John 6:55-58.
For my flesh is the right food, and my blood is the right drink. He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, abideth in me, and I in him. As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father: so he that eateth me, the same shall live also because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven, not as your fathers ate manna and died. Whoever eats this bread will live forever.
(1) This gospel has two minds. One was given by Christ himself; the other by the pope, or rather the devil. The first, which Christ himself gives, is implied by the words in the beginning of the gospel, where the Lord says, "My flesh is meat, and my blood is drink. He that eateth of my flesh, and drinketh of my blood, abideth in me, and I in him." This is a strong promise that whoever eats the food must remain in Christ and live forever. The other understanding that the pope has given him is that he has drawn on the sacrament of the altar, which understanding must be used with shame. And if we want to understand this gospel of the bread of the altar, as our papists have done and instituted this feast with it, we give the sword into the hands of the Bohemians, so that they cut us through the heads. For they conclude
*That is: Corpus Christi. - This sermon appeared in a rather modified form in 1524 under the title: "Ein Sermon auf das Evangelium Joh. 6.", as well as in the 27 sermons from 1523. Cf. Erl. A. 15, 368.D. Red.
strongly against us from this gospel and the whole chapter, that we should enjoy and use both forms, against the order and appointment of the pope. For thus sounds the text before this gospel: "Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat of the flesh of the Son of man, and drink of his blood, ye have no life in you."
What do they want to say about this? I would like to hear our popes, bishops, and their bunch, what they want to say against this? For we may not deny that this gospel is to be understood in their understanding of the sacrament of the altar, since we celebrate this feast for it in the whole world; nor do we want to call the Bohemians heretics, because they take the sacrament in both forms. Let each one judge for himself how it rhymes. I mean, that means started! So one should dig in one's heels. This is how it goes when one wants to give the Scriptures a different [forced *] meaning. Therefore, even though it is clearly stated here: "Whoever is to be
*) So 6; e has "forced". D. Red.
If anyone eats bread, he will live forever", the text forces that it must be understood from another food. It must be another food, which the Lord gives, than the sacrament of the altar, of which the pope interprets it. For the sacrament can be used to great harm. St. Paul cannot be muzzled, for he says in 1 Cor. 11:27: "Whosoever eateth unworthily of this bread, or drinketh of the cup of the Lord, is guilty of the body and blood of the Lord"; and soon after, v. 29, 30: "Whosoever eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh judgment for himself, that he may not discern the body of the Lord. Therefore there are also so many sick and unhealthy among you, and a good part sleep." All these words mean that one can take the sacrament unworthily, but the food of which the Lord speaks here can never be received unworthily.
(3) Therefore this gospel may not rhyme with the bread of the altar, for it has too clear a promise in it. Therefore let it remain in its right simple sense, and do not apply it to today's feast, as the pope has done, as he does with all other histories. If someone looks at today's histories, he will find an abomination in them. For in them are the most beautiful and most lovely histories and sayings, which should be a cheap relief to a stupid conscience; they have all drawn them to this feast, and yet not a letter rhymes with it. One blames Thomas Aquinas, who did it. I do not know; it is almost like his spirit and writing. So they have taken the text out of our mouths and painted it a different color, so that no one should ever grasp the right understanding.
4 We find ourselves in such blindness because of our sin. In times past, when our Lord God was more merciful to us, He sought us out at home when we had sinned, with pestilence, famine, war and other plagues, which were merciful plagues and the Father's rue; as He says of Israel in the 89th Psalm v. 31-35: "If their children forsake My law, and walk not in My statutes, if they profane My statutes, and do not walk in My statutes, and do not walk in My statutes.
I will punish their transgression with a rod, and their iniquity with plagues. But I will not turn away my kindness from him, neither will I fail in my faith. I will not profane my covenant, nor change that which has gone out from my lips." There you see how gracious and kind God has shown Himself to the transgressors among His people. Now he strikes us with blindness and raging madness, which is the greatest and most severe plague; just as Moses, among other plagues, would also proclaim the same to the Jews, if the despisers and transgressors of God's word were to pass over, saying: "The Lord will strike you with madness, blindness and raging of the heart", Deut. 28, 28.
