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More Than a Symbol: How Christ Truly Feeds His People | John Calvin · Reformed Thinking

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  Welcome back to Reformed Thinking.
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  We are very glad you're here with us.
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  Today, we're turning our attention to a subject that is,
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  well, it's familiar to anyone who's ever stepped foot in a
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  church, yet it remains one of the most debated and honestly
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  misunderstood topics in Christian history.
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  We're talking about the Lord's Supper.
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  That's right. It's the central act of
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  Christian worship, but it's been the cause of so much division.
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  We're going to be looking at this through the lens of John
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  Calvin, specifically his Institutes of the Christian
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  Religion, Book 4, Chapter 17. He calls it the Sacred Supper of
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  Christ. And the mission for this
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  discussion, for this deep dive, is to get to the bottom of what
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  actually happens during communion.
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  There's so much confusion around this.
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  Is it just a memory exercise? Is it a physical transformation
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  of the bread? How does eating a small piece of
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  bread and drinking a sip of wine actually benefit a believer?
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  Right. And Calvin has some very
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  specific and I think very helpful answers to those
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  questions. He certainly does.
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  But he starts this whole section with a very serious warning.
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  He notes that Satan has exerted himself to obscure this
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  doctrine. Calvin says the enemy has
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  brought in clouds and quarrels to estrange people from this
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  spiritual food. That's a striking way to frame
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  the conversation, isn't it? It's not just an academic debate
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  for Calvin. He sees it as spiritual warfare.
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  If the devil can get us confused about the supper or fighting
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  about the, you know, the physics of it, we stop being fed by it.
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  That is the strategy. If you can't stop the meal,
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  spoil the appetite. So our goal is to clear away
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  some of that fog. We want to look at this from the
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  classic formed perspective, which is often called the via
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  media or the middle way the. Middle way we're.
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  Looking for that biblical balance between the idea that
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  the supper is a bare symbol, just a memory, and the idea that
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  it's a physical, biological change of the elements.
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  OK, so let's start where he starts.
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  The first section of our outline, the sign and the thing
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  signified. Calvin opens with a very warm
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  image. He talks about God as a father.
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  It's a really tender opening. He says that God has received us
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  into his family. We're adopted and he uses this
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  phrase. God is a Provident, householder
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  A. Provident Household.
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  Think about what a good father does.
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  He doesn't just give life to his children and then walk away.
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  He sustains them. He feeds them.
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  Calvin says that God, having given a spiritual life through
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  the gospel, now undertakes the responsibility to nourish us
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  throughout our lives. I appreciate that analogy.
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  It moves the theology from the abstract to the the relational.
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  It's about a father putting food on the table for his children.
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  But this food is it's unique. Oh, absolutely.
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  It's a spiritual banquet. And this is where Calvin finds a
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  sacrament, He says it's a visible sign for an invisible
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  reality. So you have the signs, the bread
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  and the wine. They're physical.
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  You can handle them. You can taste them.
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  The sustained physical life. OK.
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  That's the physical part. And then you have the reality or
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  what he calls the thing signified correct.
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  The reality is Christ himself, specifically his body and blood.
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  Calvin draws a parallel here that's really key.
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  Just as bread nourishes, sustains, and strengthens the
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  body, so the body of Christ is the only food to invigorate and
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  enliven the soul. So the visible sign gives us
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  assurance of the invisible reality.
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  That's the function of the sign. You know, we're creatures of
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  sense. We aren't angels.
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  We have bodies. God knows this, so he
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  accommodates himself to our capacity.
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  He uses these physical elements to mirror a spiritual reality.
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  He wants us to look at the bread and have a certainty, a real
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  confidence that our souls are being fed.
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  And Calvin lists so he calls a wonderful exchange that happens
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  in this union. I want to walk through this list
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  because it feels like this is the heart of the benefit we
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  receive. He says that in the supper we're
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  witnessing a trade. It's the great exchange of the
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  gospel sealed at the table. Calvin says that Christ takes
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  our poverty and our weakness. And in return, we get his wealth
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  and his strength. Christ takes our mortality.
