About September 1524.
I, Andreas Bodenstein of Carolstadt, publicly confess and make known to everyone that because of the abominable error and the poor deceived Christianity, I can no longer conceal the fact that many Christians are taking the Lord's bread and cup to great harm, and by their blind and unworthy practice are forfeiting the glorious Lord's Supper and making themselves guilty of the death of Christ, and are losing the great righteousness of Christ, 1) which Christ had and communicated to all believers. Therefore I must break out and punish myself in my previous letter about the Sacrament, and tell the truth. Although others should have done it justly before me, who are considered to be the princes of the
1) So set by us instead: Dungeons.
Scribes 2) and have attached us to them in such a way that we should neither write nor do anything physically before them; But because they keep behind the bush, and lay or stick themselves into pits and stakes for the simple, I must confess the truth of God and the high righteousness of Christ, at the cost of life or death, asking that none of you look to me or to any other, but let each one look to his inward testimony of the Spirit, but if he needs outward and written testimony for himself or others, let him look diligently to the Scriptures, which I will guide, for I ever guide them from me to God's true judgment, as John did when he said: It is he,
2) This is aimed at Luther.
I am not; he is in your means, whom you do not know. If he finds that this instruction is right and that he is helped out of his peril, then he praises God and grasps the truth. But if there is anyone to whom this admonition is contrary, let him be at liberty to instruct me and to ascribe something better to the world. I also want to ask anyone who thinks that I am going astray to teach me amicably, or even with sharp words, whether God will give me grace to recognize the error I think I have committed and to correct myself.
(2) Where I shall call the Lord's bread and cup in the sacrament, let no man count it that I have read it so called in the scriptures, but that I will speak with children, that they may hear me.
Whether the Sacrament forgives sin.
(3) It is a common and grievous pity that our Christians seek forgiveness of sins in the Sacrament. Namely, when their conscience, as they speak, is troubled or grieved because of their sin, they send to receive the reverend Sacrament, and when they receive it, they are satisfied by a false delusion and faith, which I will call false, until they indicate a word of their faith in the Scripture which they trust. Since 1) faith is from hearing the sermon, but preaching is from the word of God, Rom. 10, 17. Therefore no one should give them faith until they preach a word of faith, indicating that the Lord's bread is a sacrament, or forgives sin. And when they have preached and signified a word of true faith, then ye shall cleave unto the plain truth, and not unto their persons. You must also understand them from their speeches, whether they pretend true and divine things.
(4) The faith that pretends or prefigures a thing to itself, as it wants it to be, is a magical faith, and basically a false light and unreasonable knowledge. Faith in Christ must be after the manner of Christ, recognizing Christ as and what he is; not making Christ into what or how he wants; otherwise faith would present him with a fictitious image. And if he had long known and believed, he would not know that he believed a false and invented thing. So, I say, whoever makes his conscience a peace and forgiveness of sins in that which God does not make a peace and forgiveness of sins?
1) i. sintemal.
If a man has put himself under the bondage of sins, he does not have peace and forgiveness of sins because he is satisfied with a false comfort, but he will and must be put to shame all the way, even though he stands peacefully for a while.
5 Accordingly, all men must be put to shame and ridicule who, without the word of faith, attribute to the sacrament peace of conscience and forgiveness of sins, or make the sacrament a pledge to assure our conscience [2 Cor. 1:22, Eph. 1:14], because they do not find a letter of it in the words of faith.
But that this is not right, I will shortly take Paul's teaching into account, which he wrote about the worthy use of the Lord's bread and cup in 1 Cor. 11. For I have written about this matter in its breadth and width in a booklet on conversation 2) and in other books.
7 Paul says why, how and when we enjoy the Lord's bread and cup worthily and usefully, and immediately writes that the prophets and apostles wrote about the knowledge of the body and blood of Christ.
(8) Whoever teaches otherwise or produces a different gospel is an exile and an accursed one [Gal. 1:8, 9], and his teaching is also an exiled, abominable and accursed teaching.
Text: 1 Cor. 11.