(5) We have been under the pontiff in such blindness, and the pope deals with nothing but such blind pieces, that he falsifies the Scripture, gives it another mind, draws it into his fool's work; as he has also done with this gospel, which he draws here to this feast, and there would not be one letter in it that rhymes with this feast. Therefore I have never been more hostile to any feast than to this feast; only because the pope so misused the Scriptures for it. He pretended that he could not celebrate it with his dignity on Green Thursday, so he postponed it to this day; but that was not his opinion. This feast was therefore begun to confirm the popes' masses, for the pope's reign is thus established. We will now leave it at that; enough has been done and written about how we are seduced by the pope; whoever wants to turn back on it may do so. But I have advised that this feast should be completely abolished; for it is the most harmful feast of all, as it is throughout the whole year. On no festival is God and His Christ more blasphemed than on this day, and especially with the procession, which should be stopped above all things. [For then one does all dishonor and dishonor to the holy Sacrament, that one only carries it around for a spectacle, and drives vain idolatry with it.] But that we do not
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find together in vain, I will run over the gospel lately, and show the right mind in it. Christ spoke to the Jews:
My flesh is the right food, and my blood is the right drink.
(6) Eating and drinking is nothing else but believing in the Lord Christ, who gave his flesh and blood for my sake, that he might redeem me from sin, death, the devil, hell, and all unhappiness. Such faith can never be without life; therefore he who believes must live and be righteous, as Habakkuk Cap. 2, 4: "The righteous shall live by faith. Therefore eating is done in the heart and not with the mouth. Eating with the heart does not deceive, but eating with the mouth deceives; eating with the mouth ceases, but the other continues forever without ceasing. For the heart always feeds and feeds on faith in Christ. You see clearly that these words are not to be understood of the sacrament of the altar.
007 But what is this that he presseth so hard, almost in the whole chapter, saying continually: He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, shall live and be saved; he that eateth not my flesh, and drinketh not my blood, shall die and be damned. This is so that this means, the Lord Christ, is not taken out of the way; for he alone has been presented to us as a mediator and seat of grace by God the Father, so that whoever wants to be saved must do so through this Son, and through nothing else. It is true that mere faith makes us blessed and costs us nothing: but nevertheless it cost God something, and so much that His only Son had to become man and redeem us; which redemption took place through the shedding of Christ's blood, as St. Paul beautifully says to the Romans Cap. 3, 23-26, where he says: "There is no difference here, they are all sinners, and lack the glory they should have in God; and are justified without merit, by His grace, through the redemption that was accomplished by Christ; whom God has appointed a gracious man.
through faith in his blood, that he might prove the righteousness that is before him, in that he forgave the sins that were committed before under divine patience, which he bore to prove at those times the righteousness that is before him; that he alone might be righteous, justifying him who is of faith in Jesus. So I must direct my faith, so that I do not ever push the means out of the way, and do not intend to come before God without such food. For it is decided that God will accept nothing except in this Son; hence the words in John, especially that Christ says to ask the Father in His name, and we will be heard, John 14:13, 15:7, 16, 16:23.
(8) That this is the right understanding of the gospel, namely, that it is to be understood from spiritual eating and drinking, is indicated by the words which the Lord says at the end of the chapter: "It is the Spirit that gives life; the flesh is not useful. The words that I speak are spirit and life," John 6:63, by which Christ means that the bodily eating of the flesh is not useful, but to believe that this flesh is the Son of God, came from heaven for my sake, and shed His blood for me; this is useful and is life. Therefore, to eat the flesh of the Son of God and to drink his blood, as I have said, is nothing else than that I believe that his flesh was given for me and that his blood was shed for me, and that he overcame sin, death, the devil, hell and all misfortune for my good. From such faith then arises a great mighty confidence in him, and a defiance and boldness against all adversity, so that I may henceforth fear nothing, neither sin, death, devil, nor hell, because I know that my Lord has thrown them under his feet and has overcome them for me to good.
(9) This is what the spiritual meal does, not the bodily meal; the spiritual and bodily meal in the heart does, not the bodily meal in the sacrament, which is received without faith. And by no means think that it is sufficient if you
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of the body and blood of Christ outwardly in the sacrament; just as it is not enough when one gives oats to a horse, as if it should be fed on it and should let it take the right oats; it wants to have the right oats. So it is here also: although the sacrament is right food, but whoever does not take it in the heart by faith, it does not help him; for it makes no one pious nor believing, but it requires that he be pious and believing beforehand. Therefore, if one believes that Christ is the true Son of God, come from heaven, and shed his blood, made me blessed, righteous and alive, I am full and have eaten this food rightly; then I change into this food and the food changes again into me, as happens with natural food. This is what the Lord means when he says:
He that eateth of my flesh, and drinketh of my blood, abideth in me, and I in him.
10. *) For just as the bodily food that the mouth takes in is transformed into man's being, so that it loses its form and becomes blood and flesh, so also when the soul grasps God's word of Christ with the heart and takes it in, faith does not remain idle, but works through and transforms man, so that he is completely incorporated into Christ, and Christ into him.
