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Sermon of Andreas Bodenstein von Karlstadt Given in Wittenberg on the Reception of the Holy Sacrament

(January 1522)

Karlstadt’s Christmas sermon, Predig Andresen Boden. Von Carolstatt zu Wittenberg Von empfahung des heiligen Sacraments, was printed by Nickel Schirlentz in Wittenberg (VD16, B6185; Barge and Freys, “Verzeichnis,” no. 76) in the early days of 1522.¹ The Christmas sermon was reprinted three times in 1522: twice in Augsburg, by Silvan Otmar (VD16, B6182; Barge and Freys, “Verzeichnis,” no. 77) and by Melchior Ramminger (VD16, B6183; Barge and Freys, “Verzeichnis,” no. 78), and once in Vienna by Johann Singriener (VD16, B6184; Barge and Freys, “Verzeichnis,” 79). Ramminger printed the sermon again in 1524 with a different title: MCXIIII Ayn Sermon / ob dye Orennbeicht oder der Glaub allain / oder was den menschen zuo wirdiger empfahung des hailigenn Sacraments geschickt mach (VD16, B6195; Barge and Freys, “Verzeichnis,” no. 80).² There is an abridged English translation of the pamphlet in Sider, Karlstadt’s Battle with Luther, 7–15. I used the Augsburg/Otmar imprint (Köhler Flugschriften, 331, no. 935) for my translation, comparing it to the 1524 Augsburg imprint (Köhler, Flugschriften, 600, no. 1554) and to Sider’s English translation.

[a1v] Andreas Bodenstein von Karlstadt wishes joyfulness and a good life to the small Christian flock in Wittenberg.

Because you have been moved by a good desire to receive the venerable sacrament and are inclined to hold an evangelical mass, I want to show you as a brief admonition the form and manner whereby you should receive this sacrament or hold the mass, so that you will further discover and learn about the evangelical mass as I have begun [to celebrate it].³ Your fervent ardor and immeasurable desire for the holy mass compels and drives me to serve you in diligence and with pleasure, insofar as I am able. May the living God grant the preservation and completion of the grace he has richly given you. Amen. Dated in Wittenberg on Christmas 1521.⁴

Fig. 4. Title Page of Karlstadt’s Christmas Sermon (Augsburg: Ramminger, 1524). Herzog August Bibliothek, Wolfenbüttel [127.6 Theol. (7)].

1. Anyone who wants to know and learn what makes one unworthy of this venerable sacrament must attend to the histories, accounts, and writings of the old law and diligently observe what made the Jews unworthy of the divine promises. Then he must compare the New Testament with the Old, just as when someone places the sun against the stars of the sky. Then he will doubtless note and realize what makes him unable to appropriate this sacrament. We can learn about such unfitness only in the divine law, for as Paul says, “I would not have known sin except through the law,” Romans 3[:20]. You should be content, sure, and certain that it is a complete lie and invention when someone says to you, “This or that makes you incapable or unworthy of divine grace,” if he can’t show you scripture. Therefore God says that they preach fictitious curses to the people, Hosea 4[:2], and that they terrify the people with lies, creating fear where there is no fear and making the righteous sorrowful where there is no sorrow. As Ezekiel 13[:19–23] says, “Woe to you prophets, you snare the souls of my people for the sake of a handful of barley and [b2r (sic)] for the sake of a piece of bread, so that you kill the souls that do not die and make alive those souls that do not live. You deceive my people, who believe these lies. You have made the righteous sorrowful with lies, whom I do not want to sorrow. Therefore you shall no longer preach dreams and see such shamelessness, for I will take my people from your hands.” That is as much as to say, “Because you rogues may kill living souls and make the righteous sorrowful with lies when I don’t want them to sorrow, I will take my sheep out of your jaws and hands so that they will no longer listen to you.” Jeremiah 23[:2–3], “They shall fear and flee your voice. You shall no longer tend and feed them.” Ezekiel 34[:10], “They shall hear my voice.” When you frighten them and say, “Anyone who doesn’t fast is unworthy of the sacrament,” or “Anyone who doesn’t keep a vigil or is otherwise anxious is not fit for this sacrament.” Or “Whoever doesn’t go to confession and bewail his sins with grief should abstain from this sacrament,” etc.

