Sacrament of the Lord's Supper as Seen in Martin Luther

Luther argues a case for the usage of communion deriving its power from the Word of God and Christ, who instituted communion in the first place, and in this regard Luther builds the foundation of the Christian faith from this very idea. Luther thus writes the following, "The operative cause of the sacrament is the Word and institution of Christ, who ordained it. The substance is bread and wine, prefiguring the true body and blood of Christ, which is spiritually received by faith. The final cause of instituting the same is the benefit and the fruit, the strengthening of our faith, not doubting that Christ's body and blood were given and shed for us, and that our sins by Christ's death certainly are forgiven." (Luther, CCCLXII - Of The Sacrament Of The Lord's Supper) One can see in this argument that if a person would impose human authority in the administration of the bread and wine as sacrament, then it would weaken the case that Luther had made, and in this regard Luther relies heavily upon the communion elements not being mediated by human reason such as in the case of the authority of the papist.

Although Luther does a good job at building a chain that extends from Christ and the Word to the partakers of communion to its final results, one of the problems in this model is that it can cause a disrespect for the institution of the church. If the church has authority over communion as sacrament, then people that partake of communion need to be obedient to the church for receiving this gift of eternal life. If, however, the church has no authority over communion, then people that receive the communion elements could hypothetically give the pastor a punch in the nose after communion every Sunday without any consequences of being put out of communion with the church (this, however, may result in other consequences).

Following along in the previous example, a person that delivered a punch in the nose of the pastor could perhaps be disqualified from receiving the elements of communion based upon the pastor's decision, but if this happened, then it stands to reason that the pastor would be imposing himself as a cause of communion being instituted that day (this would make the pastor into something like a miniature papist, the same thing Luther was writhing against). Regardless of the fact that a multitude of pastors may sadly really benefit from a square firm punch in the nose to bring their religious convictions to life, the fact remains that some people may not play by the rules of the church (the man that gives the punch) and the church has to have the ability to fight off some of those "wolves." The results are that if you play by the rules of the church, then you get the bread and the cup, but otherwise you, like the disobedient church going person, "get a punch in the nose" (in other words you don't get the cup).

The problem that Luther was facing is that the people who administered the church had been so corrupt that the rules of the church had not prevented against the selling of indulgences (and other such problems). The case to be made is that Luther did not fight against this problem by making more rules of the church or by building on to what had already been established, but instead Luther clarified how the faith comes from God and abstracted out much of the need for human intercession. By making things more simple and fundamental, Luther was able to reduce the need for a large system of vast numbers of church administrators. But sadly enough it also would have caused the rise of secularism in coming centuries as church leaders had not been as instrumental in making administrative decisions since they became robbed of their ability to rule over the salvation of souls.

Bibliography:

Luther, Martin. Table Talks. Christian Classics Ethereal Library. Of The Sacrament Of The Lord's Supper. (http://www.ccel.org/ccel/luther/tabletalk.v.xiv.html, accessed Feb. 19, 2011)