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

The Sacramental Union |
And this takes place not by a physical communication of commingling,
effusion, or equating, but by the communication of the personal union in
the way that a soul communicates its animate and vital powers to a living
body and as fire communicates the power of giving light and heat to the
heated iron. (TNC 83 f.).
110 Since, as will later be seen, this is a crucial point for understanding
not only Chemnitz’s Christology but his understanding of the Lord’s
Supper, it is necessary to add more testimony from his works. Upon examining
Eph. 1:22 and Matt. 28:18, he concludes, “Here you will clearly
hear . . . that all this power [that is, that all things are placed under the
feet of Christ] which has been given to Christ pertains particularly to
the church or to the work of Christ’s kingdom and His priesthood; but it
is not so circumscribed by these boundaries and limits that at the same
time He does not have all things under His feet in subjection to Him,
as the passage teaches . . . . God gives great power to the angels in Rev.
18:1, who are thus called powers of strength (Ps. 103:20). But to Christ
in time, according to His human nature is given not only great, not only
far-reaching powers, but all power both in heaven and earth” (TNC
319). Chemnitz flatly concludes that “Scripture teaches that Christ rules
over all things, not only as God according to the divine nature but also
as man according to His exalted human nature” (TNC 321).
111 Since Chemnitz is quite aware of the fact that the Sacramentarians
have tried to reduce to absurdity the Lutheran doctrine of the Real
Presence of the body and blood of Christ in the consecrated elements,
he feels that he must in all honesty take up their objections, though
they border not only on the ridiculous but also the blasphemous. It is
from this passage that some have concluded that Chemnitz rejects the
general omnipresence of Christ’s human nature and even that the human
nature was not capable of the divinity. The passage from Chemnitz
reads as follows:
Up to this point, on the basis of Scripture, and the testimonies of the
ancient church, we have spoken of the presence of the complete person of
Christ according to each nature in the Lord’s Supper and in the church;
and we have shown how much comfort this teaching affords.
But if we ask further concerning other creatures which are outside
the church and subject to the general rule of God, Scripture is clear in
its general affirmation that all things have been made subject to Christ as
to the Lord, also according to his humanity as the Fathers say, not only
in the church but in all ways. Nothing is excepted by Him who subjects