The Sacramental Theology of John Calvin

Curran D. Bishop

Sacramental Theology
 John Calvin was born in France in 1509 and, with with the aid of several parish benefices, began

studies at the University of Paris when he was fourteen. He studied law at the urging of his father but, upon

his father’s death, turned his attention to theology and classics. At some time in 1529 or 1530 Calvin

experienced a conversion1 when, as he later wrote in his commentary on the Psalms, “God by a sudden

conversion subdued and brought my mind to a teachable frame.”2 In 1535 he fled France for Basil,

Switzerland and published the first edition of his Institutes of the Christian Religion there the following year.

While on a journey later that year he stopped in Geneva for the night and was pressured by William Farel to

remain there to help with the work of reformation. Apart from his exile to Strasbourg from 1538-41, Calvin

remained as a leading pastor in Geneva until his death in 1564.

Calvin structured his Institutes as an introduction to his theology which could serve as something of a

companion to his biblical commentaries. While much of his sacramental theology can be found in his

commentaries, his most extensive treatment of them is found in Book IV of the Institutes. B.A. Gerrish,

however, points to the discussion in the Catechisms of the Church of Geneva as a more concise and systematic

treatment.3 In addition to these, useful, brief statements of his Eucharistic theology can be found in his, “Short

Treatise on the Supper of Our Lord,” and, “Summary of Doctrine Concerning the Ministry of the Word and the

Sacraments.”4

Calvin defined a sacrament in the Institutes as “an outward sign by which the Lord seals on our

consciences the promises of his good will toward us in order to sustain the weakness of our faith; and we in

turn attest our piety toward him in the presence of the Lord and of his angels and before men.”5 Several things

stand out in this definition. One is the fact that the sacrament is an action, first and foremost, of God. While

the second half of the definition in the Institutes notes that the sacrament is a statement of belief and obedience

1
T. H. L. Parker, John Calvin, A Biography, (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2006), 40.
2
John Calvin, Commentary on the Book of Psalms, vol. 1, tr. James Anderson, (Grand Rapids: William B.
Erdmans Publishing Co., 1949), xl.
3
B.A. Gerrish, Grace & Gratitude, The Eucharistic Theology of John Calvin, (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993),
103. For the text of the catechism on the sacraments see, Calvin, Treatises on the Sacraments, Catechism of the
Church of Geneva, Forms of Prayer and Confessions of Faith, trans. Henry Beveridge (Grand Rapids:
Reformation Heritage Books, 2002), 83-94.
4
These can be found in Thomas F. Torrance, ed., Tracts and Treatises on the Doctrine and Worship of the Church,
tr. Henry Beveridge, (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1958), and in J.K.S. Reid, ed.,
Calvin: Theological Treatises, tr. Reid, (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1954), respectively. Note on the
latter that, while it is unsigned, Beza believed it to be genuine and included it in a collection of treatises by
Calvin (Reid, 170).
5
Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion IV, xiv, 3, ed. John T. McNeill, trans. Ford Lewis Battles (Louisville:
Westminster John Knox Press, 1960), 1276.
on the part of the participants, Calvin is clear that the initiatory action of the sacrament is on the part of God.

He wrote, “The end of the whole Gospel ministry is that God, the fountain of all felicity, communicate Christ

to us... that in a word all heavenly treasures be so applied to us that they be no less ours than Christ’s himself.”6

We see the graciousness of God in his using the sacrament to minister to our finite form in a suitable way.

Calvin frequently pointed to the value of the sacraments as physical means of communicating to physical

creatures and claimed that in the sacraments God “condescends to lead us to himself even by these earthly

elements.”7 This is because our “small capacity” needs the Word communicated by more tactile means than

written and spoken words alone. Calvin states,

In this way he consults our weakness. If we were wholly spiritual, we might, like the angels, spiritually
behold both him and his grace; but as we are surrounded with this body of clay, we need figures or mirrors
to exhibit a view of spiritual and heavenly things in a kind of earthly manner; for we could not otherwise
attain to them. At the same time, it is our interest to have all our senses exercised in the promises of God,
that they may be the better confirmed to us.8

James White states, “for Calvin, sacramentality is based on the nature of humans and our need for

visual signs.”9 These signs are not mere representations, however. Calvin stated, “Sacraments are truly named

the testimonies of God’s grace and are like seals of the good will that he feels toward us.”10 Thus, “God

therefore truly executes whatever he promises and represents in signs.”11 God executes this by the action of the

Holy Spirit. The role of the Spirit is central to Calvin’s sacramental theology. He wrote that, “the power and

efficacy of a sacrament is not contained in the outward element, but flows entirely from the Spirit of God.”12

This is what is meant by Calvin’s claim that the sacraments are spiritual in nature: “We believe this

communication [of Christ from God to his people] to be (a) mystical, and incomprehensible to human reason,

and (b) spiritual, since it is effected by the Holy Spirit.”13 While the importance of the Spirit’s working in the

sacraments is seen especially in Calvin’s eucharistic theology, it is also clear in his baptismal theology.

