy name…”
Just a couple of editorial questions:
-should the spelling be “enchore” instead of enchord?
-did you mean “invisible” church instead of “visible?”
Thanks for your posts!
Thanks! Encord is definitely wrong. Where in the post should I look for the (in) visible issue?
Everytime, in Communion, I think of my husband, gone before me, marked with the sign of faith, and how we are once again together worshiping our Father and His Son . So wonderful. Thanks be to God