how far he is certain of an act of the Word. If we turn to consider the subjective side of the problem, we find presented a veritable plethora of obviously preliminary observations, which show indeed the direction in which Luther was searching, but have nothing to do with the actual answer which he found.
In what does that which man through faith receives in the sacrament really consist? That is the question. During those years, Luther plainly laboured to distinguish what was so received by giving it a special character within faith in general. If this effort was not wholly fruitless, then the preliminary assumption must be made that the effect on us resulting from the Lord’s Supper is not merely a repetition of the general gift of God tendered to us in Christ but something specific within this general experience, either a specific object or a specific receiving or both at once and combined.
The matter of particularity was already present in the concept of the Word.1 It lay close to Luther’s assumptions entirely to repudiate such a particularity. But there is no such repudiation. ‘Believe, says Augustine, and you have eaten. But what is to be believed there except the “Word” of promise? So I can daily, hourly have Mass, while as often as I wish I can set before myself the words of Christ and nourish and strengthen my faith on them; that is truly to eat and drink spiritually.’2 It might be, as Luther in the same year conceded, that everyone could, when on the march, have such a faith in Christ, consigning to him at need prayer and praise that he may carry them to God in heaven, and that in so doing a man may think upon the sacrament and the testament and sincerely desire, and may therefore partake of it spiritually.… What, then, is the need of having Mass in the Church? Answer: It is true that such faith is enough and truly suffices wholly, but …3 This but is essential to complete the answer. And such statements serve only to stress the critical (that is the fundamental) significance of ‘faith’. Their quintessence is compressed in the sentence: ‘Without the physical partaking of the sacraments (provided they are not despised) one can become godly through faith; but without faith, no sacrament helps; rather it is of all things most deadly and destructive.’1 But here the parenthesis already makes it plain that eating and drinking with the mouth is the rule which is merely established by the exception and remains no less essential.
There are six arguments, if I judge rightly, which Luther offered in support of the particular significance of the external and actual celebration of the Lord’s Supper.
1. He pointed to the divine institution of the rite, the honouring of which would be in itself alone sufficient reason for holding the ‘material Mass’.2
2. He asked how, without the material act, such a faith as is truly effective can be attained; whether we are at all capable of ruling ourselves in spirit; whether it is not necessary for us to come together and be mutually enkindled to such a faith by physically seeing and receiving the testament.3
3. ‘Nor ought that to be omitted; but rather great care must be taken so that the memorial of Christ’s passion be not omitted. For the Lord gave direction that this ceremony is to be celebrated only in memory of him. Therefore it can be omitted only if you wish to give up the memory of him.’4 Luther can on occasion paraphrase the words of institution: ‘[I] leave you this sacrament forever, for a sure and true sign that you do not forget me but use it daily and remind yourselves of what I have done and do for you.’5 He could even compare the institution of the Lord’s Supper with the Catholic custom of binding the heirs in a will to hold celebrations and requiems for the benefit of the dead testator. ‘So therefore Christ has established a celebration of himself in this testament, not because he had need of it, but because it is necessary and profitable for us to so think of him and be thereby strengthened in faith.’6 In this sense the Lord’s Supper can at times be called ‘the memorial sign of the promise’.7 And in the homiletic exposition of this point of view, Luther could go so far as to say: ‘If thou wilst now become a God-maker, come hither, listen. He will teach thee the way … not that thou art to make his divine nature, for that is and remains ever the same and uncreated; but that thou canst make him God for thyself, that he become true God to thee, to thee, to thee, as he is to himself true God. But the way is this … “This do in remembrance of me”.’1
4. This brings us to the fourth argument. ‘Christ in commanding that this be done by us in memory of him plainly desires nothing else than that the promise with his pledge be constantly repeated for the nourishing and strengthening of faith which can never be strengthened enough.’ Through constant renewal of the memory of God’s sweet and rich promise, the spirit becomes so to speak more ‘sturdy’ and ‘well nourished’ (saginatur!) in faith.2
What Luther understands by such strengthening of faith he has once stated in highly Platonic terms, but in noteworthy tension with his second argument. It is necessary that the love, communion, and presence of Christ be hidden, invisible, and spiritual while the sign only is material, visible, external. Otherwise we would not rise to faith. It is necessary that ‘all temporal and sensible things fall away and that we be wholly weaned from them if we are to come to God. To that end the sacrament serves. [It is for us] a ford, a bridge, a door, a boat and a litter in which and by means of which we journey from this world into eternal life. Therefore all depends on faith. For he who does not believe is like the man who must cross water and is so fearful that he does not trust the boat and must therefore remain where he is, and can never more be blessed because he does not embark and cross. For the man who relies on his senses and fails to exercise his faith, the result is that the crossing of the Jordan of death will be bitter.’3
5. Christ instituted the Lord’s Supper with the purpose ‘that it be like a badge or label by which Christians are distinguished from others; therefore as an opportunity to confess Christ’. Luther stresses the need to know who and where the Christians are ‘in whom the Gospel now brings forth its fruits’.4 The communion of the Lord’s Supper is ‘a part of the confession of faith in which they confess before God, angels and men’. The communicants have to take special places at the service to identify themselves; they must be what they are openly not secretly (furtim!).5
6. Unlike preaching, but like confession, the sacrament has the advantage ‘that the Word is directed to thee personally. For in the sermon the Word is sent forth to the community and even though it touches thee, yet thou art not so certain of it. But here it can touch no one but thyself alone. Must thou not be sincerely glad, if thou knowest a place where God wishes to speak with thee thyself?’1
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