[Introduction to Third Point of Doctrine]
§136. As the church’s observance, baptism simply designates the intentional act by means of which the church takes up individuals into its community. In contrast, insofar as Christ’s effectual promise reposes in it, baptism is, at the same time, the conduit for the divine activity of justification, or regeneration, whereby individuals are taken up into community with Christ in their lives.
1. What is essential in our proposition was already anticipated above,1 namely, that an individual’s being taken up into Christian community and the individual’s being justified or regenerated could be regarded as simply one and the same act. Suppose otherwise, that being taken up into the church were an action of the church alone. Since this reception is not thinkable without participation of the Holy Spirit, Supreme Being in preparing for union with human nature in the form of the church’s common spirit would have to have behaved passively. Yet, of course, the outpouring of the Holy Spirit is dependent on Christ2 and is based on Christ’s promise. Thus, the same thing must also be true of the Spirit’s bestowal on each individual if the Spirit, being necessary for the unity of the church, is also to come from Christ to all in the same fashion. Thus, the Christian church is relieved of a great lack of surety by Christ himself having ordered baptism as the act of being taken up into the church, for, on this basis, every reception is an act of Christ himself if it is performed in the way he ordered it to be and in conformity with his command. Hence, the Christian church can then as little deviate from this form of being received through baptism, on the one hand, as it can doubt, on the other hand, that in any instance wherein Christ’s command is properly carried out, his promise that with this reception the blessedness of a person begins and should also come to fruition. This is so, for just as the latter action would amount to doubting the redeeming power of Christ himself, so the former action would be a rash venture that could not proceed from that divine Spirit which derives everything from Christ.
Now, suppose that it is established hereby that baptism must continue to be preserved in the church just as the church has adopted it. Even then, no information concerning baptism could be required or imparted as to whether or how the external mode of this observance connects with its internal contents and purpose. Rather, the only thing we could say about that connection is that if Christ would have ordered an entirely different external functioning, we would hold this to be just as holy and would expect the same results from it. Only this much is certain, that if Christ would have especially instituted something entirely new in this observance for the same purpose, it would be incumbent on us to search for relations between its external mode and its internal contents and purpose—indeed, the most exhaustive relations possible. This would be the case in that only under the most extreme necessity would we bring ourselves to assume anything purely arbitrary in any institution of Christ.
The actual situation was different, since Christ attached his institution of baptism to something that already existed and baptism was already historically conditioned by its connection with the proclamation of John. That is to say, that historical grounding can then satisfy us completely, without our having to be tempted to elaborate on the symbolism already generally recognized in the area where they lived, beyond what already appears in Scripture.3 Nor would we even be tempted to take this symbolism to be so essential that one could claim that the observance itself would be complete and could attain its purpose only if it is also externally arranged in such a way that the significance of the observance can fully stand out.
2. Quite apart from this undeniable connection between the baptism Christ instituted and that of John, however, one can hardly assert that they are wholly the same without removing something from the baptism that Christ instituted.4 This is so, for even though the idea of God’s reign through redemption does underlie John’s baptism, nonetheless the person of the Redeemer was not a definite person for John, nor was it so for those he baptized before John himself had recognized Jesus in the act of baptizing him. Hence, one would have to distinguish, at the very least, between John’s baptism before and after that event, so that, in any case, the first kind, in order to be like Christian baptism, would still have needed some augmentation. However, this distinction would still be meaningful only if John had baptized in Jesus’ name after the event. Yet, all circumstances taken into account,5 this is rather to be denied than affirmed. Accordingly, one could hardly admit that John’s baptism could already have meant being taken up into the Christian church or even being reborn in the waters. Consequently, it could also be declared identical with the baptism that Christ instituted only if one either declared both to be ineffectual6 or if one wanted to claim that John would have been able to offer exactly what Christ offered without any definite reference to Christ, which would be as good as abolishing the distinction between the old and the new covenant.
Against this position, on the other hand, one cannot possibly claim that, for persons baptized by John, recognition of Jesus as the Christ was not a sufficient addendum but that a new baptism was indispensable. Overall it is also not clear that baptism was altogether necessary for entering into community with him as long as the Redeemer still lived. Rather, it appears that on occasions when he had granted forgiveness to a person by his word and had summoned that person to follow him, being taken up into community was already accomplished by this act. After that, baptism would have been added simply as an observance wholly lacking in meaningful content. Likewise, one also cannot possibly claim that just the apostles would have received baptism from John, not to speak of all Christ’s disciples, those from Galilee above all. Still less can one possibly claim that Christ himself baptized even one person7 on whom the task of baptizing others would then have devolved.
Hence, especially useful here is the distinction between the church yet to be established and the church already existent. Moreover, it would not be at all surprising if among Christians who had not been reached by the church many were not baptized. The reason would be that Christ’s own personal choosing8 of them, as an act of his will, has to have been wholly sufficient for beginning both processes that our proposition ascribes to baptism, that is, applying the divine decree of redemption to a given individual and placing that individual into community with all who were already faithful. This twofold process then best makes clear how baptism, viewed as a general ordinance instituted by Christ, took the place of Christ’s own personal choosing.
3. Now, suppose that we stick to this viewpoint and imagine every act of baptism wherewith this process could have the stated effect to be something ordered by the church as a whole. Suppose too that, as a consequence, the highest canonical authority would reside in this ordered act, on account of the efficacious action of the Holy Spirit in all its abundance. As a result, the church could not baptize anyone who would not be just as ripe and ready truly to begin the new spiritual life in community with Christ since this readiness would have had to hold good of anyone whom Christ himself chose. Accordingly, there would then be no occasion to raise questions as to whether baptism and regeneration could be divorced from each other; rather, we could assert, without any further consideration, that everyone would be regenerated in baptism and only through baptism. That is to say, in that the Holy Spirit was granted to the entire body of disciples, the divine activity directed to regeneration and sanctification would have been tied so exclusively to the administration of baptism that not only would anyone whom the church would present to God in baptism be, on this account, recognized by God—afterward as it were—but also both partaking in the Holy Spirit and being among the children of God would have been sustained with baptism itself.
Now, in reality this is not what has happened, however. Rather, baptism has always come to be recognized and administered only by a relatively self-contained part of the church—and, indeed, during a transitional point in its development wherein no such canonical completeness in its particular observances could be reached. Hence, all the particular observances of baptism too will simply have approached complete correctness to a greater or lesser degree. Moreover, let us add to this observation the fact that, humanly speaking, a moment in which an individual’s regeneration occurs is not precisely determinable, even less foreseeable. Accordingly, that merely incomplete correctness in the proffering of baptism, which is to be presupposed, is always referred back to the fact that the church does not approach baptism of a catechumen in the same way as the catechumen’s soul progresses toward regeneration, even though this too is always mediated by activities of the church. As a result, what would have been something absolutely simple under that presupposition of an eventual completeness9 in the church instead falls into two series of activities, which correspondingly end up in two different elements.10
Now, suppose that it were to be proven that the series of the church’s activities that occasions approaches toward regeneration would also—because it is less personal and proceeds more directly from the power of the divine Word—present the influence of the church as a whole more exactly than the other series of activities and that hence the most complete aspect of this incomplete situation would exist if, each time, the administration of baptism would be attached to the element of regeneration, rightly understood. In that case, it would still unmistakably lie in the nature of the matter that the church’s inclination to baptize would sometimes run ahead of the inner workings of the Spirit aimed at regeneration and would sometimes lag behind those workings of the Spirit. In each instance, those in charge of baptism would, in their appraising of the inner condition of the person to be baptized, swing over to the one side or the other. This is why we find—in the effort to set our minds at ease, as it were, concerning this incompleteness—that already in the apostolic period both forms of deviation appear, that is,11 the communication of the Spirit before baptism and baptism before communication of the Spirit. Moreover, it is plain to see that today the divergence between these two alternatives can be even greater than it was then. In any case, however, when the decisive workings of grace by the Spirit precede baptism, this constitutes an imperative requirement to have baptism, viewed as an act of being taken up into the community, follow directly afterward. The other way around, having baptism precede that act is to be justified only by the strong faith, grounded in the vital activity of the church, that regeneration of the one received into the church will then also ensue from the influences of the community as a whole. Thus, all things considered, the number of those baptized and of those regenerated would always be the same, except that by virtue of that teetering between the two sides which we have seen, the more nearly perfect the church is, the fewer regenerate persons there will be in proportion to the church as a whole, persons who have not yet been baptized but who would have a well-grounded right to have been taken up into the church. The same will be true of baptized persons who are not yet regenerated but who are quite effectually commended to divine grace to the point of regeneration by the prayer of the church. Hence, the same process would then always underlie the relation of the two alternatives to each other, and the two would have to be thought of as absolutely belonging together, however greatly they may also diverge from each other from time to time.
4. Based on these reflections, it can easily be seen how widely opinions concerning the value and efficacy of baptism can diverge without our being entitled to declare either one to be unchristian. This conclusion is manifest in that if one starts from the fact that, in a given situation of the church, baptism and regeneration do not always coincide, one then indicates this fact most strikingly if one says that even in an instance wherein the two forms would coincide, this occurrence would be simply fortuitous, and in no way would a person become regenerate simply by someone’s delivering baptism to that person. Even this act, however—against which, if rightly understood, nothing is to be objected—can also be conceived in such a way that in and of itself baptism would not effect anything inwardly but would rather be an outward sign of entrance into the Christian church.12 Now this is also true, but only if one thinks of the particular external observance as independent of the Spirit’s activity in the church—to the extent that the time when it occurs is largely determined externally, either by general ordinances regulating worship or by special circumstances. That is to say, the statement is true, but it is so only as a description of the church’s incompleteness at the point of baptism. However, if it is meant to be a total and general description of baptism, it is false, for without activity of the Spirit, baptism by water is indeed but an external performance, which Christ himself declared to be unsatisfactory.13
Suppose, however, that baptism is said to be called forth by the activity of the Spirit—just as what happened at Pentecost, viewed as the first event of the actual church, has been continually repeated in this way ever since and is said to be intimately connected with that same activity. Yet, suppose, too, that this claim—precisely because baptism in and of itself would still not bring forth regeneration, but everything would come down to regeneration—is extended to the point that one says this: either baptism would be superfluous and would better be discontinued, or at least there would be no other basis for retaining it than simply a praiseworthy reverence for ancient institutions. Then, however, the second view would twist the relationship reported earlier, that between John’s baptism and Christian baptism, so far that the latter baptism would appear to be a mere appendage to the former one. Given this view, moreover, the longer Christian baptism would survive, the more meaningless it would be. In contrast, the first view here would actually abolish the church itself, or at least its outer existence. This is so, in that it would abolish the interconnection between the influences of the community, which are crowned by baptism, and the inner development of individuals to the point of regeneration, or at least it would not allow this interconnection to be prominent. In this case, moreover, the Christian community could appear just as shadowlike and almost accidental in its externals as it does in the Society of Quakers. Yet, in general terms even this view cannot be called unchristian, because it simply depreciates baptism, regarded as something external, so as to elevate the value of what is internal, namely, regeneration alone.14
Suppose that one proceeds from the other side, which holds that regeneration and entrance into the community of the faithful are essentially bound to each other and are mutually conditioned by each other, all the more so since all workings of the Spirit also proceed from this community, workings that lead to regeneration. Then the closest and earliest expression for this process would be this: that one and the same series of the church’s activities would have this twofold end, baptism and regeneration.
Now, to be sure, this position too is true. Yet, it is so, in accordance with what we saw above, simply as a description of a completeness of the church, something that actually does not exist at any particular point and that cannot actually appear in any particular observance. Now, suppose, however, that a further implication flows from this view, because one of the two ends would still have to be conditioned by the other, but baptism could not be conditioned by regeneration—that is, because regeneration could be recognized only in the reality of one’s new life, baptism would presuppose an efficacious action in the church that existed before one’s being taken up into the church, and this would be nonsensical—so, on the contrary, regeneration would have to be conditioned by baptism. Furthermore, just as the earlier states of the individual preparatory to regeneration would have been brought forth through earlier activities of the church, even regeneration itself would be brought forth only through the final activity of the church in this series of activities, namely, through baptism. Therefore, this view is also true and correct if it is taken in a purely spiritual sense and if even baptism, as the final end of that series, is regarded only in its inner aspect, not considered to be something bound to any particular feature—for example, bound to the church’s tendency to expand itself, which can reach its goal only by the regeneration of its new members.
Now, suppose that we add to this conclusion the observation that even to one’s own consciousness the inner fact of regeneration cannot, in a temporal fashion, arrive at full surety except through the progress of sanctification.15 Suppose, too, that for a long time it can be endangered repeatedly by all that interrupts and impedes the sanctifying process. Then, in this connection too it must be conceded that regeneration, viewed as an inner possession, is definitely conditioned by baptism. This is so, for then a person’s self-consciousness can, at moments when it insecurely wavers to and fro, be strengthened and fortified16 in the communal consciousness expressed in baptism and sanctified by prayer in Christ’s name.17 This same claim becomes false, however, when it is supposed to be taken in a temporal sense and is supposed to be referred to the external observance. It is all the more false when one imagines all this to be divorced from the motives that should underlie baptism and from whatever causation preceded these motives. It is false then, for it leads to the atrocious assertion that God must necessarily justify those on whom the church confers baptism, no matter how little this act may exist in the person’s inner state. Such deformities border on magic and are thus dangerous and reprehensible. The one-sided claims previously cited from the opposing side are directed against these deformities above all. Nevertheless, we cannot declare them to be absolutely non-Christian either. This is so, to the extent that this power ascribed to the church is still referred back to Christ and, viewed as a fruit of baptism, is also presented not simply as a remission of sin but also as a living union with Christ.18
Now, what can be established as church doctrine between these two points, with the free latitude required, will be developed in the propositions to follow.19
1. In §124.2.
3. Ed. note: E.g., see Matt. 3:11 and 28:19; Luke 3:16; Mark 10:39; John 4:12; and Acts 10:48, 19:5.
4. See Johann Gerhard (1582–1687), Loci (1610–1622, ed. 1764) 9, 101ff.
5. Cf. John 3:22ff. and Acts 9:3–5. Ed. note: Sermon on John 3:22–30, Jan. 4, 1824, SW II.8 (1837), 207–18.
6. As Huldrych Zwingli (1484–1531) did in his Commentary on True and False Religion (1525), 17 (Baptism): “How the baptism of John and that of Christ differ is a question much mooted both in the past and today, but it is an unprofitable question. … John’s dipping effected nothing. … Christ’s dipping effected nothing.” Ed. note: ET Jackson and Heller (1981), 189; Latin: CR 90:765f. See also his Fidei Ratio: “An Account of the Faith of Huldreich Zwingli, Submitted to the German Emperor Charles V at the Diet of Augsburg, July 3, 1530,” in Zwingli, On Providence (1983), 33–61.
