# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Mai 1856_S144
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

144 Questions Concerning the Effect of the Holy Supper, etc.

Is the theology of the "List" in the Lutheran Observer, and of that other essay contained therein on regeneration through Holy Baptism, the theology of the American Lutheran Church? — Oh no, there is nothing Lutheran about it; it rests upon the same fanatical principle upon which Roman Catholic theology, too, is built.

(Conclusion follows.)

Questions, together with Answers, Concerning the
Effect of the Holy Supper.

(Translated from Dr. Georg König, professor at Altdorf, died 1654, Casus con-
scientiae, a work of casuistry arranged according to the contents of the Lutheran Catechism.)

Question I.

Whether one can maintain, with good reason, that by means
of the Supper an essential union of Christ with us
is effected.

Answer. This is denied, 1. because it has no ground in
Scripture. For where has Christ said: take, eat, and drink, that
my body and blood may be changed into a substance common with you?

2. Nowhere in Scripture is it promised to us that Christ, whether in or
outside of the Supper, should unite himself essentially with us. With
the Father alone he is essentially united according to his deity, because Father
and Son are one, John 10:30. With human nature alone he is
personally united, because the Word became flesh, John 1:14,
not by transformation, but by assumption, Heb. 2:16. With the
faithful alone he unites himself mysteriously through the Word, through
faith and the Spirit, likewise also through the worthy use of the
Sacraments, John 14:23, Eph. 2:22 and 3:17, Gal. 3:27 — that is, in a manner
known to him alone but inscrutable to us, which is therefore also, in Eph. 5:
32, called a mystery.

3. If the communicants were essentially united with Christ by
the mere use of the Supper, then the ungodly too would be made
partakers of this union. Reason: because these too partake of the
Lord's Supper, and indeed the whole of it. For when it concerns
the completeness and holiness of the Sacrament, it makes no difference
what the one who receives the Sacrament believes, or with what assurance
of faith he is endowed; as regards the way of salvation, indeed
very much depends on it, but when it concerns the Sacrament itself, then
nothing depends on it. For it can happen that a man has the com-
plete Sacrament and yet a false faith, says Augustine.
The above conclusion, however, is absurd, for in this way the purest
and the most impure, the Son of God and the child of the devil, Christ