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Luther, Zwingli and the Real Presence in the Lord's Supper: A Hermeneutical and Christological Controversy
Rev. Roland Weisbrot
The Theological Divide
In his Small Catechism, Martin Luther describes the Lord’s Supper in the following way: “It is the true body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ under the bread and wine, instituted by Christ himself for us Christians to eat and to drink.”1 Though the words of this confession are simple and easily comprehensible in that they affirm the real presence of Christ in the Sacrament of the Altar, they have proven to be a source of immense conflict within Protestantism.2 Very early in the Reformation, beliefs about the Lord’s Supper among Protestants were generally split into two camps. The first camp, which Luther and others occupied, was the belief that Christ was truly bodily present in the bread and wine. The second camp, commonly known as the Sacramentarians, was championed by the Swiss reformer Ulrich Zwingli, among others; this camp denied the real presence of Christ in the Supper, opting for a spiritual interpretation of crucial biblical texts.3
This conflict has often been reduced by scholars to a difference in hermeneutical approach between Luther and Zwingli. Such scholars believe that Luther opted for a literal interpretation of the words of institution spoken by Christ at the Last Supper while Zwingli adopted an allegorical interpretation.4 Though a differing hermeneutic between the reformers is certainly one reason for this conflict, it is an oversimplification to make it the sole issue. Using two key texts written by Luther on the matter of the real presence in the Lord’s Supper: The Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ –Against the Fanatics and Confession Concerning Christ’s Supper, this paper will make the claim that the division between these two camps, embodied by the views of Luther and Zwingli respectively, is not just hermeneutical but also deeply Christological.
Luther
The Real Presence as a Hermeneutical Controversy
In the Large Catechism, Luther declares that “it is the Word… that makes this a sacrament and distinguishes it from ordinary bread and wine, so that it is called and truly is Christ’s body and blood.”5 Luther’s comments on the Lord’s Supper affirm Gordon Jensen’s view that “the Sacrament of the Altar, first and foremost, is a theocentric event. God’s actions are the hermeneutical key to understanding the Sacrament of the Altar from a Lutheran perspective.”6 Norman Nagel therefore concluded that “Luther is, first of all, an exegetical theologian. What Christ says He does, He does. This is Luther’s fortress.”7 This is why Luther, in The Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ – Against the Fanatics, appeals to Words of Institution repeatedly: “when we say these words [of institution] over the bread, then he is truly present,” for Christ “has put himself into the Word, and through the Word he puts himself into the bread also.”8
Gordon Jensen
The crucial texts that defined this controversy were Matthew 26:26, Luke 22:19, and 1 Corinthians 11:24.9 Borrowing from the exegetical conclusions of the Dutch humanist Cornelis Hoen, Zwingli argued that since the verb “to be” is used by Jesus metaphorically in other places in scripture, the words of institution should be interpreted the same way.10 Zwingli believed that “to insist, as Luther does, that the bread and wine are the body and blood of Christ is to commit idolatry, to ascribe to the creature (namely, bread and wine) the glory that belongs only to the Creator (Rom. 1:23)” –the glory of God is at stake here!11 This is why Zwingli appealed to John 6:63, Exodus 12:11, and Matthew 26:11 as prooftexts.12 Based on John 6:63 in particular, Zwingli makes a body-spirit dualistic argument:
"The spiritual nature of a human being cannot be nourished by the body or by the physical objects which the body sees, smells, hears, tastes, and touches. Spiritual goods are communicated immediately to the human spirit by the action of God rather than mediately through physical objects. The human body or flesh is nourished by eating bread and wine. The human soul or spirit is nourished by the invisible and incorporeal activity of the Holy Spirit…. The flesh, that is, the human body and the creaturely elements of bread and wine which it ingests, cannot communicate spiritual life to the human soul."13
