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

us to seal the gift of a thing invisible, when we have received the symbol of the body,
let us no less surely trust that the body itself is also given to us." 662 Likewise in his
commentary on 1 Corinthians 11 (1546) he writes, "the body of Christ is really
(realiter), to use the usual word, i.e., truly (vere) given to us in the Supper, so that it
may be health-giving food for our souls." 663 In these instances, it is still the case that
Calvin's emphasis on the Spirit in his discussion of the Lord's Supper is something of an
extrapolation, or extension, of his understanding of the Spirit with respect to God
Triune. The "economy" of God's good will toward believers, in creation and in
salvation, explicates for Calvin the very instrumental economy of the sacrament itself:
thus, for Calvin, in the Supper Christ offers by the power of the Holy Spirit, at the hand
of the minister, the aliments of his body and blood under the gifts of bread and wine as
spiritual food for the spiritual journey.
Regarding the early "extrapolation" from Trinity to Lord's Supper, however,
Calvin's commentary on Romans—published in Strasbourg in 1540, though its
"contents are probably a revised summary of lectures he had given in Geneva from 1536
to 1538" 664 —yet warrants attention, not least because of Calvin's explicit reference to
Romans 8 in the midst of a critical passage newly introduced to his discussion of the
662 Institutio 1539, as in Inst. 1559 LCC 4.17.10. "Quod si verum est praeberi nobis signum
visibile, ad obsignandam invisibilis rei donationem, accepto corporis symbolo, non minus corpus etiam
ipsum nobis dari certo confidamus" (CO 1:1002-1003). See Zachman, Image and Word, 333-34, for
discussion of this shift.
663 First Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Corinthians, trans. John W. Fraser, CNTC 9:246. CO
49:487. For discussion see Chapter 2 above; Zachman, Image and Word, 338-39, and Davis, Clearest
Promises, 155-63.
664 De Greef, Writings of John Calvin, 94. But see also especially T. H. L. Parker's detailed
argument in this regard in his introduction to his critical edition of the Romans commentary text:
Commentarius in Epistolam Pauli ad Romanos, ed. T. H. L. Parker, vol. 13 of Ioannis Calvini Opera
Exegetica (Genève: Librairie Droz, 1999), xvi-xxi.
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