What is liturgy? Liturgy is service; and every human service, whatever its content, consists in serving God. Thus, our whole life may be called a service to God, i.e., a liturgy. As an introduction to a paper on liturgy and theology, it might be well to point to the beginning of the twelfth chapter of Romans, where we are told that our whole life should be a divine service, a reasonable “liturgy”: “I beseech you therefore, brethren . . . that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.” The Greek noun used here is latreia, which means cult or worship of God. True worship, we learn, requires our whole life, our “bodies.”

These words open up a wide Biblical perspective. We can trace in them the spirit of the great prophets of Israel who passionately opposed a perversion of the cult into a presentation of gifts to God performed without confidence of heart and inner obedience on the part of those offering the gifts. “For I desired mercy and not sacrifice, and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings” (Hos. 6:6). Above all, there is behind these words of St. Paul the memory of the one perfect sacrifice of the body of Christ. He gave his body as an atoning sacrifice for the sins of the whole world. Therefore, the true worship of his believers can only be the sacrifice of their bodies in the service of the brethren. “So we, being many, are one body in Christ, and everyone members of one another.” (Rom. 12:5)

The leitmotif of our presentation of the subject “Liturgy and Theology” is, then, that the center of the Christian liturgy is the perfect sacrifice of Jesus Christ. He is the Priest conducting that divine liturgy of sacrificing His own body in the act of love to God, His heavenly Father, and to us, His brethren. We, too, are priests with Him when we partake in His liturgy, that is, in His sacrificial love by presenting in daily life our bodies as “a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God,” in praise of Him and service of our neighbor.

Thus liturgy is a most comprehensive term consisting of the whole of Christian life. This includes also theology. Theology is a part of the liturgy, part of that sacrifice of our body of which St. Paul speaks. Indeed, when we say this and thereby explain the word “liturgy” in Pauline terms, we are making a theological statement. But a theological statement of that kind—and this is true of any theological statement—has no meaning at all if it is not considered an essential part of that divine liturgy which it describes and explains.

This means, of course, that the word “theology,” too, is understood here in a wider meaning than that assigned to it by tradition. When we say that theology is part of the liturgy (part of that sacrifice of our body in the service of God and of our fellow men to which St. Paul calls us), we are not speaking exclusively of theological research, that is, of the academic theology produced in our seminaries and universities. Of course, this scholarly theology, too, belongs to the liturgy defined as the true sacrifice of our bodies. However, theology is something far more extensive than the academic work usually referred to when we use the term. Theology is any human witness to the truth of God’s revelation, any true speaking about God. Once again, then, our whole life, interpreted as divine liturgy, is theology, i.e., our way of speaking about God to God Himself and to our fellow men. Whether a good or a very poor theology, it is, nevertheless, a theology.

In the quotation above, St. Paul uses a curious expression when he speaks about our life as a sacrifice of our bodies. He calls it our “reasonable” service. The Greek word for reasonable is logike, i.e., logical. Our logical service. Because it is derived from the Greek word logos, which itself means “word,” “logical” originally had to do with words. We would not be entirely wrong, then, if we were to paraphrase St. Paul thus: “our witnessing worship, our speaking service.” The words of St. Paul might almost be rendered, therefore, in the following way: “Make your whole life a true liturgy and theology by presenting your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God.”

In this context, then, liturgy and theology are identical when taken in that wider sense in which they must be understood if they are to be related to the true center of any human liturgy and theology, namely, the perfect sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross. Theology is, then, an essential part of any liturgy insofar as any liturgy, is “reasonable service,” “logical service,” an expression through human words and actions of the sacrificial love towards God and our fellows in Christ. Further, liturgy finds its goal in theology insofar as no act of sacrificial love may be accomplished without some expression of its own meaning in the terms of personal relationships. These personal relationships are always “logical” terms, i.e., meaningful human words and actions.