7. John 4:2. Ed. note: Sermon on John 4:1–10, Feb. 1, 1824, SW II.8 (1837), 232–48.
8. Erwählung. Ed. note: This is the same word used for “election” in §§117–20 above.
9. Ed. note: In KGA I/13.2, 357, Schäfer found der Vollkommenheit before der Kirche in the original manuscript, but this addition was not present in the first printing or in subsequent editions. Schleiermacher might well have had it deleted, thus stating: “that presupposition … by (or of) the church.” In any case, the presupposition referred to is clear. Here the discussion simply considers a possible “completeness” of the baptismal observance, not yet the “consummation” (Vollendung) of the church.
10. Ed. note: The two series of activities named in the proposition itself are these: the “church takes up individuals into its community” and “individuals are taken up into community with Christ in their lives” (“regeneration”).
11. Acts 10:44–47; compare with Acts 2:38, 41, and 19:6.
12. Huldrych Zwingli, Commentary on True and False Religion (1525) 15 (Baptism): “But it is a mere outward thing, this dipping, … a sign and ceremony signifying the real thing. … So are ceremonies outward signs which prove to others that the participant has bound oneself to a new life.” Ed. note: ET Jackson and Heller (1981), 197; Latin: CR 90:773.
13. Indeed, moreover, this is so even when baptism is a confession of readiness to repent, as the context of John 3:5 indicates. Ed. note: Sermons on (1) John 3:1–8, May 24, 1812, SW II.1 (1834), 492–509, and (2) John 3:1–6, Nov. 30, 1823, SW II.8 (1837), 155–67.
14. This is how the relationship of this view to the church is presented in the Quaker Robert Barclay’s (1648–1690) classic passage in An Apology for the True Christian Divinity (1676) 12: “This is where the controversy between us and our opponents is so frequently drawn. They often prefer the form and the shadow to the power and the substance. They consider people to have inherited and possessed the truth if they have the form and shadow, even though in reality they lack the power and the substance.” Ed. note: ET Barclay’s Apology (1967), 308; Latin: 1st ed. (1676), 269; also in Barclay’s Latin and English editions from 1678 on.
16. Ed. note: Stärken und befestigen. See §§146–47 below. See also John 14:13. Sermon on John 14:7–17, May 21, 1826 (Trinity Sunday), SW II.9 (1847), 428–42.
17. Luther’s Larger Catechism (1529) on Baptism: “Thus, we must regard baptism and put it to use in such a way that we may draw strength and comfort [corroboremur et confirmemur] from it when our sins or conscience oppress us.” Ed. note: ET Book of Concord (2000), 462; Latin and German: Bek. Luth. (1963), 700.
18. Ed. note: Compare §§144–45.
19. Ed. note: The “two points” are those stated in the proposition; see note 10 above. The direct reference is to what follows in §§137–38, to which this proposition has served as an introduction. However, the statement could readily apply to all the remaining propositions, all of which must depend on what Schleiermacher has established by now concerning Christ’s ongoing work of redemption (recall §11), thus regeneration and sanctification by the Spirit.
§137. First Doctrinal Proposition: Along with citizenship in the Christian church, baptism, when delivered in accordance with Christ’s institution of it, at the same time confers blessedness as that relates to the divine grace present in regeneration.
(1) Augsburg Confession (1530) IX: “Concerning baptism they teach that it is necessary for salvation that the grace of God is offered through baptism.”1
(2) Smalcald Articles (Luther. 1537), Pt. III. 5: “Baptism is nothing other than God’s Word in the water, commanded by God’s institution. … Therefore we do not agree with Thomas, who … says that God has placed a spiritual power in the water which, through the water washes away sin. … We also disagree with Scotus … who teaches that baptism washes away sin, … that this washing takes place only through God’s will and not at all through the Word and the water.”2
(3) Saxon Confession (= Melanchthon, Repetitio Confessionis Augustanae, 1551): “I baptize you, that is, I give witness by this water (mersione) that you are absolved from sins and are now received by the true God … whom you recognize …, and certainly you determine that benefits are bestowed on you that he promised in the Gospel, so that you are a member of God’s church.”3
(4) Luther’s Larger Catechism (1529) on Baptism: “‘The one who believes and is baptized will be saved’, that is, faith alone makes the person worthy to receive the saving divine water profitably. … Just by allowing the water to be poured over you, you do not receive or retain baptism in such a manner that it does you any good. … Further, we say, we do not put the main emphasis on whether the person baptized believes or not, for in the latter case baptism does not become invalid.”4
(5) Second Helvetic Confession (1566) XIX: “For in baptism the sign is the element of water and that visible washing which is done by the minister, but the thing signified is regeneration and the cleansing from sins. …” XX: “Now to be baptized in the name of Christ is to be enrolled, entered (initiari) and received … into the inheritance of the sons of God … and to be granted the manifold grace of God, in order to lead a new … life.”5
(6) Gallican Confession (1559) XXXV: “Baptism is given as a pledge of our adoption, for by it we are grafted into the body of Christ so as to be washed and cleansed by his blood and then renewed …”6
(7) Belgic Confession (1561) XXXIV: “He has commanded all those who are his to be baptized … thereby signifying to us that as water washeth away the filth of the body … so doth the blood of Christ, by the power of the Holy Ghost, internally sprinkle the soul, cleanse it from its sins, and regenerate us from children of wrath unto children of God.”7
(8) Leipzig Colloquium (1631): “Although the grace of God does not obtain automatically (ex opere operato) through baptism … just as blessedness is not effected by more external cleansing, it does nevertheless occur by the power of Christ’s words of institution and promise issued through baptism.”8
1. A certain wavering in pronouncements of the two Protestant communities of the church is undeniable. Thus, if one compares the different passages, it is not easy to decide whether in baptism something is given and communicated from the one side and obtained from the other side or whether something is simply indicated and attested or tendered. Now, our proposition has no part in this wavering, placing itself on the side that attributes the most to baptism. In consequence, the greater the effect attached to baptism is, the more important it becomes to determine what belongs to Christ’s institution of it, to which institution this effect would be tied.
Now, in this connection if it is possible initially to distinguish between the observance itself and the meaning involved in its being performed, then the observance, viewed only in and of itself, is simply the outer aspect of baptism and, in contrast, the meaning is the inner aspect. Moreover, since even the declared effect is something purely spiritual and deeply inward, it is already implied therein that this effect cannot be brought about by the external observance viewed in and of itself alone. Rather, the interconnection between the two aspects can be mediated only by the underlying meaning. Now, this meaning is in accordance with the words of Christ himself9 and in accordance with the original interpretation of these words that his disciples made in action,10 and it lies in peoples’ being taken up into the community of the disciples. That is to say, “teaching to observe”11 all that Christ had commanded, itself distinct from the bestirring of faith or from “making disciples,” is found only in this community.
The efficacy of this observance of baptism, however, does not depend on its being performed with pure and unalloyed intention or on its always being done every time with a specified consciousness on the part of those who offer it.12 This is so, for this observance is not that of any given individual; rather, an individual performs it only by virtue of the church’s authorization of that individual to do it, thus as a performance of the church. The intention of the church in this authorization, however, is that that observance be done genuinely and correctly. Based on this presupposition, therefore, the following is also generally established for all periods in which the church is mostly divided into relatively opposing communities. That is, for any community among them that permits baptism to be performed, baptism holds validity not simply for that community but also for all of them together, because they all have the aim of taking people up into the Christian church through baptism.
Indeed, suppose that one community or another would attach to this observance something that would have a special reference to that party of the church. In that case, the other communities would probably either correct this always unsuitable addition or declare it to be null and void; they would not, however, impugn the validity of the observance as a whole if the institution of baptism simply remained undisputed. This fact, moreover, rightly extends to heretical parties as well, for they too hold themselves to be true Christians, and their aim ever remains that of receiving people into Christianity. Indeed, suppose that their intention is also, at the same time, to foster the propagation of their own heresy. Even then, the “orthodox” church needs simply to work strongly against this heresy among those baptized within heretical parties, without on that account having to tear down the original, communal Christian foundation of baptism.
Now, as concerns the observance itself, what is to be noticed, above all, in descriptions of baptism in the scriptural passages cited is emphatically not simply the use of water in and of itself and irrespective of the observance. Rather, the external observance as well, no matter whether by total or partial immersion—and an immersion of the latter sort includes all acts of sprinkling a person with water or pouring it over a person—is disconnected from its purpose unless it is attached to the divine Word. Moreover, without this Word it would therefore be incomplete.
Yet, however obvious this observation is, we are also far from wanting to claim therewith that by Christ’s institution of baptism a pronouncement of predefined words would, at the same time, be required in its external observance, thus that a baptism would be invalid that lacked a constant and uniform utterance of these words. Instead, all that is to be attached to this observance is the bringing to mind13 of the divine Word, on which discipleship rests, namely, the evocation of the word that is the Word regarding “the Father, Son, and Spirit.” Further, by reference to this Word as of equal sacred significance for the one baptizing and the one baptized, baptism is to preserve its more elevated significance in that it expresses both the aim of the church and the concurring wish of the person to be baptized. One can speak of an utterance of the usual formulation only as one does of a quite ancient church tradition. As a general rule, however, only the following is to be said: that since each person who performs baptism does so only by virtue of one’s ecclesial authorization, that person is also to perform it only in a way that is in conformity with that authorization. Thus, it also cannot be correct to regard the legitimacy of baptism among various religious parties as dependent on their altering nothing in this formulation, as if it would constitute the substantive truth of baptism.14 That is to say, such a requirement would bring us into conflict with the practice of baptism by Christ’s disciples during his lifetime, since in that period they could not have baptized in the name of the Holy Spirit.15 Indeed, it could probably never be decided whether the apostles used this formulation from Pentecost onward or found in Christ’s instruction the command to do this. Thus, just as in supposed emergencies, not likely ever to happen, occasion might arise to ask whether in such a situation something could be substituted for water, so one could also ask in a case where a person to be baptized would have to have signs substituted for words, whether signs that could not reproduce the words themselves but only their sense should be valid whereas other spoken words having that same sense would not be valid.
What is by far the more essential thing, however, in this co-constitutive relation to the divine Word in baptism is that precisely this Word must be confessed and acknowledged by the person being baptized. This is so, for it is plainly implied therein that being made a disciple, which can occur only by the power of the Word, preceded baptism, for we find this relationship to be observed everywhere even in the practices of the apostles, as far as the reports we have go. Likewise, the completeness of this observance is then also not conceivable without this component, for just as the church expresses its intention only by attaching the Word to its external performance of baptism, so too, the person being baptized expresses agreement with this intention only by appropriating this Word.
2. Based on what has been said here concerning the nature of this observance, especially regarding the confessed adherence of the person being baptized to the Word that accompanies baptism, it most clearly follows that the faith of the person being baptized is also required in advance if the observance is really going to be what it is intended to be. This requirement is already implied in both of Christ’s sayings about baptism.16 Let us suppose that we want to think of “making disciples” and “baptizing” as most closely combined in the one saying. Then the first saying contains a subsequent revision that is to be completed only through the other saying, and that, from the very outset, can be only an approximation to faith. Moreover, even in baptism faith would not yet attain its completion if the individual being baptized is not already prepared to profess the Word of baptism. Likewise, even that faith which Christ says is to precede baptism in the other passage can only be the same faith as that of which we have spoken right along. Peter does indeed appear17 to insist on repentance, and not yet faith, before baptism. Still, it was a repentance in relation to their having taken part, as members of the people, in the rejection of Christ. It was also a repentance that was simply presupposing a recognition of Christ and a moving over to his side made possible by Peter’s discourse, and faith must already be implied therein. Moreover, since Peter placed this summons at the close of his sermon, he was thus proceeding on the same presupposition as Paul did18 and was convinced that, to the extent possible, his sermon would already have produced faith. By the same token, it is also to be imagined of the church, given its constant engagement in preaching, that it would not interrupt a sermon with baptism but would conclude with that observance.
Now, in the passages just cited it is also stated that baptism is also complete and proper without faith, and the fact that other writers depict faith as a fruit and consequence of baptism is in agreement with this view. However, we must insert opposition to both notions, for if baptism is illreceived when received without faith, it is also inappropriately given. To be sure, the ordinance itself does not lose a scintilla of its value thereby, for the simple reason that the church can never have determined that it would be a matter of indifference to baptize people who have faith or who do not have faith. Nor does it lose value thereby, viewed either in its origination as Christ’s institution or even in its narrower determinations as an ordinance of the church. On the same grounds, however, baptism viewed as an observance performed by an individual alone has not been something of which the church can approve or recognize as entirely its own, and, in any case, such baptismal observances belong to a defective administration of the church. Suppose, however, that this awareness is simply prefatory to the fact that even in such cases no repetition of baptism is necessary. If so, then this matter has to be expressed more precisely, so that people will not disregard such patent deficiencies. That is to say, baptism remains ineffectual only so long as it is performed too early, which means before the work of preaching has been accomplished and faith has been awakened by that preaching. It is a very different thing to claim that faith proceeds from baptism as a fruit thereof.19 Clearly, that claim inveighs against the entire practice of the apostles and against the entire experience of the church as it has grown in size through baptism. Indeed, even in particular instances when someone is prematurely baptized who is not yet a person of faith, the church does not rely on that baptism but pursues preaching in the full sense of the word. Moreover, if later on faith emerges in this way, any ordinary Christian will ascribe this fact not to a wrongly administered baptism but to what the church has done in consequence of baptism.
Now, what do we say of such a complete baptism, one that already includes the faith of the baptized person within it? We say that it produces blessedness, but it does so only as it is accompanied by citizenship in the Christian church—that is, only to the extent that being taken up into that community is accomplished by it. Against this position, someone could say that if baptism presupposes faith, then blessedness already precedes baptism, in that we ourselves have defined faith20 to be appropriation of Christ’s perfection and blessedness. Moreover, to pay heed to this objection is most suited to shedding light on this entire complex of relations. That is to say, it refers to the relationship of our present section to the second division of the previous section. Faith regarded as the state of an individual is the appropriation just mentioned. In contrast, just as an efficacious action of Christ’s appropriated perfection exists only in the community of the faithful, the same thing is true of an enjoyment of Christ’s appropriated blessedness. Hence, the person in whom faith unfolds will also want to enter into this community.
