LINK ON COMMUNION - Lutheran Church Missouri Synod

We came upon this in the book of Logos while searching for info on 'communion'. this is real good!

IV. Logos -- The Everlasting Life

John says concerning Logos: "In him was life; and the life was the light of men." (John 1: 4.)

It was this Logos Who made Himself actively known when Elohim commanded the light to separate from the darkness, and the sun, moon and stars to appear in the expanse of heaven. The natural life-power, manifesting itself so mightily in all of nature from the spear of grass on the ground up to the intelligent man, is derived from and has its existence of and through Logos. But the highest degree of unfolding of life was attained by this Logos when it was personified and, through the resurrection, gained complete control of the being it had manifested itself through. It was then that Logos appeared as "the everlasting life." Logos was personified in Christ, Who from or before the creation of the world was predestined, in the fullness of time, to appear as the Son of man. Christ, therefore, as the everlasting life was enclosed in this Logos from the time God decided to create the world and has, consequently, constituted the acting power in everything God has brought forth.

Like Abraham, who, believing in the promises that he was to get a son, an heir, prepared himself to receive and make him illustrious, so also did the Creator of the world. God possessed the capability to materialize His Logos -- the Word begotten in His heart -- He therefore puts into activity that which prepares the manifestation of the everlasting life in following the guidance of the Scripture, we find this conception and view to be confirmed all through. Logos, embracing the whole plan of God from beginning to end, comprises also the fall of man, the ruination of the home of the human family by man himself, and everything that has developed as a result thereof. God's object with it all simply appears to be that He desires to reveal His divine attributes and ability to the heart of man in order that thereby He might be worshiped and esteemed affectionately and intelligently as Creator and Father.

In order that men might attain this exalted goal, God had to give them opportunities to learn to know good and evil, and for this purpose He predecided the fall and its consequences. Through this the human family was to gain an experience of how it felt to be abandoned, lost, in the land of enemies, forlorn and unhappy. This would lead the heart to ask for God, His attributes as Father, His grace, goodness and compassion.

The principal object God has with man is to reveal to him everlasting life, i. e., that he might live forever. But in order to live eternally it is required to become partaker of God's own nature, i. e., of the noble attributes of which God consists, for if not, life would be infringed on and the happiness violated. In order to carry out this exalted object and at the same time teach man to cordially and sensibly comprehend it, God Himself steps forth as law-giver, this for the purpose of defining His own and man's privileges and to define what sin is, or unrighteousness, according to His arrangement. By means of this, man receives a self-knowledge concerning good and evil.

Besides this law and the judicial power connected with it, God has erected an office of reconciliation where the sin might be eradicated so that the transgressor can be reinstated. Through this, man is placed in a position where he learns to know the nature of grace, i. e., a forgiving Father-heart. All, all is enclosed in Logos. Logos does not only comprise the executive power, but also the wisdom, which is the mother of the work of creation, reconciliation and restoration. In order to bring this great and difficult-to-understand subject to a focus, so that our minds may get a good grasp of it, we will consider it as a kernel of wheat. This kernel of wheat is Logos undeveloped.

The element of germination in this Logos is Christ foreordained. In the creation, as previously shown, He is the executing power. In the reconciliation likewise. We mean, of course, before Logos was personified and the man of Nazareth, as a result, came on the scene.

When the Israelites, according to the ordinances of atonement (Logos) God had given, sacrificed their animals, they thereby symbolized God's own sacrificial Lamb, for He was, being linked with God's predestined plan of reconciliation, "slain from the foundation of the world." As the executing power in the work of reconciliation, the Lamb in the shape of Logos -- the Word born in the heart of God -- was, according to the foreordination of God, a slain Lamb of atonement. In the same manner Christ was born of God before the foundation of the world. As Logos He was born in the heart of God, or in His innermost strength of will.

When Israel journeyed in the wilderness, Christ accompanied them as a rock of life out of which they all drank. This shows also that the Logos-power, which had escorted them thus far, directed and carried out the powers through which the divine attributes of God were manifested to them. In His conversation with the Jews concerning this very Logos-power, the Lord says: "Labour not for the meat which perisheth, but for that meat which endureth unto everlasting life, which the *Son of man shall give unto you: for him hath God the Father sealed." (John 6: 27.)

