OK. We're good on this.
I also don't feel like looking it up since it's not the thread.
What we can say for sure is that Luther DID believe that communion was not JUST bread and wine -- that the body and blood of Jesus was actually present in some way.
I'm not sure on this so I'm not insisting either way.
Both the symbolic and the transubstantiation, or real presence also, both make sense to me...
What kind of sense, one seen with the eye, or one as a law of faith God revealing the unseen?
We can either see it or not see it .Can't be there and not there.Can't serve two masters… walking by sight, and walking by faith. No limbo in between. In that way faith as a law leaves no shadow of doubt.
I would be careful with those who create thier own private signs
and wonders. Jesus says it’s an evil generation (natural man) that seeks after them. Christian walk by faith the unseen. God is no longer brining and new revelations in any manner (dreams, a visitations or new prophecy). He did when he was still adding to his word. We no longer have it in part for over two thousand years but do have the perfect, complete.
It’s how we test the spirits to see if they are of God .If any man say I had a visitation or I had a dream we are lovingly commanded to
believe not, we can apply that to the false prophet Mohamed or any man who looking to add to the pefect law of God ,the Bible.
It’s how we hear the voice of God and not that of a stranger. No talking to strangers.
I would think we would follow what I would call the prescription of our great Physician. our Father in heaven (2 Corinthians 4:18) we might understand why?
2Co 4:18 While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal.
I believe Christians are informed that it is an evil generation (natural man) that does seek after signs (that seen, the temporal) and wonders.(Signs and wonders one thought, not just sign ) which is I believe would be signs used as a wonders (the faith principle for hearing God )
Mat 12:39 But he answered and said unto them, An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and there shall no sign be given to it, but the sign of the prophet Jonas:
That sign above I would think would be the gospel . If they do not believe that sign they will not believe
The blood is used as a metaphor to point to the unseen work of the Spirit. There is an excellent parable in the Old testament that I believe could help to understand just what Holy Spirit means in a spiritual way to "drink the blood". Remember in parables he hides the spiritual truth from natural man .as the scriptures inform us they are foolishnees to them and their cannot understand because they are spiritually discerned by and through the Sprit of Christ, the Holy Spirit of God