As often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you shall proclaim the death of the Lord until he comes.
(9) This form and manner should be observed by men, and after it they should eat the Lord's bread and drink the cup, for Paul has given it as a rule by which all people who want to partake of the Lord's Supper must be guided.
(10) Now it is to be noted that this proclamation is the fruit of one tree, namely, the remembrance of the body and blood of Christ, of which Paul soon spoke above, introducing the words of the Lord Jesus Christ. For everything must spring from the foundation of the heart and be created rightly in the inwardness, which is done by outward works or things. God judges the heart, and the inner man is a precious good and noble thing in God's eyes, if he is skillful, as God wants to have him skillful.
2) This refers to paper No. 3 in the appendix of this volume.
Therefore God says through Isaiah [29:13] and Christ himself [Matth. 15:8]: The people praise me in their mouths, but their hearts are far from me. Therefore the proclamation must flow out of a good hidden well, if it is just. Paul indicated the same well and reason to the Romans on the 10th when he said: "He who believes from the heart is justified, but with the mouth one confesses to salvation.
(12) It is quite impossible for any outward thing to be righteous or justified unless the heart is first justified, as it is written: He that believeth not hath in himself a justified soul, Hab. 2:4. To the unbeliever all things are unclean and defiled, Titus 1:15. Again, to the believer all things are clean, good and justified. The eyes of God look upon faith, Jer. 5, 3. If a man has a right heart and a right spirit, he pleases God, and his outward confession also pleases God.
13 Therefore I say that the proclamation of the death of Christ, which is an outward work or thing, must spring from a secret and hidden heart, where it is good and pleasing to God.
14 Therefore, we must seek the same ground on which 1) the outward eloquence of Christ's death stands. But the reason is easy to find 2) if you are desirous of it, Paul did not want to leave it undisclosed.
What is the same reason, you ask? Answer: memory.
(1 Cor. 11.) For the Lord Jesus, on the night that he was betrayed, took bread, and gave thanks, and brake it, saying, Take, eat. This is the body of me, which is broken for you. This do in remembrance of me. Likewise also the cup after supper, saying, This cup, the new testament in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink, in remembrance of me.
(16) There Paul lays the foundation of the proclamation of the death of Christ, out of which this fruit of our lips flows, that is, the proclamation which edifies and improves other people, and for this reason is called a confession of salvation.
(17) Whoever then will outwardly justify the death of Christ by proclaiming or confessing it, must before all have gone into its foundation, and come forth from the foundation or inwardness, and his heart must bear this fruit of his lips, namely, the proclamation, as a tree 3) bears its fruit from the root.
1) In the old edition: from.
2) So from us-put instead of: "liederlich", which by the way at Carlstadt and otherwise often stands for "easily".
3) So put by us instead: Farmer.
What memory is.
18) Memory is a fervent and loving art of knowing the body and blood of Christ. No one can ever remember that which he has not known.
19) But the knowledge must be formed and put into practice according to the opposite 4), that is, to recognize the body and blood of Christ in such a way and with the causes, as Christ gave his body and shed his blood for our sin [Gal. 1:4].
020 Wherefore Christ said plainly, Eat the bread. For this body is the body which is given for you; and this is my blood, which is to be shed for you. 5) Whether he wanted to say (Luc. 22.) (although the disciples did not learn this until Pentecost): Moses and the prophets wrote to you and all men about a body that would be given for you, which would be the seed of a woman, and would crush the head of the serpent (Gen. 3, 15.), which would also stretch out its hand for the wood of life:
My body, or, this my body, is the same of which they all prophesied, which shall be given for the world: therefore shall ye eat my bread in remembrance of me. Likewise of his blood Christ says, or would have said: Moses and the prophets have written of a blood which shall make a new testament, and shall be shed for sin. Behold! My blood is the same blood that shall be shed for you in remission of sins. In this way the given body of Christ and his shed blood would have to be recognized, if anyone wanted to have a justified remembrance and an unpunishable proclamation of the death of Christ. If the memory is not justified in this way, then Mosiah and all the prophets are lacking, from which Christ firmly points out and says: Christ had to suffer, shed his blood, die and rise again, and thus enter into his glory (Luc. 24, 26.); as it is written in the prophets.
