Calvin & the Real Presence

A Response to Anglican Chat Line, Sept. 9, 1997

Several times now some have said what they believed Calvin taught in reference to the "real presence" of Christ in the Lord's Supper. Calvin believed and taught the "real presence" of Christ. I offer as evidence a marvelous work by Ronald S. Wallace, M.A., B.Sc., entitled "Calvin's Doctrine of the Word and Sacrament" which was written for the Scottish Church Theological Society in the early 1950's. The following quotation is taken from that work, published by Eerdmans, 1957, pp. 199-203. (If you want the references to all the quotes from Calvin, find the book. My two fingers are tired.)

Calvin freely and frequently admits that his answer to the question What is given in thee sacraments? is exactly the same as those of the Lutherans and the Roman Church. He agrees with his opponents that the flesh of Christ is given in the sacrament. "Westphal insists on the presence of the flesh in the supper. We do not deny it." "The controversy with us is not as to reception but only the mode of reception." "That we REALLY feed in the Holy Supper on the flesh and blood of Christ, no otherwise than as bread and wine are the ailments of our bodies, I freely confess." [emphasis mine - LRH+] Calvin can also say that the materia or substantia of the Supper is the flesh, or the body of Christ; or he can say that the materia or substantia of the sacrament is "Christ with His death and resurrection." Or he can define the gift simply as "Christ." He frequently speaks of the Lord's Supper as leading us by the hand to Christ. He can also say that in the gift is the "substance of Christ's flesh." "I confess that our souls are truly fed by the substance of Christ's flesh." "Those who exclude the substance of vivifying flesh and blood from the communion defraud themselves of the use of the supper." "When, therefore, we speak of the communion which believers have with Christ, we mean that they communicate with his flesh and blood not less than with His Spirit, so as to possess thus the whole Christ."

Calvin, by using such terms, seems anxious to assert both the reality and the wholeness of the gift of Christ in the Lord's Supper. The whole of Christ is given in the sacrament. It is not only His Spirit and His divine nature that are mediated to us but also His humanity, and indeed the whole humanity which was centered in His earthly body, including that body which was such a necessary part of Him. "The sacraments direct our faith to the whole, not to a part of Christ." union with Christ, for Calvin, means a participation in the whole Christ. It means union with His human nature as well as His divine nature. "He is both God and man in us, " says Calvin, "for, in the first place, He makes us alive by the power of His Holy Spirit: then He is man with in us, for He makes us participate in the sacrifice He offered for our salvation, and declares to us that it is not without cause that He has appointed His flesh to be our food indeed, in His blood our drink indeed." The communion which we have with Christ in the Lord's supper is thus communion with the Whole Christ in both His natures - divine and human.

This communion can be ours only through participation in His flesh. For the flesh is the "channel which conveys to us that life, which dwells intrinsically, as we say, in His divinity, and in this sense it is called life - giving because it conveys to us that life which it borrows from another quarter." "Two things are to be sought for in Christ, that we may find salvation in Him: His divinity and his Humanity. His divinity contains in itself His power, righteousness and life which are communicated to us by His humanity." Thus everything we need for our sanctification and righteousness is to be found near to us, in our nature, in the humanity of the Son of God, "In our own flesh" Where the humanity of Christ is, there is the divinity; but apart from the humanity we can not communicate with the divinity. What is therefore effected in the Lord's supper is communion with the whole Christ, with all His gifts, so that He becomes wholly ours, and we are pledged as wholly His. But since this communion can not take place without participation in His flesh, it is necessary in the definition of the gift given in the supper to stress this aspect of the communion. "There is no other way in which He can become ours than by our faith being directed to His flesh. For no man will ever come to Christ as God who despises Him as man; and therefore, if you wish to have any interest in Christ, you must take care, above all things, that you do not disdain His flesh."

