SOURCE: "Calvin on the Word as Sacrament," in Jesus Christ in the Preaching of Calvin and Schleiermacher, Westminster John Knox Press, 1996, pp. 14-25.

Calvin, like Luther before him, borrowed from Augustine the notion that sacraments were "visible words."¹ While this meant that the Reformers tended to verbalize the sacraments, it also led them to "sacramentalize" the Word.² In order to understand the significance of Calvin's doctrine of the Word, however, we must first explore how preaching was understood by Calvin's predecessors.

THE DOCTRINE OF THE WORD AND THE TASK OF PREACHING BEFORE CALVIN

While it cannot be asserted that the Reformers of the sixteenth century invented the notion of the Word as a means of grace, it is commonly said that they raised the discussion to a wholly new level.³ Already in Origen one can discover an appreciation for the importance of the preaching of the Word in the life of the faithful.⁴ But in Augustine's writings against the Donatists, the parallelism of Word and sacrament first receives explicit statement.⁵ Both Word and sacraments are instruments for communicating the grace by which God justifies and sanctifies the elect: the Word is the seed of regeneration.

At the same time, however, Augustine also understood the Word as a means of instruction for the faithful. And it is the didactic understanding of the Word that came to prevail in the Middle Ages, when, increasingly, the infusion of grace was taken to be the special office of the sacraments of Baptism and Eucharist. The preached Word was a means of teaching, communicating the truth, and preparing people to receive the sacraments. But it was only the preparation for, and not the instrument of communicating, the grace of salvation.⁶

This preparation should consist in two things: catechetical instruction and moral urging. The average churchgoer in the Middle Ages was not well instructed in the rudiments of the faith. If he or she knew how to say the Lord's Prayer, or the Ave Maria, for example, he or she was considered remarkably educated. Much medieval preaching, then, simply tried to convey the words of prayers and creeds, and their meaning, to the hearers of sermons.⁷ At the same time, however, medieval preachers tried to stimulate in their hearers the desire to receive the church's sacraments by stressing the demands of the moral law, the fleetingness of life, and the terrors of hell.⁸ The preached Word itself, so far from conveying the healing medicine of divine grace, was rather a prescription for the medicine that was available only in the sacraments.

By the end of the Middle Ages, this conception of preaching was beginning to come undone. Even before Luther and the first generation of Protestant reformers, the Augustinian notion of the Word as a means of grace was being recovered.⁹ But Luther went farther: he took Romans 10:17 as a radical principle for reform. Faith comes from hearing; thus, the grace of God is infused primarily through the preaching of the Word, and only secondarily through the sacraments.¹⁰ Even the life of Jesus is interpreted through the lens of the sacramental Word. Luther states:

If I had to do without one or the other,—either the works or preaching of Christ,—I would rather do without His works than His preaching; for the works do not help me, but His words give life, as He Himself says. Now John writes very little about the works of Christ, but very much about His preaching, while the other Evangelists write much of His works and little of His preaching; therefore John's Gospel is the one, tender, true chief Gospel, far, far to be preferred to the other three and placed high above them. So, too, the Epistles of St. Paul and St. Peter far surpass the other three Gospels,—Matthew, Mark and Luke.¹¹

Calvin, then, was following an old and established tradition—freshly appropriated in the sixteenth century—in understanding the Word as the primary means of grace to which the sacraments are but "appendages."¹² But now we must ask what precisely Calvin meant by "the Word."

