# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_December 1855_S363
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Exposition of 1 Corinthians etc. 363

[...Christian] congregations, who indeed did not provoke the Lord to jealousy, nor acted as though the Lord were stronger than they. We, we — God be it lamented — have provoked the Lord by our wantonness and pride to punish us (compare 1 Corinthians 11:30); we have acted as though we held ourselves stronger than the Lord; indeed we have acted foolishly and sinned grievously — God be merciful to us sinners! That is the confession which the Corinthians had to make if they truly wished to answer the Apostle's question in verse 22 with a sincere heart. If they did so in true repentance, then the Apostle's preaching in verses 14–22 had achieved its purpose.

The wonderfully rich and vivid presentation of the table of the Lord and of its graces is naturally the most important part of the passage of Scripture that we have attempted to expound. Paul, to be sure, did not write verses 16 and 17 primarily in order to instruct his readers concerning the doctrine of the Holy Supper; rather, the form of the questions shows that he presupposes the correct doctrine of the Holy Supper among his readers. Yet this very circumstance is highly noteworthy, because from it we see why the holy writers, throughout Scripture, mention the Holy Supper only rarely. They, who wrote only when abuses or false doctrines in the congregation made it necessary, and who therefore expressly established the individual doctrines only when these had somewhere been assailed or distorted, evidently found no occasion to set forth the doctrine of the Holy Supper, precisely because the correct doctrine of it existed in the congregations and was nowhere assailed. If this explains the rare mention of the Holy Supper in the New Testament, then we see, from the great reverence and heartfelt earnestness with which the holy writers, and Paul in particular, always speak of the Holy Supper, that it was to them, just as to our Church, the most venerable sacrament above all means of grace, and that those are very much mistaken who conclude from the rarity of its mention in Scripture that we ought not to hold it in so very high esteem.

Communion in the partaking of bread and wine in the sacrament is communion in the body and blood of Christ; this faith the Apostle presupposes in his readers. Thereby he confirms for us the faith that we draw from the simple acceptance of the words of institution of our Lord Christ, namely, that under the form of bread and wine, or if one prefers, with, in, under bread and wine, we partake in the sacrament of the body and blood of Jesus Christ — since through the words "under the form" or "in," "with," "under" it is only explained that the body and blood of Christ are present in the Supper by means of bread and wine and are distributed and received, but not the manner and way of such presence, which is rather designated as sacramental and therefore not further revealed to us. Nor should anyone conclude from the passage of Scripture here expounded that the partaking of the body and blood of Christ in the Holy Supper is merely a spiritual one, occurring only through faith, which lifts itself up to the body and blood of Christ in heaven and strengthens itself with their powers; for