atoning sacrifice, its importance as the highest act of worship and communion with Christ, and its
special blessing to all who worthily partake of it.
They differ on three points,—the mode of Christ’s presence (whether corporal, or spiritual);
the organ of receiving his body and blood (whether by the mouth, or by faith); and the extent of
this reception (whether by all, or only by believers). The last point has no practical religious value,
though it follows from the first, and stands or falls with it. The difference is logical rather than
religious. The Lord’s Supper was never intended for unbelievers. Paul in speaking of "unworthily"
receiving the sacrament (1 Cor. 11:27) does not mean theoretical unbelief, but moral unworthiness,
irreverence of spirit and manner.
I. The Lutheran Theory teaches a real and substantial presence of the very body and blood
of Christ, which was born of the Virgin Mary, and suffered on the cross, in, with, and under (in,
sub, cum) the elements of bread and wine, and the oral manducation of both substances by all
commun-icants, unworthy and unbelieving, as well as worthy and believing, though with opposite
effects. The simultaneous co-existence or conjunction of the two substances is not a local inclusion
of one substance in the other (impanation), nor a mixture or fusing-together of the two substances
into one; nor is it permanent, but ceases with the sacramental action. It is described as a sacramental,
supernatural, incomprehensible union.^915 The earthly elements remain unchanged and distinct in
their substance and power, but they become the divinely appointed media for communicating the
heavenly substance of the body and blood of Christ. They become so, not by priestly consecration,
as in the doctrine of trans-substantiation, but by the power and Word of God. The eating of the
body is by the mouth, indeed, yet is not Caper-naitic, and differs from the eating of ordinary food.^916
The object and use of the Lord’s Supper is chiefly the assurance of the forgiveness of sins, to the
comfort of the believer.^917 This is the scholastic statement of the doctrine, as given by the framers
of the Formula Concordiae, and the Lutheran scholastics of the seventeenth century.
The confessional deliverances of the Lutheran Church on the Lord’s Supper are as follows:
—
(^915) The Lutheran divines of the seventeenth century describe the real presence as sacramentalis, vera et realis, substantiatis, mystica,
supernaturalis, et incomprehensibilis, and distinguish it from the praesentia gloriosa, hypostatica, spiritualis, figurativa, and from ἀπουσία
(absence), ἐνουσία (inexistence), συνουσία (co-existence in the sense of coalescence), and μετουσία (transubstantiation).
(^916) The Formula Concordiae (Epitome, Art. VII., Negativa 21) indignantly rejects the notion of dental mastication as a malicious slander
of the Sacramentarians. But Luther, in his instruction to Melanchthon, Dec. 17, 1534, gave it as his opinion, from which he would not
yield, that "the body of Christ is distributed, eaten, and bitten with the teeth.""Und ist Summa das unsere Meinung, dass wahrhaftig in
und mit dem Brod der Leib Christi gessen wird, also dass alles, was das Brod wirket und leidet, der Leib Christi wirke und leide, dass er
ausgetheilt, gessen, und mit den Zähnen zubissen [zerbissen]werde." De Wette, IV. 572. Comp. his letter to Jonas, Dec. 16, 1534, vol.
IV. 569 sq. Dorner thinks that Luther speaks thus only per synecdochen; but this is excluded by the words, "What the bread does and
suffers, that the body of Christ does and suffers." Melanchthon very properly declined to act on this instruction (see his letter to Camerarius,
Jan. 10, 1535, in the "Corp. Reform." II. 822), and began about that time to change his view on the real presence. He was confirmed in
his change by the renewal of the eucharistic controversy, and his contact with Calvin.
(^917) The Lutheran theory is generally designated by the convenient term consubstantiation, but Lutheran divines expressly reject it as a
misrepresentation. The Zwinglians, with their conception of corporality, could not conceive of a corporal presence without a local presence;
while Luther, with his distinction of three kinds of presence and his view of the ubiquity of Christ’s body, could do so. The scholastic
term consubstantiatio is not so well defined as transubstantiatio, and may be used in different senses: (1) a mixture of two substances
(which nobody ever taught); (2) an inclusion of one substance in another (impanatio); (3) a sacramental co-existence of two substances
in their integrity in the same place. In the first two senses the term is not applicable to the Lutheran theory. The "in pane" might favor
impanation, but, the sub and cum qualify it. Dr. Steitz, in a learned article on Transubstantiation, in Herzog,1 XVI. 347, and in the second
edition, XV. 829, attributes to the Lutheran Church the third view of consubstantiation, but to Luther himself the second; namely, "die
sacramentiche Durchdringung der Brotsubstanz von der Substanz des Leibes." To this Luther’s illustration of the fire in the iron might
lead. But fire and iron remain distinct. At all events, he denied emphatically a local or physical inclusion. Lutheran divines in America
are very sensitive when charged with consubstantiation.