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

0 | The Lord’s Supper
sure and clear Word of God, namely, that those signs and those words
should be used which God Himself instituted and prescribed at the
institution of each sacrament and that they should be performed and
used as the institution ordains and directs. These rites are essential and
necessary in the administration of the sacraments, for they carry out the
institution. (Ex. 2, 110).
These words are reminiscent of the Augsburg Confession in rejecting
the custom of withholding the cup from the laity which says that
“such a custom, introduced contrary to God’s command and also contrary
to the ancient canons, is unjust” (AC XXII, 10; emphasis added).
The Treatise on the Power and Primacy of the Pope declares that it
is wrong for the Pope to arrogate “to himself the authority to make
laws concerning worship, concerning changes in the sacrament, and
concerning doctrine” (Tr. 6).
310 Such commands of Christ, Chemnitz further notes by way of explanation,
must be for the universal church and not only for a specific
time nor for specifically named persons. He recognizes the possibility
that if one used only the accounts of Matthew and Mark of the
institution of the Supper, he “might not be able to determine clearly
and with certainty whether this command concerning the Lord’s
Supper was only a personal one pertaining only to the apostles at
that time, as the command to Peter by which he was ordered to walk
on the waves, or whether it was a universal command pertaining to
the whole church and to the whole period of the New Testament”
(LS 107). Christ, however, in His “repetition to Paul adds these
words: ‘This do in remembrance of me’” (LS 107 f.). And Paul is even
more specific, “Paul explains these words thus; ‘As often as you eat
this bread you show forth the Lord’s death till He comes’ (1 Cor.
11:26)” (LS 108). Closely related to this need for the universality of
the command for the church, Chemnitz recognizes that in the early
church for a time there were miracles of healing, speaking in tongues,
etc., which accompanied the preaching of the Gospel. The question
naturally arises and disturbs us as to why we don’t use those means
now as a sort of additional fortification of the genuineness of the
Gospel. Chemnitz answers that the fact that the apostles and others
in the primitive church were equipped with the gift of healing by no
means says that we will have it, because God has not commanded the
church universal to perform those things. Chemnitz addresses himself
to the Roman Catholic practice of extreme unction by pointing