speratus said: There is a difference in mode between His comprehensible, bodily mode according to the property of human nature which we can perceive with our senses and His incomprehensible, spiritual mode according to the property of the right hand of God which is not perceived by human senses. The proof of this is that the disciples could see only bread. Even today, those of us who receive the Lord's body see, feel, and taste only bread. But we know that His body is given and eaten by the disciples and by those who do not change His word because Christ does not lie or deceive.
You prove your point by assuming it to be true in the first place. Very, very poor argumentation, Speratus! If the mode in which His body is present in the Lord's Supper is by the "incomprehensible, spiritual mode according to the property of the right hand of God," and NOT by the "comprehensible, bodily mode according to the property of human nature," then how do you say that His BODILY, HUMAN NATURE is present in the bread??? Your doctrine is self-defeating and destroys the distinction between the human and divine natures in the Person of Christ. Not to mention that it is simply ridiculous to say that if His flesh is not literally present in the bread, then Christ is a liar! That's as silly as saying that since Christ is not literally a lamb, He's a liar!
Kyle
I tell you, this man went down to his house justified.
The RCC and LC have a similar view of the real presence only if you assume that LC teaches consubstantiation which our confessions and I have repeatedly denied. The Roman Church teaches that the whole Christ is permanently present apart from Christ's institution, is in a comprehensible mode that occupies physical space, and that only the accidents of bread and wine remain. The LC teaches a sacramental union of the body and blood in, with, and under the bread and wine with the mode of His presence being the same mode He used when He passed through the midst of the crowd, left the sealed tomb, and entered a closed room. I see no connection.
speratus said: The LC teaches a sacramental union of the body and blood in, with, and under the bread and wine with the mode of His presence being the same mode He used when He passed through the midst of the crowd, left the sealed tomb, and entered a closed room. I see no connection.
speratus,
That may satisfy your own conscience as to how the LC differs from the RCC. But it certainly doesn't justify the LC's view according to the Scripture. The examples you provided above, e.g., Jesus "passing through the midst of the crowd, left the sealed tomb," etc., cannot explain how the resurrected Christ can be present in the bread and wine in 100's of places simultaneously. For the resurrected Christ, the PERSON of Christ, is still spatially bound (sits at the right hand of God, will return again on the clouds, etc.) The PERSON of Christ is not Omnipresent.... the eternal Son of God, being equal to the Father and Spirit as deity is Omnipresent. Again, this is why the Lord Christ sent the Holy Spirit in his place when he ascended to be with the Father.
No matter how you slice it, your view contradicts both the clear teaching of Scripture and Chalcedon. <img src="/forum/images/graemlins/igiveup.gif" alt="" />
Your view actually embraces both the RCC and the LC views, though now you "claim" they do not:
Your Catholic View:
“"Take eat; this is my body" means that Christ gives us His natural body to be eaten.”
Your LC view:
“the body and blood of Christ are present in, with, and under the bread and wine in the incomprehensible spiritual mode in which He neither occupies nor vacates space.”
Both are false doctrines along with many of the other false doctrines of the LCMS:
(1) Universalism—
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Since God has reconciled the whole world unto Himself
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As to the question why not all men are converted and saved, seeing that God's grace is universal and all men are equally and utterly corrupt, we confess that we cannot answer it.
(2) Salvation—
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we reject also the Calvinistic perversion of the doctrine of conversion, that is, the doctrine that God does not desire to convert and save all hearers of the Word, but only a portion of them. Many hearers of the Word indeed remain unconverted and are not saved, not because God does not earnestly desire their conversion and salvation, but solely because they stubbornly resist the gracious operation of the Holy Ghost, as Scripture teaches, Acts 7:51; Matt. 23:37; Acts 13:46.
(3) Justification/Righteousness—
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Scripture teaches that God has already declared the whole world to be righteous in Christ, Rom. 5:19; 2 Cor. 5:18-21; Rom. 4:25; that therefore not for the sake of their good works, but without the works of the Law, by grace, for Christ's sake, He justifies, that is, accounts as righteous, all those who believe, accept, and rely on, the fact that for Christ's sake their sins are forgiven.
