The Criteria of Communion Part 5

Let's pray, and then we will get started. Lord Jesus, again, as we study the doctrines related to the Lord's Supper, we pray that through your Holy Spirit we may rightly understand, believe, and confess, and do according to what you have revealed there.

We ask in Jesus' name. Amen. Okay, so you'll note that we've been working our way on a study on what makes a valid sacrament when it comes to the Lord's Supper. And we're to the portion of my theses where we're going to be dealing with some of the bad arguments that have been put forward in relation to using the medium of the internet for the purpose of serving people who are joined together in their homes for the purpose of church.

We've had a wonderful weekend here at Kongsvinger with our homecoming on the prairie, and it's sad that not everybody was able to join us. In fact, I'm looking on the screen looking for Stephen Elliot, going, what is going on here with Stephen Elliot?

But he's right there. He's right there. I'm not projecting. I should project. Hang on a second here. Yeah, thanks for the reminder. Let's see here. Yeah, we're almost there, so I've got to hit something on my screen here so that I can project.

As if Roseboro has a problem doing that. Okay, hang on a second here. Let's see what this does here. All right, here we go. We're going to screen mirror to the great room. Can you all see that? Yeah, I saw Prophecy Bingo for a second, and I got really nervous.

Okay.

The Verba of Institution and the Validity of the Sacrament

So as we've been studying this, we'll note that we've talked about what is it that makes it a valid sacrament. It is not the pastor or his speaking or his words that make it a valid sacrament. It is the words of Christ, the original words of institution.

We pointed out that the words of institution used in communion, we call that the verba, and I've said that there's one verba that ruled them all, and that's Christ's. So you'll note that your pastor doesn't make it the Lord's Supper.

There was nothing super special about my seminary education that changed me, or we didn't learn any magical incantations that make it the Lord's Supper, and when I was ordained, that did not indelibly change my character, which makes it possible for me to perform the act of consecrating bread and wine.

No, it's Christ who consecrates, and so you'll note that that's an important aspect of it. We also noted that the Internet is a medium. The Internet's technically not a place. We live in places, and so it's been wonderful this past weekend because a lot of the people who have been joining us for months, longer than that, sometimes some folks more than a year, for our services online, to actually be able to have you physically present with us, and that being said, you've been present with us every time.

Definitely in spirit, but it's nice to have the two together, right? And so that being the case, we want to talk about some of the really bad arguments that have come out against the use of using the medium of the Internet for serving people with both word and sacrament.

So we're up to Thesis 10b of mine, so I kind of cheated. I mean, technically this could be like Thesis 11. I think that there will be revisions to this document when it's done, but one of the claims is that the Lutheran confessions somehow require that all observances of the Lord's Supper be public.

Public.

So I note that it's a misuse of the Lutheran confessions to demand that all observances of the Lord's Supper be public, and I would note that those who are making this argument are radically inconsistent.

For instance, the first Lord's Supper was private, took place in an upper room. It was a private affair. Christianity was illegal for most of the first three centuries of its existence, and you'll note that Christianity is still illegal in certain parts of the world.

Let's just say that biblical Christianity is not welcome in communist China. So how are Christians gathering in China? Very non-publicly. I would even argue secretively, by necessity of that if they want to continue breathing or not spend the rest of their lives in a work camp, they're going to have to keep a low profile, and so Christian congregations meet secretly.

So that being the case, you'll note that this has been a part of Christian history from the beginning, and so the divine service, the hearing the word, receiving the sacrament throughout Christian history has taken place in catacombs, in tombs.

It's taken place in caves and underground. There's some rather interesting places in Turkey that you can visit today where Christians live like hamsters or like prairie dogs. They lived underground, and you can still find the places where they worshipped in these underground tunnels and places that they made for themselves.

And then you'll note that confessional pastors travel to private homes of their shut-ins, and they conduct private word and sacrament services for them. This has been something I've been doing since being installed here at Kongsvinger, and I would note that the pastors who catechize me do the same thing.

So this is a common practice. So somebody who in the past has been unable to physically continue attending, maybe they're in a nursing home, maybe they're being cared for in their home by nursing care, things like this, they're physically not able to get up on a Sunday morning to come to church.

