Institutes of Christian religion - Calvin - LXXIV - Chapter 17 of Book 4 commenced

Required reading
Institutes of Christian religion by John Calvin (Available from Amazon or free here) - Commence Chapter 17 of Book 4 by reading sections 1 to 19.

My summary
Today Calvin begins teaching us about the Lord's supper.

Firstly Calvin explains what the Lord's supper is.  The signs of bread and wine 'represent the invisible food which we receive from the body and blood of Christ. For as God, regenerating us in baptism, ingrafts us into the fellowship of his Church, and makes us his by adoption, so we have said that he performs the office of a provident parent, in continually supplying the food by which he may sustain and preserve us in the life to which he has begotten us by his word. '

Secondly, to explain what the Lord's Supper is not, Calvin refutes the doctrine of transubstantiation: 'we are not to dream of such a presence of Christ in the sacrament as the artificers of the Romish court have imagined, as if the body of Christ, locally present, were to be taken into the hand, and chewed by the teeth, and swallowed by the throat.'

Thirdly, also to explain what the Lord's Supper is not, Calvin refutes the doctrine of consubstantiation: 'Some, who see that the analogy between the sign and the thing signified cannot be destroyed without destroying the truth of the sacrament, admit that the bread of the Supper is truly the substance of an earthly and corruptible element, and cannot suffer any change in itself, but must have the body of Christ included under it. If they would explain this to mean, that when the bread is held forth in the sacrament, an exhibition of the body is annexed, because the truth is inseparable from its sign, I would not greatly object. But because fixing the body itself in the bread, they attach to it an ubiquity contrary to its nature, and by adding under the bread, will have it that it lies hid under it, I must employ a short time in exposing their craft, and dragging them forth from their concealments.'

What grabbed me
I appreciated Calvin's instructions on what to think when taking the Lord's Supper: ' Thus when bread is given as a symbol of the body of Christ, we must immediately think of this similitude. As bread nourishes, sustains, and protects our bodily life, so the body of Christ is the only food to invigorate and keep alive the soul. When we behold wine set forth as a symbol of blood, we must think that such use as wine serves to the body, the same is spiritually bestowed by the blood of Christ; and the use is to foster, refresh, strengthen, and exhilarate. For if we duly consider what profit we have gained by the breaking of his sacred body, and the shedding of his blood, we shall clearly perceive that these properties of bread and wine, agreeably to this analogy, most appropriately represent it when they are communicated to us. '

The physical bread and the wine serve to remind us of the spiritual sustenance we receive in Christ.

Next week's reading
Continue Chapter 17 of Book 4 by reading sections 20 to 32.

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