Calvin Institutes of the Christian Religion
Section 4.17.4-7
For Nov 20, 2009

4. The meaning of the promise of the Lord's Supper

It is not, therefore, the chief function of the Sacrament simply and without higher consideration to extend to us the body of Christ. Rather, it is to seal and confirm that promise by which he testifies that his flesh is food indeed and his blood is drink [John 6:56], which feed us unto eternal life [John 6:55]. By this he declares himself to be the bread of life, of which he who eats will live forever [John 6:48, 50]. And to do this, the Sacrament sends us to the cross of Christ, where that promise was indeed per-formed and in all respects fulfilled. For we do not eat Christ duly and unto salvation unless he is crucified, when in living experience we grasp the efficacy of his death. In calling himself "the bread of life," he did not borrow that name from the Sacrament, as some wrongly interpret. Rather, he had been given as such to us by the Father and showed himself as such when, being made a sharer in our human mortality, he made us partakers in his divine immortality; when, offering himself as a sacrifice, he bore our curse in himself to imbue us with his blessing; when, by his death, he swallowed up and annihilated death [cf. I Peter 3:22, Vg., and I Cor. 15:54]; and when, in his resurrection, he raised up this corruptible flesh of ours, which he had put on, to glory and incorruption [cf. I Cor. 15:53-54].

5. How we are partakers by faith

It remains for all this to be applied to us. That is done through the gospel but more clearly through the Sacred Supper, where he offers himself with all his benefits to us, and we receive him by faith. Therefore, the Sacrament does not cause Christ to begin to be the bread of life; but when it reminds us that he was made the bread of life, which we continually eat, and which gives us a relish and savor of that bread, it causes us to feel the power of that bread. For it assures us that all that Christ did or suffered was done to quicken us; and again, that this quickening is eternal, we being ceaselessly nourished, sustained, and preserved throughout life by it. For, as Christ would not have been the bread of life for us if he had not been born and had not died for us, and if he had not arisen for us, so this would not now be the case at all if the effectiveness and result of his birth, death, and resurrection were not something eternal and immortal. "Christ beautifully expresses the whole matter in these words: "The bread which I shall give you is my flesh, which I shall give for the life of the world" [John 6:51; cf. ch. 6:52, Vg.]. By these words he doubtless means that his body will to us be as bread for the spiritual life of the soul, for it was to be made subject to death for our salvation; moreover, that it is offered to us to eat, when it makes us sharers in him by faith. Once for all, therefore, he gave his body to be made bread when he yielded himself to be crucified for the redemption of the world; daily he gives it when by the word of the gospel he offers it for us to partake, inasmuch as it was crucified, when he seals such giving of himself by the sacred mystery of the Supper, and when he inwardly fulfills what he outwardly designates.

"Now here we ought to guard against two faults. First, we should not, by too little regard for the signs, divorce them from their mysteries, to which they are so to speak attached. Secondly, we should not, by extolling them immoderately, seem to obscure somewhat the mysteries themselves.

None but the utterly irreligious deny that Christ is the bread of life by which believers are nourished into eternal life. But there is no unanimity as to the mode of partaking of him. For there are some who define the eating of Christ's flesh and the drinking of his blood as, in one word, nothing but to believe in Christ. But it seems to me that Christ meant to teach something more definite, and more elevated, in that noble discourse in which he commends to us the eating of his flesh [John 6:26 ff.]. It is that we are quickened by the true partaking of him; and he has therefore designated this partaking by the words "eating" and "drinking," in order that no one should think that the life that we receive from him is received by mere knowledge. As it is not the seeing but the eating of bread that suffices to feed the body, so the soul must truly and deeply become partaker of Christ that it may be quickened to spiritual life by his power. We admit indeed, meanwhile, that this is no other eating than that of faith, as no other can be imagined. But here is the difference between my words and theirs: for them to eat is only to believe; I say that we eat Christ's flesh in believing, because it is made ours by faith, and that this eating is the result and effect of faith. Or if you want it said more clearly, for them eating is faith; for me it seems rather to follow from faith. This is a small difference indeed in words, but no slight one in the matter itself. For even though the apostle teaches that "Christ dwells in our hearts through faith" [Eph. 3:17, cf. Vg.], no one will interpret this indwelling to be faith, but all feel that he is there expressing a remarkable effect of faith, for through this believers gain Christ abiding in them. In this way the Lord intended, by calling himself the "bread of life" [John 6:51], to teach not only that salvation for us rests on faith in his death and resurrection, but also that, by true partaking of him, his life passes into us and is made ours-just as bread when taken as food imparts vigor to the body.