The Lutheran pastors have never said, well, if you're not able to make it on a Sunday, too bad, right? If I said that, the church council would have my head on a pike, right? What's my job then? Those who are not able to attend physically, I get in my truck and I drive to them, and I meet with them with frequency.

I would say this. There are some people whom I visit. I have to make sure that when I show up at their homes, I am hungry, okay? It's kind of an important thing. I think of some of the shut-ins I visit for Emmanuel in Radium.

No joke. I mean, I give them the Lord's Supper. They give me a banquet. And it's like, oh, yeah. So one time I made the mistake of actually showing up having eaten lunch first.

Oh, no.

Yeah, because you can't say no. You just can't say this. But here's the thing. All of these communion services are held privately. Now, the Internet then makes it possible for those who are in a situation where they are shut in or in a facility or something like this, that they could now continue to participate in the worship life of the church.

The Internet of the medium, the medium of the Internet has really helped us in that regard. There was a lady that for years we served in the Netherlands, and she had MS, and degeneratively so. And she ended up dying of it a little more than a year ago.

But we served her for many years online, and we were able to have her participate in the Aletheia services online. And I was able to provide pastoral care for her even though she was in the Netherlands.

And what's really sad and tragic about her story is that she was one of these people, like a lot of you, who attended these evangelical churches that were very legalistic about tithing and other things.

And when she went into the nursing facility, she had to first liquidate all of her assets. She really didn't have any money. She pretty much was a ward of the state of the Netherlands. And she was in a care facility as she continued to lose her mobility, increase in pain, and then eventually die.

But all of that being said, we were able to serve her through all of that. But the church that she had attended for all those years, when she no longer was able to tithe, the pastor of that congregation said to her, we will no longer visit you because you do not tithe, which I think is just criminal beyond belief.

When I heard that, I mean, I got on an airplane and I went and visited her. And the folks of Aletheia helped pay for that particular plane ticket because she needed a pastoral visit. Don was actually able to visit Janet in her facility.

And the folks here at Kongsvinger have always been very welcoming of the people that we serve online. And we recognize that although you are physically separated from us, we're all still part of the body of Christ together.

So we'll note then, confessional pastors travel to private homes. We conduct private communion services constantly. And by the way, I've made this point before, but I'll make it again. I do not bring a portable altar with me when I do that.

Altars are not a necessary component of the Lord's Supper. You need bread and wine. And you're good to go with just that. It doesn't matter if you have a silver chalice, a glass cup, two plastic cups.

I've used Dixie cups to serve the Lord's Supper in the past. It doesn't matter what the Lord's Supper is served in, period. And you'll note here at Kongsvinger, we had a very interesting experience this morning.

Usually when we have the Lord's Supper and you have the bread, it goes by pretty quick. You'll note the bread here, you've got to kind of chew on it. You've got to think about it a little bit. It's kind of cool.

Anyway, so therefore, there is no biblical or historical basis to demand that all observances of the Lord's Supper be public. That's just not a requirement. This is not a biblical requirement. That's a man-made requirement.

And when the Lutheran confessions talk about private masses, they're talking about something different than this. Thesis 10c then, so when the Lutheran confessions describe the pastor during consecration, we talked about this last week, speaking the verba over the elements, this is descriptive and idiomatic language.

It doesn't constitute an additional prescriptive requirement that is necessary to fulfill Christ's command to do this. So in large congregations, and like I said, we pointed this out, some of the elements are not present on the altar during consecration.

They may in fact be located in the choir loft during the words of institution, or in some cases, they're even in overflow rooms. This literally means the pastor is under the elements, or not even connected to them in any way, and the only contact the elements have with the pastor is through the church's PA system.

This is not a problem. It's Christ who makes it the Lord's Supper, not me. Thesis 11 then, denying that Christ can or will attach his verba to the pastors if the pastor and the Christian assembly gather, and this is where I think I'm going to have to make an edit, because over and again, the internet's not an actual place.

An internet meeting place like Zoom is a medium that makes it possible for us to meet together. So they're saying that Christ will not attach his verba if they gather via the internet, thereby requiring the pastor to be physically present in order to speak the verba.

That puts the emphasis on the pastor rather than Christ. I'll be blunt. It puts the emphasis on the pastor rather than Christ regarding who affects the change in the elements. Requiring the pastor's physical presence also creates unbiblical and needless obstacles for Christian assemblies in the internet era.

