Can we please stop doing this?

In the wider Protestant world, the term “Reformed” specifically means “Calvinist.” In some circles, the word “Reformed” is even narrower than that – it refers to a specific type of confessional Calvinist.  So when I hear Lutherans referring to American evangelicals (and even Pentecostals/charismatics) as “Reformed”, I cringe a little bit.  Most of those folks are not Calvinists by any stretch of the imagination, and will not hesitate to let you know that.  And I cringe more than a little bit when Lutherans say “the Reformed believe X” when X is a belief that only an American evangelical – and no confessional Calvinist – would actually hold.

I understand why Lutherans use the term in such a broad way.  Sometimes it’s for the sake of convenience when we are speaking among ourselves, as simply using the term “Protestant” to refer only to Calvinists and Arminians and not Lutherans can be confusing to some.  And historically, the non-Lutheran Protestant denominations ultimately – in one way or another – are theological descendants of the original Calvinists of the 16th century.

But neither of these reasons really excuse a practice that is generally unhelpful when one is actually interacting with Calvinists or Arminians.  At best it causes confusion and at worst it can cause unnecessary offense – to the point where the Calvinist or Arminian writes off you and Lutherans in general as being ignorant of what they really believe.

A while ago I was listening to a lecture on the two natures in Christ by Dr. Rod Rosenbladt of White Horse Inn fame, at the end of which (during a question and answer session) he takes Lutheran pastors and professors to task for their use of the word “Reformed” to refer to Wesleyan evangelicals (and conversely, for using the term “evangelical” to refer to Calvinists). Here’s some of what he (himself an LCMS pastor and professor) had to say:

If you’re in a wider Christian circle and you do what our LCMS pastors do – and they’ve been trained to do it – I’m going to be speaking to a group of them back in Minneapolis and I’m gonna tell them to repent of this – if you’re in front of a broad Christian group, and there are a lot of Calvinists there, and you call them evangelicals, they’ll be totally offended.  To them that means Arminian.  They might just walk out of the room because they think you’re an idiot – an uneducated idiot.  And correlatively, on the other side, if you have a large evangelical gathering and you call them Calvinists, their hands will be in the air and they’ll say “I am not – whatever I am, I’m not one of those.”…

So as you say “evangelical” today, it usually means Arminian/Wesleyan….When you say “Reformed”, it means one thing, and only one thing – 120 proof Calvinism.  Now we even have in our books in the LCMS guys – professors – who use (or have used) the word “Reformed” to mean everybody who isn’t Lutheran or Roman Catholic.  Disaster.  Disaster.  We’ve got to stop doing that.  I talk to seminarians – they still blunder into it – and so I try as politely as I can to say, “You want to distinguish those.”  Because if you’re speaking in a broader Christian audience, you want to be precise about that, or you’ll have no idea why fifty percent of the room packs up its briefcases and walks out the back door.  But they will.

Noll states early on:

The book’s main narrative describes a shift away from European theological traditions, descended directly from the Protestant Reformation, toward a Protestant evangelical theology decisively shaped by its engagement with Revolutionary and post-Revolutionary America.  It is not an exaggeration to claim that this nineteenth-century Protestant evangelicalism differed from the religion of the Protestant Reformation as much as sixteenth-century Reformation Protestantism differed from the Roman Catholic theology from which it emerged (p.3).

So why was this the case?  How did Christian theology develop in the early United States of America, and why did it develop in the specific way that it did?  Noll answers that question by postulating a particularly American synthesis of “evangelical Protestant religion, republican political ideology, and commonsense moral reasoning” (p. 9).

1. Evangelical Protestant religion.  The religious landscape of the early United States came to be dominated by Protestant evangelicals who “shared an emphasis on conversion, the supreme religious authority of the Bible, and an active life of personal holiness” (p. 11)  These Protestants were also highly influenced by the revivalism that swept through the colonies in the 18th century.

2. Republican political ideology.  An almost unique feature of American thought is the idea that Christianity and a republican form of government are compatible.  To this day in America, one is assumed to fit with the other, hand in glove. But this has not at all been the case outside the United States – in fact, in the eighteenth century “almost all observers outside the United States assumed that republican thinking contradicted the principles of traditional religion” (p. 54).

