Lutheranism

[SyroMalankara]

No, indeed he didn’t. Bearing in mind that Dr. Luther was a Biblical scholar as well as an Augustinian, once Pope Leo X excommunicated him and his followers, he was released to reform the Church along more Biblical principles. One could say that the Lutheran definition of the True Faith is one where the Gospel is faithfully proclaimed and the Sacraments correctly administered. I maintain that Luther was " excommunicated" by a* Pope*, that he never abandoned his faith. If one would carefully peruse Concordia, one would see that Dr. Luther merely sought a faithful return to the teachings of the Early Church Fathers that were Scripturally based: bookofconcord.org/testimonies.php and he had a few things of his own to say about the corrupt practices that led to his separation from the Church of Rome: bookofconcord.org/exhortation.php. The Counter- Reformation corrected many of these abuses, but would that have happened unless there was a prior Reformation to point out those issues that needed to be addressed?

Rev. Abraham creator of the Malankara schism said the same thing, however he ended up with the Anglicans (who funded him) and with a slightly different theology. Each reformer’s ‘faithful return to the ECFs’ is always different from the other.

 

[JonNC]

Yes, hence my question: “What is the subject of the unity of the natural bread and Christ’s true natural body (and likewise for the wine and the blood)?”

If there is no subject of the unity, then the analogy fails.

The Incarnation is likewise supernatural, incomprehensible, inexplicable, yet we have no problem acknowledging, in the doctrines surrounding it, that for two separate things (the divine nature and the human nature) to be inseparably united, they must have the same subject.

So again my question remains: What is the subject of the unity of the natural bread and Christ’s true natural body (and likewise for the wine and the blood)?

But, as I’ve said already: the Incarnation is likewise a mystery. That doesn’t mean we cannot say anything about it. What we can say, is that mystery is not the same as contradiction. If Christ is not the subject of the supposed ‘inseparatable union’ between bread and the body of Christ, and wine and the blood of Christ, what is? How do you avoid impanation?

It seems to me that there are only really four alternatives, if we want to avoid impanation (if we only look at it logically, ‘ignoring’ the Scriptures for a second):

1. 
   *]The Eucharist is only a pure memorial, where we remember Christ, and what he did for us, in his life, his passion and his resurrection.
   *]The Eucharist gives us some kind of spiritual communion with Christ.
   *]The Eucharist gives us the true and substantial body and blood of Christ, together with bread and wine, but not through som kind of union between these substances.
   ]The Eucharist gives us the true and substantial body and blood of Christ under the species of bread and wine (or their ‘forms,’ to use the language of the German version of Confessio Augustana, art. X).
   
   Of these four, the fourth is in my opinion the only one that really captures the words of Christ: “this is my body … this is my blood.”
   • In the German text, the word is Gestalt. That is, incidentally, also the German word used, in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, to translate the Latin word speciēs.

1. 
   The “unity”, as it were, is in Christ’s testament: “This [He is speaking here of what He held in His hand - bread] is my body.” But even when it is said that we receive His body and blood in, with, and under bread and wine, that is not a statement regarding bread and wine. As the article says, the underlying message is: the natural bread IS His body, because He said so.
   
   Jon

 

[billcu1]

No, indeed he didn’t. Bearing in mind that Dr. Luther was a Biblical scholar as well as an Augustinian, once Pope Leo X excommunicated him and his followers, he was released to reform the Church along more Biblical principles. One could say that the Lutheran definition of the True Faith is one where the Gospel is faithfully proclaimed and the Sacraments correctly administered. I maintain that Luther was " excommunicated" by a* Pope*, that he never abandoned his faith. If one would carefully peruse Concordia, one would see that Dr. Luther merely sought a faithful return to the teachings of the Early Church Fathers that were Scripturally based: bookofconcord.org/testimonies.php and he had a few things of his own to say about the corrupt practices that led to his separation from the Church of Rome: bookofconcord.org/exhortation.php. The Counter- Reformation corrected many of these abuses, but would that have happened unless there was a prior Reformation to point out those issues that needed to be addressed?

The purpose of excommunication is to impress upon someone a grave error. Such as knowingly having an abortion. All one has to do is go to confession and the excommunication is lifted. Sometimes the Priest has the authority to lift the excommunication given by the local ordinary. Sometimes you must go before the Bishop. Does the Lutherans have excommunication?

