The Lutheran Church confesses with the ancient Christian Church "according to the words of Irenaeus that in this Sacrament there are two things, a heavenly and an earthly" Formula of Concord, Thor. Decl., VII, 14. The heavenly elements (materilu coelestes) are the true body and blood of Christ. So the Formula of Concord says: "With the bread and wine the body and blood of Christ are truly and essentially present, offered, and received." The earthly elements (materiae terrenae) in the divinely instituted action (actio) of the Holy Supper are true bread and wine. As in Baptism we dare not employ another material element than water, so also in Holy Communion we dare not depart from the elements (elementa, species) which Christ has definitely fixed. That Christ used bread is clear from the words of institution, Matt. 26, 26; that He used wine (οἶνος) is proved by the expression "this fruit of the vine" (ἐκ τούτου τοῦ γεννήματος τῆς ἀμπέλου), Matt. 26, 29.
While heretics in the ancient Church frequently used substitutes for wine (Encratites: milk, honey, unfermented grape-juice), the Christian Church has always condemned such surrogates as not permissible. The argument that the expression "the fruit of the vine" is a generic term, which embraces all products of the vine and therefore also grape-juice does not hold, since Christ used the expression in question as a special term for wine, which was invariably used by the Jews at their sacred festivals. Quite manifestly the expression γέννημα τῆς ἀμπέλου is the Greek for פְּרִי הַנָּפֶן, which even to-day the orthodox Jews use in their consecration of the Kiddush cup ("Blessed art Thou, Lord, our God, King of the world, Creator of the fruit of the vine": בּרוף אֶמּה יי אלְהנוּ מַלְףּ הָעּלֶם בּוּרְא פָּרִי הנפן).
The objection against the use of wine in the Holy Supper would never have been raised, had not fanaticism declared the use of wine objectionable in general, contrary to the clear words of Scripture, 1 Tim. 5, 23; Eccl. 9, 7; Ps. 104, 15.
With respect to the wafers (Hostien), which are in use in the Lutheran Church, the Christian minister must carefully instruct his people that these are bread in the true sense of the term, but in themselves not a better materia terrena than is ordinary bread.
It is necessary for the sacramental union that the material elements should really be distributed (distnoutio) and received (sumptio) by the communicants; for the sacramental union occurs only in the sacramental action and not outside it. Ipsa sacramental is unio non fit nisi in distributions. Hence the "consecrated host" used by the Romanists for adoration is not Christ's true body, but a mere piece of bread, and its worship is idolatry. Panis extra usum a Christo institutum non est corpus Christi.
The axiom of the ancient Christians and the Lutheran Church: "Nothing has the nature of a Sacrament apart from the use instituted by Christ" (Nihil habet rationem sacramenti extra usum a Christo institutum) is based directly on the words of institution ("Eat, drink") and is therefore Scriptural. Cp. Formula of Concord, Thor. Decl., VII, 85.
Whether the bread is received directly with the mouth as offered by the pastor or first taken in the communicant's own hand is immaterial (adiaphoron); some Reformed erroneously contended that the latter alone is correct.
Also the "breaking" of the bread must be regarded as an adiaphoron, though some Reformed theologians insisted upon this act, since according to their view the breaking of the bread signifies the death of Christ on the cross (whose bones, however, were not broken, John 19, 33. 36). At the first Communion the "breaking" was accidental; the bread was broken in order that it could be distributed, Luke 24, 30; 1 Cor. 10, 16.
As the material elements which Christ used should not be changed, so also the celestial elements must be left intact. That is to say, we must not designate as the materia coelestis anything else than Christ's body and blood. In particular, we must not regard as the materia coelestis -
In short, we must not substitute for the body and blood of Christ as materia coelestis anything which our Lord has not Himself named in the words of institution, since this would be unscriptural and, besides, would cause confusion. The sacramental union consists only in the union of the bread with the body and of the wine with the blood.
While the papists reject the Scriptural doctrine of the sacramental union in toto and substitute for it transubstantiation, the Calvinists, on the other hand, profess to teach the unio sacrametalis. However, they understand by this term nothing more than the union of the believer with the absent Christ by faith, so that in reality their sacramental union is only significative, representative, or symbolical (unio significativa, repraesentativa, symbolica).
Their sacramental union is therefore no more of a real union than is that produced by a glance at a crucifix or at a picture of Christ, which, by the recalling of our Savior to our memory, makes Him present in our minds. The Calvinists also frequently speak of their sacramental union as unio vera, realis, substantialis, etc.; yet in spite of this fact they deny the substantial presence (realis praesentia) of Christ's body in the Sacrament, so that, after all, they teach no sacramental union at all.
The Lutherans, on the contrary, regard the sacramental union between the bread and the body and between the wine and the blood as so real and intimate that in the sacramental act the communicant receives Christ's true body and blood in, with, and under the bread and wine (manducatio oralis), the bread and wine indeed in a natural manner (manducatio naturalis), but the body and blood in a supernatural, incomprehensible manner.
The Lutherans very strenuously reject the charge that the real presence implies a local inclusion, or an impanation, or consubstantiation (localis inclusio, impanatio, consubstantiatio). The Formula of Concord thus says Thor. Decl., VII, 64: "For this command 'Eat and drink' cannot be understood otherwise than of oral eating and drinking; however, not in a gross, carnal, Capernaitic, but in a supernatural, incomprehensible way."
The accusation that the Lutherans teach a natural, or Capernaitic, eating and drinking has been preferred against them both by Reformed and non-Reformed theologians (Harnack, Frank, etc.). Cp. Christl. Dogmatilc, III, 423 ff. However, not only Luther (St. L., XX, 811) and the Lutheran Confessions Formula of Concord, Thor. Decl., VII, 16, but also all Lutheran dogmaticians at all times have repudiated this erroneous doctrine in unmistakable terms.