To Reaffirm that the Standard for Pastoral Admission to the Lord’s Supper remains Full Agreement in All Articles of Christian Doctrine.
WHEREAS, St. Paul in his first letter to the Corinthians says, “For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.” (I Cor. 11:26 ESV), denoting that our communion confesses and proclaims all that Christ’s death means and brings to us, and
WHEREAS, the substance of that confession and proclamation is inclusive of “all the articles of the faith as well as in the proper use of the holy sacraments” (FC, SD, X, 31), and
WHEREAS, St. Paul also instructs us that to participate (have koinonia) in an altar is to participate in what that altar stands for and brings them, when he writes, “Consider the people of Israel; are not those who eat the sacrifices participants in the altar?  What do I imply then?  That food offered to idols is anything or that an idol is anything?  No, I imply that what pagans sacrifice they offer to demons and not to God.  You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons.  You cannot partake of the table of the Lord and the table of demons.  Shall we provoke the Lord to jealousy?  Are we stronger than he?” (I Cor. 10:18-22 ESV), and
WHEREAS, great spiritual harm comes to those who do not recognize that they receive the very body and blood of Christ in the Lord’s Supper and therefore a pastor must exercise proper spiritual care (1 Cor. 4:1) in the admission of those coming to Christ’s altar as St. Paul writes, “Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty concerning the body and blood of the Lord.  Let a person examine himself, then, and so eat the bread and drink of the cup.  For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment on himself.” (I Cor. 11:27-29 ESV) and
WHEREAS, St. Paul writes that the Corinthian congregation is to fully agree with one another when he writes, “I appeal to you, brothers, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree, and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same judgment.”  (I Cor. 1:10 ESV), and
WHEREAS, our Lord Jesus Christ also says, “I do not ask for these only, [the apostles], but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.  The glory that you have given me I have given them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me.”  (John 17:20-23 ESV), and
WHEREAS, our Lutheran Confessions recognize that from the days of the Early Church Fathers proper pastoral care included admitting or denying admission to the Lord’s Supper, as when the Augsburg Confession says, “The Fathers before Gregory make no mention of any private Mass, [Communion].  Chrysostom says “that the priest stands daily before the altar, inviting some to the Communion and keeping back others.”  (AC XXIV, 35-37 - Dau/Bente), and
WHEREAS, C.F.W. Walther (First President of the LCMS) comments on I Corinthians 10:17, writing, “Accordingly, in that Christians eat of the one bread of the Sacrament, all become mystically, that is in a spiritual, moral, or figurative way, one body, and by the act of eating together a person is declared to be one in Christ with all Christians.  For as the bread consists of innumerably many particles of baked flour, so that it is impossible to separate these particles again from one another, even so are all Christians one in Christ through Communion and many thousand times more intimately bound together than even body and soul into one organism.  They are actually one.  One God dwells in them.  One Spirit rules in them.  They all have one Savior in them, and one Lord Jesus speaks from them.  And now consider what a grievous sin those commit who administer Communion to those who are, after all, of another faith and confession, and confess themselves to be one and brothers with them...Therefore one who goes to Holy Communion in a Lutheran church declares openly before the world:  I hold with this church, with the doctrine that is confessed here, and with all the confessors who belong here.  The pastor who administers the Sacrament to him declares the very same thing.” (C.F.W. Walther, Communion Fellowship, Essays For the Church, vol. 1, p. 215), and 
WHEREAS, The Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod has repeatedly reaffirmed that to administer the Lord’s Supper in accord with Christ’s institution is to do so admitting only properly instructed Lutherans to our Lutheran altars thus, requiring full agreement in all articles of doctrine prior to establishing fellowship at the altar (1967 Res. 2-19; 1983 Res. 3-12; 1986 Res. 3-08; 1995 Res. 3-08; 1998 Res. 3-05.), and
WHEREAS, many LCMS congregations today have sadly abandoned the standard of full doctrinal agreement for admission to the Lord’s Table by limiting that agreement only to a selected few doctrines, or by eliminating any limiting communion statement at all, or by opening the communion table to all baptized Christians, and the like, thus abdicating their pastoral oversight responsibility toward the spiritual wellbeing of those communing or proclaiming a unity in doctrine which does not exist, therefore be it
RESOLVED, that The Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod reaffirm that the standard for pastoral admission to the Lord’s Supper is full agreement in all articles of Christian doctrine.