A Response to Green Baggins: Calvin's Doctrine of the Spiritual Presence of Christ in the Lord's Supper

Calvin regarded the sacraments of the Old and New Testaments as aids for our faith. Moreover, for Calvin, the sacraments are never to be divorced from the Word. The Word sets forth the promises of God, and the sacraments are seals which guarantee the faithfulness of God to his promises. However, the efficacy of the sacraments operates not only for the benefit of our understanding. Just as the Spirit of God operates through the Word to engender faith in the hearts of the elect, so also the Spirit operating through the sacraments accomplishes in reality that which is signified by them but only in the elect. The Spirit only blesses the faithful.   --Brian Nicholson

Introduction

The following article is from Reformed.Org.  (You can read the article after reading this introduction).  Unfortunately, Reformed.Org is so cluttered with frames and advertisements that reading articles there is next to impossible.  For that reason I have posted this important article here.  This ought to set to rest those at Green Baggins blog who seem to think that the reality attaches to the sacrament itself and not to "participation" in the sacrament.  A full-orbed reading of Calvin--rather than a selective proof texting of Calvin's writings--reveals that Calvin stood solidly within the Reformed tradition on the sacraments.  In other words, Calvin was able to facilitate a consensus between  the English and Swiss Reformers on the sacraments.  That agreement is called the Consensus Tigurinus.  It is revealing that Calvin was unable to persuade the Lutherans to agree to the Consensus of Tigurinus after the death of Luther in 1546.  (See Shedd's critique of the Consensus posted at the Book of Concord site.  See also W.G.T. Shedd).  While some controversialists who insist on some sort of spiritual presence in the supper itself point out that Calvin subscribed to the Augsburg Confession, they neglect to mention that Calvin rejected the version of the Augsburg Confession of 1530 which says that Christ's body and blood are truly and actually present in the bread and wine, a position referred to as "consubstantiation" by most Reformed scholars.  The version to which Calvin subscribed in an attempt to bring unity between the Lutherans and the Reformed sides of the magisterial Reformation was in fact the 1540 version of the Augsburg Confession.  The 1540 version says that Christ's body and blood are "truly exhibited" in the sacrament.   (See  Calvin and the Westphal Controversy and Augsburg Confession 1540).There is a huge difference in understanding between the two concepts.  Those who "pretend" to be Reformed while making misleading statements about Calvin's affinity to Luther's view are simply skewing the evidence.  Likewise, those who say that the Consensus Tigurinus is a political document and ambiguous overlook that it is written by the hand of Calvin himself.  Saying that something Calvin wrote is ambiguous creates problems with reading everything Calvin wrote elsewhere.  This is the same sort of argument that Amyraldians use to say that Calvin never taught particular atonement.  When we read the Reformed confessions of faith and compare them it becomes obvious that the Zwinglian view is not the same as the radical Anabaptist view of mere memorialism, a view falsely charged to Zwingli.  Archbishop Thomas Cranmer's theology of the sacraments often was charged falsely with being "Zwinglian", meaning that Cranmer viewed the sacraments as merely empty badges or merely memorial ordinances.  While I would agree that Cranmer's view could be called "Zwinglian", it does not follow that this is the same as "mere memorialism".

