food and drink is now in this ‘blade of straw’—in the sign established through the Word of divine truth and the divine presence, not otherwise—but just because of that: est, it is.
II
‘Promise and faith are correlative, so that where there has been no promise, there cannot be faith; and where faith has not been, there is no promise.’4 ‘God prepared here food, table and a meal for our faith, but faith is not fed except by the Word of God alone.’5
This, then, is the second pillar of Luther’s doctrine of the Lord’s Supper, faith nourished by the Word of God. And this also has primarily a critical significance. The sacrament is received only through faith and through nothing else. In this context also the two restrictions, not through sacramental act and not through the receiving of the sacramental sign, would be distinct; but the nature of the content results in a continual fusion. Without impairing the clarity of our investigation we can therefore speak of both together.
The sharpest expression of this critical interpretation is found in a Corpus Christi sermon on John 6.1 Luther there protests against connecting this passage of Scripture with the sacrament. The argument runs: ‘However true it is that the sacrament is real food, yet it is no help at all to him who does not receive it in his heart by faith. For it makes nobody religious or believing but demands that he be religious and believing beforehand.’2 On the contrary the eating and drinking of which John 6 speaks is from the beginning ‘nothing else but believing on the Lord Christ who has given his flesh and blood in our behalf’. That eating is done ‘in the heart and not with the mouth. Eating in the heart does not deceive, but eating with the mouth, that deceives. Eating with the mouth has an end, but the other eating continues forever without ceasing.’3 What is ‘profitable’ is not the physical eating of the flesh but ‘the believing that this bread is the flesh of God’s Son’.4 In every way the festival preacher is declaring war against the festival of the sacramental object, Corpus Christi, which brought him to the pulpit. There was no other festival to which he was so opposed. He would like to advise that it be wholly abolished, for to him it was the most pernicious festival of the whole year.5
These were ideas which Luther expressed without restraint before the beginning of the disputes on the Lord’s Supper. Here belongs especially the well-known passage from the Corpus Christi sermon of 1519: ‘Be careful! You need to be concerned with the spiritual body of Christ rather than with the natural; and faith in the spiritual is more needed than faith in the natural. For the natural without the spiritual is of no use in this sacrament.’6 Or ‘the sacrament in itself without faith does nothing; yea God himself, who does all things, does not and cannot do good to any man unless he believes in him firmly. Still less can the sacrament do anything.’7 Or ‘not the sacraments but faith at the sacraments makes alive and justifies. Wherefore many take the sacrament and yet do not thereby become alive and truly religious. But he who believes is godly and lives.’1
With the word believe Luther has also answered the question of the right fitness (dispositio) and of the right preparation (praeparatio) for partaking of the sacrament, and of the right use (usus) of it. It is clear that with this answer, questions arising out of the practice of penance2 acquire a wholly new character. The problem of man’s attitude to the gift is transformed into that of his attitude to the giver. Without faith in God or Christ, the Giver, the gift is not given—even though the gift be God himself.3 ‘It does nothing but harm if it is only a “work done” (opus operatum); it must be a “work of doing” (opus operantis)’, which Luther interprets as ‘it must be used in faith’.4 Later he will no longer employ this formulation, for ‘faith is not a work, but the teacher (magister) and life of works’.5 But in the same writing in which this sentence occurs Luther also said: ‘Let him who is to approach the altar … beware lest he appear empty before the Lord God. But he will be empty if does not have faith.’6
What that ‘work of doing’ meant was that faith in the Giver asserts a claim on the whole man, predicates a taking possession of the whole man; and this is not denied but affirmed by calling faith ‘the life and teacher of works’. In this context, both before and after 1520, we find the very centre of Luther’s concept of faith. ‘Take heed that thou becomest another person, or do not go’ must be said to the communicant. Otherwise ‘there is not much difference between giving a man the holy sacrament and shoving it down the throat of a sow. It is a mockery and a dishonouring of the sacrament.’7
But what does it mean to believe, not to come empty, to become a different person? The best beginning for an answer is the genuine, early-Luther definition: ‘The best fitness (dispositio) is truly that thou art worst fitted; and contrarywise thou art worst fitted when thou art best fitted. But this is to be understood as meaning that when thou feelest thyself most miserable and most in need of grace, even so, by that very fact, thou art capable of receiving grace and art especially fitted for the sacrament. Again, more than thou fearest death and hell, do not imagine thyself fit and worthy as if thou wert to bring to God a clean heart—that clean heart must be asked for by thee and must be received by thee. The statement of Matthew 9:12 stands firm and inviolable.… He is thy God and needs not thy goods; but he is generous with his goods to thee, and he comes to thee with the purpose of giving thee his goods.’1 And further, ‘if the man realizes that he is not offering an empty, hungry and thirsty soul to God, and that he does not go the sacrament with a sufficient faith, and moreover, that he cannot do such a thing rightly (as every man in truth will realize, if he will examine and understand himself), then that man must not be ashamed nor afraid to pray according to Luke 17:5; Mark 9:42’.2
The right ‘preparation’ is therefore just the painful recognition that we lack the right ‘fitness’. This recognition, the faith which so to speak leaps into the very gap where there is no faith, is the faith which receives the gift, because that faith is directed towards the Giver. If the Devil ‘winks’ at thee to tell thee that thou art unworthy of the sacrament, ‘just cross thyself and cease worrying over worthiness and unworthiness; only take heed that thou believest.… Faith makes worthy; doubt makes unworthy.’3
‘The sacrament is given only to those who need comfort and strength, who have a timid heart, who carry a frightened conscience, who suffer from the assault of sins or have fallen under it. What can it do for the free, confident spirits who neither need nor desire it?’4 ‘This is what Paul also means when he says, let every man examine himself and then eat of this bread. For the man who rightly examines himself, who forgets the wickedness of other men and does not judge them, but who knows concerning himself that he labours and is heavy laden with many sins and transgressions, will then be greedy for the grace and help of Christ. For as St Augustine says, “the food seeks none except a hungry and empty soul; it flees none but the full and proud who judge and condemn one another, as those would do of whom the Apostle wrote these words.” For if by these words the apostle had required of us that we should examine ourselves until we were certain that we were without deadly sin, he would have laid upon us an impossible requirement and wholly deprived us of the holy sacrament. Therefore it is enough, if thou dost not know of a deadly sin of a specific, gross kind, or of a certain intention to commit a deadly sin. Leave what may lie in the background to the grace of God and let thy faith be thy cleanness; then thou art sure.’1 The sacrament will be received by those ‘who know their transgression, who feel that they are not good and yet would gladly become good. Therefore it all depends on so feeling (on knowing one’s self to have sinned), for in truth all of us transgress and are sinners; but not all so confess.’2
The ‘fitness’ (dispositio) achieved by such ‘preparation’ is therefore the ‘becoming another man’ which must precede the use of the sacrament (not first follow it) in order that the believer may receive in it the ‘testament’, the effective promise of the forgiveness of sins. This capacity (capacitas) can only be compared to an empty, outstretched hand. That it shall not be unused is provided for by word and sign. There is needed only the third component, man’s concurring
