I would guess that for the majority of American Evangelicals the Lord’s Supper is anything but mysterious. Yet, for John Calvin the Supper was full of mystery. As I was reading the section on the Lord’s Supper in Calvin’s Institutes this evening I came across the following statement in which Calvin admits his inability to comprehend and express the mystery that in the Lord’s Supper we are made partakers of Christ’s flesh and blood.
“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” (Institutes 4.17.6).
If all this seems rather strange to you I encourage you to read Calvin on this.
[tags]church, Lord’s Supper, sacraments[/tags]
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Brother Ryan,
Good stuff. I tend to think that our fellow Reformed brothers and sisters who are memorialist/Zwinglian miss out on the beauty of this sacrament many times. (Many prefer not to use the word “sacrament” because they are used to the term in the Roman Catholic sense.) Praise God that He gives us His benefits through the Supper even if our views haven’t developed into what we would say is the more biblical view.
Our London Confession was definitely Calvinistic with regards to the Table as well. I appreciate the language it uses in 30:7:
“Worthy receivers, outwardly partaking of the visible elements in this ordinance, do then also inwardly by faith, really and indeed, yet not carnally and corporally, but spiritually receive and feed upon Christ crucified and all the benefits of his death; the body and blood of Christ being then not corporally or carnally, but spiritually present to the faith of believers in that ordinance, as the elements themselves are to their outward senses.”
How beautiful! We spiritually feed upon the body and blood of Christ in the Lord’s Table. How mysterious! How wonderful! This great doctrine of our union with Christ is so beautiful and mysterious, yet rarely meditated upon. Oh that God would give us a love for this, and that we would meditate on who we are in Christ.
In Christ,
Josh Brisby