Having seen this fundamental unity of liturgy and theology when both are taken in their wide, inclusive meaning, we must from the outset be aware of two very common and very dangerous deteriorations affecting liturgy and theology. If liturgy is separated from theology, i.e., if it is no longer in its essence “theology,” or true witness to the revelation of God, it then becomes an end in itself, a “good work” performed with the intention of pleasing God. This was the kind of “liturgy” that the prophets of Israel attacked when they condemned the complacency with which their nation relied upon its correct cult of sacrifices. It was also this kind of liturgy that Luther and the other Reformers attacked when they characterized the theoretical and practical understanding of the sacrifice of the Mass within the church of their time as an “abominable idolatry.” And it is this kind of liturgy that is the constant danger in all types of “ritualism.” If, on the other hand, theology is separated from liturgy, i.e., if it is no longer seen as a part of the liturgy of the church, part of the living sacrifice of our bodies in the service of God and our fellow men, it, too, becomes an end in itself, a human wisdom competing with and sometimes even rejecting the revelation of God. It was this kind of detached theology that the ancient church fathers attacked in the Gnostics and Luther in the Schoolmen. There have been very many instances of such nonliturgical theology in modern times. We might even say that the main theological task of our day is the reinstatement of theology in its true liturgical function.

These two dangers arising out of the neglect of the essential unity of liturgy and theology are, I think, imminent in our present situation in the Lutheran Church. Personally, I think that perhaps the two most promising features in the recent development of Lutheranism are what I would like to call the theological and the liturgical renaissance. Both in the field of liturgy and in the field of theology we have experienced a renewal of profound insights into the very essence of divine revelation. The present renewal in Biblical scholarship, in the study of the thought of the Reformers, and in the ways of worship has, I think, been unparalleled for centuries. Surprisingly, this renewal seems to transcend all denominational barriers. Even in the Roman Catholic Church there is a remarkable theological and liturgical renaissance today. However, there are grave dangers inherent in this renewal, important as it is, because it stands in danger of becoming a new intellectualism detached from the worship of the congregation, a new kind of Gnosticism. Curiously enough, this danger is immanent in both Fundamentalism and Modernism. Both are rationalistic in their structure and are therefore too easily detached from the life situation of the worship of the church. The liturgical renewal, on the other hand, is in constant danger of becoming a new ritualism in which the theological meaning of worship is neglected for the benefit of reviving beautiful and interesting old customs. If the intellectualistic theology prevails in the church, it may transform that church into a philosophical society or a Gnostic sect. If, on the other hand, ritualistic liturgy prevails, it may change the Christian faith into a mystery religion. The fact that the representatives of intellectualistic theology and of ritualistic liturgy are often hostile to one another does not solve the problem. In my opinion, the only possibility of preserving the great values of the present theological and liturgical renewals is to keep them together and to interpret their meaning in the light of the fundamental unity of theology and liturgy as seen in the wider meaning of these two words.

I cannot in a single short paper thoroughly reinterpret liturgy and theology in the light of this basic unity. That would require a whole series of papers. I will therefore attempt to point out the main structure of both liturgy and theology in their narrower sense, that is, as the “worship” and the “doctrine” of the church, and I will also try to show how they are related by means of their being originally a unity in the fundamental, wider sense of each term.

Let us turn again, then, to the word “liturgy,” thinking of it now in its more traditional meaning as the worship of the church, particularly the worship in the main Sunday service. This service was still called the Mass by the reformers and was mentioned under that name in the Confession of Augsburg. It is an old and significant name which I would like to retain. What is the structure of the liturgy of the Mass, seen as a part of that wider liturgy which comprehends our life in the service of love to God and to our fellow men?

The center of the liturgy, we said, is the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. In the Mass this sacrifice of Jesus Christ in which He gave His own body for the sins of the whole world is, to use a Pauline expression, “evidently set forth before our eyes” (Gal. 3:1). In the Mass this is done in two different ways: through the proclamation of the Gospel and through the administration of Holy Communion.

The difference between the Roman Catholic way of speaking about the sacrifice of Christ in the Mass and the Biblical and Lutheran way of understanding it is easily detected. The Roman Catholic Church does not claim that the historical sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross is repeated in the Mass. Most Roman Catholic scholars would emphatically reject this expression. They say, however, that the sacrifice of Jesus Christ is represented unto us in the Mass. This expression need not necessarily be wrong. It depends upon the interpretation put upon it. If it is taken in the sense of Galatians 3, in which St. Paul speaks of the crucified Christ as being “evidently set forth before our eyes,” it would be perfectly true. In that case, then, the interpretation would include first and foremost the preaching of the Gospel. This is not the case, however. Although the proclamation of the Gospel is not directly excluded in modern Roman Catholic expositions of the Mass, the emphasis is not upon the proclamation of the Gospel but rather upon the offering of the transubstantiated bread and wine as gifts unto God. This idea of sacrifice enables the priest to present the body and blood of Christ as an atoning sacrifice for people who do not personally receive the gifts in faith by partaking of the meal. Indeed, this may be done for people who are not even present, e.g., the departed souls in purgatory. Such an idea of sacrifice changes the whole meaning of Christ’s sacrifice and of Christian worship. The sacrifice of Christ as the atonement for the sins of all men has been offered on the cross once for all. It is an act of God wrought in human history and cannot be repeated since its effect is universal. It cannot even be reenacted as is claimed in the Roman Catholic conception of the Mass. The fruits of this perfect sacrifice have only to be distributed and received in faith. That is what is happening in the Mass.

