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

| The Lord’s Supper
dove John the Baptist saw was the Holy Spirit. This is a common linguistic
fact of life; for example, one does say of the money bag, “Look,
you have money.” In other words, the subject-predicate relationship
need not be only one of identity, but it can express other relationships.
The bread in the sacrament is the topic, and Christ, the very
Son of God, in His last will and testament has said that this bread is
His body. What the predicate or comment of the Savior says about
the subject (topic) is sufficient for Chemnitz to establish the doctrine
which he believes. Paul has added an inspired commentary that after
we have consecrated the elements they are a communion of the body
and blood of Christ. Luther called this form of speech “synecdoche,”
but he was using the term in a broad sense. Other terms as “sacramental
predication,” or “irregular predication,” have been employed.
Actually, however, Aristotle did not confine the subject-predicate relationship
to identical predication but classified the ways of predication
as definition or genus or property or accident (note #36). Chemnitz
cuts through the maze of terminology with the statement that “it
does not matter by what name it is called as long as we correctly
understand the method of predication and as long as the heart of
the matter as it is taught in Scripture remains unimpaired” (LS 55).
(p. 35–61; notes #34–38)
420 Chemnitz recognizes that the Bible makes use of all the resources
that are inherent in human language, and he acknowledges that this
will include figurative language in which there is an intentional departure
from normal constructions and meanings of words. But since
analogies can be less precise and possibly even lead to misunderstanding,
Chemnitz knows that it is fundamental not to depart from the
normal meaning unless there are cogent reasons for doing this. On
principle Chemnitz rejects the discarding of the specific, exact meaning
of the individual words in Christ’s Words of Institution because
they are His last will and testament which demand a literal meaning.
This leaves no room for a metonymic understanding of “body.”
Not only the immediate context, but the wider context of God’s
revelation eliminates a symbolic understanding of this text. After
His resurrection, in His state of exaltation, the Savior repeated these
words to Paul. In addition, Paul’s inspired commentary (1 Cor. 10 and
11) demonstrates that these words must be taken literally. Scripture
must interpret Scripture (p. 61–65).