DID LUTHER REALLY CONSIDER THE EUCHARIST A TESTAMENT?

I am not convinced but this is what David Steinmetz wrote in his “Luther in Context” (2^nd ed.) p77:




“Luther is afraid that Zwingli’s rejection of manducatio infidelium has had the subtle effect of transforming faith into a work and has undermined the utterly gracious character of the gifts which God gives the Church through the sacraments. For Luther, the Lord’s Supper is a testament, a one-sided covenant in which God both sets the terms by which he will be gracious to the Church and fulfils those terms himself. The condition for putting the testament into effect is the death of the testator, not the faith of the beneficiary. A sacrament is constituted by God’s will, testament and promise. The promise creates faith because the death of the testator has rendered it effective. Faith grasps the effective promise; it does not make the promise effective. Christ gives himself to men and women in the eucharist whether they believe it or not. Otherwise faith would be a work, a sacrifice, something offered to God in order to induce him to be gracious. Unless one affirms that even unbelievers eat the body and blood of Christ, one will lapse into a new form of works-righteousness, all the more insidious because it marches under the banner of faith alone. “The cup of blessing which we bless” is “the blood of Christ.” It does not merely signify the blood of Christ, and it does not wait on the faith of the recipient to become what it is.”

ZWINGLI’S INDEPENDENCE OF LUTHER

Despite claims that Zwingli was influenced by Luther in developing his reformed ideas, look at what Zwingli declares in Article 18 of “The Defense of the Reformed Faith”:

“Before anyone in this area had even heard of Luther, I began to preach the gospel of Christ in 1516 so that I never entered the pulpit without looking up the words which were to be read in the mass that day and expounding them on the basis of scripture…

When I began to preach in Zurich in 1519 I indicated to the honourable gentlemen of the Chapter hos I intended to preach on the gospel of Matthew, God willing, without any human addenda and without any hesitancy or wavering because of counter arguments. At the beginning of that same year (for I reached Zurich on St John the Evangelist day), no one in our midst knew anything of Luther, except that he had said something concerning indulgences, which did not teach me anything new since I had been informed earlier that indulgences were a fraud and false appearance. I had learned this from a disputation with Thomas Wyttenbach of Biel, mylord and faithful teacher had engaged in Basel some time ago, though I was not present at the time. Consequently Luther’s writing at the time did little to help me in my preaching on Matthew. Nonetheless, everyone eager to hear the word of God came hurrying to my expositions so that I was quite surprised myself…

For who has equipped me to preach the gospel and to preach from the writing of one evangelist from beginning to end? Did Luther? I started preaching the gospel before I had ever heard Luther’s name mentioned and in order to prepare for the same time I started to learn Greek some ten years ago so that I might learn the teaching of Christ from its original sources. How well I have mastered Greek, I let others judge. However, Luther, whose name I did not know for another two years, had definitely not instructed me. I followed holy scripture alone. But the papists burden me and others with such names from sheer malice, as I have stated earlier, saying, ‘You must be Lutheran for you preach just as Luther writes.’ My answer is: ‘I preach the word of Christ: why do you not take me to be a Christian as well?’ They practice sheer malice…

By the same token, I do not wish the papists to call me Lutheran; for I did not learn the teachings of Christ from Luther but from the very word of God. If Luther preaches Christ he does the same thing as I do, though, God be praised, through him a far greater number of people are led to God than through me and others (whose measure God increases and diminishes as he pleases). So far I do not wish to bear no other name than that of my captain Christ: whose foot soldier I am. He shall give me the orders and pay, as he sees fit. I hope that some will understand by now why I do not wish to be called Lutheran even though I esteem Luther as highly as any other person. Accordingly I testify before God and all people that all my life I have not written a single word to him nor has he written to me.”

CALVIN’S LETTER TO BULLINGER RE LUTHER

The following is part of a letter that Calvin wrote to Bullinger in November 1544:

“I hear that Luther has at length broken forth in fierce invective, not so much against you as against the whole of us. On the present occasion, I dare venture to ask you to keep silence, because it is neither just that innocent persons should thus be harassed, nor that they should be denied the opportunity of clearing themselves; neither, on the one hand, is it easy to determine whether it would be prudent for them to do so. But of this I do earnestly desire to put you in mind, in the first place, that you would consider how eminent a man Luther is, and the excellent endowments wherewith he is gifted, with what strength of mind and resolute constancy, with how great skill, with what efficiency and power of doctrinal statement, he had hitherto devoted his whole energy to overthrow the reign of Antichrist, and at the same time to diffuse far and near the doctrine of salvation. Often I have been wont to declare, that even though he were to call me a devil, I should still not the less hold him in such honour that I must acknowledge him to be an illustrious srvant of God. But while he is endued with rare and excellent virtues, he labours at the same time under serious faults. Would that he had rather studied to curb this this restless, uneasy temperament which is so apt to boil over in every direction. I wish, moreover, that he had always bestowed the fruits of that vehemence of natural temperament upon the enemies of the truth, and that he had not flash his lightning sometimes also upon the servants of the Lord. Would that he had been more observant and careful in the acknowledgement of his own vices. Flatterers have done him much mischief, since his is naturally prone to be over-indulgent to himself. It is our part, however, so to reprove whatsoever evil qualities may beset him, as that we may make some allowance for him at the same time on the score of these remarkable endowments with which he has been gifted. This, therefore, I would beseech you to consider first of all, along with your colleagues, that you have to do with a most distinguished servant of Christ, to whom we area ll of us largely indebted …”

This illustrates well how Calvin encouraged the pastors in Zurich to be patient with Luther.

LUTHER AND THE SACRAMENTS

The following extracts of Luther’s response (1545) to the Thirty Two Articles of the Louvain Theologists are worth noting for what Luther reveals of his own understanding of the Lord’s Supper and what he thought of Zwingli and the Swiss.

Clause 15 – In the sacrament of the eucharist, which is deserving of honor and adoration, the body and blood of Christ are truly and substantially present, proferred and received both by the worthy and by the unworthy.

Clause 27 – We earnestly believe that the Zwinglians and all sacramentarians who deny that the body and blood of Christ are taken with the bodily mouth in the venerable eucahrist are heretics and estranged (alienos) from the church of God.

(Lewis W. Spitz, ‘Luther’s Works’ volume 34 (Muhlenberg Press/Philadelphia 1960), pp355,356)

DID ZWINGLI REALLY COMMEND LUTHER?!

At about the time of the coronation of Charles V which took place on 22 October 1520 there appeared an anonymous pamphlet entitled “Advice of one who with his whole heart that due consideration be paid both to the dignity of the pope and to the peaceful development of the Christian religion.” This pamphlet has an appendix: “A defence of Martin Luther by Christ our Lord addressed to the city of Rome.”

Samuel Macauley Jackson writes of this: “Although at first sight it seems highly improbably that Zwingli had anything to do with the pamphlet, as it is not at all in hi style, yet all doubt vanishes before the fact that the draft of it in Zwingli’s handwriting is to be seen today in the Zurich cantonal archives. It treats Luther in a kindly, condescending way, and advises that an impartial commission go through his books and examine him orally, and then pass final judgment on him” (Huldreich Zwingli: The Reformer of German Switzerland 1484-1531, p155).