The Frenchman’s discussion of union at the beginning of book three of the Institutes is slight compared to his treatment of union when explaining the Lord’s Supper. I have often wondered why the unionists who give so much weight to Calvin in discussing the doctrine are not leading a program of liturgical renewal that would included — at least — the administration of the Lord’s Supper weekly. I also know that for most low church Protestants, Calvin’s views of the Supper are downright spooky. They even led Charles Hodge, in debate with John Williamson Nevin, to conclude that Calvin was an aberration within the Reformed tradition.
So to the end of fairness and balance, here are a few quotes from Calvin on union that seem to be unimportant compared to the task of micromanaging the ordo salutis:
. . . the signs are bread and wine, which 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. Moreover, Christ is the only food of our soul, and, therefore, our heavenly Father invites us to him, that, refreshed by communion with him, we may ever and anon gather new vigour until we reach the heavenly immortality. But as this mystery of the secret union of Christ with believers is incomprehensible by nature, he exhibits its figure and image in visible signs adapted to our capacity, nay, by giving, as it were, earnests and badges, he makes it as certain to us as if it were seen by the eye; the familiarity of the similitude giving it access to minds however dull, and showing that souls are fed by Christ just as the corporeal life is sustained by bread and wine. We now, therefore, understand the end which this mystical benediction has in view—viz. to assure us that the body of Christ was once sacrificed for us, so that we may now eat it, and, eating, feel within ourselves the efficacy of that one sacrifice,—that his blood was once shed for us so as to be our perpetual drink. . . (IV.17.1)
. . . I see not how any one can expect to have redemption and righteousness in the cross of Christ, and life in his death, without trusting first of all to true communion with Christ himself. Those blessings could not reach us, did not Christ previously make himself ours. I say then, that in the mystery of the Supper, by the symbols of bread and wine, Christ, his body and his blood, are truly exhibited to us, that in them he fulfilled all obedience, in order to procure righteousness for us— first that we might become one body with him; and, secondly, that being made partakers of his substance, we might feel the result of this fact in the participation of all his blessings. (IV.17.11)
Old Life 
I had to read through this two or three times in order to be convinced that I wasn’t reading something from a Lutheran source. Amazing!
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Calvin merely reiterates Luther in his writing on “Two Kinds of Righteousness.” To say Christ does us no good without the Spirit uniting us to the Son is a almost quotation from Luther. It is absurd (and terrible historical theology) to think Calvin saw himself deviating from the position of Luther.
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I can feel the elements slipping from my Zwinglian grip.
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At least in the PCA, the pastors I know who are “unionists” do in fact advocate for and practice weekly Lord’s Supper.
So, is the “non-unionist” position on the LS, “communion seasons”?
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For many anti-Zwinglians, thinking that rituals “unite” us “more” to Christ means also being more open to “deification”. The “impartation” vision usually begins with II Peter 1:4 (become partakers of the divine nature) and often ends up making justification by Christ’s death merely one benefit which results from “union” with Christ the personal benefactor.
Just as the word “sacrament” is given multiple definitions, so also the idea of “union with Christ” is given various (unbiblical) definitions in ecumenical discussions. What does it mean to be in Christ, and how is it different from Christ indwelling us? This is the kind of question we need to begin asking. Does this indwelling in Christ have anything to do with being handed the sacrament?
Certainly Calvin thought so. We need to read Calvin on this, to see what he did and did not believe. Calvin, for example, only believed in union with the humanity of Christ. Calvin did not teach that humans indwell God.
But Calvin’s anti-rational streak, which cannot explain and refuses to explain, becomes very mystical when it comes to “sacrament”. (See Bruce McCormack and Michael Horton essays in Tributes to Calvin). In what way does the Bible teach that God increase “incorporation into Christ” with bread and wine? If this “incorporation” is about what continues to come into us, what is the relationship of that “in us” to us being “in Christ”?
II Corinthians 5—If anyone is in Christ, there is a NEW CREATION. The old has passed; the new has come.”
The “new creation” is not first of all about the resurrection power of the Holy Spirit in us. In the context of II Cor 5, the “new creation” is about a LEGAL change of identity. It’s not gradual; it’s an either or. The new creation is not brought about by a “sacramental feeding on Christ” but by God’s imputation of what God did in Christ in His death and resurrection.
So how then are justified persons in Christ? They are in Christ legally. The old has passed. The legal verdict has already been declared. One the day to come, the resurrection of Christians will be visible evidence of that verdict.
No ritual is a sign from God that we in particular have been united to Christ. Even if our children were to eat the “sacrament” with us, that nevertheless would not be a seal that either we in particular or our children have been justified (or that God is our God). It could only be a “seal” that some sinners are justified by God. It could only be a “seal” of the gospel promises proclaimed.
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John R. W. Stott, Men Made New: An Exposition of Romans 5-8 (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1966), p45:
“The ‘old self’ denotes, not our old unregenerate nature, but our old condemned in Adam life—Not the part of myself which is corrupt, but my former self. So what was crucified with Christ was not a part of us called our old nature, but the whole of us as we were before we were converted. This should be plain because in this chapter the phrase ‘our old self was crucified’ (verse 6) is equivalent to ‘we…died to sin (verse 2).”