(21) Those who have the right knowledge of Christ have righteousness at the bottom of their hearts, as
4) Counter-image - model, type. The remark in Jäger, Carlstadt, p. 336, fits here: "For the mystics, the historical Christ is predominantly a mere model and type of our spiritual life.
5) From these words one recognizes that, according to the interpretation of Carlstadt, Christ with the words "This is my body" did not point to the bread, but to himself, to the body, of which Moses and the prophets prophesied. This is also shown by the immediately following execution.
Paul says: Faith is the righteousness of the heart (Rom. 10, 10.). Yes, this is true, if it is not a frozen or dead knowledge, but a fervent, heated, busy and powerful art of Christ, which transforms the knower into the known life and death of Christ, and for Christ's sake wants to do or not do everything that Christ wants. But that the righteous faith in Christ is a knowledge of the death of Christ and its causes is shown by Isaiah (Cap. 53), who first depicts the delivered body of the Messiah in his own form, and then he speaks: In his art or knowledge the righteous man will make many of his servants righteous.
Twenty-two you ask: When and in what form will Christ be known, so as to justify his art and knowledge? Answer: Look at Isaiah, and you will find that Christ was sacrificed as a lamb to death, because he wanted it: because he was wounded for our sin and was held as a despised and cursed one, whom God had rejected etc. And when Isaias has presented Christ thus crucified, he says: In His art He will make righteous; that the Christ, thus mocked, wounded, and raised, makes righteous. This is what Christ says: "The Son of Man must be lifted up, so that everyone who looks at Him lifted up or believes in Him may be saved and not perish. Joh. 3, 14. f. This is what Paul says: Through one man's obedience many men have been justified (Rom. 5, 18.1 ). Understand the obedience of which it is written: He became obedient unto death (Phil. 2, 8.). That is why he first brought the name of Jesus into the highest essence in his obedience to the death he suffered, so that Christ was called a Beatificator. This is the reason why Paul (Phil. 3, 8. ff.) so highly esteems and values the exuberant knowledge of Christ, and says that righteousness comes only through the knowledge of Jesus Christ; and neatly declares that the righteousness that comes from God is in the knowledge of Christ, and in the power of His resurrection, and in the fellowship of His sufferings, so that one becomes similar and like His death. Therefore Paul also writes: I know not but Jesus crucified. From this it follows that the art of the resurrected Jesus makes one righteous.
23 Recently, the knowledge or art of the given body of Christ and his shed blood is the first reason to take the Lord's Supper. But you must see to it that you do not make of the Lord's body and blood vain flesh, which is good for nothing.
1) Wrong in the old edition: Rom. 4.
is. You must have before your eyes and understand in the depth of your heart the great invisible love, the abundant obedience, the excellent innocence of Christ, and the like, and you will be justified, redeemed from sins; and so you must hold the words of Christ, "This is the body of mine (of which it is prophesied), which is to be given for you! for the true and joyful gospel, which all the apostles proclaim, which was a promise before, and is now no longer a promise, but has ended in Christ, has become a clear gospel, as Paul says. Moses wrote long ago about the body and blood of Christ. Prophets promise the body that will be given for us; but the apostles and we proclaim the joyful message of the delivered body and shed blood of Jesus Christ, of which Christ speaks before his death.
(24) From the knowledge of Christ grows the memory of Christ, which is not a crude, cold, and lazy memory, but a fresh, fiery, and vigorous memory, which makes or gives gladness, which esteems the delivered body and shed blood of Christ, which cherishes, which gives thanks, which makes Christian, and which makes ashamed of all that is contrary to Christ. Take an example of this. Behold, if thou shouldest have died on the gallows, or on the wheel, or in the fire, and the sentence had already been pronounced against thee, and thou shouldest have gone to death, and there shouldest come one to die for thee, and set thee free by his death; wouldest thou not be eternally ashamed, if thou didst any thing that thou shouldest leave for the love of such a good friend? and again, wouldest thou not be glad, if his name were called Good? Wouldn't you say it 2) well to him forever? and if he left you something for last 3) that you should use in his memory, use it with fresh heated memory? with horror of yourself that you had done such a deed, because of which right would have strangled you, if the innocent had not taken your guilt upon himself and paid with his death. So we should also have the remembrance of the Lord, understanding and remembering from our hearts that Christ gave his body in death, and shed his blood for our sake, innocently, out of great love, out of incomparable obedience.