David Steinmetz
Steinmetz has summarized Zwingli’s thinking to mean that “when the human soul has been quickened and nourished by the Holy Spirit, then it is appropriate for the human being to eat the bread and drink the wine as a Eucharist or act of thanksgiving for an invisible work of grace already completed,” thereby reducing the Supper to a mere symbol of an already completed action that the Church can share together in faith.14 Zwingli took this approach because he believed that interpreting the words of institution as literal was contrary to reason.15
Here lies a considerable difference between the hermeneutical approaches of Zwingli and Luther. Zwingli felt that the interpretation of Scripture was bound by reason, whereas Luther had no such reservations; rather, he explains “that God reveals himself through actions that seem unreasonable” and as such, we cannot expect that a right interpretation will always appeal to human reason.16 For these reasons, Luther vehemently rejected Zwingli’s exegetical arguments and stood firmly on the belief that “as soon as Christ says: ‘This is my body,’ his body is present through the Word and the power of the Holy Spirit.”17 Luther’s argument did not come from ignorance about the fact that the words of institution could be interpreted differently, rather, as Steinmetz has noted, he believed that what Zwingli “had failed to demonstrate was not the possibility of such a reading but its necessity.”18 Thus, it is rightly said that “the Sacramentarian controversy was… a controversy over God’s Word. For the sacrament can only be lost when the Word is lost through faulty interpretation or doubt.”19
Ulrich Zwingli
In his attempt to prove his view, Zwingli effectively argued that scripture was contradictory, something Luther believed to be impossible unless man’s reason blinds him.20 Boehme reveals that what is at stake in Luther’s mind is the authority of Scripture:
"[He] tied the Word and sacraments together so tightly that, without God’s Word, there could be no sacrament. To ensure the efficacy of what was promised in the sacrament, God’s Word must be trustworthy and trusted. Luther saw that doubt of any part of the Bible could very easily lead to doubting all of it. Thus, the individual Christian could be led to doubt the forgiveness of sins given in the sacrament of Holy Communion. For if God’s Word were false in any other place, it could also be false here."21
In other words, Christians must acknowledge that scripture is internally coherent and non-contradictory, and the verses should be taken as their plain reading intends.22 As such, any and all contradictions are a result of human reason, and not some fault in the scriptural text. Jensen summarizes Luther’s view by explaining that, “the efficacy of the Sacrament of the Altar rests completely on God’s actions. Jesus says, ‘Take, eat, this is my body’ and ‘Do this.’ Because of these words, Luther could not help but confess that Christ is present, and that the forgiveness of sins, life, salvation and community in the Sacrament of the Altar are made a reality for us.”23
The Real Presence as a Christological Controversy
Luther begins his treatise, Confession Concerning Christ’s Supper, by asserting the same thing he has always asserted: “God is omnipotent; he can do more than we see; therefore I believe his words as they stand.”24 However, this time he does not approach the issue hermeneutically, but Christologically. Luther claims he has four reasons for believing what he does about the real presence:
"The first is this article of our faith, that Jesus Christ is essential, natural, true, complete God and man in one person, undivided and inseparable. The second, that the right hand of God is everywhere. The third, that the Word of God is not false or deceitful. The fourth, that God has and knows various ways to be present at a certain place, not only the single one of which the fanatics prattle, which the philosophers call ‘local.’"25
The first, second, and fourth reasons are inherently Christological, and they will form the basis of this section. Since the third reason has been discussed above, it will not be looked at again here.
