Lutherans now have little to say about the Reformation. The denominations are melted into one Protestant/Roman collection. For example, when I skim the Roman Catholic news, I find a mix of Mary and various Unitarians.
Slightly different, the vague Protestants long for Rome, so they jump over the barriers and banners, complaining how dry and colorless their own people are.
Let's go backwards! The Holy Spirit is the energy behind the hymns, liturgies, sermons, lessons, and prayers.
Like St. Paul, Luther and Melanchthon included the Spirit's work with everything.
More to come - efficacy - the Spirit in the Word...
The Formula of Concord Confesses the Efficacy of the Visible Word
"The other eating of the body of Christ is oral or sacramental, when the true, essential body and blood of Christ are also orally received and partaken of in the Holy Supper, by all who eat and drink the consecrated bread and wine in the Supper--by the believing as a certain pledge and assurance that their sins are surely forgiven them, and Christ dwells and is efficacious in them, but by the unbelieving for the judgment and condemnation, as the words of the institution by Christ expressly declare when at the table and during the Supper He offers His disciples natural bread and natural wine, which He calls His true body and true blood, at the same time saying: Eat and drink. For in view of the circumstances this command evidently cannot be understood otherwise than of oral eating and drinking, however, not in a gross, carnal, Capernaitic, but in a supernatural, incomprehensible way; to which afterwards the other command adds still another and spiritual eating, when the Lord Christ says further: This do in remembrance of Me, where He requires faith [which is the spiritual partaking of Christ's body). "
Formula of Concord, SD, VII. #63. Holy Supper. Concordia Triglotta, St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House 1921, p. 995. Tappert, p. 581. Heiser, p. 270.
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The majority sees symbolism rather than realizing efficacy.
