# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Juni 1856_S170
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

170 "In, With, and Under."

"In him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily." (Col. 2:9.) "God was manifest in the flesh." (1 Tim. 3:16.) "God was with him." (Acts 10:38.) Now there is, to be sure, a great difference between the statements "this is my body" and "this is my beloved Son" — yet not a generic difference, but only a specific one. The specific difference is namely this: that the former sentence indicates a sacramental union, the latter a personal union; the generic likeness, on the other hand, consists in this, that in both cases the predicate is determined by the occurrence of a union. Just as, on account of the personal union of the divine and human natures, it is rightly said, "God is man and man is God," namely personally, so, on account of the sacramental union of the bread and the body, it is rightly said, "The blessed bread is the body of Christ," namely sacramentally; and just as in Scripture the personal union is indicated and expounded by the particles "in and with," when it says there, "God was in Christ" and "God was with him," so by these same particles the sacramental union, too, can be indicated and expounded, when one says, "The body of Christ is in the bread, and is given with and under the bread." Just as little as Scripture, by those particles, means to indicate a spatial being, a hidden lying of the Godhead within the manhood of Jesus Christ united with it, or a mingling of the two, just as little does our Lutheran Church mean to indicate any such thing when, following Scripture (in the analogous case of the words of the Sacrament), she makes use of these same exegetical particles.

But, one objects finally, is it not a contradiction when the Lutheran Church on the one hand herself concedes that the presence of the body and blood of Jesus Christ in the Holy Supper is altogether incomprehensible, inexplicable — unique, indeed, in its kind — and yet nonetheless wishes to define this presence by the particles "in, with, and under"? — To this we answer: we Lutherans do indeed believe, with the deepest conviction, that the sacramental presence of the body and blood of Jesus Christ, and the union of these heavenly gifts with the blessed earthly elements, is an altogether inexplicable mystery, of which we know only the What, but not the How, and which is not given to us to search out with our reason, but rather to lay hold of it believingly for our comfort, and to adore it in humble wonder. Yet this mystery, too, is — like all the mysteries of revelation — of such a nature that one cannot indeed say how it is, but can well say, in many respects, how it is not. This mystery, too, is indeed undefinable κατὰ θέσιν (kata thesin), that is, positively, but by no means κατ᾽ ἄρσιν (kat' arsin), that is, negatively.

Who can determine the How of the mystery of the three Persons in the Godhead? — But that the three Persons are not three mere manifestations, not three mere powers, not three different beings, not three parts, etc.,