Wittenberg Discord

One of the most impressive feats of Reformation ecumenism was the Wittenberg Concord of 1536, signed by Capito, Bucer, and Musculus on the Reformed side and Luther and Melanchthon, among others, on the Lutheran side. Luther admitted that the two groups diverged on various details, but declared, in a deeply emotional moment, “Up this point we shall not quarrel.”

It was truly a compromise document. James Kittelson and Ken Schurb described the Reformed concessions in a 1986 article in the Concordia Theological Quarterly:

“The text did speak of a sacramental union and even clarified what this term meant: ‘that is, they [Bucer and his associates] hold that when the bread is distributed [porrecto] at the same time the body of Christ is present and truly offered [exhibere].’ The Wittenberg Concord, then, followed Luther’s insistence in the preceding negotiations, namely, that what was done with the bread in the sacrament was likewise done with the body of Christ. The Concord maintained this thought by indicating that the bread was the body of Christ as it was offered, and before it was received!’ Most striking of all, though, were the words, ‘as Paul says, the unworthy also eat [indignas manducare]. Thus, they hold that the true body and blood of Christ are distributed also to the unworthy, and that the unworthy eat, where the words and institution of Christ are retained!’”

Luther refused to insist that the South Germans retract their earlier spiritualized interpretation of John 6:63, accepting the common condemnation of all who taught that the elements were “mere bread and wine.” Further, “he signed a confession that declared ‘that with the bread and wine the body and blood are truly and substantially present, offered, and received!’ In this regard, it is important to note the word with,’ a word that would cause no end of trouble in the debate over the Variata. In addition, Luther signed a confession that failed to give a complete definition of ‘the unworthy.’ It stated that these ‘partake for judgment’ if they presented themselves ‘without repentance and faith.’” 

The question of what was meant by “faith” was left to the side, but that was the point where the two sides most obviously diverged. Bucer distinguished between the utterly godless and those who have a thin, shallowly-planted faith: The latter “are possessed not merely of mind and reason-which of course recognize there nothing but bread and wine-but of faith also. But because they receive it without true dedication of heart, and therefore without that living and saving faith which appropriates for itself the boundless grace of God, they are consequently guilty of the body and blood of the Lord.” Bucer could say that many “exercise faith in the ordinance of the Lord” but “fail to discern the Lord’s body, and so receive the Lord’s body in this sacrament unworthily.”

For Luther, even the weakest faith counted as faith. Anyone who believed the words of institution, that Christ was truly offering Himself in bread and wine, had faith sufficient to receive the sacrament worthily.

As Kittelson and Schurb put it, “both sides compromised by virtue both of what they did say and what they tacitly agreed not to say in the Concord.”