Bill

 

[billcu1]

The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) has open communion, so anyone can take communion. But the pastor does give general absolution to those present beforehand, saying, “As a called and ordained minister of the church of Christ, and by his authority, I therefore declare to you the entire forgiveness of all of your sins.” But the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod still has closed communion and only members can take communion (or if the pastor gives his permission).

Hum. I learned something else today. I didn’t know there were so many Lutheran groups. Let me ask how this is taught. Martin Luther being a Priest could forgive sins but not a Bishop couldn’t pass on the Holy Orders of ordination to create Deacons, Priests, or Bishops. How do the Pastors forgive sins? I would indeed like to know this.

Bill

 

[SalusaSecondus]

The purpose of excommunication is to impress upon someone a grave error. Such as knowingly having an abortion. All one has to do is go to confession and the excommunication is lifted. Sometimes the Priest has the authority to lift the excommunication given by the local ordinary. Sometimes you must go before the Bishop. Does the Lutherans have excommunication?

Bill

Yes, we do. I was privileged to witness an excommunicated member return to communion at my WELS church.

 

[billcu1]

Do all the Lutheran group believe in the Hypostatic Union?

Bill

 

[SalusaSecondus]

Do all the Lutheran group believe in the Hypostatic Union?

Bill

Yes.

 

[billcu1]

Yes.

Oh OK. Sounds like mainstream Christology to me. What the view on mortal and venial sin? That I know differs from the Latin rite of the Catholic church.

Bill

 

[SalusaSecondus]

Oh OK. Sounds like mainstream Christology to me. What the view on mortal and venial sin? That I know differs from the Latin rite of the Catholic church.

Bill

Some Lutheran theologians do make a distinction between mortal and venial sins.

It’s important to note that Lutherans don’t use the terms mortal and venial to categorize specific sinful actions as serious or not-so-serious. Instead we view sin from the perspective of the spiritual state of the one who has sinned. Since every sin shatters God’s law (James 2:10), every sin is mortal for an unbeliever. Paul plainly warns: “If you live according to the sinful nature, you will die” (Romans 8:13).

But a believer clings to forgiveness in Christ. By the word “venial,” we speak of sins of weakness or ignorance in the heart and life of a believer. Even though all those sins are damnable by merit, those who take refuge in Christ know they have pardon and forgiveness by Christ’s merits.

But most importantly, at the cross we rejoice that God doesn’t waste time asking whether our sins are big or small. He knows they are all big. Because of that God gave us an even bigger Savior. That is why he always assures us that “the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin” (1 John 1:7).

 

[billcu1]

Some Lutheran theologians do make a distinction between mortal and venial sins.

It’s important to note that Lutherans don’t use the terms mortal and venial to categorize specific sinful actions as serious or not-so-serious. Instead we view sin from the perspective of the spiritual state of the one who has sinned. Since every sin shatters God’s law (James 2:10), every sin is mortal for an unbeliever. Paul plainly warns: “If you live according to the sinful nature, you will die” (Romans 8:13).

But a believer clings to forgiveness in Christ. By the word “venial,” we speak of sins of weakness or ignorance in the heart and life of a believer. Even though all those sins are damnable by merit, those who take refuge in Christ know they have pardon and forgiveness by Christ’s merits.

But most importantly, at the cross we rejoice that God doesn’t waste time asking whether our sins are big or small. He knows they are all big. Because of that God gave us an even bigger Savior. That is why he always assures us that “the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin” (1 John 1:7).

Good point. The Passion is what gained enough merit for our forgiveness I was just reading that in CCC 1987. Where Justification was being talked about and Grace Justifies us it says. Of course we are too justified by faith but before you can step out in faith God has to grant us the grace to do so. So I understand it. So Lutherans have told me Luther didn’t set out to form a new church. How briefly then did things get started?

Bill

 

[LutheranScholar]

The purpose of excommunication is to impress upon someone a grave error. Such as knowingly having an abortion. All one has to do is go to confession and the excommunication is lifted. Sometimes the Priest has the authority to lift the excommunication given by the local ordinary. Sometimes you must go before the Bishop. Does the Lutherans have excommunication?

Bill

Yes we do and excommunication is taken extremely seriously among us.

