# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Mai 1856_S140
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

140

(Submitted by Pastor Hoyer.)
Is This, Then, the Theology of the American Lutheran
Church?

The "Lutheran Observer," which continually praises the glory of an American Lutheran Church, recently declared, in accordance with the wish of some members of the General Synod, that it intended to discontinue the further printing of polemical writings for and against the notorious Platform, or foundation of doctrine and church discipline. As was to be expected from its standpoint, it nevertheless finally opened its columns to a repetition of the charges, already brought forward in the Platform, against the Augsburg Confession and the Symbolical Books in general. This latter essay, entitled "List of the Rejected Errors of the Symbolical Books," along with two other articles in the section of the Lutheran Observer claimed by the editor himself — one on confession and absolution, another on the doctrine of regeneration through Holy Baptism — offer all manner of theological studies that are, in their way, worthy of remark. Let us pick out a few of them, first one that is presented solely by the author of the "List," and so forth.

In this List the following objections are raised against the Lutheran doctrine of the Holy Supper:

a. when Christ spoke the words "this is my body," his body was not yet dead, but lay at the side of the recipients at the table, and was therefore certainly not received by them with the mouth. The speech was accordingly figurative, as Jesus was often accustomed to use it, e.g., "I am the door" (John 10:9); "I am the true vine" (John 15:1); "the field is the world;" "the seed is the word," etc.

b. Christ himself admonishes us: "do this in remembrance of me;" but remembrance is applicable only to what is past and absent. Paul further designates the purpose of this institution thus: "to show" or "to proclaim the Lord's death," a past event and not a present person. Thus we come into communion with, or are reminded of, the Lord's body and blood through the signs of bread and wine.

c. It contradicts the clear and irrefutable testimony of our senses, for since body and blood are supposed to be received by the communicant with the mouth, it would have to be a local and material reception, which, were it to occur at the celebration of the Sacrament, could be perceived by the senses.

d. It contradicts the experience known among all peoples and at all times, that every body or material object must occupy a definite space, and at the same time be in no more than one place