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

| The Lord’s Supper
no new arguments since his death. We shall, therefore, for the sake of
desirable brevity, merely refer the Christian reader to these writings and
desire to have them considered as appealed to herewith.
In the enumerated writings of Luther one finds none of the Aristotelian
paraphernalia. It is almost as though the final revision of the
Formula is not only warning us against the use of Aristotelian terminology,
but emphatically telling us to stick closely to Luther’s more
Biblically-based expositions of the Sacrament of the Altar.
62 Planck describes how after the March meeting, the Elector, no
doubt on the advice of Andreae and Chemnitz, called in Chytraeus
from Rostock and Musculus and Koerner from Frankfurt-on-the-
Oder to be along for the final revision of the document. This took
place at the Bergen Abbey, May 19–28. Planck also reports, with appropriate
documentation, that Chytraeus was quite unhappy with the
revisions that had been made. 11 Montgomery takes note of Chytraeus’
offended feelings at the fact that so much of his material was cut out.
But he agrees with Fritschel that Chytraeus “was exaggerating.” 12
63 But if Chytraeus was the author of the 2,000 words here excised, and
his heart was set on the Aristotelian method of making the doctrine
of the Lord’s Supper seem internally consistent, one can easily see why
he was so disaffected. At any rate, the Formula of Concord here avoided
the Aristotelian method which seems to make the actual presence
of the body and blood of Christ contingent on the oral reception. It
would seem that it is impermissible for later generations to introduce
this type of reasoning in reading the Formula of Concord on the Lord’s
Supper. Chemnitz has revealed his position in these words:
The sacraments are mysteries that are unknown to human reason and
hidden from our sense perceptions. They are made manifest and revealed
by the Word alone. Therefore we must come to a proper understanding
and correct judgment on the basis of the words by which the sacraments
are revealed and given to us. Moreover, each individual sacrament has its
own proper and peculiar word and definition, which in a sense is its form
(LS 87 f.).
notes 6–12, chapter iii
6. Part III,“Chemnitz on the Word,” 143–224; see note #2.
7. “Denn dass wir die gewohnlichen Schulworter brauchen, so ist die wirkliche Ursache oder
causa efficiens der wahren Gegenwartigkeit des Leibes und Elutes Christi im Abendmahl