THE LORD'S SUPPER--CONCLUDED.
We have quoted, noted, collected and compared the words of
Scripture that speak of the sacrament of the Lord's Supper. We now
wish to ask and examine the question: What do these passages taken
together and compared with one another teach? Or, in other words, what
is the Bible doctrine of the Lord's Supper?
Does the Bible teach the doctrine of Transubstantiation, as held
and confessed by the Roman Catholic Church? If our investigation of
the teachings of the Holy Scriptures convinces us that they teach
Transubstantiation, we will be ready to believe and confess that
doctrine, no matter who else may believe or disbelieve it. What we
want to know, believe, teach and confess, is the _Bible
doctrine_.
What is Transubstantiation? The word means a change of substance.
The doctrine of the Romish Church is that after the consecration by
the priest, the bread in the sacrament is changed into the material
body of Christ, and the wine into His blood--so entirely changed in
substance and matter, that after the consecration there is no more
bread or wine there; what was bread has been converted into the flesh
of Christ, and what was wine has been converted into His blood. Is
this the doctrine of God's word? Does the Word anywhere tell us that
the bread and wine are thus changed? Does it call the bread flesh,
either before or after the consecration? Let us see. "Jesus took
_bread_." "I will not drink of the _fruit of the vine_." "The _bread_
which we break." "For as often as ye eat this _bread_ and drink this
cup." Such is the language of inspiration. Now we ask, if the Holy
Spirit desired that plain and unprejudiced readers should find the
doctrine of Transubstantiation in His words, why does He call the
earthly elements _bread_ and _wine_ before, during and after the
consecration Why does He not say, "as often as ye eat this flesh and
drink this blood?" Evidently because the bread is, and remains plain,
natural bread, and so with the wine. There is no change in the
component elements, in the nature, matter, or substance of either.
Transubstantiation is not the doctrine of God's word; neither was it
the doctrine of the early Church. It is one of the human inventions
and corruptions of the Church of Rome.
Do then these words of Scripture teach the doctrine of
Consubstantiation? There are persons who talk a great deal about
Consubstantiation, and yet they know not what it means. What is it? It
is a mingling or fusing together of two different elements or
substances, so that the two combine into a third. A familiar example,
often given, is the fusing or melting together of copper and zinc
until they unite and form brass. Applied to the sacrament of the
altar, the doctrine of Consubstantiation would teach that the flesh
and blood of Christ are physically or materially mingled and combined
with the bread and wine; so that what the communicant receives is
neither plain, real bread, nor real flesh, but a gross mixture of
the two.
Again we ask, is this the teaching of the Word? The very same
proofs that convince us that the divine Word does not teach
Transubstantiation, also convince us that it does not teach
Consubstantiation. The simple fact that the earthly elements are
called _bread_ and _the fruit of the vine_, before, during and after
consecration, satisfies us that they remain plain, simple bread and
wine, without physical change or admixture. Consubstantiation is not
the teaching of the Word; neither is it, nor has it ever been, the
teaching of the Lutheran Church. It often has been, and is still
called the Lutheran doctrine of the Lord's Supper, but it is found in
none of her confessions. It was never taught by a single recognized
theologian of our Church. One and all, they have repudiated it and
repudiate it still. The question then is still unanswered What is the
doctrine of the divine Word?
There are many who have a ready and easy answer as to this
doctrine. They say it is only a Church ceremony, one of the old,
solemn rites by which Church members are distinguished from outsiders.
There is indeed no special significance or Grace connected with it.
There is really nothing in it but bread and wine. There is no presence
of Christ at all in this sacrament in any way different from His
general presence. The bread represents or signifies, is a sign, or
symbol, or emblem of Christ's body, and the wine of His blood. The
communicant receives nothing but bread and wine, and while he partakes
of these he remembers Christ's sufferings and death. Whatever special
benefit he is to derive from this sacrament he must first put into it,
by bringing to it pious thoughts, good feelings, deep emotions, tender
memories, and a faith that swings itself aloft and holds communion
with Christ far off in heaven.
This is about the current, popular view of this subject as held
and taught in nearly all the Protestant Churches of to-day, outside of
the Lutheran Church. As a natural consequence of this superficial
view, the whole matter is treated very lightly. There is little, if
any, solemn, searching preparation. In many places there is no formal
consecration of the elements. The table is thrown open to any one who
desires to commune. There are no regulations, no guards, no
disciplinary tests, connected with it. Even unbaptized persons, and
persons who have never made a public profession of faith, are often
permitted to commune. But we digress.
We return to the question: Is the view just noticed in harmony
with and based on the Word? Let us see. If there is nothing on the
altar but bread and wine, why does Christ say, "This is _My body ...
My blood_?" Why not say, This is bread, this is wine? If Christ wanted
us to understand that the bread and wine merely represent or are
emblems of His body and blood, why did He not say so? Did He not know
how to use language? Did He use dark or misleading words in His last
Will and Testament? Why does Paul, in speaking of worthy and unworthy
communing, speak of the body of Christ as present, as a matter of
course? Was he inspired to misunderstand Christ and lead plain readers
astray? If there is nothing more in the sacrament than to remember
Christ, why--as already noticed--did not the writers of the first two
Gospels put in the words, "_Do this in remembrance of Me_?" Or why did
not Christ plainly say, "Take, eat this bread, which represents My
body, in remembrance of Me?" Clearly, the doctrine in question is not
based on the words of Scripture. It cannot be supported by Scripture.
Neither do its defenders attempt to support it by the passages that
clearly speak of this sacrament. If they try to bring in any Scripture
proof, they quote passages that have nothing to do with the subject.
