Commenting on the disputes concerning the Eucharist after the Marburg Colloquy (October 1-4, 1529), Matthew Barrett wrote the following, showing that the early Protestant Reformers did not think that disputes about the Eucharist were tertiary issues and not major doctrinal divisions:
THE PRINCE OF HELL’S POISON
One of Luther’s many accusations, one was incomparable and unforgivable from the Swiss point of view. On the one hand, Luther had no respect for the exegetical, theological, or philosophical reasoning of Zwingli and Oecolampadius, which Luther called “flimsy” and “false.” “If a boy came up with that kind of syllogism in school, he would receive a good whipping; should a master of the sophists do it, would be called an ass. (LW 37:210, 219)
On the other hand, Luther lobbed more than insults—he questioned Zwingli’s Christian identity. Like other disputes, Luther identified the teacher of his opponents as none other than the devil himself. (LW 37:167; cf. 37:170, 171, 188, 269). Zwingli and Oecolampadius did not know it, but they were the devil’s puppets. Luther could sniff the devil over all them: “So must the devil always seal his wisdom with his own dung, and leave his stench behind, so that one may be aware that he has been present.” (54) But then came the worst insult of all: “Whoever will take a warning let him beware of Zwingli and shun his books as the prince of hell’s poison. For the man is completely perverted and his entirely lost Christ. . . . I regard Zwingli as un-Christian . . . seven times worse than when he was a papist.” (55)
How could Luther make such a statement of a fellow Reformer? Christ’s bodily presence was no tertiary doctrine for Luther. To eat Christ is to receive forgiveness of sins. Only a real presence can sustain and nourish the believer’s trust in the crucified and resurrected Christ until the last day. If Christ is not bodily present, the good news of Jesus Christ is not appropriated in the Lord’s Supper. Therefore, to deny Luther’s view of supper was to deny Christ himself. And to settle for a “spiritual or figurative” participation instead of a “physical participation” is to miss the Savior and his sacrifice altogether. The metaphysics of a real participation was not merely a point of philosophy for Luther but necessary first principle on which the Lord’s Supper depended and with it, the gospel. (Matthew Barrett, The Reformation as Renewal: Retrieving the One, Holy Catholic, and Apostolic Church [Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan Academic, 2023], 497-98, emphasis in bold added)
The disputes within Protestantism for the past 500+ years on central issues such as baptismal regeneration and issues relating to soteriology show the importance of having a living authority and the importance of a high ecclesiology. For more on the failures of Protestantism, see, for e.g.:
Not By Scripture Alone: A Latter-day Saint Refutation of Sola Scriptura
