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
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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.
