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

uniquely ordained for such proclamation among God's people today: those who
proclaim God's words are God's instruments, God's very mouthpieces, who speak not
their own word, but God's Word. This emphasis comes to fruition in the Sunday service:
In the Reformed liturgy, classically understood and constructed, the minister ascends
from the table to pulpit and there offers a prayer for the Holy Spirit prior to the reading
and preaching of the Word. If one approached Calvin's pneumatology of the sacrament,
of "the visible word," from the perspective of this epiclesis that precedes the reading
and preaching of the Word, what would one discover?
Thus, in the end, one hope is that this study would incline others to give
complex answers to questions that require them. Another is that this study would invite
a more critical reading of Calvin's sacramental pneumatology in relation to that of his
contemporaries, particularly Zwingli and Bucer and Farel, and even Oecolampadius,
who is so often left out of the scene. Ultimately, the hope is that this study would
engender for at least one scholar an attentive interest in the pneumatological euchology
in orders for the celebration of the sacrament of the Lord's Supper in the Reformed
tradition, a tradition too often understood by those without and within as "the frozen
chosen" who partake of a mere symbol. No, with hearts aflame, breaking forth with
wonder, we experience this mystery with Calvin:
Christ prononce que sa chair est la viande de mon ame, et son sang le breuvage:
ie luy offer donc mon ame pour estre repeue de telle nourriture. Il me commande
en sa saincte Cene, de prendre, manger et boire son corps et son sang sous les
signes du pain et du vin: ie ne doute pas qu'il ne me donne ce qu'il me promet, et
que ie ne le reçoive 1222 —arcana Spiritus virtute.
1222 Inst. 1560 4.17.32.
387