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

The Effects of Sacramental Eating |
[Paul] joins it to the account of the institution” (LS 127). Paul specifically
says “This bread,” “or the bread of which the Son of God says:
‘This is my body.’ In the same way he speaks of the cup of which the
Lord Himself states: ‘This is my blood which is the blood of the New
Covenant.’” Hence “Paul understands the eating and drinking in a
literal sense” (LS 128).
382 Chemnitz explains, “To eat unworthily means not to eat in such a
way as is fitting for this Supper or as is worthy of the food which is
distributed and received in this Supper” (LS 128). He then gathers
from the wider context that Paul is charging the Corinthians with the
fact that “they were not coming to the Lord’s Supper with any other
spirit or in any greater reverence than in their private homes when
they sat down to their own ordinary meals” (LS 128). It is evident that
they were coming to the table of the Lord “without true repentance
and faith” for they were “nourishing hatred in their hearts; they were
despising the church, were shaming the poor and were not abstaining
from idolatrous practices; they were even coming to the celebration of
the Supper drunk” (LS 128).
383 With their use of the Lord’s Supper in such frivolous security
and worldly indifference they were eating and drinking judgment to
themselves, “Therefore, because in the Lord’s Supper he eats unworthily,
he eats judgment to himself. This is the punishment” (LS 129).
“But,” asks Chemnitz, “what thing has he violated to bring this penalty
upon himself?” He has used the sacrament without considering
what it really is: the sacrament of the very body and blood of Christ.
“As a result those who eat unworthily in the Supper eat to their judgment
because by their misuse and profanation they inflict injury and
insult not only on the external symbols but upon the very body and
blood of Christ” (LS 129).
384 This situation is paradoxical, “Paul is describing a particular and
peculiar mode of profanation and violation of the body of Christ,”
because the judgment comes by eating and not by rejecting the sacrament,
“Therefore in the Supper judgment is incurred not by rejecting
but by eating, for he [Paul] says: ‘he eats judgment to himself ’” (LS
130). Hence “the unworthy partake of the body of Christ but not to
their salvation” (LS 171). This must be so because “the genuineness
and integrity of the sacrament does not depend on the worthiness
or unworthiness of either those who distribute or those who receive,