Pertaining to the first reason, Luther makes the claim that “since the divinity and humanity are one person in Christ, the scriptures ascribe to the divinity, because of this personal union, all that happens to humanity, and vice versa.”26 As such, he believes that “we should ascribe to the whole person whatever pertains to one part of the person, because both parts constitute one person.”27 On this basis, Luther levels his main accusation against Zwingli, stating:
"If Zwingli’s alloeosis stands, then Christ will have to be two persons, one a divine and the other a human person, since Zwingli applies all the texts concerning the passion only to the human nature and completely excludes them from the divine nature. But if the works are divided and separated, the person will also have to be separated, since all the doing and suffering are not ascribed to natures but to persons."28
This for Luther is the central problem, a Nestorian division of the two natures in Christ. Likewise, Zwingli accuses Luther of doing the opposite, combining the two natures in such a way as to make them indistinguishable—essentially charging Luther with the heresy of Monophysitism. As Steinmetz noted, “both Zwingli and Luther perceive[d] that the Eucharist [could not] be discussed for very long without turning to christological issues.”29
Intimately related to the first reason is the second reason. Zwingli had made the claim that the body of Christ was at the right hand of the Father in Heaven since the ascension and therefore could not physically be in the Supper, thus the presence was only spiritual.30 Zwingli grounded this assertion in “the confession that Christ has assumed finite human nature.”31 In fact, Zwingli argued that,
"there is a soteriological necessity that Christ assumed, bore, and continues to bear finite human nature. Only finite human nature is authentic human nature. Unless human nature remains finite in the hypostatic union (i.e., remains one with us in our finitude), the redemptive significance of the incarnation, crucifixion, resurrection, and perpetual intercession at the right hand of God will be undermined. Christ cannot be our Redeemer unless he is one of us. There is, therefore, no real communication of attributes, only a metaphorical ascription to the whole person of Christ of attributes which belong properly to one nature or the other."32
In other words, Zwingli was concerned that the Christological consequences of Luther’s beliefs would ultimately undermine the salvation won for humanity upon the cross. After all, human sinners needed a completely human Jesus to atone for us.
To refute this, Luther’s argument appeals almost entirely to the incarnation: “since the human nature of Christ on earth could not be separated from the divine, neither can there be a separation in the Lord’s Supper.”33 Therefore, he felt that “to separate Christ’s physical presence from his spiritual presence would be akin to separating his divine and human natures, and is contrary to the second article of the Nicene-Constantinopolitan creed, and thus a denial of the incarnation.”34 Steinmetz explains that ultimately what this meant was that “‘signifies’ is a fitting description of the Eucharist only if it is an appropriate designation for the Incarnation as well, for a Jesus who is a sign or symbol or myth of God’s presence but not the presence itself.”35
Given the severity of the situation, Luther felt compelled to make one final argument based on philosophy, his fourth reason for believing in the real presence. Going well beyond his usual argument of basing his belief in Christ’s presence in the Supper on the Word of God, Luther argues here that there are that three modes of locality, the second and third of which are the most relevant to this paper.36
Luther claims that “in the second place, an object is in a place definitively, i.e., in an uncircumscribed manner, if the object or body is not palpably in one place and is not measurable according to the dimensions of the place where it is, but can occupy either more room or less.” This “uncircumscribed manner” was the mode in which he believed Christ was to be found in the Supper.37
As for the third mode, Luther states that “an object occupies places completely, i.e., supernaturally, if it is simultaneously present in all places whole and entire, and fills all places, yet without being measured or circumscribed by any place, in terms of the space which it occupies. This mode of existence belongs to God alone.”38 It was in this third mode that Luther took his argument further, claiming that “if you can say, ‘Here is God,’ then you must also say, ‘Christ the man is present too,’” because “He is one indivisible person with God, and wherever God is, he must be also, otherwise our faith is false.”39 In this way, Luther posited that “Christ... acquired a supernatural existence or mode of being whereby he can be everywhere,” and if Christ’s natures are indivisible, then He must be physically present in the Supper according to His human nature as well as spiritually present according to His divine nature.40
It is this argument that Luther employs in a final attempt to refute Zwingli’s position, especially Zwingli’s claim that Christ is only bodily present at the right hand of the Father.41 As such, Luther faults Zwingli for interpreting Christ’s presence at the “right hand of God” literally and not metaphorically: “that Christ is at the right hand of God means that he is the favored one through whom God exercises his rule (Ps. 8:6; Luke 10:22). Since God exercises his rule everywhere, even in hell, the right hand of God is found everywhere.”42 Steinmetz concludes that, “the very expression which Zwingli regards as circumscriptive and local, the Bible itself proves to be uncircumscribed and incorporeal.”43
Conclusion
The result of Luther’s arguments, particularly as found in Confession Concerning Christ’s Supper, was the doctrine of communicatio idiomatum, a dogma “developed to show the communion of the two natures in Christ; that is, the divine nature is communicated to the human nature in such a way that the two natures share the attributes of each other.”44 Though this doctrine is not where Luther intended to base his belief in the real presence, it has become part of orthodox Lutheran Christology and has been a source of both inspiration and deep contention among Lutherans and other Protestants, particularly the Reformed.45 However, the development of this doctrine proves that the fracture between Protestant views of the Supper is not solely hermeneutical but also innately Christological. Thus, Norman Nagel is quite right when he asserts that “the presence of the body and blood of Christ in the Sacrament of the Altar is the place where the divisions of Christendom can alone be finally healed.”46 For what keeps us divided is not just varying hermeneutical interpretations, but what we believe and teach about Christ’s person and work.
