Regional Synod of Canada - Reformed Church in America

Pioneer Christian Monthly

Date - Oct 1/59

Contributor - Rev. H. W. Kolenbrander

Title - Calvin And The Sacraments

Topic - Sacraments

Calvin has written extensively on the sacraments both in his Institutes of the Christian Religion as well as in his Commentaries. All we can hope to do in the space allotted us is to give a few of the highlights of the views on the sacraments.

John Calvin defines a sacrament as "an external sign, by which the Lord seals on our consciences. His promises of good-will toward us in order to sustain the weakness of our faith, and we in our turn testify our piety towards Him, both before Himself and before angels as well as men." (Inst. 4: 14:1).

He also gives with approval the definition of Augustine calling the sacrament a "visible sign of a sacred thing, or a visible form of an invisible grace."

In another place Calvin says that the sacraments are ladders by which the soul of man is enabled to "mount upwards". "He holds out to us in the sacraments an image both of His grace and spiritual blessings, yet this is done with no other intention than to lead us upwards to Himself." (Isa. 40:20)

Calvin tested the various ceremonies practiced in the Roman Church of his day as to whether they satisfied this definition. His rule was: "There must be a promise and command of the Lord" "a word of God which promises the presence of the Holy Spirit." He found in Jesus teachings such authority for only two of the commonly practiced rites of that Church - Baptism and the Lord's Supper. Therefore the Church may celebrate these with the assurance of Gods blessing.

It is clear that the sacraments are not valid or effectual apart from the Word. The sacraments are "nothing in themselves, just as seals of a diploma or a public deed are nothing in themselves, and would be affixed to no purpose if nothing was written on the parchment." (Inst. 4:14:4)

He suggests that "if a man only brings his eyes and shuts his ears they will differ in no respect from the profane rites of the heathen."

When he insists on the sacraments being accompanied by the ,Word" not as a "sort of enchantment" or "magical incantation" muttered in a scarcely audible voice and in an unknown tongue over the elements, "as if they were addressed to dead matted and not to men", but one which "proclaimed aloud by the minister leads the people by the hand to that which the sign tends and directs us." (Inst. 4:14:4) By the Word is here meant the promise which explains the power and use of the signs. It is important that the Word be proclaimed in connection with the sacrament.

The sacraments are seals of the Word. The New Testament sacraments take the important place which miracles and visions and dreams and all the visible phenomena, by means of which God revealed Himself, had in Old Testament times.

Though the Word preached appeals to us through the ear and thus begets faith in our hearts, nevertheless through the sacraments God reinforces the appeal and power of the spoken Word. Abraham's faith when he heard the promise of God was strong but it "was increased by the sight of the stars". (Comm. on Gen. 15:4).

Thus the sacraments confirm the Word by making it more visible and concrete to the senses.

The sacraments however, according to Calvin, are more than mere seals added to the Word to confirm it. They are also true visible representations of the invisible spiritual things to which the Word directs us. The sacraments are so designed that a man who is pointed to them by. the Word is able to see in the form of the action and in the use of the elements the very promises of the Word set forth patently and visibly. "The testimony of the Gospel is engraven upon the sacraments." (Comm. on 2 Cor. 5:19)

The sacraments are also signs of man's acceptance of Gods grace. In the very act of accepting the signs of Gods grace given in the sacrament and of observing the rites connected with these signs man gives a sign that he on his part will live daily by the grace figured forth in the sacraments and will be a follower of Jesus Christ.

"There is a mutual agreement in the sacraments by which God binds us to Himself, and we mutually pledge our faith." (Comm. on Ezek. 20:12)

Calvin makes a good deal of the fact that the sacraments of the New Covenant are signs of Union with the body of Christ. "The end of the whole Gospel ministry is that God, the fountain of all felicity, communicates Christ to us who are disunited by sin and hence ruined, that we may from Him enjoy eternal life..." We believe this communication to be (a) mystical, and incomprehensible to human reason, and (b) spiritual, since it is effected by the Holy Spirit; by which He joins us to Christ our Head, not in an imaginary way, but most powerfully and truly, so that we become flesh of His flesh and bone of his bone, and from His vivifying flesh He transfuses eternal life into us. Is effect this union, the Holy Spirit uses a double instrument, the preaching of the Word and the administration of the sacraments. (Summary of Doctrine concerning the ministry of the Word and Sacraments.)

