The Rich Sacramental Theology of Persecuted Anabaptists (While Reformation Wars Raged) - Dean Taylor

The early Anabaptists in the early church would argue, okay, let's have our arguments of how what's present in the communion, or whatever that may be, but if this isn't coming and making a true incarnation of Christ in the gathered body, if it's not making us like Christ, and the orphans, they don't believe in any of these things that are Christ-like things, Christ teachings, then they're not really experiencing this. And so this is where the Anabaptists would kept pushing back.

So, Dean, one of the critical issues during the Reformation was all the different views around things like the sacraments, what maybe some people call ordinances, et cetera, so baptism, communion, and several others, but really tense debates and things that were happening. And we did several other elements of that sacrament discussion. Those are previous episodes. People can go check those out. But today, I want to ask you specifically about how the early Anabaptists approached these issues.

What did they write about the sacraments? What did they believe? What did they say? And then how can that inform us today? So you've done a lot of thinking and studying on this. Let's just jump right into that topic. Okay. Well, thanks for that. And I will say I appreciate the chance to do the scriptures and do the early church. And there'll be some references to those, so I think it would actually be healthy to listen to some of those other ones so I don't have to repeat myself at those other episodes. But yeah, we'll focus now on how the 16th century, the 1500s, how the early Anabaptists came onto this world of the sacraments in their time.

And the thing is, in the 16th century, in the 1500s, during the time of the Reformation, unfortunately, there was some real big lines, sectarian lines drawn, where a lot of these debates I mean, nowadays it's anachronistic for us to look back onto the 16th century and just see Protestant, Catholic, Anabaptist, whatever it is like that.

That's really not the way it was. The lines were blurred. And in those times and during the late Middle Ages and such, you had many monks and different ones that tried to stand for salvation by faith and questioned the different treatments of the Eucharist or talk about we should look like more Christ or talk about poverty or whatever. In the Reformation, however, all those opinions fell into sectarian lines.

And that's unfortunate because now when we discuss these things, it's like my Catholic view, my Protestant view, my Anabaptist view, and I think that's unfortunate. Now, so I want to say from the start that I don't want to present the Anabaptists and their sacraments and their discussion of the sacraments like this is the answer, that in the 16th century, we got it right, and just listen to us and we will explain everything. I don't think any of those early guys and I definitely did. None of them wrote a book on the sacraments and tried to say, "Hey, we're going to explain this detail and that detail." And we're having to pick up from them arguments that they were arguing against this.

And literally, those arguments meant you were going to be killed. And so they're having to defend themselves, "Well, we're going to burn you at the stake, and so please defend yourself." So that's the light. That's the context of the way a lot of these were written. So we have to piece this together. And many of them were written so when you read these things, keep that in mind, that when they're speaking very negative things about the mass and about they're talking about it in a context that people were getting killed. We've showed in both of the episodes this picture here of Simon de Cramer in 1553 and this idea of this guy, this priest walking through with the sacrament here, and he refuses to bow down because of all the weight of what that meant for him.

He was killed, probably burned at the stake. And then the man who burned him at the stake seems like totally lost it and distraught over just this his conscience was killing him. So for this doctrine of Christ that we have in this communion, we put to death someone. And that's the kind of context that we see in the early Anabaptists that you got to keep in mind. So I want to say this. I don't want to say that I don't appreciate the other writings. I read many other things from different traditions, Catholic, Orthodox traditions, Reform traditions, and I'm very blessed by it. I will say this, though. I do think that the concerns that the Anabaptists had during the Reformation and to this day, and their emphasis that they were challenging both the Reformers and the Catholics with, needs to be heard today.

I think that this I'm not saying they had it all. There's some kind of complete doctrine that we can say, "That's their view, and that's the right one." I'm not saying that, but I am saying that their arguments are dangerously not heard in the ecumenical discussions around the sacraments today. And that's a shame. And we need to hear their arguments because and I'm going to show you some very colorful examples today on why even to this day, I think that these arguments and their concerns never have been more valid, and we need to hear it.

So I've always said this before, and I've said it in all the other episodes on this, but I say this frequently. Any argument that has lasted over 500 years is not stupid. The Roman Catholics' arguments during the Council of Trent, the Orthodox ones, as they were practicing in different ways, they've had arguments that I think are it's not like they're just ridiculous or stupid.

