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

Therefore just as the word is an instrument through which the Holy Spirit
is efficacious . . . thus through the sacraments, the Holy Spirit is
efficacious, when indeed they are received in faith; for they remind and
move toward believing, just as the word [does].
Melanchthon's new emphasis on the Spirit's efficacy does not get beyond his
general discussions of the sacraments and baptism into his discussion of the
Eucharist. This is undoubtedly because he is still leary of attempts to
'spiritualize' away Christ's presence. He does not exclude the Spirit but neither
will he let the doctrine of the Holy Spirit be used to exclude the efficacious
Christ. 756
Melanchthon's christological emphasis—or shall we say, lack of
pneumatological emphasis—with respect to the sacrament of the Lord's Supper is borne
out in the Augsburg Confession (both the invariata of 1530 757 and the variata of 1540),
his correspondence, and the Wittenberg Concord (1536). As noted above with reference
to the work of Muller, in the first edition of the Institutio, Calvin seemingly appreciated
this dimension of Melanchthon's doctrine of the Lord's Supper, to the point of
appropriating it. As noted in chapters 2 and 5 above, Calvin speaks of the Spirit with
respect to the sacraments in the first edition of the Institutio, but such discussion does
not extend to his discussion of the Lord's Supper in particular. This is, it seems, not
756 Quere, Melanchthon's Christum Cognoscere, 350 (emphasis and spelling are Quere's), citing
Melanchthon's Loci communes 1535 (CR 21:468 – Quare sicut verbum est instrumentum, per quod
Spiritus sanctus efficax est; . . . ita per Sacramenta Spiritus sanctus est efficax, cum vide licet fide
accipiuntur; admonent enim et movent ad credendum, sicut verbum.) See also Ralph W. Quere, "Christ's
Efficacious Presence in the Lord's Supper: Directions in the Development of Melanchthon's Theology
after Augsburg," The Lutheran Quarterly 29 (1977), 22-23, 25. Also Bierma, Doctrine of the Sacraments
in the Heidelberg Catechism, 18. On the apparent chilling of Melanchthon and Oecolampadius' friendship
given their theological differences with respect to the Lord's Supper, see Burnett, "Melanchthon's
Reception in Basel," 71-72; Walther Köhler, Zwingli und Luther: Ihre Streit über das Abendmahl nach
seinen politischen und religiösenBeziehungen, Quellen und Forschungen zur Reformationgeschichte 6
(Gütersloh: Bertelsmann, 1924), 799-804; Ernst Staehelin, Das theologische Lebenswerk Johannes
Oekolampads, Quellen und Forschungen zur Reformationgeschichte 21 (Leipzig: Heinsius, 1939), 598-
616; and Quere, Melanchthon's Christum Cognoscere, 310ff.
757 Lee Palmer Wandel, The Eucharist in the Reformation, 110, with reference to Quere: The
Augsburg Confession's "eucharistic formulations were carefully chosen to negotiate between the
'sacramentarianism' of Zwingli and the medieval conception of the Mass as a propitiatory sacrifice"
(Quere, Melanchthon's Christum Cognoscere, especially 281-94).
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