But anyone reading Zwingli or Bullinger will see immediately that their own view was not mere memorialism but simply a different emphasis and in fact the Zwinglian view is more in line with Calvin and the English Reformers than with the Anabaptists.  The folks over at Green Baggins need to read their theology and church history in context.  One has to wonder if Ligonier Ministries has become infected with Federal Visionist views via R.C. Sproul, Jr. and his friends.  I am referring in particular to Mr. David Gray, who commented at Green Baggins and claimed to be working for Ligonier.  In the future Mr. Gray needs to show more charity for the full orbed teaching on the sacraments rather than a tendentious insistence on a lopsided "spiritual union" in the supper or a "reality attached to the sign".  While technically there is a reality attached to the sacrament and the sign, that reality exists only for the true believer and the elect.  Therefore, one has to conclude that the "reality" referred to by Calvin and the Reformers is not some objective reality in the elements themselves--that would be idolatry!  Rather the objective reality refers to the cross 2,000 years ago and to Christ Himself and all of His benefits and promises extended to the believer through faith.  The reality of spiritual union is "in" the believer himself, not a local presence of Christ in the elements or the supper itself.  As the writer below states clearly, the sacraments confirm our faith and are aids to our faith, not some sort of magical mystery tour.  Folks like Mr. Gray seem to have an ambiguous principle of ex opere operato whereby God mysteriously works grace in the supper itself rather than in the believer THROUGH the sacrament.  If the deciding factor is the supper itself then what we have is the papist view and not the Reformed view.  As you will see, only faith makes the reality of the sacrament efficacious and it is God Himself who works faith in the heart of the believer!  Methinks folks like Mr. Gray are closer to the Federal Visionists and the papists than anyone at Green Baggins wants to admit.  One has to wonder if Van Tillians have any rationality left?  I call the adherents to Van Til's theology the Zen Buddhists of the Reformed tradition.  One notices at once their refusal to see plain reason and propositional truth in Scripture or in the writings of the Reformers.  In fact, Van Tillians often have more in common with Neo-Orthodoxy than with the magisterial Reformation.  I would include the Neo-Calvinists in that assessment, by the way.  If you read the following comments at Green Baggins you will immediately notice that the best argument Mr. Reed and Mr. Gray can muster is to attack my person (ad hominem) rather than speaking to the argument itself.   In fact, Gray took what I said out of context when I said that regeneration is not connected directly to baptism.  I immediately qualified that with, "Or not necessarily so, anyway."  Gray conveniently overlooked the qualification. And you will notice that when I presented evidence from sources I was accused of being a "simpleton" who simply proof texts without interaction.  It seems to me that the only way to deal with irrational arguments is to post source materials that clearly and unequivocally refute their error.  It never ceases to amaze me when so-called "Reformed" theologians stoop to logical fallacies like ad hominem and attacking the person rather than the argument.  Apparently, for Gray anyone who disagrees with his semi-Lutheran position is either a "Baptist" or a "Zwinglian" in the derogatory sense. So much for Van Tillian integrity.  When defeated in a debate simply resort to ad hominem.]

(See the comments under The Theology of Sacraments Underlying Communion « Green Baggins).  Amazingly, Jeff Cagle gets it [see comment #77] and David Gray does not if you read those comments--although Cagle misses the point that the CT is both Calvinist AND Zwinglian.  There is nothing ambiguous about that.  One should also note that the answer to Cagle's question, " Or else, what can the Confession possibly mean to say whence it comes to pass, that the names and effects of the one are attributed to the other?" is given by Cranmer: 

"And now I will come to the saying of St. Ambrose, which is always in their mouths. 'Before the consecration,' saith he, as they allege, 'it is bread; but after the words 'of consecration it is the body of Christ.'

"For answer hereunto, it must be first known what consecration is.

"Consecration is the separation of any thing from a profane and worldly use unto a spiritual and godly use.

"And therefore when usual and common water is taken from other uses, and put to the use of baptism, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, then it may rightly be called consecrated water, that is to say, water put to a holy use.

"Even so when common bread and wine be taken and severed from other bread and wine, to the use of the holy communion, that portion of bread and wine, although it be of the same substance that the other is from which it is severed, yet it is now called consecrated or holy bread and holy wine.

"Not that the bread and wine have or can have any holiness in them, but that they be used to an holy work, and represent holy and godly things. And therefore St. Dionyse calleth the bread holy bread, and the cup an holy cup, as soon as they be set upon the altar to the use of the holy communion.

"But specially they may be called holy and consecrated, when they be separated to that holy use by Christ's own words, which he spake for that purpose, saying of the bread, This is my body; and of the wine, This is my blood.

"So that commonly the authors, before those words be spoken, do take the bread and the wine but as other common bread and wine; but after those words be pronounced over them, then they take them for consecrated and holy bread and wine.

"Not that the bread and wine can be partakers of any holiness or godliness, or can be the body and blood of Christ; but that they represent the very body and blood of Christ, and the holy food and nourishment which we have by him. And so they be called by the names of the body and blood of Christ, as the sign, token, and figure is called by the name of the very thing which it showeth and signifieth."