The whole Christ is really given in the sacrament. "We say that the substance of Christ's flesh and blood is our spiritual life, and that it is communicated to us under the symbols of bread and wine: for Christ, in instituting the Supper, promises nothing falsely, nor mocks us with a vain show, but represented by external signs what He has really given us." "The truth of God, therefore, in which I can safely rest, I embrace without controversy. He declares that His flesh is the meat, His blood the drink, of my soul. I give my soul to Him to be fed with such food. In His sacred supper He bids me take, eat and drink His body and blood under the symbols of bread and wine. I have no doubt that He will truly give, and I receive." Since the gift in the sacrament is the whole Christ, there is given along with Him those benefits that He has won for His people through His death and resurrection. Thus through our participation in the body of Christ through the Supper there flows to us righteousness, forgiveness, sanctification, indeed all the blessings that are the fruit of His death, for the Lord's Supper is in figure not only a participation in His body but also in His death. It is "a mirror in which we may contemplate Jesus Christ crucified to take away our offenses and raised again to deliver us from corruption." "The body which was once offered for our salvation we are enjoined to take and eat, that while we see ourselves made partakers of it, we may safely conclude that the virtue of that death will be efficacious." Here again it must be remembered that just as we cannot communicate in the divinity of Christ apart from His humanity, so neither can we participate in the blessings won for us through His death apart from real communion with the whole human nature in which He won for us these benefits. "Christ," says Calvin, "does not simply present to us the benefit of His death and resurrection, but the very body in which He suffered and rose again."

We have seen that Calvin often calls the whole Christ the "matter" or "substance" of the sacrament. He sometimes, in addition, uses other distinct terms to describe what is given in the sacrament. He can speak in various contexts of the "virtue," or "fruit," or "efficacy," or "effect" of the Sacrament, and He can use these terms as if they signified something that is different from the matter or substance of the Sacrament. "Christ descends to us by His virtue." "A life-giving virtue from Christ's flesh (vim ex Christi carne vivificam) is poured into us by the Spirit." He speaks of "the spiritual efficacy which emanates from the body of Christ." In a similar way, and referring to the same gift given in the Supper, he can call it the "efficacy and fruit" (efficacia et fructus) of Christ's nativity, death and resurrection.

Immediately Calvin uses such terms and phrases, however, he usually adds some kind of qualification or parallel statement which shows clearly that this virtus or efficacia is not something different or separate from the substance of the body of Christ. To say that life-giving virtue from Christ's flesh is poured into us by the Spirit, is the same thing as saying that our souls are nourished by the substance of the body of Christ. "Because I say . . . that Christ, while remaining in heaven, descends to us by His virtue . . . I deny that I am substituting something different (i.e., from the body) which is to have the effect of abolishing the gift of the body." The "substance" and the "virtue" or "efficacy" are not disjoined in reality and can merely be distinguished in thought for the sake of giving expression to a mystery that is inexpressible. Having given this warning, however, Calvin can go as far as to say, "This power and faculty of vivifying might not improperly be said to be something abstracted from the substance."

Calvin's purpose in using such language is to express the fact that the "substance" of the flesh is not to be thought of as "material" substance. In his use of these additional terms he is seeking to avoid the impression that there is "anything earthly or material" in the body and the blood of Christ as given in the Sacrament. He also seeks by their use to avoid the impression of any "carnal mixture" (carnalis mixtura) of the flesh of Christ with the recipient, emphasizing that the flesh of Christ, though we feed on it, actually "remains at a great distance from us and is not mixed with us."

Calvin has, however no doubt about the reality and concreteness of the gift of the body and blood of Christ. His paradoxical statements are due to the necessity of giving an explanation where silence and wonder are more fitting attitudes.

(You might also be interested to see exactly what some Presbyterian brothers are teaching about the "real presence" of Christ in the Lord's Supper.)

The grace that the Supper conveys comes not physically through the elements of bread and wine themselves, nor does it come through the minister who administers the Supper, but it comes spiritually through the work of the Holy Spirit in the one who partakes by faith.

Christ is REALLY spiritually present in the Lord's Supper.
Believers REALLY spiritually partake of Christ in the Supper.

Who can deny that there is an element of holy mystery in the observance of this divine ordinance given to us for our spiritual edification. Calvin eloquently expresses this mystery when he writes:
"[How can I] reduce to words so great a mystery, which I see that I do not even sufficiently comprehend with my mind [?]. I therefore freely admit that no man should measure its sublimity by the little measure of my childishness. Rather, I urge my readers not to confine their mental interests within these too narrow limits, but to strive to rise much higher than I can lead them. For, whenever this matter is discussed, when I have tried to say all, I feel that I have as yet said little in proportion to its worth. And although my mind can think beyond what my tongue can utter, yet even my mind is conquered and overwhelmed by the greatness of the thing. Therefore, nothing remains but to break forth in wonder at this mystery, which plainly neither the mind is able to conceive not the tongue to express."

Calvin explains that when our Lord called Himself the "bread of life" He intended "to teach not only that salvation rests for us on faith in His death and resurrection, but also that, by true partaking of Him, His life passes into us and is made ours - just as bread when taken as food imparts vigor to the body."