(25) The memorial of Christ has two parts: one is for the body given, the other for the blood shed.
2) So put by us instead of: eternal. - "To speak well" - to commemorate praisingly.
3) So put by us instead of: to last. To the last, i.e. to the farewell.
(26) He then that would partake of the Lord's Supper must look into the causes, and know why our Lord Christ shed His blood, and gave His body for us, together with the fruits, when the apostles and disciples of Christ received the Holy Ghost after the day of Pentecost, and knew the causes of the body and shed blood of Christ, 1) which the apostles' books, the histories, and the epistle to the Hebrews indicate. Behold, as Christ was a sacrifice and a priest, why he offered himself (Heb. 6. and 10.), so thou shalt surely know that by One sacrifice, One death, One body, One obedience, One innocence, One holiness, One redemption, One washing away, we have all obtained forgiveness of our sin and righteousness.
(27) Therefore it is not true that the sacrament forgives sin. It is against Moses, the prophets, the apostles, and Christ, plus a promise of Christ's suffering and high obedience. Those who seek forgiveness of their sins in the sacrament are as foolish and bad, 2) as the priests who sacrifice Christ daily for new sins; it does not take much for them to be so bad. Christ's obedience, or the will of Christ, which was the Father's will, understood (Ps. 39. Vulg. or 40.), is our justification, and cleanses the heart and forgives guilt; we want to see this more comfortably, if we continue to act on the text.
28. Now it is declared that the proclamation of the death of Christ flows from the memory of Christ, and the memory of Christ from the knowledge of the given body and shed blood of Christ; that we must know the causes, powers, and fruits of the crucified body, together with the shed blood of Christ, where the proclamation is to be right, lest our own wisdom and thoughts be found in us. Beware of the punishment of Christ, who said: O fools! do you not believe what the prophets and Moses have written about me? Of the body and blood of Christ they wrote, that Christ in his body and with his blood would wash away our sin; of the sacrament, that [it] forgives sin, none wrote. Christ also wrote to us about the body that was crucified.
1) In the old edition: "wüßten" and immediately thereafter "Episteln".
2) This refers to Luther and his followers. "Carlstadt blames his opponents for the nonsense of substituting for the once-for-all completed death of Christ on the cross, of which the words of institution speak, an alleged offering of Christ's body for the world, repeated in every celebration of the sacraments, and making Christ suffer and die not in his body but in the form of bread." Jäger, Carlstadt, p. 449 s.
No prophet, nor Christ, nor any Christian brother has written that Christ forgives sin in the sacrament. For if it could be that Christ forgave us sin in the sacrament, it would follow that we would have to recognize Christ not on the cross but in the sacrament, and that Christ would not have forgiven us sin through his body, nor would his death have been sufficient.
But that would be trampling Christ underfoot, promising His suffering, and making a lie of God the Father. Show me a small letter that the sacramental essence of the body and blood of Christ in the sacrament is useful to us for the forgiveness of sins! Christ says: My blood is poured out for the forgiveness of sins. Then I ask: Is the blood shed in the Sacrament or on the Cross? If it is poured out in the sacrament, then the glory of the cross of Christ has been taken up and is false, and Paul has become an unman who boasts of nothing but the cross of Christ. If it is shed on the gallows, we must direct our knowledge to the cross and not to the sacrament.
