The Ubiquity of the Body of Christ - A Lutheran Way to See God Everywhere
The writings that gave Brenz a place in the history of theology are De personali unione (1561) and De maiestate Domini (1562). In these treatises he continues and deepens the argumentation of the real presence advocated in the Stuttgart Confession (1559). His opponents were Swiss reformers Peter Martyr Vermigli and Heinrich Bullinger, who commented his writings. Vermigli died while writing a reply for De personali unione. At his deathbed, his friend Bullinger comforted him with the word of God: “But our citizenship is in heaven” (Phil. 3,20) and Vermigli replied: “But not in Brenz’ heaven, that is nowhere.”
The Christological doctrine at stake was that “wherever the Son of God, the true and eternal God, is, there is also the Son of Man in the personal union assumed by God” (ubicunque est filius Dei verus et aeternus Deus, ibi sit etiam filius hominis in unitatem personae a Deo assumptus). This has been understood by some, claims Brenz, as if the body of Christ disperses physically throughout the universe. The doctrine of Christ’s bodily presence has been labeled by Reformed theologians as “ubiquity of the body of Christ”, or ,briefly, ubiquitism. Brenz renounces this understanding of the bodily presence of Christ as rough, inappropriate, and inadequate.
The debate concerns not just the sacraments but also the words of the Creed “ascended into heavens and seated at the right hand of the Father”. Here the theological “cosmology” of Lutherans and Reformed differ. The Reformed view of the ascension was more local than the Lutheran one: the right hand of the Father is a place somewhere in the heavens — at least nowhere on earth. Lutherans maintained that “the right hand of the Father” is not a place, but the divine power and wisdom above heavens. Brenz, for his part, explains the heaven as follows:
"If we must speak about the true heaven of the blessed, it is sincerely to be found where God is the Father, that is, where He appears as favorable, merciful, forgiving, delightful and beautiful. What is lacking in the goods of heaven, where God the Father pours out the treasure of his favor, grace and blessing? And because God pours out his grace generously all around the world, we maintain that the heaven — not a fictitious Empyreum bu the blessedness of heaven — is expanded to the whole earth, wherever there are pious people and those who believe in Christ."
The risen Christ’s bodily presence in the Lord’s Supper is mainly based on scripture: “he ascended higher than all the heavens, in order to fill the whole universe” (Eph 4,10). In addition to that, Brenz attests his opinion with philosophical tools. He analyzes the word natura, which can be used of the substance (substantia) of a thing or of its properties (proprietates et accidentia). As far as “nature” refers to the essence or substance, the nature of God is the uncreated Spirit and a human nature is created and physical being. These do not change into each other, not even in the person of Christ. But regarding the properties (or accidents) of human nature Brenz thinks otherwise: being spatially limited to a place is an accidence of the human nature, that can be superseded without violating the human nature itself. This is perhaps the weakest point of Brenz’ argument. Speaking of the earthly life of Jesus, Brenz adopts nearly docetic tone when he teaches that Jesus did not need to be bodily present just in one place (as humans do) but he did that because he wanted to. Brenz argues for his view of the accidents of human nature by saying that suffering and death are a part of human nature, but their absence does not destroy human nature. In the resurrection, humans will be immortal and have no more suffering – yet still be human. The critics have not noticed the logical connection between the eschatological impassibilitas and the locality of human body. Even Lutheran theologians thought that Brenz had gone too far.
As a matter of fact, the Reformed slogan finitum non est capax infiniti originated from the discussion between Peter Martyr Vermigli and Johannes Brenz. In De maiestate Domini Brenz argues, as a reply to Vermigli’s book Dialogus, that the Zwinglians teach that the finite human nature cannot assume infinite power, wisdom, goodness, or righteousness. According to Aristotle, there is no proportion between finite and infinite (finiti ad infinitum nulla est proportio). Brenz accepts this point in principle. Not even almighty God can make a body, that being a physical body, to scatter throughout the universe so that it would be everywhere at the same time. On the other hand, St. Basil teaches that the word of God is the nature of things. That being the case, the reason why fire burns is the nature God has wanted it to have. Hence, if God wants, it may not burn (as happened with Daniel). Brenz concludes: what appears to us against nature may be natural for God, because his will is the nature of things. God wanted the Son of Man, whom the Son of God has assumed in the personal union inseparably into himself, be able to receive boundless, immeasurable, and infinite divine gifts. This he did not want for any other human being. If this answer is not convincing, one should nevertheless ask whom to believe: Aristotle, who says that there is no proportion between the finite and the infinite, or Christ, who says that the word became flesh?
The doctrine of the bodily presence of the human nature of Christ in the Lord’s Supper may seem a Lutheran specialty, a new dogma, as the opponents labeled it. In Brenz’ thinking, however, it is of a pastoral concern. According to the Augsburg Confession, “to remember Christ is to remember his benefits and realize that they are truly offered to us.” For Brenz, the work of Christ pro nobis culminated in the Ascension, and if we do not know the Ascension, we do not know Christ properly. It is a great consolation to remember that our human nature is seated on the right hand of the Father.
What kind of hope would not increase in us, what is a thing that would fail us, if we hold fast to the faith that the very flesh of ours that we are endowed with, is seated in the supreme majesty, holds the power over everything, and enjoys all blessedness of heaven.
In his Latin explanation of the Catechism (1551) Brenz states that Christs’s sessio ad dexteram Patris means that the Church is seated on the right hand of the Father and participates in the omnipotence of God. This statement may seem like “theology of glory” for a humble Lutheran, but that is not its intent. Quite the opposite; sessio ad dexteram is the final proof that the power of sin and evil cannot destroy Christians, even though sin and death appear more real than God in this world. To put it bluntly: Not the crucifixion of Christ, not even his Resurrection, but eventually his Ascension affirms that Christ is with his own in all their tribulations — not merely sympathetic, but present.
"When the greatness of your sin and the weight of the accusation oppresses you, threatening to throw you into the fire of hell, hold to this article of faith with believing hands. Then consider that Christ, that is of our blood and flesh, is seated in the almighty power of God and has placed us in the same majesty. As sin cannot rule over Christ and cannot pull him down to hell, neither can it throw us in hell, because we are members of Christ and have the right of the same heavenly majesty with him."
After all, the theology of Ascension also proves to be earthbound. Since Christ has traveled through the heavens, he can be near us here below. Christ encounters us in the word and the sacraments. That is heaven on earth: there is no place nearer to Christ than the Holy Supper. And not just that. “What does ‘he ascended’ mean except that he also descended to the depths of the earth”, asks Eph 4,9. Christ has filled the universe with his presence, in order to be with us in our sorrows. In the words of Brenz’ commentary on the gospel according to St. John in 1527:“It is sure that God is never more present to us, than when he appears to be most distant.”
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