In this sense, then, baptism, regarded as an immediate reception into the community of the faithful, is also termed “the sign and seal” of divine grace.21 This is the case because the actual enjoyment of divine grace is secured through that community. Every person who enjoys such grace, therefore, can also be regarded as requiring baptism, which the church then furnishes, as conversely the church also proffers it in other instances and the person who has become faithful accepts it. In the same sense, we have also termed baptism the “conduit” for the divine activity of justification,22 because only in community can the individual come to receive forgiveness of sins, which is essentially conditioned by the efficacious action of the new collective life, and adoption as a child of God, which is essentially conditioned by citizenship shared with those who are sanctified.23
Now, in this connection suppose that someone wants to divide in words something that is substantively indivisible. Then, on the one hand, we will be able to say that where faith is present, there conversion must also have occurred, and where regeneration is present as a whole, there justification is present as well. Thus, if faith already preceded baptism, then everything that people customarily depict as a fruit of baptism has also preceded it, so actually baptism would not effect anything but would simply indicate and attest what was effected already. Accordingly, one class of passages in the confessional symbols can be expressed in this way, yet without actually extracting anything from the true force of baptism. On the other hand, even if faith has not yet arisen by the time of baptism, one can still say the following. That is, faith will arise not only after baptism but also through baptism, since this act is the beginning of a whole series of activities that the church directs toward baptized persons, and thus the entire coherence of the person’s spiritual life with Christ’s perfection and blessedness proceeds in this manner. If one should imagine a case in which a regenerate person would remain unbaptized and consequently would also not be taken up into Christian community, this process would be seen to arise from baptism all the more as one would have to admit that such a person could have no true part in Christ’s perfection and blessedness. This would be so because the person would have no part in Christ’s activity of founding community, also no part in that blessedness of Christ which is grounded in the community’s shared consciousness. To be sure, this result would be all the more the case as well if it were the person’s own desire to remain outside the community. The result would be all the less the case if the person were not yet baptized simply based on some inadvertent mistake of the church, despite the person’s being regenerate. In this way, the other class of passages in our confessional symbols can ascribe faith and all that proceeds from faith to baptism without having its efficacious action spill over into anything magical. This is so, for the opinion is not that the external performance would simply work ex opere operato,24 not even to the least extent. Rather, baptism bears its effect neither alone nor in combination with the uttering of certain words, which would then also comprise only an external performance, nothing more. Instead, external performance bears its effect only in combination with that Word which ordains baptism for and with the church and which is uninterruptedly effectual within the church in accordance with its entire interconnectedness.
Now, in that our proposition claims efficacious action for baptism only in relation to the divine grace present in regeneration and thus combines the church’s observance of it with what occurs in the soul of the individual, anything magical is most definitely remote from it. However, in that our proposition distinctly attributes a sanctifying efficacious action to baptism, regarded as a conferral of Christian citizenship, the view that it is a strictly external observance is entirely eliminated. Accordingly, our proposition serves as an adjustment between the two competing sorts of expression in the confessional symbols, expressions that otherwise mutually incriminate each other for causing one or the other of the misconceptions pointed out here.
3. Hence, one can also say that everything that is taught regarding the efficacious action of baptism is made completely clear as soon as a correct administration of baptism is presupposed. Then, moreover, there exists no occasion whatsoever either for attributing magical effects to it or for degrading it to the status of a strictly external practice. Rather, only if one presupposes a faulty administration of baptism do difficult questions arise—that is, if one wants to set forth propositions that are supposed to be equally valid for both sides. Then the one side is setting forth a rule that plainly isolates the external aspect, namely, the rule that the effects of divine grace are not supposed to be made dependent on any external observance.25 The other side is setting forth the rule, plainly favorable to magical action, that no human state has the capacity to make those divine promises which are attached to a given external observance ineffectual.26 Neither side suitably recalls that in congregational life God does not intend to be “a God of disorder.”27 Thus, everything comes down to a correct rule for administration. Accordingly, if it is rightly taught, against the Donatists,28 that the validity of baptism is independent of the frame of mind and heart of the one who carries it out, this cannot be claimed in the same fashion regarding the salutary character of baptism. The reason is that if the person who does the baptism is not a pure organ of the church for the purpose of discerning the inner state of the person to be baptized, then the salutary character of baptism has to be diminished in every instance. Furthermore, such baptism is sinfully executed, and the more frequently it occurs, the more defective is the church.
Now, the first consequence of this understanding is the ordinance that not only does the decision as to when baptism is to be performed rest with “the ministers of the Word” in the narrower sense, but the administration of baptism is also incumbent on them.29 Indeed, this ordinance is grounded in the obvious fact that the minister, as the person in whom the most lively conviction has to have arisen that faith has affected the candidate for baptism, will be the most stalwart organ of the church for carrying out this observance. Precisely on this account, baptism is also not entrusted to any moment of elevated mood but is administered only in the form of a premeditated observance performed at a predetermined time. Only very special circumstances could warrant an exception to this practice. The rule to which all ministers must unfailingly adhere will always be the following. The performance of baptism must be conditioned by means of the shared feeling30 of the church—for an actual knowledge of the divine Spirit’s influences on the soul, which influences can be trusted to engender faith, is hardly to be found here. Moreover, where this shared feeling is not yet present, it is preferable to wait and watch for the signs of faith to arise.
1. Ed. note: ET Book of Concord (2000), 43; Latin and German: Bek. Luth. (1963), 63.
2. Ed. note: ET Book of Concord (2000), 319f.; Latin and German: Bek. Luth. (1963), 449f.
3. Ed. note: ET Kienzles; Latin: CR 28:414; Schleiermacher offers no source here. Apparently he used Twesten’s Symbole (1816), 168f.
4. Ed. note: ET Book of Concord (2000), 460, 461, 463; Latin and German: Bek. Luth. (1963), 997, 998, 701.
5. Ed. note: ET Cochrane (1972), 279, 282; Latin only: Creeds, vol. 3 (1919), 287, 290; cf. note at §37n3.
6. Ed. note: ET and French in Creeds, vol. 3 (1919), 379, also Cochrane (1972), 156; Latin: Niemeyer (1840), 338.
7. Ed. note: ET and French in Creeds, vol. 3 (1919), 425, also Cochrane (1972), 214; Latin: Niemeyer (1840), 384.
8. Ed. note: ET Tice; for the German context: Niemeyer (1840), 662.
9. Matt. 28:19–20. Ed. note: Sermon on Matt. 28:16–20, June 3, 1810, SW II.7 (1836), 411–18. See also §137n16 below.
10. Acts 2:41, 47.
11. Haltenlehren. Ed. note: The German text of Matt. 28:20 reads: “und lehret zu halten.”
12. That is to say, this rule is to be applied as follows: “A person may use the sacraments even when they are administered by evil people.” Augsburg Confession (1530) 8 and elsewhere. Ed. note: ET Book of Concord (2000), 43; Latin: Bek. Luth. (1963), 62.
13. Vergegenwärtigung. Ed. note: Thus, this reference to Matt. 28:19 (which many critical scholars now regard to have been added late) demands not a literal recital of these words but (at most) some corresponding language. Sermon on Matt. 28:16–20: see §137n9 above.
14. Cf. Johann Gerhard (1582–1637), Loci (1610–1622, ed. 1764) 9, 90. Ed. note: Essentially, Gerhard claims that the fruit of baptism is to know regeneration, as faith arises by the Spirit in one’s heart.
15. John 4:2; cf. John 7:39. Ed. note: Sermons on (1) John 4:1–10, Feb. 1, 1824 (see §136n7); (2) John 7:14–24, Feb. 20, 1825, SW II.9 (1847), 16–31.
16. Matt. 28:19–20 and Mark 16:16. Ed. note: Sermons on (1) Matt. 28:16–20 (see n. 9) and (2) Mark 16:14–20, May 11, 1820, Festpredigten (1826), SW II.2 (1835), 204–15. This passage appears in Mark 16:9–20, one of two endings to Mark added in some ancient texts.
17. Acts 2:38.
18. Rom. 10:17.
19. See Gerhard, Loci (1610–1622, 1764) 9, 152, where the statement that faith is ignited by baptism in the heart of the person being baptized is indeed made, but the connection between the two is also not shown, not in the least.
20. See §108. Ed. note: §108 concerns the conversion aspect of regeneration. The reference that follows the present second section (§§113–63) treats of “the constitution of the world in relation to redemption,” whereas the second division (§§106–12) in the first section regards “the way in which communion with the perfection and blessedness of the Redeemer is expressed in the individual soul.”
21. Heidelberg Catechism (1563), Questions 69–72. Ed. note: ET and German: Creeds, vol. 3 (1919), 329f.; ET only, Torrance (1959), 81f.; Latin: Niemeyer (1840), 445. Here “sign and seal” translates Versiegelung.
22. Ed. note: See §109, in the justifying aspect of regeneration.
23. Ed. note: The doctrine of sanctification follows in §§110–12.
24. Ed. note: That is, be effective on the basis of the observance alone.
25. Huldrych Zwingli (1484–1530), Commentary on True and False Religion (1525) 15 (The Sacraments): “For in this way the liberty of the divine Spirit, which distributes itself to individuals as it will … would be bound.” Ed. note: ET Jackson and Heller (1981), 182; Latin: CR 90:761.
26. Catechismus romanus (Loewen, 1678), pars 2, cap. 2, de baptismis sacramento q. 58. Ed. note: In the first edition (1822), in KGA I/7.2 (1980), 259, Schleiermacher states concerning this creed: “For it asserts that all differences in people’s frame of mind and heart are able to be engendered only by a more or less of the workings of grace.” The Latin text of the creed: KGA I/13.2 (2003), 372. Redeker (1960) quotes the following from the creed itself: “Nevertheless, these are indeed the fruits of baptism; if indeed we should contemplate the power of this sacrament, there could be no doubt that these fruits pertain equally to all.” ET: Kienzles/Tice. Schleiermacher himself used a reprint from the first edition (1566); many revised editions have since appeared. Cf. The Catechism of the Council of Trent (1852 ed.). See also §108n19.
27. Unordnung. Ed. note: The quotation is from 1 Cor. 14:33, which continues “but of peace.”
28. Ed. note: In the African church from the early fourth century to the Arab invasions of the seventh and eighth centuries which destroyed it, the Donatists (named after an early bishop, Donatus) were a schismatic group that held the sacraments to be invalid if performed by a minister whose attitude was deemed to be unworthy or undesirable, which led to the practice of rebaptizing converts. First Optatus and then Augustine were notable opponents of this view.
29. Second Helvetic Confession (1566) 20: “Baptism has to do with ecclesiastical duties.” Ed. note: ET Cochrane (1972), 283; Latin only: Creeds, vol. 3 (1919), 291; cf. §37n3.
30. Mitgefühl. Ed. note: The usual word “sympathy” does not quite fit. The reference is to a bond uniting the regenerate and the one to be baptized, a bond carried in feeling.
§138. Second Doctrinal Proposition: Baptism of children is a complete baptism only if the profession of faith that is to follow, once requisite instruction has been accomplished, is regarded to be the final act belonging to it.
(1) Augsburg Confession (1530) IX: “They teach … that children should be baptized. They are received into the grace of God when they are offered to God through baptism. They condemn the Anabaptists who disapprove of the baptism of children and assert that children are saved without baptism.”1
(2) Smalcald Articles (Luther, 1551) Part III.5: “We maintain that we should baptize children because they also belong to the promised redemption that was brought about by Christ. The church ought to extend it to them.”2
(3) Second Helvetic Confession (1566) XX: “Why should those who belong to God and are in his church not be initiated by holy baptism?”3
(4) Gallican Confession (1559) XXXV: “Although it is a sacrament of faith and penitence, yet as God receives little children into the church with their fathers, we say, upon the authority of Christ, that children of believing parents should be baptized.”4
(5) Belgic Confession (1561) XXXI: “We believe that (the infants of believers) ought to be baptized and sealed with the sign of the covenant. … And, indeed, Christ shed his blood no less for the washing of the children of the faithful than for adult persons and therefore they ought to receive the sign and sacrament of that which Christ hath done for them.”5
(6) Declaratio Toruniensus (= Acta synodus generalis Toruniensus, 1645), in the section “On Baptism”: “However, we do not decree that this necessity is therefore absolute, so that whoever departs from this life without baptism … either infant or adult … must necessarily be damned on that account.”6
1. Up to this point we have considered baptism in an entirely general way, without even beginning to ponder the distinction between its original institution and the way it is currently practiced almost universally in the Christian church. To be sure, however, we have done this with the intention that the propositions set forth are not, as it were, to be restricted to the baptism of adults but are to apply to any baptism that would claim to be a genuinely Christian baptism.
Suppose, then, that we would require in advance of baptism at least a beginning of faith and—in relation to our earlier propositions7—thus, necessarily, repentance as well. The apostolic practice known to us does thoroughly agree with this position, since every trace of the baptism of children8 that people have thought to find in the New Testament first has to have been inserted there. So, given the lack of definite reports, it is difficult to explain how this deviation from the original institution of baptism could have arisen and could have been so widely established. It might well be difficult to find a single satisfactory reason. Instead, probably many reasons taken together could have won over Christian feeling for this practice.
First of all, there could have been the desire to be able to include children of Christian families who die before the age of instruction among those who “die in the Lord.”9 Next, there could also have been the desire to strengthen the duty of Christian congregations to the children of Christian parents, all the more in case these parents themselves would not be in a position to fulfill that duty. Finally, there could also have been the desire to distinguish Christian children from Jewish and Gentile young people. These motives might have been the most effective ones right along. However, once the custom had already been established of regarding children to be true members of the Christian church on account of the baptism they had received, it became advisable, viewed as comforting in and of itself, to express in this observance the firm assurance that children born of Christian parents could not fail to be cultivated by the divine Spirit.
The pertinent passages in our confessional symbols, however, reflect on the baptism of children apart from all historical considerations, and they undertake to justify it in and of itself, yet in an unsatisfactory manner and on grounds that are mutually abrogative. That is to say, if these children already belong to God, they do not need baptism for the purpose of being offered to God and to be taken up by God into a state of grace; and, conversely, if they do need baptism for this purpose, the justification for its being offered to them cannot lie in the fact that they already belong to God. Likewise, this position would require a special grounding, which it did not receive, to the effect that God already reckons offspring to be part of the church along with their parents, and a special restriction, which it also did not attain to, to the effect that children are to be baptized because Christ has shed his blood for them as well. These moves would not work, for on the same basis all human beings would have to be baptized whom the church could get ahold of.