Calvin paralleled the work of the external, human, minister in preaching the gospel, with the work of

“the internal minister, who is the Holy Spirit.”14 He cited 1 Cor. 3:5-7 as proof of this, stating that the Spirit,

“freely works internally, while by his secret virtue he effects in the hearts of whomsoever he will their union
6
“Summary of Doctrine Concerning the Ministry of the Word and the Sacraments,” in Reid, 171.
7
Calvin, Institutes, IV, xiv, 1, 1278.
8
Catechism of the Church of Geneva, in Treatises on the Sacraments, 84.
9
James F. White, The Sacraments in Protestant Practice and Faith, (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1999), 20.
10
Calvin, Institutes, IV, xiv, 7, 1282.
11
Calvin, Institutes, IV, xiv, 17, 1293.
12
Calvin, Catechism of the Church of Geneva, in Treatises on the Sacraments, 84.
13
Calvin, “Summary of Doctrine Concerning the Ministry of the Word and the Sacraments,” in Reid, 171.
14
Ibid., 173.
with Christ through one faith.”15 Baptism, Calvin said, works in this same way: “the external minister baptizes

with an external element, that is water, which is received bodily.... The internal minister, the Holy Spirit,

baptizes with the blood of the spotless Lamb, so that he that is baptized is endowed with the whole Christ.”16

Another significant focus of Calvin’s baptismal theology—indeed of his sacramental theology in

general—is the covenant. He wrote, “baptism is a kind of entrance into the Church; for we have in it a

testimony that we who are otherwise strangers and aliens, are received into the family of God, so as to be

counted of his household.”17 Comparing baptism to circumcision he wrote,

while Moses and all the Prophets teach that circumcision was a sign of repentance, and was even as Paul
declares the sacrament of faith, we see that infants were not excluded from it.... seeing that the promises
which God anciently gave to the people of Israel are now published through the whole world.... Christ in
making us partakers of his grace.... shed it upon us both more clearly and more abundantly.18

In this admission into God’s people, God signs and seals his promises to the person baptized:

forgiveness, regeneration and union with Christ. Here again, Calvin was careful to distinguish that these things

are accomplished by the power of the Holy Spirit, not the sign itself, though God does join the “thing signed”

to the sign itself, “in so far as God works through outward means.”19

In discussing Calvin’s eucharistic theology it is perhaps most important to differentiate it from that of

Zwingli, and also from modern misconceptions of Zwingli’s theology. The most common view of the

eucharist among twenty-first-century evangelical Protestants, according to Keith Mathison, is “symbolic

memorialism.” He writes, “according to this view, Jesus’ words of institution were purely symbolic. To eat

the body and blood of Christ means nothing more than to put one’s faith in Christ... the doctrine of symbolic

memorialism denies any real presence of Christ in the sacrament.”20 One proponent of this position goes so far

as to say, “rather than the elements containing or symbolizing the presence of Christ, they are instead a

recognition of His absence.”21 This goes far beyond Zwingli. Zwingli did state that, “unless we eat his flesh,

that is, unless we believe that he underwent death and poured out his blood for us, we shall not attain life... But

is Christ in anybody physically? By no means.... It is faith, therefore, not eating about which Christ is

15
Ibid.
16
Ibid., 173-4.
17
Calvin, Catechism of the Church of Geneva, in Treatises on the Sacraments, 86.
18
Ibid., 88.
19
Calvin, Institutes, IV, xv, 15, 1315.
20
Keith A. Mathison, Given for You, Reclaiming Calvin’s Doctrine of the Lord’s Supper, (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R
Publishing, 2002), 260.
21
Lewis Sperry Chafer, Major Bible Themes, rev. John F. Walvoord (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1974), 271-72,
quoted in Mathison, 262.
speaking here.”22 He also, however, held that Christ was present in some sense in communion but that this was

in that, “the entire eucharistic assembly was transformed, even transubstantiated into the body of Christ.”23

Calvin rejected this view saying, “we should not, by too little regard for the signs, divorce them from

their mysteries.”24 Rather,

as it is said that his Spirit is our life, so he himself, with his own lips, declares that his flesh is meat indeed,
and his blood drink indeed.... If these words are not to go for nothing, it follows that in order to have our
life in Christ our souls must feed on his body and blood as their proper food. This, then, is expressly
attested in the Supper, when of the bread it is said to us that we are to take it and eat it, and that it is his
body, and of the cup that we are to drink it, and that it is his blood. This is expressly spoken of the body
and blood, in order that we may learn to seek there the substance of our spiritual life.25