THE WORD OF GOD: SCRIPTURE PREACHING, AND THE INCARNATION

Calvin's use of the term "Word of God" is ambiguous at best. It is often unclear to what exactly the "Word" refers.¹³ Certainly Calvin wishes to maintain that the Word of God is found reliably in scripture. But Calvin does not simply equate the words of scripture with the Word of God.¹⁴ For, as he puts it in his commentary on 2 Timothy 3:15, "False prophets also make use of it [scripture] as a pretext; and so, in order that it may be useful to us for salvation, we have to know how to use it rightly."¹⁵ The correct use of scripture involves seeking in it what we need to know for our salvation—or, more correctly, whom we need to know, namely, Jesus Christ. Thus, the center of scripture, its unifying purpose, is to present Christ and his saving work to those who are to be saved.¹⁶

One of Calvin's favorite shorthand terms for the center of scripture is "gospel." The gospel is "an embassy [legatio], by which the reconciliation of the world with God, once for all accomplished in the death of Christ, is daily conveyed to men."¹⁷ The gospel, in other words, is not only the announcement, but the actual gift imparting God's promised grace. It communicates or presents Christ to its hearers, and unites them to God through Christ. In fact, Calvin goes so far as to say that the gospel itself brings salvation.¹⁸ In presenting Christ, the gospel reveals the fatherly goodwill of God, and so enables the hearers of the Word, if God wills, to receive the gifts of justification and sanctification.¹⁹

Calvin is very clear, however, that the gospel comes to us, or communicates Christ to us, only in the proclaimed Word of preaching and sacraments.²⁰ Private reading of and meditation on scripture is not sufficient. In a fascinating passage in his Commentary on John (Jesus' reference to the story of Moses' lifting the brazen serpent over the people in 3:14), Calvin argues explicitly that the preaching of the gospel is to be understood sacramentally.

To be lifted up means to be set in a lofty and eminent place, so as to be exhibited to the view of all. This was done by the preaching of the gospel; for the explanation of it which some give, as referring to the cross, neither agrees with the context nor is applicable to the present subject. The simple meaning of the words, therefore, is that by the preaching of the gospel, Christ would be raised on high…. Christ introduces [the illustration of the brazen serpent] in this passage, in order to show that he must be placed before the eyes of all by the teaching of the gospel, that all who look at him by faith may receive salvation. And so we ought to infer that Christ is clearly shown to us in the gospel …and that faith has its own faculty of vision, by which to perceive him as if present; as Paul tells us that a lively portrait of Christ with his cross is portrayed, when he is truly preached (Gal. 3:1)…. A question now arises: Does Christ compare himself to the serpent, because there is some resemblance; or, does he pronounce it to have been a sacrament, as the Manna was? For though the Manna was bodily food, intended for present use, yet Paul testifies that it was a spiritual mystery (1 Cor. 10:3). I am led to think this was also the case with the brazen serpent.²¹

This passage is remarkable for several reasons. First, Calvin speaks of the preaching of the gospel as a kind of manifestation of Christ's presence. "Faith has its own faculty of vision [fidei adspectum] by which to perceive Christ as if present." Thus, the gospel not only conveys information about, but also renders the veritable presence of, Jesus Christ. It is interesting that Calvin goes out of his way to deny the obvious interpretation of the text: that Jesus was alluding to his death on the cross. Even more remarkable, however, is the suggestion with which he concludes his comments on this verse: namely, that Jesus refers to the serpent because it was a sacrament. Calvin's understanding of the unity of the Old and New Testaments in one covenant of grace required that he discover in the Old Testament "types" of significant aspects of New Testament faith. Thus, with regard to the sacraments, circumcision is the Old Testament type of baptism.²² It seems that in the passage above, Calvin is arguing that the brazen serpent was the Old Testament type of the New Testament sacrament of the Word—the preaching of the gospel. But Calvin is more certain that the Word is sacramental than he is that he has given the only possible interpretation of this passage in John: he concludes that "if anyone comes to a different opinion about this, I do not debate the point with him."²³

The Word of God, then, refers first and foremost to Jesus Christ, the incarnate Logos, who secured the reconciliation of elect humanity with God. For presentday believers, an encounter with Christ the Word is possible when the words of scripture are truly preached and heard. Preaching under the power of the Holy Spirit focuses, as it were, the vision of believers on the center of scripture—Christ—and in that moment of insight, faith perceives the immediate presence of the Redeemer.²⁴ Thus preaching itself becomes the Word of God, in the sense that it discloses the person of Christ and Christ's witness to his Father.²⁵

