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

| The Lord’s Supper
of the Son of God and that no reasons or arguments should be admitted
against the express words of institution. (Ex 2,343).
75 Later, in pursuing the Roman teaching of Concomitance as a defense
for distributing only the body of Christ to the communicants
in the service, Chemnitz demonstrates the late date at which this
custom was introduced by calling attention to the fact that “it was
known to the ancients that, wherever Christ is present, He is present
whole and entire, that His body is not present without His blood,
nor His blood apart from His body. Nevertheless, no one in the Ancient
Church so much as even argued that for this reason the testamentary
institution of Christ about the dispensation and reception
of both kinds could be changed and mutilated” (Ex 2, 429).
76 Chemnitz is so committed to letting the clear words of Scripture
stand alone without any kind of human rationalization (p. 17, 21 f.),
that he will not permit the Sacramentarians to employ the Concomitance
argument in reverse against the Biblical doctrine; that is, since
holding that the body of Christ is in the bread and the blood in the
wine would be to disrupt the body of Christ, and hence we must reject
the natural meaning of the Verba. At the very end of The Lord’s Supper
Chemnitz firmly asserts that
we are correct in refusing to admit the following argument against the
Words of Institution taken from the Popish doctrine of Concomitance:
It is impossible to understand how the body of Christ in the bread and
the blood in the wine can be substantially present, distributed, and
received without any physical pulling asunder or tearing apart of the
body and blood of Christ. Therefore [they say] the proper and natural
meaning of Christ’s last will and testament must rather be repudiated.
But if, because of unexplainable absurdities we are forced to depart
from the clear Word of God, nothing will remain safe among the chief
articles of faith. (LS 268).
77 In instructing the Brunswickian clergy, Chemnitz in his question
to them recognizes that the body of the living Christ is not
without blood. In the answer he sharply rejects any use of reason to
try to explain or circumvent the mystery and miracle of the Lord’s
Supper:
But the body of Christ, as being alive, is not without blood. Therefore,
when the body of Christ is received under the bread, isn’t His blood
also received, even if the use of the other kind is omitted?