3. Commonsense moral reasoning.  American Christians in the late 18th to the early 19th century had come to rely on “common sense” to determine truth in matters of theology and ethics.  “In the decades between the Revolution and the Civil War, almost all Americans, especially Christian ministers who ventured into print, relied strategically on the weight of ‘self-evident truths’ or ‘intuitive truths,’ even as they expressed repeatedly the conviction that ‘the best reason which anyone can have for believing any proposition is that it is so evident to his intellectual faculty that he cannot disbelieve it’” (p. 95).  This was a departure from traditional Protestant ways of thinking that were much more suspicious of autonomous human reason.

Noll discusses the various historical and religious factors that led to this unique American synthesis, not the least of which is the fact that Puritan revivalism had the unintended effect of undermining the traditional link between church and society and paved the way for republican ideas to fill the vacuum.  He goes on to describe in great detail how the American synthesis shaped Calvinism and Methodism (two dominant religious traditions) in America.  The story of the Americanization of Calvinism (which was really the Americanization of Puritanism) was especially intriguing.  It shed a great deal of light on a puzzling question that I had been pondering for some time: how did Presbyterianism produce a Pelagian like Charles Finney?  The answer in a nutshell is that American “commonsense reasoning” led Calvinism in America down a slippery slope that eventually led to a practical Arminianism and ended in the denial of original sin altogether.  In the same way “commonsense reasoning” seemed to have led Methodism from its original emphasis on “prevenient grace” to a more fully Pelagian view.

Another fascinating aspect of the book was Noll’s treatment of how the American synthesis dealt with the issues underlying the Civil War.  The dominant hermeneutical grid used by Americans of the antebellum era to interpret the Bible was what Noll describes as a “Reformed, literal hermeneutic.”  Noll describes the Reformed nature of this hermeneutic (as opposed to hermeneutical principles employed by Lutherans and high Anglicans) as follows:

First, Calvinists appropriated the Protestant principle of sola Scriptura by perceiving the Bible as an authority set over against other religious authorities.  Second, Calvinists often practiced some version of the “Regulative Principle,” a position the English Puritans had developed from general Reformed leanings.  It held that believers were required to do what the Bible commands but were equally required not to do those things about which the Bible is silent.  Last was the so-called third use of the law, or the belief that, after its twofold use for restraining sin in society and for showing individuals their need of salvation, the moral teaching of Scriptures existed also (even primarily) to provide a blueprint for how Christians, in grateful obedience to God, should live their entire lives (p. 377).

He then describes the “literal” nature of the hermeneutic, which went beyond the Reformed Regulative Principle and could be better traced to American historical circumstances, particularly those that encouraged anti-traditionalism.  It was also very much tied to the idea of commonsense moral reasoning:

The assumption that people could see clearly and without ambiguity what the Bible said, and that this biblicistic knowledge qualified one to judge connections between moral cause and moral effect, was the common person’s counterpart to the Enlightenment confidence displayed by intellectual elites who employed learned formal moral philosophy to the same ends.  Democratic biblicism undercut trust in traditional interpretations of Scripture with the same force that they were being leveled by a reliance on philosophical common sense.  In both cases, confidence in present abilities overmastered confidence in what was handed on from the past.  In both cases, a liberated modern self was the starting point for biblical interpretation (p. 381).

Noll goes on to describe how the Civil War shattered the near-universality of this hermeneutic in America and presented an insurmountable challenge to the American synthesis itself, since pro-slavery arguments drew directly on the “Reformed, literal hermeneutic” and one had to step outside this interpretive framework in order to argue against slavery.   Yet to step outside this framework was unthinkable for many.  Evangelical Protestants saw the Reformed/literal approach to Scripture as having been validated by its success in evangelizing the nation and achieving widespread social transformation, and it was inextricably linked to republican ideals.  But the same interpretive principles that led to Christian republicanism and fueled revivalism also led to arguments for the enslavement of a particular ethnic group in America.

I found this book to be very enlightening as to the historical reasons why Americans think in the ways that they do about politics and religion, even into the 21st century.  The American synthesis and the Reformed, literal interpretation of Scripture no longer dominated American thought after the Civil War, but in conservative Protestant circles they certainly seem to have persisted, sometimes very strongly.  American evangelicals by and large do not see how much their theology has been influenced by the unique twists and turns of American history.  When I was growing up, a mostly-Arminian sort of revivalism was all I knew.  To me that was Christianity, and there were no other categories: there were Catholics, there were liberals (which included most Protestant denominations except conservative Baptists) and then there were Christians.  My church was a “Bible church” because we just believed the Bible, not like all those denominations out there that held to creeds and confessions.  Patriotic holidays would be celebrated in church and no one would blink an eye.  There seemed to be no question in anyone’s mind that the founding fathers had intended America to be a Christian nation and that America was in some sense special in God’s eyes.  The end of America meant the end of the world, literally.

