Is doctrine correct that forbids the corporeal Christ from worship?

Question

Ulrich Zwingli was teaching reform in Zurich in 1522. His doctrine was the most radical of any of the Reformers when He forbade the corporeal Christ from worship as he showed to have no reverence for the orthodoxy of the Church and based his disbelief on his doubts that God could perform such a miracle and doubted the need to be present at the cross as Christ commanded at the Last Supper in celebrating the sacrifice of the Mass. He totally rejected the ancient liturgy of the Church out of his desire to align with the secular authorities of the princes rather than the authority of the Church. Having priests ordained in apostolic succession being necessary for the Sacraments and especially the Eucharist would make it impossible to separate completely from the Church so it was necessary to deny Christ’s presence and reject the liturgy of the mass that allowed the corporeal Christ to be present in worship.

Brother Michael wrote: "Zwingli teaches, in opposition to the Romish mass, that it is a commemoration, not a repetition, of the atoning sacrifice of Christ, who offered himself once for all time, and can not be offered by any other; "

The Catholic does not nor has it ever taught that the Mass is a repetition of the Mass but is instead the self same sacrifice, the one sacrifice for all. Christ's Church also teaches that it is Christ that offers His Body and Blood and not any other.

His answer that the Eucharist is beyond reason is certainly from his secular humanist roots which would deny the supernatural miracle of our Lord. Certainly all of God's miracles are beyond human reason but that does not make Christ's words as being devoid of veracity simply because human reason cannot explain His miracles.

Steve Amato,

I will never make any apologies for having Christ as my idol. I have worshipped Him all of my days, even as a Protestant, and will continue to do so until He judges me. I learned from St. Peter that it is not wise to deny Him. St. Paul further warned of receiving Him without descerning Him.

Answer 1

sorry I been catholic for 30 some yrs. and I never heard of him.

Answer 2

...hmmm an interesting man, a radical yes, but the most radical? "Meantime, even more radical reformers, called Anabaptists, asserted themselves in Zurich, and Zwingli became involved in their suppression and execution, including the 1527 drowning of Felix Manz. Tensions between Zurich and Switzerland's Catholic cantons led to war."

Regarding the doctrine... well, here is more of a biolgraphical note on him:
"Ulrich Zwingli's insistence that the Bible, not the church, was the source of Christian truth made him a major force in the Protestant Reformation that swept Europe in the 16th century. Born to a village bailiff, Zwingli studied in Basel, Bern and Vienna before becoming a Roman Catholic priest. He was appointed in 1519 to the Great Minster church in Zurich, where his growing Protestant convictions rapidly became clear. In 1522, he proclaimed the Bible, not Catholic hierarchy and tradition, to be the sole source of Christian authority, and he persuaded civic leaders and the churches of Zurich that things not prescribed in the Bible had no place in the church's life. In 1524, pictures, statues and relics were removed from the city's churches -- reforms more radical than those of his German contemporary, Martin Luther. The two Reformers' greatest difference was over the nature of the Lord's Supper. At a 1529 debate, the Marburg Colloquy, Luther argued that Christ is literally present in the bread and wine, while Zwingli held that it is a symbolic meal. Such differences created long-lasting, uncharitable rifts between what came to be known as the Lutheran and Reformed branches of Protestantism. "

Answer 3

I understood Zwingli as a priest who believed that if it was not spelled out directly in the Bible, then it should not be practiced. For example, because Christ did not advocate Lent, Zwingli did not feel it should be practiced. Zwingli did not believe in the Eucharist because it was symbolic. He knew that a few drops of wine, and a thin wafer was not, in actuality, Jesus's blood & flesh. He felt that the Eucharist did not place Jesus above us properly. He felt that if we concentrated on Jesus in the human form, we would not place the importance of the Heavenly Body of Jesus.

I can not judge if this doctrine is correct. I can only rely on my knowledge that Jesus Christ is our Savior.

Answer 4

The "corporeal" Christ is contrary to scripture. Christ came in the flesh, died and was resurrected. He then ascended to heaven and will not return in corporeal form until the second coming.

