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

0 | The Lord’s Supper
4. The officiant does not act in his own power, but because Christ’s word
is,“Do this.”
5. The minister consecrates the elements for the purpose that the communicants
eat and drink that which is Christ’s body and blood.
6. The Lutheran Church rejects any idea that the consecration is some
kind of magic whereby, without the will of Christ, the elements are
made into the body and blood of Christ by blowing, whispering, and
other external actions.
7. Bugenhagen rejects the Sacramentarian charge that the consecration
would make or create a new body of Christ at each consecration and
would thus add something to Christ at each consecration. Luther had
in the Great Confession also rejected this monstrous charge, “We do
not make Christ’s body out of the bread as this spirit falsely charges
us with teaching. Nor do we say that this body comes into existence
out of the bread. We say that His body, which long ago was made and
came into existence, is present when we say“This is my body.” For Christ
commands us to say not,“Let this become my body,” or “Make my body
there,” but “This is my body” (LW 37, 187).
186 Throughout all his writings Chemnitz assumes that the consecration
as described by Luther and Bugenhagen effects the presence of
the body and blood of Christ in the elements and that the consecrated
elements are to be distributed and received. In connection with
the Lord’s Supper, he always limits the terms “use” and “action” to
consecrating the elements, and then distributing, eating and drinking
them (SD VII, 83–87; see p. 13 f.). In the Lord’s Supper Chemnnitz
assumes that the controversy with the Sacramentarians does not
have to do with an absolute and unchanging presence “outside their
use,” since “both parties disapprove of these practices on the basis
of Scripture” (LS 37). He notes that “after the blessing Paul, just as
he had received it from the Lord, still mentions the bread and says
of that bread that it is the body of Christ (LS 50; emphasis added).
Similarly, he speaks of “this bread after receiving its name from God is
not only bread but at the same time also the body of Christ” (LS 46;
emphasis added). Numerous other examples can be cited in which
he holds that the consecration effects the presence of the body and
blood of Christ in the Sacrament.
187 It is particularly in the Examination that Chemnitz deals most
systematically with the consecration and its implications. He first
takes note of one of the fundamental differences in the doctrine of
the Lord’s Supper between the Lutherans and the Sacramentarians,
when he observes that the Sacramentarians “rejected the papistical