LUTHER 1527 Consubstantial

LUTHER 1527

If you say, however, that in the words concerning the cup it is written, “a cup in my blood” [Luke 22:20], but that the wine may not be called Christ’s blood, I answer: Yes indeed, there is no need of touto or metaphor or sign here. But I wish to cite Scripture to show that red wine is called blood in the Scriptures, Genesis 49[:11], “He washes his vesture in the blood of grapes,” i.e. in red wine. And Deuteronomy 32[:14], “That they might drink the good blood of the grape.” Now if red wine is blood, but Christ has used the wine of this same land, which is red; and if all wine is his wine, since he made it and now uses it here for his Supper, then he must be understood thus: Moses sacrificed much animal blood, and much red wine for drink offerings, but why are all these objects needed by the poor in the New Testament? This red wine, which in another sense is my blood of the grape, shall now be also my blood among you, in place of all the blood and wine which Moses used for his sacrifices. Indeed, in German also one may call a red wine “blood,” as for example, “How well the blood looks in the glass!” So the philosophers speak also, calling wine “the blood of the earth.” Now as Christ says, in John 4[:34], that his food is to do his Father’s will, although this only resembles food, so also he may call his red wine and file blood of the earth “his blood,” because the wine resembles blood, especially because the Scriptures call red wine the “blood of the grape.” I challenge Oecolampadius to derive his “sign of the body” out of Scripture in this way! - Martin Luther


Consubstantial

The term consubstantial, is of course no more a biblical term, than trinity; but it had already been used, though in a different sense, both by heathen writers and by heretics, as well as by orthodox fathers. It formed a bulwark against Arians and Semi-Arians, and an anchor which moored the church during the stormy time between the first and the second ecumenical councils. At first it had a negative meaning against heresy; denying, as Athanasius repeatedly says, that the Son is in any sense created or produced and changeable. But afterwards the homoousion became a positive testword of orthodoxy, designating, in the sense of the Nicene council, clearly and unequivocally, the veritable and essential deity of Christ, in opposition to all sorts of apparent or half divinity, or mere similarity to God. The same divine, eternal, unchangeable essence, which is in an original way in the Father, is, from eternity, in a derived way, through generation, in the Son; just as the water of the fountain is in the stream, or the light of the sun is in the ray, and cannot be separated from it.
HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH Schaff Volume 3 NICENE AND POST-NICENE CHRISTIANTY A.D. 311-600
(Pages 654-656)