 

[MWin]

…] So again my question remains: What is the subject of the unity of the natural bread and Christ’s true natural body (and likewise for the wine and the blood)?
…]
It seems to me that there are only really four alternatives, if we want to avoid impanation (if we only look at it logically, ‘ignoring’ the Scriptures for a second):

1. 
   *]The Eucharist is only a pure memorial, where we remember Christ, and what he did for us, in his life, his passion and his resurrection.
   *]The Eucharist gives us some kind of spiritual communion with Christ.
   *]The Eucharist gives us the true and substantial body and blood of Christ, together with bread and wine, but not through som kind of union between these substances.
   ]The Eucharist gives us the true and substantial body and blood of Christ under the species of bread and wine (or their ‘forms,’ to use the language of the German version of Confessio Augustana, art. X).
   
   Of these four, the fourth is in my opinion the only one that really captures the words of Christ: “this is my body … this is my blood.” …]

1. 
   John 4:24: “For God is Spirit, so those who worship him must worship in spirit and in truth.”
   
   John 1:1: “In the beginning the Word already existed. The Word was with God, and the Word was God.”
   
   Jesus breaks the bread and says “This is my body which is given up to you.” Had Nicodemus been present he would have said: “Are we to believe that the bread and wine is your actual flesh and blood?”
   
   The boorish personality, as well as the rationalist individual, lacks spiritual awareness. In the profane mind, such things are “mere words”. Words lacks true reality, since they aren’t material.
   
   The Lord’s Supper relates a spiritual truth. Yet the common person, who is spiritually blind, views symbols are mere “words”–mere spiritual aphorisms. The vulgar commonality has only one criterion of truth, namely corporeality.
   
   What does the following words mean? “In the beginning was the Word…and the Word was God” (John 1:1)? It means that the spirit, as related by “mere words”, is fundamental to reality. Whereas material reality is transient and relative, the spiritual is eternal and absolute. According to Genesis 1:1, “the Spirit of God was brooding upon the surface of the waters”.
   
   In inaugurating the Communion, Jesus teaches us to transcend material reality–to peek behind the curtain of material illusions in order to get a glimpse of true reality. He is not teaching us that the Host is his flesh and blood in the vulgar sense. His body is spirit, and that’s why he will remain for eternity.
   
   On ordinary days, we may eat the spiritual bread and drink the spiritual wine. We are capable of doing this regardless if we take part of the Host or not. Yet, the Holy Communion is a means of spiritual awakening. The ritual, which involves corporeal elements, serves as a bridge to the spirit. During the Communion, corporeal reality and spiritual truth become one. This is achieved during the consecration of the bread and wine.
   
   The early Christians found a way of incorporating the vulgar masses, by maintaining that the Host transubstantiates into Christ’s flesh and blood. They also insisted that Jesus arose in the flesh. Accordingly, the disciple Thomas poked his finger into the hole in Jesus’s side. It is all very vulgar, but corporeality is what the plebeian demands in order to believe.
   
   The apostles said that Jesus arose from the dead, but they refrained from saying that he had acquired the incorruptible body, which is the glorified resurrection body. Theology took this course of development because the pedestrian mind cannot grasp that Jesus’s body is spirit. After all, to such people only the material is real.
   
   It is evident from the gospels that Jesus is discontented with doing miracle works, such as turning water into wine and healing the sick. He reveals spiritual truth by means of material manifestations, since only the corporeal can have an effect on the masses. But it would have been better if they could listen to his words instead, which are a direct route to the spirit, because the Word is God.
   
   Yet, our minds are steeped in worldly images, and the best we can do is to make use of them. That’s why spiritual words have been forged from commonplace worldly appearances. There is nothing as commonplace as bread and wine. Yet, it is also the body of God, who brooded upon the waters in the beginning. During the Communion, we take part of the resurrection body.
   
   It is the “word” which is real. It means that we may take part of the Holy Communion at any time, by summoning the spirit in our mind. The image may take the form of bread and wine, as well as any other form, because the spirit is ever-present and eternal.
   
   Christian theology was forced to make a concession to the vulgar mind. The consecration is performed by magicians capable of transubstantiating the Host to the flesh and blood of Christ. In this way the celebrant may take part of the corpus Christi in the material sense. The average simpleton may thus perceive it as real.
   
   When Jesus couldn’t be around to perform miracles anymore, he taught the apostles a ritual miracle which they could continue, because he knew that simple people demand miracles. This was the Holy Communion. Yet his body was present already in the word and the image.
   
   The vulgar plebeian, as well as the rationalist intellectual, will always inquire whether the Host is actually the physical body of Christ, because he has no notion that the word itself is the body of Christ through which the universe was created.
   