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  And we get his immortality. And of course, the most
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  significant one, Christ, takes the weight of our iniquity and
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  sin. And we get His righteousness.
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  It's breathtaking when you really consider it.
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  We bring our bankruptcy to the table.
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  We bring what Calvin calls our vileness, and in this spiritual
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  transaction, Christ takes that weight and clothes us in his own
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  status. The Supper is the seal of that
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  exchange. When you eat the bread, you're
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  enacting that truth. You're saying I am taking
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  Christ's righteousness into myself?
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  It effectively communicates that we are growing into one body
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  with Christ. Whatever is his becomes ours.
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  That's the assurance. Yes.
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  It's not just that we remember he died for us, it's that we
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  participate in the benefits of his death right here and now.
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  This leads us to the second section, which is, I think,
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  often the most difficult part of the doctrine to grasp the mode
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  of presence. How is Christ present?
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  If the benefit is this exchange, how do we connect with Him?
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  Right. And this is where we have to be
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  very precise to represent the Reformed view.
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  Calvin is navigating between two cliffs.
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  On one side, he rejects the idea that it's just bear knowledge.
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  He says we don't just think about Jesus, we partake of him.
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  But on the other side, he rejects the idea that Christ is
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  physically enclosed in the bread.
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  He's very firm on that point. I remember the line where he
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  says Christ is not tiny and hidden in the dough.
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  He is. He argues that Christ has a real
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  body, a true human body, and that body is in heaven.
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  The creed states He ascended. So if his body is in heaven and
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  we are on earth, how does the connection happen?
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  And the answer is the Holy Spirit.
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  The Holy Spirit is the bridge. Calvin's logic is that we do not
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  drag Christ down to the table. We don't pull him out of heaven
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  to hide him in a wafer. Instead, the Holy Spirit lifts
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  us up. The Spirit unites things that
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  are separated by space. Calvin uses an analogy from
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  nature that I find really helpful here.
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  He points to the sun. It's a brilliant illustration.
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  Think about the sun. It has a specific location in
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  the heavens. It's millions of miles away.
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  It does not physically touch the earth.
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  If it did, we'd be consumed. And yet the Sun is effectively
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  present here. Right.
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  It's rays shed substance, warmth, energy on the soil.
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  It makes plants grow. Precisely, Kelvin argues that if
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  a created object like the Sun can transfer its substance and
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  power across such a vast distance, surely the Holy Spirit
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  is capable of transferring the life of Christ's flesh to us
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  without his body having to leave heaven.
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  That makes a lot of sense. It protects the reality of
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  Christ's human body in heaven, but it also validates the
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  reality of our feeding on earth. It preserves the integrity of
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  both. We don't need to turn the bread
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  into flesh to have a real communion.
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  The Spirit conveys the life giving power of Christ's
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  humanity to our souls. OK, so this brings up the role
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  of faith. Calvin talks about eating by
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  faith. How does that work?
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  Is it just a mental thing? That's what some of his
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  opponents accused him of. They said eating just means
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  believing. They thought he meant it was
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  purely a mental exercise. But Calvin pushes back on that.
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  He makes a distinction. He says eating is not the same
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  thing as faith. OK, so how does he define the
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  relationship then? He says faith is the vessel.
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  He uses the image of a mouth. Faith is the mouth of the soul.
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  You can't eat if you keep your mouth closed.
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  But the nutrition doesn't come from the opening of the mouth.
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  It comes from the food you receive.
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  So faith is the instrument. It is the instrument of
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  reception. We receive only as much as we
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  hold in the vessel of faith. But the food which is Christ is
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  objective. It is offered to us.
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  Faith is simply the hand that reaches out to take the gift.
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  It's not the gift itself. Let's move to Section 3.