In sum, if anyone⁵ wants to tell you that this or that makes you unfit and unworthy, he should teach you from holy scripture, “For I feed my sheep” (God says in Ezekiel 34[:14]) “in the mountains of Israel, and I have saved them from the teeth of the false prophets. But if they follow your lies, stories, dreams, and shamelessness, they are not my sheep.” God strikes such mad sheep with insanity and blindness of their mind so that they grope at midday like a blind person in the darkness, so that they can’t direct their way, Deuteronomy 2[:28–29]. That is, you can’t do what is right if you lose God’s word; you can’t prepare or direct your way, and so it is in vain that someone wants to say much about unfitness for this sacrament if he doesn’t have the divine form and teaching before his eyes. In brief, the sacrament is divine and heavenly. Therefore flesh, blood, and earth can’t say anything about fitness or unfitness. It follows that any little woman should look into the divine word just as she looks into a [a2v] private mirror, 1 Corinthians 13[:12], and from this discover what makes her worthy or fit for this sacrament, or conversely what makes her unworthy and unfit. Thus we should look into scripture.

2. Accordingly, let us look into scripture and note what made the Jews unworthy of divine consolation, and from this understand what makes a recipient of this sacrament unworthy. I won’t use many scripture passages, but only one or two; namely those that tell the history of the Jews as they were led out of Egypt to the promised land.

Scripture tells how the Jews wandered in the wilderness of Sinai, where they had no water to drink. Therefore they murmured against their leader and prince Moses, saying “Give us water to drink.” The people were very thirsty and so they said, “Have you led us out of Egypt so that we, our children, and our cattle will die of thirst and be destroyed?” And so they tested God. But the good God commanded Moses to strike the rock Horeb with the rod with which he had struck the sea. Moses did this and water flowed from the rock from which the people could drink, Exodus 17[:1–7]. This cry of the Jews came from their unbelief and stubborn resistance. So Moses said, “Listen, you unbelievers and you rebels, couldn’t we bring water from this rock?” Then Moses struck this same rock twice, and gentle, lovely water flowed out of it, so that the people and cattle drank, Numbers 20[:2–13].

Now note God’s judgment. God said to Moses and Aaron, “Because you didn’t believe me and sanctify me before the children of Israel, you shall not lead the people into the land about which I have spoken to you.” See how God says that Moses and Aaron didn’t believe, which David also says in Psalm 140[141:6], “Absorpti sunt iudices apud petram”;⁶ in Hebrew, this is, “The princes or leaders have lost their faith by the rock,” where they wanted to bring water from the rock. [a3r] But what does God say? Listen to him say, “You shall not lead the people into the land that I will give to them.” See, this is the unfitness that makes them unworthy of the divine promise. See how God says, “You have not sanctified me before the children of Israel.” Do you see how all unholiness, all unfitness, springs from unbelief? Do you see what a horrible sin unbelief is? Do you see how one shouldn’t doubt about receiving any help when he hears the divine promise? See how God punished Aaron.

3. In Numbers 20[:23–28], God says to Moses, “Let Aaron go to his people, for he will not go into the land that I have given to the children of Israel because he did not believe my mouth. Remove Aaron’s robes, for he must die,” etc. And so God punished Aaron’s unbelief and didn’t want to keep his promise to him. The Lord also let Moses die and showed him the promised land from the mountain Abarim, saying, “Behold the land that I will give to the children of Israel. When you have seen it, you shall also go to your people like Aaron, because you injured me in the wilderness of Sinai, in the murmuring of the people, and you didn’t want to sanctify me before the people.”

4. Now many can grasp with their hands what a horrible sin unbelief is, for God considers unbelief as an injury and says that the unbeliever doesn’t consider God as holy and sanctify him before the people, but instead he dishonors God and diminishes and lessens his honor and trustworthiness. This is what God says, “You have not sanctified me before the people, you have injured and insulted me, and so none of you will enter into the promised land.” God showed particular scorn and insult to Moses when he showed him the land and then let him die.

