The Power Of God’s Word, According To The Lutheran And The Reformed Systems
By Dr. Geo. H. Schodde.
From The German Of Rupelbach’s Reformation, Lutherthum Und Union
The chief and farthest reaching difference between the Lutheran and the Reformed churches consisted, and consists to the present day, in the importance attached to the Word of God and the power attributed to it, as also in regard to the relation of the inner to the outer word, or, in other words, the relation between the testimony of the Holy Spirit and the spoken word. This is the fundamental difference, which conditions all the rest, and which, according to the difference of standpoints, was the real Shibboleth of the two churches wherever they exhibited their activity, on the pulpit as at the table of the Lord, in action as well as in word and writings. We will here permit Luther and his friends, as the first among the representatives of our church, to speak on the one side, and chiefly Oecolampadius and Zwingli on the other, both in clear-cut and carefully selected words, and every honest reader will have to confess that there is a contrast which includes not only a pro and con., but even the clearest and most apparent yea and nay.
It was Luther’s aim with his communion and with the Apostolic church to stand on the powerful, mighty, effective and all mediating Word of God alone. ’The Word of God, they said with Holy Writ, is the everlasting and firm foundation of faith, for it is the everlasting seed out of which we are regenerated. They reasoned in this manner: The Word which in the beginning was with God and which was God, and which sustains all things with its omnipotent power, this same Word brings all things to us in spiritual matters also, namely the communion with the Lord, the forgiveness of sin, the participation of His body and blood in the Holy Supper, and finally the resurrection from the dead (John 5:25). Just as the eternal and essential Word of God, the Son namely, became flesh, thus too the Word out of His mouth is the universal medium of the whole spiritual creation, and it is true of the birth from God as of the origin of all things what the psalmist says (Psalm 33. 6 V. 9): “By the Word of the Lord were 1 the heavens made: and all the hosts of them by the breath of His mouth…. For He spake, and it was done; He commanded and it stood fast.” Indeed, the spiritual man is not only born, but also sustained by this Word; for man lives not by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the Lord. This power of the Word of our Lord Jesus Christ is, however, the same whenever we repeat it at His command. It calls Him into our midst, so that He not only breaks bread for us, but is Himself our true bread of heaven and ’of life. Just herein consists the glory of the New Testament office which has an eternal clearness, because it embraces that which abides; just herein lies the great importance of the consecration of the bread and the wine in the Holy Supper, because the Word of the Lord brings to us in the earthly elements the heavenly food and the drink of immortality. For the Lord Himself has appointed the Word for this purpose that it should not, like human speech, only signify, but should give to the faithful everything which He in mercy has promised. For that reason He has also appointed stewards for this Word, who shall at the proper times feed His people with this Word. The Word then, in its deeper and real sense, is not only the generative, but also the preservative principle in the church, as the Lord Himself says, (John 15:7): “If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.”—This fact accordingly determined Luther and his friends to associate most intimately the eternal Divinity of the Lord and the omnipotence of the Word, so that they spoke with the apostles, (John 6:68. 69): “Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life. And we believe, and are sure, that Thou art that Christ, the Son of the living God.” From this standpoint it was impossible for them to ask further as to the How of the mystery; “The Lord hath said,” was sufficient for them, for the effects they experienced in the life of the Word. The faith, which is born out of the power of the Word of God, is that which reaches out as far as it can grasp the Word of the Lord (Matt. 15:28), but is affected in its innermost being whenever doubt enters the heart (James 1:6, 7).—All to whom the Word of the Lord is in reality a word of power and might (Matt. 7:29), of spirit and of life (John 6:63) will not doubt that our church has here spoken in accordance with apostolic precept and the rule of faith, and that in her application of this doctrine to the Holy Supper she reproduces the mind of the primitive church, is a matter of as little doubt. For according to the general doctrine of the primitive church it is the Word of the Lord which makes the elements the mediums of the body and blood of Christ. But now let us proceed to the explanations proper.