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  Calvin spends A considerable amount of time refuting what he
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  considers to be errors. He addresses the Papist error,
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  which is transubstantiation. This was the view of the Roman
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  church at the time, and it's a very specific teaching.
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  Transubstantiation teaches that the substance of the bread is
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  converted into the actual body of Christ and the wine into his
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  blood. The only thing that remains of
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  the bread is the appearance, what they call the accidents.
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  So it looks like bread. It tastes like bread, but
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  substantively it is flesh. Correct, and Calvin critiques
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  this vigorously. First, he argues that it
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  destroys the nature of a sacrament.
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  A sacrament is a sign pointing to a reality.
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  If you destroy the sign, if the bread stops being bred, there's
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  no analogy left. You lose the picture of
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  nutrition. You do.
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  If there's no bread, you can't say.
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  Just as bread feeds the body, Christ feeds the soul.
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  The parallel collapses. Calvin also points to the
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  history of this idea. He saw the controversy involving
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  a man named Berengarius and Pope Nicholas.
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  This is a rather graphic part of the text.
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  It is. Berengarius was forced to
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  confess in writing that he was crushing the body of Christ with
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  his teeth and grinding it. Calvin finds this language
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  monstrous. He says it insults the glory of
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  the risen Christ. Christ is in glory.
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  He's not being chewed up by humans.
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  That's a very visceral objection.
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  It's not just a philosophical 1. Not at all.
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  It's a defense of Christ's dignity.
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  But Calvin also addresses the Lutheran view, or the view of
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  ubiquity. The ubiquity error.
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  So what was that about? This arose from the debate about
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  how Christ could be present. Some argued that because Christ
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  is God and God is everywhere, then Christ's body must share in
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  that attribute and be everywhere as well.
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  So it's sort of includes in, with and under the bread.
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  And Calvin rejects this. He rejects it based on the
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  definition of a human body. He says Christ has a true human
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  body. He's like us in every way except
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  for sin. A true body must have
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  dimensions. It must be in one place.
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  If you make a body infinite, or say it's everywhere, it ceases
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  to be a body. He is a scripture to support
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  this. He is not here.
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  He has risen. That's a key text for him, and
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  the ascension is critical for Calvin.
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  If Christ is everywhere bodily, then the ascension loses its
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  meaning. Why did the disciples watch him
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  go up into heaven if he was just staying everywhere?
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  Calvin warns that making Christ's body invisible or
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  infinite repeats the ancient heresy of Marcion.
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  Marcion claimed Jesus was just a phantom, right?
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  Not really human. Exactly.
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  So for Calvin, this isn't just a side issue.
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  He's actually defending the incarnation here.
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  He wants to ensure we understand Jesus is truly man.
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  He wants a Savior who is our brother, who has a body like
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  ours. If we turn his body into a
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  mystical infinite substance, we lose that connection.
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  So it all circles back to the Spirit again.
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  It always does. For Calvin on this topic, to
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  demand that Christ be locally present in the bread is to limit
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  the power of the Spirit. It suggests the Spirit isn't
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  capable of uniting as to heaven, so we have to pull heaven down
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  to earth. Calvin says the Spirit is the
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  bond of union, not physical proximity.
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  Now all of this theology, it really hinges on how we
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  interpret the Bible. So Section 4 deals with
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  interpreting the words of institution.
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  This is my body. And the littlest of the day
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  demanded A strict reading. They said is, means is.
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  Therefore the bread is the body. End of story.
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  But Calvin argues that this is a figure of speech.
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  He calls it metonymy. Autonomy.
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  Yeah. It's where the name of the thing
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  signified is given to the sign. And Calvin doesn't just invent
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  this idea, he lists several biblical examples to show this
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  is a common pattern in Scripture.
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  Paul writes in First Corinthians, the rock was
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  Christ. Right.
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  And nobody believes the rock in the desert literally turned into
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  the second person of the Trinity.
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  No, the rock was a sign that offered Christ.
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  Or look at circumcision. God says this is my covenant,
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  but the physical act isn't the covenant itself.
