# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1847 09 29_S21
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

...to present, and secondly, because it will hopefully not be without blessing if the misguided, honest souls among the Methodists learn on this occasion how the doctrine of the Lord's Supper held by the party to which they have attached themselves without due examination has no basis whatsoever in the Word of God, and how well-founded, by contrast, the doctrine of the Evangelical Lutheran Church is—which many of them have, alas, abandoned in great unfaithfulness, indeed now even help to reject and persecute.

So then, let Mr. Nast's essay first be given a place here in full and unaltered, whereupon we shall let our examination of it follow.

A Reflection by Mr. Nast on the Holy Lord's Supper.

(Taken from the "Apologist" No. 437.)

"The doctrine of the Holy Lord's Supper is of the highest importance, not for the reason that so much has been disputed about it, but because of its significance, inasmuch as the believing partaking of it comprehends within itself all the fruits of the death of Christ and is enjoined upon us most solemnly as a duty. The truly pious of every age and every land have always regarded it with the deepest reverence and esteem, as a supremely important means of grace. It was instituted by Christ himself for the purpose of celebrating the most sublime event that ever occurred and that stirred the adoring wonder of the angels—the redemption of fallen mankind from sin and its dreadful, eternal consequences through the suffering and death of the Son of God; it was instituted amid the most moving circumstances, on the eve of the day of his death; his teaching office on earth was finished; the plans of his enemies to take his life were ripe; Judas was already engaged in betraying his Master; the high priests and the people they had led astray thirsted for his blood. Our Lord and Savior knew all this, but thought only of the salvation of those who would believe in him, and prepared for them a holy, blessing-bringing meal, with the solemn ordinance, his last command, to celebrate it "in remembrance of him."

The nature and meaning of this meal is easy to understand if we only bear in mind that the Lord instituted it just as he was eating the Passover lamb ordained in the Old Covenant with his disciples. Dr. Clarke makes the resemblance between the Jewish Passover and the Lord's Supper most vivid in the following remarks:

1. The Passover lamb was a divine ordinance; so was the memorial meal of the sacrificial death of Jesus Christ. 2. The Passover lamb was a sacrament of the Old Covenant; the memorial meal is a sacrament of the New Covenant. 3. The Passover feast was instituted in remembrance of Israel's deliverance from the bondage of Egypt; the Holy Lord's Supper, in remembrance of the far more important deliverance from the bondage of sin and Satan. 4. The Passover lamb was a type of the future death of Christ; the Lord's Supper is a symbol of the death that has already occurred. 5. The Passover lamb was a certain covenant sign between God and man; so too is the Holy Lord's Supper, in that it represents the blood of atonement that was shed to make the New Covenant between God and man. 6. As no one could partake of the Passover lamb before he was circumcised, Exodus 12:43–48, so the Church of Christ permits only those to partake of the Holy Lord's Supper who have been baptized. 7. As the Jews, in order to be permitted to partake of the Passover lamb, had to be free from all willful defilement, so Holy Scripture commands everyone to examine himself before he eats of this bread and drinks of this wine, and to purge out the old leaven of malice, 1 Corinthians 11:27–29. 8. As the willful neglect of the Passover lamb excluded a man from the fellowship of Israel, Exodus 12:15, Numbers 9:13, so a contempt for the memorial meal—insofar as thereby the atoning sacrifice for the sins of the world, Jesus Christ, is rejected—necessarily excludes a man from the fruits of the suffering and death of our Lord. 9. Just as the Passover lamb was to last as long as the Old Covenant, so the memorial meal of Christ's death is to be celebrated until the Lord comes to judge the world.

