A Savior Who Understands
The Grace of Understanding
After several pastors had failed to win a condemned criminal to Christ by preaching down to him, a layman went to visit the man. Entering the death row cell, he sat on the cot alongside the man, took him by the hand, and said, “We are in a bad fix, aren’t we?” The man broke into tears and soon yielded to Christ. He needed somebody to understand and care.
[X. Concerning the Lord’s Supper]
[1] Concerning the Lord’s Supper it is taught that the true body and blood of Christ are truly present under the form of bread and wine in the Lord’s Supper and are distributed and received there. [2] Rejected, therefore, is also the contrary teaching.
[55] For if the body of Christ were not truly and essentially present but only present and enjoyed in its power and effect, the bread would have to have been called a sharing not of the body, but of the spirit, power, and benefits of Christ, as the Apology argues and concludes.198 [56] Thus, if Paul were only speaking of a spiritual sharing of Christ’s body through faith, as the sacramentarians pervert the passage, then he would not say “the bread” but “the spirit” or “faith” is the sharing of the body of Christ. But he says the bread is the sharing of the body of Christ, so that all who receive the consecrated bread are also sharing the body of Christ. Therefore, he must be speaking not of a spiritual reception but of a sacramental or oral reception of Christ’s body, by both godly and godless Christians alike.
[57] The purpose and context of this entire discourse of St. Paul [1 Cor. 10:14–33*] make this clear. He was discouraging and warning those who ate from the sacrifices to idols and who practiced fellowship with heathen worship of the devil and at the same time went to the table of the Lord and shared Christ’s body and blood. He warned them so that they would not receive his body and blood to their judgment and damnation. For all who share the consecrated bread broken in the Supper also share Christ’s body. Therefore St. Paul cannot be speaking of spiritual sharing with Christ, which no one can misuse, and about which there is no need to warn people.