THE FUNCTION OF THE SACRAMENTAL WORD

Calvin frequently states that the Word and the sacraments have the same purpose or office: to offer and present Christ.²⁶ Thus it should not surprise us that Calvin describes the function of the preached Word as analogous to the function of sacraments—both are instruments of divine grace.²⁷ He often speaks of preaching as a mirror in which we can behold the face of Christ and of God.²⁸ The Word in this sense reveals the gracious character of God and the love of the Savior. Yet Calvin is not satisfied with an understanding of the Word that could be merely educational and would appeal only to the cognitive faculties of human beings. Like the sacraments, preaching works, according to Calvin, in appealing to the entire person (not just the intellect) through an attractive picture. Preachers present Christ so forcefully that their hearers can "see" and "hear" Christ themselves as if he were confronting them directly.²⁹

The verb Calvin frequently uses to describe the function of the sacramental Word is exhibere: to present or represent.³⁰" The Word and the sacraments are exhibitive signs—they present or offer what they represent. Calvin explicitly rejects a merely memorialistic understanding of representation, that is, that the sacraments are like pictures that remind the partakers of things they represent.³¹ On the contrary, the sacraments themselves confer grace. Calvin explains that by "exhibit" he means nothing less than to give.³²

As in his discussion of sacraments, Calvin explicitly denies that the Word is a bare sign—that is, a sign devoid of the reality it represents. The Word itself is efficacious—it brings what it portrays.³³ The gift of the Word is the presence of Christ with all the benefits that he has secured for the elect-—specifically, the twofold grace of justification and sanctification.³⁴ In addition, the preaching of the Word is itself the true exercise of the keys of the kingdom: it has the power both to save and to damn.³⁵ Calvin even speaks of preaching as "ratifying" the salvation secured in Christ's death.³⁶

God uses the instrument of the Word, however, in such a way that its power and efficacy remain God's own. Calvin is careful to avoid what he takes to be the mechanistic implications of the Roman Catholic view that sacraments function ex opere operato.³⁷ Only when the Word is effectively sealed by the Holy Spirit can it be said to offer and present Christ to us. And if Calvin reserves the possibility that God can work faith in the hearts of the elect quite apart from any outward signs, he also insists that God is not bound to communicate grace only through the Word.³⁸ Nonetheless, Calvin is quick to insist that preaching, like the sacraments, is the regular and ordinary means by which God chooses to communicate the benefit of Christ's work.³⁹

Both Word and sacraments are "accommodations" to human weakness. God "provides for our weakness in that he prefers to address us in human fashion through interpreters in order to draw us to himself, rather than to thunder at us and drive us away."⁴⁰ Likewise, since we are "creatures who always creep on the ground … he condescends to lead us to himself even by these earthly elements, and to set before us in the flesh a mirror of spiritual blessings."⁴¹ Some people, Calvin says, have difficulty accepting such accommodations. They believe God's Word is "dragged down by the baseness of the men called to teach it" and that they could benefit just as much from private meditation on the scripture.⁴² They believe it improbable that a "drop of water" suffices to assure us of remission of sins, or that "a piece of bread and a drop of wine suffice to assure us that God accepts us as his children" and that in them we receive Jesus Christ and all his benefits.⁴³ Such doubts are understandable in respect to the true lowliness of the instruments consecrated to God's use, but they do not excuse believers from the necessity of acknowledging God's presence in the events of preaching and sacraments.

