Journal: Reformed Presbyterian Theological Journal
Volume: RPTJ 09:1 (Fall 2022)
Article: Calvin On The Lord’s Supper
Author: Richard C. Gamble

RPTJ 9:1 (Fall 2022) p. 25

Calvin On The Lord’s Supper

Richard C. Gamble

Professor of Systematic Theology Reformed Presbyterian Theological Seminary

Introduction

Having finished his exposition of infant baptism on the note of the importance of God the Father’s love for his children, Calvin opens his exposition of the Lord’s Supper in the Institutes emphasizing God’s work to make believers not only his servants, but also his sons and daughters.1 Inaugurating his beloved children into his family through baptism, God nourishes them during the length of their Christian life through the Lord’s Supper. For Calvin, this Supper is nothing short of a spiritual banquet. This article will examine Calvin’s understanding of the nature of the Supper both as he positively articulated it and as he defended it against his theological opponents, before briefly considering Calvin’s theological method.

Nature Of The Supper

Signs, Seals, And Metonymy

Calvin was passionate that the citizens of Geneva, and readers of the Institutes, should understand the nature of this blessed feast.2 Through the signs of bread and wine God demonstrates the believer’s regeneration and adoption in Christ, who is the only true food for our soul. Furthermore, because Christ calls the Supper the covenant in his blood, it is also a sign of the renewal of the covenant. These signs relate to the believer’s union with Christ, which is a deep, incomprehensible mystery.3 While mysterious, using bread and wine for all that believers have in Christ is a good accommodation to our limited capacity.

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Second, for Calvin, while bread and wine are symbols, they are much more than mere symbols.4 Through the symbols, it is as if Christ presents himself before us in order to be seen by our eyes and touched by our hands. In his incarnation, death, and resurrection, Christ’s body is not so much his—but ours. Christ took on flesh and laid it down not for himself, but for his beloved bride. The bread and wine are analogies for all that Christ gives to believers in his body.5

Calvin states many times that believers receive physically nourishing actual bread and wine in the Supper, but, coterminously while the bread and wine nourish our physical bodies, Christ actually feeds our souls from heaven with his flesh. This feeding comes from Christ who descends in the symbols and in the power of the Holy Spirit. While it...