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

Luther's christology and eucharistic theology develop in tandem, the most significant
development being his understanding of ubiquity. 703 As Quere puts it, the concept of
ubiquity "serves to facilitate, not to replace the eucharistic mode of presence." 704
Luther's doctrine of the ubiquity of Christ's human nature 705 facilitates his doctrine of
the eucharistic real presence, 706 which, as Althaus articulates it, "means that Christ is
bodily present." 707 So for Luther, the referent of "real presence" is "the bodily presence
of the true body and blood of Christ in the bread and wine." 708 Since Christ is bodily
present, Christ is also bodily received in and with the elements of the sacrament. 709 The
communion is a corporal communion. As Locher puts it, "Luther expects, in the Lord's
Supper, the bodily union of the receivers with the body of Christ (in the elements)." 710
702 Quere, "Changes and Constants," 73-74, emphasis Quere's.
703 Althaus, "The Lord's Supper," 382: "The christological concepts with which he [Luther] tried
to make the real presence of the body of Christ understandable in his great polemical writings were first
developed in answer to the objections of his opponents."
704 Quere, "Changes and Constants," 74.
705 Althaus, "The Lord's Supper," 398; Steinmetz, "Calvin and His Lutheran Critics," in Calvin
in Context (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995), 176; Quere, "Changes and Constants," 74.
706 This is also grounded in his reading of "This is my body," and the sacramental function of the
Words of Institution within the context of the celebration of the sacrament. See, e.g., Quere, "Changes
and Constants," 56, 73, 74.
707 Althaus, "The Lord's Supper," 393.
708 Althaus, "The Lord's Supper," 399, also 385.
709 So, e.g., Lohse, Martin Luther's Theology, 237. "[I]t is important to note that for Luther the
Spirit always makes use of the means of Word and Sacrament. The Spirit encounters persons not directly
but always mediately" (Lohse, Martin Luther's Theology, 237). Calvin's thought is not far off, lest the
sacraments be rendered useless, futile. Calvin affirms, as noted previously, that the Spirit uses the
sacraments as "instruments." See also Ian Hazlett, "The Development of Martin Bucer's Thinking on the
Sacrament of the Lord's Supper in Its Historical and Theological Context 1523-1534," (Inaugural-
Dissertation, Westfälischen Wilhelms-Universität zu Münster, 1975), 104, surveying Luther's Wider die
himmlischen Propheten 1524.
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