They draw their proofs and supports principally from reason and
philosophy.
Surely a doctrine that changes the words of the institution,
wrests and twists them out of their natural sense, and does violence
to all sound rules of interpretation that must bolster itself up by
the very same methods of interpretation that are used to disprove the
divinity of Christ, the resurrection of the body, and the eternity of
future punishment, is not the doctrine of Christ.
We have not found the Bible doctrine in any of the views
examined. Can we find it? Let us see. We are satisfied, from our
examination of the passages that have to do with our subject, that
there must be earthly elements present in this sacrament. They are
bread and wine. They remain so, without physical change or admixture.
We also find from these passages that there is a real presence of
heavenly elements. These are the body and blood of Christ. Not indeed
that body as it was in its state of humiliation, when it was subject
to weakness, hunger, thirst, pain and death. But that glorified,
spiritual, resurrection body, in its state of exaltation, inseparably
joined with the Godhead, and by it rendered everywhere present. And
this body and divinity, we remark in passing, were already present,
though veiled, when the God-man walked this earth. Peter and James and
John caught a glimpse of it on the Mount of Transfiguration. It is of
this body, and blood, of which Peter says, 1 Peter i. 18, 19, that it
is _not a corruptible thing_, and of which the Apostle says, Heb. ix.
12, "_By his own blood he entered in once into the Holy Place_" (that
is, into heaven), and of which Jesus spoke when He said, "_Take eat,
this is my body_ ... _this is my blood_."
Of this body and blood, the Scriptures affirm that they are
present in the sacrament. The passage which sets forth the _double_
presence, that of the earthly and heavenly elements, which indeed sums
up and states the Bible doctrine in a few words, is 1 Cor. x. 16.
There Paul affirms that the bread is the communion of Christ's _body_,
not of His Spirit or His influence. If the bread is the communion of,
participation in, or connection with His body, then bread _and_ body
must both be present. It takes two things to make a communion. They
must both be present. It would be absurd to speak of bread as a
communion of something in no way connected with it.
As we have already said, the plain sense of the words of this
passage is, that the bread is a connection with, or a participation in
Christ's body, and so with the wine; so much so that whoever partakes
of the one must, in some manner, also become a partaker of the other.
The bread, therefore, becomes the medium, the vehicle, the conveyance,
that carries to the communicant the body of Christ, and the wine
likewise His blood. And this, we repeat, without any gross material
transmutation or mixing together. The bread and wine are the earthen
vessels that carry the Heavenly treasures of Christ's body and blood,
even as the letters and words of the Scriptures convey to the reader
or hearer the Holy Spirit. This is the clear, plain, Bible doctrine of
the Lord's Supper. There is nothing gross, carnal, Capernaitish or
repulsive about it.
And exactly this is the teaching and doctrine of the Evangelical
Lutheran Church. Article X., Augsburg Confession, says, "Of the Lord's
Supper they teach that the true body and blood of Christ are truly
present, under the form of bread and wine, and are there communicated
to those that eat in the Lord's Supper." And Luther's Catechism says,
"The sacrament of the altar is the true body and blood of Jesus
Christ, under the bread and wine, given unto us Christians to eat and
drink, as it was instituted by Christ Himself."
We therefore find that on this point also our dear old Church is
built impregnably on the foundation of Christ and His Apostles. And
though she may here differ from all others, she cannot yield one jot
or tittle without proving false to her Lord and His truth. It is not
bigotry. It is not prejudice, that makes her cling so tenaciously to
this doctrine. She knows, as the great Reformer knew, that the very
foundations are at stake; that if she gives up on this point, and
changes the Scriptures to suit human reason, she will soon have to
give up other doctrines, and by and by the rock on which the Church is
built will be removed, and the gates of hell will prevail.
And further, if there is any risk of being mistaken--which she,
however, does not admit--she would rather run that risk, by taking her
Master at His word, than by changing His word. In childlike confidence
and trust, she would rather believe too much than not enough. She
would rather trust her dear Master too far than not far enough. And
therefore here she stands; she cannot do otherwise. May God help her!
Amen.
Others may still say, "This is a hard saying, who can bear it?
The idea of eating and drinking the body and blood of our Lord offends
us."
Well, it also offended the late Henry Ward Beecher, that his
salvation should depend on the literal shedding of the literal blood
of Jesus. This idea was repulsive to the great Brooklyn divine. But it
does not offend us. On the contrary, this same doctrine is to us the
very heart of the whole Gospel, and is therefore more precious than
life itself.
Neither does it offend us that the mother, whose pure and tender
love to her infant child is an emblem of the divine love to us poor
sinners, while she presses to her bosom that little one, soothes away
its frettings and sings away its sobbings, at the same time feeds and
nourishes that feeble life with her own physical life, giving it
literally her body and blood. This is no offense to us.
And why should it offend us that our dear loving Saviour comes so
close to us, leads us into His banqueting house, where His banner over
us is love, speaks to us words that are the out-breathings of the
yearning love of His divine heart, and, at the same time, feeds us
with His own spiritual and glorified body and blood, and thus makes us
partakers of the divine nature.
Instead of being offended, let us rather bow down, and worship,
and adore, and sing:
"Lord, at Thy table I behold
The wonders of Thy Grace;
But most of all admire that I
Should find a welcome place."
"I that am all defiled by sin;
A rebel to my God:
I that have crucified His Son
And trampled on His blood!"
"What strange surprising Grace is this
That such a soul has room;
My Saviour takes me by the hand.
And kindly bids me come!"