Now, if the restrictions applied to baptism of children, indicated in the present proposition as missing in that baptism, have to be referred to the special circumstances of the children of Christian parents, and the particular grounding of the first proposition10 as well, then this second proposition would appear to make up for these missing factors and, at the same time, to resolve the contradictions mentioned at the outset. That is to say, in that it declares baptism of children, in and of itself, to be incomplete in strictest comparison with the first proposition, because it is administered without any possibility of repentance and faith on the part of those who are baptized, it also tacitly allows that baptism of children cannot possibly engender in these baptized children the effects that are necessarily conditioned by repentance and faith. Moreover, we can no more ascribe a state of blessedness to these children after baptism, based on the premise that their being children of God has come into their consciousness, than we can ascribe a lack of blessedness to them before baptism, based on the premise that their consciousness of sin has been developed to the point of penitence. Hence, there need be no question of any proof to the effect that faith can be bestirred through baptism even in such children.
Now, our proposition does, however, show why there is a reason to administer such a baptism nonetheless: namely, because with regard to those children a motive does exist for counting on their future faith and their profession of that faith. Moreover, also tied to this expectation is the extent to which we are able to view these children in terms of God’s reckoning them to be part of the church. That is to say, it is inherent in the very order of the church that we bring them, viewed as the closest outer circle of persons assigned to us, into connection with the divine Word and to shelter them in it to the end that faith will emerge. This, moreover, is the gentlest way of resolving the contradictions that we noted in the two propositions. This is the case, for we do not want to say simply that we baptize children because they are already in the church and for the purpose of commending them to divine grace; rather, we do so because they are already commended to divine grace by their natural connection with the Christian order of things in which God has placed them and for the purpose of bringing them into the church. Moreover, both relations are expressed in accordance with their full truth in that we set forth the objective of the baptism of children to be their own eventual profession of faith, which they will attain and for which they must give a good account of themselves.11 On the other hand, it is certainly true that if its objective is not properly attended to, this ecclesial practice contributes a great deal to the fact that some attribute a magical power to baptism and others degrade it to the status of a solely external custom.
2. Thus, of itself alone, such a baptism is indeed patently an attachment to the reign of God for the individual concerned. However, it does not directly accomplish the possession and enjoyment of blessedness. Rather, it simply leads to the orderly preparatory workings of the Holy Spirit; and thus no such observance, viewed of itself alone, is in any way to be accorded the same value as a baptism that is in accordance with Christ’s original institution, so that the person’s own profession of faith is also immediately included in the observance itself. However, this observance of child baptism is no more invalid on account of its incompleteness than is any other baptism, as if child baptism were something corrupt. So, the Anabaptist claim that baptism must be repeated for anyone baptized as a child has rightly met with opposition, for on the same basis no single baptism would have a sure effect other than that administered—albeit certainly not in a praiseworthy fashion—in the ancient church shortly before life’s end. That is to say, that practice gave no sure sign that regeneration actually followed from it, as would happen in a person’s steady progress in Christian sanctification. Thus, the baptism of children is like every other baptism that has erroneously preceded mature faith in the baptized person but that is still valid, with the exception that the efficacious action distinctive of baptism remains suspended until that person will also really have become faithful. Our proposition must simply be justified in the face of our having accounted such defective baptisms to be a reproach to the church in particular respects, whereas here we are wanting to make provision for all child baptisms taken as a whole. This, however, is one of those cases in which scientific deviations from the present account12 must be judged more leniently than nonscientific ones. The reason is that the nonscientific deviations are in any case overhasty, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, give an individual out to be a faithful Christian who is not one as yet, while the scientific deviations, in contrast, are rather a matter of statute and by their reference to a person’s own profession of faith distinctly separate out persons who are baptized incompletely, without meeting that criterion, from already faithful Christians.
Hence, we do the baptism of children an injustice when we regard confirmation—which for us is simply the rendering and accepting of a person’s own profession of faith, filling in the gap left at baptism—to be an inessential observance, since only as this observance is added does baptism of children correspond to Christ’s institution of baptism. Hence, in that our proposition counts confirmation as an aspect of the administration of baptism, it rightly makes paying the closest possible attention to this observance a duty of the church, so that, insofar as may lie within its power, in its life the church may prove itself to be the true and honorable consummation of child baptism. The same injustice also arises, however, when confirmation is lifted out of this connection with baptism and is presented as a sacrament in its own right. This is so, for whatever we might otherwise hold to be significant and beneficial in this observance, to make it into a sacrament leaves the baptism of children incomplete and ineffectual.
Yet, we cannot claim necessity for a baptism thus divided into two phases, something that, to be sure, does occur when the Anabaptists or Baptistminded are condemned because they accept that unbaptized children who have died can still gain blessedness. Moreover, in this respect we unhesitatingly side with the passage of the confessional symbol cited last. To be sure, a situation did arise as soon as a considerable mass of children born of Christian parents were to be reared and educated in the Christian church, a situation that had not obtained earlier. Moreover, it seems quite natural to mark this situation with a symbolic observance—all the more so as observances like this were taking place almost throughout the church—for the purpose of indicating that newborns do not belong exclusively to their parents but belong communally to the entire company of Christians. At that point, nothing could be more natural than immediately to choose baptism for that purpose.
All things considered, at the time of the Reformation it could have been quite convenient to let go of child baptism so as to draw nearer to Christ’s institution of baptism once more. Furthermore, we could do this even now, without having broken communion thereby with that period in which only child baptism existed, provided that we do not declare child baptism to be invalid. Moreover, we could just as well abandon this custom without detriment to our children. We could do so, for only if some magical power is attributed to baptism can it be assumed that it would establish entitlements in relation to life after death, without regard to what it has already effected in this life. Thus, no one who does not assume such a magical power can assume any distinction between children who are indeed baptized but die before the renewal of their baptismal covenant and children who leave this temporal life without being baptized at all.
Therefore, it would be a natural thing to leave it up to each Evangelical household whether it would like to offer its children to be baptized in the customary fashion or only when its children can tender their own profession of faith. As regards this point, we should declare, moreover, that we abrogate our previous condemnation of rebaptism and on our part are ready to establish ecclesial communion with present-day Baptist-minded folk, provided that they do not wish to declare our baptism of children, which is also supplemented, to be absolutely invalid. Surely it ought to be possible to reach agreement easily on this matter.
1. Ed. note: ET Book of Concord (2000), 43; Latin and German: Bek. Luth. (1963), 63.
2. Ed. note: ET Book of Concord (2000), 320; Latin and German: Bek. Luth. (1963), 450.
3. Ed. note: ET Cochrane (1972), 283; Latin only: Creeds, vol. 3 (1919), 291; cf. §37n3.
4. Ed. note: ET and French in Creeds, vol. 3 (1919), 379f., also Cochrane (1972), 156; Latin: Niemeyer (1840), 338.
5. Ed. note: ET and French in Creeds, vol. 3 (1919), 427, also Cochrane (1972), 212; Latin: Niemeyer (1840), 384.
6. Ed. note: ET Kienzles; Latin: Niemeyer (1840), 681.
7. Propositions on regeneration, §§107–9.
8. Kindertaufe. Ed. note: The classic English term “infant baptism” also translates this word, reflecting the once-frequent inclusion of babies and young children in the word “infant.” Here, “baptism of children” and “child baptism” are used throughout.
9. Citing 1 Thess. 4:16. Ed. note: In both German and English versions the phrase is “the dead in Christ who are to rise first and be with him, the Lord.”
10. Ed. note: The “first proposition” is §137; the “second,” i.e., the “present” proposition, is §138.
11. Ed. note: In somewhat different language the phrase seems to allude to Rom. 14:12 and even Gal. 6:5, but only in the sense of standing the test, meeting the criteria for baptism to be complete.
12. Ed. note: The reference is to theological statements, which may also underlie some to be found in confessional symbols. “Scientific” refers specifically to careful, thoroughgoing scholarly work on baptism in theology (see CF §17 and Brief Outline §§9–13).
[Introduction to Fourth Point of Doctrine]
§139. In partaking of the Lord’s Supper, Christians experience a distinctive strengthening of their spiritual life1 in that, in accordance with Christ’s institution of it, his body and blood are offered to them therein.
1. All of our propositions are supposed to contain only expressions of our Christian self-consciousness. So, in this context we must proceed from the experience that we ourselves have of this observance and—by way of proof that we do not view this experience to be something strictly personal—that we also expect all persons of faith to have. Not until we have ascertained that can we refer further back to the question concerning the initial emergence of this experience. This initial experience coheres with our own only to the extent that if a need were not present that is found to be satisfied therein, this experience would not be repeated anew over and over again, or at least the view of this subject and the mode of treating it would be formulated quite differently.
Now, if we connect this subject with that of the just-previous point of doctrine, we see that the subject of the present one would be something completely devoid of content if the blessedness that commenced with properly administered baptism were to exist in such a way that it would, of itself, be preserved unimpaired and would sufficiently develop further. However, just as its analogy with all of life already speaks for the opposite outcome, likewise it is implied, especially in the inseparable connection between entrance into vital community with Christ and entrance into the community of the faithful, that each of the two has to be sustained by the other. Precisely for this reason, however, the way in which the church coexists with the world and the obstructive influence of the world upon the church require that the church be periodically undergirded and strengthened, and satisfaction of this need is what the faithful also seek in the sacrament of the altar.
Suppose that we then imagine, in a preliminary way, both the community of the faithful with one another and the community that each person has with Christ, and suppose that we do so in such a way that each of the two is something particular in and of itself. Then community of any given person with Christ would be strengthened against obstructive influences of the world by each religious turn inward of a faithful person. In these moments, one would, on the one hand, resist the world’s influences, and one would, on the other hand, open oneself to Christ through Scripture, for this always happens through Scripture, be it directly or indirectly. In comparison, the community of the faithful with one another would already be strengthened by every vigorous and stimulating disclosure of Christian love in every area of their common life.
Then, however, each of these two communities is also supposed to work upon the other, and therefore the area that we designate with the general name “public worship” occupies the area between solitary contemplation2 and active life in common. Viewed from the one aspect, this public area is nothing other than the common life itself, as it withdraws from ordinary external activity into communicative presentation of inner life. Viewed from the other aspect, it is nothing other than contemplation itself, as it moves out of solitude and extends into community. Thus, the two communities unite herein, that of the faithful with one another and that of each person with Christ, and therefore everything that happens here seems to have to exert an effect in both. However, any effect that either community can have on the other also seems to have to proceed from and pass through this area. Now, the Lord’s Supper also belongs to this public area. Accordingly, Christ has instituted it as a communal observance and, at the same time, not only as a way of making himself present but certainly also as a way of strengthening both communities. Thus, in the church too it has always been celebrated in gatherings or a congregation, in that every other kind of celebration is an exception, but, at the same time, the exception also represents the gathered congregation.
Now, however, it is only through faith in what others commend as their experience that any individual can come to the point of making that experience one’s own. Thus, in an unbroken tradition this process leads us back to the very beginning of the church and to the Supper itself, recalled as Christ held it with his disciples. Ever since that occasion, the proffering of his body and blood has been adhered to as the essential thing about this meal, but elsewhere Christ also sets forth the partaking3 of his flesh and blood as something necessary in order to have life in Christian community. So, these two are the main points to be considered first of all: first, how the Lord’s Supper, viewed as the proffering of his body and blood, relates to that purely spiritual act of partaking and, second, how it is distinguished, as a component of public worship, from the other parts of worship.
2. Now, to begin with the second main point, it is quite obvious that in its public teaching and practice the entirety of Christianity has, at all times, viewed the Lord’s Supper as the very apex4 of public worship.5 For us, the sphere in which we gather for worship would seem incomplete if, at certain points, the Lord’s Supper did not have its place within it as the most intimate means for our bonding together—and indeed at the highest and holiest points most of all. Moreover, we would likewise declare it to be a diseased condition, whether it might be in individuals or in entire congregations, if they wanted to attribute a greater power for preserving or enhancing blessedness to any element of worship other than to the Lord’s Supper. We cannot be satisfied with this account, however. Rather, we must inquire as to a specific distinction between what has come into practice in the church, even though it is based on a most proper judgment of common benefit, and what Christ has ordained in the manner reported; and this distinction seems to apply in the following way. In all other practices of conducting worship, the aforementioned effect on the community of Christians with one another and on the community of each person with Christ is dissimilar, hence they appear to be out of balance. The more markedly one individual stands out and draws others to oneself or the more strongly a mood held in common is expressed and is enhanced by communication, the greater is the effect on the common life. In contrast, the effect of each person’s community with Christ depends on the personal self-initiative with which each one relates what is publicly presented and expressed to one’s relationship with Christ and processes it within oneself. Accordingly, in both cases the effect depends on some other factor. Thus, in each case the one factor can also be strong whereas the other is weak. In the Lord’s Supper, however, the two factors are to be neither separated nor distinguished. Nothing individual and particular underlies it whereby the effect could be directed more to the one side or to the other. Likewise, the one who dispenses it does not exercise personal sway over the ones who receive it, nor does any recipient exercise any particular inner self-initiated activity. Rather, therein we are directed only to the whole redeeming love of Christ. Moreover, just as the one who dispenses the Lord’s Supper is simply the organ of Christ’s institution of it, in a uniform fashion the recipients find themselves to be simply in a state of most open receptivity to the influences of Christ. Thus, its total effect proceeds, without any special addition from anyone, directly and undividedly from the words of institution. Therein not only is Christ’s redeeming and community-founding love depicted; this love also stimulates the participants ever anew. The observance itself, moreover, is carried out over and over again in obedience to those words of institution. Thus, it is by means of this individual, self-contained immediacy and by means of its effects in independence from changing personal states and circumstances, both cohering with this immediacy, that the Lord’s Supper is distinguished from all other elements of worship.
Now, as regards the first point indicated above, it is obvious that in the discourse6 where Christ commended the eating of his flesh and the drinking of his blood, he had in mind neither the Lord’s Supper nor any other particular observance. Rather, in this discourse he wanted to indicate, in general terms, how he himself would have to continue and thrive for our sake. Moreover, if we compare this expression with another one, that we are to relate to him as branches to the vine,7 we see that there is no distinction between the two sayings except that the second one designates more the steadiness of this relationship whereas the first saying designates more the periodic renewal of it. Likewise, no one will have any great doubt that the periodically repeated effect of the Lord’s Supper could be designated by that same expression—indeed, not only the effect that it is to have on each person’s community with Christ, viewed as a repeated nourishment of one’s own spiritual life out of the abundance of his life, but also the effect it must have on our community with one another. The reason is that since it is an observance simultaneously shared by a number of people and has the same sort of effect in all, in the consciousness of one’s own benefit8 from it, at the same time each person holds the shared feeling that this has been happening to the others as well; and just as each person knows that the others are more closely united with Christ, precisely by means of that honoring one also feels oneself to be more closely united with them. Moreover, this is not, as it were, an exclusive relationship among those present at the Lord’s Supper on each occasion. Rather, each participant is already a representative of the entire congregation to the others by virtue of what was noted just above. Indisputably, however, viewed as something more general in nature, that spiritual partaking of the flesh can take place in a number of ways. At the same time, the Lord’s Supper is distinguished from all other occasions in that whenever it occurs, the same outcome is bound to this distinct observance’s being blessed and hallowed by the words related to it that Christ gave.
