Saturday, May 30, 1528 (Part 1)

Martin Luther preaches a sermon on the Lord’s Supper. This is the eleventh and final sermon in Luther’s first (of three) series of sermons on the Catechism preached in 1528. As I have not found an English translation of these catechism sermons, in lieu of an excerpt from the sermon preached on May 30, we have a third except from the Large Catechism‘s (1529) discussion of the Lord’s Supper.

Quotation:

[continued from the previous post] For this reason, [the Lord’s Supper] is appropriately called a food for the soul, which nourishes and strengthens the new man. For by baptism we are first born anew; but (as I said before) our human flesh and blood have not lost their old skin. There are so many hindrances and temptations of the devil and of the world that we often become weary and faint, and sometimes also stumble.

Therefore the Lord’s Supper is given as a daily food and sustenance, so that our faith may be refreshed and strengthened so as not to succumb in such a battle, but become ever stronger and stronger. For the new life should be one that continually increases and makes progress. But it has to suffer much opposition. For the devil is such a furious enemy that when he sees that we oppose him and attack the old man and that he cannot rout us by force, he prowls and sneaks around on all sides, tries all kinds of tricks, and does not stop until he finally wears us down, so that we either renounce our faith or surrender hand and foot to apathy or impatience. When our heart feels that the burden is becoming too heavy, this consolation of the Lord’s Supper is given to bring us new strength and refreshment.

But here our clever spirits contort themselves with their great learning and wisdom, crying out and bawling: “How can bread and wine forgive sins or strengthen faith?” Although they hear and know that we do not claim this of bread and wine (because in itself bread is bread), but of that bread and wine that are the body and blood of Christ and have the word attached to them. That, we say, is truly the treasure, and nothing else, through which such forgiveness is obtained. Now the only way in which it is conveyed and appropriated to us is in the words “given and shed for you.” Here you have both truths: that it is the body and blood of Christ, and that it is yours as a treasure and gift. Now the body of Christ can never be an unfruitful, useless thing that does nothing and helps no one. Yet, however great this treasure is in itself, it must be comprehended in the word and offered to us through the word; otherwise, we would never be able to know or seek it.

Therefore, it is also absurd talk when they say that the body and blood of Christ are not given and shed for us in the Lord’s Supper and hence that we cannot have forgiveness of sins in the sacrament. For although the work is accomplished and the forgiveness of sins acquired on the cross, yet it cannot come to us in any other way than through the word. For what would we otherwise know about it, that such a thing was accomplished or was to be given us, if it were not presented by preaching or the oral word? From what source do they know of it, or how can they apprehend and appropriate to themselves this forgiveness, unless they lay hold of and believe the Scriptures and the gospel? But now the entire gospel and the article of the Creed, “I believe one holy Christian Church, … the forgiveness of sins, etc.,” are embodied in this sacrament and presented to us through the word. Why, then, should we allow this treasure to be torn from the sacrament? They must confess that these are the very words which we hear everywhere in the gospel, and they can no more say that these words in the sacrament are of no value than they could dare to say that the entire gospel or word of God, apart from the sacrament, is of no value. [to be continued in the next post]