This happens, first, in the proclamation of the Gospel. Here the historical uniqueness and universal validity of the sacrifice of Christ is publicly proclaimed. This is done by an exposition of the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament, where the whole history of God’s dealing with men in and through his chosen people Israel is recorded and where Christ’s sacrificial death and resurrection is proclaimed as the consummation and ultimate meaning of that whole saving history. In the preaching of the Gospel this whole history of salvation recorded in the Biblical Scriptures is addressed to the people of God who are not present to worship Him. This history is pronounced unto them in God’s name as His personal word of judgment and grace. The preaching of the Gospel in the Mass is not an interesting lecture upon some important religious or moral issue. When the sermon deteriorates into something of this kind, it has lost its liturgical function and is in the greatest danger of disturbing, if not destroying, the act of worship which it was intended to serve. If the Gospel is not proclaimed in the name of the Triune God as the living, prophetic, and apostolic voice maintaining the personal relationship between God and His people, a relationship which we, using Biblical terms, call a covenant, then there can be no true liturgy; for then the people of God are not entitled to bring any gift to God, much less their own bodies in the service of Him and their neighbor. The people of God consists of sinful men and women who cannot draw near God and who cannot present any offering to Him without being redeemed from its sins by its only High Priest, Jesus Christ. Therefore, the condition of any Christian worship is a proclamation of the Gospel which points back to the covenant relationship that is based upon the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ and established with the sinful members of the people of God in their Baptism. Such proclamation cleanses the sinful people of God from all its sins and puts it into that new situation in which all members may present their bodies as a living, holy sacrifice, the situation, namely, of sinners whose sins are forgiven for the sake of Christ’s perfect sacrifice. The people of God must hear this proclamation of the Gospel as coming from God Himself, as His personal Word of judgment and forgiveness. It must also believe that Word in order to be able to present its poor sacrifice of love to God. That means, then, that the people of God, when it has listened to the proclamation of the Gospel, knows no other possibility of offering God a sacrifice than that of recognizing its own sins and asking the High Priest, Jesus Christ, to cover its sin-stained words and actions with His perfect righteousness and to present these words and actions to the heavenly Father as the gifts of His love. Or, to put it in other words: We can become a royal priesthood of believers bringing spiritual sacrifices to God only by sharing in Christ’s sacrifice. Only as members of His body may we bring the sacrifice of praise and love to God. If the Gospel is not proclaimed and received in faith, our whole worship is changed into idolatry, because we may then presume that we ourselves have the right to appear before God with our gifts instead of placing ourselves behind our High Priest, trusting solely in His righteousness and love while constantly despairing of our own. That is the reason that the proclamation of the Gospel is an essential part of any Christian liturgy.

In the Mass the fruits of Christ’s perfect sacrifice are also distributed and received in faith in still another manner, namely, in the administration of the Holy Communion. As we said, in the proclamation of the Gospel the historical uniqueness and the universal validity of the sacrifice of Christ is proclaimed. In the administration of the Holy Communion the universal validity of the historically unique sacrifice is confirmed by the personal communication of its fruit to every single member of the people of God. They are thereby joined with the Head and High Priest and with each other in perfect unity.

The second way of distributing the fruits of Christ’s perfect sacrifice is of the greatest importance for the understanding of the proclamation of the Gospel. Indeed, this proclamation loses its liturgical significance if it is separated from the administration of the Holy Communion. Personally, I feel convinced that the frequent deterioration of the sermon into a sort of interesting lecture has something to do with a liturgical abuse common in Protestantism, namely, the separation of the preaching of the Gospel from the administration of the Holy Communion in the main service. What is the importance of administering the Holy Communion in the closest possible connection with the preaching of the Gospel and vice versa? May I put it this way: Only when the preaching of the Gospel is followed by the administration of the Holy Communion, is it clearly manifested that the sacrifice of Jesus Christ in history is not simply an important fact of the past, the moral and religious evaluation of which is left to us, but rather that this sacrifice is God’s ultimate dealing with His people and is valid for all places and for all ages. This has not been proclaimed at all when the commandment to partake of the fruit of His sacrifice by receiving His body and blood under bread and wine is more or less openly neglected.