As I eventually learned, things were not so simple.  But things make a lot more sense now.  My eyes were opened to a Christianity far more ancient than American revivalism long before I read America’s God.  But this book helped me to better understand the origins of the Christianity that was made in America, and to better understand how the current American theological landscape came to be.  If you have the patience, it is well worth the read.

-Pastor Jonathan Fisk, Worldview Everlasting 9/3/10

In this episode Pastor Fisk gives the best and most concise explanation of the differences between Calvinism and Lutheranism that I’ve ever heard (or seen). It basically comes down to how the two groups view reason – and how they handle paradox.

The story of the young man in the video above is a very heartbreaking and extreme example of the damage that can be wreaked in people’s lives by Arminian decision theology.  I have no problem agreeing with him that the sinner’s prayer only hurts people.

I spent most of my childhood and teenage years not really sure whether or not I was saved because 1) I initially didn’t remember ever having prayed the sinner’s prayer and 2) the multiple times I do remember praying the sinner’s prayer I wasn’t sure whether I was sincere enough when I prayed it.  My experience with decision theology was not so extreme that I prayed the sinner’s prayer every night after crying for hours, as this young man did.  But I certainly have my share of “dates I was saved” written down in one place or another, and lived in constant fear that I would be left behind if Christ were to Rapture His people off the earth.

So my concern is not with the much-needed critique of decision theology.  My concern is that the answer that is presented – a very dramatic and emotional conversion experience – is just as subjective as the problem when it comes to finding assurance of salvation.

It’s obvious to me that this young man was a terrified sinner who was absolutely crushed by the Law.  You can almost feel the despair as he says again and again, “I’m not right with God, I’m not right with God.”  He is a perfect illustration of someone experiencing what the Augsburg Confession calls the first part of repentance:

Now strictly speaking, repentance consists of two parts.  One part is contrition, that is, terrors striking the conscience through the knowledge of sin.  The other part is faith, which is born of the Gospel [Romans 10:17] or the Absolution and believes that for Christ’s sake, sins are forgiven (AC XII:3-5).

And the Apology of the Augsburg Confession goes into more detail:

We say that contrition is the true terror of conscience, which feels that God is angry with sin and grieves that it has sinned.  This contrition takes place when sins are condemned by God’s Word….In these terrors, conscience feels God’s wrath against sin.  This is unknown to secure people living according to the flesh.  The conscience sees the corruption of sin and seriously grieves that it has sinned.  Meanwhile, it also runs away from God’s dreadful anger (Ap XIIa (V):29, 32).

Decision theology turns faith into a work you must do – “you need to sincerely ask Jesus to save you and to come into your heart.”  So instead of giving the terrified sinner the comfort of the Gospel freely offered, the terrified sinner is thrown back onto the sincerity of his heart – which he knows is desperately wicked, even though he might not put it in those terms.  The sinner’s prayer is always qualified by “if you really meant it.” And there are plenty of things that will make you question whether or not you really meant it.

The answer for the terrified conscience is the objective promise of the forgiveness of sins in Christ.  The Apology continues:

As the second part of repentance we add faith in Christ.  The Gospel, in which the forgiveness of sins is freely promised concerning Christ, should be presented to consciences in these terrors.  They should believe that, for Christ’s sake, their sins are freely forgiven.  This faith cheers, sustains, and enlivens the contrite, according to Romans 5:1, ‘Since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God.’  This faith obtains the forgiveness of sins (Ap XIIa (V):35-36).

My concern with this video is that the answer to a person’s feelings of contrition is not presented as the objective promise of the Gospel, but instead is presented as a subjective emotional experience.  Salvation is presented almost as God reaching down out of the blue and giving someone an unshakeable feeling of being loved and forgiven and of having their sins washed away by Christ, and causing them to have affection and love for Him.

Can a Christian have such feelings?  Absolutely.  But faith is not having a subjective feeling. Faith is trust in a promise.  Feelings may follow faith, but they are not themselves faith.  Feelings come from objective reality, not the other way around.  The danger of looking to an emotional experience for assurance of salvation is this: What happens when I once again feel like a horrible sinner who doesn’t love God?  What happens when that subjective experience of God’s love and forgiveness wears off and I am left all alone with my sin and doubt?  If your assurance that God has saved you is based on an emotional experience, it’s easy to conclude that maybe God didn’t want you after all.