5. This was said not only about the leaders of the people, that they lost and fell away from the divine promise because of their unbelief, but also about the common people, as we read in Numbers 14[:11–12], and [a3v] as I have recently preached, how they didn’t want to believe that the promised land was pleasant, rich, and full of milk and honey. And that God said to Moses, “How long will the people slander me? How long will they diminish my glory, praise, and honor? How long will they not believe me, in all of the signs? I will strike them with pestilence and destroy them.” And so God brought it about that the Jews had to wander for forty years in the wilderness, so that no one who was over twenty years old and didn’t believe the divine promise was left alive and could enter into the promised land. I ask you to pay attention to the histories I have explained and don’t for your life forget how much God despises the mockery, insult, contempt, and sins shown to him and committed by the unbeliever. God says that the unbeliever slanders him and diminishes his glory and trustworthiness, and he says openly that they injure, wound, and profane him.

Each person should note that unbelief has made many thousand people—I would estimate that there were more than several hundred thousand men—unworthy of and unable to grasp the divine promise and comfort and killed them. Even Aaron and Moses had to die and didn’t try out the enjoyment or fruit of the divine promise.

6. In short, all is lost and it doesn’t help anyone to hear evangelical talk or to understand its gracious and favorable messages if he doesn’t believe, Hebrews 4[:2–3]. No one can come to any peace or rest; as it is written, “I have sworn to him that if he is to enter into my rest […he must believe],” and so if someone hears God’s word, he shouldn’t harden his heart, that is, he shouldn’t be unbelieving, for unbelief causes unfitness, unworthiness, and a hard heart, and it brings God’s anger and wrath.

7. Therefore no one should think how to make himself worthy and receptive for this sacrament through prayer, fasting, confession, chastisements, and the like, for even if you did all these things, together with having all the repentance and good practices in the world, [a4r] and still lacked faith, you would be unworthy of this sacrament and not at all fit for it.

8. You should also not fear sin, because Christ came to redeem his people from their sins and purify them, Matthew 1[:21]. Christ doesn’t call any of the righteous but only sinners, Matthew 9[:13]. Christ instituted the sacrament only for sinners. Therefore your sins should incite and drive you to run to this sacrament.

9. Even if you haven’t confessed, you should go joyfully in good confidence, hope, and faith, and receive this sacrament, for it must always be true that faith alone makes us holy and righteous. This is always true, “Your faith has saved you” [Luke 17:19], and “For the one who believes, all things are possible,” Mark 9[:23].

10. He who believes little obtains little. Anyone who believes strongly and much will obtain much. As Christ says, “May it be done to you as you believe and as you will,” Matthew 8[:13] and 15[:28].

11. Sin shouldn’t make you shy away, for Moses says, “You shouldn’t be afraid, for the Egyptians whom you now see you will see no longer. God works and fights for you; you should stand still and be silent,” Exodus 14[:13–14]. You will no longer see and fear sin when you receive this sacrament in true faith, for even if your conscience oppresses and accuses you, God is greater and more than your heart, and he knows all things, 1 John 3[:20].

12. Stand freely and manfully in your faith, don’t fear any deed and misdeed. God gives to all those who call on him in faith and doesn’t hold their sins against them, James 1[:5]. You shouldn’t think, “I have often angered God, or I have fallen away from him many times, and so he will say to me, ‘Should I help you? Should I be gracious to you? You have done this and that,’” as angry men at times speak to those who have moved them to anger. No, God is gracious, good, merciful, patient, and forgives evils, Jonah 4[:2], [a4v] and he remembers them no more, Isaiah 43[:25], and he doesn’t hold any believer’s guilt and villainies against him.