6. Augustine and Chrysostom on this

And Augustine (whom they appeal to as their patron) did not write that we eat by believing in any other sense than to show that this eating is of faith, not of the mouth. I too do not deny this. At the same time, however, I add that by faith we embrace Christ not as appearing from afar but as joining himself to us that he may be our head, we his members. Yet I do not utterly disallow that expression, but only deny that it is the full interpretation, if they mean to define what it is to eat Christ's flesh.

Elsewhere, I see that Augustine has often used this expression. For example, he says in Book 3, On Christian Doctrine: "The phrase, 'Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man' [John 6:54, Vg.; ch. 6:53, EV], is a figure, teaching us that we must partake of the Lord's Passion, and sweetly and profitably store up in memory the fact that his flesh was crucified and wounded for us." Again, when he says that those three thousand men who were converted by Peter's preaching [Acts 2:41] by believing drank Christ's blood, which in cruel rage they had shed. But in very many other passages he highly commends that benefit of faith, for through it our souls are as much refreshed by partaking of Christ's flesh as bodies are by the bread they eat. And Chrysostom writes the same thing in another passage: "Christ makes us his body not by faith only but by the very thing itself." For he means that such good is not obtained from any other source than faith; but he only wishes to exclude the possibility that anyone, when he hears faith mentioned, should conceive of it as mere imagining.

I now pass over those who would have the Supper only a mark of outward profession; for it seems to me that I have refuted their error sufficiently when I dealt with the sacraments in general. Let my readers only observe that when the cup is called the covenant "in . . . blood" [Luke 22:20], a promise is expressed which serves to strengthen faith. From this it follows that unless we look to God and embrace what he offers, we do not rightly use the Sacred Supper.

7. Thought and words inadequate

"Moreover, I am not satisfied with those persons who, recognizing that we have some communion with Christ, when they would show what it is, make us partakers of the Spirit only, omitting mention of flesh and blood. As though all these things were said in vain: that his flesh is truly food, that his blood is truly drink [John 6:55]; that none have life except those who eat his flesh and drink his blood [John 6:53]; and other passages pertaining to the same thing. Therefore, if it is certain that an integral communion of Christ reaches beyond their too narrow description of it, I shall proceed to deal with it briefly, in so far as it is clear and manifest, before I discuss the contrary fault of excess. For I shall have a longer disputation with the extravagant doctors, who, while in the grossness of their minds they devise an absurd fashion of eating and drinking, also transfigure Christ, stripped of his own flesh, into a phantasm-if one may reduce to words so great a mystery, which I see that I do not even sufficiently comprehend with my mind. I therefore freely admit that no man should measure its sublimity by the little measure of my childishness.

Rather, I urge my readers not to confine their mental interest within these too narrow limits, but to strive to rise much higher than I can lead them. For, whenever this matter is discussed, when I have tried to say all, I feel that I have as yet said little in proportion to its worth. And although my mind can think beyond what my tongue can utter, yet even my mind is conquered and overwhelmed by the greatness of the thing. Therefore, nothing remains but to break forth in wonder at this mystery, which plainly neither the mind is able to conceive nor the tongue to express. Nevertheless, I shall in one way or another sum up my views; for, as I do not doubt them to be true, I am confident they will be approved in godly hearts.