From:  Cranmer on Eating and Drinking

What Neo-Calvinist Presbyterians and Kuyperians in the Dutch Reformed tradition often overlook is that there was mutual interaction between the various branches of the magisterial Reformation.  While Calvin is recognized as the "father" of the Reformed tradition, he is by no means the only theologian of his contemporary period representing the Reformed tradition.  It is important to recognize this connection and to read widely in the theological debates and writings of the Reformation period.  Cranmer's contribution to the doctrine of the sacraments is no less important than Calvin's contribution or Zwingli's contribution.  The 1552 Book of Common Prayer and its successor, the 1662 Book of Common Prayer have had as much influence as the Institutes of Christian Religion and so have the Thirty-nine Articles of Religion, both predominately the work of Cranmer.  (See Cranmer's Immortal Bequest).

May the peace of God be with you,

Charlie

Go to Antithesis Root Page

[Click on the title to see the original webpage for the article at Reformed.Org.  Charlie]

Calvin's Doctrine of the Spiritual Presence of Christ in the Lord's Supper

 

Brian Nicholson

The doctrine of the Lord's Supper is ever in danger of being subverted by either polemic or neglect. One side of the Scriptural teaching may be emphasized to the virtual exclusion of another side. This is especially so with respect to the presence of Christ in the Supper. Even among the Reformed churches, which ostensibly follow the sacramental teaching of the great Genevese John Calvin, there has been disagreement over the precise import of this doctrine. I contend that if we begin to re-examine Calvin's teaching on this subject we will better appreciate the profundity of the sacrament.

Calvin's Sacramentalism

 

Calvin regarded the sacraments of the Old and New Testaments as aids for our faith. Moreover, for Calvin, the sacraments are never to be divorced from the Word. The Word sets forth the promises of God, and the sacraments are seals which guarantee the faithfulness of God to his promises. However, the efficacy of the sacraments operates not only for the benefit of our understanding. Just as the Spirit of God operates through the Word to engender faith in the hearts of the elect, so also the Spirit operating through the sacraments accomplishes in reality that which is signified by them but only in the elect. The Spirit only blesses the faithful.

With respect to God's action in the sacraments, sign and reality correspond directly. The sacraments are so adapted by God as to portray in their outward form that which is conferred upon men by him in the spiritual realm. With respect to the manward side, the sacraments serve as a means by which we confess our faith before men.[1]

Union With Christ

 

For Calvin, union with Christ is the most important doctrine to grasp if one would understand the Christian faith properly. [2] Calvin recognized that the doctrines of imputed righteousness and union with Christ are incomprehensible mysteries. These mysteries are, however, exhibited by the sacraments which are "adapted to our small capacity." [3]
 

The benefits of the redemption secured by Christ are communicated to the believer through this union. But the union of believers with their Head has special reference to the human nature of Christ. Christ's human nature was the means by which sacrifice was made, sin was punished and righteousness was secured. Christ accomplishes His redemptive work by uniting Himself to His people. Calvin puts it thus: "...becoming Son of man with us, he has made us sons of God with him; that by his descent to earth, he has prepared an ascent to heaven for us; that by taking on our mortality, he has conferred his immortality upon us..."[4] Hence, as Calvin says, believers enjoy a "holy brotherhood" with Christ in His incarnation. [5 ] The Holy Spirit effects, so to speak, an "exchange of properties between the Son of God and mankind."[6]

As union with Christ depends solely on the work of the Spirit, the sacraments, which are seals of this union, are efficacious only through the sovereign power of the Spirit. Grace is not inseparable from the celebration of the sacraments themselves. Grace is conferred only when God pleases to bestow grace through the sacrament.[7] The sacraments, according to Calvin, are not to be regarded as automatic dispensers of grace.

The Spiritual Presence

 

Calvin rejected any notion of a local presence of Christ in the Supper. Labeling the Lutheran notion of the ubiquity of Christ's body a "phantasm," he fully discredited it as a credible way to understand the Supper. [8] He described the doctrine of transubstantiation with even greater invective, calling it "fictitious" and the work of Satan.

