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

| The Lord’s Supper
tain of this when the elements are consecrated, one is certainly less
certain of it when he eats and drinks the consecrated elements. For
those who doubt that the officiant’s speaking of the Verba effects the
presence of the body of Christ, Chemnitz answers with Chrysostom’s
words on Matt. 26:26–28, “He [Christ] works also now; He does it.
We have the order of ministers, but it is He who consecrates these
things; it is He who transmutes them” (Ex. 2, 248). In this context
Chemnitz is rejecting the viewpoint that the consecrated elements
are not the body and blood of Christ but become that “when the eating
of it is begun.”
429 For Chemnitz the unconditional certainty that the church has the
original Supper used in its midst is the observance of the divine mandatum
of Christ, who because of this is speaking the Verba through
the servants of Jesus Christ (p. 82–88, 121).
430 After Luther’s death the controversy over the meaning of the consecration
continued among “some teachers of the Augsburg Confession”
(SD VII, 73). To clarify the Biblical doctrine, the Formula of Concord
(SD VII, 73–90) confessed what had been enunciated by Luther and
Chemnitz and their followers. In 1584 the Apology to the Formula reiterated
this doctrine, referring specifically to the Chrysostom quotation
(SD VII, 76a) as settling “the whole controversy” (p. 85–88).
431 In contrast, Melanchthon’s doctrine that the sacramental union is
not achieved through the consecration but only when the act of eating
takes place, was expounded by Aegidius Hunnius in 1590, and
subsequently perpetuated by the seventeenth century theologians.
According to this model, the consecration merely sets the elements
apart and serves as a sort of prayer for worthy reception (p. 89–92;
notes #61–65).
432 In answer to the charge that the doctrine of Luther and Chemnitz
is Romanizing, Chemnitz analyzes the difference between the
Lutheran and Catholic doctrines of the ministry. Since Christ has
instituted the office of the Public Ministry it is He who speaks, exhorts,
absolves, baptizes, etc., in this ministry. The Roman Church
holds that only the successors to the Apostles in their priesthood
receive the power for consecrating, offering and administering the
body and blood, as well as remitting and retaining sins. Only through
sacred ordination (which is performed through words and outwards
signs) is the priest given the power. But, objects Chemnitz, there is