Calvin offers several explanations for why God chooses to work through all too fallible human instruments. First, the human mediation of the Word is an exercise in humility. If God were to speak to us directly from heaven, everyone would hear and believe, because everyone would be terrified at the majesty of God's glory. "But when a puny man risen up from the dust speaks in God's name, at this point we best evidence our piety and obedience toward God if we show ourselves teachable toward his minister, although he excels us in nothing."⁴⁴ Second, the ministry provides "the chief sinew by which believers are held together in one body."⁴⁵ If individuals were allowed to interpret scripture for themselves in isolation, each would despise the other, and there would be as many churches as there are individuals.

Ultimately, however, the use of human mediation for the Word is, like the incarnation itself, part of the mystery of divine grace in salvation. For the incarnation itself was also an accommodation to human weakness. Christ, the Mediator, was known to the patriarchs under the law. And the work of the Mediator was the same in the Old Covenant as it is in the New: to reveal the parental goodwill of God toward the elect.⁴⁶ But in emptying himself and taking on human flesh, the Mediator assures us, in the weakness of our conscience, that he is approachable—that we need not be afraid to come to him for help. Indeed, it is Christ who has come to us and extends his hand to us. As Calvin says in his commentary on Hebrews:

It was not, indeed, the Apostle's object to weary us with …subtleties …but only to teach us that we have not to go far to seek a Mediator, since Christ of his own accord extends his hand to us, that we have no reason to dread the majesty of Christ since he is our brother, and that there is no cause to fear, lest he, as one unacquainted with evils, should not be touched by any feeling of humanity, so as to bring us help, since he took upon him our infirmities in order that he might be more inclined to succor us…. And the chief benefit of …[this] is a sure confidence in calling on God, as, on the other hand, the whole of religion falls to the ground, and is lost, when this certainty is taken away from consciences.⁴⁷

This work of restoring human confidence in the goodness of God is carried on through the proclamation of the gospel. For Christ's own office of proclaiming the name of God and of filling all things is fulfilled in the ministry.⁴⁸ Thus the preached Word not only conveys Christ, but also continues Christ's living presence in the world. The sacramental Word is a re-presentation of the person and work of Christ. In this sense, the Word itself gives life and salvation, for it enables the hearers to receive the benefit of Christ's reconciling work.⁴⁹

THE SACRAMENTAL WORD AND THE TASK OF MINISTRY

If the preaching of the gospel is the very continuation of the presence of Christ in the world, it should not surprise us that for Calvin, and the Reformed tradition after him, the sermon takes on a liturgical significance not unlike that of the Eucharist itself. Calvin insisted that Word and sacrament must never be separated. He could not imagine a Eucharist without the proclamation of the gospel in preaching. But neither did he believe that preaching alone, without a celebration of the Eucharist, was sufficient for regular worship. He argued for years with the magistrates of the city of Geneva, trying to convince them of the importance of weekly Communion. But finally he compromised and agreed to a quarterly celebration of Communion (even though he was preaching almost daily). From that time on, churches in the Reformed tradition tended to elevate preaching to a position of relatively greater importance than that of the sacraments.⁵⁰

There is a certain ambivalence to this emphasis on the Word. On the one hand, Reformed worship can be aridly intellectual and devoid of the mystical element that always remained a part of Calvin's piety.⁵¹ And Reformed ministers—perhaps even Calvin himself—sometimes appear to arrogate to themselves inordinate authority because of their office of proclaiming God's Word to the church. On the other hand, however, the Reformed theology of the Word captures the scandal of particularity that is the scandal of incarnation itself: the Word of God comes in the form of human flesh.