“The Word,” says Luther in his book against the heavenly prophets, “the Word it is that does it: For were Christ given and crucified-for us a thousand times, it would all be in vain, except the Word would come and bestow it upon us, and give it to us, and say, ‘This is for thee; take it, and keep it!’ It has not been commanded us to search out how it takes place that our bread becomes and is the body of Christ. It is God’s Word which says it, and therefore we cling to it and believe it. For with us faith and the Word are not without the thing upon which they trust.” In the same manner the authors of the Swabian Syngramma substantiate their doctrine. “All the Words of God,” they say, “are miracles. With the Word follows the very thing which the Word is and indicates.—What kind of miracles we find in the bread and the cup of the Lord, we will clearly show. Christ says, ‘I am the way, the truth and the life,’ and has proved Himself beyond a doubt as the truth through signs, wonders, wisdom and the sending of the Holy Spirit, all of which are a seal and confirmation of the truth of Christ, and when He among His miracles says to the sick of the palsy or to the sinning woman, ‘Thy sins be forgiven thee,’ are not the forgiveness of sins contained in these few words? Most assuredly. And when He commands the Apostles to wish peace to the people to whom they where sent to preach, did not the words ’ Peace be to this house’ truly contain within themselves this peace, and did they not truly bring this peace unto the hearts of those who dwelt in the houses into which they entered and where they were received in faith? Most certainly. If then in these and similar cases the word is followed by the thing itself, why do you think it so strange and impossible in regard to the words, ‘This is my body,’ and ‘This is my blood?’ But because God is omnipotent in His words, and the Word brings into the bread and wine that which is in it, namely the body and blood of Christ, you have the miracle which we receive and teach in the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, namely the miracle of the Word, according to which the body and the blood of Christ in the bread and wine, solely through the power of the Word, are distributed.—Therefore if the Word brings God with all His grace with it for our faith, then it can also bring Christ bodily in the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper. For if the blood of Christ is to-cleanse and deliver us from sin, death and hell, as St. John says in his first epistle, then it must be present, because no absent thing can cleanse. The Word does all things, it holds all things, it brings all the gifts of God.”
This living conception of the living Word determined the Lutheran theologians from the beginning to describe the true interpretation of scriptures as one bound by the Word of God, and as attained through “clear, transparent, plain words, against which no one can object.” “If you want to know,” says Brenz in his excellent Defense addressed to Martin Bucer, “wherein those err who want to see a figure of speech in the words, This is my body, I can easily tell you. It is the same as is done when a person, hearing Christ’s words, ‘I am the light of the world,’ takes the light in a figurative sense; or when He says, ‘I am the resurrection,’ understands thereby a figure of a resurrection. For as by the words, ‘I am the light of the world’ the light is brought to us, and, whosoever receives it in faith receives also the true light; so also by the words, ‘This is my body,’ the body of the Lord is brought to us.—The reason why we do not agree with the pope is, because he falsifies the Gospel through human opinions and dreams. And the reason we do not agree with you, is, because we think that you do violence to the Word of God, and because you seem to us to take away from us the gifts which the Word brings us, something that we in no wise will permit. We confess that Christ, in the words, ‘This is my body,’ does not give us the figure of His body, but the body itself. The body, not the figure, feeds our souls. But whatever the bread contains of the body it has from the Word, and the bread is the body only in so far as the Word brings the body to us.”
In accordance with this the general conception of a sacrament was formulated among the Lutheran theologians, according to which the signs, immediately when the Word of the Lord has been uttered, are not without that which they signify, but the whole becomes a holy act, in which the relation of the sign and the thing signified is ordered by God in such a manner, that the Word through the former and in it truly brings us the latter and seals it and through faith appropriates it. With fitting and sharp words they not only lay bare the errors of their opponents, but show also whither it must lead when the spoken Word, which has the promise and which carries the grace with it, is considered as a mere outward and hence passing affair. " Without reason or scriptural grounds to do violence to the words," says Luther, “is sacrilege; therefore we beg of the brethren, for the sake of Christ and of all we love in Christ, that they guard against this error, which has no foundation whatever, and cease to lead souls astray. For here lies the greatest danger to souls.” “Your sacramental spirit,” says the Swabian Syngramma, ’has the intent, with the outward word to deprive us of the outward Christ. That is the nature of this spirit, for it asks, What is the outward word? Is it not the letter? Are they not syllables? Can the syllables and the words save us? and questions of this sort. The next step will be that it asks us, Which is the outward Christ? and answer, Is He not flesh and blood? But flesh profiteth nothing; cursed be he who believes on man. To this it will come, if we imitate you." How deeply the conviction of the power of the Word was implanted into the heart of our church is seen even in the misconstruction of it on the part of the opponents, as when Oecolampadius says, “They want to pay us off with other empty words, and say, God’s Word it is; to this we will cling and this we will believe.” But they thought that they could never formulate the antithesis strongly enough; for to them the word was a sound, or again like everything corporeal, a sign with a meaning. But it was impossible for them to be content