“The crucifixion of the “old man” refers to a definitive break with the past in Adam and is something God declares to be true of the elect when God justifies them by imputation. God transfers the justified elect from the age of Adam to the age of Christ. The justified sinner is separated legally from the community of Adam by being placed into the death of Christ to sin.
“The “new man” in Colossians 3:10-11 is corporate in nature and refers to the new community, the social structure where there is “neither Greek nor Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all and in all.” Though Christ is in the members of “the new man”, the “new man” in Colossians 3:10 is not something inside an individual but rather is the new community in Christ.
In Ephesians 2:15, the Jewish elect and the Gentile elect have been justified and reconciled, and together in Christ they form the “new man” which is a new redemptive-historical society in which all have free and equal access to God and are seated with Christ in the heavenlies (2:5-6).
Romans 6:6 is still thinking of the two humanities (and their heads) as in Romans 5:12-21. The “old man,” then, must be who the elect were “in Adam,” that is, in the old age of guilt, death and judgment. The focus is corporate.Thus, the “old man” is not a sinful nature, not immaterial corruption.
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Pat, as long as the gospel comes before the Supper — justification priority — ‘s’all good.
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Calvin (4:17:9–“The flesh of Christ is like a rich and inexhaustible fountain that pours into us the life springing from the Godhead into itself. Now who does not see that communion of Christ’s flesh and blood is necessary for all who aspire to heavenly life.”
McCormack, p104, what’s at stake—“It is hard to understand how a theologian who rejects all mixture of the divine and human natures in Christ (and who rejected the communication of attributes from the divine nature to the human nature as taught by the Lutherans) can now speak of the life flowing forth from the Godhead into Christ’s human nature. Surely, the life flowing forth from the Godhead cannot be infused into the human nature of Christ in the absence of all the divine attributes. If there is a communication of divine life into the human nature of Christ, it would seem to be logical to affirm a communication of other attributes as well.
“Calvin should have recognized that he could not accept Cyril’s rhetoric on the life-giving character of Christ’s ‘body’ without accepting Cyril’s soteriology of divinization, as well as the Platonic ontology of ‘participation; which made that soteriology possible.”
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Mark,
I believe you are right to see that what we believe about Christ will affect what we believe about the Lord’s Supper. It is my understanding that Reformed theology would lean towards the Nestorian error of making the two natures of Christ into two watertight compartments that thus make Christ 2 persons instead of the unity of 2 natures in one person. Whereas Lutheran theology’s communication of the attributes would lean towards the Eutychian error of making the two natures of Christ combine into one composite nature where his no longer fully God and fully man. Here is where I understand the debate to be between the Reformed and the Lutherans, and this is the source of our differing views on the sacraments.
Natch, I don’t want to debate the differences in our communions, but if my understanding is true, it may help in better understanding the debate within your own communion? Anywho, I hope this is helpful.
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Thanks, Lily. Some have even objected to any reading of I Cor 15:25-28 as merely “handing over the kingdom” from His humanity to the divinity.
Hart doesn’t see how talk of “union” is supposed to help against accusations of Protestants being antinomian. But Calvin’s sacramentalism reminds me of revivalism—it says that you can trust us with justification because also we have this “extra”….
McCormack, p103—Calvin’s motive in organizing book three (first union with Christ, then regeneration, and only then justification) was to take the ground out from beneath Catholic polemic against the Protestant doctrine of justification on the ground that it constituted a ‘legal fiction’. But was his treatment of regeneration prior to justification also not necessitated by his definition of ‘union with Christ’?
Calvin (3:2:10)–“Christ, having been made ours, makes us sharers with Him in the gifts with which he has been endowed.”
McCormack—“The problem with such statements is that one of the ‘gifts’ he speaks of–regeneration–is very difficult to distinguish conceptually from that ‘union’ which is supposed to give rise to both justification AND REGENERATION….His break with Medieval Catholic views was not as clean and complete as he himself obviously thought. For where regeneration is made— if only logically–to be the root of justification, then the work of God in us is once again made to be the ground of the divine forgiveness of sins.”
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Mark,
I have a difficult time understanding some of the debates among the Reformed and tend to get lost in some of the finer points. I’d like to try my best to respect your distinctives in this reply.
The priority of justification seems plain to me since there is no remission of sin without the shedding of blood and the texts clearly teach that we are redeemed through Christ’s blood (emphasis on through just as through faith?) and we are cleansed by his blood. I cannot see how anything else could precede Christ’s blood shed for us and see union as the inexplicable gift that is given because of justification. As far as I can tell, justification is clear in the texts whereas union is not clear, but has many metaphors to explain it – if that makes sense?
Re: For where regeneration is made— if only logically–to be the root of justification, then the work of God in us is once again made to be the ground of the divine forgiveness of sins.
I think we are on the same page here? He points out another reason I cannot see union priority. For lack of a better way to put it, I can only see our Savior crucified, dead, and risen for us.
I honestly don’t see how we (both Reformed and Lutheran) can avoid being charged with antinomianism by others since we share (I think) the belief that salvation is the monergistic work of God (eg: pure grace from A to Z). And in this, we stand together against the teachings that mix works and grace as the RC do or that our works could cause or speed up sanctification as though God was a vending machine? And we stand together in seeing the sacraments as being a means of grace instead of mere ordinances as some do? We both see God’s grace not anything in man or done by man in all aspects of salvation?