I want to listen to them. The Reformers, the same way, some of their concerns. But again, I want to say that I think that these emphasis are needed. So let's dive in, shall we? Yeah, definitely. And I think that's such an important piece that there were people who were willing to die over these things.

And a lot has changed, obviously. But there are these discussions are still valid today. And I think that's kind of the case you're saying the stage for is these writings that we do have from 500 years ago very much still inform the conversation today, and we should pay attention to it. At least that's the case that you're presenting here today. So yeah, show me what you've got here on the screen. Let's look at here, a slide I like to use made here where basically kind of putting at least the modern debate about the sacraments the way we usually think of, particularly with communion. But baptism can kind of be sort of in the same thing.

And so basically, on one side, you have transubstantiation, which is the doctrine from the Roman Catholic Church on what happens with communion. And then on the other end of the spectrum, you have mere memorialism, or I have a little picture of the law. You're just doing this because you're told to do. It's a commandment and that kind of a thing. Can you define transubstantiation a bit? Okay, I will a little bit. But also, transubstantiation, we're going to see, goes beyond any just concept of real presence. And unfortunately, many people, when they talk about a general real presence in communion, and there's a lot of anachronism read back even to the 16th century, let alone to the early church, as we discuss.

But transubstantiation took it to a very extreme level. And unfortunately, and it had been debated for hundreds of years before Trent, but at the Council of Trent, unfortunately, it became dogma. And they can't really back up from that now. It's difficult. And it's a shame because I think it messes up the theology as far as what the real presence in communion is. But what this actually means is the bread and I'm going to get into some details of how this comes out of Greek philosophy that the bread is not just a real presence within the bread, like we usually think of. Do you believe in the real presence? Oh, sure I do. You better believe I do.

What they actually mean is that the bread actually becomes Christ, not just filled with Christ, not just a spiritual presence. It is Christ. So let's take that even further. And then what does that mean? And all these guys take it to each level have so does that mean we can venerate it? Oh, yes, it means you can venerate. Does that mean you can be very reverent to the Eucharist? Absolutely. As a matter of fact, there's some worship that we give to God only. You may venerate an image, they would say, or people or whatever. But the kind of worship that you give God alone, latria, that you give only to God, is a special kind of worship that you can give to the bread.

Worship it on your face like God showed up himself. Whoa. Okay. That's what transubstantiation is saying. Whoa. Okay. So that's the continuum. That's the continuum. The other side is there's nothing here. It's absolutely nothing. And we're just doing this because we have to. And we're doing it because you're told to, and that's it. We're told to. Yeah. Boy, those are worlds apart. Yeah. Worlds apart. Okay. That makes a lot of sense. And you're saying I mean, when that kind of comes back to when Simon won't bow down in front of the bread, the Eucharist coming through the street, it's like, oh, what you just outlined of what they believed about that, that starts to make some sense, actually.

And then there's I mean, it's twisted as it yeah. And he knew it would cost his life, and he did that. So yeah, that's kind of bleak. It is. But anyways, okay. Let's dive in. So one of my favorite paintings is this painting during the Reformation. Have you seen this one before? No. Oh, it's great. So this is the Marburg Colloquy. So these are the Reformers. These aren't Catholics. This is a debate that occurred in 1529 between Martin Luther and Zwingli. Oh, fun. Yeah, it's a great I can't imagine that was a I wish I could have been there for that. Wow. It's a great painting filled with Philip of Hessia is over here, and you got Philip of the Wise different people here.

Okay. So the argument's going on. And so the story is, as we as teachers usually use this painting or something, is that this is trying to define in the Reformers a view that Luther had what's called consubstantiation, which means he didn't go all the way that it changed, trans, but that Christ was bodily in the bread, though.

Actually, the truth is he never used the word consubstantiation and even objected to that kind of but that's the way we usually anachronistically teach this class and so in teach these classes. But it's good to know that he didn't actually say that. But so as far as I know, someone finds a source, they can put it on there. But in the table, you see him scribbling on something. So the famous debate is this. They're getting there, and they're trying the Reformation is just getting started, 1517, it's starting, you're 1529. Zwingli's now showing up. And they're saying, "We're going to have to get ourselves together so that we have a unified Protestant church to come against the Catholics."

