Closed Communion? Admission to the Lord's Supper in Biblical Lutheran Perspective Quotes

“Luther was convinced that no one can understand the entire consolation of “given and shed for you” who does not believe “This is My body,” “This is My blood.” The question upon which everything depends is whether this is biblical or not.”
― Matthew C. Harrison, Closed Communion? Admission to the Lord's Supper in Biblical Lutheran Perspective

“For more than four hundred years the right hand of fellowship of the Reformed has remained outstretched. For more than four hundred years we Lutherans with our reformer have had to hear the accusation of unbrotherliness and lovelessness, because we have refused this hand. This fact must give us serious cause ever and again to examine whether or not Luther’s conscience was perhaps on this point an erring conscience. Woe to us if we would base the denial of altar fellowship on the tradition of our Church or the example of Luther. If we did this, we would no longer be Lutherans.”
― Matthew C. Harrison, Closed Communion? Admission to the Lord's Supper in Biblical Lutheran Perspective

“Also as synaxis is the Lord’s Supper the dawn of the last things. While we must designate it as only the dawn, it is nevertheless truly the dawn; for this dawn all the denominational lines that have been drawn have been removed. But that is a removal pertaining to the last things and is thus beyond our comprehension.”
― Matthew C. Harrison, Closed Communion? Admission to the Lord's Supper in Biblical Lutheran Perspective

“It is precisely in the situation of a local congregation that the Lord’s Supper fulfills its function as synaxis most meaningfully. This is the situation from which Paul’s statements about synaxis in 1 Corinthians proceed. It was the local situation which occasioned his reproofs against lovelessness. Likewise in such a situation, and only in such a situation, is there opportunity for a concrete agape, which is still something different from a general love for mankind. We cannot concede that the love which we owe also to those outside the boundaries of our churches is impaired when in our liturgical fellowship we unite locally for the celebration of the Lord’s Supper.”
― Matthew C. Harrison, Closed Communion? Admission to the Lord's Supper in Biblical Lutheran Perspective

“Still, if one were to apply to Baptism the demands currently made for altar fellowship, one would have to insist that the exception become the rule. That could and would happen if parents of one church body had their child baptized in another. That would be a profession of the cross-denominational unity of Christ’s church. The proponents of altar fellowship should ask themselves whether they stand ready to do this. And since they recognize as valid the Baptism of the Roman Church, they should not, of course, exclude this either. For this they would not be ready, and rightly so. They will assert that the administration of the Sacraments and the Church’s proclamation are inseparable, since these are constitutive of the Church only when they are kept together. To recognize another church body’s Baptism does not imply that doctrinal differences and other distinctions are of no importance. But if baptismal fellowship were to be carried to the extremes indicated, then of necessity the other differences and distinctions would have to be regarded as unimportant. The same reasons stand in the way of altar fellowship.”
― Matthew C. Harrison, Closed Communion? Admission to the Lord's Supper in Biblical Lutheran Perspective

“This question underlies the current insistence upon altar fellowship, which aims to bridge the gulf between denominations. It is difficult to see, really, why a beginning should not rather be made with baptismal fellowship. For in many respects the situation there is far more favorable. In the major denominations which practice infant Baptism there is far-reaching agreement on the baptismal rite, though of course it is more than a rite when Baptism is really administered in the name of the triune God. Moreover, such Baptism in one denomination is accepted as valid by the others, even by the otherwise very exclusive Roman Church. So we could say that baptismal fellowship is already a reality.”
― Matthew C. Harrison, Closed Communion? Admission to the Lord's Supper in Biblical Lutheran Perspective

“Among the essentials the Eastern churches include also their polity, and so do the Roman, the Anglican, and most of the Reformed churches. All of them, of course, regard as essential also the Church’s doctrine. Disunity in the proclamation is a sad sign. It cannot be remedied by viewing it as unimportant. To set up, in the face of this disunity, a merely external unity or union is not only to use a poor substitute but also to deny that which makes an assembly of people the Church in the first place.”
― Matthew C. Harrison, Closed Communion? Admission to the Lord's Supper in Biblical Lutheran Perspective

“The doctrine of Holy Communion cannot replace Holy Communion itself. When theology speaks of the Word of God, it is itself under the authority of the Word, even as it itself carries out the act of faith of which it speaks. However, what is carried out in Holy Communion can at best be paraphrased (or circumscribed) but never described. The immortal (ἀθάνατον) and the indestructible (ἀκατάλυτον) is not only the eternal (ἀΐδιον). It is most profoundly also the inexpressible (ἄρρητον).”
― Matthew C. Harrison, Closed Communion? Admission to the Lord's Supper in Biblical Lutheran Perspective

“Pure doctrine is generally interpreted to be an indifferent thing while a life which evidences good works is of major importance.”
― Matthew C. Harrison, Closed Communion? Admission to the Lord's Supper in Biblical Lutheran Perspective

“The Lutheran Church is actually not only “a” but “the” true visible Church of God on earth, insofar as “true” means nothing other than “as it should be according to the Word of God.” We neither can nor do we want to boast before other churches about our pious behavior. But we can and must boast about the pure doctrine which, by God’s grace to us poor sinners, shines among us like the clear bright light of the sun.”
― Matthew C. Harrison, Closed Communion? Admission to the Lord's Supper in Biblical Lutheran Perspective

“The Lutheran Church is actually not only “a” but “the” true visible Church of God on earth, insofar as “true” means nothing other than “as it should be according to the Word of God.”
― Matthew C. Harrison, Closed Communion? Admission to the Lord's Supper in Biblical Lutheran Perspective