Re: But Calvin’s sacramentalism reminds me of revivalism—it says that you can trust us with justification because also we have this “extra”
I don’t see the connection and I do not understand why believing the sacraments are God’s means of grace for believers would be viewed as sacramentalism. To take and eat his body and drink his blood doesn’t have anything to do revivalism’s practices in my thinking. Revivalism seems to deny an ongoing relationship of grace alone with God whereas the sacraments confirm the ongoing relationship of grace alone and our need to continually receive his grace – if that makes sense?
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Lily: Revivalism seems to deny an ongoing relationship of grace alone with God… if that makes sense?
Mark: I guess it depends on your definition and/or experience of “revivalism”. Are there “old school” revivalists (Nettleton?) or is all “revivalism” by definition “new school”?
more from McCormack on “ingrafting” (see Hart’s quotation from Calvin above)
“The image of vine and branches might easily be seen to connote an organic connectedness of Christ to the believer. The early church thought of an ontological union of a ‘person” in whom being is mixed with non-being (that’s us) with a ‘person’ in whom being is pure from non-being (Jesus). Where that occurs, the life communicated from the vine to the branches flows organically. (To be sure, it would be difficult to understand, on this view, why the Holy Spirit would be needed as the bond joining us to Christ…)
“The difference between the relation between a vine and a branch and the relation between Christ and the believer is that the first relation is impersonal and the second is personal. The flow of nutrients from the vine to the branches take place automatically. It does not require a legal act of the will. But in the case of Christ and the believer, we are dealing with a willed relation. The ethical ‘bearing of fruit’ takes place on the foundation of justification. John 15:3–‘You are already clean BECAUSE OF THE WORD I HAVE SPOKEN TO YOU.’
“The term ‘ingrafting’ is used in Romans 9-11 to speak of inclusion in the covenant of grace, which results in a share in all the gifts and privileges. That Paul would preface his use of the horticultural image with the affirmation that the adoption belonged to the Israelites before the Gentiles suggests that the image of ‘ingrafting’ is used as a synonym for adoption. The horticultural image is subordinated to the legal….
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Mark, I also don’t understand the sacramentalism-revivalism analogy. Revivalists heed the altar call and walk the isle to fill up the bathtub of lost grace (which has parallels to the Mass). But Protestants respond to the invitation to sup and confirm faith. Those are two very different systems. And, from my experience, revivalists know something very different is going on in a Reformed sacramental setting.
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Zrim, I think Mark’s point is that Calvin can possibly establish RC street cred by talking about real presence and union in the sacrament does this.
I appreciate Mark’s cautions about Calvin’s view. The point of the post — duh — was to see how unionists grapple with ALL OF CALVIN on union.
I’m not sure I really have a dog in the fight over the supper, though I think Nevin’s reading of Reformed history is better than Hodge’s. And as a bourgeois academic, my tastes lean more to the table than the bench. Either way, union is a mystery and I’m not sure it was meant to be a point of polemical theology (that little flare up between Luther and Zwingli excepted).
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I have myself noticed some “parallels” between Reformed and Lutheran “sacraments” and the Romanist mass. Of course I know that both traditions have modified what Rome and the early church said about sacramental unity with Christ. So of course there is difference. But the difference can’t hide the likeness of putting something ontological in front of what is “only legal”.
p110, “What’s At Stake in Current Debates Over Justification?”, professor Bruce McCormack, Princeton Theological Seminary
“I do not participate in the historical humanity of Christ (a thought which would require an unity on the level of ‘substance’. Rather, I participate in the kind of humanity which Jesus embodies. That is why I John 3:2 says that when we see Him as He is, we shall be LIKE him. The individual Christ’s humanity and my own was thought by the early church to be transcended in terms of a Platonic realism which holds that universals are more real than particulars (substance and accidents)…
“Nowadays, we are suffering from ‘creeping perichoresis’, that is, the overly expansive use of terms which have their homes in purely spiritual relations between humans who do NOT participate in a common ‘substance’ and who therefore remain distinct individuals. This surely has to be the relation of the human believer to the human Jesus as well.
“What has prevented us from seeing this is, I think, the degree of residual Catholic content in the Reformation understanding of eucharistic feeding. It is in the context of his treatment of eucharistic feeding that Calvin borrows rhetoric from the early church that brings him into conflict with his own doctrine of justification.
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Hart wrote: I’m not sure I really have a dog in the fight over the supper, though I think Nevin’s reading of Reformed history is better than Hodge’s. And as a bourgeois academic, my tastes lean more to the table than the bench. Either way, union is a mystery and I’m not sure it was meant to be a point of polemical theology (that little flare up between Luther and Zwingli excepted).
Mark: I was going to sit out for a while, and then you link your preference for Nevin (vs Hodge, Thornwell, Reymond etc) to your being “bourgeois academic”. That’s very interesting to me. I wonder what you mean by the sociology. Are well off teachers more likely to be Anglicans or old school sacramentalists? Does this assume a trajectory in which ex-revivalists become educated and therefore now know better than to think they “remember” or that they “take eat”?