13. Remember only that you shouldn’t approach with unbelief when you want to receive the sacrament, for God will say to you, “Because you haven’t believed, you aren’t worthy of my comfort and won’t see the fruit and increase.” Note what Christ said to the one who wasn’t wearing wedding clothes: “Throw him into the outer darkness” [Matt. 22:13]. You can show no greater scorn to God in this sacrament, you can’t injure and diminish him more strongly than when you don’t believe him, as shown above in articles 2, 3, 4, and 5.

13. Finally, Christ says, “Whoever believes in the Son of God will not be condemned; whoever does not believe is already condemned, because he hasn’t believed in the name of the only-begotten Son of God,” John 3[:18]. This faith grasps the word of Christ, so that a Christ-believing person grasps together the Christian words and promises. Therefore he says, “Whoever hears what I say and believes him who sent me, he has eternal life and will not enter into condemnation,” John 5[:24], and that is why he says, “Who keeps my word will never see death for eternity,” John 8[:51].

15. Thus fitness and worthiness consist in faith alone, so I can say nothing else to those who want to receive the sacrament than what Moses said, “Fear not. Stand and you will see the great miracle of God,” Exodus 14[:13], and Jehoshaphat, 2 Chronicles 20[:15], “Only stand in good confidence, and you will become sure and find divine aid.”

16. Now someone might ask, “What should I believe in this sacrament? And on what should I rely?” Answer: You should believe the words of Christ, the two gospels that Christ spoke to his companions at table, namely these: “My body is given for you,” and “My blood is shed for you for the forgiveness of sins.” These are the two promises that you should accept in your heart and [b1r] must believe, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken them. If you don’t believe them, then you must die and are spiritually dead before you eat the bread and wine of the Lord, just as Aaron died because he didn’t believe the divine mouth, Numbers 22 [20:24]. Anyone who doesn’t grasp these words in faith is wholly unworthy of this sacrament and diminishes Christ’s honor. He injures him and mocks him when he sits at his table and remembers the Lord as the Jews and Judas Iscariot remembered him, not as the disciples did.

17. Therefore you should consider seriously how Christ speaks to you and what he says to you. In short, this promise, “My body is broken or given for you,” promises to all men a harmless death and a joyful resurrection. For Christ died for us so that he could destroy death, as it is written, “Oh death, I will become your death; I will bite and strike you, death,” Hosea 13[:14]. Christ makes us sure that no death can lead us to damnation if we can believe that he has killed our death. And so death becomes a gateway and path to a better life and leads us not to hell or damnation but to life. Anyone who knows this will find death sweet and pleasant, acceptable and dear, although before it was bitter and horrible to him. You receive this fruit from this promise, “My body is given for you.” You also obtain the sure hope of a joyful resurrection, for Christ says that his body was given for us. Christ kills our death with his death and brings us resurrection with his resurrection, just as we have been buried with Christ and have participated in his death. So we have risen with him in sure hope and will also surely rise again. Christ has shown us this, John 6[:40, 54], saying, “Whoever believes in me has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.” Likewise, “Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life.” From this promise of Christ we draw this and other salutary fruits, [b1v] such as the fulfilling of the law and daily bearing the cross of Christ, and in sum, all kinds of benefits, etc., which I can’t list now.

18. The sign of bread effects nothing other than certainty and assurance of this promise, so that in the bread one should be certain and sure that God graciously wants to give him all that he has promised. You should think, “Now I am certain and sure that Christ has said to me, ‘My body is given for you,’ and I am sure that death won’t harm me but leads to a better and desirable life. Likewise, I am so sure and desirous of the future life that I don’t heed death on account of this desire. I’m like someone who sees a great treasure through a hard rock but because of his great joy he doesn’t feel his work or effort when he splits the rock. I know that I will come to eternal life through death; why then should I fear the bitterness of death, why shouldn’t I be comforted in my struggle with it, why shouldn’t I gladly test it?”

19. The bread that is eaten also makes you certain that through Christ you can escape the wrath and curse of the law, because Christ became a curse for all believers, Galatians 3[:13]. You must think and say, “I know that I am blessed in Christ and that the law can no longer kill me, for Christ has made me share in all of his righteousness and the fulfillment of the law.”

