Don and Kath's statement is: "He (Luther) was steeped in the Roman Catholic heresies. He never broke free of all of them. He remained a believer
in transubstantiation (sic!), that in the Lord's Supper, the bread and wine become the literal body and blood of Christ." This is the typical view of
the "Reformed" or non-Lutherans and is totally inaccurate.
Luther and the other Lutheran theologians renounced transubstantiation as false. But they also renounced the Zwingli/Calvinist misuse of human
reasoning by claiming that when Jesus said, "This IS my body," what He really meant (!) was "This REPRESENTS my body." (If we interpreted the
rest of the Bible like that, there would be nothing left of the Christian faith!) Luther and the Lutherans simply insist on taking Jesus' words seriously,
without attempting the folly of a human explanation of the supernatural mystery in the Supper. If Jesus said that the bread is His body, then we
believe that "He said it, we believe it, and that settles it," regardless of whether or not it offends our reason. On the basis of the very words of
Scripture, we believe that in some way that is utterly beyond our human reasoning ability, when we receive the bread and wine (which is STILL bread
and wine) we are brought into contact through that bread and wine with the very body and blood of our crucified, resurrected, and ascended Lord.
There is no other honest way to understand Paul's words in I Corinthians 10:16.
When the "Reformed" claim that this is impossible because Jesus' body is ascended and at the right hand of God, we must remember Paul's words
in Ephesians 4:10 that He ascended "in order to fill the universe" (so His resurrection body is not "localized," and Luther reminds us that, as he put it,
"the right hand of God is everywhere"). If they claim that the omnipresence of Christ refers only to His divine nature and not His human nature, then
they are not taking the Incarnation seriously. The Incarnation was/is an inseparable joining of the divine and human natures that is as true today as
it was 2,000 years ago. See, for instance, Col. 2:9 (note "lives" - present tense not past tense) and I John 4:2 ("has come" in the Greek is the
perfect tense, which describes an action that began in the past and still goes on today). It is just like our Lord - who never regarded physical things
as unspiritual or useless for spiritual purposes (the Word became "flesh," didn't He?), and who used even lowly mud to accomplish His purposes (the
healing of a blind man) - to use physical elements from the Passover as His tool to constantly reconnect with His people in the most intimate way
possible. While we believe in the Real Presence, our non-Lutheran friends seem to believe in "the real absence" - how tragic. Of course we do it
"in remembrance" of Him, but not in remembrance of one who is absent, but of one who is there with us, recalling together with Him the wonderful
events that save us.
Don and Kath also made a statement that I can't let go by: "The thinker Calvin was born before Luther died, but was more of a theologian. Some of
the problems associated with rethinking church belief that Luther did not accomplish, Calvin did." The implied claim that Luther was an inferior
theologian (he was probably the best since St. Paul!) would not be accepted by the great majority of theologians today. There is today a vast
academic discipline called "Luther Studies" that is thriving and still trying to fathom the theological insights in Luther's writings, while there is nothing
comparable to it regarding Calvin. It helps to remember that Calvin was a lawyer before he was a theologian and, probably because of that, he gave
too much place to human reason in his exposition of the Christian faith. For example, that's how he ended up with the awful unbiblical teaching of
"double predestination." It was logical to him that, if God predestined people to be saved (Eph. 1:4), then it "must" follow that He predestined some
people to go to hell. That's not the God I find in the New Testament who, says Peter, does not wish anyone to perish (II Peter 3:9) but, according to
Paul, "wants all men to be saved" (I Tim. 2:4)! Calvin could not live with the paradoxes in Scripture, caused by the tremendous limits of our minds
compared with God's mind. He forced the Scriptures to fit His own logic and hence taught heresies - including the Lord's Supper.
With love in our precious Lord,
Pastor Don
in transubstantiation (sic!), that in the Lord's Supper, the bread and wine become the literal body and blood of Christ." This is the typical view of
the "Reformed" or non-Lutherans and is totally inaccurate.
Luther and the other Lutheran theologians renounced transubstantiation as false. But they also renounced the Zwingli/Calvinist misuse of human
reasoning by claiming that when Jesus said, "This IS my body," what He really meant (!) was "This REPRESENTS my body." (If we interpreted the
rest of the Bible like that, there would be nothing left of the Christian faith!) Luther and the Lutherans simply insist on taking Jesus' words seriously,
without attempting the folly of a human explanation of the supernatural mystery in the Supper. If Jesus said that the bread is His body, then we
believe that "He said it, we believe it, and that settles it," regardless of whether or not it offends our reason. On the basis of the very words of
Scripture, we believe that in some way that is utterly beyond our human reasoning ability, when we receive the bread and wine (which is STILL bread
and wine) we are brought into contact through that bread and wine with the very body and blood of our crucified, resurrected, and ascended Lord.
There is no other honest way to understand Paul's words in I Corinthians 10:16.
When the "Reformed" claim that this is impossible because Jesus' body is ascended and at the right hand of God, we must remember Paul's words
in Ephesians 4:10 that He ascended "in order to fill the universe" (so His resurrection body is not "localized," and Luther reminds us that, as he put it,
"the right hand of God is everywhere"). If they claim that the omnipresence of Christ refers only to His divine nature and not His human nature, then
they are not taking the Incarnation seriously. The Incarnation was/is an inseparable joining of the divine and human natures that is as true today as
it was 2,000 years ago. See, for instance, Col. 2:9 (note "lives" - present tense not past tense) and I John 4:2 ("has come" in the Greek is the
perfect tense, which describes an action that began in the past and still goes on today). It is just like our Lord - who never regarded physical things
as unspiritual or useless for spiritual purposes (the Word became "flesh," didn't He?), and who used even lowly mud to accomplish His purposes (the
healing of a blind man) - to use physical elements from the Passover as His tool to constantly reconnect with His people in the most intimate way
possible. While we believe in the Real Presence, our non-Lutheran friends seem to believe in "the real absence" - how tragic. Of course we do it
"in remembrance" of Him, but not in remembrance of one who is absent, but of one who is there with us, recalling together with Him the wonderful
events that save us.
Don and Kath also made a statement that I can't let go by: "The thinker Calvin was born before Luther died, but was more of a theologian. Some of
the problems associated with rethinking church belief that Luther did not accomplish, Calvin did." The implied claim that Luther was an inferior
theologian (he was probably the best since St. Paul!) would not be accepted by the great majority of theologians today. There is today a vast
academic discipline called "Luther Studies" that is thriving and still trying to fathom the theological insights in Luther's writings, while there is nothing
comparable to it regarding Calvin. It helps to remember that Calvin was a lawyer before he was a theologian and, probably because of that, he gave
too much place to human reason in his exposition of the Christian faith. For example, that's how he ended up with the awful unbiblical teaching of
"double predestination." It was logical to him that, if God predestined people to be saved (Eph. 1:4), then it "must" follow that He predestined some
people to go to hell. That's not the God I find in the New Testament who, says Peter, does not wish anyone to perish (II Peter 3:9) but, according to
Paul, "wants all men to be saved" (I Tim. 2:4)! Calvin could not live with the paradoxes in Scripture, caused by the tremendous limits of our minds
compared with God's mind. He forced the Scriptures to fit His own logic and hence taught heresies - including the Lord's Supper.
With love in our precious Lord,
Pastor Don
| Christian Writings: Written by or Recommended by Christian Friends |
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| Luther and Calvin received from Pastor Don Baron |
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