(30) We are truly anti-Christians, false witnesses or despisers of the passion of Christ, inasmuch as we attribute to the sacrament that which belonged to Christ on the cross. Christ says: this do in my memory; so they say: Ye shall remember the sacrament. Christ: You should remember my body, which is given, not which is now in the sacrament (as they think), but which is given on the cross. But they say: You should remember the body in the sacrament, and yet they are not able to show a hint of Scripture by which we could understand how the body and blood of Christ are in the sacrament, or why they should be in it.
31 Paul says, "As often as you eat the Lord's bread and drink his cup, you should proclaim the Lord's death. But against this they teach thus: You shall believe that Christ is in the Sacrament; you shall believe that the Sacrament forgives your sins; you shall believe that the Sacrament is a sure pledge, the forgiveness of sins and your holiness. And go with all fours into the dreadful contradiction of Christ's righteousness, love, innocence, and wisdom, which he proved by his death. Paul saith, Ye shall speak of the death of the Lord. But they say: You shall speak of the sacrament.
32. what this is "until he comes", I wrote in my Dialogo 3).
3) Paper No. 3 in the appendix of this volume.
The text follows (1 Cor. 11.):
Whosoever therefore shall eat of this bread unworthily, and drink of the cup of the Lord, shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord.
(33) Christ declared the guilt when he said, "The Son of Man departs when it is written of him; but woe to him by whom the Son of Man is betrayed (1) (Matt. 26), (and) Peter said, "You have murdered the Lord of life (Acts 3:15), 2) and have denied and thrown away your Savior. He that partaketh of the Lord's supper unworthily is guilty, as the murderers of Christ, who not only promised Christ, but strangled him.
(34) What unworthiness is and what it consists in, I will unfold through the following text, which reads thus (1 Cor. 11):
(35) He that eateth and drinketh unworthily eateth and drinketh his own judgment. Why? Because he distinguisheth not the body of the Lord. There you have the cause of unworthiness, namely, that he eats and drinks unworthily who does not distinguish the body of the Lord. Show me a little word from Paul, that he may say, He eateth the Lord's bread unworthily, who discerneth not the sacrament. I know that we must distinguish the body of the Lord. It is also true that I should sit at the Lord's table with proper manners, and take his bread and drink in the manner in which he presents it to me. But that I should keep his bread and wine as myself is not commanded me. The Lord can give me life, salvation, redemption, righteousness, and such like goods and treasures, none of which bread or drink can give me. Therefore I must not look to his bread or drink, but to him.
If I set my heart, courage, mind, and thoughts on the Lord, and am enraptured with delights in him, it will not harm me at all if I lose something of the sacrament 3) or spill it. In his knowledge, and not in his supper, lies the worthiness, unworthiness and guilt of death etc., standing on the ignorance of the body and blood of Christ, or on the carelessness that does not distinguish that it should distinguish.
37 These words "do not discriminate" may also be pronounced thus: do not judge well,
1) The bracketed words are added by us.
2) In the old edition wrong: Apost. 2.
3) So put by us instead of the incomprehensible to us: verreret.
or: not to recognize exactly. For Paul bases his whole teaching on the speech of Christ, who thus says: This is my body, which is given for you; this is my blood, which etc. And he wants to show, as he does in all the epistles, that Christ said: My body is the body that is given for you; and: This is my blood, which is to be poured out for you. One had to come, who had to present his body and blood for our sake; we have to understand the same body and blood, if we want to escape from destruction and be saved. We must eat His flesh and drink His blood (John 6:53) and know that we cannot be saved without His knowledge, judgment, judgment or discernment.
038 Whosoever shall not in this manner separate the body of Christ from all other bodies, and set it apart above all bodies, and eat the Lord's supper thereat, shall be guilty of his death and of judgment. For Christ has given us his bread and his cup to eat and to drink in remembrance of him.
39 But he that remembereth must understand the word of the Lord, saying, This is my body, etc. this is my blood, etc. He that understandeth not, remembereth not; or remembereth not the Lord, when he ought to remember him. If he does not remember, he does not distinguish the body of the Lord, and he does not respect the body of Christ, or does not esteem the body as great and high as he should esteem it. Therefore he is guilty first of all when he eats the Lord's bread and drinks the Lord's cup, and does not recognize the Lord's body and blood.