The patronizing assumption of most “high church” folk is that no educated person is “gnostic” like t “Zwinglians”. Their view above is that other folks simply don’t know the alternatives or the history. If you did know, it is assumed, of course you would take the path other educated folks take.
By no means am I suggesting that Hart is taking this attitude. From my point of view, it seems strange to me when Hart (Mother Kirk) and Horton (People and Place) take sides with an “unionist’ (impartationist) like Nevin. But I assume they do this because they think Calvin was right. ( I agree that Nevin is right in his reporting of what Calvin thought about sacrament.)
I cannot believe that Hart or Horton agree with Calvin because they have become “bourgeois academics”. Am I just reading too much into your comment?
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Mark, I was simply giving an opening to anyone who wanted to take a shot at an effete academic and explain his sacramental preferences by social position. I actually believe the social location argument fails miserably, especially when it comes to the highest of high churchers, the Roman Catholic Church, where high and low brow commune together (or sometimes don’t) and vest the Mass with great import. You don’t have to be low brow to be a sucker for revivalism either. Look at George H.W. Bush.
I personally believe that Nevin’s reading of the tradition goes well beyond Calvin, as in the WSC:
I don’t exactly think that’s a Zwinglian statement even if it is not fully Nevinian. Still, I’m happy just to get along. You know me, easy-going DGH.
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Mark: I understand how Calvin’s and historic Reformed theology’s chat on the sacraments can seem similar in today’s age of (so-very-low) low church Protestantism. But the crucial deference is the Holy Spirit: RCs believe the sacraments contain, in and of themselves, the power or grace they signify; Calvin and the Reformed believe it is only through the ministry of the Spirit that the grace is conferred and accomplished. Faith is the key. The sacraments always “do” something (i.e. The Spirit always works in or on those who partake): whether that be conferring grace or hardening through judgement (thus the reason we fence the table).
So yes, both the Reformed and the RCs believe the sacraments are always accompanied (or produce) a spiritual reality, and so stand opposite the shrivelled, empty sacramental theology of the baptists and assorted other revivalist groups. But the difference between the Reformed and the RCa is also fundamental: it is between what is happening (as opposed to whether something is happening) and how it is happening.
And Calvin’s position was affirmed by the successive Reformed churches and assemblies: just read the Westminster standards on the sacraments. Hodge was just plain wrong and in wilful error.
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Sort Dr. Hart: you posted as I was painstakingly typing out my comment on my iPhone:)
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Dr Hart, you’re saying the WSC is Calvin, but not Nevin?
I am glad that you don’t buy the “social location” explanation. I would rather attempt to tell people why they are wrong instead of thinking about their mother or their motives in being wrong.
I have noticed that Roman Catholics (some of my pacifist friends) include rich and poor in a way that I don’t find in Paul Zahl’s Anglican congregations or in RC Sproul’s “pay to attend” conferences.
L Berhof (systematic, p452)
“It is sometimes said that the merits of Christ cannot be imputed to us as long as we are not in Christ, since it is only on the basis of our oneness with Him that such an imputation could be reasonable. But this view fails to distinguish between our legal unity with Christ and our spiritual oneness with Him, and is a falsification of the fundamental element in the doctrine of redemption, namely, of the doctrine of justification. “
“Justification is always a declaration of God, not on the basis of an existing (or future) condition, but on that of a gracious imputation–a declaration which is not in harmony with the existing condition of the sinner. The judicial ground for all the grace which we receive lies in the fact that the righteousness of Christ is freely imputed to us.”
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“…little flare-up… ” – Dr. Hart? Can you hear the roars of laughter in Texas? 😉 And since your point: “was to see how unionists grapple with ALL OF CALVIN on union.” I best bid adieu.
Mark, I find comboxes extremely limiting for these kinds of discussions and it’s so easy for each of us to go back and forth on the points that cannot be included in a couple of paragraphs or in my case, even properly expressed(!) and since I do not want to take Dr. Hart’s point off-course, I’d like to bow out.
Zrim, I would like to offer a quote you may appreciate. Herman Ridderbos summarizes a shift that took place following Calvin and Luther this way:
“While in Calvin and Luther all the emphasis fell on the redemptive event that took place with Christ’s death and resurrection, later under the influence of pietism, mysticism and moralism, the emphasis shifted to the individual appropriation of the salvation given in Christ and to it’s mystical and moral effect in the life of the believer. Accordingly, in the history of the interpretation of the epistles of Paul the center of gravity shifted more and from the forensic to the pneumatic and ethical aspects of his preaching, and there arose an entirely different conception of the structures that lay at the foundation of Paul’s Preaching.”
I don’t know the Reformed theologians so I don’t know if he’s one of the solid guys or one who needs to be read with discernment? The quote is from this book:
http://www.amazon.com/Paul-Outline-Theology-Herman-Ridderbos/dp/0802844693
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Lily, thanks. I think Ridderbos’ kind of analysis makes sense to those who really do see a difference between the Protestant Reformation and the Radical Reformation and their respective descendants. And so how Mark is reminded of revivalism by Calvin’s eucharistic theology still makes me scratch my head.