Revivalism in general – no matter what the theology behind it – points you back to yourself for assurance of salvation.  With Arminian revivalism – in which the sinner’s prayer plays an integral part – the burden is on you to know whether or not you have repented adequately or whether or not your prayer was sincere enough.  With Calvinistic revivalism – promoted by the likes of Paul Washer (who was mentioned in the video) and John Piper – the burden is on you to know whether or not God has sovereignly saved you.  So either way, you are driven to look to your experiences and inner life for assurance.

I am not questioning the experience of the man in the video – in fact, I can relate to him in many ways.  Nor am I knocking conversion as such.  The experience of someone moving from darkness to light might indeed be dramatic.  But any experience in my heart that arises from hearing and believing the Word of God – the Word of forgiveness spoken into my ears that says “Your sins are forgiven for the sake of Jesus Christ” – is secondary to the objective reality of what that Word says.  A person baptized as an infant who is not conscious of a day in their life when they did not trust in Christ is no less saved than a person who experiences a dramatic conversion after hearing the Word.  It is the Word of Christ that is central.  Feelings and experiences may come and go, but it is the Word of Christ that is truly unshakeable.

Here’s an excerpt:

The logic of Luther’s doctrine of justification supports a faith that is unreflective, not in the sense that believers cannot have any idea at all of whether they believe (for of course they do) but in the sense that they do not have to.  Knowing you believe is possible for Luther but not obligatory, because nothing important depends on it.  This is the import of Luther’s saying that “I cannot build on the fact that I believe.”  Christians must not rely on their faith but on God’s word and sacraments, and therefore are free not to worry about whether their faith is real or sincere enough.  Pastorally speaking, it does not matter whether I am strong or weak in faith, because in either case the word of promise refers to me and is true.  So strong or weak, confident or doubtful – even sincere or insincere – what is required of me is the same: I am to hear the Gospel promises, believe them and take them to my comfort.  Things are quite different in most varieties of Protestantism, for which the promise of the Gospel does not take the form of an external, sacramental word.  For this creates the problem of knowing whether the promise really refers to me.  When the Gospel takes the form, “whoever believes in Christ is saved,” then I cannot tell whether the promise of God is about me until I am confident that I really believe in Christ.  Reflective faith therefore becomes essential in Protestantism.

But it turns out there are reasons why those who believe they are justified by faith alone might want to have a reflective faith, reasons that are operative even in Luther.  To discern them we can return to our imaginary American revivalist asking Luther whether he is a born again Christian.  “Of course – I have been baptized,” comes the answer.  We can imagine the revivalist responding, in puzzlement or indignation: “What do you mean?  You think you’re saved just because you’re baptized?  But surely, Dr. Luther, you can see that there are plenty of people who get baptized when they’re babies but don’t get saved in the end!” Here Luther is usually inclined to give the standard Augustinian answer that Catholics would also give: “Well of course none of us are saved yet; for while we are in this mortal life we are not saved in reality (in re) but only in hope (in spe).” This answer divides Catholics from Protestants.  We can imagine the revivalist at first trying to interpret it in Protestant terms: “You mean to say you can lose your salvation?”  This is a distinctively Protestant question, which no Augustinian Catholic would think to ask.  We can imagine Luther clarifying.  “No, I said I am not saved yet.  I cannot lose what I do not yet have.  You see, to be born again is not yet to be saved.  Through mortal sin – by which I mean unbelief – we lose the new life that is given us in Christ.  That is why it is called mortal.  So baptism is only the beginning of the Christian life, and salvation belongs only to those who persevere in faith to the end of their lives.”  This clarification raises the issue that divides Luther not just from most Protestants but specifically from Calvin.  At this point indeed Calvin’s doctrine marks a radical innovation in the Augustinian tradition which is fundamental to the origin of the Protestant tradition as we now know it.

You can read the rest here.