He defined the way in which the bread and wine are the body and blood of Jesus by saying,

that the bread and the wine are visible signs, which represent to us the body and blood, but that this name
and title of body and blood is given to them because they are as it were instruments by which the Lord
distributes them to us. This form and manner of speaking is very appropriate. For as the communion which
we have with the body of Christ is a thing incomprehensible, not only to the eye but to our natural sense, it
is there visibly demonstrated to us.26

This is not a “bare figure,” rather, “the internal substance of the sacrament is conjoined with the visible

signs; and as the bread is distributed to us by the hand, so the body of Christ is communicated to us in order

that we may be made partakers of it.”27 Here again, the importance of the Spirit is central to Calvin’s view of

the Eucharist. Boniface Meyer writes,

If the Lutheran position stresses Christ’s presence by means of the Word and the Zwinglian by means of
faith, Calvin combines these two elements and adds the dimension of the Holy Spirit. The signs are
neither efficacious in themselves nor empty symbols, but necessary conjunctives in the eucharistic
communion of Christ’s presence. It is inadequate to explain this presence simply as a ‘virtual’ or a
‘spiritual’ presence. Rather this communication of Christ’s presence as expressed in Calvin’s teaching is,
‘a divine spiritual event that includes the body and hence not a “pure” spiritual event.’ ”28

Ronald Wallace describes Calvin’s view of this “divine spiritual event” in this way: “Communion with

the body of Christ is effected through the descent of the Holy Spirit, by whom our souls are lifted up to heaven

there to partake of the life transfused into us from the flesh of Christ.”29

22
Huldrych Zwingli, “Letter to Matthew Alber,” in Pipkin, Huldrych Zwingli, Writings, 2: 134, quoted in Owen F.
Cummings, Eucharistic Doctors, (New York: Paulist Press, 2005), 165.
23
Cummings, 166.
24
Calvin, Institutes IV, xvii, 5, 1364.
25
Calvin, “Short Treatise on the Lord’s Supper” in Torrance, 170-1.
26
Ibid., 171.
27
Ibid., 172.
28
Boniface Meyer, “Calvin’s Eucharistic Doctrine: 1536-39,” Journal of Ecumenical Studies, vol. 4, no. 1, (Winter
1967): 64.
29
Ronald S. Wallace, Calvin’s Doctrine of Word and Sacrament, (Edinburg: Oliver and Boyd, 1953), 203-10
quoted in Mathison, 29 (emphasis in original).
 White comments on the importance of Calvin’s view of the Spirit’s role in the eucharist, staying, “the

rediscovery of the importance of the Holy Spirit in the eucharist, long forgotten in the West, but central in the

East, is an important accomplishment in Calvin.”30 He points to Calvin’s statement that, “a serous wrong is

done to the Holy Spirit, unless we believe that it is through his incomprehensible power that we come to

partake of Christ’s flesh and blood.... The secret Power of the Spirit is the bond of our union with Christ.”31

I will discuss what I take to be the main strengths of Calvin’s position for our context below. A

weakness of Calvin’s position is that, particularly in a post-Enlightenment society where empirical data is the

only thing considered “real,” Calvin’s claim of a real, spiritual presence is almost automatically reduced in the

mind to a “merely” spiritual presence, and the fact of the real presence of Christ in the Supper is quickly

reduced to mere memorialism. While this is not the official theology of confessional Calvinist churches, it is

often the theology of lay Calvinists (if we can make such a distinction in the churches descended from Luther’s

reformation), and is frequently even confused in the preaching and teaching of Calvinist pastors. Though

Calvin’s dictum of “experiencing rather than understanding”32 may communicate well in a postmodern society,

the complexity of his view of the real presence is easily debased into a modern corruption of Zwinglianism for

most.

I believe the main strengths of Calvin’s position, and the contributions it might make to a Lutheran

sacramental theology, are his focus on the Holy Spirit’s activity in the sacraments, and his stress on the

sacraments as a sign of God’s covenant. For Lutherans it would not be necessary to adopt the specifics of

Calvin’s view of Christ’s presence in the Lord’s Supper in order to still gain from his emphasis on the Spirit at

the agent of God’s action in the sacraments. Speaking as an outsider, I believe it would be possible for

confessionally faithful Lutheran churches to incorporate such emphasis into their celebration of the Supper and

baptism (it would certainly be beneficial for confessional Presbyterian churches to place greater emphasis on

this often-publicly-neglected aspect of Calvin’s theology in our celebrations). I also think it would be

beneficial to Lutheran churches to include greater focus on the notion of the sacraments as signs of God’s

covenant in their teaching on the sacraments, in addition to the other foci which are also important to that

teaching (here as well, Presbyterians would do well to do likewise).

30
White, 79.
31
Calvin, Institutes, IV, xvii, 33, 1405.
32
Calvin states, “ I shall not be ashamed to confess that it is a secret too lofty for either my mind to comprehend or
my words to declare. And, to speak more plainly, I rather experience than understand it” (Ibid., IV xvii, 32, 1403).
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