Okay. Still magisterium. This is all through state church and all that. And they begin the discussion. So the story goes. And Luther writes on the table with chalk, "This is my body." So the story goes. So the discussion goes back, and they're arguing and everything. And then at any time that Zwingli would go more towards memorialism, Luther would push back, "This is my body."

Oh, wow. And so this painting depicts this beautifully of this debate. And so what's funny, I this is the best part of it all. So finally, Zwingli loved Luther. I mean, Luther was a rock star. He was very famous for all of them. And Zwingli loved him and tried hard. But Zwingli had his own theology. And at the end, he tried this. You can see this handshake of, "Well, let's just agree to be agree to disagree." And I love this painter, caught this painter.

What? I'm not touching your hand. He rejects the handshake and says, "We can't agree." We can't even agree. And in other words, I can't give your right hand to fellowship and that kind of a thing. And so the Reformation then is looked at, then is presented in this way as being fractured. And so we have a disagreement between Calvinism, Lutheranism, Zwinglianism, and Anabaptism is thrown in here too of the different ways you interpret. Now, to be honest, those arguments were always part of the Middle Ages. But now these sectarian lines, like this very conference, are being drawn, and you have to get into. So we'll give our paradigm on top of here again. So there it is.

Consubstantiation, we'll at least say we'll put Luther not right here. And memorialism, so-called, is there on the other side. So now it's interesting. I'll just say this. And in the middle say this. In the middle, it's just the mystery.

And I would say that that represents more of the early church. The Anabaptist I'm going to show you is that, yes, God is present, and he's even physically present. But how do you define that? It's a mystery. And this is where the word mysterium and sacramentum makes sense. And overdefining these things, particularly with sectarian lines, is just very dangerous.

Now, the truth is so they would then ask the Anabaptist, "So whose side are you on?"

Hmm. So are we going to be on this side or that side? So remember, now you're an early Anabaptist, and you're thinking about this. And they said, "You know what? I reject the whole thing." And for this reason and for these reasons. So first of all, I should say that I wanted to throw this one little thing with Zwingli. So Anabaptists' view of the sacraments, I usually say that where was Zwingli? Because we studied with Zwingli, and we got his view. So people say, "Ah, so Zwinglians I mean, the Anabaptists are memorialists." And I'm going to show you some scriptures that certainly would give some that would have seemed to have that view. But we have to remember what they're criticizing.

They're not criticizing a godly gathering of believers that are partaking of communion. They're talking about the mass that had all of this baggage attached to it. And so when they're hearing, they're very but even Zwingli himself, all this is anachronistic as we look at it.

Do you remember when we were doing the tour in the Gross Moonster? And the pastor Christian was there giving us a tour. And he is the successor of Zwingli. So you saw him on the wall. He had all the pictures, and it came right down to him. And after he showed us the tower and everything, did you hear me when I was walking out? I said, "Hey, I just want to ask you a quick historical question." I said, "So Zwingli is usually thrown as just this total memorialist." And I said, "Is that valid?" And he just lit up and said, "Absolutely not." And he was going through that. And you could tell, "Okay." So I'm like stepping in something that, yeah, we typically just throw these extremes out there because it makes us easier to teach and easier to kind of wrap your mind around.

But the truth is, God, these are complex subjects that even when you read themselves, the guy who is supposed to be known for Mr. Memorialism himself so for instance, here's a quote here from Zwingli who says this, "We believe Christ to be truly present in the supper. Indeed, we do not believe that it is the Lord's supper unless Christ is present." Oh. Now, how that presence was manifested was certainly debated between him and Luther.

But that's what he was trying to shake hands on. Let's just not debate on how it happens, but just have this. So I'm not going to try to defend. I'm not a Zwingli scholar. I've not read his primary sources. So let's just leave it at that. But I'm just going to say that it was more complicated. So now, the early Anabaptists, which side are you on? So imagine you're an early Anabaptist, and we're considering we're there at Marburg. And let's say we're on the side. But now think about it. So by this time of this conference, Zwingli would have overseen six executions of Anabaptists in Zurich. And the most famous and first one would have been Felix Mahns, right?

Which is, yeah, a very famous case. Okay. So you're looking over at Luther. And 1525 alone, he called for the death of thousands of peasants in his works labeled against the murderous, thieving hordes of the peasants. What a title for a book. And then embraced the whole magisterium, the church and state idea that was started.