It can hardly be overemphasized what a paradigm shift this understanding of the Word represented in sixteenth-century theology. Grace was no longer an incrementally infused quality but renewed personal relationship, made possible by God's initiative in addressing sinners.⁵² The Roman Church, in the Council of Trent, decisively rejected this concept of grace. While they recognized the necessity of preaching and reading the Bible, the Tridentine fathers never attributed to preaching the function of conveying grace. The reference to Romans 10:17 in the "Decree Concerning Justification" falls in a chapter on preparation for receiving grace.⁵³ Like their medieval predecessors, the theologians at Trent could not see preaching as anything more than a preparation for receiving the sacraments "through which all true justice either begins, or being begun is increased, or being lost is restored."⁵⁴

For Calvin, on the contrary, the one thing necessary is the Word that offers and presents Christ; without this Word, the sacraments are nothing more than vain superstitions.⁵⁵ But how can the preacher do this? How must sermons be constructed in order to be effective means of grace? Calvin never wrote a technical treatise on homilestics, and so we must look at his own preaching practice for answers to these questions….

Notes

¹Inst., 4.14.6 (ET, 2:1281). Augustine, In Joannis Evangelium Tractatus, lxxx.3 (J. P. Migne, ed., Patrologiae cursus completus, series Latina, 221 vols. [Paris, 1844-1900], 35.1840).

² T.H.L. Parker describes this feature of Calvin's doctrine of preaching in his The Oracles of God: An Introduction to the Preaching of John Calvin (London: Lutterworth, 1947), 53-56. Ernst Bizer notes the same characteristic in Luther's theology in his important study Fides ex auditu: Eine Unterschung über die Entdeckung der Gerechtigkeit Gottes durch Martin Luther (Neukirchen: Verlag der Bucchandlung des Erziehungsvereins, 1958), 160. Others have referred to the sacramental Word in Calvin's theology. See B. A. Gerrish, "The Reformers' Theology of Worship," McCormick Quarterly 14 (1961): 29; Richard Stauffer, "Le Discours à la première personne dans les sermons de Calvin," in Regards contemporains sur Jean Calvin (Paris, 1965); Georges Bavaud, "Les Rapports entre la prédication et les sacrements dans le contexte du dialogue oecuménique," in Communion et communication: Structures d'unité et modèles de communication de l'évangile. Troisième Cycle romand en thélogie practique (1976-77) (Geneva: Labor et Fides, 1978), 69-73; B. A. Gerrish, The Old Protestantism and the New: Essays on the Reformation Heritage (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982), 106-17; John H. Leith, "Calvin's Doctrine of the Proclamation of the Word and Its Significance for Today," in John Calvin and the Church: A Prism of Reform, ed. Timothy George (Louisville, Ky.: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1990), 211-12, 219; B. A. Gerrish, Grace and Gratitude: The Eucharistie Theology of John Calvin (Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress Press, 1992), 82-86.

³ See the articles, "Predigt," and "Wort Gottes," in Die Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart, 3d ed., ed. Hans von Campenhausen et al., 6 vols. (Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr [Paul Siebeck], 1957-62), 5:516-39, 6:1809-21. Cf. the article "Preaching," in The New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge, ed. Samuel Macauley Jackson et al., 12 vols. (New York and London: Funk & Wagnalls, 1908-14), 9:158-89.

⁴ Jean Daniélou, Origen, trans. W. Mitchell (New York: Sheed & Ward, 1955), 65.

⁵ As Harnack notes, "To begin with it was an immense advance, only possible to so spiritual a man as Augustine, to rank the Word along with the Sacraments. It is to him we owe the phrase 'the Word and the Sacraments.' If he did not duly appreciate and carry out the import of the 'Word,' yet he perceived that as gospel it lay at the root of every saving rite of the church" (Adolf von Harnack, History of Dogma, trans, from the 3d German ed. by Neil Buchanan, 7 vols. [London, 1900; reprint, Gloucester, Mass.: Peter Smith, 1976], 5:155). Cf. Reinhold Seeberg, Textbook of the History of Doctrines, trans. Charles E. Hay, 2 vols. (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1952), 2:282. See also Richard H. Grützmacher, Wort und Geist: Eine historische und dogmatische Untersuchung zum Gnadenmittel des Wortes (Leipzig: A. Deichert'sche Verlagsbuchhandlung [Georg Böhme], 1902), 1-7.

