Excommunication is a
"spiritual penalty"; it is a penalty for the purpose of improvement
(or in terms of Canon law, a censura), provided by Christ. In a
procedure, for which Christ himself has set up the rules, this penalty is
enacted against public, obstinate sinners by the public office of preaching
with the consent of the congregation. In its substance, excommunication is
proclamation of the Word in the form of a judicial verdict. Christ made the
effect of this verdict binding for his kingdom; that is, this verdict excludes
the guilty one from the spiritual church and banishes him into Satan's kingdom.
Excommunication implements the divine positive law. But this legal act also deprives
the sinner of the membership in the corporeal church; therefore excommunication
is also a legal event in the area of man-made law. It is such a severe action
that it may be imposed only in cases of the most serious offenses against God
and neighbor; for instance, the publicly committed vices listed in the
Decalogue, publicly taught heresy, severe public interference in Christ’s spiritual
ecclesiastical governance by secular authorities. In addition, the condition
for imposing excommunication is the obstinate refusal of the sinner to repent.
(Johannes Heckel, “Appendix IV: Church and Ecclesiastical Law in the Frame of
the Doctrine of the Two Kingdoms,” in Lex Charitatis: A Juristic
Disquisition on Law in the Theology of Martin Luther [2d ed.; trans.
Gottfried G. Krodel; Emory University Studies in Law and Religion; Grand
Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2010], 185-86)