A thorough theologian, Dr. Krehl, in his New Testament dictionary, presents the resemblance more briefly, from a somewhat different but equally correct point of view:

"The Lord's Supper is the fulfillment of the type contained in the Passover meal; the Passover meal was the shadow, the Lord's Supper the substance. The Jewish Passover was a remembrance of the sparing of the Israelite firstborn at the slaying of the Egyptian firstborn. But the Lord was now about to bring about the sparing of all mankind, their reconciliation with God, and their preservation unto eternal life through his own blood. The Jewish Passover was a meal of thanksgiving for the deliverance of the people of Israel from Egyptian bondage; deliverance from the yoke and death of sin was what the Lord intended to bring about through his sacrificial death. The Passover recalled the establishment of the Old Covenant; the Lord intended to establish a new, eternal covenant through his holy sacrificial blood. At the first Passover meal the Jews prepared themselves for entry into the land of Canaan, the earthly land of promise. Christ intended to bring about, through his death, the entrance of believers into the land of the eternal promise, and the holy meal was to be the pledge of this hope."

From these remarks it is clearly evident that, just as Baptism in the New Covenant took the place of circumcision in the Old Covenant, so the Holy Lord's Supper was set by our Savior in the place of the Passover, immediately after he had celebrated it for the last time with his disciples. Since he was about to fulfill this typological ordinance through his own sacrificial death, it could no longer have a place in the New Covenant. Christ in his own person became the true Passover lamb, and a new ordinance was necessary to celebrate the spiritual liberation or redemption of man and to impart and confirm its benefits. This the Lord wished to make clear to his disciples; he wished to abolish the ordinance of the Old Covenant and to put in its place a sign and seal, given for remembrance, of his suffering and death for the sins of the world and of the benefits thereby acquired. In giving his disciples bread and wine with the words: "This is my body, this is my blood; eat and drink this in remembrance of me," he wished thereby to say to them, in the first place: "This bread is now my body in the sense in which the Passover lamb has hitherto been my body; and this cup is my blood in the New Testament, in the very same sense in which the blood of oxen and sheep was my blood in the Old Covenant (Exodus 24; Hebrews 1)—that is, the Passover lamb and the sprinkling of blood represented my atoning sacrifice up to the present time; this bread and this wine shall represent my body and my blood in all future times. Therefore do this in remembrance of me! Since my body is given for you and my blood is shed for the forgiveness of sins, you shall henceforth no longer sacrifice and eat the Passover lamb that pointed to me, in remembrance of, and as a sign and seal of, my body crucified for you and my blood shed for you." Could the Savior have reminded us, in a more powerful, clearer, more moving way, of his unspeakable love unto death and of the priceless fruits of his blood? As surely as we are certain that we receive the bread according to the Lord's institution, so assured may we be that the body of Jesus Christ was crucified for us; and just as our earthly life depends on the bread that the gracious God grants for the nourishment of our bodies, so our spiritual and eternal life depends on the body of Jesus Christ sacrificed for our souls on the cross. How easily understood is the expression: "This cup is the New Covenant in my blood!" What else can it mean than: the wine contained in this cup is the sign and seal of the New Covenant between God and man, which is now established through the shedding of my blood, wherefore henceforth no more shedding of blood is necessary for the forgiveness of sins!

It is, however, well to note: bread and wine were given to the apostles not as mere symbolic tokens of remembrance of his body given (or to be given) into death for them, of his blood shed (or to be shed) for the forgiveness of sins; but as powerful covenant signs and seals, by which they at the same time received the whole power, the full effect, and all the blessing of his atoning death, the redemption through his blood, namely the forgiveness of sins, and the present and future blessedness arising from the new, reconciled relationship to God. Just as bread and wine were physically partaken of by them, so they were to partake, in a spiritual manner, of his body and his blood, as given for them, shed for them, and thereby to become partakers of all the fruits of Christ's sacrificial death.

Very noteworthy in the words of institution is this: that our Lord speaks of his body and blood as already given and already shed, whereas they were in fact only to be given and shed. This is easily explained, and the explanation of it sheds still more light on the correct understanding of the words of institution. Since the atonement accomplished through Jesus Christ is an act carried out in the Spirit of God, which as such was completed from eternity through the love of the Father and the resolve of the Son, Jesus could, even before his death which was to occur in time, speak of it as of an accomplished act, and could truly, really, and essentially present to the apostles, in the bread and wine, the atonement—just as still happens today in the celebration of the Holy Lord's Supper. Bread and wine are called the flesh and blood of Christ, insofar as, through the express ordinance of Christ, they have been made the outward, visible