⁶ Grützmacher attributes the increasing emphasis on the didactic character of the Word to the intensification of Augustine's predestinarianism in his later years and the corresponding need he felt to distinguish sharply between the inner work of the Spirit and the outer Word of preaching (Wort und Geist, 1-7). But in addition it should be noted that the Augustinian doctrine of sin and redemption created the need for a system of penance and satisfaction that rendered the Word as such less important for growth in grace.

⁷ See T.H.L. Parker, The Oracles of God, 13-21; cf. Elmer Carl Kiessling, The Early Sermons of Luther and Their Relation to the pre-Reformation Sermon (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1935), 9-41; cf. also the articles on "Preaching," in New Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. 11 (New York: McGraw-Hill Book C.O., 1967), 684-702. Of course the preaching theory and practice of the Middle Ages is a complex subject in its own right, and the paragraphs above are not intended to serve as anything more than a simple background to the discussion of Calvin's understanding of preaching that follows.

⁸ See Michel Zink, La Prédication en Langue Romane avant 1300 (Paris: Editions Honoré Champion, 1976), 431-75.

⁹ For example, the Strassburg preacher John Geiler of Keisersberg (1445-1510) seems to have understood preaching as a means of grace (E. Jane Dempsey Douglass, Justification in Late Medieval Preaching: A Study of John Geiler of Keisersberg, 2d ed. [Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1989], 82-91).

¹⁰ See Ernst Bizer, Fides ex auditu. Harnack states: "Luther reduced the sacraments … to one only, namely, the Word of God. … For Luther … the sacraments are really only the 'visible word' … but the Word which is strong and mighty, because in it God himself works upon us and transacts with us. In the last analysis, it is a contrariety in the view of grace that comes out with special directness here. According to the Catholic view, grace is the power that is applied and infused through the sacraments, which, on condition of the cooperation of free will, enables man to fulfill the law of God and to acquire the merits that are requisite for salvation. But according to Luther grace is the Fatherly disposition of God, calling guilty man for Christ's sake to himself and receiving him by winning his trust through the presentation of the picture of Christ" (Harnack, History of Dogma, 7:216-17); cf. Seeberg, "Medieval theology constructed the doctrine of the sacraments. Luther was the first to frame a doctrine of the Word of God" (Seeberg, Textbook of the History of Doctrines, 2:282).

¹¹ Martin Luther, Preface to the New Testament (1545 [1522]), in Luther's Works, ed. Jaroslav Pelikan and Helmut T. Lehmann, 55 vols. (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House; Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1955-76), 6:443-44. This statement could have been made verbatim by F.D.E. Schleiermacher some three hun dred years later. See chapter 4 below. One can find many more references to the Word as sacrament in Luther's works. See, for example, his sermon for Christmas Day 1519: "All the words and all the narratives of the Gospel are a kind of sacraments: that is, sacred signs by which God effects in believers what the narratives signify" (D. Martin Luthers Werke: Kritische Gesamtausgabe [Weimar, 1883-], 9.440.3; hereafter cited as WA). In his 1519 Commentary on Galatians Luther states, "The Word, I say, and the Word alone is the vehicle of divine grace" (WA 2.509.13).

¹²Inst., 4.14.3, 14 (ET, 2:1278, 1289-90). It must be noted, however, that Luther and Calvin do not understand the sacramental Word in precisely the same way. In fact, their respective views on preaching mirror their different understandings of the sacraments. See T.H.L. Parker, The Oracles of God, 45ff.

¹³ For an excellent discussion of this problem, see John T. McNeil, "The Significance of the Word of God for Calvin," Church History 28 (1959): 131-46, esp. 139.

¹⁴Inst., 1.7-9 (ET, 1:74-96). See also B. A. Gerrish, The Old Protestantism and the New, 58-64, 296-300; Alexandre Ganoczy and Stefan Scheld, Die Hermeneutik Calvins: Geistesgeschichtliche Voraussetzungen und Grundziige, VerÖffentlichungen des Instituts für Europäische Geschichte Mainz, vol. 114 (Wies-baden: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1983), 90-92; H. Jackson Fortsman, Word and Spirit: Calvin's Doctrine of Biblical Authority (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1962).