40 Now I ask, Where shall we discern the Lord's body, judge evenly, and judge well? Do you answer: In the Sacrament; I ask, Did Christ die in the Sacrament? Did Christ give his soul for us in the Sacrament? Where was the great and wide bread in which Christ stood with his cross and the great multitude of scoffers? 4) If the Jews and Gentiles mocked the Lord in the Sacrament, they must ever have been inside with Him. The two thieves would also have been inside with their gallows, bodies and words. If Christ was obedient to his Father in the Sacrament even unto death, why did not his disciples flee from him when he gave them his bread and cup, when they became fugitives, singing of Christ? Did Christ sacrifice outside the gates of Jerusalem, or in Jerusalem in the city where they ate the Sacrament? Did the betrayer sacrifice Christ in the Jews?
4) Note how flat a rationalism Carlstadt preaches here.
5) So put by us instead of: flew.
Hands answered as Christ sat at table with the disciples, or did he hand him over afterward?
(41) I hold that no one may say that Christ gave his body in the sacrament for our sin. For one thing must fall and be destroyed: either that Christ gave his body in the sacrament for us; or that Christ gave his body in death on the cross for us. The other, however, is true and has often been prophesied by Moses (Deut. 21, John 3), the prophets, especially by Jesus, and then 1) most clearly by Christ. Therefore the first must be false and become null and void as it is. If the first also existed, all the apostles' writings would have to fall and would become an eternal mockery.
42. Because we must judge the body of the Lord, and distinguish, not when it is in the sacrament, but when he freely offered his body as a sin offering, a grain offering, a heave offering and a woven offering to his Father, and demonstrated the greatest innocence, the highest obedience, the most tender love, It follows that they have taken the Lord's bread and cup all unworthily, and have made themselves guilty of the death of Jesus Christ and judgment, who do not look back, and do not look at the figurine of the risen serpent, but only have regard for the sacrament, that they received Christ with the sacrament. It would also be better for them if they ate figs for it. The body of the Lord is the promised body, which was to bear the sins of the world through his suffering and death. Therefore, what was written about him, how he was to be wounded for the sake of our redemption, etc., all this Christ wanted to remind us of, and to understand, if we want to eat his bread. That Paul here [v. 29] calls the body alone, he does not do this because we are to recognize the blood of the Lord prepared and unjudged, and not differently, and to value it above all blood, but with the body we must also hear that we are to distinguish the blood of the Lord, if we do not want to become guilty of his blood. Therefore Paul [v. 27] called all things body and blood.
(43) If we had such a serious mind about the body and blood of Christ, none of us would eat our fill or drink our fill, as the Corinthians did, who had no understanding; but each one would abstain from all the vices that are contrary to Christ or bring him to disgrace. Therefore let each one examine himself sufficiently beforehand,
1) Thus set by us. In the old edition: "by Jesaiam following, am" etc.
And so, as it is said, eat of the Lord's bread, and drink of the cup.
44 To test is to know for certain, that is, to experience. Paul uses the word in the Greek tongue in many places, Rom. 2, 18. and 12, 2. 1 Thess. 5, 21. and means at all times: to actually experience, to certainly understand; in the sense in which John uses it 1 Ep. 4, 1, when he says: "Know before the spirits whether they are of God. Paul puts it in every man's home, and puts it in every man's own bosom, and wants every man to test himself, that is, to understand by certain experience whether he recognizes the body and blood of Christ, which the prophets promised, with loving and esteeming art, or not.
45. For when he has the worthy and fervent knowledge of the body of Christ, which bore our sin with great bitterness and mockery, and of the blood that washed him from his evil works and sins, he will be Christlike, and thankful to the suffering, sober, moral, wise, sensible, chaste; He will temper himself against the evil ways of the Corinthians, who are drunk to the brim, and will sit at the Lord's table chastely, taking care not to take the Lord's bread for his own pleasure or bodily satisfaction, nor as other bread, nor without knowledge of Him who gave it to him to eat in remembrance of Him.