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Mark, I see too much historical complexity (another bourgeois academic alert!) to equate anyone who lived in such different times. If I had to put people on a spectrum of high to low, I’d put Nevin at the extreme (among Reformed), then Calvin to the right, and then the Divines to the right of Calvin. What I want to know as a historian (despite this anachronistic spectrum) is how much Reformed Protestantism was still developing in Calvin’s time so that his word is hardly the last; what role experimental Calvinism of the turn of the 17th c. played at the Assembly; and what Nevin’s reading of nineteenth-century German idealism did to his theology.
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I guess I am still more interested in what Calvin inherited from Rome than I am in Charles Hodge’s disregard for what Calvin taught about “sacrament”. I assume that Zrim would excuse a new side confessionalist like Hodge from being thought of a “revivalist”. Is Whitefield excused also? Edwards?
Are all “revivalists” like Finney? Is it a good thing that anabaptists did not become “revivalists”?
Calvin teaches that faith in Christ is before and without the imputation of Christ’s righteousness. Calvin teaches that faith in Christ is in order to that imputation. I agree with McCormack that Calvin’s assumptions about “sacrament” have something to do with his order of application. And all of us, no matter how much we focus on redemptive history, do still work with some order of application. Ridderbos and Vos say so!
Since this is what most of the Reformed tradition teaches, I won’t multiply quotations. Institutes 3:11;7, “Before his righteousness is received, Christ is received in faith.” Of course we need to remember that, in theory, we all agree it happens at one time and that we are only talking about logical order. None of us want to split up the blessings of salvation as if they were parts of a elaborate Rube Goldberg mechanism.
Really, Dr Hart, nobody here wants that! But some academics say the way to avoid “scholasticism” is to put “union” with the person (the Benefactor who blesses) before the receiving of the blessings. But in their solution, the “unionists” put faith in Christ before “union” with the person. Faith IS the person, we are informed. The presence of faith in us, we are assured, is the indwelling of Christ in us.
Calvin seems to make everything logically depend on regeneration by the Holy Spirit. Some of us think everything logically depends on God’s justification by the righteousness of Christ’s death and resurrection. Part of what needs to be thought about here is what we mean about regeneration (and corruption). We need to think about the image of God and about the continuity of a person before and after regeneration (or corruption).
Some of us are suspicious of any gospel which makes its “reality” to be ultimately about what God does in us, metaphysically or dispositionally or habitually. Others of us (Gaffin, Tipton) are suspicious of any gospel which puts all the emphasis on gratitude for Christ’s work outside us for us.
I am aware of a long philosophical history of talking about infusion and impartation. While I don’t want to say that regeneration is an infusion or an impartation of righteousness by means of sacraments, I do not want to discount the wonderful news that God gives the elect a new heart to understand and to keep believing the gospel. Regeneration assures us that the justified, despite their continuing immorality, will never stop believing the gospel . “I John 3:9, “No one born of God sins, because God’s seed abides in him, and he cannot sin because he has been born of God.”
I John 3:9 is not only saying that the justified elect cannot be charged with the sin of not believing the gospel. Of course it is true that Christ died as a result of being imputed with the elect’s sins in not believing. But Christ also died in order to give the Spirit to the elect so that the elect would abide in the gospel, and the gospel would abide in the elect. When I deny that the Spirit gives Christ or that the Spirit unites to Christ, I am not denying that Christ gives the Spirit or that the Spirit gives the elect person a new heart.
But I disagree with Calvin that the Holy Spirit must join the elect to Christ’s person before they are imputed with Christ’s righteousness. Here’s the famous “unionist” quotation from Calvin (3:11:10): “I confess that we are deprived of justification until Christ is made ours. Therefore, that joining together of Head and members, that indwelling of Christ in our hearts—in short, that mystical union—are accorded by us the highest degree of importance, so that Christ, having been made ours, makes us sharers with him in the gifts with which he has been endowed.. We do not, therefore, contemplate him outside ourselves from afar in order that His righteousness may be imputed to us but because we put on Christ and are engrafted into His body—in short because he deigns to make us one with Him.”
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Of course you can say this Calvin quotation is either too significant for us to be polemical about it or say that we shouldn’t debate about it because it’s not that important compared to other things (like the history of salvation). But Calvin seems to think that sacramental union is very basic, and so do the academics like Torrance who seem to write every essay so that they can get to that quotation. They quote 3:11:10 often, as that which trumps anything else Calvin wrote.
As long as Christ is outside us, they say, His righteousness is not yet imputed to us, therefore Christ comes to us and joins us before justification. Of course everybody agrees in theory that there is an eternal election, but not so many seem to need to ever talk about the sins of the elect having already been imputed to Christ before His death.
The important thing that many “faith-unionists” have in common with people who don’t believe in election is that they agree that faith is the condition of union with Christ and that this union with Christ is the cause of justification. To me, “faith is the condition” and “life poured in us as we eat” both sound something like what I know of “revivalism”. What do you think, Zrim?
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Mark, I think the Hodge-Nevin row was unfortunate if only because I think doctrinalists (Hodge) and liturgicals (Nevin) are two great tastes that could go great together (the way pietists and culturalists go together). But your sense of revivalism sounds very different from mine, where faith is barely a category, much less a condition, and where life comes through a decision re-enacted and not a sacrament observed.