We do not regard ourselves as members of that people to whom the Gospel is proclaimed as God’s personal Word of judgment and forgiveness if we do not personally receive the gifts of the perfect sacrifice of Christ where they are offered unto us according to the institution and commandment of Christ. Or, to put it a little differently: We do not acknowledge the covenant relationship with God into which we are taken in our Baptism if we do not respond personally to the Gospel message by receiving the gifts of Christ’s sacrifice at His Table. Without Baptism as its foundation and Holy Communion as its consequence, our faith in the preached Gospel lacks its distinctively personal qualification.

It is therefore quite easy to understand why the preaching of the Gospel and the administration of the Holy Communion in their unity is the essence of the liturgy of the church in the Mass insofar as the perfect sacrifice of Jesus Christ is its center. (The preaching of the Gospel and the administration of the Holy Communion is the saving presence of Christ’s unique and perfect sacrifice in His people through all generations.)

From this center, too, we must see and interpret the responsive action of the people receiving in faith the Word or the Gospel and the gifts of the sacrament. We can use a Pauline word to describe this responsive action in its totality. The word is “confession.” “The Word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth and in thy heart, that is, the Word of faith which we preach, that if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.” (Rom. 10:8–10)

The point St. Paul makes here is that there is no saving faith in the Gospel which does not manifest itself in a responsive word personally acknowledging the truth of the Gospel. The Greek word for confession is homologia, which, when translated literally, means: to say the same word which has been said before. So the confession of the people of God says the same thing that God has said to it in the proclamation of the Gospel. However, it says it in another form, namely, that of prayer, witness, and thanksgiving. In prayer the people of God extends its empty hands to receive what God has promised in His Gospel. In the witnessing word of the confession of sins and the confession of faith the people of God assumes that relation to God which He has assigned to it in Baptism, namely, the place of justified sinners. In the word of thanksgiving, finally, the people of God delivers all that it has and all that it is to God in reply to His forgiveness and renewal in the Holy Communion. Thus prayer is the living expression of hope, witness the expression of faith, and thanksgiving the living expression of the love. All of these God creates in His people through the proclamation of the Gospel and the administration of the sacraments. All of the elements of the Christian liturgy express the proclamation of the Gospel and the administration of the sacraments in the name of the Triune God and express, in the name of the people of God, its responsive confession in the prayer of hope, the witness of faith, and the thanksgiving of love.

This is the structure of the liturgy of the church, and it is theological through and through. It is a clear and unambiguous expression of the truth of the divine revelation. It is “theologia,” a word speaking the truth about God in human, understandable terms, a reasonable service, latreia logike. In the theology of the liturgy any genuine theology of the school, the seminary, or the university must be rooted. Academic theology is not a different theology from the theology of the liturgy. They are substantially the same. Academic theology, however, is a reflective unfolding of the content of the theology of the liturgy apart from the worship of the church, whereas the theology of the liturgy is the unreflected, living manifestation in the worship of the church of that truth analyzed by academic theology. The theology of the liturgy and academic theology are substantially one because both feed upon the same source; the revelation of God historically recorded in the prophetic and apostolic Scriptures and actually addressed to the people of God in the preaching of the Gospel and the administration of the sacraments.

Now let us turn to theology in the narrower sense of “doctrine of the church.” We already anticipated this subject in the last sentences of our treatment of the structure of the liturgy, where we compared what I called the theology of the liturgy with academic theology. Academic theology was defined as the reflective unfolding of the content of the theology of the liturgy. We will now consider this statement more closely. Let us begin from the other end, however, considering academic theology as it is practiced today. It consists of three main branches which cannot be reduced to one, for each of them represents a specific approach to the common subject matter of theology. We speak of exegetical, doctrinal, and philosophical or apologetic theology.

