THE PROVENANCE OF JOHN CALVIN'S EMPHASIS ON THE ...

Here, the "efficacy" of the Spirit concerns the capacity of the believer to receive that
which is offered in the sacrament, and in 1536, for Calvin, that which is offered in the
sacraments, whether baptism or the Lord's Supper, is preeminently a testimony or
attestation of God's good will toward us. The sacrament of the Lord's Supper, as a
testimony and attestation, is an image or mirror of that which transpires apart from the
celebration of the sacrament: namely, the nourishment of our souls by the gifts of
Christ's body and blood. 615 That Christ "works effectually by its means" (as he puts it in
the 1550s and 60s), 616 and therefore in the Lord's Supper "truly communicates" his "true
body and blood" is given but a hint, and a slight hint at that, when Calvin says in his
discourse about the Lord's Supper that "the body of Christ is offered to us in the
sacrament . . . truly and effectively" 617 and that "the Lord so communicates his body to
us there that he is made completely one with us and we with him." 618 In relation to these
hints is nary a whisper of the Spirit. 619
614 Inst. 1536, 89. As noted in Chapter 2 above, this is said contra Zwingli, who simply could not
countenance sacraments as instruments.
615 Calvin makes this point in his discussion of the Lord's Supper (Inst. 1536, 103). He speaks of
the sacraments as metaphors in his discussion of sacraments generally considered (Battles Inst. 1536, 88).
616 "Last Admonition to Joachim Westphal" (1557), Tracts and Treatises 2:374-75. " Christum,
qui coenam instituit, efficaciter per eam operari" (CO 9:162-63).
617 Inst. 1536, 104-105. CO 1:121. "Thus in 1536 Calvin views the holy Suppper of the Lord as a
witness and proof of the promise of our engrafting in Christ so that all that is ours is his, and all that is his
is ours, and also as the remembrance of Christ's death as being our life. It exhibits Christ to us as though
he stood before us, but it does not offer what it represents, even though Calvin says that it offers the body
of Christ truly and effectively" (Zachman, Image and Word, 332).
618 Inst. 1536, 109. CO 1:126. Here Calvin demonstrates his ever and anon emphasis that the
sacrament is a communal celebration. Calvin never conceives of believers' union with Christ in terms of
the individual. Always, as here, his turn is to the communion, or we might put it common-union, of the
faithful in Christ. This passage in every edition of the Institutio reads: "Thirdly, the Lord also intended
the Supper to be a kind of exhortation for us, which can more forcefully than any means quicken and
inspire us to love, peace, and concord. For the Lord so communicates his body to us there that he is made
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