with mere opposition; they, of necessity, had to proceed to the negation; they could not consider the preached and the spoken Word as the source of faith, and in thus leaving the standpoint of the church, they were more and more driven to the fanatical opinion concerning the inner word, which, torn loose from the body of the revelation, evidently is only a shadow, which corresponds exactly to the mere sign in the sacrament. That we do hereby not accuse them of something which they refuse to accept, is evident from the following passages. In plain words Zwingli says in his book concerning the true and the false faith: “The word which we hear is in no wise the word through which we believe; for if the word which is heard or read could make us believers, then we all would believe. The word of faith inheres in the spirit of the believer; it is itself judged by no one, but the outward word is judged by it.” But Oecolampadius explains this still more clearly. “Christ,” he says, “has not given the outward words such power, that they should possess His body and in essence convey it to us. In general it is not the nature of words to accomplish such things, but it is their nature to convey the meaning of things, which before had gained in the souls of men an inner concept or an inner word; for whatever the outward words contain over and above the sound, they have-from the inner spirit and the inner word. Hence, in the same manner, the body will essentially be in the inner words, in the soul of man, which inner words are more noble than the outward. It is true that the words ‘This is my body,’ are not mere historical words; for then they would be a matter of as little importance to us as it is that Christ went to the Mount of Olives, to which He now no longer goes. But if there is in the words a command or ordinance of God, then let the word of this command be shown to us. It is not said here, ‘Bread, become my body,’ as is said concerning the creation of light, ‘Let there be light,’ and to the leper, ‘Be thou clean!’ And even where it has the appearance of being a word of command, where is the ordinance for future times, that this should come to pass, as is the casein prophecies? Therefore, we may turn and twist the words as we will, they turn out to be nothing but words explanatory of the ceremonies which were then established by the Lord….. How dare we attribute to the outward words that the divine word has been put into the outward word, since the Apostles themselves wished to be considered as nothing but those who plant and water, but that not they, but God gave the increase? And thus it is. In the Scriptures there is nothing known of a power indwelling in the word. I know well that the Apostles announce all things with their words. But that the things themselves accompany the words to the believers, I will not admit, for the honor belongs to God. They think the Spirit is wrapped up in the words and is inseparable from them. If it were thus, then no teaching would be in vain; the spirit would not be idle. But the inner, constant.word, and the outward, are as far apart as are law and grace. But grace is not contained in the law, and as we speak of outward words, so too can we speak of ceremonies, emblems and sacraments. Yet the word is more’ powerful, because it is nearer to the inner word. Yet one and all are not able to teach the least, much less, do something greater. Their office is only to signify, to exhort, to remind. The outward word does not give faith; it does not comfort, it does not honor, it does not enlighten; but our inner, heavenly teacher is Christ…. Accordingly the words, to speak accurately, are only warning signs, which should excite us to search in us for those things which the words signify, not that we are to learn these things through the words, but that we seek in us the truth, and thus be instructed. Within us, within us it must be received by faith.”—Finally, Zwingli summarizes the whole in these words: “The church should not be founded upon the word”which is spoken or written, but upon that which shines ’within the heart. The church argues through the word of faith which is taught through the spirit in the hearts of believers." And Oecolampadius, in order to destroy what he ’considers the visionary views of our church, has the hardihood to compare our doctrine with which he ought to have been acquainted from the church fathers and especially from the Scriptures, with the mass swindle of the Papists and the sorcery of Babylon. “Here you can see,” he says, “where the devil shows his hand, who consigns the sorcerers and superstitious people to such errors as though there were secret and hidden powers in characters, signs and words. To such sorcerers the bishops, priests and monks have aided much, and have practiced them themselves. Now they would find great aid in this opinion. Babylon must have all kinds of sorcery, in order that it may not know God; Jerusalem will set her hope upon God her Lord.”
But after the Word had once been emptied of its power, then the sacrament in general had to sink into a shadow; only the spirit of man could give it any importance. Nothing can be more closely united and more false than Zwingli’s and Bucer’s doctrine, namely the sacraments are only public ’declarations or tokens of faith in Christ; that they rather assure the church of our faith, than that they strengthen us in faith; that they have no power to cleanse the conscience, and do not even belong to the order of salvation. For “grace and the Holy Ghost do not need a vehicle,” says Zwingli; yes, it is even presumption to seek to bind the Spirit to any outward sign; for, He rather gives His gifts, how, when and where He will."—Thus the conception of the sacrament was pressed down even below that of the elements in it, and faith and the Spirit, which were to take its place, saw only the ruins of the divine order and institution. In this line it was. a necessary consequence yet to add that the sacraments of the Old and of the New covenants were essentially and in their effects identical; that we had no advantage over the children of Israel in this regard, for they too had partaken spiritually of Christ; and that as little as it was necessary for them to partake of Christ in the paschal lamb, so little is it necessary that we have Christ essentially in the bread and thus eat Him.