How then is the presence of Christ to be understood? Wallace has observed that Calvin achieved clarity in his treatment of the sacrament not by thinking through it but by thinking around it. [9] Calvin acknowledged that at the heart of the sacrament there is a miracle and a profound mystery. He never sought to reduce the mystery to reason but rather preserved the mysterious element. We cannot, then, demand a clarity of language such as is set forth by the proponents of opposing theories. Calvin's opponents, Westphal and Tileman Heshusius, accused him of ambiguity and subtlety.[10] They sought a sacramental theory in concrete language but did not find it in Calvin. We must, therefore, in examining Calvin's teaching, appreciate his method and not seek more than a "stammering" definition. Here we move in the realm of mystery.

Calvin avoided the language of "physicality" employed by the Lutherans. Christ's body and blood were to be "understood in terms of Christ's act of reconciliation, not in themselves."[11] Although the believer, through the Supper, possesses a true communion with Christ's natural body and blood, it is not in terms of substantiality but rather in terms of the spiritual, redemptive benefits inherent in the resurrected and ascended body of Christ. Hence, for Calvin, a local presence is not necessary. The body of Christ remains in heaven. There is no "descent" of Christ to earth. "Flesh must therefore be flesh; spirit, spirit -- each thing in the state and condition wherein God created it. But such is the condition of flesh that it must subsist in one definite place, with its own size and form." [12] The human properties of Christ's body are not impaired. Moreover the elements of the Supper retain their full, substantial identity as bread and wine.

There is however a descent of the Holy Spirit who constitutes the connection between the risen Christ and the souls of believers. "No extent of space interferes with the boundless energy of the Spirit, which transfuses life into us from the flesh of Christ."[13] "It is certainly a proof of truly divine and incomprehensible power that how remote so ever He may be from us, He infuses life from the substance of His flesh and blood into our souls so that no distance of place can impede the union of head and members." [14] The manner in which Christ's flesh is eaten is spiritual. The Holy Spirit communicates the life-giving benefits of Christ's natural body to us.

Although, on one hand, Calvin denies the descent of Christ's body to us (absentia localis), he paradoxically speaks of such a descent by the Holy Spirit as the source of real presence (praesentia realis) in the Supper. Calvin would only allow the word "real" (reali) to be used if it meant that which was not fallacious and imaginary or the opposite of that which was deceptive and illusory. On the whole he preferred the word "true" (vero) to describe Christ's presence. In normal speech "real" connotes something that is existent, objective, and in the external order. When used with reference to the Supper, "real presence" implies "local presence," and, of course, this is denied by Calvin. So then, Calvin would allow the phrase praesentia realis only if "real" was used for "true" as is sometimes the case in common or vulgar parlance.[15] As for the mode of "descent" (modum descensus) Calvin maintains that it is the Holy Spirit who descends but not alone. Christ "descends" by His Spirit. But again Calvin employs paradoxical language when he maintains that the manner of descent is that "by which he lifts us up to himself.[16] There is, so to speak, a simultaneous descent and ascent. What is in view, here, is sacramental "proximity" effected by the Spirit upon the ground of the mystical union of Christ and His people.

Calvin maintains that the sacrament's effect is more than a mere stimulation of the intellect, imagination, and emotions at the sight of the portrayal of the spectacle of the Cross. It is this and more. "In participation in the Supper faith connects itself with something outside of itself and other than a mere idea, and, in so doing, effects in the spiritual realm a real communication between itself and the earthly reality such as that figured in the act of eating the bread."[17] Calvin distinguishes between eating and believing. Faith or belief receives Christ and the promises, but eating implies more. Eating is the result or consequence of faith. [18] The spiritual transaction which occurs possesses the nature of nourishment or vivication. "...the flesh of Christ is eaten by believing because it is made ours by faith..."[19] Hence, the eating (nourishment) follows from believing (appropriation). Or, in other words, faith is a vessel that receives something from outside -- the benefits of Christ's flesh and blood which nourish the believer and impart to him eternal life.