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Mark,
I more than likely differ with you on my view of the sacraments, but your cautions regarding Calvin’s idiosyncrasies on communion are well taken, we certainly don’t share in Christ in any ontological way so your criticism here is well taken. I have more than a few questions in response to the issues you raise here, but limited time so I’ll start with a simple one:
No ritual is a sign from God that we in particular have been united to Christ. Even if our children were to eat the “sacrament” with us, that nevertheless would not be a seal that either we in particular or our children have been justified (or that God is our God). It could only be a “seal” that some sinners are justified by God. It could only be a “seal” of the gospel promises proclaimed.
To a degree I think I can see where you are going with this, and it is possible for the reprobate to partake in the sacraments. However, if pushed too far this seems to subvert the WSC 1.7 and 18.3:
So while the ordinary means, the Lord’s Supper being one, don’t absolutely guarantee salvation, ordinarily they are a seal of them for those who faithfully tend to them. Besides, why would anyone who isn’t among the faithful also tend faithfully to the word preached or the the sacraments since they would as reprobates have no taste for such things?
BTW, McCormack is a fine theologian from what I have heard, but I was under the impression that he was PCA. Is he one of the few remaining conservatives in the PCA? Just wondering why you use him as a source in this debate.
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McCormack is a Barthian, and I assume “mainline Presbyterian”. I certainly am not recommending what he teaches on election and the atonement. But his historical study of Calvin’s inconsistency is very carefully done and needs more consideration. Mike Horton has used McCormack’s essay in an extensive way in his Covenant Union book. Gaffin of course has written (Ordained Servant) that this leaves Horton confusing justification and regeneration.
It seems that if you make regeneration the effect of imputation, then you confuse them. But when Gaffin makes imputation the effect of “union” (where “union” is defined as the ontological power of the risen in redemptive-history Christ in us), supposedly that is no confusion but one “wholistic” grace.
That’s not fair, but let me agree with Jeff that, long before Gaffin, Calvin and the confessions do teach an “union” in which the Holy Spirit gives us Christ the person.
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Why would anybody who is not among the elect tend faithfully to the sacraments of the Roman Catholic church? Why would non-elect folks have a taste for that kind of thinking?
In Call of Grace, Norman Shepherd tells us to stop talking about individual election and to address everybody who hears the gospel as the elect. And this has come to be called the “federal vision”.
II Corinthians 5: 15—“And He died for all, that those who live would no longer live for themselves, but for Him who for their sake both died and was raised.”
Who are the all? Is the verse talking to everybody? Or is II Corinthians 5:15 only talking to Christians? If Christ did not die for a person, how in the world could that person be commanded to live for Him who died for Him.?
Those who teach an universal atonement (which then fails to atone!) use II Corinthians 5:15 to try to prove that Christ died for everybody. They assume that that we want to tell everybody to live for Christ. The false gospel tells us, that, in order to tell everybody what to do, we first need to tell them that Christ died for them.
II Corinthians 5:15 is about a substitutionary representation. The same all for whom Christ died is the all who died. This death is not the new birth. This death is death by imputation, legal union with Christ. Romans 6:3 explains: “to be baptized into Christ is to be baptized into His death.”
Which people are being addressed by II Cor 5:15? Who is Paul talking to? And when the ambassadors say “be ye reconciled”, who are they talking to? It is not “revivalism” to ask: are you in the new covenant yet? Have you even been justified yet? Are you reading somebody else’s mail?
Surely we know that God will not start loving a person. Either God already loves a person or not. Surely God will not start loving a person conditioned on that person doing something or accepting something. How then do you know if you are one of the ones God loves and for whom Christ died?
II Corinthians 5:10—“For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each of us will receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or bad.”
Since the judgment for all whom God loves (the elect) has already happened at the cross, there will no future judgment for Christians. There will not even be a side-judgment where extra goodies and rewards are passed out.
Why then is the text, II Corinthians 5, which is talking to Christians, bringing up the judgment? The answer is that Christians are being told in this text that they are “ambassadors”, not to each other but rather to those who are still lost
So the question becomes if we are ambassadors in church? Or is Norman Shepherd correct, and being ambassadors is only for when we are outside church? Are we to assume that everybody who is regularly hearing the preaching is elect and believing the gospel?
Some of those who are still lost are the elect, who even though God loves them and has always loved them, are right now ignorant of the gospel. And since the ambassadors to whom Paul is talking don’t know which of the lost are elect or not, they are to present the good news to all sinners, and to command all sinners to “ be reconciled”. The ambassadors don’t say: some of you have already received the reconciliation but just don’t know it.
The reconciliation is received passively (by imputation) and that has not yet happened for those who are still ignorant of the gospel and still living in legalism. Look back at the time language of Romans 5:10-11—“now that we are reconciled, we shall be saved by His resurrection. We rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the reconciliation.”
So why is Paul bringing up the judgment seat, when Christians have already passed through the judgment by imputation? Paul brings up “the fear of God” (Ii Corinthians 5:11) because the justified ambassadors need to remember that there are lost people around them who have not yet been justified who need to hear the gospel and be commanded to be reconciled.
We don’t say: well if Christ died for them, then they are already reconciled and justified. They are not. Nor do we say: well, anyway, it’s sure to happen. God works in history. God imputes in time what Christ has paid for in time. And God uses the gospel as the message heard and believed by the elect as they are being justified.
