Pieper, 1968, vol. 2 “The Communicated Omnipresence and the Lord’s Supper”

“The Communicated Omnipresence and the Lord’s Supper” (Loc. 43778).

Reformed theology asserts that Luther devised communication of attributes to make his view of the Lord’s Supper work. Yet Luther maintained the real presence based on the Words of Institution. “Indeed, Luther declares that the doctrine of Christ’s Person, in particular that of the communication of attributes, is not really a part of the doctrine of the Lord’s Supper, so far as the Scripture proof for the real presence of Christ’s body in the Sacrament comes into question” (Loc. 4401). Luther’s view was that Christ has a local, illocal, and repletive presence as he may choose. Pieper makes clear (Loc. 4454) that the Lutheran view of ubiquity does not mean Jesus is bodily present in all things but only where he says he will be.

Pieper goes on to discuss the fact that there is broad agreement among Lutherans about communicated omnipresence. There have been some suggestions especially of Chemnitz breaking with the view, but those are based on inaccurate views of the historic documents. Pieper quotes Chemnitz extensively to demonstrate his view.