And so now you're an early you're an Anabaptist, and you're wanting to be Christocentric. And you're going to say, "Whose side are you on?" Oh, my. Oh, this is messy. You got to bring it into the perspective of, yeah, the truth is none of them. You're not understanding it. So then you start looking at, well, what's the different Catholic ones? Well, the Greek Orthodox, they kind of made famous burning people at the stake, starting with the burning of the bogomils. And that kind of like everyone said, "Hey, that works. Let's kind of like do that." I mean, they were able to get rid of the bogomils. They burned them at the stake. This works. Really?

Yeah. So when was that this seems like the wrong word to use, but that innovation of torture or to deal with heresies. When did that come? 1100. Okay. So hundreds of years before the Anabaptists, right? Very medieval time. And so the other groups, like the Catholics, whatever, look at that and say, "Hmm, that kind of works." That works. Orthodox being kind of the starters of this. It's like, "Okay. So they would do that, and then go have communion. How do you do that?" The Catholics then follow this with just centuries of literally ecumenical councils in the Catholic sense here calling for an inquisition or calling for the destruction of the Waldensians in formal councils. And yet at the same time, somehow thinking that you've got some sort of sacramental understanding of Christianity that makes Christ present.

That is incredibly confusing. It's incredibly wrong. Yeah. And so the early Anabaptists were like, "I don't know. I'm seeing you killing all of us and all that." Matter of fact, Philip Schaft even says, "By 1530, the execution of Anabaptists by the Catholics had reached over 1,800 by just a little time of that time of that Marburg Colloquy." And that's only five years after the Anabaptist movement has even begun. So it's still very new. That's a lot of people. So you're sitting there and then debating with somebody about the real presence. The real presence. Wow. Let's talk about the real presence.

So basically, you have this discussion going on, this debate, and this argument over what chalice to use or what emphasis or whatever in the scriptures and all that. The Anabaptists were out of the discussion. And we're there. I tried to show Jesus being held outside of the door there saying, "Hey, what about Jesus?"

I've said this before. Can a person be a follower of Christ without following Christ? And so the early Anabaptists saw this as you're not followers of Christ. I mean, you're not even trying to do that. If you've embraced church and state together, you've got this violence going on. And now you're asking me, do I agree with your view of the real presence? And so we have to read their arguments and their statements that they're saying in that context that they're like saying, "This is not what we're talking about." So one of the reasons why you could even get a bizarre theology, which exists to this day by these churches, is a doctrine called ex opera operato, okay, Latin word.

And it simply means this, from the work performed. So what they're saying is that this came out of a fight that they claim was a Donatus fight where so the story goes, a Donatus was wanting to rebaptize everybody and thought the bishops had to be perfect, so the story goes, and so that their sacraments aren't valid unless they're perfect. So the argument that Augustine then made by fighting with him is, "No, Christ is who's valid at the sacraments. And so your sacraments are valid even if the priest is wicked." And so that was the point. And that's called the Donatus. Now, the truth is, it's also totally anachronistic on the Donatus and all that. But that's beside, let's say it was true.

The issue is, okay, all right, the minister himself being pure, number one, is not what the Donatus were saying and certainly not what the Anabaptists were saying. But still, that doesn't change the faith of the recipient. So you, is it needing faith for the sacraments to work, baptism and communion? And it got to the point where basically with ex opera operato is actually no. That I can do whatever right I have because I've got Absolute Succession. I've got all these right things. I've got these doctrines, and I've got all these things that I'm agreeing with. I can now guarantee that my sacrament is valid because of ex opera operato and by the authority of the church and such and such, no matter what my life is like or the life of my communicants.

And the early Anabaptists are going, "Really? This is not what I read in the scriptures." Matter of fact, if you've ever read the Old Testament and all the ideas of the sacrifices, did anybody read that God, the Father, is constantly saying, "I reject your sacrifice, that the sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination to the Lord," that he said, "You are wearying me because" and he usually points to some sort of not sort of theology debate, but the oppression of the poor or these sort of things. And so this is what the Anabaptists were fighting during the 16th century, was this idea, this sort of magical concept that words could be said apart from a life, apart from a faith, and the sacraments.

