How deeply in earnest Luther was in this critical interpretation of the concept of sacrament from the standpoint of faith is shown in the practical conclusions which he drew from it (at least in theory). He opposed strongly a general, required, conventional attendance of the Lord’s Supper. ‘A Christian on compulsion is a very cheerful, pleasant guest in the kingdom of heaven; God has a particular pleasure in such and will put him at once below the angels where hell is deepest.’1 The man who does not come ‘from his own conscience and from the hunger of his soul’ Luther earnestly advises to stay away, even with the risk that in future ‘scarcely one will go where now many hundreds go’.2
In addition, after 1523, he develops the proposal of testing the communicants. ‘On this account, it should henceforth be arranged that no one is allowed to go to the sacrament unless he be questioned beforehand and it be ascertained how his heart stands, whether he knows what the sacrament is and why he comes to it’; whether he is ‘such a vessel that he can contain it and whether he knows how to witness to his faith.’ Luther would like to bring it about that ‘in the church service, the true believers could be given a separate place together and so be distinguished from the others. I would gladly have done it long ago, but it would not have been allowed since it has not yet been preached and urged sufficiently.’ There is necessarily a difference between preaching and the distribution of the sacrament. ‘When I preach the Gospel, I do not know who is reached by it; but I ought to be sure that it has reached him who comes to the sacrament. Therefore I must not act at random, but be certain that he to whom I give the sacrament has received the Gospel.’3 And in the Rule of Mass and Communion for the Church of Wittenberg there was actually included a requirement that the communicants had to present themselves once a year to the episcopus. They were to report (1) on their knowledge of the nature and use of the Lord’s Supper; (2) on their purpose in their previous participation in it; but also (3), because Satan could also answer these two questions, on their life and morals (vita et mores) in relation to their faith. According to the result, the episcopus is then to admit them or to keep them back on account of their ignorance or their unrepented unworthiness.4
So strongly critical had the concept of faith become that Luther had almost—become Calvin. That he did not, but remained Luther, must chiefly be explained on other grounds than the merely ‘historical’.
Only believe means receive, have, enjoy what is given in ‘Word and sign’. But this statement, like the one quoted above, ‘only the Word makes the sacrament’, can be given a more positive expression, ‘Faith means receive, have …’, and it is in such positive expression that Luther’s meaning and intention become clear. But it is more difficult to understand how far he is certain of faith’s receiving than 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