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

Summary and Conclusions |
Chapter vII
summary and conclusions
406 As has been noted (p. 88; note #61), very few references to Chemnitz’s
doctrine of the Lord’s Supper are made in present day standard
texts on dogmatics. In quite striking contrast, references to the seventeenth
century Lutheran dogmaticians are rather full and quite
detailed. 88 This omission is all the more striking since Chemnitz is
called the prince of theologians, the second Martin, who after Luther
is the most important theologian in the history of the Lutheran
Church and is regarded as the leading spirit in the writing of the Formula
of Concord. Despite two books that deal particularly with the
Lord’s Supper (Examen II and The Lord’s Supper), he is the forgotten
theologian with these later theologians as far as the doctrine of the
Lord’s Supper is concerned. It appears, however, that this situation
will be remedied in the near future since he will soon be the most
studied of the Lutheran theologians, at least where the English language
is employed. At the present time there are about 2500 pages of
Chemnitz rendered into English, and President J. A. O. Preus is well
into the monumental task of translating the Loci Theologici.
407 Chemnitz is a sixteenth century theologian and not a seventeenth
century. He was much closer to the original roots of the Reformation
than were the later dogmaticians. He is also the chief author of the
Formula of Concord. Hence the study of Chemnitz may well serve as
a healthy corrective against some of the theological weaknesses found
in the seventeenth century dogmaticians. Walther, in more ways than
one, made it clear that he was not irrevocably bound to what the seventeenth
century theologians formulated. In 1875 he wrote,
They do not know us who label our theology that of the seventeenth
century. As highly as we treasure the immense accomplishments of the
great Lutheran dogmaticians of that period, it is nevertheless not really