He said this on account of the power that had been displayed when with five loaves of bread and two fishes He fed about five thousand persons. The Logos, or creative power, by means of which the divine element of germination enclosed therein so convincingly and faith-strengtheningly manifested itself, demonstrated to them all that a thorough linking with and working for this power would ultimately immortalize them. The Son of man represented this relation, manifesting itself just then when two fishes and five loaves of bread, being in themselves as corruptible as the people who ate them, nevertheless satiated many thousands of hungry beings. The natural life depends on the visible food, therefore, as a matter of course, it craves for it. However, it does not matter how much food is gathered, it is unable to perpetuate the natural life, hence Christ admonishes to labor for meat which the Son of man has to give.

This activity, which He also calls faith or the work of faith, He further explains. The Jews asked Him: "What shall we do, that we might work the works of God?" (John 6: 28.) To this the Lord replies: "This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent" -- the Son of man. Then follows the strange explanation concerning the faith in the Son of man, offending both the Jews and the disciples, and it has continued to do so down the course of time, not the least in our days. This is what He says: "Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you. Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day." (John 6: 53, 54.)

Just think, what a language! It is not to be wondered at that those who do not understand the meaning connected with the name Son of man, are offended because of this. It sounds not only unreasonable, but also loathing. The Jews understood His words in a natural sense, and the Christians of our time, according to the Catholic Church's mode of explanation, spiritualize it so that Christ's meaning disappears entirely. Both are equally far from the truth. The church applies the meaning to the bread and wine in the Lord's supper, but that would then indicate that all who go to communion would have everlasting life in them. Would that be to "labour for the meat that perisheth not"? No. Those who speak thus show thereby that they neither know the Son of man nor of what they speak.

The flesh and the blood of the Son of man signify something entirely different than ordinary human flesh and blood or corruptible bread and wine. When it is held before the mind that "Logos was made flesh," then one can understand what the Lord means. The Word which we read and handle represents the flesh of the Son of man, and the Spirit-power linked with this Word of which faith is partaker, represents the blood of the Son of man. As the bread and the fishes in the miracle Christ performed represented Logos and the divine power therewith connected, so also in this case.

The one who interestedly and in life and practical development embraces the truths of the Scripture, works the work of God. By means of this he receives in his being the eternal element of germination in order that he, when the Son of man carries out His final act, may be immortalized.

V. The Transformation of Logos Into Flesh Prefigured

The Son of man, as previously shown, consists of the divine Word transformed into flesh through the Logos-union with the natural laws of propagation. In this condition He represents in Himself two powers, the natural and the divine. The natural is linked with the created world, the divine with the one to be created, but both creations are united with one another, and in the Son of man both of these creative powers are merged into one.

The creative power, by means of which the new creation is ultimately to appear, lies enclosed within the Son of man. The first creation was completed with man, the new begins with man. The first -creation began with the separation of light from darkness, the new will be completed by a separation of darkness from light. All this was clearly demonstrated in the Son of man, for when He walked among men He shed light in the darkness surrounding Him. "And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not."

Like the sun, Christ made His rounds in the darkness, and when He had finished His work the darkness was wholly separated from Him. The Logos-power continues again in the glory and brightness it had before this world was. The power is now thoroughly joined with the forces of nature in order that it may, in the fullness of time, change and glorify the work of creation so that it may correspond to the transformation of the flesh in the Son of man into incorruptibility and glory. Thus we understand that the Son of man in His person represents two special unions, one earthly and one heavenly. These unions are presented to our human minds in the Word (Logos) , "which our hands have handled, and which we have seen with our eyes," as the two Covenants, the first and the new.

The first union is illustrated by the kernel of wheat that dies in the seeded soil, the second in the element of germination, shooting forth and producing the new creation. The first union prefigures the second, but yet they are as closely related as are the kernel of wheat and the element of germination. Without the first the second could not take place.

The first union begins its work of unfolding in Abraham -- Ab, father, and ram, glorious -- glorious father. That is: The Logos-power is linked with this glorious (exalted and honest) man, and he becomes the cause of the unfolding of the natural power in the Logos-union. In this relation he stands as the semen patris, or the lord of the seed. In this respect he represents the power that naturally manifested itself in the Son of man. With this in mind the Lord says of him to the Jews: "Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day: and he saw it, and was glad." (John 8: 56.)