¹⁵Comm. 2 Tim. 3:15 (CO 52:382).

¹⁶ See, for example, his preface to Olivetàn's New Testament (CO 9:815) and Comm. John 5:39 47:125). For more discussion of the limits of Calvin's biblicism, see B. A. Gerrish, The Old Protestantism and the New, 61-62, and H. Jackson Forstman, Word and Spirit, 39-41.

¹⁷Comm. Harm, of the Gospel (CO 45:1).

¹⁸Comm. Gal. 1:7 (CO 50:173); 1 Peter 1:13 (CO 55:221); Comm. Titus 1:3 (CO 52:407); 1 John 1:3 (CO 55:302), Comm. Acts 5:20 48:106-7); Comm. Eph. 3:7 (CO 51:180).

¹⁹Comm. Eph. 2:17 (CO 51:173).

²⁰ See, for example, Comm. Rom. 1:16; 16:21 (CO 49:19, 290); and Comm. Titus 1:3 (CO 52:407). It is quite appropriate to take preaching as the primary sense in which Calvin used the term "Word of God," since he almost always translated verbum Dei as "la Parole de Dieu," a term that is used only for the spoken, not the written, word. In this matter, however, Calvin was not original. Erasmus before him, in his Latin translation of the New Testament, had rendered John 1:1 as "In the beginning was the speech [sermo]" (Un inédit d'Erasme: La première version du Nouveau Testament: copiée par Pierre Meghen, 1506-1509, ed. Henri Gibaud [Angers: H. Gibaud, 1982], 188).

²¹Comm. John 3:14 (CO 47:62-63). It is interesting that Calvin gives essentially the same explanation of this event and Jesus' reference to it when he comments on the Old Testament passage that originally recounts it (Comm. Num. 21:8-9 [CO 25:249-50]). Schleiermacher argues in a similar fashion that, "if one understands the 'lifting up' to refer to the crucifixion of Christ, that is a totally capricious interpretation; nothing more is meant by 'lifting up' than to become generally visible" (Das Leben Jesu [SW I/6:345]). Calvin speaks of Christ "as if present, in this passage, not to deny the real presence of Christ, but to distinguish his spiritual presence from a crassly physical or local presence. This is exactly the same move Calvin makes when speaking of the presence of Christ in the Lord's Supper. See B. A. Gerish, Grace and Gratitude, 145n, 180-81n.

²²Inst., 2.9-11, 4.14.18-26 (ET, 1:423-64, 2:1294-1303).

²³Comm. John 3:14 (CO 47:63).

²⁴Comm. John 7:33 (CO 47:178).

²⁵ This understanding of the preaching event was taken up into the Reformed tradition and preserved in the Second Helvetic Confession (1566), written by the Zurich reformer Heinrich Bullinger (1504-66). It states: "Proinde cum hodie hoc Dei verbum per praedicatores legitime vocatos annunciatur in Ecclesia, credimus ipsum Dei verbum annunciari et a fidelibus recipi, neque aliud Dei verbum vel fingendum, vel coelitus esse exspectandum" (The Creeds of Christendom, ed. Philip Schaff [New York: Harper, 1877; 4th ed., 1919], vol. 3, 237).

²⁶ The second passage I used for an epigraph to this chapter states this clearly (Petit traicté de la Saincte Cene de nostre Seigneur Iesus Christ [CO 5:435]).

²⁷Inst., 2.5.5, 4.14.12 (ET, 1:321-23, 2:1287); Comm. Acts 16:14 (CO 48:378); Comm. Eph. 5:26 51:223-24).

