Because the Lord's Supper is a Sacrament which should be celebrated till the end of time, 1 Cor. 11, 26, we must deal also with the important question, What produces the true presence of the body and blood of Christ in the Holy Supper? According to the Reformed view there can be no true Sacrament unless the communicants have true faith in Christ. In other words, it is the faith of the believer that makes the eating and drinking a true Sacrament.
In refutation of this error the Formula of Concord writes Thor. Decl., VII, 74: "Not the word or work of any man produces the true presence of the body and blood of Christ in the Supper, whether it be the merit or recitation of the minister or the eating and drinking or faith of the communicants; but all this should be ascribed alone to the power of Almighty God and the word, institution, and ordination of our Lord Jesus Christ."
Also Luther, whom the Formula of Concord here quotes, affirms: "His Christ's command and institution have this power and effect, that we administer and receive not mere bread and wine, but His body and blood, as His words declare: "This is My body,' etc.; 'This is My blood,' etc., so that it is not our work or speaking, but the command and ordination of Christ that makes the bread the body and the wine the blood from the beginning of the first Supper even to the end of the world." (Ibid., 77.)
Again: "Thus here also, even though I should pronounce over all bread the words 'This is Christ's body,' nothing, of course, would result therefrom; but when in the Supper we say, according to His Christ's institution and command: 'This is My body,' it is His body, not on account of our speaking or word uttered, but because of His command, that He has commanded us thus to speak and to do and has united His command and act with our speaking." (Ibid., 78.)
This doctrine is Scriptural; for neither the faith of man (Reformed) nor the power of the priesthood (Romanists) nor any magic influence of the spoken word makes the eating or drinking a Lord's Supper, or Sacrament, but only Christ's institution and command: "This do ye."
The Formula of Concord stands on solid Scripture ground when it declares: "The true and almighty words of Jesus Christ which He spake at the first institution were efficacious not only at the first Supper, but they endure, are valid, operate, and are still efficacious, ... so that in all places where the Supper is celebrated according to the institution of Christ and His words are used, the body and blood of Christ are truly present, distributed, and received because of the power and efficacy of the words which Christ spake at the first Supper. . . . As Chrysostom says in his Sermon concerning the Passion: 'Christ Himself prepares this table and blesses it; for no man makes the bread and wine set before us the body and blood of Christ, but Christ Himself who was crucified for us. . . . Just as the declaration Gen. 1, 28 : "Be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth," was spoken only once, but is ever efficacious in nature, so that it is fruitful and multiplies, also this declaration "This is My body; this is My blood" was spoken once, but even to this day and to His advent it is efficacious and works so that in the Supper of the Church His true body and blood are present.' " (Ibid., 75. 76.)
The charge of the Calvinists that the Lutherans, like the Romanists, attribute the real presence in the Lord's Supper to the word and authority of man is therefore absolutely false.
Just because the Lutherans teach that the true presence of Christ's body and blood in the Holy Supper depends on Christ's institution and command, they, in accord with the ancient Christian Church, 1 Cor. 10, 16, retain the words of institution for the consecration (consecratio, εὐλογία) of the material elements. Calvin, who opposed the papistic consecration 88 a "magic incantation," emphatically denied the necessity of the consecration on the ground that it h88 nothing to do with the sacramental action.
In opposition to this unscriptural notion (cp.1 Cor. 10, 16) the Formula of Concord Thor. Decl., VII, 79-82 insists upon the recitation of the words of institution for three re88ons : a) "that obedience may be rendered to the command of Christ" ; b) "that the faith of the hearers concerning the nature and fruit of this Sacrament may be excited, strengthened, and confirmed"; and c) "that the elements of bread and wine may be consecrated or blessed for this holy use."
Even Hodge (Syst. Theol., III, 618) declares that "the bread and the cup were blessed" in order that "the bread and wine might be symbols of His body and blood," though, according to 1 Cor. 10, 16, he should have said: "that the bread might be the communion of the body and the wine the communion of the blood." Hodge at least admits that the blessing (consecration) related to the sacramental act, not merely to the persons, as Calvin taught.
The Lutherans rightly insist upon the use of the words of institution in the Holy Supper no less than in Holy Baptism. While they do not regard the accidental omission or mispronunciation of a word or an unintentional error that may occur during the consecration as an offense by which the whole Sacrament is invalidated, they demand that "the words of institution are to be publicly spoken or sung distinctly and clearly and should in no way be omitted." Formula of Concord, Thor. Decl., VII, 79.
The question whether or not the mere good intention of the celebrants could sufficiently consecrate the material elements can hardly be treated seriously. It belongs to the curiosae quaestiones which we answer best by not paying any attention to them.