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  It's the sign of the covenant for the Passover lamb.
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  The lamb is the Passover. The Lamb signifies the event of
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  the Angel passing over. So in all these cases, the sign
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  gets the name of the reality it points to, yes?
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  It's Sacramento. Language Count says no one
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  thinks the rock turned into a person, but the rock offered
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  Christ to the Israelites in the same way the bread offers Christ
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  to us. He has a very strong argument
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  regarding the cup as well. The cup argument is really
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  difficult to refute if you're a strict literalist.
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  Luke and Paul record Jesus saying this cup is the New
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  Testament in my blood. If we demand that is means a
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  literal physical identity, we would have to say the cup
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  itself. The physical vessel is the New
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  Testament. Which is obviously not the case.
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  It's absurd. Everyone admits that's a figure
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  of speech. Calvin simply asks for
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  consistency. If we all agree the language
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  about the cup is figurative, we have to look at the intent of
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  the words regarding the bread as well.
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  We can't get stuck on a single syllable and ignore the entire
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  context of Sacramento language in the Bible.
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  OK, I want to move to Section 5, Worthy and unworthy partaking.
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  This is a very practical section.
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  I think many people, many listeners struggle with the fear
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  of unworthiness. They ask, am I good enough to
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  take communion? It's a pervasive anxiety, and in
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  Calvin's time, the view he was critiquing demanded perfection.
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  It required deep contrition, detailed confession and
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  satisfaction. It created this huge barrier
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  where people were terrified to come to the table because they
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  didn't feel clean enough. It turned the supper into a
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  source of dread rather than comfort.
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  It did, but Calvin reverses this completely.
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  He has this wonderful phrase where he calls the supper
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  medicine for the sick. That is such a helpful reframe.
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  It changes everything. If you are healthy, you don't
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  need a doctor. If you are righteous, you don't
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  need the supper. The supper is designed for
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  sinners. It is for those who are weak and
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  need strength. So feeling unworthy is actually
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  a qualification for coming to the table.
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  In a sense, yes. True worthiness for Calvin is
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  realizing your own unworthiness and resting completely in
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  Christ. It's coming to the table and
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  saying I have nothing to offer. I need everything you have.
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  We offer our poverty to be covered by his wealth.
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  But there is a limit. What about the wicked?
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  What about the person who has no faith at all?
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  They just come up and take it. What happens then?
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  This is a key distinction. Calvin distinguishes between the
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  sacrament and the matter of the sacrament.
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  The wicked person eats the sacrament, that is the bread.
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  They chew the sign, but they do not eat the matter, which is
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  Christ Himself. He quotes Augustine on this
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  regarding Judas I believe. He does.
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  It's a famous quote, Augustine said.
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  The other disciples ate the bread, which was the Lord.
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  Judas ate the bread of the Lord. Judas ate the physical crust,
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  but he did not receive Christ because he had no faith.
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  So what's the consequence for someone who eats without faith?
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  They eat judgement upon themselves, not because the
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  bread is somehow poisoned, but because they profane the sign.
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  They are treating a holy thing as a common thing.
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  Calvin uses the analogy of rain falling on a rock.
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  The wane is good, it brings life.
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  But if it falls on a Hard Rock, it just flows off.
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  The fault is not in the rain, The fault is in the hardness of
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  the rock. So the sacrament remains
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  objective and true, but the hard heart receives no benefit from
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  it. None at all.
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  In fact, it adds to their condemnation.
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  OK, let's look at section 6. Calvin addresses errors in
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  worship and administration. He was very concerned about how
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  the Supper was actually practiced in the church.
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  One of the major issues was the adoration of the host.
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  This refers to the practice of bowing down to the bread or
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  parading it in processions and worshipping it.
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  Calvin calls this very bluntly idolatry.
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  That's a strong charge. It is, but it follows logically
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  from his theology. If the bread remains bread and
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  you bow down to it, you are worshipping a creature, you're
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  worshipping a piece of wheat, he says.