So they're not doing lived experience at all. They're not emphasizing that, I should say. And emphasizing it. And to be fair, okay, Dean, are you saying that there was no one in the time of the no, absolutely not. No.

But when you came to the point where you can say that you could kill somebody or whatever else, like all the mistresses that we had in all the different churches and all that, and yet but your sacrament is all just perfect because of these doctrines, the Anabaptists were like, "I'm sorry.

It's not right." So then with Trent and during this time, everyone's drawing these lines, which I think is a shame. I'd love to have dialogue with Catholic and Orthodox and Reformed people on the communion and get some rich details on it. I think it's beautiful. I read it all the time.

But these lines that were drawn were tough. And it came with these cursings of people who disagreed with them. For instance, here's from the Council of Trent from 1551. The Council of Trent, it says this, "If anyone says that the Holy Sacrament of the Eucharist, Christ, the only begotten Son of God, is not to be adored with the worship of latria," that's the highest level that you would give a God to God alone, "including external worship, and that the sacrament, therefore, is not to be honored with extraordinary festive celebrations, nor to be solemnly carried about in processions according to the praiseworthy and universal custom of the Holy Church, or that the sacrament is not to be publicly exposed for the people's adoration, and that those who adore it are idolaters, let him be anathema."

So literally a curse for those who think this is a problem. So that's what anathema means. What is that word? It comes from it's interesting. We see it in the scripture. And it's interesting where we see it, where Paul says, "If either I, an apostle and the apostolic authority, or an angel of heaven should come to you and teach any other gospel than that which you have received, let him be." And the Greek word is anathema.

Isn't that something? Apostolic authority, apostolic man, or an angel from heaven himself could not change the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints. And in the scriptures, the Holy Scripture is anathema on those who change it. Here we have an anathema being set on those who don't go down this road. So it's like, see, before this time, you could have debates. And it's like with the issues with images and icons with the Greek Orthodox. They try to make it to the we say, "Oh, we have a picture of your mother. So you don't believe in pictures." That's not the argument. The argument is that you joined emperors and church together and had no morality.

They could literally kill people and their children and whatever and make proclamations, not that it's okay to have pictures, but that if you don't agree with this, you are anathema, that venerating images is actually required. And so make your arguments all day long about whether or not the early church had images. Okay, fine. There's Duriopas. There's different ones that are all that. But it's the way they started drawing these sectarian lines, which is very dangerous and I think very sad.

Why I think the point is, as we read in the other episodes of the Vincent's Code, that which is believed all times by everyone from everywhere, you don't see this in the early church. And the drawing of the sectarian lines is wrong.

The whole reasons why it's so wrong in the Greek Orthodox and the Roman Catholic is mainly it's not Catholic. It's not universal. It's something that you are acquiring now beyond what we read in the early church as we read in the other episodes. But let's not get too much down that line here. So these were the kind of lines, though, that were being drawn. Now, let me show you the theology of how this all comes together. Come with me to Rome.

And let's go into the Vatican Museum, okay? And in the Vatican Museum, right off the wing from the Sistine Chapel, you have the papal apartments. In the papal apartments, you had one of the most famous paintings in the world by Raphael. And Raphael then painted right before the Reformation, around 1506, 1509, somewhere in that time, the papal apartments. And he painted something that I think brings a lot of color to this discussion. So here I go.

You have the two there up front. And those two are the two big names of philosophy. You have Plato on the right, coming on the left here, here in the red. And you have Aristotle here in the blue. He's pointing up, and the book that he has in his hand is pointing to forms, that reality is in the forms. It's in the heavenlies. It's in the heavenly places. So this isn't a true cup. The true cup is in heaven. Aristotle, you see, is bringing his hand down like this and saying, "Yeah, but it has to be within the element himself." And so Thomas Aquinas and them really went and leaned more towards Aristotle and that the forms and in the actual bread becomes that.

Then you look to the other side, and there's the Eucharist at the very center. So the idea here is a very intentional sense in the papal apartment that this is an essential change, that there's some sort of metaphysical thing going on here that everybody was debating on transubstantiation and consubstantiation and all these things, trying to argue with this Greek philosophy how the change was occurring, and tons and thousands and thousands of pages on how that was coming. And unfortunately, then through all this, the Council of Trent then makes that dogmatic after that, a generation after that painting. And finally, we get to things like this is happening to the Anabaptist.