Rev. Roland Weisbrot is Lead Pastor at Victory Lutheran Church in Medicine Hat, Alberta, Canada where he resides with his wife, Rachel, and his cat, Katharina von Bora (Kat). He also has the privilege of serving as the Chair of the Canadian Association of Lutheran Congregation’s Theological Committee. Roland has research interests in historical systematic theology, ecclesiology, pneumatology, and, more broadly, the practice of Christianity in post-modern society. His ramblings can be found on his personal blog.
Endnotes:
1Martin Luther, “The Small Catechism,” in The Book of Concord, ed. Robert Kolb and Timothy J. Wengert (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2000), 362.
2David C Steinmetz, “Scripture and the Lord’s Supper in Luther’s Theology,” Interpretation 37, no. 3 (July 1983): 254.
3Armand J Boehme, “Study in Luther’s Anti-Sacramentarian Writings,” Springfielder 38, no. 4 (March 1975): 303.
4Steinmetz, 255–56.
5Martin Luther, “The Large Catechism,” in The Book of Concord, ed. Robert Kolb and Timothy J. Wengert (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2000), 468.
6Gordon A. Jensen, “The Sacrament of the Altar,” Lutheran Quarterly 31, no. 1 (2017): 3.
7Norman E. Nagel, “Presence of Christ’s Body and Blood in the Sacrament of the Altar According to Luther,” Concordia Theological Monthly 39, no. 4 (April 1968): 236.
8Martin Luther, “The Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ - Against the Fanatics,” in Martin Luther’s Basic Theological Writings, ed. Timothy F. Lull and William R. Russell, Third (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2012), 228–29.
9Steinmetz, 254.
10Steinmetz, 255–56.
11Ibid., 255–56.
12Boehme, 306.
13Steinmetz, 257.
14Ibid., 257–58.
15Boehme, 307–8.
16Boehme, 307.
17Luther, “The Sacrament of the Body and Blood,” 228.
18Steinmetz, 256.
19Boehme, 313.
20Ibid., 310–11.
21Ibid., 312–13; Steinmetz, 264–65.
22Boehme, 309.
23Jensen, 17.
24Martin Luther, “Confession Concerning Christ’s Supper,” in Martin Luther’s Basic Theological Writings, ed. Timothy F. Lull and William R. Russell, Third (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2012), 264.
25Ibid., 267.
26Ibid., 264–65.
27Ibid., 265.
28Ibid., 266; Erwin L. Lueker, Luther Poellot, and Paul Jackson, eds., “Alloeosis,” in Christian Cyclopedia (Saint Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 2000). Alloeosis being a “figure of speech by which Zwingli construed all passages of Scripture in which anything is ascribed to the divine nature of Christ or to the entire Christ that properly is property of the human nature. The purpose of the alloeosis, as used by Zwingli, was denial of the communication of attributes.”
29Steinmetz, 263.
30Jensen, 10; Steinmetz, 260.
31Steinmetz, 259.
32Ibid., 259.
33Kenneth R Craycraft, “Sign and Word: Martin Luther’s Theology of the Sacraments,” Restoration Quarterly 32, no. 3 (1990): 163.
34Jensen, 8.
35Steinmetz, 263.
36Nagel, 229.
37Luther, “Confession Concerning Christ’s Supper,” 267–68.
38Ibid., 268.
39Ibid., 269, 272; Nagel, 235.
40Luther, “Confession Concerning Christ’s Supper,” 275.
41Jensen, 10.
42Steinmetz, 261.
43Ibid., 261.
44Craycraft, 163.
45Nagel, 229.
46Nagel, 227.