II Corinthians 5:20—“we implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.”
Even though the chapter is addressed to Christians only, the message taken by Christians to the lost is not for the elect only. “Be ye reconciled” is for those who have not yet been already justified.
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Jed, I tend to agree with Luther and Calvin that faith is assurance. Reflex faith based on our church attendance gets a little more problematic. To say it simply, I think assurance is a good thing. But I also think it’s a good thing for people who should not have assurance to not have assurance.
This by no means that I advocate that we bring into the church regular Arminian appeals which distort the message of John 3:1-18. Arminianism should never be brought into our churches. But it is not necessarily “revivalism” to point out that those who are not yet justified are being addressed from a Bible which makes gospel promises to as many as believe them.
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All persons are commanded to obey the Gospel, just as all persons are required to worship God. This is the duty of the created: to acknowledge and bow down before the Creator.
Just because all are required to obey the Gospel does not mean all will, or require that God enable all to obey the Gospel. The requirement to obey and worship God comes from our very nature as His creation. To bring this requirement into dicscussion on predestination and election confuses the issue. We are all guilty because of Original Sin and we are all without excuse because God has revealed Himself in His Creation.
As to the sacraments: you’re repeating the Baptist error that the Reformed/Presbyterians believe that just because a covenant baby is baptised he will, by virtue of that Baptism, grow up to become a believer (and saying the same thing about the Supper: that just because someone is taking commmunion they must be a believer). This is not what we teach.
Faith is not sealed in Baptism: it is Christ. And, through Baptism and the Supper (physical expressions of the Word) Christ calls his own to him through the ministry of the Spirit working through the sacraments and the reading and the preaching of the Word and condemns those who are not his own, through the sacraments and the reading and the preaching of the Word. The Word goes out into the world and always accomplishes something: whether that is the calling of the elect or the hardening of the reprobate. And this takes place within the covenant community itself.
Certainly we expect the covenant children of believers to become believer themselves, and so should treat them as Christians as they grow up (which is what Baptists do, but which is in opposition to their own theology). And we try to keep the table as pure as possible. But of course there are reprobate who partake of the Supper even in the strictest churches. But again, the reprobate are warned that they will receive judgement if they partake of the Supper (hence the fencing of the table).
I also think we have to stress that for the believer, the sacraments most definitely are efficacious and do seal Christ to them in a real and positive way: Christ is our nourishment, our food and drink in this world. And we receive Him in the Word and the sacraments in a real, spiritual way. The believer is comforted and fed through the sacraments.
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Alexander,
As to the sacraments: you’re repeating the Baptist error that the Reformed/Presbyterians believe that just because a covenant baby is baptised he will, by virtue of that Baptism, grow up to become a believer (and saying the same thing about the Supper: that just because someone is taking commmunion they must be a believer). This is not what we teach.
Where did I claim anything like this? I fully realize that the sacraments do not save, and that Christ does. All I am saying is that the sacraments are only made available to those who are both baptized and have made a credible profession of faith, and for them it is proclaimed that the elements of the Lord’s Supper signify and seal Christ’s saving benefits for them – hence “this is my body, broken for you.” We have no right based on these evidences to peer any more into a person’s soul to find out if they are really “in” or “out”. All that should be done is what is required in the due course of discipleship, which includes admonitions to be self-examined. We must not rob the power that the sacraments have in conjunction with the hearing of the word to assist us in our weakness of our assurance that Christ is ours, because in the sacraments he is offered to us.
I have absolutely no interest in parsing out who is really saved, and who is reprobate who already meet the visible criteria for communion, that is something for the Lord alone to know. But what I see here between your response and Mark’s is so much emphasis placed upon whether one is yet justified that there seems to be an effort to diminish the efficacy of the sacrament’s to strengthen and sustain faith. Whether or not there is some small amount of unconverted in our churches will certainly be parsed out in Judgement, where improper use of the sacraments will be only one of a much larger concern for the reprobate.
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With references to Nevin’s “Answer to Dorner” (Nichols, Mercersburg Theology, p186) , B. A. Gerrish writes: “Nevin had no qualms about describing the ‘altar feeling’ that pervaded the liturgy, in which the people present to God Christ’s passion and their own selves on the eucharistic altar.” (Thinking With The Church, p213).
Many would describe “revivalism” as the human replacement for the divine “sacraments”. Others of us would see both ideas as human constructs which distract from the cross and the true priestly work of Christ.
Zwingli pointed to the past, to the crucified flesh alone. Calvin pointed also to a participation in Christ, not only in “sacrament” but all the time, not only through believing but also (more, extra) by means of a non-rational mysterious influence from Christ’s resurrected and glorified body.
Nevin didn’t think Calvin’s sacramentology (“extraordinary power”) was consistent with Calvin’s ideas about God’s sovereign independence and predestination. I think Nevin was correct about the inconsistency. But I take sides with Hodge in the part of Calvin I want to leave behind.
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Jed: My apologies, my post was directed to Mark.
Mark: are you denying the import of the sacraments? Certainly referring to them as human constructs would imply you are. We are commanded to observe and partake of them. And Calvin merely repeats the Lord’s and the Apostle’s teaching of participation. Hodge’s view was not Reformed and it was not Biblical.