And we looked at that fight and said, "No, it's all wrong." So I'm going to show you two writers in the early Anabaptist, which I think do an amazing job of discussing this thing. And then we'll bring it to an end, Pilgrim Marpeck and Beltsazar Hubmeyer. And so the two richest, I think, on an early Anabaptist on this subject. Any thoughts on that? What you're describing is so foreign to what I've experienced and what I'm guessing most people listening have experienced. It's hard to even get our heads around this. And you feel the weight of history.

This is stuff that did develop over a really long period of time, right? And it's kind of wild that it leads to the place of, because we disagree with you about communion, essentially, we'll burn you alive. It's like, wait, how did we get from here to here? It just about doesn't make any sense. So the story makes sense. I mean, I'm tracking it, but it's just really hard for my brain to even conceptualize that that is what happened. Yeah.

And it's a good point because typically when we hear people, "Oh, do you believe in real presence?" I'm like, "Okay, do you have any idea what even that discussion, how these terms and all these debates?" And we throw those all on the 16th century and read these writings. You're like, it's very anachronistic, and it's really not representing what the whole fight was about. But this is why, for the rest of this message here, why I think this is so important. I'm going to show you how I think this is even happening today, some of these mistakes, not just in the past, and why the voice of what the Anabaptists challenge with the sacraments is so important today.

First of all, so looking at the argument, I try to make an acronym for this. And I look at the differences with the Anabaptist sacramental theology. I use this anacronym, CROWN. They believed in a co-witness, that you had to have your own faith inside of you for the witness of the sacrament to be valid, like we talked about earlier. The real presence was there, but it was incarnational, perhaps in the bread, but also certainly in the body of everything there that's happening around the table. This formed us into one body, was an emphasis. And there was a warning to hypocrites. And again, there was necessity of faith that leads to a new life.

So answering all this, we finally get in Marpeck. Again, we didn't even have his writings early on. But because now we have him writing the spiritualist who didn't believe in having communion at all and didn't have baptism, we don't need baptism. It's kind of like a modern, maybe more of a Quaker kind of a spirituality. And so we have him now really talking about you get now what the Anabaptists thought of a very robust view of the real presence and how they saw that a little bit different, well, very different than the way the Catholics were doing. So here's this quote. And I love this. One of my favorite ones by Marpeck. He says, "If the heart is true, it is in communion with the body of Christ through the breaking of the bread.

If the heart is not right in faith and in love, a man eats damnation unto himself." As Paul states, "and judgment." And as mentioned before, this is briefly our concept, understanding, and opinion of the words of the Lord's Supper. He said, "Therefore, we exhort and further request that everybody put aside the semantic battles concerning the bread and the wine and search his own heart concerning the matter." It's like all these debates on consubstantiation, transubstantiation, Plato and Aristotle and Aquinas. And guys, Christ. And so then he goes on, he explains this idea. I've really been blessed by this article. You can see Michelle Ferguson wrote this. It's through Directions Journal. And I appreciate the Mennonite Brotherhood have this article.

And I got some of this idea from this. And she brings up this point. And I think it's well said. She says, "Marpeck did not use the usual term for sign, like Zwingli might have used or something, because it means an external indicator of an internal reality of which you're not a part of." So if I have a sign of a cup, I'm not part of the cup.

So in the bread, it's not just a sign. Instead, he uses the word translated, co-witness, a term deemed his primary innovation in defining the sacrament. Co-witness makes sacraments the union of the material and the spiritual by the power of the Spirit. For Marpeck, a sacrament is not something that merely signifies what occurs within us, an interface. It is an external reality that vouches for faith and becomes its medium to the internal reality. This understanding of sacrament provides us with a way to experience God as embodied persons. Our participation in Christ is not confined to an inner experience of faith. Participation in Christ occurs as faith becomes bodily practice.

This parallels the following emphasis of Anabaptist discipleship. For Marpeck, the church is the prolongation of the incarnation and the ongoing community of faith. It's really, really beautiful said there, the idea that the true manifestation of the incarnation actually being in the gathered body, it looks like Christ. And so this is why the early church, it just starts to make sense with them. She says, "Marpeck, for example, describes an Anabaptist hermeneutic of ordinances in the following way. An ordinance is a co-witness of the inner essence, namely of the covenant of a good conscience with God and whatever scripture testifies to in addition to this. The essence must coincide with the witness. And as in all other matters, the essence must be there before the witnessing in order that the symbol may be correctly understood or given.