It runs contrary to 1 Corinthians 5, verses 1 through 5, which we read last week, where Paul, even though he was not physically present in Corinth, was present in spirit for the purpose of an excommunication service.

Kind of interesting, right? How is that possible? Again, it's possible by virtue of the communion of the saints. And so the idea then, the focus is on the pastor's physical presence rather than on Christ's presence, which is promised when two or more are gathered in his name.

Emergency Baptism and the Misuse of “No Emergency Communion”

Thesis 12, then, the use of the argument that there is no emergency communion. Now, let me explain what's going on here on this one. There's a little bit of a history regarding this particular phrase.

There is no emergency communion. Let me ask you a question. Can lay people baptize people? Yes. Absolutely. The idea then is this, is that normatively the pastor baptizes. Because the idea here is that the office of the keys and baptism, this is a responsibility of the congregation, and the congregation in calling a pastor is calling a pastor to be, quote, the stewards of those mysteries.

But that being the case, if you find yourself in a situation where somebody is about to die and they've never been baptized, guess what? You're baptizing. What do you need? Water and words. In fact, in the Lutheran service book, hang on a second here.

Pull out my hymnal. In the Lutheran service book, let's see if it's still in here. I've got to find this. This has been here in the past. I've got to hunt this down. Emergency baptism. Hold on.

Prayers for worship.

Not on mine here. Let's see here. Is it in the back of our other ones? Somewhere in the hymnal there is an actual right for emergency baptism. If you need a cheat sheet.

Here it is. Okay.

In the Lutheran service book, our pew edition here, it says holy baptism in case of emergency. It says in urgent situations, the absence of the pastor, any Christian may administer holy baptism. Any Christian.

So if time permits, the following may proceed baptism. And it gives you something to say. If time doesn't permit, just get on with it. So it has you actually say a prayer, the Lord's Prayer, say the Apostle's Creed.

But baptism basically goes something like this. You say these words. I baptize you, whatever the name of the person is, in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

The end.

In an emergency, you do that. So there you are. You're driving down the highway and somebody spins out, rolls their car, and you open up the door and go whoo. And the person, you can tell, is about ready to die.

Grab a bottle of water. Baptize that person. Get on with it. You can do that. It's also very common practice that neonatal nurses, they have been known to baptize preemie babies who potentially could die.

In fact, for years we had a gal who attended Kongsvinger. She was baptized as a preemie. And when she was baptized, she was baptized by a neonatal nurse. And they used one of those droppers for the baptism.

The amount of water doesn't matter. So what happens in an emergency baptism is you let the pastor know that that's taken place. Hey, I baptized this person.

Okay.

So what do we do? We recognize that. So in an emergency, anybody baptizes. Now the difference then is that what happens if our congregation, our pastor dies or has taken another call and we haven't called another fellow yet, and we haven't been able to have the Lord's Supper in five or six weeks?

Well, there is no emergency baptism in that sense that makes it so that a lay person then would consecrate. We don't recognize that. So that's what the idea here is. So what has happened in the argument as it relates to the Lord's Supper is that people have misused this idea, basically said there is no emergency baptism.

Full stop. Wait a second here. When a pastor uses the medium of the Internet to serve people the Lord's Supper, that's not an emergency. That's normal pastoral practice. The pastor still is presiding, and he's also exercising the office of the keys.

Now if you're thinking, what is the office of the keys? Remember Christ has given to the church the authority to forgive and retain sins, to forgive the sins of the penitent and to withhold the sins or actually bind the sins of an impenitent to them.

This is why church discipline is so important, that there are two keys, not one. And when congregations do not allow a pastor to use the second key, they hurt themselves, they hurt the pastor, and they hurt the person who needs to repent.

So keep that in mind. So the second key then is the binding key. The binding key, which basically says, you want to persist in sin? Fine, we're going to go all Burger King on you, and you can have it your way.

Only the older people really get that.

Remember the have it your way commercials?

That was Wendy's. Wendy's was Where's the Beef. That wasn't Burger King. You've got to get your fast food joints worked out there. So the idea then is that in a situation where there isn't a pastor, you still don't work it out with a layperson doing the Lord's Supper, you've got to call a pastor.