Now, for the faithful this distinction is, in and of itself, nothing inconceivable, nor does it require any special explanation—all the less so as it is placed in analogy with all the other important commemorative celebrations in the church. Moreover, to the extent that the external aspect of this observance appeals to us just as it is, on account of its manifold significance, we will also just as easily concede the following, namely, that if Christ had been pleased to give what he instituted a different form, we would still expect the same outcome from it, also that even the significance of the external aspect that is indicative of this outcome would be easy to discover. Thus, what is unclear and what is more or less inconceivable, depending on how each might be explained, lie simply in the expressions that Christ used to relate the external observance to that outcome.
3. Now, so that we can proceed to discuss this matter more closely, under the presupposition that our proposition expresses, namely, that the observance’s outcome depends on its also being consonant with its institution, first we have to come to a mutual understanding about what this consonance would consist of. The variety of practices regarding the Lord’s Supper in the Christian church—quite apart from the fact that the various parties have claimed that each other’s Lord’s Supper is actually nothing of the kind—already gives sufficient evidence that no complete settlement of the matter has been reached as yet. It can readily be shown, however, that no such settlement is possible. That is to say, with respect both to the observance and to the elements, there is both a material and a formal quality of sameness in the parties’ views that can be ascertained—not altogether alike, on account of the altered mode of life in each party, but neither quality can be achieved except at the expense of the other quality. Furthermore, that being the case, it is virtually impossible for everyone to decide the matter in accordance with one and the same maxim. The reason is as follows. First, in general terms it can very well be said that insistent devotion to material identity gives evidence of an incomplete state. Second, it is also patent that a truly spiritual Christianity would already be satisfied, without any concern whatsoever, if this celebration were simply administered in a way that realizes the original observance in its essential features. Third, in part, the historical unity and continuity of the institution would, however, be endangered, and incidental differences would be produced endlessly, if we chose to be completely indifferent to that material identity, and, in part, the very realization of this unity and identity can also be made dependent, in turn, on entirely different points. As a result, the task can scarcely be stated otherwise than in such a way that one seeks, regarding every sort of sameness, to reach only as much as can be reached with the least possible sacrifice on the other side.
Accordingly, with respect to the elements that are used in the Lord’s Supper, we require that the one element can rightly be called “bread” but not be prepared from the same dough and in the same way as ordinary bread; likewise we require that the “wine” that is drunk be from the branches of the vine but in each locale not, as it were, the same drink as is ordinarily consumed there, even if it is something other than wine. Further, with respect to the observance, we regard it to be essential that the eating and drinking be done by all participants in the same manner, also the distributing and receiving of them, and, finally, that as a common meal the observance should be preceded by some sort of religious dialogue and common prayer. However, it seems that it cannot be required that it would also be celebrated in an evening hour or scheduled at the close of some other, more complete meal—especially if it is of a worshipful nature—and in such a way that what is partaken is only what is left over from that meal, because even in our present situation neither is attainable. Indeed, suppose that someone wanted to say, sticking with the latter form, that the Lord’s Supper would have such an exact relation to the Jewish Feast of Passover that no present realization of the original impression would be possible if the Passover were not also realized in this observance in accordance with its own original significance. In that case, one could easily infer that, nonetheless, it could no longer be the same today as what Christ would have founded and thus could also well not have been ordained by him as an independent and ever-enduring institution for the church. This objection is so obvious that it can easily come to be better known in the Evangelical church than has been the case up to now, and it naturally gives rise to the question as to what our faith actually rests on in this matter. It can hardly be claimed that this view quite definitely stems from the words of Christ preserved for us. Rather, some of the narratives we have contain no such command at all9 and in others it is only vaguely expressed.10 Moreover, since the apostles have not drawn any such command from Christ’s words at the footwashing,11 they would also have had no more right to make a lasting and general institution out of this Supper with Jesus.12
Now, it is clear that the apostles have done this in the one case and not in the other. Thus, we can adhere to what they have ordained without needing to decide whether Christ gave them other express instructions concerning the Lord’s Supper,13 or whether they inferred these from his words or simply took something different from the direct impression of the matter and from attendant circumstances with respect to the Lord’s Supper than they did with respect to the footwashing. In the latter case, we would then be able to view the Lord’s Supper as directly instituted by Christ, only not entirely in the same sense. Yet, we would always have to believe that the apostles observed it in his sense nonetheless, if we do not want to give up their canonical authority even in their most intimate vocational circle.
1. Ed. note: See index for “spiritual life” and “human being, new.” Cf. OG 64.
2. Betrachtung. Ed. note: Here the “contemplation” is relatively solitary. When it is shared, “reflection” would be the meaning. Schleiermacher frequently invites listeners to reflect with him in his sermons. In his sense of Betrachtung, one could also reflect or contemplate when alone, but one could do so as if one were in an implicit dialogue.
3. Genuß. Ed. note: In ordinary usage, Genuß is employed for the partaking of food, also of the Lord’s Supper. Lingering underneath are the other common meanings of pleasure, delight, enjoyment, and gratification.
4. Höchste Gipfel.
5. Cf. Saxon Confession (= Melanchthon, Repetitio Confessionis Augustanae, 1551): “At the same time, the Lord also wanted the Lord’s Supper to be the sinew [nervum] for congregating in public.” Ed. note: Schleiermacher here refers to the edition in Symbole (1816), 170f. ET Kienzles; Latin: CR 28:416. At that time nervus could also mean fiber, string, or tendon, or even energy or force.
6. John 6:52–56. Ed. note: Sermon on John 6:52–60, Dec. 12, 1824, SW II.8 (1837), 455–67.
7. John 15:4–6. Ed. note: Sermon on John 15:1–7, July 2, 1826, SW II.9 (1847), 469–83.
8. Förderung. Ed. note: In KGA I/13.2, 381, Schäfer indicates that this is the word used in the original manuscript, while the initial edition (and all others since) had the less likely Forderung, which would mean “claim on it” rather than “benefit from it.”
9. Matt. 26:26–28, and Mark 14:21–24. Ed. note: Schleiermacher’s final sermon on Mark 14:1–26, Feb. 2, 1834, was separately published (Berlin, 1834).
10. Luke 22:19–20 and 1 Cor. 11:24–25.
11. John 13:14–15. Ed. note: This ceremony is also called the Agape or Love Feast. Sermon on John 13:12–20, April 16, 1826, SW II.9 (1847), 399–416.
12. Cf. Robert Barclay (1648–1690), Apology (1676) 13. Ed. note: In the midst of a lengthy account of contending views on Communion, wherein Barclay (Barklay) sets forth a purely spiritual account that in no way affords a special privilege to the ceremony itself, he states the following, quoted in a note by Redeker: “Communion or partaking of the body and blood of Christ has no necessary relationship to breaking of bread and drinking of wine. … First, it is not of an inherent nature. … Second, it has nothing by way of divine precept; if it had, it would be possible to give an account of its institution or to tell of its practice by the people of God as recorded in Scripture, but this is not so.” ET Tice, cf. Barclay’s Apology (1967), 339 (see the entire proposition 13, 327–61); Latin in Barclay’s 1st ed. (1676); also in Barclay’s Latin and English from 1678 on.
13. Cf. 1 Cor. 11:23.
§140. With a view to the interconnection between bread and wine and the body and blood of Christ in the Lord’s Supper, the Evangelical church takes a definite stand in two respects. On the one hand, it simply stands against those who consider this connection to be independent of the action of partaking. On the other hand, it stands against those who, in spite of this interconnection, do not want to concede that there is any association between partaking of the bread and wine and partaking spiritually of the flesh and blood of Christ.
(1) Augsburg Confession (1530) X: “Thus, it is taught of the Lord’s Supper that the true body and blood of Christ are truly present under the form of bread and wine in the Supper and are distributed and taken there.”1
(2) Apology Augsburg (1531) X: “That in the Lord’s Supper, the body and blood of Christ are truly and substantially present and are truly distributed with those things that are seen, the bread and wine, to those who receive the sacrament. … [Quarto edition:] Since Paul says (I. Cor. 10:16) that the bread is a ‘sharing in the body of Christ,’ it would follow that if the true body of the Lord were not truly present, the bread would not be a participation of the body but only of his spirit.”2
(3) Smalcald Articles (Luther, 1537), Part III.6: “We maintain that the bread and wine in the Supper are the true body and blood of Christ and that they are not only offered to and received by upright Christians but also by evil ones.”3
(4) Second Helvetic Confession (1566) XIX: “In the Lord’s Supper the outward sign is bread and water, taken from things commonly used for meat and drink, but the thing signified is the body of Christ which was given and his blood which was shed for us, or the communion of the body and blood of the Lord. …” XXI: “Bread is outwardly offered by the minister, and the words of the Lord are heard,” etc. “Therefore the faithful receive what is given,” etc. “At the same time, by the work of Christ through the Holy Spirit they also inwardly receive the flesh and blood of the Lord and are thereby nourished unto life eternal.”4
(5) Gallican Confession (1559) XXXVIII: “Thus we hold that the bread and wine given to us in the sacrament serve to our spiritual nourishment, inasmuch as they show, as to our sight, that the body of Christ is our meat and his blood our drink. … And so we reject the enthusiasts and sacramentarians who will not receive such signs and marks.”5
(6) Anglican Articles of Religion (1571) XXVIII: “Transubstantiation (or the change of the substance of the bread and wine) in the Supper of the Lord (Eucharistia) cannot be proved by holy writ but is repugnant to the plain words of scripture. … The body of Christ is given, taken and eaten in the Supper only after an heavenly and spiritual manner. And the means whereby the body of Christ is received and eaten in the Supper is faith.”6
1. Suppose that the question to be dealt with here were solely an exegetical one. Then presentation of this particular doctrine of faith could wait until the hermeneutical deliberations were finished and at that point could simply record the result—just as do other propositions that are not dogmatic in the full sense, precisely because their content is comprised not of assertions concerning our immediate self-consciousness but only of facts that we assume based on testimony. This would be the case, for only as such a fact could we assume what would have been yielded exegetically concerning the meaning of the words “This is my body,” and so forth. This question is not at all purely exegetical, however. That is to say, since the words given in the various narratives do not come out the same, we must begin instead to determine something that already belongs to historical criticism, namely, what kind of expressions Christ might have used, from which these reports could have arisen. Only then, moreover, would it be possible to inquire as to what Christ originally meant by such words.
Now, it is possible to proceed here from very different points of view, and a generally satisfactory outcome is not likely. Thus, our special responsibility is to set forth, concerning the various views that have achieved currency in the Evangelical church, the conviction underlying church union that their differences cannot be an obstacle to their partaking of the Lord’s Supper conjointly.7 Thus, we must first try, as much as may be possible, to establish what the points in dispute actually are. Then we must lay down the principles by virtue of which we can, as it were, transcend the differences that exist within our church while retaining currency for whatever differences with the Roman Catholic church we may express both in our doctrinal propositions and in passages within our confessional symbols, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, with those ecclesial communities and the views of individuals that would remove all real action8 from the sacrament.
Now, as regards establishing the points of dispute, these differences all proceed from the words of Christ already noted, and for this purpose we can only refer back to what was already established in the previous proposition. Accordingly, two questions arise. The first question concerns how the meaning of these words would relate to partaking of the bread and wine, on the one hand, and to the expected strengthening of spiritual life, on the other hand. In contrast, the second question concerns the extent to which insight into the meaning of these words would belong to the completeness of this observance and consequently also the extent to which agreement in its explanation would belong to its communal character. We will not be able to answer this second question otherwise than to the effect that understanding what these words mean is necessary only to the extent that the expected result, namely, the strengthening of spiritual life, would be conditioned by them. Here, furthermore, agreement is required only insofar as differences would be composed that could be an obstacle to its being administered conjointly. Moreover, in following this path we would also be able to say concerning the first question that every explanation that is in other respects able to attain validity hermeneutically can be correct for us, insofar as for the faithful it simply does not jeopardize the interconnection between the observance and its result, regardless of whether the Redeemer’s difficult words are related more to the physical observance or more to the spiritual result.
2. The first contrast set forth in our proposition is that with the Roman Catholic Church. It may well not be correct to seek this contrast especially in the doctrine of transubstantiation. On the contrary, for this matter it is an insignificant distinction whether Christ’s body and blood are physically partaken of at the same time as the bread and wine or whether Christ’s body and blood have been made into a physical partaking in place of the bread and wine. That is to say, the only distinction between the two positions is that in the one case the bread and wine are also partaken of, whereas in the other case they are not partaken of along with Christ’s body and blood, which is a matter of complete indifference in terms of their intended effect. Suppose, further, that the only thing renounced had been the extended position that in this transformation of the two elements they would then remain, irrespective of the act of partaking, or that what would not have been partaken of in the Lord’s Supper would nonetheless also have been transformed along with it. Then, if one were simply to look at the third passage cited at the beginning here, the Saxon reformers would have had little objection at that time. On the other hand, if anyone had wanted to treat consubstantiation as physical in such a way that Christ’s body and blood would still remain in the bread and wine after Christ’s words had been spoken over them, even if these elements would not have been partaken of in the Lord’s Supper, then Luther would have protested against this position just as severely. For example, even where he discusses his view in strictest opposition to the Reformed view, he never asserts a co-presence of the body and blood with the bread and wine outside the actual observance of the Lord’s Supper. In contrast, ever since the doctrine regarding transubstantiation of the bread was adopted in the Catholic church, that presupposition of a physical and permanent transformation has constantly underlaid all casuistic treatments of the doctrine. Hence, in this respect, firm opposition to all display and reverence for the consecrated elements is essential, as is opposition to any presumption of wanting to accomplish anything through these elements apart from the actual partaking thereof. Accordingly, for a general rule there has certainly also been a definite denial within the Evangelical church that any partaking of the consecrated elements could have been conducive to any salvific or juridical effect outside celebration of the sacrament. Thus, quite apart from the fact that this practice cannot be justified hermeneutically, the main reason why we reject the theory of the Roman Catholic Church is that its intention in binding the elements with Christ’s body and blood in this way, outside the communal partaking of them, is to serve entirely different purposes and to tie spiritual effects of a magical sort to physical ones.