In exegetical theology we approach the revelation of God through a historical consideration of its reality by studying the Biblical records of this revelation, using historical methods. We thereby treat the Biblical writings as the sources of the historical content of God’s revelatory act in history. It is extremely important for all theological work that the historical approach be strictly preserved in exegetical study. Whenever this approach is neglected for the sake of allegorical interpretation, the understanding of God’s revelation as an act of God in human history is obscured. Luther, in attacking the allegorical exegesis of the Alexandrine fathers and their successors in the Medieval Church, fought for the recognition of the historical reality of God’s revelation. By adopting modern critical methods, exegetical study has been able to strengthen this emphasis still more. For this reason the fundamentalists’ attempt to discard the critical methods cannot be right; and for this reason, too, the modern attempts to reintroduce allegorical methods must be rejected in the exegetical work of the church. Exegetical theology has to remain historical. Its representatives must recognize, however, that exegetical theology is not the only possible or necessary theological approach. If exegetical study is made absolute in this manner, as sometimes happens, the result is an unbiblical Biblicism which does not realize that the responsibility of authentic thinking and acting put upon us by the Biblical message itself cannot be replaced by even the most correct historical presentation of Biblical ideas.

In doctrinal or systematic theology we approach the revelation of God by means of dogmatic or ethical reflections upon its reality, i.e., reflections upon the permanent truth and validity of the Biblical message in its relation to the situation of the people of God in both its present-day worship and its daily life in the world. “Dogmatics” comes from the word dogma, which may be taken to mean the formulated truth of the theology of the liturgy of which I spoke in the first part of this paper. “Ethics” comes from the word ethos, which means a specific way of life. Theological ethics then, signifies a reflection upon that specific way of life implied in the Biblical message when it is applied to the situation of today’s man in his own world.

Systematic theology, too, represents an independent approach to the common subject matter of theology. It cannot he replaced by either exegetical theology, of which we have already spoken, or philosophical theology, of which we will soon hear. It is distinguished from all kinds of philosophical theology by being bound to the Biblical Scriptures. On the other hand, its lack of a historical approach distinguishes it from exegetical study. Systematic theology continually raises the question of the actual truth of the Biblical message, relating it in terms of present-day life to the people of God in its worship and in its life in the world. It must transcend the limits of purely historical research set for exegetical study. Nevertheless, it is important to remind the representatives of systematic theology that their work does not represent the only possible or necessary approach to theology. Systematic theologians often tend to regard their field as the “real” or “proper” theology. That is wrong. Systematic theology must learn from exegetical theology unceasingly. It has to examine the truth of the Biblical message, not something else, and it has to relate the genuine Biblical message, not some modern transformation of it, to the situation of the people of God today. Systematic theology, therefore, is dependent upon the work of exegetical theology. It cannot do this work itself. There is much systematic theology which has become more or less imbued with all kinds of human ideas alien to the Biblical message as a result of this lack of contact with the living exegetical study.

In philosophical theology we approach the revelation of God from a reflection upon the questions and needs of man to which this revelation brings the answer. Its relation to the Holy Scriptures is different from that of exegetical or systematic theology. They have their foundation in the Scriptures. Of course, philosophical theology, insofar as it is theology, has some relation to the Biblical writings. It is continually concerned with the answer given to man’s needs and questions in the revelation of God recorded in Scripture. It does not, however, reflect upon the answer as such but rather upon the question to which the answer is a reply. Therefore, its methods are neither historical nor systematic but rational. It reflects upon the ultimate questions of man in their relation to divine revelation by means of man’s own self-understanding.

There has been a great neglect of and contempt for philosophical theology in recent years, probably as the result of a necessary and healthy reaction against the overestimation of it in liberal circles. However, philosophical theology is indispensable. The claim of Biblical religion to be the ultimate truth answering every human need is not taken seriously if the task of philosophical theology is neglected. When this task is thus neglected, Christianity is too easily transformed into one religion among others instead of being understood not only as religious truth but also as the truth of all human life, indeed, of the whole universe. It is necessary to remind also the representatives of philosophical theology that, although indispensable, their approach is not the only possible or necessary one. Philosophical theology cannot be appointed the supreme theological science directing and controlling the other theological disciplines, as has happened all too often, especially in the many schools of modern theology. The result is a modernism which obscures the truth of the divine revelation by fitting it into some incidental system of modern thought. The questions of man rationally analyzed by philosophical theology should be seen in the light of divine revelation, not divine revelation in the light of man’s questions.

I have said nothing about church history, because I do not think it represents an independent theological approach like that of exegetical, systematic, or philosophical theology. Church history employs the same historical methods as exegetical study but applies them to different sources, namely, those coming from the life of the church after the New Testament epoch. It must therefore be considered an auxiliary theological discipline connecting exegetical and doctrinal theology but with no specific approach of its own.

If we try to look at these three main branches of academic theology in their relation to what we called the theology of the liturgy, we cannot avoid seeing that there is an analogy between the structure of the liturgy and the structure of academic theology.