That's the idea behind it. Or in a situation like that, get a vacancy pastor, somebody who can do this, because there's more to it than mere consecration. There's also the public exercise of the office of the keys.

So you get the idea. So when people argue there's no such thing as emergency communion, that is a category error. It has nothing to do with the question at hand. Nothing whatsoever. So it is a misuse then of this distinction to forbid rightly called pastors to preside over the Lord's Supper when a congregation assembles via again, I'm going to have to modify the language via the medium of the Internet.

You're not in an Internet meeting room. An Internet meeting room is the medium. You're in a physical place, and that's in your homes. So our confessions in Thesis 13, which are true because they say the same thing as Scripture, they do not require the physical presence of the pastor, nor does it require that a Christian congregation meet in person in order for Christ to attach his verba to the pastor's recitation of the words of institution.

Our confession, and by extension Scripture itself, requires the verba to be spoken, or I can sing it, I can chant it. Therefore, to require the physical presence of the pastors to add to our confessions by adding an additional prescribed element to the requirement of Christ's do this.

And you're going to note that in the do this portion in Solid Declaration 7, it only requires that the pastor speak or sing the verba. And the idea then is that the words that the pastor speak give a blessing in the wide sense, but it's Christ's words, his verba, that give the real blessing in the narrow sense.

Does that make sense? I'm doing good on time here. This is unusual. Do you want your sins forgiven next week, Clavin? Yeah, all right.

All right.

All right, so we already deal with that one. So then here's the other bit. So Thesis 15, as stewards of the mysteries of God, and that's language that comes out of 1 Corinthians 4, and Paul is speaking as an apostle, but you'll note that pastors then become stewards of the mysteries of God, and that's a reference to the sacrament.

Let me pull up the text in question. 1 Corinthians 4 says, This is how one should regard us as servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God. Moreover, it is required of stewards that they be found faithful.

So you'll note this has implications regarding the pastoral office. So, by the way, the word sacrament means mystery. That's the Latin word for it, mystery. So when we talk about baptism and the Lord's Supper, these are the mysteries, these are the sacraments, these are the mysteries of God, and pastors then are the congregation's stewards of those mysteries, but ultimately the responsibility comes back to the congregation to make sure that things are handled properly.

Just because you've called a pastor doesn't mean that a pastor is going to be faithful. Son, we pastors are sinners, and we've been known to go off the rails. So there's this wonderful symbiotic relationship here.

And so do not fear a pastor. If a pastor is doing something that you don't think is biblical, he should be, let's just say, mature enough to be able to take criticism, to have questions asked of him. Anytime you are in a situation where you cannot ask a pastor a question or you're made to feel like you are sinning by asking a question, we've got a problem, a big problem.

So coming back then, so as stewards of the mysteries of God, because it is necessary that men who are in the pastoral office not commune those who ought not to be communed by virtue of the office of the keys.

So let me explain this. So this is an ancillary teaching here, and here's how Lutherans understand this, because you'll note that you heard me today, and everybody who joins us online, you hear me say weird words.

And there are a lot of people who are unfamiliar with the concept, and so they misunderstand it, or worse, they will slander us Lutherans as somehow thinking we're something we're not by virtue of these words.

But I'm going to show you the words of Christ, and here's the words, the important ones. So this is from the Gospel of John chapter 20. Jesus appears in the upper room to the disciples on the day of the resurrection, and he said to them, Peace be with you.

This is verse 20. When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side, and the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them, Peace be with you, as the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.

And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them. If you withhold forgiveness from any, it is withheld. Now, let's talk about what this is talking about.

This goes back to there's only two other places in the Gospels where you see this concept being fleshed out. One is when Peter makes his confession. Remember, there's Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew. He takes him up to Caesarea Philippi.

Who do people say that I am? Some say John the Baptist. Some say one of the prophets. Some say Elijah. And Jesus says, All right, who do you say that I am? And you see them kind of kicking the dust with their sandals.

Peter, he's always the brave one in. He says, You're the Christ, the Son of the living God. And what does Jesus say? Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood is not revealed to you by my Father who is in heaven.

