One of the ancient controversies of the church has been how exactly a believer partakes of Christ in the Lord’s Supper. The Catholic Church has embraced the doctrine of transubstantiation, which is the affirmation that the elements themselves are changed in their substance to become the actual body and blood of Christ. In this way we partake of the actual body and blood of Christ. The Lutheran Church defined the sacrament differently, seeing that the body of Christ was everywhere present in and around the elements (ubiquitous), but the elements themselves remained unchanged in their substance. We partake of him spiritually as he is spiritually present.
John Calvin rejected both options. To him, both are a violation of the human nature of Christ.
One of the miracles of the incarnation (God becoming man in Jesus Christ) is that even after his resurrection and ascension, Jesus remains both God and man, yet now man as glorified. He retains all of his divine attributes, and yet also retains his humanity. Thus, whatever we say about the Lord’s Supper cannot contradict either the divine or the human nature of Christ. Calvin says it this way:
“(1) Let nothing be withdrawn from Christ’s heavenly glory–as happens when he is brought under the corruptible elements of this world, or bound to any earthly creatures.
(2) Let nothing inappropriate to human nature be ascribed to his body, as happens when it is said either to be infinite or to be put in a number of places at once.”
The first statement means that transubstantiation–which joins the heavenly body of Christ with earthly bread–cannot be correct. The second statement means that consubstantiation cannot be correct–which forces the human body of Christ to do what human bodies cannot do, occupy a multitude of places simultaneously.
For me, this reasoning of Calvin was new and exciting, an application of the two natures of Christ that I had not considered before. For Calvin, this means that our sense of the connection between the elements and Christ has to be consistent with the two natures of Christ. His solution to this was to say that by the Holy Spirit, our eating of the elements becomes an eating of the body and blood of Christ that remains exalted in heaven. This preserves the two natures of Christ while also preserving a controlling passage for John Calvin, namely, John 6, the “bread of life discourse.” In that gospel passage, Jesus tells his hearers, “Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day” (6:54). This passage is fulfilled when by the Holy Spirit we eat and drink the elements (the symbol) which enables us to eat and drink of the body and blood of Christ (the reality). The result is that we “not receive [the body and blood of Christ] solely by imagination or understanding of mind, but…enjoy the thing itself as nourishment of eternal life” (Institutes, IV:19). As we would expect, Calvin’s reasoning is consistent and biblically motivated. It is, however, not our understanding of this issue.
In our mind, Calvin uses an overly literal approach to this issue. It makes John 6 a controlling passage for the Lord’s Supper, a passage that never mentions the Lord’s Supper. It is the manna of the Exodus and not the bread of the Lord’s Supper that are in view in that passage (cf. 6:22-35). On such a controversial and important subject, it seems best to take the explicit statements of Scripture as our guide before we turn to the implicit ones. So, while the gospels record the words of Jesus, “This is my body” (Luk 22:19), and “this cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood” (Luk 22:20), Jesus also says, “Do this in remembrance of me” (Luk 22:19; 1 Cor 11:24). In eating and drinking we “proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes” (1 Cor 11:26). It is an act of “remembrance” and a “proclamation,” rather than an actual “eating” and “drinking” of the body and blood of Christ.
To some this appears to so reduce this sacrament that these signs become “empty signs” or “naked symbols,” and to somehow no longer be conduits of grace. For them the best parallel to the sacraments is a meal that is actually eaten and ingested. To us, the better symbol is the preaching of the word of God. In preaching the word of God, a “means of grace” is employed that God can ignite within our hearts and minds and so edify and nourish us. The grace that is conveyed is from God (thus objective) and yet received by us and communicated by a sinful preacher (thus subjective). Christ is conveyed in the preached word, but though he is “the Word” (John 1:1), his human nature is not somehow communicated from heaven to our bodies and souls. Rather, spiritually we are affected by the preached word and are taught, rebuked, corrected, edified, comforted, encouraged (2 Tim 3:16-17 etc.). This is a product of the words of the preacher impacting our thinking and thus impacting our hearts. It is not a grace that goes directly from the preacher to our souls, bypassing our ears and minds in the process.
As Herman Bavinck has argued:
“Those two sacraments have the whole covenant of grace with all of its benefits, in other words, they have Christ Himself as their content, and accordingly they cannot convey those benefits except by the way of faith. They were, accordingly, instituted for the believers and assure these believers of their portion in Christ. They do not precede the Word but follow it; they have not the power to grant a particular grace which cannot be given by the Word nor be accepted by faith; rather, they are based on the institution of the covenant of grace on God’s part and the confirmation of that covenant on man’s part” (Our Reasonable Faith, 541).
And as our own statement of faith reads:
“As we partake of the Lord’s Supper with an attitude of faith and self-examination, we remember and proclaim the death of Christ, receive spiritual nourishment for our souls, and signify our unity with other members of Christ’s body” (Sovereign Grace Ministries Statement of Faith).
Thus, we see the Lord’s Supper as a divinely prescribed means of grace, a simple act that can be used by God to convey profound grace. It can comfort the afflicted, challenge the proud, inspire the lethargic, humble the conceited, and teach the ignorant. It feeds our souls because it ministers to us divine grace as it ignites the truth of God’s word within our hearts and minds. May there be nothing empty or routine about this sacrament.
DJB
1 response so far ↓
Brian Adkins // May 1, 2007 at 6:35 pm |
Unless I’m missing something, Calvin doesn’t seem to be very consistent here. He makes a point that Christ’s glorified human body is not infinite, so how would he reconcile that with, “our eating of the elements becomes an eating of the body and blood of Christ that remains exalted in heaven” ?
I’m of the opinion that “partaking of Christ” has little to do with our physical stomachs.