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Here’s a Fun Friday Test: Which Theologian Are You?
http://quizfarm.com/quizzes/new/svensvensven/which-theologian-are-you
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Lily,
Anselm… who would have known?
😉
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2nd place: Luther
3rd place: Calvin
not so bad…
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You didn’t know you had an inner Anselm, Jack? Does that mean you didn’t know how terrific you are? 🙂
I think that test is a hoot. I think there’s another test for which church father are you? I’m scared to take that one after my test results – which heretic might be lurking in my soul?
I came in 100% Luther, then Barth(!), and then Anselm. I’m kinda worried about that inner Barthian but decided it might be okay since there was zip, zero, nada of Finney and Schleiermacher?
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Jack, I came out Anselm, Barth, Luther, Calvin, Edwards. Yikes.
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Darryl,
Old Life… on the road to Canterbury, circa 1100 AD?
Ah, the twist and turns of blogging…
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Which Church Father Are You?
http://www.fathersofthechurch.com/2007/04/03/which-church-father-are-you
I’m only confessing since he’s not a heretic…
St. Melito of Sardis
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Two more quotations from Nevin’s The Mystical Presence. The first sounds somewhat like dgh, the second not so much.
“We deceive ourselves if we imagine that we have faith in his salvation, while we refuse to recognize the actual historical presence of it in his own institution. Without faith in the Church, there can be no proper faith in Christ.”, p66
“External imputation rests at last on an internal real unity of life.”, p34
Charles Hodge: “The life of the believer is not a corporate life, conditioned on union with any outward organization called the Church….” (ST:2:397)
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Lily, I’m also St. Melito of Sardis, though that first question about co-workers is like trying to decide on how to vote about gay marriage–evidently the quiz doesn’t recognize the validity of abstention. Ack. And I came out Anselm, Barth, Luther then Calvin.
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Zrim, the church fathers test is definitely not a nuanced test. On a bad day, I’d be tempted to answer the first one: hit ’em over the head with a hammer. I have to laugh about us both falling into the Saint Melito category since it seems to depend heavily on the guilty pleasures answer: liturgical pietists?
The theologian test seems fairly nuanced… yet, it’s fairly easy to see the questions where a firm agree or disagree would throw one into Luther or Calvin (eg: Do you agree Christ died for all men). I’d love to know which questions put one into Barth and Anselm categories. Or how nuancing an answer less than fully agree or disagree related to each man’s categories? Any ideas?
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Lily, I’m not sure. But here is some fun for those days when the church just isn’t panning out the way one thinks she should. You can make yourself a saint and name it after yourself and then bill it per your own distinctives:
http://www.says-it.com/churchsigns/
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Zrim, that’s a fun place for creative people. I wish I was clever enough to create witty church sign blurbs. IMO, the cleverest and funniest use of that site (or one like it) was the dueling church signs between Presbyterians and Catholics over dogs. I’m guessing you probably seen it? Those RC are tough competitiors! They used to whup our Lutheran school’s butts at most sports! Evil they are! 😉
http://thebruceblog.wordpress.com/2008/10/20/pics-hysterical-catholic-and-presbyterian-church-signs-debate-over-dog-souls
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Lily, dogs may not go to heaven but they are better than cats. Did you know that some people even name their cats? Imagine.
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Kuyper, “implanting in Christ”, p339, The Work of the Holy Spirit—“Romans 6:5 does not speak of coming to Christ. Romans 6 describes becoming one plant with Him but does not spell out ‘how’. Romans 6 does not introduce the idea of ingrafting, nor make the slightest allusion to the manner in which this ‘becoming one plant’ had been accomplished….
“Hence we firmly maintain the oneness of these two. There is no regeneration without establishing the mystical union with Christ. But again, there is no mystical union with Immanuel but in the regenerate.”
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Zrim, childless aging boomers need cats. Otherwise we’d be reading Keller.
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Christ-mass time is not a great time for the Protestant principle. Of course we Protestants don’t agree on what it means to be Protestant. Hint: not “evangelical minimalism” (what’s the least we can believe and be together). To be Protestant means antithesis.
R. C. Zachman, Image and Word in the Theology of John Calvin, p340—“An objective presence, that is a presence granted to faith rather than identified with faith, is a critical concept in the
Reformed eucharistic doctrine. Calvin insists that what God represents in the symbol of the Supper God simultaneously presents in reality. This is the reason the symbol is given the name of the thing
symbolized, for it not only represents the thing itself by analogy but also truly exhibits and presents the reality….On the other hand, Calvin insists that Christ is not to be sought in the symbols but in
heaven. Christ gives us the symbols as ladders to help us in our weakness, so that we might ascend to heaven, to see the reality symbolized. If we do not mount up to heaven on these ladders, the reality will not be given unto us.”
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Does being called to “union” mean that God eats us in the “sacrament”?
Don’t forget, if you deny that God is doing something in the “sacrament”, you are pretty much the same as those gnostic docetists who teach that we use our “free-will” to save ourselves.
“When you eat food, it becomes a part of you. With the Eucharist, however, the opposite happens. We become a part of it, that is, in Holy Communion, we are made a part of the mystical body of Christ. In our Lord’s words, those who eat His flesh and drink His blood abide in Him.”
http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2011/the-eucharist-a-cannibalism.html.
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