This test is inward-looking, and looks straight into the ground of souls, in which God has to work and create His gift. Therefore Paul leads each one to himself, and not to other people, as the Popes did, who directed the table companions of Christ's supper to poor, blind leaders, who call themselves confessors. For Paul was wiser in these matters, and led every man to himself and to his own inwardness. For the cause that no man knoweth what is in the spirit of man, but every man's spirit.
47 If you want to take the Lord's Supper, you should go into your inner being (1 Cor. 11:28). Do not judge above whether you have a true and worthy memory of Christ to take it, but have an experience, that is, a certain knowledge, as Christ wants you to have.
The Sacrament is not an arrhabo, arrha, pledge, or God's penny.
48) From this speech of Paul, namely, that each one should examine himself, etc. follows a subversion of another speech, as it is commonly said: the bread and the cup of Christ are assurance and
certain document by which a man can be sure and certain that Christ's death has brought him his redemption. For if a man could or should be assured of his redemption, that is, forgiveness of sins, through the Lord's Supper, it would not be necessary 1) for each one to examine himself before taking the Lord's bread and cup. It would be enough for him to feel and understand whether he is fit, as God wants him to be. But this is against Christ, who says, Do this in remembrance of me; that is, take my bread and my cup in remembrance of me; the bread in remembrance of my giving my body for you; the cup in remembrance of my shed blood. Therefore let each one, before he takes it, examine himself to see whether he has the remembrance of Christ or not. If he has it, then he is also sure of his salvation, and has peace with God through Christ (Rom. 5, 1.), not through the sacrament, and may take it cheerfully. If he does not have it, and does not find in himself that he has a sure knowledge of his salvation, then he is not fit, as Christ would have him eat his supper; as little was he fit to sit at the king's table, who had no wedding garment on (Matth. 22, 11.). Therefore he should abstain from the Lord's supper, lest he should be guilty and cast into utter darkness, when he was cast. But that this assurance before the reception should be in those who would take the Lord's supper, and not happen to us or come to us through the bread and cup, which are called some signs, Paul has clearly and abundantly indicated when he says: "Let a man examine himself, and so eat of the bread etc.
What does the little verse mean: "And so"? Does it not mean that he should examine himself and really understand whether he has the Lord's memory and could proclaim the Lord's death in the intention, will and manner that Christ wants? If he has this in his heart, then he also has the Spirit of Christ, which shows him his Savior Christ hanging on the cross, and the same Christ dying in full obedience, in high righteousness and tender love and innocence, and assures his heart that he has redemption through Christ.
If he has this assurance of the Spirit of Christ, which he must have, then he may eat of the Lord's bread and drink of the cup.
49 But so he eats and drinks, when he has already been assured and made sure that Christ is of all things.
1) It seems to us that, according to Carlstadt's argumentation, "not" should be inserted before "vonnöthen". Perhaps it should be read: von unnöthen.
He has paid for the sins of the world and carried them away before receiving the sacrament.
50. Christ points us all to him on the cross, when he obediently dies and accomplishes all that is written about him; then we must look at him with blessed eyes, that is, believe in him, and know for certain that he redeems us etc.
51 If we know this and thus look back to the death of Christ we have suffered, then we are justified in ourselves and worthy to eat and drink the Lord's bread and wine worthily. If we also know that we are such discerners and thinkers, then we may eat and drink joyfully. Therefore he says: "Test yourself before a man, and so. The word "so" means skill and time. Skill of memory, time, that the skill must precede, as one must have a wedding dress before he goes to a king's table.
52. even if I admit and admit that through some signs one can experience God's promise or work and become certain, if they are so above reason that the soul secretly experiences a high power of God from the amazement of the signs that have occurred; as Ezekiel experienced God's power and will through the setting of the sun, it is still not certain nor good that we give and appropriate to the bread and wine of Christ that which is actually due to Christ and the Spirit of Christ. Christ is the way, truth, life and peace; and we have all these things through Christ.
(53) Who then ascribes these things to the Lord's Supper, the bread and wine of the Lord, what else does he do but take Christ into his treasures, and confess to inferior creatures than he is, that which is Christ's alone, and which Christ alone bestows?