…the religious history of the late-colonial period, particularly the Great Awakening and its effects….is a story of unintended consequences.  Leaders of the Awakening – from Jonathan Edwards in Northampton, Massachusetts, Joseph Bellamy in rural Connecticut, Gilbert Tennent in New Brunswick, New Jersey, and Samuel Davies in Virginia, to George Whitefield, who went everywhere – knew what they were after when they enlisted affective rhetoric to preach about intractable human depravity and supernal divine grace.  They were trying to reawaken the church for the sake of the church itself, to reassert the sovereignty of God’s divine love in conversion, to exalt the substitutionary, penal work of Christ as God’s way of reconciliation with sinners, to demonstrate the necessity of conversion as a prerequisite for truly virtuous living, and by these means to check the worldliness promoted by the era’s new forms of commerce and entertainment.  Yet the pursuit of such goals had ironic consequences.  The awakeners preached a higher, more spiritual vision of the church, yet the result was decline in the very notion of church and a transfer of religious commitment from the church to the nation.  They focused on God’s role in conversion yet brought about an exaltation of human activity in the process of salvation.  They preached a traditional doctrine of the atonement yet opened the way toward redefining the work of Christ as an outworking of governmental relationships rather than the assuagement of God’s wrath.  They rooted true virtue in supernatural conversion yet created conditions for a new concept of virtuous living as in principle available to every person by nature alone.

From Mark A. Noll, America’s God, Oxford University Press, 2002, p. 13-14.

However, the post – and even more so the subsequent comments – illustrates the sometimes unhealthy tendency in American evangelicalism to focus on “what’s happening inside my heart” rather than on “what happened outside of me” – as well as the rather unhealthy (in my opinion) Reformed and evangelical tendency to see repentance and faith as a one-time event, “crossing the starting line” if you will.

I tried to post a comment over at the blog but for some reason it was swallowed up into the void twice (even though I was well under 2000 characters!) so I’ll reproduce my comment here:

As a Lutheran who used to be an evangelical, I think looking inside oneself in any way for assurance of salvation will always place that assurance out of reach.

It’s interesting how “once-saved-always-saved,” “eternal security”, or “perseverance of the saints,” whatever one wants to call it, is used to try to bring comfort to people by saying they can never fall away.  Yet the qualifier is “IF their faith is real.”  For it to be any comfort, one has to know whether or not they have true saving faith.

I spent years and years on the rat-wheel of morbid introspection, trying to figure out whether my repentance was really sincere enough, whether I had surrendered my life to God enough, or whether I had enough good works to prove I was a true Christian and my faith was real.

It was only when I discovered that the Gospel was entirely outside of me – through Christ’s perfect life lived in my place, and in His death on the cross for every one of my sins, even ones I committed just today or that I commit repeatedly – that I found any sort of peace.  I discovered that the Christian life is one of daily repentance and faith in Christ alone, not a “crossing the starting line into true saving faith that you can never lose.”  Instead of worrying about whether I am “truly converted”, every day is a day of repentance and faith in Christ, nourished by the hearing of God’s word and the receiving of His Sacraments.  He is the one that creates and sustains our faith to the end through His means of grace.  The date that I “got saved” matters very little to me.  All I know is that I am baptized into Christ, that He put His name on me and that I belong to Him.

I think it is wrong to tell people to focus on their faith rather than on the Object of their faith – Jesus Christ and Him crucified for their sins.

The many comments on the post from folks struggling with the assurance of their salvation, and the well-meaning attempts of others to point them to their works and experiences in order to get that assurance brought back a lot of unhappy memories for me.  The comments along the lines of “I-thought-I-was-saved-for-twenty-years-but-found-out-I-wasn’t-and-then-God-REALLY-saved-me-by-giving-me-an-experience-of-REAL-repentance/surrender” brought back even more bad memories, of the sense I had towards the end of my days in evangelicalism that I was unwanted by God and there was nothing I could do about it.  He apparently wanted others, because He gave THEM an experience of true repentance/surrender that led to minimal struggle with sin and complete assurance of salvation…but He must not have wanted me, because He gave me no such gift.

The objective promise of Baptism – that through it God forgives my sins and applies to me the benefits of His death and resurrection – led me to the conclusion that God DID want me.  It is rooted in Scripture that God wanted me.  The words of Christ and of His apostles all said: “This is for you.”  Period.  Not, “this is for you IF your faith is real.” Just “this is for you.”  Such an objective promise leads to faith.

As an illustration: sometimes I really struggle with the sin of apathy.  There are days when I find myself completely indifferent to the things of God.  The Reformed-leaning evangelical answer to this problem might be: “Maybe your faith is not real.  You should perhaps question whether or not you are really a Christian and really have true saving faith.”

