Old Lutheran Quote of the Day

It is the distinctive work of the incarnate Son of God to redeem, and to apply His redemption in His own person. It is the distinctive work of the Holy Spirit to work in us that faith which will savingly use what Christ offers. We, no less than the Reformed, recognize the necessity of the work of the Holy Spirit in the Lord's Supper; not, however, to do Christ's work, but to do His own. The Holy Spirit makes us savingly partakers in what is received by the outward organs of the soul. Christ is intercessor for us with the Father, and so secures for us the possibility of partaking in the blessings which centre in His person. The Holy Spirit is intercessor for the Father and the Son with us, and thus leads us actually to accept with the heart those most blessed gifts which the Father and Son offer us. In the Lord's Supper, Christ gives to us Himself, and the Holy Spirit, if we do not resist His sacred work, enables us, from the person of Christ thus given us, to draw those benefits of which that person is the sole spring. -- C. P. Krauth, *The Conservative Reformation* p. 497