The Conservative Reformation and Its Theology - Saint Mary ...

lood themselves. Calvin's is the communion of an absent body and blood;
Paul's the communion of a present body and blood, so present that bread,
broken and given, imparts the one, and the cup, blessed and taken, imparts
the other. Calvin talks of a faith by which we spiritually eat an absent body,
Paul of elements by which we sacramentally eat a present body.
As by Zwingli's theory, so by Calvin's also, the argument of the
Apostle here is emptied of all force. For the argument of the Apostle is
addressed to those who eat and drink unworthily, that is to those who had
not faith. The very necessity of the argument arises from the presupposition
of a want of true faith in the Lord, on the part of those to whom it was
addressed. But on the Calvinistic theory the communion of the body and
blood of Christ, and participation in them, are confined to those who have
faith. These Corinthians, therefore, had St. Paul taught them a theory like
that of Calvin, might have replied: "Oh, no! as we are without true faith,
and are receiving unworthily, we receive nothing but bread and wine, but
as bread and wine were not the sacrifices which Christ offered to God, we
do not come into fellowship with God's altar by partaking of them-therefore
we are not guilty of what you charge on us, to wit, the
inconsistency of eating and drinking at the same time, of the sacrifices
offered on God's altar, and of the sacrifices offered on the altar of
Demons." The Calvinistic theory makes the argument of the Apostle an
absurdity.
Two parallels in the connection help to bring out very vividly the
Apostle's idea. One is the parallel with Israel: v. 18. "Behold Israel after
the flesh: are not they which eat of the sacrifices partakers of the altar?"
The point seems to be most clearly this: that the communion of the body of
Christ in the Supper is as real as the eating of the animal sacrifices in the
Jewish Church. Christ's body is the true sacrifice which takes once for all
the place of the Jewish sacrifices, and the sacramental communion, in
which that body is the sustenance, in ever-renewing application of the one
only sacrifice, takes the place of the Jewish eating of the sacrifice. The
other parallel