The Lutheran answer to this problem is different: “Your apathy is a sin against God.  But Christ died even for that sin.  Repent and believe that His forgiveness is for you.”  Instead of hearing that my sin disqualifies me from being a real Christian, I see God smiling down at me saying, “I forgive you even for that sin.  Return to Me.”

Every week I rack up enough sins to earn me eternal punishment thousands of times over (and I’m probably understating that).  Yet every week in the Divine Service I hear God’s word to me – “I forgive you even for those sins.  Repent and return to Me.  Look to the cross, where I suffered and died for you.  I put My name on you in Baptism.  I give you My true body and blood for the forgiveness of all your sins.  You are My beloved child.”

Because of the objective promises of God in Word and Sacrament I no longer have any doubt that God wanted me.  And still wants me.

How could I not love such a God?

The aim of this chapter is to show the necessity of conversion and to argue that it is nothing less than the creation of a Christian Hedonist.  I don’t mean you have to use this phrase, or even like this phrase.  I mean that no one is a Christian who does not embrace Jesus gladly as his most valued treasure, and then pursue the fullness of that joy in Christ that honors Him. (p. 54)

I believe that Piper has good intentions when he says this.  He is concerned that by merely telling someone “believe in Christ and you will be saved,” that that person might be lulled into a false sense of security – likely due to the fact that many equate “believing in Christ” with merely believing certain facts about Christ, or with merely praying a sinner’s prayer – neither of which necessarily involve repentance from sin.

The problem is this: in his zeal to avoid false converts, Piper ends up taking a fruit of faith – love and affection for God – and making it a condition for salvation (though this love/affection is itself a gift of God).  According to Piper, I am ultimately saved not through repentance from sin and trust in Christ, but through my love and desire for God.  Repentance and faith in Christ are fruits of this love, not the other way around.

The pursuit of joy in God is not optional.  It is not an “extra” that a person might grow into after he comes to faith.  It is not simply a way to “enhance” your walk with the Lord.  Until your heart has hit upon this pursuit, your “faith” cannot please God.  It is not saving faith (p. 73)

So at what point do I know if my heart has truly “hit upon this pursuit?”  To know whether I have true saving faith, I am asked to look within myself to see if God has created this love and desire for Him in my heart.  Not whether I simply trust in the words and promise of Christ, but whether I possess a certain feeling, or whether I have attained a level of obedience/surrender that proves that I truly love God.

What happens when I look inside myself and see nothing but sin and corruption? What happens when I see even my good works tainted and soiled with sin?  What if I look within myself and find that my heart is horribly cold toward God, that I desire everything BUT God? What then?

The answer is not to conclude “I must not really have saving faith yet.”  The answer is to repent and believe that Christ died even for those sins.  Then my love for God WILL increase – but as a fruit of faith, not as a condition for faith.

Does God forgive me because of something He sees in my heart – even if it is something He created Himself – or for the sake of Christ alone?  Can I not love God BECAUSE He saved me from hell?  Did not Martin Luther hate and rail against God in despair until he discovered the Gospel that we are justified through faith alone – wherein there was hope that even a sinner like him could be saved?

Part 3 will deal with confusion of Law and Gospel in Christian Hedonism.

The Sacrament is a sign, but at the same time it is more.  It conveys to us God’s grace.  That is what Luther had learned in his fight against the ‘sacramentarians’: only in the Real Presence of the true body and blood of Christ do we have that assurance which the Lord’s Supper gives us.  Luther himself never doubted this Presence.  It was the silent presupposition of everything which he had said in his early writings on the Sacrament as a sign and seal attached to Christ’s promise.  He had seen then where the figurative understanding of the sacramental words was bound to lead.  If ‘This is my body’, ‘This is my blood’ were understood figuratively, then there would be no assurance that ‘given for you’, ‘shed for you’ were to be taken literally.  Then the proprium of this Sacrament would be lost, the eating and drinking of what Christ had sacrificed for us, and with it the Real Presence of the whole Christ, according to his divinity and humanity, in his Church on earth, here and now, as an anticipation of our eternal union with him.  No one who knows Luther can assume that he would have been satisfied with Calvin’s doctrine, which, in spite of all realistic language, did not admit of more than that spiritual manducation which all Reformed churches teach.

From This Is My Body by Hermann Sasse, Augsburg Publishing House, 1959, p. 267.