(54) He is a thief and a murderer who does not enter by Christ. But that would be to enter by bread or wine and not by Christ, or at least, it would be to enter not only by Christ, but all by Christ and his supper. But Christ hates this, because he wants to have a whole heart, which in the former way would be almost divided and incomplete.
(55) But if Christ is our peace and assurance, what peace and assurance can we have from creatures that have no soul? His blood washes us and our consciences from dead works, that is, the fervent knowledge of the shed blood of Christ.
(56) But if the blood can do this, it must also assure us of it, as it does when it is known. But if the cup does, then the cup that we take today has been poured out for our sin before it grew in the vine. 2)
2) Compare the note to § 27 of this paper.
The lack is in the knowledge, and therefore Christ did not want to give us a sign that would move our strength and soul, when he did works that no one else had done, so that we should attribute them to him alone, and not to the signs that many foolish people now give to the unworldly signs. Christ promised to send us his Holy Spirit, saying, "When he comes, he will tell you all things; and he will bear witness to you, and you will bear witness to me. Behold, the Spirit of Christ gives us the testimony that he gave his body for us, and shed his blood for us.
(58) But if this is due to the Holy Spirit, it is sacrilege and impiety for us to attribute it to bread or wine. It is theft to steal from the Spirit his proper work and attribute and to give it to a poor creature, thereby making a new idolatry.
59. the childlike spirit (Paul speaks to Romans on 8. v. 15.), which makes us cry: Abba, Father! that assures our spirit etc. The Sacrament does not make us cry out to God: Father, Father! For it is much too crude to touch the ground of souls, let alone teach them. Now the bread or the cup does not teach us to cry out to God, "Father, Father!" which we must do in the suffering of Christ, if we understand rightly, so the sacrament cannot assure our spirit and help the weakness of our spirit; for such crying and assurance belong to a master craftsman. The assurance belongs to God's spirit and not to any creature; the spirit of Christ anoints us, it seals us; it is the pledge of our salvation (2 Cor. 1, 22. Eph. 1, 14.). Since it is the right of God's Spirit to assure our spirit and make us certain of our salvation, we should hasten after the Spirit, long to learn from Him, and receive through the Spirit that which belongs to the Spirit, which no one but the Spirit can give, namely the assurance of forgiven sins.
60. if it had been safe 1) for us to have
1) i.e. not necessary.
We would like to seek such high things in creaturely things as in the sacrament, that is, the bread and wine of Christ; undoubtedly Christ would have been so wise that he could have told us this, and so kind that he would have refrained from doing the same;
61 Since Christ ever commanded His disciples to go into the world and preach everything He commanded (Matth. 28, 20.), and Paul says that the Scriptures are rich and sufficient.
(62) Since it is not found in any Scripture that we are to be assured or satisfied by bread or wine of the Lord, or to receive our salvation from it, it is an addition against Scripture (Deut. 4:2, Prov. 30:6), and to flee as a blasphemy against the Spirit of God and Christ.
63. He who has understood me rightly cannot conclude that I bring such new things to light, for the sake of folly or glory; but if I do, God will be my judge; but this I must confess, that for fear I would rather have kept silent.
(64) For I know that I shall suffer calumny and persecution for it, especially from those who would be thought good evangelicals. But because it concerns the surpassing obedience of Christ, the death and suffering of Christ, and because by the delusion which we now hear preached in all the churches, the gospel of Christ is reviled, and the death of Christ is belittled, and Christ's righteousness is made nugatory, or ever so slightly pronounced insufficient, which I and all Christians ought to resist, each according to his measure: So I had to break out and direct the Christians to the true gospel, which all the apostles preached, and only broke the bread of the Lord in remembrance and knowledge of the death of Christ, and therefore enjoyed it according to the sermons preached. May God grant that we may hear the true gospel of Jesus of Nazareth, for it is still almost hidden and held in dishonor, promised very near in all sacraments, none of which has been preached properly in several hundred years.