3. By the second contrast indicated in our proposition, the Evangelical church separates itself from the “sacramentarians.”9 Of course, the term is not taken in the same sense as Luther, and then other theologians as well, used it, in the heat of battle, against adherents of the Helvetic and Gallican confessions. The views of these theologians, however, fall entirely within the limits set by our proposition. Rather, it designates opponents of the sacrament itself. These opponents claim that partaking of the bread and wine by identifying them with “body and blood” is but a phantom as compared with the spiritual partaking of Christ’s body and blood, which is not tied to this observance at all. They also claim that once this spiritual nourishment is secured, the merely figurative observance is better abandoned than continued.10 Now, we do indeed concede that the spiritual partaking—to which Christ invited people long before his institution of the Lord’s Supper and, to be sure, not as something that lay ahead—has in no way been bound exclusively to or restricted to the sacrament through Christ’s institution. Instead, we trust in the words of Christ that in the subsequent institution called the Lord’s Supper, Christ’s earlier invitation was realized by his power in such a way that every person of faith can then depend on finding spiritual nourishment in observance of this sacrament and in such a way that today this observance affords sure and unfailing access for the faithful to that spiritual nourishment if it is but rightly administered in its every aspect. Hence, in its role as the most complete communal spiritual partaking of Christ’s body and blood, the Lord’s Supper relates to solitary instances apart from it, just as what is organized relates to what is incidental. Organized edification occurring in public worship relates to individual, sporadic edification in the same way. However, although that opposed view does not deny that spiritual partaking can also occur in the sacramental observance, it nonetheless does declare that this tie is precarious and purely incidental, in that otherwise it indeed could not counsel against taking part in the Lord’s Supper and consequently misconstrue the value of Christ’s institution of it.
Yet, almost the same thing is true of those who do indeed want to have an unwavering retention of the Lord’s Supper in the church, viewed as a command of Christ, but cancel out any connection of it with the spiritual partaking of Christ’s body and blood because they declare it to be simply a practice by which we bear witness or profess our faith.11 We oppose this view for two reasons. In part, we oppose it because it does not at all view the Lord’s Supper as the apex of public worship, since they do not believe that they receive anything in it whatsoever.12 Thus, to this gathering together, which is so eminently done in the name of Christ, they do not even apply that general promise which Christ gave to all who gather in this way.13 In part, we also oppose this view because then the Lord’s Supper would not be the same for all time. That is to say, without this sacrament Christians in their various common associations lacked no opportunity among themselves mutually to acknowledge one another to be members of the church, moreover, no one else was present at its original institution to whom the disciples could bear witness, and the early church also permitted no non-Christians to be onlookers.
4. Now, suppose that we leave open to the Evangelical church the entire space between these two views, of which the one view ascribes a magical value to the Lord’s Supper and the other view reduces it to a mere sign. Then, the historical reason for doing so lies, above all, in the fact that, right from the very beginning, two other views were developing in the church within these bounds, of which the one view came nearest to the Roman Catholic position and the other view came nearest to the Socinian position, while both views nevertheless held fast to a consciousness of their shared opposition to those other two positions. Furthermore, in part, there were repeatedly renewed attempts to reconcile these two views, and, in part, a third view arose between the two views out of that same endeavor. Thus, over time wherever the two views bordered on each other, there prevailingly arose the shared conviction that collectively, under the same condition—namely, that they expected the same result from genuine living faith—each party would also have to believe that the other parties would have the same claim to this result as it did. The reason given was that no party could be sure that it would construe the interconnection between the observance and its result exactly as the Redeemer intended it, inasmuch as it lies outside our province to make this happen, and yet each party would have the sincerest desire to conform with the Redeemer’s meaning in the strictest way possible.
Now, this conviction is based precisely on the recognition of the exegetical difficulty that lies in the way Christ chose to mention his body and blood in proffering the bread and wine. One group, in facing a discourse of this importance, will then permit only a literal reading, yet on account of differences in the reports it cannot consistently apply that reading—“this” corresponding to “blood” and “cup” corresponding to “covenant.”14 The result is that our Lord’s Supper and the original one cannot be the same if the body being proffered is literally supposed to be exactly the same as that of the one who originally proffered it. Suppose that the other group can infer from this comparison that this equating of the bread with the body is to be understood only figuratively, in that the bread is only a sign of the body. Then all that they have to do is explain, first, how it is that a particular sign of the blood would have to be proffered, apart from that of the body itself, then, second, if the disciples were supposed to understand Christ’s discourse, whether they were directed more to explain it on the basis of Christ’s earlier analogous discourses or more on the basis of the Old Testament observance to which Christ’s institution was attached.
Now, if none of these problems has been resolved by either side up to now, it is also possible that new attempts will be made, which we must likewise count among the progressive endeavors of the Evangelical church, until a satisfactory explanation makes all the incomplete explanations superfluous. However, the three views that have gained the greatest currency out of such incomplete attempts can best be arranged in the following way. The first view, the Lutheran, declares that Christ would have conjoined for our nourishment the real presence of his body and blood with the bread and wine, but only for the observance of the physical partaking of the two elements. The second view, the Zwinglian, declares that Christ would have conjoined nothing with the bread and wine themselves, but by his command he simply conjoined the spiritual partaking of his flesh and blood with the observance of eating that bread and wine. The third view, the Calvinist, declares that, to be sure, Christ would have conjoined the eating and drinking with the observance alone, yet not simply that spiritual partaking which is also to be had apart from the sacrament, but that real presence of his body and blood which cannot be had anywhere else.15
The second view recognizes only two things: the physical partaking and the spiritual effect, both of which are bound together by the Word. Indisputably, this is the clearest and most intelligible view, because it sets forth an exact analogy between the Lord’s Supper and baptism and leaves entirely out of consideration “the real presence of the body and blood,” something admittedly very difficult to describe. In consequence, this view cannot understand sacramental partaking to be anything other than the conjoining of spiritual nourishment with that distinctly physical partaking.16 Yet, even if the above-cited words of Zwingli are strongly accentuated, and numerous other expressions whereby he could seem to intend to diminish or even erase the sacrament’s power17 are to be judged only from the viewpoint of his fight against Roman doctrine, the view nonetheless leaves unexplained why Christ used the particular words he spoke if nothing more was to be said on the matter than this.
Besides these two points, the other two views recognize yet a third one, namely, a real presence of Christ’s body and blood. That is to say: according to Luther, by a particular mysterious power of the Word, the real presence of Christ’s body and blood is conjoined with the elements, the bread and wine, to form a resemblance to what is consumed in the physical partaking; according to Calvin, it is conjoined only with the spiritual partaking of the faithful, to form an actual sacramental elevation of that partaking, which requires no other power to be effective than the spiritual power of the divine promise known to us all.
Prefaced in both of these two views is precisely an assumed third feature, namely, the question as to why Christ could have laid down his purpose only in such totally distinctive expressions. However, apart from the fact that Luther’s presentation borders too closely on the Roman version not to have fostered appropriation of numerous superstitious notions, the way in which the body of Christ is eaten at the same time as the bread and the way in which this sacramental partaking is different, on the one hand, from the physical partaking of symbolic elements and, on the other hand, from the spiritual partaking of flesh and blood, can also be made so little comprehensible that formulations on the matter can indeed be set forth composed of unscripturally fabricated words, but the fact itself can never be made evident. The Calvinist view obviates may of these difficulties by distancing itself not only from the overly prudent meagerness of the Zwinglian view but also, at the same time, from the mysterious senseoriented quality of the Lutheran view. However, the Calvinist view no more settles what it means to have a share in Christ’s body and blood than the Lutheran view does; and the Calvinist view also no more serves to explain the manner and means of relations between the body and blood, or the reason for separating them, than the Zwinglian view does. Hence, despite the fact that this Calvinist view has exercised a strong power of attraction, it still contains fresh grounds for vacillating between the appeal, inherent in something symbolic, of seeking even more in the sacrament than has developed in the explanation of it, and falling back on something more external since the distinctiveness of this observance is not readily detectable. In sum, it is not to be imagined that the Calvinist view will generally gain the upper hand in the Evangelical church; rather, it is to be expected that, based on continued unfettered labor by exegetes, some other view would be developed that will not flounder on these rocks. Until then, shared church doctrine can be set forth only in relation to the effects of the Lord’s Supper itself and, as such, can set forth only the following two propositions.
1. Ed. note: ET Tice, cf. Book of Concord (2000), 44; Latin and German: Bek. Luth. (1963), 62f. Here Schleiermacher gives the text in German.
2. Ed. note: ET Book of Concord (2000), 184; Latin and German: Bek. Luth. (1963), 247f.
3. Ed. note: ET Book of Concord (2000), 320; Latin and German: Bek. Luth. (1963), 450f.
4. Ed. note: ET Cochrane (1972), 279, 281; Latin only: Creeds, vol. 3 (1919), 287, 292; cf. §37n3.
5. Ed. note: ET and French in Creeds, vol. 3 (1919), 381, also Cochrane (1972), 157; Latin: Niemeyer (1840), 338f.
6. Ed. note: The quote is actually from the 1562 Latin edition. ET Creeds, vol. 3 (1919), 506. See §37n5.
7. Die Gemeinschaftlichkeit des Genusses. Ed. note: Literally, the communality or communal character of partaking. See the next paragraph below.
8. Realität. Ed. note: That is, something real, not purely symbolic, does occur in a complete observance of the Lord’s Supper, as in a complete baptism. It has reality.
9. Ed. note: This term was originally used by Luther to describe those, following the lead of Huldrych Zwingli (1484–1531) and John Oecolampadius (1482–1531), who regarded the elements only in a metaphorical (or “sacramental”) sense, then slightly later applied to all those who denied any “real presence” of Christ’s body and blood in the Lord’s Supper.
10. Ed. note: In the first edition of 1822, reference is given to the seventeenth-century Quaker leader Robert Barclay, already quoted in CF §139.3.
11. In the Rakov Catechism (1605–1609), Questions 334–345. Huldrych Zwingli is not to be mistaken for these people, for even though he terms the partaking of bread and wine in the Lord’s Supper simply a thankful remembrance, he nonetheless everywhere presupposes spiritual partaking in that act. In his Exposition of the Christian Faith (1530), Zwingli states: “When you come to the Lord’s Supper with this spiritual eating … or at the same time you share bread and wine with the brethren, which are now the symbolic body of Christ, you eat in an appropriately sacramental way when, in fact, you do the same thing inwardly that you perform outwardly.” Ed. note: Zwingli ET Kienzles; Latin: Niemeyer (1840), 48.
12. Rakov Catechism (1605–1609), Question 338: “It is evident that the Lord’s Supper was not instituted so that we would consume something there.” Ed. note: ET Kienzles. This was the first confessional writing of the Socinians, initially published in Polish in 1605, in German in 1608, and in Latin and English in 1609. A later English version was edited by Thomas Rees, with historical introduction (London, 1818); Latin: Catechesis Ecclesiarum (Rakov, 1609), reissued as Catechesis Rakoviensis (1739).
13. Ed. note: See Matt. 18:20.
14. Ed. note: See esp. 1 Cor. 11:25; compare Matt. 26:27–28 and Mark 14:23–24, also Luke 22:17–20.
15. John Calvin (1509–1564), Institutes (1559) 4.17.10: “Therefore, if the Lord truly represents the participation in his body through the breaking of bread, there ought not to be the least doubt that he truly presents and shows his body.” 11. “ I say, therefore; that in the sacred mystery of the Supper, Christ is truly shown to us through the symbols of bread and wine, his very body and blood. … First, that we may grow into one body with him, secondly, having been made partakers of his substance, that we may also feel his power in partaking of all his benefits.” Ed. note: ET Battles (1960), 1371f.; Latin: Opera selecta 5 (1926), 352–54, and CR 30:1009f.
16. Ed. note: Throughout these discussions of the Lord’s Supper, and the quotations given, “partaking” and “nourishment” translate the same word, Genuss, while Geniessen means “the eating.”
17. Huldrych Zwingli, Commentary on True and False Religion (1525) 15 (The Sacraments): “A sacrament … cannot have any power to free the conscience. That can be freed by God alone.” 12: “They are wrong, therefore, by the whole width of heaven, who think that sacraments have any cleansing power. … The sacraments are, then, signs or ceremonials … by which a person proves to the church that one either aims to be or is a soldier of Christ and which inform the whole church rather than yourself of your faith.” Ed. note: ET Jackson and Heller (1981), 181, 182, 184; Latin: CR 90:759, 760, 761.
§141. First Doctrinal Proposition: For all the faithful, partaking of the body and blood of Christ in the Lord’s Supper serves to strengthen their community with Christ.
(1) Luther’s Larger Catechism (1529) on the Sacrament of the Altar: “We go to the sacrament because there we receive a great treasure, through and in which we obtain the forgiveness of sins. … Therefore, it is appropriately called food of the soul, for it nourishes and strengthens the new creature.”1
(2) Second Helvetic Confession (1566) XXI: “There is also a spiritual eating of Christ’s body … whereby the body and blood of our Lord, while remaining in their own essence and property, are spiritually communicated to us … by the Holy Spirit, who applies and bestows upon us these things which have been prepared for us by the sacrifice of the Lord’s body and blood for us … so that Christ lives in us.”2
(3) Scots Confession (1560) XXI: “… but this union and conjunction which we have with the body and blood of Christ Jesus in the right use of the sacraments, wrought by operation of the Holy Ghost, who by true faith carries us above all things that are visible, carnal and earthly and makes us to feed upon the body and blood of Christ Jesus.”3
(4) Belgic Confession (1561) XXXV: “This feast is a spiritual table, at which Christ communicates himself with all his benefits to us and gives us there to enjoy both himself and the merits of his sufferings and death.”4
(5) Melanchthon, Loci theologici (1545–1559): “For this purpose, therefore, it is profitable to do penance by eating—that is, to be confirmed by faith.”5
(6) Calvin, Institutes (1559) IV.17.5: “By this means the Lord intended … that, by true partaking of him, his life passes into us and is made ours. … ” 11. “By effect I understand redemption, righteousness, sanctification, and eternal life …”6
1. The one benefit claimed for this partaking here is the strengthening of our community with Christ. Thus, the strengthening of Christians in their association among themselves is included therein,7 in that this association rests in their union with Christ so completely that the union of an individual with Christ is not imaginable without one’s union with the faithful. That this point is more recessive than is reasonable in the confessional passages cited above is based on the fact that customarily the question concerning the sacrament’s benefit comes up in such discussions only in connection with questions treated previously, wherein each individual who partakes is considered only as such. Hence, customarily information about the sacrament’s benefit is to be sought only under the enumeration of goods gained through Christ or under the all-embracing concept of sanctification. Accordingly, general expressions for the effects of this partaking that are usually most prominent are these: strengthening in faith and nourishment of “the new human being” or the passage of Christ’s life into our own. The two processes thus named are essentially the same, insofar as living faith in Christ is indeed nothing but the self-consciousness of our being in union with Christ. Customarily, however, two concepts are emphasized in particular: (1) that for us in the sacrament forgiveness of sins is indeed renewed and strengthened, but (2) that we then experience an enhancement of powers given for the purpose of sanctification. In reality these two things are not to be separated from each other. Both, moreover, rest on the fact that, on account of sin’s still not being entirely erased, even the new spiritual life is interrupted in its advancements by partially retrogressive movements. This is so, for just as regeneration is truly made firm and sure only as one reaches the status of sanctification, so too if one’s union with Christ has been disturbed by sin, the surety that sin is forgiven also can become truly secured only in the feeling of restored and fortified life. Moreover, the picturing to oneself of the entire congregation of the faithful that naturally occurs in observance of the Lord’s Supper is an important factor in this whole process. That is to say, realizing the presence of this community8 has to awaken in each person a powerful stirring of the common spirit,9 as it also arouses a heightened consciousness of one’s general and specific calling within this community, and a fresh sense of direction regarding the gifts to be further developed in oneself is not to be separated from each of these experiences.
