# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1847 10 13_S28
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

but by this they in no way mean to state and explain the manner in which Christ's body and blood are present in the Lord's Supper, but only to testify that in the Lord's Supper there is present not a mere proof, not a mere sign, image, symbol, etc., of Christ's body, but the real, true, essential body of Christ, for no other body was crucified and later glorified than Christ's real, true, and essential body. As for the manner of the presence of Christ's body in the Lord's Supper, the Lutheran Church has always confessed that it is one known to God alone, inexpressible, mysterious, and unsearchable, which she therefore calls a sacramental presence, because such a presence — by virtue of which the body and blood of Christ, under certain outward signs, are incomprehensibly yet truly present and received — takes place only in the Holy Sacrament.*) It is accordingly clear that, even according to this biblical-Lutheran doctrine, "the Apostles celebrated no other Supper than we do," and that, in order to be able to assert this, one need by no means, in defiance of Christ's words, assume with the apologist that neither the Apostles nor we partake of Christ's body in the Lord's Supper, but should merely think of it. In this way, to be sure, all offense is quickly and easily removed for reason, but Christ is thereby also robbed of his honor and truthfulness. And far be that from all who still acknowledge Christ to be the Son of God!

*) As evidence, let a passage from Johann Gerhard serve. He writes: "We remind once more, on account of the false accusations of our opponents, that we accept neither an impanation (embreading) nor a consubstantiation (a union of the body of Christ and the bread into one substance), nor any other natural or spatial presence; but we believe, teach, and confess that, after the institution by Christ himself, in a manner known to God alone but incomprehensible to us, Christ's body is truly, really (realiter), and essentially present and united with the bread in the Supper, as the means ordained by God, and Christ's blood truly, really, and essentially present and united with the wine in the Supper, so that with that bread we take, eat, and drink Christ's true body, and with that wine Christ's true blood, in the high mystery. This presence is called sacramental, not in the sense in which our opponents (the Reformed) use this word, as a presence by mere signs, but because in this mystery something heavenly is conveyed and communicated to us by means of certain outward symbols.... Some of our own speak of a bodily presence with respect to the What (the object), but by no means with respect to the How, or the manner. By this they meant to say that not only the power and efficacy, but the substance itself of the body and blood of Christ, is present in the Lord's Supper; for they set this word in opposition to the spiritual presence as explained by the opponents, but by no means did they intend that Christ's body should be present in a bodily and quantitative manner (that is, according to its size, length, breadth, etc.)." (Loci theol. Art. 24, § 98. Compare: "Lutheraner" III, 26.) In another place Gerhard writes: "We have always protested against disputing with anyone about the manner and mode, since this is unknown to all human reason." (Ib. § 105.)

[28]

No, the holy Apostles, at the first celebration, partook of the body of Christ which was (not in the state in which he was) given and crucified, and which (not as he) has been glorified, and we too partake of that same body; and in that same mysterious manner in which it is now present in the Lord's Supper, so was it also present in the first Supper. It is indeed true that Christ's body, at the time of the first celebration, was not yet glorified, as it now is; but we must well consider that Christ has still the same body that once hung on the cross, and still the same blood that once flowed from his wounds for our reconciliation. Through the glorification, Christ did not receive another, new body; rather, this very same body thereby only received other, new properties — it no longer needs, namely, food, drink, sleep, etc., for its life, is no longer subject to death, and the like. But who, on account of Christ's body now being in a more glorious state, will say that, were it present in the Supper, the Apostles must have celebrated a different Supper than we do?

Having now testified that we Lutherans do not base the presence of Christ's body in the Lord's Supper on its having undergone glorification, we must expect that Mr. Nast will now also hold against us, as his fifth argument, the argument which he advances in his essay against the Roman priests: namely, that Christ could not have given the Apostles "his natural body," because he was, after all, bodily present and sitting at table with them. To this we answer: were Christ's body the body of an ordinary human being, this conclusion would indeed be entirely correct, for it is contrary to the nature of our body that it should, in a natural manner, be here, and in a supernatural manner, yet truly, be elsewhere. But we know from Scripture not only that Christ had a true human body, but also that in Christ "the whole fullness of the Godhead dwelt bodily" (Col. 2:9), that in Christ "the Word, which was God" from eternity, "was made flesh" (John 1:1, 14). God himself has therefore personally united himself with the human nature of Jesus — that is to say, God dwelt in Jesus not as in a believing child of grace of God, but in such a way that in him God and man constituted One Person. Christ's blood is therefore called in Holy Scripture "the blood of the Son of God" (1 John 1:7), indeed, "God's own blood" (Acts 20:28), and it is therefore charged against the Jews that they "killed the Prince of life" (Acts 3:15) and "crucified the Lord of glory" (1 Cor. 2:8). What follows from this? Nothing less than that the human nature of Jesus must, through the personal union with the divine, have been raised to inexpressible glory, and that wherever the Son of God is, there must also be the Son of Man, so that this Son of Man too must be omnipresent; for if there were a place in heaven or on earth of which one could say: here indeed is the Son of God, but not the Son of Man — then the Son of God in Jesus would not really have become man, then he would have been in him not personally, but only as in some other man, and the whole fullness of the Godhead would not have dwelt bodily in him. With the denial of the omnipresence of the Son of Man, therefore, Christ's person is (Nestorian-fashion) torn asunder, the incarnation, or the becoming man of God, is denied, and thus Christ's divinity is rejected. We do not draw these conclusions on our own authority; they are drawn in God's Word itself. At the end of Matthew it says: "Behold, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world." Who is this "I" who wishes to be present everywhere and always with his Christians? It is Jesus Christ, God and man in one person, before whom we need not be afraid as before a consuming fire, but who comes as our brother and as the bridegroom of our souls. But should someone say: "Yes, but Christ spoke thus in the state of exaltation" — then we remind him that the divine properties were not first communicated to Christ's humanity in the exaltation that followed his humiliation. The exaltation consists solely in this: that Christ, from its beginning, made full and unrestricted use of the glorious properties communicated to his human nature, whereas in the state of his humiliation he voluntarily emptied himself of them, in order to be able to suffer and die for us, and let them shine forth only at times — as, for example, when he worked miracles, when he let a divine healing power go out from his body (Luke 8:46), when he walked with his body upon the sea as upon solid ground, and so forth. The divine properties were communicated to the human nature of Christ at the moment in which the Godhead personally united itself with it. Christ therefore possessed this glory even as man, already while he still walked in deepest lowliness, while he still hung in shame upon the cross, indeed already in the manger. Had the man Christ Jesus not yet possessed this glory then, he would not then have been "Christ the Lord," as the heavenly hosts call him to the shepherds; for just as the glowing iron shines and burns only through the fire, so the human nature of Christ possesses divine properties only by virtue of its union with the divine, by which it is permeated. An irrefutable testimony to this is the remarkable saying of Christ: "No man has ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of man, who is in heaven" (John 3:13). Here Christ plainly says to Nicodemus that he too, as man — although he walked on earth in the natural manner — nevertheless, in a manner incomprehensible to us,