Dr. Robert Godfrey on Calvin's View of the Eucharist

http://www.modernreformation.org/default.php?page=articledisplay&var1=EmailComp&var2=632&var3=main

This is an excellent article by the Rev. Dr W. Robert Godfrey of Westminster Seminary (west) on “Calvin and the Eucharist.”

Aside from the article, we are profoundly thankful for the "outreach" by way of the faculty of Westminster Seminary for writing, posting, teaching and being visible in the nation, including the internet and some of the faculty operating in the blogosphere. As Protestant, Confessional and Calvinistic Anglicans, we find no notable, visible or effective outreaches in this nation, aside from a few provincial and minor outposts. We continue to be thankful for www.churchsociety.org, but that is British. These Westminsterians are providing visibility, academia and leadership, including the radio.

As another aside, while remaining Calvinistic in this forum, we are profoundly happy to have Kenneth Howes as our resident Lutheran scholar and reader. He brings that perspective in addition to that embraced by this scribe.

We took an ill-natured hit yesterday for our charitable friendship with Ken for posting a paper he wrote for the LCMS---that hit came from one churlish quarter, a quarter lacking orthodoxy of spirit rather than doctrine; we will call that every time. But back to task.

Dr. Godfrey brings forward Calvin somewhat clearly. In a paper prepared for the Church of Scotland, we believe that Ronald Wallace's Calvin's Doctrine of the Word and Sacrament remains a definitive presentation.

Calvin emphatically insisted on the cruciality, necessity and conjunction of the Word with the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper. Without the Word and infallible promises of the covenant, there was no Sacrament of the Supper.

Second, Calvin, as it were, has been called a mosaicist, creating a pattern woven from Luther and Zwingli. Calvin found himself attempting to think the thoughts of both Reformers after them. Godfrey thinks in another direction, to wit, that Calvin had his own view.

“The flesh of Christ is our food, Calvin insists.” If we depart from this, we depart from life to death. This is why the Supper is essential to the Christian faith. Faith is crucial, but it cannot be separated from the Word. When Christians come to the Table, they meet Jesus Christ. An implication of a Divine Absence is foreclosed.

Third, the Supper is not merely a Memorial, that is, a time to intellectually rehearse the Gospel narratives. Rather, we meet the Risen Christ, are fed and nourished. Calvin believed that the Sacrament of the Lord’s Table should be administered at least once weekly, although the Geneva syndics prescribed a quarterly administration; this was not Calvin's doing.

Calvin, the grand logician and biblical scholar, appears to have had a mystic streak at this point. It reminds us of Elizabeth 1’s prudent cautions. Calvin says: "It is a mystery of Christ's secret union with the devout which is by nature incomprehensible. If anybody should ask me how this communion takes place, I am not ashamed to confess that that 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" (Institutes, IV, 17, 32). Who can doubt the majesty and the feeding received from Christ at the Table?

Indeed, as Dr. Godfrey reminds us, “Calvin becomes so mystical that he speaks of the believer, as he receives the bread and wine actually being lifted up to heaven.” This is, in reverse order, as it were, from that of Christ descending into the bread; rather, by the Holy Spirit the believer ascends into heaven, there to commune with the glorified Christ and all the blessings of his crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension (Institutes, IV, 17, 32, cf. Eph. 2:5-6).

Calvin labored to see a unity between Protestant Confessional Churchmen. It grieved him to see Protestant differences. What Godfrey does not offer in his review, however, is a discussion of the “Consensus Tigurinus” that would result in a disunity between Lutheran, Calvinistic, Cranmerian and Zwinglian camps.

The Consensus Tigurinus was designed to bring unity on the sacramental questions and was crafted by Calvin in its first draft, 1548. Calvin was joined Henry Bullinger of Zurich.

It said:

“…that the Sacraments are not in and of themselves effective and conferring grace, but that God through the Holy Spirit, acts through them as means; that the internal effect appears only in the elect; that the good of the Sacraments consists in leading us to Christ, and being instruments of the grace of God, which is sincerely offered to ll; that in baptism we receive the remission of sins, although this proceeds primarily not from baptism, but from the blood of Christ, not, however, by means of a carnal presence of Christ’s human nature, which is in heaven, but by the power of the Holy Spirit and the devout elevation of our soul to heaven.” (Philip Schaff, “The Consensus of Zurich.” Creeds of Christendom, Vol.1, 472ff.)

This was ultimately accepted at Berne, Zurich, Geneva, St. Gall, Schaffhausen, Grisons, Neuchatel and Basel. It passed over into English theology as well as being received by French Huguenots, and the German Reformed.

While it mollified Melancthon, peace was not to be had. It ignited what Schaff called “an innocent occasion of the second sacramental war.” (supra.,472-3). And so those differences have remained to this day.