If Catholics claim the Eucharist is the corporeal Christ, then they have made it into an idol. As such Catholic doctrine does not represent Biblical Christianity.

Answer 5

That approximately sums it up. i'm no longer hep to Reformation theology by way of any skill, yet my chum (who's) claims that Luther and Calvin the two expressed a desire to repair the episcopacy. The Lutherans even tried to guard legitimacy from the Patriarch of Constantinople.

Answer 6

Hmmm, don't know him, but scripture does say, that in the last days there will be people who "having a form of godliness but denying its power. "(2 tim 3:5)

Answer 7

People forget that there was/is/will be two truths, paths, that of mankind and their knowledge & wisdom and that of Jehovah Prime one must make a these choices themselves no one person can lead another through this life and no one persons opinions should cause others to follow. This is my/your life make choices based on YOUR preferences not those of others!

Answer 8

"As to the effect of the sacraments, Zwingli rejects the whole scholastic theory of the opus operatum, and makes faith the necessary medium of sacramental efficacy. He differs here not only from the Romish, but also from the Lutheran theory. He regards the sacraments only as signs and seals, and not strictly as means or instrumentalities of grace, except in so far as they strengthen it. They do not originate and confer grace, but presuppose it, and set it forth to our senses, and confirm it to our faith. As circumcision sealed the righteousness of the faith of Abraham, which he had before in a state of uncircumcision (Rom. iv. 11), so baptism seals the remission of sin by the cleansing blood of Christ, and our incorporation in Christ by faith, which is produced by the Holy Spirit. In infant baptism (which he strongly defended against the Anabaptists, not indeed as necessary to salvation, but as proper and expedient), we have the divine promise which extends to the offspring, and the profession of the faith of the parents with their pledge to bring up their children in the same. The Lord's Supper signifies and seals the fact that Christ died for us and shed his blood for our sins, that he is ours and we are his, and that we are partakers of all his benefits. Zwingli compares the sacrament also to a wedding-ring which seals the marriage union.

He fully admits, however, that the sacraments are divinely instituted and necessary for our twofold constitution; that they are significant and efficacious, not empty, signs; that they aid and strengthen our faith ('auxilium opemque adferunt fidei'), and so far confer spiritual blessing through the medium of appropriating faith. In this wider sense they may be called means of grace. He also gives them the character of public testimonies, by which we openly profess our faith before God and the world, pledge our obedience to him, and express our gratitude for mercies received. Hence the name eucharist, or gratiarum actio.

Concerning the Lord's Supper, Zwingli teaches, in opposition to the Romish mass, that it is a commemoration, not a repetition, of the atoning sacrifice of Christ, who offered himself once for all time, and can not be offered by any other; that bread and wine signify or represent, but are not really, the broken body and shed blood of our Lord; that he is present only according to his divine nature and by his Spirit to the eye of faith (fidei contemplatione), but not according to his human nature, which is in heaven at the right hand of God, and can not be present every where or in many places at the same time; that to eat his flesh and to drink his blood is a spiritual manducation, or the same as to believe in him (John vi.), and no physical manducation by mouth and teeth, which, even if it were possible, would be useless and unworthy and would establish two ways of salvation—one by faith, the other by literal eating in the sacrament; finally, that the blessing of the ordinance consists in a renewed application of the benefits of the atonement by the worthy or believing communicants, while the unworthy receive only the outward signs to their own judgment. He therefore rejects every form of a local or corporeal presence, whether by transubstantiation, impanation, or consubstantiation, as contrary to the Bible, to the nature of faith, and to sound reason.