Calvin derives his doctrine of the Supper from the accounts of the eucharistic institution in the Gospels as well as from the Pauline words of institution. But the most significant passage for Calvin is John 6:26-65 (The Bread of Life Discourse). He acknowledges that this passage does not have primary reference to the eucharist as some interpreters have understood it. [20] However, he also recognizes that the passage here refers to the life-giving properties with which Christ's body is imbued. Commenting on John 6:51 he says, "As this secret power to bestow life, of which he has spoken, might be referred to his Divine essence, he now comes down to the second step, and shows that this life is placed in his flesh, that it may be drawn out of it."[21] Calvin later speaks of the supper as being the "seal" of the doctrine taught in this passage.[22] Calvin recognizes that this vivifying power of the body of Christ, received by faith, is the power communicated in the Supper itself. But further than this he cannot go. "Now, if anyone should ask me how this takes place, I shall not be ashamed to confess that it is a secret too lofty for either my mind to comprehend or my words to declare. And to speak more plainly, I rather experience than understand it."[23]

The Decline of Calvin's Eucharistic Teaching in the Reformed Churches

 

The early English Puritans embraced Calvin's sacramentalism heartily. They had little use for Zwingli's view since he denied that the sacrament increased faith or advanced sanctification. Their eucharistic theology was dominated by a pastoral interest in assurance and sanctification.

Yet theirs was indeed Calvinism with a difference, for Puritan definitions of sacramental benefits represented a departure in tone and emphasis from Calvin. Because they elaborated the dichotomy between flesh and spirit, especially in terms of psychological interiority, the Puritans tended to rely on subjective explanations of sacramental efficacy.[24]

A certain imprecision entered into Puritan sacramental discourses. The presence of Christ was interpreted in a thoroughly subjectivistic manner. "It will not do to categorize these ministers as either Calvinists or Zwinglians: in the doctrine of the presence, the issues were too blurred." [25] Some ministers, however, retained Calvin's understanding of the spiritual presence. Richard Vines and John Owen even went beyond Calvin in stressing the uniqueness of the sacramental presence.[26] In codifying the Lord's Supper, the Westminster Assembly approximated Calvin's doctrine. However, the work of the Spirit in the sacrament is not mentioned, and instrumental language, as in the Belgic Confession, is not employed (e.g. faith is the hand and mouth of the soul etc.).

Seventeenth century Reformed dogmatics set forth the axiom, "the finite cannot contain the infinite" (Finitum non capax infiniti). As applied to Christology, this principle led to a separation between the human and divine natures of Christ.[27] There could be no confusion of his natures. Francis Turretin developed this principle more clearly in his Institutio Theologicae Elencticae (1679-1685). Princeton Seminary transplanted Turretin's continental tradition when it adopted his Institutio as its theological textbook. Charles Hodge used this text to instruct large numbers of Presbyterian ministers in the middle decades of the nineteenth century. Robert Lewis Dabney also employed Institutio at Union Theological Seminary at Richmond. In time, the Reformed rationalism and sacramental theology of Turretin permeated the ranks of much of American Presbyterianism. However, at Columbia Theological Seminary in South Carolina, the Professor of Theology, James Henley Thornwell, and the Professor of Church History and Polity, John B. Adger, employed Calvin's Institutes as the text for theology and ecclesiology with the result that many Southern ministers were Calvinistic in their sacramental theology.

These two strains of Reformed sacramental theology came into conflict when John Nevin published his controversial The Mystical Presence in June 1846. Nevin, professor of theology of the seminary of the German Reformed Church at Mercersburg, Pennsylvania, had been much influenced by German philosophy, especially that of Hegel, and also by the High Church movement of the nineteenth century. Nevin had been a student of Charles Hodge at Princeton but later repudiated Hodge's sacramental theology. He sought to demonstrate the historical decline of the doctrine of the Supper that had occurred in the Reformed churches and also to revive Calvin's doctrine which had been codified in the Belgic Confession, one of the symbols of the German Reformed Church. Hodge responded to Nevin's volume in 1848 in a long article in the Princeton Review.[28] First, he tried to demonstrate that the symbols of the Reformed churches did not contain the high doctrine of the Supper that was set forth by Calvin in the Institutes. Next, he made the incredible assertion that Calvin's true opinion, pertaining to the nature of Christ's presence in the Supper, was to be found not in the Institutes but in the Consensus Tigurinus, a symbol that was framed for the purpose of uniting the Swiss churches. He implied that the view set forth in the Institutes was intended by Calvin to be a mediating position in order to conciliate the Lutherans. Finally, he refuted Nevin's theory of the Supper with its Hegelian overtones.