And he says, in fact, let me pull the language up so that I don't twist it because if I'm going to do this from memory, I need some precision on this one. Hang on a second here. We're going to duplicate that.

And I think I'm in Matthew 16. Hang on a second here.

Let's see.

Yeah, here it is. Verse 17. So blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood is not revealed to you by my Father who is in heaven. And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.

I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. Now, of course, every Roman Catholic says, see, Peter has primacy.

The whole church is built on Peter.

Uh-uh, uh-uh.

You don't get to play that fast one. It's easy to twist if you're just looking at it in English. Let's kind of unpack this. I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock, he says, So, lego hatisu e petras.

You are Peter. Kayepi taltate petra oikadamesomu. I know it's Greek to you, right? Yeah, okay. I live for that joke. I tell it as often as I can. But I'm going to point something out here. So he says to him, lego, I say, hatisu e petras, that you are Peter.

And here's the important part. Petras, that is a masculine noun. You are Petras. You are Peter. Kayepi taltate petra oikadamesomu. And upon, kayepi taltate petra. Petra is feminine. Petra is feminine.

It's not masculine. You are Peter, and upon this petra, feminine rock, I will build my church. What's Jesus referring to? Is he pointing to Peter or something else? If he's pointing to Peter, then Peter is a transsexual.

Okay, we've got gender issues here. He's not pointing to Peter. What's the rock that Jesus is going to build his church on? The confession of Peter. Peter's confession. You are the Christ, the son of the living God.

It's not built on Peter. The church is not built on Peter. The church is built on the confession of Peter that Jesus is the Christ, the son of the living God. And when you know you're Greek, it's just unmistakable.

It's undeniable. So anybody who would say that the church is built on Peter, they've got their petras wrong. They're on the wrong rock. But you're going to note, then, that this is then the first place we hear about the keys.

And I will give to you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. This is talking about the binding and loosing of sins.

And you'll note that this is not exclusively given to Peter because other instances, Christ gives it to all the disciples. He gives it to the church. And this is where we have to then pay close attention to the actual verbs and how they work.

So here in John 20, it says, Receive the Holy Spirit. This is Jesus talking. If you forgive the sins of any. And we're going to pay attention, then, to how this works. This is a very special verbal tense.

This is the perfect passive indicative in Greek. Let me explain. Perfect is past tense. Passive means you ain't doing it. And it's hard to pull this into English. So let me try it. If you forgive the sins of any, they will have already been forgiven them.

Listen to it again. If you forgive the sins of any, they will have already been forgiven them. That's how that verb works. Well, if I'm forgiving somebody and they have already been forgiven, who's doing the forgiving?

Christ.

If you were to put it on a timeline, Jesus does the forgiving. You know what I'm doing? I'm just announcing what Jesus is doing. So this actually falls into a bigger category. One of the things I love about the Greek grammar that I teach from is that it has an actual essay on this text in the grammar.

It talks about the fact that this goes back to what was called the ancient practice of the law of binding and loosing. And the law of binding and loosing is something that has to do with courtroom stuff.

Let me explain. So somebody's on trial today. They're on trial for murder. And so they've been found not guilty. But let's say they weren't able to be there for the verdict or whatever. So the judge looks at the case and says, no, this person is not guilty.

We're going to free them. And so does the judge come down from the bench, go to the prison, unlock the prison gate, and let the person out?

No.

What does the judge do? The judge says to the bailiff, go let him go. And so the bailiff then goes into the prison or goes into the jail, and the bailiff opens the door and says, I'm freeing you. What a load of garbage.

It's not doing that. The judge already freed him, right? The guy who opens the prison door is doing so based on the authority of the judge. But when the bailiff says, I'm letting you go, you can say, well, yeah, he's the instrument then of that guy being let go, but the verdict was already spoken.

He was declared by the judge not guilty and told he can go free. So the guy doing the opening of the door, he's doing so with authority that's been given to him, not on his own authority. Make sense? Now, John, you've worked in prisons before, right?

You ever open up prison doors and let guys go? Did you do that on your own decision? You'd be in there now.

Yeah.

Okay, you let him out of the cage, right? But if you were to free a prisoner without a judge allowing that, you'd be in the prison right now, right? Yeah, you'd be next to him, okay. Once they brought him back, you'd be in the cage next door, right?

