Tracts & Letters (Vol 2) - Calvin - XIII - Chapter 10 continued (Last admonition...)

Required reading
Tracts and Letters (Volume 2) by John Calvin (Available from Amazon or free here) - Continue Chapter X (Last admonition of John Calvin to Joachim Westphal) by reading up to the paragraph beginning 'The thirtieth argument is, He who is in a place is not everywhere: Christ being received into the heavens is in a kind of place:  Therefore, he is not corporeally in the Supper' (page 455 in the Banner edition).

My summary
Today we continue the tract from Calvin against Westphal that we have been reading for the last two weeks.

This week we begin to look at the fifty-nine arguments which the Magdeburgians enumerate as amply sufficient to dispose of all the objections of the Reformers.

I won't give the twenty-nine points today, but basically Calvin continues to expose their sloppy exegesis, poor use of logic and bad referencing of the early church fathers. 

Once again Calvin sums up their argument as: 'The Supper was instituted that we might by faith seek Christ seated in his heavenly glory ; for in this way is fulfilled the Apostle's declaration, that faith is in things absent : Christ, therefore, is locally absent in respect of his human nature. I use the term locally, because distance is no obstacle to such presence as faith desires...We acknow-ledge in the Supper such a presence as is accordant with faith, and confine the absence to the real human nature. In this way believers recognise, in a manner which surpasses hope, that though they are pilgrims on the earth, they have life in common with their head.'  Thus Jesus is absent bodily from the supper, but present spiritually.

What grabbed me
Today Calvin used the ascension as a good argument against the bodily presence of Jesus in the Lord's supper: 'They say that Christ ascended to heaven in a visible manner, in order to show by some external act that he was truly risen, that he had thrown open the kingdom of heaven to all believers, and would be their high-priest in the heavenly sanctuary. This is some part, but not the whole. He declared to the Apostles that his departure was expedient for them, because if he did not go away the Spirit would not come. Could the Spirit not come while he was present ? The meaning is, that it was necessary that their minds should be raised upwards to receive his divine influence. Of the same import is his saying to Mary, — Touch me not, for I have not yet ascended to my Father. Why, do we suppose, was Christ unwilling that his feet should be embraced, but just that he wished henceforth to be touched by faith only ? This too is the reason why a cloud received him out of their sight. Had they been persuaded that he was in the bread invisibly they would not have stood gazing up to heaven. '

I love that.  If the apostles thought Jesus was bodily in the bread, then they would have gone and looked at the bread rather than stand gazing into the sky for Jesus after his ascension.

Next week's reading
Conclude Chapter X (Last admonition of John Calvin to Joachim Westphal).

Now it's your turn
Please post your own notes and thoughts in the comments section below.