Your view actually embraces both the RCC and the LC views, though now you "claim" they do not:
Your Catholic View:
“"Take eat; this is my body" means that Christ gives us His natural body to be eaten.”
Your LC view:
“the body and blood of Christ are present in, with, and under the bread and wine in the incomprehensible spiritual mode in which He neither occupies nor vacates space.”
No. The RCC does not believe that the natural body of Christ is present. The Papists believe in a concept called concomitance whereby the bread is converted to a mixture of "Flesh and Blood, Body and Soul, Humanity and Divinity", a concept which they admit is not found in the Words of Institution.
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NewAdvent, Real PresenceBy virtue of the words of consecration, or ex vi verborum, that only is made present which is expressed by the words of Institution, namely the Body and the Blood of Christ. But by reason of a natural concomitance (per concomitantiam), there becomes simultaneously present all that which is physically inseparable from the parts just named, and which must, from a natural connection with them, always be their accompaniment. Now, the glorified Christ, Who "dieth now no more" (Rom, vi, 9) has an animate Body through whose veins courses His life's Blood under the vivifying influence of soul. Consequently, together with His Body and Blood and Soul, His whole Humanity also, and, by virtue of the hypostatic union, His Divinity, i.e. Christ whole and entire, must be present. Hence Christ is present in the sacrament with His Flesh and Blood, Body and Soul, Humanity and Divinity
A brief point of clarification regarding your quotations from the LCMS Brief Statement. The only doctrinal formulations binding on LCMS members are those from the 1580 Book of Concord. LCMS convention resolutions do not have confessional authority. They are theses offered up for consideration. Your comments are appreciated.
No. The RCC does not believe that the natural body of Christ is present. The Papists believe in a concept called concomitance whereby the bread is converted to a mixture of "Flesh and Blood, Body and Soul, Humanity and Divinity", a concept which they admit is not found in the Words of Institution.
Pope John XXIII in 1963, at the Second Vatican Council, said, "I do accept entirely all that has been decided and declared at the Council of Trent." What saith the Council of Trent;
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If any one shall say that Christ, the only begotten Son of God, is not to be adored in the holy sacrament of the Eucharist, even with the open worship of Latria ... nor to be solemnly carried about in processions ... and that He is not to be publicly set before the people to be adored, and that His adorers are idolaters,--let him be accursed!—Council of Trent, Canon VI
If any one shall deny that the body and blood, together with the soul and divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ, and therefore entire Christ, are truly, really, and substantially contained in the sacrament of the most Holy Eucharist; and shall say that He is only in it as a sign, or in a figure--let him be accursed!—Council of Trent, Canon I
If any one shall say that the substance of the bread and wine remains in the sacrament of the most Holy Eucharist, together with the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ...--let him be accursed!—Council of Trent, Canon II
When Mass ends, the wafers do not change back into bread again, but remain God, according to Canon IV of the Council of Trent.
What saith other Catholic books and theologians?
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When Jesus Christ said, 'Do this for a commemoration of Me,' He made His Apostles priests, and commanded them to change bread and wine into His Body and Blood. —Catholic Faith, Based on The Catholic Catechism, by His Eminence Peter Cardinal Gasparri (P.J. Kenedy & Sons, 1938), p 214.
My Lord Jesus Christ, I believe that Thou art truly present in the Blessed Sacrament. I believe that in holy communion I shall receive Thy sacred body and Thy precious blood. — Holy Souls Book, by Rev. F.X. Lasance, ed. (Benziger Brothers, 1922), p. 316, Nihil Obstat: A.J. Scanlan, S.T.D.; Imprimatur, P.J. Hayes, D.D., Archbishop of NY.