Since the Lord's Supper is a Sacrament not by the faith or work of man, but only through the institution and command of our Lord, it follows that also unworthy guests, or unbelieving communicants, receive Christ's true body and blood (manducatio generalis). This truth Scripture states expressly in 1 Cor. 11, 27. 29, so that the Reformed, who deny the manducatio indignorum, repudiate a clear teaching of Scripture. However, just as they reject the manducatio indignorum, so they also reject the manducatio dignorum, that is, the oral reception of Christ's body and blood by the believer.
According to Reformed teaching Christ's body is not at all present in the Holy Supper, and therefore it is orally received neither by the worthy nor by the unworthy. Zwingli: "In eucharistia nihil aliud est quam commemoratio." - "Quanto fides est maior et sanctior, tanto magis contenta est spirituali manducatione." In the Wittenberg Concordia (1536) Luther expressly insisted that his Sacramentarian opponents should acknowledge the manducatio indignorum; for by this test he could ascertain whether they agreed to the doctrine of the real presence or not.
Because it is solely the institution and command of Christ which makes the Lord's Supper a Sacrament, a means of grace, it follows also that neither the papists nor the Calvinists have that true Holy Communion which our Savior instituted. Their "supper" lies entirely outside the institution of our Lord (extra usum a Christo institutum) since it is neither based upon it nor is in accord with it.
Concerning the Mass of the Romanists the Formula of Concord writes Thor. Decl., VII, 86. 87: "If the institution of Christ be not observed as He appointed it, there is no Sacrament. . . . And the use, or action, here does not mean chiefly faith, neither the oral participation only, but the entire external, visible action of the Lord's Supper instituted by Christ, the consecration, or words of institution, the distribution and reception, or oral partaking of the consecrated bread and wine, likewise the partaking of the body and blood of Christ. Apart from this use, when in the papistic Mass the bread is not distributed, but offered up or inclosed, borne about, and exhibited for adoration, it is to be regarded as no Sacrament."
Similarly Luther writes of the private masses (Winlcelmessen) St. L., XIX, 1265: "In the private Mass we find not only the abuse, or sin, that the priest acts and receives unworthily; but even if the priest should be holy and worthy, nevertheless the very essence of Christ's institution is removed (tamen ipsa substantia Christi suhlata est); the real ordinance and institution of Christ they take away and create their own ordinance. . . . Hence no one can or should believe that there is Christ's body and blood because His institution is not there."
With respect to the "supper" of the Reformed some Lutheran dogmaticians (Fecht, Dannhauer, etc.) judged that they have the true Holy Communion which Christ instituted, so that they receive Christ's body and blood whenever they partake of it. This argument was based upon the fact that the Calvinists retain the words of institution. But the "supper" of the Calvinists lies outside the institution of Christ, since they expressly renounce the words of institution by declaring that the doctrine of the real presence is an "abomination" and that they do not come together to perpetrate such an offense, but only to celebrate a "memorial feast" in remembrance of Christ's death. Zwingli: "Should we want to be cannibals (anthropophagi)?" From this it is clear that the "supper" of the Reformed is without the word and promise of Christ, so that it cannot be a true Lord's Supper.
Luther's verdict on this point is very emphatic. He writes: "Our present opponents of the Sacrament have nothing but bread and wine; for they have not the words and the appointed ordinance of God, but they have perverted and changed them according to their own self-conceived notion." Formula of Concord, Thor. Decl., VII, 32.
While we rightly reject the Reformed "supper" as no Lord's Supper at all, we acknowledge their Baptism as valid, since their errors with respect to this Sacrament relate not to its essence, but only to its fruit and effect. (Cp. Dr. Walther, Pastorale, p. 181.)
With respect to the question whether the sacramental union (unio sacramentalis) occurs directly upon the consecration and before the distribution and reception (ante usum), a point on which John Saliger (pastor in Luebeck and Rostock) insisted, the Formula of Concord judges rightly Thor. Decl., VII, 83. 84: ''This blessing, or the recitation of the words of institution of Christ, alone does not make a Sacrament if the entire action of the Supper as it was instituted by Christ is not observed; . . • but the command of Christ 'This do' (which embraces the entire action or administration in this Sacrament ... ) must be observed unseparated and inviolate, as also St. Paul places before our eyes the entire action of the breaking of bread or of distribution and reception, 1 Cor. 10, 16."
This decision is of great practical importance; for only the consecration in connection with the actual distribution and reception, as Christ has appointed this, guarantees us the real presence of Christ's body and blood in the Lord's Supper. If the elements are only consecrated, but not distributed and received, there is no Lord's Supper.
This truth Quenstedt ably defended against Bellarmine's contention that Christ's body must be present by virtue of the consecration even without the distribution, since Christ says: "This is My body." He replied that Christ said: "This is My body" of that bread of which He first had said: "Take and eat" (II, 1268). Hence Christ's body and blood are really present with the consecrated earthly elements only when we eat and drink them. "Ad externam actionem requiritur consecratio, distributio et sumptio." Formula of Concord, VII, 86.