Hodge takes exception to Calvin's view that, by virtue of Christ's divine nature, his human nature possessed a certain vivifying efficacy of life-giving power that was communicated to the believer in the Supper. The influence of Turretin is here seen in Hodge's Christology. Christ is present in the Supper, according to Hodge, only in that the benefits of his body and blood, namely forgiveness and imputed righteousness, are applied to believing recipients. Hence, through the Supper, the believer is strengthened and confirmed in faith. It is apparent that the controlling motif of Hodge's theology, federal headship and imputation, is at work in his conception of the sacrament.

Dabney's view of the Supper is identical to that of Hodge. He says of Calvin's view, "it is not only incomprehensible, but impossible." [29] He also maintained that the Westminster Assembly modified Calvin's view so as to remove "all that was untenable and unscriptural in it." [30]

In 1876, John Adger rose to Calvin's defense in an article in the Southern Presbyterian Review.[31] Adger points out that Hodge had caricatured Calvin's view. Nowhere did Calvin ever speak of a vivifying efficacy "emanating" from Christ's glorified body. The life-giving benefits of Christ's flesh are communicated to the believer by the work of the Holy Spirit. Adger goes on to show that Calvin's teaching was incorporated into all of the Reformed symbols. Moreover, he demonstrates that Hodge mistranslated the Latin versions of the Consensus Tigurinus. Thus, Adger demonstrated that Hodge's view was out of accord with the prevailing view held in the Reformed churches from the time of Calvin.

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[1] This section is a brief summary of Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion, IV. 14.

[2] Ronald S. Wallace, Calvin's Doctrine of the Word and Sacrament, (Edinbrugh: Oliver and Boyd, 1953), p. 143.

[3] Inst. IV 17.1.

[4] Inst. IV 17.2.

[5] Wallace, Word and Sacrament, p. 148. Cf. Inst. 12.2.

[6] Ibid., p. 148.

[7] Inst. IV 14.7.

[8] Inst. IV 17.7. Cf. 17.3 0.

[9] Wallace, Word and Sacrament, p. 219.

[10] Cf. "Second Defense of the Sacraments" and "True Partaking of the Flesh and Blood of Christ" in Tracts and Treatises, Vol. II.

[11] G.C. Berkouser, The Sacraments (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Comapny, 1969), p. 229.

[12] Inst. IV 17.24.

[13] Corpus Reformatorum, 37: 48. Cited by Wallace, p. 206.

[14] Ibid., Cited by Wallace, p. 207.

[15] Joseph N. Tylenda, "Calvin and Christ's Presence in the Supper-True or Real", Scottish Journal of Theology, 27 (1974): pp. 65-75.

[16] Inst. IV 17.16.

[17] Wallace, Word and Sacrament, p. 212.

[18] Corpus Reformatorum, 9:75 C. Wallace p. 212.

[19] Inst. IV 17.5.

[20] Inst. IV 17.4.

[21] Commentary on the Gospel According to John, ad loc.

[22] Ibid., on 6:56.

[23] Inst. IV 17.32.

[24] E. Brooks Holifield, The Covenant Sealed: The Development of Puritan Sacramental Theology in Old and New England, 1570-1720, (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1974), p. 53.

[25] Ibid., p. 59.

[26] Ibid., pp. 126-131.

[27] E. Brooks Holifield, "Mercersberg, Princeton, and the South: The Sacramental Controversy in the Nineteenth Century", Journal of the Presbyterian Historical Society, 54 (1976), p. 245.

[28] Charles Hodge, "Doctrine of the Reformed Church on the Lord's Supper", The Biblical Repertory and the Princeton Review, 20 (April 1848): 227-77.

[29] Robert L. Dabney, Lectures in Systematic Theology, (1878, reprinted: Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1972), p. 811.

[30] Ibid.

[31] John Adger, "Calvin Defended Against Drs. Cunningham and Hodge", The Southern Presbyterian Review, 27 (1876), pp. 133-166.

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