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

The Effects of Sacramental Eating |
a spiritual eating which takes place only by faith, that is, our physical
mouth receives nothing but the bread, and meanwhile our soul by faith
applies to itself the benefits of Christ which He merited for us by the
giving of His body. Meanwhile faith extends its thoughts into the fiery
heaven and there in mind and spirit embraces Christ in His majesty.
(LS 59 f.).
371 But for Chemnitz the words of the Savior in His last will and testament
are too compelling, “This is my body.” It simply is not “true, as
certain people imagine, that our physical mouths do not receive the
actual substance of the body of Christ but only a kind of sacramental
body to which, because of a symbolic designation, we attribute the
name ‘the body of Christ.’” On the contrary, “It [the sacramental eating
of the body of Christ] [is] true and substantial, even though it
occurs through a supernatural, heavenly and unsearchable mystery”
(LS 60).
372 The Savior “who is the Author of this tremendous mystery,” “accomplishes
this in a manner which is known to Him alone, but it is
incomprehensible and ineffable to us” (LS 61). But by way of analogies
drawn from the Bible “some light can be shed on these matters”
(LS 61). Chemnitz has already referred to Luther’s explanation in his
Great Confession (LW 37, 302) and in Against the Heavenly Prophets
(LW 40, 197) (LS 55). Luther called it a “synecdoche” where there
is “the union of two things which are understood as being present
and distributed at the same time, one of which is predicated of the
other” (LS 55). Luther here made use of the distinction made in the
doctrine of the person of Christ, namely, that there are two natures
and yet they are united in such a way that there are not two Christs
(see p. 47 ff.). Chemnitz here picks up from Luther the analogy of
the descent of the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove at the baptism of
Christ and dwells on it at considerable length to demonstrate that we
can get some understanding of the sacramental union and the eating
of the body of Christ,
For by reason of this union the dove which John the Baptist saw
is called the Holy Spirit, and when the dove descended it is correct
to say that the Holy Spirit also descended. Moreover, the descent of
the dove is physical and consistent with the normal manner of nature,
that is, by a movement from a higher place to a lower one, where the
dove had not been before. But the descent of the Spirit did not take
place in this physical way, because the Spirit fills all things with His
substance and therefore in the proper sense of the Word does not move