# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Juni 1856_S171
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

"In, With, and Under." 171

...are — this we can and must say; for otherwise we would be denying the reality of the mystery of the most holy Trinity of God. Who, further, can determine the How of the mystery of the personal union of the Godhead and manhood in Christ? — But that thereby is not to be understood a mingling of the two natures, or a transformation of the one into the other, this we can and must teach; for otherwise we would be denying the reality of the personal union.

A similar state of things holds with the mystery of the sacramental presence and union. No human understanding is able to fathom the How of this wondrous and grace-filled mystery. But that the blessed elements are not mere symbols of the absent body and blood of Jesus Christ, but that these most holy heavenly, divine pledges of our reconciliation and pardon are really and truly present and united with those visible signs, and are given to us together with them — this we know, as surely as we know that Christ spoke the truth when, handing the bread, he said, "Take, eat, this is my body," and, handing the cup, said, "Drink of it, all of you; this is my blood." And further, that the bread and the wine which we partake of in the Holy Supper are not an empty phantom of accidents, but truly bread and wine, and that the body and the blood given to us in the Holy Supper are not a body made, and a blood created, by the priest out of bread and wine through transformation, but rather the real blood of Christ that was offered upon the altar of the cross and really shed on Golgotha for the reconciliation of the world — this we know, as surely as we know that the Apostle still calls the element, even after the blessing, bread (1 Cor. 10:17), and that Christ calls what he gives with the bread the body "given for us," and what he gives with the wine the blood "shed for us."

But what do those who depart from the Lutheran Church and doctrine on both sides do? — The Reformed on the one side deny the real presence of the body and blood of Jesus Christ signified and promised by the word "this is my body — this is my blood," while the Roman [Church] on the other side denies the continuance of the visible elements and teaches the presence of an alleged body and blood of Christ that has come into being through transformation, that is, newly made.

Of proving the latter we may here well be relieved; but to demonstrate the former seems, however, to have again become necessary. For time and again the German Reformed Church in particular has sought to convince herself and others that she too believes and teaches a real, actual presence of the true body and blood of Jesus Christ in the Holy Supper, and a real eating of these heavenly gifts in this sacrament;*)

*) It is, to be sure, altogether different with the Swiss Reformed Church. She carries the bare denial of every mystery of the Supper in an altogether ratio-