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  God's command is take and eat, not look and worship.
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  He also mentions the Sirsum Corta.
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  What is that? The sirsum corta means lift up
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  your hearts. This is part of the ancient
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  liturgy. Calvin points out that the
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  Church has always cried out lift up your hearts during the
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  service. This proves, he says, that we
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  should be looking to heaven for Christ, not staring down at the
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  table. If we are lifting our hearts,
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  why are we bowing our knees to the bread?
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  That's a good point. Then there's the issue of
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  withholding the cup. This was the practice of giving
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  only the bread to the laity while the priest drank the wine.
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  Calvin calls this stealing half the supper.
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  He is very passionate about this.
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  His argument seems pretty straightforward.
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  Christ said drink ye all of it. It's hard to argue with the
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  explicit command of Jesus. The church at the time argued
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  that the blood is contained in the body, the doctrine of
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  concomitants. So if you eat the body, you get
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  the blood too. Calvin says that is just human
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  logic trying to be smarter than God.
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  God gave 2 signs for a reason, food and drink, body and blood.
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  It signifies complete nourishment.
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  Breaking the symbol obscures that double pledge.
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  Another point is the frequency of communion.
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  There's a common misconception that the reformers wanted
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  communion less often. It's the absolute opposite.
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  The custom in the medieval church was offered to take
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  communion only once a year. Calvin calls this an invention
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  of the devil. He felt strongly about that.
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  Who did his preference and what he fought for in Geneva was to
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  have Communion at least once a week.
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  Why was he so insistent on weekly communion?
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  Because it's food we don't eat once a year.
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  If the supper is spiritual nourishment, why would we starve
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  ourselves? He says It's an exhortation to
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  love a witness of faith and spiritual food.
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  To take it only once a year is to act as if we only need
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  Christ's grace once a year. Finally, we have Section 7
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  social implications. This is the horizontal aspect of
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  the supper. It's not just about me and God.
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  No, it's about us and God. This is the bond of love, Calvin
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  points out. The bread is made of many
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  grains. They are ground up and mixed
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  together so that you can't distinguish 1 grain from
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  another. That represents the church.
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  Yes, we are the loaf. The application is that we must
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  be so united that we cannot hurt a brother without hurting
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  Christ. You can't truly take the Lord's
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  Supper if you are harboring catered for your brother in your
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  heart. Augustine called the supper the
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  bond of love for this very reason it.
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  Prevents the supper from becoming just a private
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  spiritual experience. It's corporate.
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  We ascend together. We are one body being fed by our
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  one head. This has been a very full
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  discussion. We've covered the via media, the
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  role of the spirit, the nature of the signs and the practical
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  comfort for the believer. It's a doctrine with so many
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  different facets. As we conclude, I want to try
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  and summarize the main Reformed view we've been talking about.
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  We eat Christ truly, but spiritually we are lifted to
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  heaven. He is not brought down and it is
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  food for the weak, not a prize for the perfect.
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  That's it in a nutshell. And I want to leave our
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  listeners with a final thought to consider, something to Mull
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  over. Kelvin suggests that Christ's
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  body, though in heaven, is more united to us through the Spirit
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  than if we were holding him physically in our hands.
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  That's a thought that can really change things.
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  Physical proximity doesn't guarantee closeness.
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  Judas was physically close to Jesus, yet he was lost.
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  But the Spirit creates a union that is unbreakable.
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  So if the supper is a mirror of this reality, how does your
• 18:32
  wrinkly participation change if you view it not as a somber
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  funeral memory, but as a miraculous spirit empowered
• 18:39
  ascent into the presence of the living King?
• 18:41
  It changes everything. It turns a ritual into an
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  encounter. Thank you for joining us on
• 18:46
  Reformed Thinking. We really encourage you to read
• 18:48
  the text yourself. Book 4, Chapter 17 of the
• 18:51
  Institute. 'S it is absolutely worth your
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  time. Until next time.