²⁸ See sermon 31 on the harmony of the Gospels (CO 46:378); see also Comm. Matt. 4:1 (CO 45:128); Luke 2:30 (CO 45:90); Comm. John 3:14 47:62-63); Comm. John 8:19 (CO 47:195); Comm. 1 Peter 1:13 (CO 55:221).

²⁹Comm. Isa. 11:4 (CO 36:240); Comm. Gal. 3:1 (CO 50:202-3).

³⁰ For example in Inst., 1.9.3 (ET, 1:95-96); cf. the argument to the sermons on the Harmony of the Gospels (CO 46:v).

³¹ This was Zwingli's understanding of the sacraments. For Calvin's criticism of it, see his letter to Heinrich Bullinger, February 25, 1547 (CO 12:480-89).

³²CO 12:483-88.

³³Inst., 4.17.5, 10 (ET, 2:1364-65, 1370-71); Comm. John 1:12 (CO 47:12); Comm. John 6:51 (CO 47:153); Comm. Heb. 4:2, 12 (CO 55:45-46, 49-52); Comm. 1 Peter 1:23, 25 (CO 55:228-31); Comm. 1 John 1:1-2 (CO 55:301-2).

³⁴Petit traicté de la Saincte Cene (CO 5:435); Comm. John 15:3, 17:17 (CO 47:340, 385); Comm. Acts 5:20, 10:36 (CO 48:106-7, 244).

³⁵Inst., 4.1.22 (ET, 2:1035-36); cf. Comm. Matt. 3:12 (CO 45:123); Comm. 1 Tim. 4:16 52:303-4).

³⁶Comm. Acts 26:18 (CO 48:542); cf. Comm. John 20:23 (CO 47:441).

³⁷Inst., 4.14.14 (ET, 2:1289-90); cf. Comm. Acts 7:35 (CO 48:149).

³⁸Inst., 1.7, 1.8.3, 4.14.14, 17 (ET, 1:74-81, 83-84, 2:1289-90, 1292-94); Comm. Acts 16:14 (CO 48:378); Comm. Eph. 5:26 (CO 51:223-24).

³⁹Comm. Rom. 10:14, 11:14 (CO 49:205, 219).

⁴⁰Inst., 4.1.5 (ET, 2:1016-20).

⁴¹Inst., 4.14.3 (ET, 2:1278).

⁴²Inst., 4.1.5 (ET, 2:1016-20).

⁴³Serm. Luke 2:1-14 (CO 46:960).

⁴⁴Inst., 4.3.1 (ET, 2:1054).

⁴⁵Inst., 4.3.2 (ET, 2:1055).

⁴⁶Inst., 2.6.2-4 (ET, 1:342-48).

⁴⁷Comm. Heb. 4:15-16 (CO 55:54-56).

⁴⁸Inst., 4.3.2 (ET, 2:1054-55); Comm. Heb. 2:11 (CO 55:29).

⁴⁹ The first epigraph I chose for this chapter conveys just this point (Inst., 2.10.7 [ET, 1:434]).

⁵⁰ William D. Maxwell, An Outline of Christian Worship: Its Development and Forms (London: Oxford University Press, 1936), 112-19.

⁵¹ In trying to explain the nature of Christ's presence in the sacrament of the Lord's Supper, Calvin states that "I experience rather than understand it" (Inst., 4.17.32 [ET, 2:1403]).

⁵² See Melanchthon's discussion of grace in his Loci Communes Theologici, in Melanchthon and Bucer, Library of Christian Classics, vol. 19, ed. Wilhelm Pauck (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1969), 86-88.

⁵³Canons and Decrees of the Council of Trent: Original Text with an English Translation, trans. H. J. Schroeder, O.P. (St. Louis: B. Herder Books, 1941), 26, 32, 305, 311.

⁵⁴Canons and Decrees of the Council of Trént, 51, 329.

⁵⁵Inst, 4.14.3-4 (ET, 2:1278-80).