Exegetical theology corresponds to the witness of the church in its confession of sin and faith. It unfolds the foundation of the faith of the people of God in the Gospel of the Scriptures. Therefore, its approach is historical.

Systematic theology corresponds to the thanksgiving of the church as its expression of love to the God of salvation and expounds the fullness of the gift of God to His people. Both dogma and ethos have a relation to doxa, or “glory,” and to doxology, or “glorification of God’s mercy.” Dogma and ethos are the expressions of the love of the people of God to its Lord and Savior in worship and daily life respectively, that is, in the service of God and of neighbor. Therefore, systematic theology is doxological, not historical, in its approach. We might venture now to replace the formalistic word “systematic” with the significative word “doxological.” By relating the message of the Bible to the present situation of the people of God in church and world, this theology unfolds the meaning of the sacrifice of thanksgiving and love through which the church in its service of God and neighbor in church and world responds to the saving gifts of God’s love and mercy.

Finally, philosophical theology corresponds to the prayer of the people of God. Prayer is the cry of created and fallen man for the redemption offered him in the promise of the Gospel. Even the prayer in the name of Jesus is a prayer : for in Christ’s own prayer He took upon Himself all the sins and all the needs of fallen man and made them His own petition to His heavenly Father. “Forgive us our trespasses . . . lead us not into temptation . . . deliver us from evil.” Indeed, the great importance of the book of Psalms lies here. It not only contains hymns of praise and thanksgiving but also the many prayers and lamentations of men in distress and in desperate need of salvation, both temporal and eternal. Through prayer the questions and needs of man have found their place in the liturgy of the church as the necessary complement to the answer of God in the proclamation of the Gospel and in the administration of the sacraments. Prayer must be taken seriously as prayer, that is, as cry, as expression of fear, of guilt, of need, and of doubt. When prayer is thus understood, it is easy to see that philosophical theology cannot lose its meaning in a church that has not expelled genuine prayer as too uncertain, as too little religious, too little Christian, or as too much of a question and too little of an answer. Philosophical theology takes the question of man seriously, as question, and does so in a manner strangely analogous to prayer.

We do not wish to overstate the analogy between the structure of the liturgy and the structure of academic theology. On the contrary, we doubt that the various approaches in academic theology can simply be deduced from the various forms of the responsive confession of the church to the proclaimed Gospel and the given sacraments. Nevertheless, I do think that the analogy is significant and that it may, at least to a certain degree, throw light upon the profound meaning of that threefold approach in academic theology which cannot be reduced to one uniform approach.

Having seen this analogy, I think we can conclude our presentation of the subject “Liturgy and Theology” by saying once again that the liturgy is in its essence theological and the theology liturgical and by commenting upon this statement in the light of the analogy between the structure of worship and the structure of academic theology.

The liturgy of the church is theological. It speaks to God and man about God and man. Therefore, in both the narrower sense, comprehending only worship, and in the wider sense, comprehending also the whole life of the people of God in this world, the liturgical functions of the church continually need guidance. They need guidance from the light of the revelation of God as it shines not only through the words of Scripture and through the sacraments themselves but also through the words of Scripture and the sacraments as they are prismatized in the threefold theological reflection upon them, that is, in exegetical, systematic, and philosophical theology. The liturgy must not be separated from the theology, for it then becomes superstitious and is made an end in itself instead of being the means of serving God and neighbor in all dimensions of life.

The theology of the church is liturgical, a part of the liturgy in the wider sense. Theology has no purpose in itself. It serves God and neighbor. It is part of that sacrifice of our bodies to which we are called as the people of God. Just as our prayer, witness, and thanksgiving break down all barriers between church and world, that is, between the sacred and profane spheres of life, taking the whole of reality into the perfect sacrifice of Christ, so also theology—if it has any reality at all—is real only as service to God and to men. This means, then, that theology is real only insofar as it is liturgy, that is, a poor human work attempting to praise God for His mercy and endeavoring to help our neighbor in his need for clarity of thought and in his understanding of the Gospel. It is a poor human work which becomes significant only when it is taken up by Christ and united with His own perfect sacrifice. It is thus made righteous and holy and living by its relation to Him and not by the ability of the theologians.

Aarhus University, Denmark

From The Musical Heritage of the Church, Volume V (St. Louis, Mo.: Concordia Publishing House, 1959). Copyright Concordia Publishing House. Printed by permission. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of Concordia Publishing House.