   Mats Winther

 

[steido01]

…
Christian theology was forced to make a concession to the vulgar mind. The consecration is performed by magicians capable of transubstantiating the Host to the flesh and blood of Christ. In this way the celebrant may take part of the corpus Christi in the material sense. The average simpleton may thus perceive it as real.
…

Or… it’s got, like, you know, nothing to do with Jungian psychology, man.

 

[KjetilK]

The “unity”, as it were, is in Christ’s testament: “This [He is speaking here of what He held in His hand - bread] is my body.” But even when it is said that we receive His body and blood in, with, and under bread and wine, that is not a statement regarding bread and wine. As the article says, the underlying message is: the natural bread IS His body, because He said so.

Mystery ≠ self-contradiction.

And this is still not analogues to the unity in the incarnation.

 

[KjetilK]

Since every sin shatters God’s law (James 2:10), every sin is mortal for an unbeliever.

Well, that is not what Scripture says. John distinguishes between mortal sins and other sins, in 1John 5:16-17

If any one sees his brother committing what is not a mortal sin, he will ask, and God will give him life for those whose sin is not mortal. There is sin which is mortal; I do not say that one is to pray for that. All wrongdoing is sin, but there is sin which is not mortal.

 

[steido01]

Well, that is not what Scripture says. John distinguishes between mortal sins and other sins, in 1John 5:16-17

If any one sees his brother committing what is not a mortal sin, he will ask, and God will give him life for those whose sin is not mortal. There is sin which is mortal; I do not say that one is to pray for that. All wrongdoing is sin, but there is sin which is not mortal.

I’m not sure the two of you are necessarily in disagreement. SalusaSecondus is simply noting that those who live under the Law (that is, not under Christ, and therefore not as John designates them a “brother”), must also live under the penalty of the Law.

It’s not that Lutherans like SalusaSecondus (and me) don’t acknowledge a difference between mortal or venial sins, rather that we understand the terrible reality that even the smallest of venial sins can plant the wretched seed of a mortal sin, especially if repeated and not repented. The wages of sin is death. Paul, inspired, does not qualify that statement with venial or mortal. It’s more of just a paradigm under which we avoid sin.

 

[benjohnson]

If any one sees his brother committing what is not a mortal sin, he will ask, and God will give him life for those whose sin is not mortal. There is sin which is mortal; I do not say that one is to pray for that. All wrongdoing is sin, but there is sin which is not mortal.

Agreed, but at least form me, I’m afraid we creatures are unable to diagnose ourselves properly - and things that we would normally think of not being mortal are indeed mortal - I highlighted two here that would trip me up.

Galatians 5:19-21 When you follow the desires of your sinful nature, the results are very clear: sexual immorality, impurity, lustful pleasures, idolatry, sorcery, hostility, quarreling, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambition, dissension, division, envy, drunkenness, wild parties, and other sins like these. Let me tell you again, as I have before, that anyone living that sort of life will not inherit the Kingdom of God.

…

I would say that the Lutheran practice of bringing all our sins to the priest in the form of confession is rather cautious, but it allows us to rest easy.

 

[SyroMalankara]

I see on the Vatican Radio/News website the Lutheran (historic) Church of Sweden’s first female archbishop (?) was in attendance at a general Papal audience and HH met and greeter her. Does the Lutheran (historic) Church of Norway and other Lutherans (esp. historic Lutheran Churches retaining some semblence of AS) worldwide recognize this Church and all its bishops?

 

[benjohnson]

I see on the Vatican Radio/News website the Lutheran (historic) Church of Sweden’s first female archbishop (?) was in attendance at a general Papal audience and HH met and greeter her. Does the Lutheran (historic) Church of Norway and other Lutherans (esp. historic Lutheran Churches retaining some semblence of AS) worldwide recognize this Church and all its bishops?

That’s the rub -as a general rule the Lutheran synods that are more AS oriented have introduced such novelties. That there are steadfast confessional Lutherans in those synods there can be no no doubt, and we pray for them and the rest of the suffering church.

 

[SalusaSecondus]

That’s the rub -as a general rule the Lutheran synods that are more AS oriented have introduced such novelties. That there are steadfast confessional Lutherans in those synods there can be no no doubt, and we pray for them and the rest of the suffering church.

How much can they really be AS oriented when they have introduced unbiblical and ungodly doctrines such as female pastors and openly practicing gay and lesbian ministers? Seems like their claim of AS is not really.