20. And so in future I should be sure that the harm of the cross won’t harm me, for Christ stands before me and bears the same cross that he has given and laid upon me. In sum, I must be sure that no devil, no hell, and no evil can harm me.

21. If it occurs to you that God punishes in righteousness into the fourth generation, you should also remember that God wants the life of men much more than their death. Take to heart the fact that Jonah feared God’s mercy so much that he didn’t want to proclaim the destruction of the city of Nineveh, saying, “I know that you are a good, merciful, and patient God [b2r] and you forgive evils, and so I fled and didn’t want to preach your threats,” Jonah 4[:2].

22. The gospel (which applies to the drinking vessel or cup) brings you forgiveness of sins, if you believe. For Christ says, “My blood is shed for you for the forgiveness of sins.” This saying purifies everyone who believes it, for faith alone makes God’s word useful to those who accept the divine promise in faith, Hebrews 4[:2]. If you accept God’s comforting promise with faith, you will become pure and clean, as Christ testifies, saying, “You are now clean because of the words that I have spoken to you,” John 15[:3]. God’s word purifies and sanctifies all who receive it in faith. Therefore Christ says, “Oh Father, sanctify them through your truth” [John 17:17]. See how Christ implores and asks his father to sanctify his disciples through his truth. And he answers the heart that might ask, “What is the truth?” saying, “Your statement or word is the truth that sanctifies.” Now hear what Christ says next, “I sanctify myself for them, so that they will also be sanctified through the truth” [John 17:19]. Here note the unfathomable joy that Christ proclaims to his disciples. What can a disciple of Christ hear that is more consoling than what Christ says: “I sanctify myself for the sake of my disciples”? For he here speaks privately with this word what he says publicly in John 3[:16] and elsewhere, “Anyone who believes in me will be saved,” as if he wanted to say, “You don’t need any work or effort; there is nothing on earth that you need except that you look at me and believe that I have been sent by my father to save the world.” See how Christ makes you share in his blessedness, if you believe. See how he sanctifies and purifies you through his promise. See even more that Christ stands before you and lifts from you all your labor and takes away all of your doubt, so you can know for sure that he will save you through his word. Now God must forgive sin if he [b2v] sanctifies; as it is written, “Blessed are those who have their sins forgiven” [Ps. 32:1]. Anyone who believes the proclamation of divine truth and grace is holy, and it is impossible that Christ doesn’t say to him, “Stand up, your faith has saved you. Stand up, your sins have been forgiven” [Matt. 9:2–7]. But anyone who doesn’t believe the word injures God, takes away from his holiness, mocks his word, and is the pig that tramples a pearl under its feet and the dog that howls against these divine statements and attacks with its teeth the one proclaiming them [Matt. 7:6].

Concerning this, you tell me, “If I should drink the cup and its promise without first confessing and were allowed to do so, then I would go sinfully and like a pig to this sacrament.” Answer: Slowly, dear friend! I ask you whether Christ speaks truly, “Take and drink. This cup is the new testament in my blood, which is shed for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins.” Likewise, whether Christ speaks rightly, “Sanctify them through your word” [John 17:17]. If you believe that Christ made these statements rightly and truly, then you must also believe that he forgives sin if you grasp his word that he has given to the cup. Furthermore, if you want to obtain forgiveness of sins first in confession, what do you want with the sacrament? In addition, if you want to have forgiveness of sins before you receive the sacrament and then use the sacrament, then you must not believe Christ’s words. And it would be more useful for you to drink pig’s sweat than to drink from the Lord’s cup, or more useful for you to eat donkey dung than to eat the bread of Christ. In addition, if someone doesn’t believe the words of Christ, he is like the pig that tramples the noble jewel in the filth or manure. Again, even if forgiveness of secret sins were obtained in auricular confession (which I don’t believe), you must still carry the sin with you that the sacrament can take away from you. For the promise points to the forgiveness of sins, which this word can’t forgive if there are no sins. Furthermore, these words, “All that you bind shall be bound, [b3r] all that you loose shall be loosed,” [Matt. 18:18], pertain to public sin, and even if other sins are included, you can’t give me a more certain word of absolution than these cited above about the cup. You also can’t show me any more encouraging and more precious words than the words concerning the cup, because Christ left them behind as his testament and commended them to us as his last will, and he spoke them to us before his bitter passion. You must either consider this point as unimportant or not believe it, if you can’t or won’t seek the forgiveness of sins in the gospel of the cup.

