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

0 | The Lord’s Supper
was in heaven even while He was still walking on earth, as John 3 [:13]
says” (LW 37, 232).
97 At times Jesus Christ, true God and Man in one person, employed
the circumscriptive mode, “the comprehensible, corporeal mode,” as
when He walked bodily on earth and as He will do on the Last Day
(SD VII, 99; LW 37, 222).
98 The second, or definitive mode (SD VII, 100), is described by Luther
(LW 37, 215 and 222 f.). The space is really material and circumscribed,
with its own dimensions (LW 37, 215), but Christ’s mode is
an “uncircumscribed, spiritual mode of presence according to which
He neither occupies nor yields space but passes through everything
created as He wills” (LW 37,222). “The space is really material and
circumscribed, and has its own dimensions of length, breadth, and
depth; but that which occupies it has not the same length, breadth,
or depth as the space which it occupies, indeed, it has no length or
breadth at all” (LW 37, 215). Some examples of this are represented
by Christ’s emerging from the grave, going through locked doors, and
being in the bread and wine.
99 With respect to this second mode of presence, the authors of the
Formula were afraid that some Sacramentarians might read a wrong
idea into Luther’s use of the term “spiritual mode.” This fear resulted in
a clarifying addition in the final revision (the Bergic Book, 1577). Here
the authors added SD VII, 104 and 105, where it is spelled out that
they had in mind a spiritual, heavenly mode by which His body and
blood are present in the Supper for believers and unbelievers alike. Of
course, He is not present according to the first, circumscriptive mode,
and it is totally wrong for the Sacramentarians here to ascribe to the
Lutherans “the Capernaitic conception of a gross, carnal presence.”
100 The third mode is called “repletive” (Eph. 4:10). Since Christ is one
person with God, He also has the divine heavenly mode (SD VII, 101).
This is far beyond things created, for “you must place this existence of
Christ which constitutes Him one person with God, far, far beyond
things created,” etc. (LW 37, 223). He is simultaneously present in all
places, whole and entire, and fills all places, yet without being measured
or circumscribed by any place; see Jer. 23:23 (LW 37, 216). 19
101 Before entering into Chemnitz’s presentation of this doctrine, it
would be well to summarize the points which Luther and the Formula
have made: