Transcript
This transcript:
- Was machine generated.
- Has not been checked for errors.
- May not be entirely accurate.
It would seem that some controversy has arisen with regard to the mode of Christ's presence in the supper.
Now, those who are engaging in this controversy, and in this case, I mean stoking it, starting the controversy where there is none, are doing so in bad faith.
On top of doing it in bad faith, they are doing it foolishly twice over, once because it is foolish to engage in such a controversy in the way they are, and twice because they do not understand the terms they are employing, because they do not have access to the original language of the Book of Concord to see what those terms actually are, or the original language of the philosophical and theological terms being employed.
Now, of course, you do not have to know the languages to employ the terms, but it would behoove you to actually know what the terms mean, which is very clearly not the case here.
At any rate, the quote that comes up is not actually in Article 7, but in Article 8 of the epitome of the formula of Concord.
It is paragraph 17, so here it is.
The German...
Actually, I will just read the entire paragraph.
Therefore it is also easy for him and for anyone who likes to share his true body and blood in the Holy Supper, not according to the nature or property of human nature, but according to the nature and property of divine rights, says Dr. Luther, from our Christian child's faith, which is neither earthly nor Copernican, but is true and essential, as the words of his will say, that is, is, is my body, and so on.
Now, the part of that that is relevant for this issue here is the bit that says, nicht irdisch.
Irdisch is the term that is being mistranslated as physical.
Irdisch, auf Deutsch, does not mean physical.
It means earthly, mundane, terrestrial.
Now, that is a polemic against the Reformed.
That is what's actually happening in this paragraph.
There's a polemic against the polemic the Reformed often leverage against Lutherans, which is their accusation that we are cannibals, of course.
Now, that term, irdisch, as I said, does not mean physical.
If we wanted physical, that would be köpelisch, or leiblich, since you've got the word leib there in the quote from Luther.
The other term that comes up is the Latin term localitur.
That is one of the terms over which we fought with the Reformed, and still do to this day, although often the fights now are not in Latin.
Localitur also does not mean physical.
It means local, or locally.
When we say that we do not hold to a localitur understanding of Christ's presence in the supper, what we are saying is that we reject the accusation of the Reformed that we are cannibals, because their accusation is blasphemous.
They are calling Christ a liar, they are insulting the sacrament, and it should terrify them to speak those words, to even think those words.
Now, what the actual Lutheran position is, is this.
Christ is physically, substantially, sacramentally present in, with, and under the bread and the wine in the supper.
And he is so because he promises to be so.
That is the Lutheran position.
To say that Lutherans do not hold that Christ is physically present is a lie.
At the absolute best, it is a reckless misunderstanding of the meaning of the terms being used in the Book of Concord, in our dogmaticians, in our theologians.
It is to deliberately, quite frankly, because there is a point at which recklessness, negligence, rises to such a level that it is, in fact, intentional, it is, in fact, deliberate.
And that is the case here, because it is trivial to look up what the word Yiddish means, or what the word localiter means.
Just drop them into any of the various places online where you can translate from one language to another, and it will spit out the accurate meaning of these terms for you.
And that has clearly not been done by certain individuals who are engaging in this controversy.
So again, this is the Lutheran position.
Christ is physically, substantially, sacramentally present in, with, and under the bread and the wine, in the supper, as he promises.
