The Lord's Supper in the Theology of Martin Chemnitz Bjarne - Logia

The Consecration | 0
253 This doctrine found expression not only in the writings of the Reformation
theologians but also in the rubrics of the early Lutheran liturgies
(see note 32). And it has continued to be taught and proclaimed
in song by some later Lutherans. 67 Many others, however, in following
Melanchthon, have denied the fact that in a legitimate observance
of the Lord’s Supper one knows when the sacramental presence begins.
This is virtually to deny the words of Christ and make them
conditional on something other than His own words, thereby setting
up a monstrum incertudinis with respect to the Real Presence and the
benefits of the sacrament.
chemnitz and the veneration of the sacrament
254 Before one considers how Chemnitz treats the controversial subject
of the adoration of the sacrament, it is necessary that one has an exact
understanding of Chemnitz’s concept embodied in the terms “action”
or “use” when applied to the Lord’s Supper. Since these terms have
already been examined (see pp. 11–14) the main points will only be
briefly summarized here. The Verba show that the sacramental action
encompasses the consecration of particular elements, their distribution
and consumption (Ex. 2, 249; SD VII, 84–87). The consecration
is that part of the action that effects the presence of the body and blood
of Christ. This means that Jesus Christ, true God and Man in one person
has been sacramentally united with these particular elements just
as the Apology had said years before, “We are talking about the presence
of the living Christ, knowing that death no longer has dominion
over him” (Ap. X, 4). The body remains in the personal union as part
of the God-Man, so that Chemnitz warns us to “be on guard” that
the personal union is not dissolved because of mentioning the natural
properties (TNC 443). Before the consecration, however, Christ is
not present in the definitive mode (LS 156). But after the consecration
the body and blood of Christ are present in this special mode. The
“action” of the Lord’s Supper is not merely an action in our modern
sense of “the doing of something.” It includes the “thing” and the doing
of something with that “thing.” Chemnitz states that “the very name
and definition of a sacrament embraces the presence of some visible and
external element to which the Word must come and includes this, that
the whole action is performed and administered in a certain way with a
specific divinely instituted ceremony” (Ex. 2, 109 f.; emphasis added).