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

0 | The Lord’s Supper
presented by Luther and embodied in the Book of Concord, the answer
could be that we tend to read great works of the past in the light
of our own preoccupations. During the last century there has been
an extraordinary effort to demonstrate that the Lutheran doctrine
of the Real Presence is not the Roman doctrine of Transubstantiation,
and that apart from the mandated use there is no sacrament.
This has led to a dread of the word “change” even as used by Luther,
Chemnitz, and the Ancients when they harbored no thought that
the elements were annihilated but only wanted to emphasize that
through the consecratory words the sacramental union has taken
place (p. 51–53). The result has been, for example, that one dogmatician
has written that it is especially important in the polemic
against the Papists to maintain that the logical essence (genus) of
the Sacrament is action, not sign or thing, with respect to the Lord’s
Supper. 99
462 Luther and Chemnitz use human language in expressing their theology
derived from Scripture. While one may recognize that language
is extremely complex and is used to express the finest shades of
meaning, some of which admittedly may be missed by some readers,
yet this is not to say that language cannot and does not express objective
truth. Otherwise, there could be no transmission of any facts,
and no special discipline could exist to record and develop these facts.
Luther and Chemnitz in their theological works did write carefully
and precisely. The Catholics and the Reformed had no problem understanding
where they differed from them, and scholars devoted to
historical research today are remarkably good at reproducing what
previous minds had expounded. But there is the problem that we
come with preconceived opinions and try to fit the material under
consideration into previously constructed paradigms. This means
that there is a temptation to dismiss some data that do not fit into
our paradigm. Our present orientation is so different from what previous
scholars formerly held that we discount or distort what we see.
To take a case in point, Luther and Chemnitz clearly and repeatedly
assert that apart from the use or the action commanded by Christ
it is indefensible to practice the veneration of the sacrament, as the
Roman Catholics do. But at the same time they state that the veneration
and also the elevation are a permissible form of worship after the
consecration and before the distribution, because Jesus Christ, true