He supports the figurative interpretation of the words of institution by a large number of passages, where Christ is said to be the door, the lamb, the rock, the vine, etc.; also by such passages as Gen. xli. 26, 27 (the seven good kine are seven years), Matt. xiii. 31–37 (the field is the world; the tares are the children of the wicked one; the reapers are the angels), and especially Luke xxii. 20; 1 Cor. xi. 25 (the cup is the New Testament in my blood). He proves the local absence of Christ's body by the fact of his ascension to heaven, his future visible return to judgment, and by such passages as, 'I go to prepare a place for you;' 'The poor you have always with you, but me you have not always;' 'I go to my Father;' 'The heaven must receive him until the times of restitution of all things.' He also points out the inconsistency of Luther in maintaining the literal presence of Christ in the sacrament, and yet refusing the adoration; for wherever Christ is he must be adored.

I add his last words on the subject from the Confession sent to King Francis I. shortly before his death: 'We believe that Christ is truly present in the Lord's Supper; yea, we believe that there is no communion without the presence of Christ. This is the proof: "Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them" (Matt. xviii. 20). How much more is he present where the whole congregation is assembled to his honor! But that his body is literally eaten is far from the truth and the nature of faith. It is contrary to the truth, because he himself says: "I am no more in the world" (John xvii. 11), and "The flesh profiteth nothing" (John vi. 63), that is to eat, as the Jews then believed and the Papists still believe. It is contrary to the nature of faith (I mean the holy and true faith), because faith embraces love, fear of God, and reverence, which abhor such carnal and gross eating, as much as any one would shrink from eating his beloved son. . . . We believe that the true body of Christ is eaten in the communion in a sacramental and spiritual manner by the religions, believing, and pious heart (as also St. Chrysostom taught). And this is in brief the substance of what we maintain in this controversy, and what not we, but the truth itself teaches.' To this he adds the communion service, which he introduced in Zurich, that his Majesty may see how devoutly the sacrament is celebrated there in accordance with the institution of Christ. This service is much more liturgical than the later Calvinistic formulas, and includes the 'Gloria in Excelsis,' the Apostles' Creed, and responses.

Closely connected with the eucharistic controversy are certain christological differences concerning ubiquity and the communicatio idiomatum, which we have already discussed in the section on the Formula of Concord.

Zwingli's doctrine of the Eucharist is unquestionably the simplest, clearest, and most intelligible theory. It removes the supernatural mystery from the ordinance, and presents no obstacles to the understanding. Exegetically, it is admissible, and advocated even by some of the ablest Lutheran scholars, who freely concede that the literal interpretation of the words of institution, to which Luther appealed first and last against the arguments of Zwingli, is impossible, or, if consistently carried out, must lead to the Romish dogma. Philosophically and dogmatically, it labors under none of the difficulties of transubstantiation and consubstantiation, both of which imply the simultaneous multipresence of a corporeal substance, and a physical manducation of Christ's crucified body and blood—in direct contradiction to the essential properties of a body, and the testimony of four of our senses. It has been adopted by the Arminians, and it extensively prevails at present even among orthodox Protestants of all denominations, especially in England and America.

Zwingli is no doubt right in his protest against every form, however refined and subtle, of the old Capernaitic conception of a carnal presence and carnal appropriation (John vi. 63). He is also right in his positive assertion that the holy communion is a commemoration of the all-sufficient sacrifice of Christ on the cross, and a spiritual feeding on Christ by faith. But he falls short of the whole truth; he does not do justice to the strong language of our Lord, especially in John vi. 53–58, concerning the eating of the flesh of the Son of Man (whether this be referred directly or indirectly to the Lord's Supper, or not). After all deduction of carnal misconceptions, there remains the mystery of a vital union of the believer with the whole Christ, including his humanity, viewed not, indeed, as material substance, but as a principle of life and power.

This Calvin felt. Hence he endeavored to find a via media between Zwingli and Luther, and assumed, besides the admitted real presence of the Divine Lord, a dynamic presence and influence of his glorified and ever-living humanity, and an actual communication of its life-giving power (not the matter of the body and blood) by the Holy Ghost to the worthy communicant through the medium of faith—as the sun is in the heavens, and yet with his light and heat present on earth. This theory passed substantially into the most authoritative confessions of the sixteenth century, and must therefore be regarded as the orthodox doctrine of the Reformed Church."