Otherwise, the symbol would be false and would be vain mockery. When the essence is there and is given testimony to, then the symbol is true and useful. And the symbol is what we claim to be. It really is no symbol at all, but it's a true essence." So Marpeck actually says this, "Whoever has the truth in his heart, the truth which is pointed to and signified by the external sign for him is no sign at all, but rather one essential union with the inner. If, however, I receive the sign and do not have the essence in my heart, what would this sign benefit anyone? Would it not be a mockery of him and whose name I received it?

Accordingly, if one desires to receive the external sign correctly, he must certainly bring with him the inner and the outer essence together. Wherever and whatever that happens, then the signs are no longer signs, but are one essence in Christ according to the inner and the outer being. For what our Father does, the Son of Man does simultaneously, the Father and the Spirit internally, the Son as Man externally. Therefore, the external baptism and the Lord's Supper in Christ are not signs, rather they are the external work and the essence of the Son." And so he's coming against sort of a Zwinglian concept of that. "Thus, in Christ, no longer does the sign exist.

It doesn't even exist anymore. Only essence, one baptism, one faith, one God, one Father of us all. Therefore, baptism is done in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. For the Son of Man cannot be without the Father and the Spirit, nor can the Spirit with the Father be without the Son of Man. Consequently, the external essence of the Son is one in essence and works in the Father and the Spirit. Therefore, whenever the Spirit comes, who does not bring with him the external things such as teaching, baptism, and the Supper of Christ, the Man, whatever he has spoken, acted, and done are denials of the Son of Man and not the Spirit of the Father."

He's arguing against the spiritualists who are saying you can do this without the outside baptism. "Furthermore, whoever would merely steal external teachings, like the reformers and the Catholics, such deeds, baptism, and the Lord's Supper out of the scripture, act like a thief and upon hearsay would practice the external, he would promote them without true faith, which is the true and correct co-witness of the Father and the Holy Spirit, and in him the truth does not exist. It is evident now that in Christ no longer is a sign a sign, but only pure essence through faith. Just as Christ himself, according to the external man, was only assigned to unbelievers and hypocrites, now let a sign be merely assigned to those who would have it that way."

So in other words, Christ visits us in the signs of communion and baptism, but it's with faith, with a co-witness that we have. And it has to be real. He goes in here and he then describes the early church. And I've already get those in a different episode. But he's quoting from the very quotes that I quoted from Tertullian and Origen, talking about, yes, you have an outward sign, but there is the inward sign, an inward baptism that is need. And he's quoting Tertullian.

And then on baptism, he says this. He says, "In short, we conclude our discussion of baptism as following. Baptism is an immersion or sprinkling with water desired by the one who is being baptized. Baptism is received and accepted as a sign and co-witness that he has died to his sins and has been buried with Christ. Henceforth, he may arise into a new life to walk, not according to the lust of the flesh, but obediently according to the will of God. Those who are thus minded and confess this intent should be baptized. When that is done, they are correctly baptized. Then in their inner baptism, they will certainly attain forgiveness of sins. And thereby, having put on Jesus Christ, they will be accepted into the communion of Christ."

And then he goes on to explain the same idea with communion is something that is a co-witness in the elements itself, being real, being one. And we partake of that oneness with Christ. That's beautiful. It's very rich. Marpeck goes very deep, deeper than perhaps any of them. But the thing you get out of him is this just saying, okay, we're not going to go to all these semantics of that we have over here. But the real presence is there in our communion, but it's experienced by us in the bread. Yes, the sign is no longer even a sign anymore. He's given a very solid teaching in that. But it's also within all that we have together.

And then he's rebuking the church with all this ungodliness. And he uses First Corinthians chapter 10. So when you come together, what you're doing, it's not the Lord's Supper. It doesn't count. He's claiming the morality that's made with this. And he's also then bringing in the whole example of the communion. We see in First Corinthians chapter 10, this communion with the body and blood of Christ, that we become one with Christ in communion with him. And that's just such a beautiful and rich idea there.