Now, as concerns the relation of the Lord’s Supper to forgiveness of sins in particular, the first thing to be noted is that in this respect no separation ought to be made between original sin and actual sin,10 as if perchance baptism would relate only to original sin and the Lord’s Supper only to actual sin. The reason is as follows. Apart from the fact that baptism can be completed only at a time when actual sin has already issued from original sin11 and apart from the fact that baptism could not designate the beginning of the new life if by it actual sin also did not cease to hinder one’s being in community with Christ’s blessedness,12 baptism, viewed as the sign and seal of regeneration, already also bears a relation to all actual sins, in that the sins of the regenerate are always forgiven in advance.13 The same account also applies to the Lord’s Supper, for since it is original sin that is continually made manifest in those actual sins by which vital community with Christ is hindered, it is also, at the same time, original sin the forgiveness of which must be secured for us anew.
The second thing to be noted, however, is that the forgiveness of sins also should not be divided up, and the power of forgiving sins in the sacrament of the altar should not be regarded as a power set apart, as if sins would first be forgiven in one way by justifying divine activity in regeneration and then in another way by the particular presence and communicative activity of Christ in the sacrament.14 Rather, there exists but one and the same power of forgiving sins. Moreover, regeneration is nothing but Christ’s general and internally effective relationship to the totality of the human race as it first touches an individual life. Likewise, forgiveness of sins in the Lord’s Supper is simply and precisely this living relationship as it is revealed in a single moment of Christ’s becoming present shared by a number of Christians.
In this respect, it can appear puzzling as to why the church declares forgiveness of sins to communicants on each occasion upon their making confession of sins but already before they partake of the sacrament, for this practice does not rest on Christ’s institution of the sacrament. In answer, we consider that as an anticipation this act belongs to the Lord’s Supper just as confirmation, in reverse order, belongs to baptism as its eventual supplement. Hence, in the Evangelical church absolution, when viewed as a separate sacrament in and of itself, as initially had occurred here and there,15 was also soon discontinued. This was done, for confession of sins bears no ecclesial character of a public nature except in relation to the Lord’s Supper.16 Moreover, the wish to participate in this sacrament is not to be expressed otherwise than by a confession of sins, because if there were no sin, there would be no need to renew one’s union with Christ.17 In that the church already pronounces forgiveness of sin in relation to this confession of sins, however, it simply declares, first of all, that it places anyone who now feels precisely the need for renewal of one’s community with Christ on a par with those who have already satisfied that need, and then the church affords that needy individual the surety that one will find the satisfaction one needs in the sacrament. Hence, every Evangelical Christian will also likely have the experience that consciousness of the forgiveness of sins on the occasion of absolution administered by the church is still only a shadow of what one enjoys in partaking of the Lord’s Supper itself. That is to say, here this consciousness is conjoined with consciousness of a new influx of the power of spiritual life from the fullness18 of Christ, which truly serves to overcome obstacles to new life and remnants of general sinfulness.
2. Based on what has been noticed thus far, how the church would proceed in this observance is self-evident in the following ways. First of all, the Lord’s Supper bears a relation to baptism. Hence, as long as child baptism is still adhered to, no participation in the Lord’s Supper can take place before “confirmation,” in the Protestant sense of the word. Therefore, serving communion to children,19 in whom neither the consciousness of sin nor the consciousness of grace can have developed suitably for the purpose, is a serious impropriety that clings to superstitious notions. Second, since according to none of the various views of the matter can a partaking of the Lord’s Supper take place without Christ’s becoming present in one’s spirit, there can be no observance of the Lord’s Supper where one is wanting in one’s awareness of what is going on or where one’s consciousness is either distracted or is already in process of disappearing. Third, since the Lord’s Supper was appointed by Christ to be a shared observance, in this sense it is also always to be undertaken within the church. Precisely for this reason, however, it also should never happen that in this observance companions are lacking for Christians who are unable to participate in the public feast because of illness or for some other reason, so that they would have to celebrate it alone. Fourth, and finally, on our part no link whatsoever is found with the doctrine of the Greek and Roman churches that the union of Christ’s body with the bread apart from partaking of it in the sacrament would also retain the nature of a “perpetual sacrifice” “offered to God,”20 and that doctrine remains forever wholly out of the question. This is so, even if the qualifying explanation—that this repetition, as it were, of Christ’s sacrifice on the cross is simply supposed to be a “commemoration” of it—were not wholly detached from it.21 This is so, for we know nothing of the “merits” and “satisfactions” that are aimed at in those views.22 The makeshift notion that this sacrifice is not supposed to be any different from that accomplished on the cross but is the very same sacrifice23 is for us a completely empty claim, for in the end we would have totally to divorce the sacrifice in Christ’s death from obedience in his life,24 and at that point the original sacrifice would be regarded as something just as incidentally established and just as magical as sacrifice in the mass. In any case, this latter sacrifice would have to be regarded as a supplement to the original one, and then two things would follow. In the first place, without that supplementary sacrifice the faithful would not always be in God’s sight in Christ and their justification would be removed, in turn, irrespective of the fact that whatever could alone serve to bring about this result would also have to have been coposited as God’s foreknowledge in God’s justifying activity. A second consequence, however, is interconnected with this one, namely, that redemption would be brought to fruition only by this supplementary observance of the church. That is to say, in part, human beings would redeem themselves in that Christ’s high-priestly office would be insufficient apart from the sacrifice of the mass. This would be true of redemption not only as concerns its realization in human beings, thus as it is viewed in its temporal aspect, for there the result is plain to see, but also in its being the ground of the divine good pleasure, thus viewed in its eternal aspect.
Hence, although there is no longer any need to designate the mass as an idolatrous practice, we nonetheless do continue, withal and without qualification, to reject this entire notion of a sacrifice occurring after the end of all sacrifice, because having proceeded from a demonstrable misconception, it necessarily provokes superstition in that it distorts faith and egregiously adulterates the concept of Christian priesthood. We also particularly reject this notion in and of itself, independent of the doctrine of transubstantiation, with which it obviously interconnects.25
1. Ed. note: ET Book of Concord (2000), 469; Latin and German: Bek. Luth. (1963), 711f.
2. Ed. note: ET Cochrane (1972), 285; Latin only: Creeds, vol. 3 (1919), 292f.; cf. 37n3.
3. Ed. note: ET drawn from the original English and Latin versions in Creeds, vol. 3 (1919), 468, also Cochrane (1972), 179; an inferior Latin version in Niemeyer (1840), 352f., and a closely related ET by Bulloch (1960).
4. Ed. note: ET and French in Creeds, vol. 3 (1919), 431, also Cochrane (1972), 216; Latin: Niemeyer (1840), 386.
5. Ed. note: ET Templin/Tice; Latin: CR 21:865. See §32n16.
6. Ed. note: ET Battles (1960), 1365, 1372; Latin: Opera selecta 5 (1926), 347, 355; CR 30:1006, 1010.
7. Cf. 1 Cor. 10:17; 12:27.
8. Vergegenwärtigung. Ed. note: To make this notion clear, the translation has also just rendered it as one’s “picturing to oneself.” The two meanings both resound in ordinary usage. Just above, specific allusions are made to the doctrine of sanctification (§§111–12).
9. Gemeingeist. Ed. note: This first appearance of Schleiermacher’s term for the Holy Spirit in the present doctrine continues his unbroken practice of treating ecclesial matters in terms of the divine Spirit’s being essentially present therein. Cf. §125. This opening paragraph indicates errors and issues to be addressed more fully in arguments to follow, especially in pointing out the priority of communal, shared experience over any distinctively individual experience of the Lord’s Supper and its benefits.
13. Cf. §§111–12. Ed. note: On baptism, in this respect, see also §137.2 and §138.2; on forgiveness of sin, esp. §111.3.
14. Saxon Confession (= Melanchthon, Repetitio Confessionis Augustanae, 1551): “We also admonish them not to think that it is on account of this work … that sins are remitted; rather, we are in trust to behold the death and merit of God’s Son … and to determine that our sins are forgiven on account of him.” Ed. note: ET Kienzles/Tice; Latin: CR 28:418; Schleiermacher here refers to the edition in Symbole (1816), 173.
15. (1) Philipp Melanchthon (1497–1560), Loci praecipui theologici (1543–1559): “Let these be counted as sacraments: baptism, the Lord’s Supper, and absolution.” (2) The same view is also featured in articles 8–13 in the Augsburg Confession (1530), hence likewise in the Apology of the Augsburg Confession 13: “Therefore, the sacraments are actually baptism, the Lord’s Supper and absolution (the sacrament of repentance).” Ed. note: (1) ET Kienzles; Latin: CR 21:849. See §32n16. (2) ET Book of Concord (2000), 219; Latin and German: Bek. Luth. (1963), 292.
16. Ed. note: On regulations regarding requiring specific preparations before taking part in Communion, see OR (1821) IV, supplemental note 12. For discussion of further principles that inform these regulations as they necessarily change, see also §§127, 140–42, and 145.1, also BO §47. In his congregation a service in preparation for Communion was available but voluntary.
17. Ed. note: Generally in Schleiermacher’s day, a service preparatory for Communion was held on Saturdays, available to any who chose to attend in anticipation of that observance the next day. In the years when an associate pastor joined Dreifaltigkeitskirche, the associate pastor tended to take the Saturday service. The two senior pastors—Schleiermacher, the Reformed copastor, and Prof. Dr. Philipp Konrad Marheineke (1780–1846), the Lutheran copastor—tended to alternate between the earlier and later Sunday morning services every other week. Schleiermacher also tended to administer the Lord’s Supper twice each month.
18. Ed. note: See esp. John 1:16: “And from his fullness have we all received, grace upon grace” (RSV). This “fullness” can be seen as one that flows out from God to Christ to the church and thence to the individual, as in a succession suggested in moving from Col. 1:19 and 2:9 to John 1:6 and finally to Eph. 1:23.
19. Kommunion der Kinder. Ed. note: This is the first use of the word Kommunion in the presentation of this doctrine here, instead of Gemeinschaft for “Communion.” It is also the first mention of any special practice for children. As in Schleiermacher’s school years among the Herrnhuter Brethren, this community still celebrates a Kindergottesdienst in which adults serve rolls and tea to children, but not the bread and wine. In other traditions, baptized children, in contrast, may be invited to partake of the Lord’s Supper itself.
20. (1) [John of Damascus,] Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, Exthesis orthodoxou pisteos (1695), q. 107: “a sacrifice performed by God”; (2) Roman Catechism (1566) Part 2, chap. 4, De eucharistiae sacramento q. 77: “So that the church would have a perpetual sacrifice, by which our sins would be expiated.” Ed. note: (1) Schleiermacher himself quotes but does not identify his Greek source; ET Tice. Schäfer (2003) locates the source as the Exposition and refers to Johannes Karmiris, Dogmatica et symbolica (1968), vol. 2, 638–40. (2) Roman Catechism: the initial Latin edition Schleiermacher used is the jussu primum editus, editio Loewen (1678), 216; ET Kienzles, cf. Catechism of the Council of Trent (1852 ed.) and §108n19.
21. Roman Catechism (1566), Part 2, chap. 4, q. 85: “The very holy sacrifice of the mass is not only the simple commemoration of the sacrifice that was made on the cross but is also truly a propitiatory sacrifice, by which God is appeased and rendered propitious to us.” Ed. note: ET Kienzles/Tice cf. Catechism of the Council of Trent (1852 ed.) and §108n19; Latin: Catechismus Romanus (1678), 219.
22. Roman Catechism (1566), Part 2, chap. 4, q. 85: “Those who offer this sacrifice, by which they commune with us, merit and make satisfaction for the fruits of the Lord’s passion.” Ed. note: ET Kienzles/Tice; cf. Catechism of the Council of Trent (1852 ed.) and §108n19; Latin: Catechismus Romanus (1678), 219.
23. Roman Catechism (1566), Part 2, chap. 4, q. 83: “Thus we confess that it is and ought to be considered as one and the same sacrifice, that which is performed in the mass and was offered on the cross.” Ed. note: ET Kienzles; cf. Catechism of the Council of Trent (1852 ed.) and §108n19; Latin: Catechismus Romanus (1678), 218.
24. Heb. 2:10, 17; and 5:2, 8. Ed. note: Sermon only on Heb. 5:8–9, Dec. 23, 1832, Festpredigten (1833), also SW II.2 (1835), 299–313.
25. (1) Heidelberg Catechism (1563), q. 80; (2) Schmalkaldic Articles (1537) 2: The Mass; (3) Second Helvetic Confession (1566) 21. Ed. note: (1) ET and German: Creeds, vol. 3 (1919), 335f., cf. Torrance (1959), 84f.; Latin: Niemeyer (1840), 448. (2) ET Book of Concord (2000), 301ff.; German: Bek. Luth. (1963), 416ff. (3) ET Cochrane (1972), 283–88; Latin only: Creeds, vol. 3 (1919), 291–95; cf. §37n3.
§142. Second Doctrinal Proposition: Partaking of the Lord’s Supper unworthily serves to bring down judgment upon the partaker.