Okay, so it's important to note this. So same concept here. Am I the judge?

No.

Okay, so here's the authority that's given to the church. The church has the authority to tell a penitent sinner who trusts in Jesus that their sins are forgiven. And the church has the authority. Notice I didn't say a pastor.

The church has the authority to say to a penitent sinner in the stead of Christ, I forgive you all of your sins. You have the authority given by Jesus. If you have a penitent sinner who believes in Jesus, you have the authority to let him out of the cage.

The authority comes from the judge. Only Jesus forgives sins. Does that make sense? So when I announce that I forgive you, I'm doing it on his behalf, by his authority, in his stead, he's the judge. What I do not have the authority to do is tell an impenitent sinner that they're forgiven.

I don't have any authority to do that. Neither do you. So what do you do with impenitent sinners? You tell them to repent. In fact, let's kind of walk through this then. How am I doing on time? Okay, I was doing good, doing well.

Now not so much, Clevin. I need to repent and thin no more.

Anyway.

Yeah, uh-huh.

Yeah, okay.

All right.

Binding and Loosing, Church Discipline, and the Forgiveness of Sins

So here's what Jesus says, Matthew 18. If your brother sins against you, go tell him his fault between you and him alone. All right, by the way, pay attention to this first part of Matthew 18. So somebody sins against you.

Notice it does not say get on Facebook and Twitter and let everybody know what a dirty, rotten, horrible person that person is because they sinned against you.

Okay?

That's not one of the steps. If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you've gained your brother. What's the purpose? You want him to repent so that he can be reconciled to you and that you have regained your brother.

That's the goal. The goal is not to shame them. The goal is not to rub their face in their sin. Their goal is not to expose them to the world. Their goal is to regain your brother. But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you so that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses.

Notice there's an actual process for establishing a charge. The person says,.

You're lying.

I didn't do that.

Fine.

I'll go get the other witnesses. They saw you do it too. See, now the charge has been established by two or more witnesses. What's the goal? Your brother is reestablished, regained, right? If he refuses to listen to them, then you tell it to the church.

And here's the thing. It's not telling it to the church for the purpose of saying, You've got to avoid this person. It's so that everybody in the church can give him a call, show up at the door and say, Brother, please repent.

Right?

If he refuses to listen to the church, then let him be to you as a Gentile or a tax collector. Truly I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven. Whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.

Same language from two chapters earlier in Matthew, right? This is about the forgiveness of sins. So if you have a brother who's sinned against you, you want him to repent and for you to be reconciled, for there to be peace and love and harmony.

That's why you do it. But if they say, Go pound sand.

Right?

You bring two others. Go pound sand. Tell it to the church. The church can go pound sand.

Fine.

We're going to bind your sins to you by the authority of Jesus. You'll note then that anybody who's excommunicated, they are excommunicated because that's what they want. And note that the will of the church is not to excommunicate them.

The will of the church is that their repentance and reconciliation, that they be forgiven. Now, I always tell the story that, you know, the first confessional Lutheran church my wife and I were really members of, that one of the most frightening things I'd ever seen happened there.

There was a young couple about our age too, and the wife legitimately was in an affair and committing adultery against her husband. And they followed Matthew 18 to the T. Her husband called her to repentance, told her he would forgive her and be reconciled to her.

She wouldn't do it. The charge was established with two or more witnesses. When they came to the pastor, the pastor says, you're not far enough along to tell me what's going on yet. So they went to her and they called her to repentance.

The elders got involved. She wouldn't repent. Finally, they got the pastor involved. The pastor met with her. She refused to repent. So they told it to the whole church. And the whole church, they pleaded with her to repent of her adultery.

She would not. So the pastor announced to her, we will begin next Sunday's divine service with the rite of excommunication. She showed up. She showed up. And in the rite of excommunication, she was told very explicitly, your sins are bound to you until such a time as you repent.

You are barred from receiving the Lord's Supper. You are welcome to come hear the Word of God. And should you show up, the absolution doesn't apply to you. She showed up. And after the rite of excommunication, she walked out.

Now, we only stayed at that church for a few years. But I heard later, several years after we had left and were attending a different church, she repented. And they restored her to fellowship. Christ says, the sins you forgive will have already been forgiven.