In short, I would advise someone to flee from this sacrament if he can’t believe that he can or will⁷ receive forgiveness of sins through the sacrament of the cup, for God says to Moses, “Because Aaron did [not] believe my mouth, he will not enter into the land that I have given to the children of Israel,” Numbers 20[:24]. With this God teaches us that someone becomes unworthy of his promise when and at the moment he begins to doubt the divine promise. God wants to say, “Because you don’t believe what I speak to you and say, therefore you will lose my comfort and you must be punished, just as Aaron had to die.”

It is a lamentable and horrible thing that I believe a priest when he absolves me and I can’t believe him when he speaks the word of Christ in the manner, form, and way that Christ says it for the forgiveness of sins. It is nothing but a devil’s game and anti-Christian teaching that I shouldn’t grant the word of the cup as much validity as the invented formula of a wretched priest, especially since they have heard only the form of their authority from Christ, which says, “What you bind is bound and what you loose is loosed” [Matt. 16:19]. This is a form and word of authority that they and laypeople may and can absolve and bind. But I would gladly like to see or hear that they can show me the formula and words for their absolution. I know well what formula and words Paul used in rejecting and separating the notorious sinner, [b3v] whom he gave over to the devil for the destruction of his flesh, 1 Corinthians 5[:5]. Paul also took his formula and words from Christ, as is written for us in Matthew 18[:17]. It follows from this that no priest can bind without a Christian assembly, for Paul says, “Congregatis vobis et spiritu meo,” 1 Corinthians 5[:4], and Christ said, “Dic ecclesiae, si non audierit ecclesiam, etc.”⁸ It continues, “All that you bind or loose is bound or loosed,” Matthew 18[:19]. So Christ gave Peter the keys when he answered for the whole group, Matthew 23 [16:16–20].

23. Now even if I conceded that private confession were divine and good, you must still confess to me that the words of the cup also forgive sins and that someone obtains no less forgiveness of sins in the cup than in confession. Because this is so, I think that those who turn their eyes to confession have little trust in these words of the cup. To the extent that they trust in confession and cling to confession, to that extent they are alienated from the sacrament. For they make their confession because they don’t seek forgiveness of sins in the reception of the sacrament. This is dangerous and harmful, although the fleshly man can’t grasp it, for their god is the pope; him they fear and him they follow. If the Lord were their God and if they feared and followed God, then the gospel of the drink would be a sweet, dear, friendly, and living word. The apostles were sinners like us and they didn’t go to confession.

24. I should stop, but I have to point out that God’s word, accepted in faith, cleanses us. Christ says, “You are clean on account of the words that I have spoken to you,” John 15[:3]. The word of God is clean, and so it must make him clean who grasps it. Yes, the word of God brings forth and makes new, James 1[:18], “He gave us birth in the word of his truth so that we were the beginning of his spiritual creatures.” See how God gives birth to us and makes us spiritual creatures in his word. Peter also says this, [b4r] 1 Peter 1[:23], “We have been born from an imperishable seed through the speaking of the living God.”

25. But anyone who has a hard heart, that is, who is unbelieving, should guard himself from this sacrament, for he seeks Christ as Judas did, who betrayed the Lord, and as the Jews, who wanted to capture Christ and fell to the earth when Christ said to them, “I am Jesus of Nazareth, whom you seek” [John 18:4–6]. For (may God preserve us) when we don’t believe that the word of Christ effects in us what it proclaims, then it says, John 8[:37], “You seek me in order to kill me, and so my word has no place within you.” This text and others I will explain in time. Peace be with you. Amen.

God be praised.