THE PROVENANCE OF JOHN CALVIN'S EMPHASIS ON THE ...

with respect to the person and work of the Christ's Spirit, the Holy Spirit. This is not
merely "non-corporeal" communication, but a "truly participant" communication of
Christ's body and blood effected by the person and work of the Holy Spirit at the behest,
if you will, of "our Lord Jesus." 650 This sentence is packed densely with words and
concepts previously introduced in the Institutio (1536) in relation to the Father and the
Son, all centered on the activity of the Spirit: virtus, efficacia, and gratia, to which is
now added bond, i.e., lien or vinculum.
Other of Calvin's works prepared in this intervening period may be read to ratify
the inference taken in Calvin's first discourse at Lausanne, that is, the inference of
parallel emphases in Calvin's doctrine of God and doctrine of the Lord's Supper.
Already in Chapter 2 we encountered Calvin's first catechism for the church of Geneva,
published first in Geneva in French in 1537, then in Basel in Latin in 1538. 651 Very
much in accord with his statement at the Lausanne Disputation, Calvin avers in this
catechism that the promise added to the mystery of the Supper is that the body and
blood of the Lord was once offered in such a way for us "as to now be ours, and also
forever to be so." 652 "The symbols are bread and wine," he continues,
under which the Lord exhibits the true communication of his body and blood—
but a spiritual one which, obviously content with the bond of his Spirit, does not
require an enclosed or circumscribed presence either of the flesh under the bread
or of the blood under the cup. For although Christ, having ascended into heaven,
ceases to reside on earth (on which we are as yet wayfarers) still no distance can
prevent his power from feeding his believers on himself and bringing it about
650 See also Garcia, Life in Christ, 165 and 170. Garcia notes that while for Calvin the Spirit is
the bond, "the Spirit is not the only one Personally active, as though it is in reality the Spirit's and not
Christ's Supper. . . . the union with Christ effected by the Spirit is indeed a union with Christ . . . ." (165).
651 See de Greef, Writings of John Calvin, 124.
652 Instruction in Faith, trans. Fuhrmann, 68.
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