(11) How does this transformation and incarnation take place? First, faith, based on this sermon, does not hold to a spiritual body, but to the natural flesh and blood, and believes that it is the flesh and blood of God's Son, given and shed for us: that is, eating His flesh and blood. After this then follows the high rich change, of which I have often said that in
us, and we abide in him, and become one cake with him: he with all his goods shall become mine, and I with all my sins and iniquities shall become his body. For if he abide in me, I must have all that he is and has: eternal life, righteousness, wisdom, strength, power, and the goods of all, of which there is no end nor number, that I may subject myself to them and presume them as my own; therefore faith brings with it conquest of the world, death, sin, the devil, and all misfortune. Such excellent things have the words in them, which no man's heart can reach or comprehend.
12 Again, if I remain in him, then however frail I am, however I struggle, snort and lack, it cannot harm me; for I am carried with my sins and weakness by and in the eternal righteousness and strength. Therefore, because I am in Christ and God, I can have no sin so great as to condemn me, no death can devour me, no devil nor the gates of hell can overpower me. For though I am full of sin, yet God must say: These are the sins of my Son. And because he must spare them and cannot be angry, he cannot be angry with me. And as Christ rules and reigns over all these things: so I also become a Lord, that I may trample under foot sin, death, the devil, and all violence. Behold, such excellent things have these words in them, which no man's heart can comprehend or understand, wherein is our highest divine wisdom and greatest treasure, hid from all the world.
13, Therefore it also belongs, which I have often preached, that the highest wisdom and art is among Christians, that one can send oneself into the weak Christ, and see how he is a sinner in us, and lets himself be eaten and drunk in us. The hypocrites and works saints, and we who think we know the gospel all too well, cannot get there. We think that all things among us should be pure and clean, and that they should work: but the gospel does not make us pious or clean, as the law does, which men have only for saints; but makes us remain sinners, and only deal in sins, esteeming it the highest virtue and piety, that one should bear another, as Christ has done to us.
2256 D. 375-377. on the day of Christ's Holy Trinity, W. XI, 3004-S007. 2257
stus has borne. For it will not come to that; you will always see that both you and others have infirmities and faults; then the wise men of the law and prudent reason must conclude and say, "It is not so, there is no Christ there. But the gospel says, "You are weak and a sinner, but strong and devout in Christ," and teaches, "Bear one another's burdens," Gal. 6:2. For this reason no one may look upon a Christian as a true mirror of godliness, for Christ Himself hides and clothes Himself in sins, weakness, poverty and misery.
(14) For as ours is not one that hath not much to bear, which others must bear; and not light things, but burdens that weigh down and oppress: so must we also help others to bear, and to bear well that which they lack in life, if they be not contrary to the gospel. So the same change goes on among us, that one takes upon himself the other's sin, weakness, dishonor, poverty, and adds to it his virtue, strength, honor, wealth. But there must be people who have the Spirit and are in Christ beforehand through faith; to the others it is preached in vain. Follow on:
As the living Father hath sent me, and I live because of the Father: so he that eateth of me, the same shall live also because of me. This is the bread that came from heaven. Not as your fathers ate bread from heaven and died. He that eateth of this bread shall live for ever.
(15) These are vain promises, for surely the life is within, and the heart must speak: Well, if this is the Son of God, come down from heaven, and become man for my sake, and died for me, and slew death, then my sins must be forgiven. If then the sins are gone, death can do me no harm, and I shall surely live with him forever.
This then is a right food, [from which the soul feeds, grows fat and strong *]; therefore the food must not be an outward food, but an eternal food, which never ceases. This then is nothing else but believing, as ye have heard. And this is also the meaning of the saying that Christ said before to the Jews John 6:29: "This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He has sent. If then we believe that Christ is the Son of God and was given for us, we have life [in Christ].
(16) This then is the sum of this whole gospel. If you believe with all your heart that Christ became man and took your sin upon Himself, overcame hell, strangled death, swallowed up everything that could harm you, and reconciled you to God the Father, then you eat His flesh and drink His blood, and you will have eternal life. This is the right understanding of this gospel; and beware of the other understanding that the papists have given it. Let the Scripture remain in the right simple mind, otherwise you will hardly stand with it.
(17) Therefore you also see that they who are grossly mistaken and have erred, as the Bohemians, who have tried to force from this gospel that it is right to give the sacrament to young children, and they do give it to them. But as you have heard, the Lord does not speak of the sacrament of the altar; nor of a bodily, but of a spiritual supper, which is by faith alone in Christ; that is, eating his flesh and drinking his blood; by which faith a man is made like unto Christ, and becomes wholly one with him. We have written more about this in several books and sermons. We will now leave it at that and call upon God for mercy.
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