(1) Apology Augsburg (1531) XI: “Christ says (1 Cor. 11:29) that ‘all who eat and drink unworthily eat and drink judgment against themselves.’ Our pastors, accordingly, do not force those who are not ready to use the sacraments.”1
(2) Belgian Confession (1561) XXXV: “Therefore, no one ought to come to this table without having previously rightly examined himself, lest by eating of this bread and drinking of this cup he eat and drink judgment to himself.”2
(3) Heidelberg Catechism (1563) q. 81: “Hypocrites and those who are unrepentant, however, eat and drink judgment on themselves.”3
1. It is not easy to give a clear account concerning the practicability of this proposition. The reasons are, in the first place, that it is hard to form a definite notion of where the unworthiness is to come from, since one who is not a member of the Christian church also has no access to the sacrament. In contrast, each time any true member of the church will be all the more a worthy partaker, since this meal possesses a distinctive and independent power, by Christ’s institution of it, through which power it stands out, above all else, that otherwise occurs as an expression of piety and as a means of effecting piety. Moreover, the meal does so in such a way that each partaker has to feel summoned to the most auspicious of moods in it.
In the second place, what presents itself, apart from all this, is the following situation. Since the Lord’s Supper was instituted as an observance held in common and is proffered publicly by ministers of the Word, certain times for it also have to be set in accordance with an ecclesial order. Thus, this order indeed has the appearance of a summons, and one can imagine that individuals hearken to this summons—be it out of habit or in view of someone else’s judgment—without any longing after this nourishment having been stirred in them by a consciousness of deficiency in their spiritual state. In its origin such a partaking of this nourishment is then an unworthy one, because it bears no connection with the aim of its institution. This is so, in that without a vital consciousness of one’s personal relationship with Christ, no effective remembrance of him, as he is depicted in this event, is even possible. Moreover, that effective remembrance will always be lacking, whether we might then picture that spiritual state as one of dull-minded inattentiveness, which cannot be conquered by the observance itself, or whether we regard it as a persistent consciousness of alien motives, which can scarcely occur otherwise than as accompanied by a lack of faith in the sacrament’s power and high value, even if that lack of faith were temporary.
2. Now, however, suppose that the judgment which is designated as the consequence of unworthiness is understood as an induction into eternal damnation. If this were the claim, then it would seem impossible to set forth a connection between these two things. Indeed, if unworthy partaking is actually possible and if such a danger is thought to arise from this partaking, yet, on the other hand, if the salutary spiritual partaking of Christ’s flesh and blood is also thought to take place apart from this sacrament, it would appear that one would have to harbor the wish that it might be better had the sacrament not been instituted and we had been directed instead to that extra-sacramental, spiritual partaking alone.
Suppose, however, that we provisionally set aside the notion of eternal damnation and stay with the notion of unworthiness. In that case, it is still true that both the inattentiveness by which such an abundantly promising moment is turned into a meaningless external function and the false pretense that hides alien inner promptings behind this sacred observance are indeed a degradation quite suited to induce a state of unreceptivity and hardness of heart. We would all have cause to regard such a state as a feature of damnation. It is this consideration, moreover, by which the expression in our proposition is completely justified. That is, the Lord’s Supper seems to be a means of sorting, in that worthy and proper partaking of it promotes communal life with Christ, whereas an unworthy partaking makes this most powerful means of strengthening communal life with Christ less and less effectual, thus constantly increasing the sway of all sorts of obstructions to this process.
Now, let us ponder how insuperable inattentiveness must already have become and, still further, how impudent false pretense must already have become, when the two have overpowered what is sacred, and how little faith in the Redeemer can keep its bearing when what he has instituted is torn from the interconnectedness that defines it. If we do this, we will find understandable the shivering dread with which the ascetic language of the ancient church expresses itself concerning this subject. Yet, it is all the more necessary that the church’s public teaching on this subject refrain from all disheartening determinations that do not readily flow from the matter itself.
3. It would be worth our while, however, to revisit the distinction between the Lutheran and the Calvinist notion of the Lord’s Supper from this perspective, so as to convince ourselves of how little suited the distinction is to ground any severance of community among these Evangelical churches. That is to say, in that neither of the two parties has succeeded in bringing the third, intermediate feature we have discussed to some sort of graphic clarity4—the feature that they both accept and that we designate by the expression “sacramental partaking”—reference to our proposition establishes what value actually lies in the distinction between the two, after all. That shared value is explained as follows. This distinction is long-established in the Lutheran account to the effect that because sacramental partaking of Christ’s body and blood is bound to partaking of the bread and wine, it is also enjoyed by worthy and unworthy partakers in common, except that for the unworthy it redounds to judgment, whereas for the worthy it redounds to spiritual nourishment and, by means of this nourishment, to blessedness. In contrast, the Calvinian theory, which binds sacramental partaking to spiritual partaking, can claim only that those who are unworthy cannot share in that sacramental partaking at all. If these are the only things that can be clearly expressed concerning this distinction, then it would have to retreat wholly into obscurity as unworthy partaking ceases to be practiced. In any case, this doctrinal difference would automatically fade away as the two ecclesial communities approach a finished condition;5 thus it cannot be a sufficient ground for their remaining separate. The reason is that unworthy partaking of the Lord’s Supper is always a manifestation of an imperfection attendant upon the church itself.
Suppose, then, that the conduct of those who come to the sacrament is in harmony with the shared feeling of the whole. Suppose, too, that the church offering the sacrament has developed to the point that a fully shared feeling of the whole exists within the state of every individual. In that situation no one would desire to partake of the sacrament in an unworthy manner, and the congregation would not offer it to anyone to partake of unworthily. Suppose, too, that the church has really been progressing to a better position. Then those instances which alone can call into consciousness the distinction between the two theories would have to arise ever more infrequently, and gradually the distinction would have to disappear.
1. Ed. note: ET Book of Concord (2000), 186; Latin and German: Bek. Luth. (1963), 250. Schleiermacher refers to section 4 (de ecclesia) from the different numbering of Lücke’s edition.
2. Ed. note: ET and French in Creeds, vol. 3 (1919), 431; Latin: Niemeyer (1840), 386.
3. Ed. note: ET and German: Creeds, vol. 3 (1919), 336; ET Torrance (1959), 85; Latin: Niemeyer (1840), 449.
4. Anschaulichkeit. Ed. note: This term is rarely used by Schleiermacher, though it contains the root meaning of Anschauung, which connotes several layers of “perception” (literally, a “looking upon”) that he always pairs with Gefühl (an affective state also containing several layers, called “feeling” for short, as in “the feeling of absolute dependence”) in his analysis of genuinely religious states. His use here indicates something of what he himself is shooting for in the present critical investigation: not so much a concept as a clarity of inner experience that can perhaps eventually be given a generally agreed-upon theological account, one in any case centered on what God is doing in Christ through the “common spirit” of the church (the Holy Spirit). For example, see references to the Spirit’s work successively in the remaining propositions in this section, notably in §§145.1–2, 146.2, 147.1, 148.1, 149.2, and, finally, in 151.1 (which articulates the drive to attain church union) and 157 (which looks to the whole of humanity).
5. Vollkommenheit. Ed. note: This condition would amount to a consummation (Vollendung) of the church as a whole, as can be described only “prophetically” (see the introduction to division 3 here, §§157–59). Until that ideal point, the church is always to some extent imperfect, unfinished.
§143. The Evangelical church uses the term sacrament only for these two institutions, baptism and the Lord’s supper, which were instituted by Christ himself and represent his high-priestly activity.
1. It is quite natural for a term taken over from an entirely foreign domain to have no defined boundary in our own domain. Hence, only very gradually did the Roman church arrive at its seven sacraments, and only gradually did we settle on these two.
Now, the basic elements of meaning for this word cannot be adopted without considerable disquiet, because although the New Testament image of a “soldier of Christ” may underlie its use, nonetheless in this term precisely an element of very shaky application has been extracted from that image.1 Thus, one might well raise the wish, even more unconditionally than Zwingli did,2 that it would be better if this term had never been taken into ecclesial language, consequently, also the wish that it might be possible to drop its use entirely. This could be done by way of approximation to the Eastern church, which has remained at a distance from this term and has the expression “mysteries” for such observances, but this approximation must certainly be postponed to a later time. However, even a wish is reasonable only insofar as it carries with it something that serves toward its fulfillment. Accordingly, a way into a change has been provided here in that we have treated baptism and the Lord’s Supper in their own right and without any definite reference to the term “sacrament,” though it has been used now and then as a familiar word for the sake of convenience.
This choice was made, for the usual procedure of starting out with this so-called general concept and defining it strengthens more and more the false opinion that this could be a genuinely dogmatic concept and could express something essential to Christianity, also that baptism and the Lord’s Supper could obtain their distinctive value primarily in this concept’s being realized in them. At the very least, this bias finds no support along the course of treatment struck here. This is the case, since even the closer relation to each other in which we have placed baptism and the Lord’s Supper here is kept in total independence from this traditional term. Moreover, like the previous two points of doctrine in this Division,3 what the relation of these two points of doctrine have in common is grounded solely in activities associated with one of Christ’s three essential offices,4 in such a way that it does seem purely incidental that this middle pair of our six points of doctrine bears a common name, whereas the others do not.
2. In any case, it would be a fruitless procedure to examine the term etymologically and on that basis to seek to determine what can be subsumed under it and what cannot be. In this respect, even dispute with the Roman church would be entirely empty if it merely dealt with the explanation of this word for the two observances and with whether our explanation or theirs is the correct one, for according to them five more institutions could still carry the name. No, the dispute has some sense only if the opposing parties want, thereby, to place these two observances on a par with the other five observances in some essential respect.
Now, on the contrary, the dissimilarity among those observances and circumstances that the Roman church comprises under this term is plain to see, and the close connection between the two observances that our church assigns exclusively to this term is demonstrated elsewhere. This being the case, nothing else remains for us to do, if the term is to be used any longer, than to stamp it, in a purely arbitrary way and without any further reference to its original sense, as a communal designation of these two institutions.
From the very outset, the use of this term was also not a fixed one in the Evangelical church. Not only was absolution set forth as a third sacrament, but Melanchthon also proposed that ordination be numbered among the sacraments.5 However, absolution did not get a foothold, and the ordination proposal found no support. Generally, we find it to be more proper—and our celebration of the Lord’s Supper has been shaped wholly in accordance with this idea—to regard absolution as a component of this observance, in exchange for which it has lost its sacramental autonomy. Likewise, it was just as proper to attach confirmation to baptism once a distinct significance had been referred to it. In turn, baptism was, at the same time, initiation6 into the true priesthood of all Christians, held in common, whereas ministry of the Word, viewed in that narrower official sense, is not held in common with all Christians; thus, being consecrated for that function also cannot be placed on a par with that broader priesthood. Marriage was added in only because Scripture uses the word “mystery” for it, later replaced by the word “sacrament.” Yet, as a permanent state not only does it bear no similarity to our two observances, so that by analogy only the wedding ceremony could be called a sacrament, not the marriage itself. Rather, it also does not belong here, because as a divine moral institution it had an established status already from the beginning on, without any reference to Christ’s mission. Finally, extreme unction, viewed as a practice dating from the apostolic era—to which some wanted also to assign a special power—would always be grounded only in the efficacious action of the church’s prayer in Jesus’ name, just as the consecration of marriage could have validity only as grounded in such a prayer. It is sufficiently definite, therefore, that these five remaining practices are simply by-products of our two sacraments. What these two sacraments have in common, however, by whatever name they may be called communally, will always consist in the fact that they are continued workings of Christ wrapped in and most closely bound to observances of the church. Through these observances of the church, Christ extends his high-priestly activity toward individuals and both preserves and spreads the community of life that exists between him and ourselves. For the sake of that community alone does God look upon individuals in Christ.
3. Also not to be entirely ignored at this point is the interconnection between our two sacraments and two Old Testament institutions, namely, circumcision and the Passover Feast. This interconnection is one that is emphasized, more at one time and less at another, but is also frequently quite badly misconceived. Thus misconceived, for example, is the notion that circumcision and the Passover Feast had stood in some sort of special relation to each other, as baptism and the Lord’s Supper did. Actually, in no way did circumcision, viewed as an Abrahamic institution, have a different relationship to the Passover Feast than it had to other Mosaic institutions. Quite apart from this fact, moreover, one says much too much when one claims that baptism has replaced circumcision or that the Lord’s Supper has replaced the Passover Feast. Such interconnections do not fit, for baptism was instituted quite independently from circumcision, and the practice of circumcision was also stopped not by baptism but by the ascendancy of Gentile Christians over Jewish Christians and by their crossbreeding. Moreover, the Lord’s Supper was indeed initially attached to the Passover Feast, but it was let loose from it forthwith, so that Passover was still celebrated in addition by Jewish Christians but without any relation to the Lord’s Supper. It is not impossible, nevertheless, that some closer attention to the circumstances of this observance’s original founding could lead, for the first time, to a more exact understanding of difficult expressions used as the Lord’s Supper was instituted. Likewise, a comparison of the two New Testament institutions with these Old Testament ones does also quite definitely lead to placing the difference between the old covenant and the new covenant in a clear light.
1. Ed. note: The reference is to the original meaning of sacramentum, an oath, especially a soldier’s oath of allegiance, on one’s sacred honor, as it were. In the Latin New Testament it was used to render the Greek word μυστήριον, but there it has numerous connotations apart from any ceremony such as occurred in the Greek mystery cults. Thus 2 Tim. 2:3 introduces the phrase “soldier of Christ Jesus.”
2. Huldrych Zwingli (1484–1531), Commentary on True and False Religion (1525), 15 (The Sacraments). Ed. note: There Zwingli stated: “I heartily wish that this word ‘sacrament’ had never been adopted by the Germans without being translated into German, for when they hear the word ‘sacrament’ they think of something great and holy which by its own power can free the conscience from sin.” ET Jackson and Heller (1981), 180; Latin: CR 90:757.
3. Ed. note: That is, the doctrines “Regarding Holy Scripture” (§§128–32) and “Regarding the Ministry of the Divine Word” (§§133–35), in this first half of division 2 in part 2.
4. Wesentlichen Berufstätigkeiten Christi. Ed. note: The first pair reflects Christ’s prophetic office and the second pair reflects his high-priestly office (cf. §§102–5). The last pair, regarding the office of the keys and prayer in Jesus’ name (cf. §147.1), reflects Christ’s kingly office.
5. Philipp Melanchthon (1497–1560), Loci praecipui theologici (1543–1559) in the section on the sacraments. Redeker note: See Melanchthon’s statement that “By all means, I agree ordination, as they call it, should be added, that is, the calling to ministry of the gospel and the public approbation of that calling, because all these things are ordered by the command of the gospel.” Ed. note: ET Kienzles; Latin: CR 21:850. See §32n16.
6. Weihe. Ed. note: This term is also used for consecration to holy orders or ordination to the priesthood, as is Einsegnung, translated by “consecration” just below.