Yeah, yeah. And Marpeck is writing most of this when exactly? Let's think. So he would be writing 1550. Okay. Yeah. So less than I mean, he's only 20 years or so into the Anabaptist movement. Yeah. This is pretty early. We have early stuff with him. Remember, he was Leonard Schiemer was persecuted. And he enters the I forgot what year that was. He enters the Anabaptist after Leonard Schiemer's martyrdom and then goes to Strasbourg and then all that that followed with him.

And we get a rich depth with Marpeck that I think is just beautiful. Yeah. And he's combating with, oh, here's some depth. Here's some what's the actual meaning here instead of this being some kind of mechanical process, essentially. That's the key. Right. He's really trying to get away from that. That's the key. Yeah. And that's what they're all trying to argue. And it's interesting, their use of the early church. I have a few articles here. I'll just flip through the images of. Andrew Kleger wrote one here on Hubmeyer. I don't know if it was a dissertation or something, but went through all of Hubmeyer's writings and noted the patristic writings that he uses through it.

And they're just impressive. I mean, you can see that these people were just really quoting from them, understanding them. And so a lot of times it's said back, oh, they didn't know the early church. Or it's really, again, just not true at all. Yeah. And now Hubmeyer would be one of those really early Anabaptists, like about pretty much right at the beginning. Right at the beginning. Yeah. Where Zwingli and Grebbel and some of these people are having the disputations about infant baptism and communion and things like this. And he's right there. He's right there. Yeah. Another one here. I love this one here from Andy Alexis Baker.

He talks about Conrad Grebbel's use of the patristic writings. Okay. And the name of this is, "Lest I Make You a Tertullian." And I love this quote he gets from Conrad Grebbel, who's writing to Vadian. And he says, "Take heed, my Vadian, lest I make you a Tertullian."

Oh, nice. So yeah, I think it's good for here's another one by Joel Schmidt and talking about the challenging of Minnell Simon's symbolic view. We usually just bring out the ones that he was very memorial. But again, this article is trying to say, well, let's again look at what he's fighting against. It's the mass. It's a distorted view of what we receive from the early church. Yeah, yeah. And that there's actually many quotes. And he brings them out in his article on that we see a much richer understanding. And that's a whole thing that could be a whole course or something. The Anabaptist, the first early Anabaptist, basically reaching back to the early church and going further back in history and saying, hey, wait a minute.

We need to be getting back to that instead of some of these other things that the Catholics and Protestants are doing. That's not quite right. Something's not right here. Exactly. Exactly. But that's a whole massive topic. It's fascinating stuff. But it's going on here. This was amazing here. This is an article I really recommend. It's the Eucharistic Theology of Ethics of Belthazar Hubmeyer and the Harvard Theological Review by Kirk McGregor.

Very interesting article. You'll have to post it here. But he goes into a lot of detail. And for the sake of time, I won't go into the whole thing. But his whole big argument is he really sees a very strong real presence in Hubmeyer.

But the point that he says that he criticizes Rempel and other scholars that are even studying Anabaptist sacraments, saying you're missing what Marpeck is saying, excuse me, as Hubmeyer is saying, in that he's really a big emphasis on the sacrament going beyond the bread, but into the gathered community. And if you read his articles, they're just it's just a fascinating article on how he brings up some of these. And we'll post that. But it's a very strong point because with it, you get this idea of that real presence being manifested. And he brings this out in this article. It comes down to the incarnation. And this is where this whole Athanasius concept of the incarnation being like the center of our faith.

And when we're looking at that happening in the communion, boy, that gets really powerful. But see, think about this. I've pondered this. How this gets messed up when you start drawing these sectarian lines. So you get talks in orthodoxy and Catholic views of theosis, this idea of us being like Christ and even become this partaking of the divine nature and everything. But when it comes to sacramental language, particularly in the West, you're getting all this elevated theology to where you can literally worship the real presence within there. Well, then how are you going to make an argument that the real presence can be in you?

If all your mind is just this it's not really a moral or a changing of the church into being Christ-like, but it's all this sacramental theology that's devoid in time, not always, but devoid in its expression, then well, then I'd have to worship you. And so it kind of messes with that.

And so bring it back to that Ignatius quote I gave in my last episode. But Ignatius talks about the sacrament of the real presence. But he does it in a way that is in line. When you read it in the context, he's saying the Gnostics don't believe in the real presence of Christ.