At this point it is sometimes difficult to understand Calvin. On the one hand there is an emphasis on the "material" or "physical body". He says that the "materia" or "substantia" of the supper is the flesh, or the body of Christ, or "Christ with His death and resurrection". (Inst. 4:17:11). "Our souls are fed with the substance of Christ's flesh." Calvin by using such terms, seems anxious to assert both the reality and the wholeness of the gift of Christ in the Lord's Supper. "The sacraments direct our faith to the whole, not to a part of Christ (Inst. 3:11:9)

"There is no other way in which He can become ours than by our faith being directed to His flesh." (Comm. on John 6:51.) "He declares that His flesh is the meat and His blood the drink of my soul. I give my soul to be fed with such food. In His sacred supper He bids me take, eat and drink, His body and blood under the symbols of bread and wine." (Inst. 4:17:32)

On the other hand, Calvin argues against the assertion that the body of Christ is locally present in the elements. Such a doctrine involves the idea that the body of Christ can exist without definite dimensions and without being confined to any one particular place, having indeed the ability to be in several different places at the same time. Calvin replies that for the flesh of Christ to assume such properties would mean that it had really ceased to be flesh, and he points out the folly of expecting such an absurd miracle.

"Fool! Why do you require the power of God to make a thing at the same time flesh and not flesh? It is just as if you were to insist on His making light to be at the same time light and darkness." (Inst. 4:17:24)

In the same way he disposes of the suggestion of a twofold body, from one aspect visible arid occupying its place in heaven, and at the same time immortal, invisible and immense. As though Christ in the first celebration of the sacrament had such a twofold body! "We do not open our arms to embrace such a monster", says Calvin. "How could the apostles", he asks, "have been so ready to believe what is so repugnant to all reason, viz. that Christ was seated at the table under the eye and yet was contained invisible under the bread?" (Inst. 4:17:24)

Calvin looks on both sacraments as having the same end - to testify, and to assist in effecting our union with the body of Christ. Baptism is "a kind of entrance into the Church, an initiation into the faith, and the Lord's Supper the constant aliment by which Christ spiritually feeds. His family of believers." (Inst. 4:18:19). Baptism mainly bears witness to our initiation into this union, while the Lord's Supper is a sign of our continuation in this union.

Calvin is careful to affirm the truth that if taken by itself the sacrament is "an empty or trifling thing." (Inst. 4:14:9). "It is wrong to hold that it has any peculiar power or grace which does not belong to the Word." (Inst. 4:14:14, 17). The sacraments do not confer anything by themselves, and if they are incorrectly administered, i.e. out of superstition and apart from a knowledge of their meaning, they are worse than good for nothing.

Over against the views of the Roman Church Calvin denies that in the Lord's Supper man offers anything to God by way of a propitiatory sacrifice. Man's part is to receive with thanksgiving all that is offered in the one completed sacrifice of the Cross. "Christ did not offer Himself once, in the view that His sacrifice should be daily ratified by new ablations, but by the preaching of the Gospel and the dispensation of the sacred Supper, the benefit of it should be communicated to us." (Inst. 4:18: 2).

Jesus in the words of institution said "take", "hence that offer a sacrifice to God have some other than Christ as their authority, for we are not instructed in these words to perform a sacrifice." (Comm. on I Cor. 11:24). "The Lord has given us a table at which we may feast, not an altar on which a victim may be offered; He has not consecrated priests to sacrifice, but ministers to distribute a sacred feast." (Inst. 4:18: 12)

What are the conditions for the sacraments to be efficacious? First is the activity of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit is the divinely and wondrously miraculous element in the sacraments. So Him is attributed the power which works grace in the heart of man. (Inst. 4:14:8-12).

Also the faith of the believer is important, for this is the open vessel which receives the benefits and blessings of the sacraments, "We are not to look to the signs as though they enclosed the grace and virtue of the Spirit but rather to the promise upon which they rest and most important to the Christ in whom they have efficacy since He is the sole mediator between God and man." (Inst. 4:14:20).

Calvin speaks of the benefits of baptism as a sign of our purification. On a more practical level infant baptism is said to be beneficial in that, Gods promises of mercy are ratified, the child is introduced into the Church, it is an occasion of joy to the parents, and a stimulus to raise the child as a Christian. (Inst. 4:16:9) He speaks of the Lord's Supper as being primarily an attestation of our salvation. "Baptism seals to us the salvation obtained by Christ." (Comm. on Titus 3:5)

Calvin regards the children of believers as under the Covenant of Grace, which in their case allows us to consider the curse of nature as removed and to bestow on them the sign of Baptism with confidence. "If the children are set apart to the Lord (holy) why should we keep them back from the sign?" (Inst. 4:16:15)

The preference of Calvin for a weekly observance of the Lord's Supper is clear. In 1537 we find him arguing that once a month is perhaps best, lest the people have contempt for the mystery. In 1541 he has yielded even more to human nature when he suggests four times a year.

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