# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Januar 1857_S12
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

12                         On the Efficacy of the Sacraments.

such character no mention is made; 2. that no necessity compels us to posit such a character. With a single stroke, then, we can erase this character, which they invent, and which they claim to be indelible, when we say: of this character not a single letter is to be found in Scripture;

and with Chemnitz, Examen Concilii Tridentini, Part II, Locus I, Section VIII, let us say:

"That new, doubtful, and uncertain opinion, however, concerning the impressing of a character ought rightly to be all the more foreign to the true church of Christ, because it makes the foundation of this doctrinal point unstable, the reliability of which is altogether necessary for the comfort of consciences. For in the doctrine that baptism, lawfully administered according to Christ's institution, is not to be repeated, an important matter is at stake, namely, on what ground, on what certainty, on what firm foundation that comfort rests — that the covenant of grace which God makes with us in baptism remains abiding, and that he will keep it even if we depart from it, provided only that we return to it in true repentance through faith. This so important and necessary matter they tear away from the true and firm rock-foundation of the institution and build it upon shifting sand, so that the comfort may indeed be no more certain than it is certain that such a character, as they invent it, is impressed upon the soul through baptism." —

Likewise, then, let it also be far from us to attribute, with some of the moderns, such an efficacy to the holy Supper as though Christ's body and blood were united therein, in a bodily manner, with our body and blood in such a way that thereby the new, the resurrection-body, already begins here to be formed in us — for even of the bodies of the saints, who perhaps often partook of the holy Supper in this life, Scripture says: it is sown a natural body; and Romans 8:11 states clearly and plainly: "if now the Spirit of him who raised up Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised up Christ from the dead will also make alive your mortal bodies, for the sake of the fact that his Spirit dwells in you (not, that is, that his body has united itself with your body)." This altogether untenable character of that view of the efficacy of the holy Supper our faithful fathers, too, have already clearly recognized, and therefore they also knew how to give such fitting answer to many presumptuous questions and inferences of the sacramentarian enthusiasts. These, for example, posed the question: when the unworthy receive the body of Christ, where then does it go? Does it remain in them and so become condemned along with them, or is it rather idly taken in and again passed out again? — to which they answered: "in the mysteries of faith, reason must be taken captive under the obedience of the Word. Although now the unworthy do receive the essential elements of the Supper, yet the heavenly good is received by them neither savingly nor unto blessed-