The Mass is the same Sacrifice as the Sacrifice of the Cross. The Victim is the same--Jesus Christ--offering Himself in the Mass through the ministry of His priests, as He once offered Himself on the Cross. ...
Revere, therefore, this table of which we all partake; Christ is slain for us; the Sacrifice is placed upon this altar. — Ibid, p 217, quoting St. John Chrysostom.
The most obvious meaning of the Consecration is the 'miracle' of the transubstantiation, or change of the bread and wine into the Body and Blood of the Saviour; and wherever His Body and Blood are, there is the whole Christ with His Soul and His Divinity. Before, on the altar, there was something, now there is Somebody...Christ, the Word Incarnate, is really present on the altar. He is present as really as in heaven, though in a different manner.—My Mass, by Joseph Putz. S.J. (Newman Press, 1955), p 55 Imprimi Potest: L. Schillebeeckx, S.J.; Imprimatur, J. Fernandes.
Christ changes our gifts into His Body and Blood ... it is the same Christ who was born of Mary and lifted up on the Cross for our salvation ...our God whom we adore: 'My Lord and my God.' ... here goes up to heaven the most efficacious satisfaction for the world's sins ...— Ibid, p 77.
For when the Lord says, “Unless ye have eaten the flesh of the Son of Man, and drunk His blood, ye will not have life in you”; you ought so to be partakers at the Holy Table, as to have no doubt whatever concerning the reality of Christ’s Body and Blood.— St. Leo I the Great, Sermon 91, c. 461.
After the words of consecration there is present numerically the same Body of Christ as was born of the Virgin and was immolated on the Cross. –Clement VI, Letter to the Armenians, September 29, 1351.
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A brief point of clarification regarding your quotations from the LCMS Brief Statement. The only doctrinal formulations binding on LCMS members are those from the 1580 Book of Concord. LCMS convention resolutions do not have confessional authority. They are theses offered up for consideration. Your comments are appreciated.
The LCMS Brief Statement is the “present interpretation” and “application” of the BC that the LCMS embraces. Doctrinal statements are a declaration and not simply a consideration. Their site maintains “A Brief Statement of the Doctrinal Position….. The problem is that you desire to change the meaning of terms, like above, so that words have no meaning whatsoever, except those that you inspire at the moment they mean.
Pope John XXIII in 1963, at the Second Vatican Council, said, "I do accept entirely all that has been decided and declared at the Council of Trent." What saith the Council of Trent;
Thanks for the references. It is clear the Papists still deny the presence of the natural body of Christ in favor of the concomitance concoction. The LC rejects everyone of the articles of Trent you have referenced.
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The LCMS Brief Statement is the “present interpretation” and “application” of the BC that the LCMS embraces. Doctrinal statements are a declaration and not simply a consideration. Their site maintains “A Brief Statement of the Doctrinal Position."
It's a doctrinal position (i.e., theses) with no confessional status. The Brief Statement itself makes it clear that only the Book of Concord is binding upon the conscience of its ministers:
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LCMS Brief Statement
45. We accept as our confession all the symbols contained in the Book of Concord of the year 1580. -- The symbols of the Lutheran Church are not a rule of faith beyond, and supplementary to, Scripture, but a confession of the doctrines of Scripture over against those who deny these doctrines.
46. Since the Christian Church cannot make doctrines, but can and should simply profess the doctrine revealed in Holy Scripture, the doctrinal decisions of the symbols are binding upon the conscience not because they are the outcome of doctrinal controversies, but only because they are the doctrinal decisions of Holy Scripture itself.
47. Those desiring to be admitted into the public ministry of the Lutheran Church pledge themselves to teach according to the symbols not "in so far as," but "because," the symbols agree with Scripture. He who is unable to accept as Scriptural the doctrine set forth in the Lutheran symbols and their rejection of the corresponding errors must not be admitted into the ministry of the Lutheran Church.
You have quoted some of the most controversial articles in the Brief Statement. I am perfectly willing to discuss them. However, they are not the doctrine of the LCMS, much less the LC.
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