How did Abraham see the day of the Son of man? When the following words, mentioned by the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews, were fulfilled: "Through faith (the Logos-power realized) also Sara herself received strength to conceive seed, and was delivered of a child when she was past age, because she judged him faithful who had promised. Therefore sprang there even of one, and him as good as dead, so many as the stars of the sky in multitude, and as the sand which is by the sea shore innumerable." (Heb. 11:11, 12.)

When Abraham witnessed the over-aged Sara give birth to a son, he saw the day of the Son of man, i. e., he saw the Logos-power, of which the Son of man consists, materialized in his own flesh. In other words, his own seed had been mingled with the Logos and materialized in a being he called his son. Hence his son Isaac, as a prefigure, represented the Son of man. The difference between them with respect to the conception consisted in the fact that, at the formation of Isaac, the long since discontinued laws of propagation in the woman acted upon by the invincible and energetic creative ability of the Logos-power, served, while, on the other hand, at the conception of the Son of man, a being was brought forth without the semen patris -- the natural father-seed --contrary to the acting ability of nature.

It is this wonderful Logos-work the now so conspicuous Dr. Teed, of Chicago, endeavors to explain and apply on himself when he says that God encloses within Himself both the masculine and the feminine laws of production, and that, when Christ appeared the first time, He represented the masculine in God, but now, that God has permitted Himself to be reincarnated in this C. Teed, he represents the feminine in God, which he has now developed to perfection by surrounding himself with women, contrary to the first Christ Who surrounded Himself by men.

Oh, you crafty Antichrist! What a pity for you that you came about 3700 years too late. If you had lived in the time of Abraham and had been his Sara it would have been possible for you to have had some support for your assertion, but now the whole thing is a coarse fabrication and blasphemy.

The prefiguring seed, taking form in Isaac, was, on account of its union with the Logos, a holy seed, hence the descendants of Abraham were called a holy and to God separated people. But nevertheless, they only represented the natural unfolding of power in the Son of man. Through this holy seed, linked with the divine, or the power that surpasses the natural, the whole work represented by the Son of man was foreshadowed. Logos, of which the Son of man consists, comprises in Himself both letter and Spirit. The letter unfolds itself in figures and shapes which we can see and handle. The body and parts of the Son of man represent the highest development of such figures and shapes.

The spiritual or more exalted work of the Logos-power in and through the Son of man presses forth all these forms of the letter -- figures and works, serving as preceding or typical forms, which as shadows are thrown from the perfect and higher forms. Of this we find that, in connection with the seed of Abraham, a complete and perfect kingdom, having an excellent capital city and an independent government, develops.

But in all this, despite the fact that the forms of the letter developed to as great a perfection as possible, the eternal element of germination was nevertheless suppressed, so that it all was stamped by corruption as being imperfect. The mortal, which was connected with and predominated in all these forms, occasioned that the holy seed, in order that it be kept holy and separated to God, constantly had to undergo changes from darkness to light and from death to life, but in spite of this it never was perfected. The letter, or the natural development, connected with corruption, no matter how glorious, nevertheless carries death in its bosom. But the close relation in which the natural seed felt themselves to stand to the higher and spiritual works of the Logos-power in all their vicissitudinous movements, inspired them with the hope that the goal of perfection was in view.

For instance: At the feast of tabernacles, after the crop was harvested and the families went up to Jerusalem to commemorate their redemption from the Egyptian yoke, also to remind them of how Elohim, as their King, while with their tents they moved to and fro, gave them wonderful victories over their enemies, the sun of happiness and liberty radiated over them in all its brilliancy, filling their heart with the hope that at last He, Whom they constantly awaited should come with a perfect redemption and perpetuation of their existence.

In this respect their hope was so elevating that they overlooked the union with the higher power in the Logos. Like Christendom today is looking forward to the everlasting union with the King of kings when He returns, but still wholly disregarding the Son of man's work of connection, so also the tribes looked forward to the coming of their awaited Messiah. Disappointed in their expectations they saw in Him an impostor who had come to lead them astray, and as a result of this they murdered their best friend.