The Theology of John Calvin (THEO 0632)

 

Department of Theology
Tyndale Seminary
Winter 2004
Instructor: Victor Shepherd
Office Hours as Posted
Thursday from 8:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m.
Tel. 416 226 6380 (6726) or 905 821 0587
E-mail: vshepherd@tyndale.ca or victor.shepherd@sympatico.ca

Prerequisite: THEO 0531 and THEO 0532 or THEO 0530

Description: The course endeavours to acquaint students with the major aspects of Calvin’s theology as organized in the final edition of his Institutes of the Christian Religion (1559).

Objectives: 
1.      to examine in detail the doctrines that are commonly recognized as major “building blocks” of the
Christian faith;
2.      to have the student understand how these doctrines are related to each other and how their
relationship illustrates the unity and coherence of Calvin’s thought;
3.      to situate Calvin’s theological understanding in the history of the Church, in the sixteenth century
Reformation, and in Reformed developments subsequent to the Reformation;
4.      to grasp the variegated background (social, political, ecclesiastical) of Calvin in particular and the
Reformation in general;
5.      to assess critically the adequacy and consistency of Calvin’s theological expression.
6.      to perceive the pastoral sensitivity of the Institutes
7.      to understand Calvin as pastor, churchman and civic official, all with a view to informing the student’s
own life, ministry and witness.

Requirements:
–        readings: of selected passages from the Institutes
–        essay: a  theologically critical exposition of and commentary upon Sadoleto’s Letter to the Genevans
and Calvin’s Reply to Sadoleto  (approximately 2000 words)
–        examination (in class.)

 

Textbooks:
To be purchased: Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion (Library of Christian Classics.  editor,
John T. McNeill; translator, Ford Lewis Battles.)
: A Reformation Debate: Sadoleto’s Letter to the Genevans and Calvin’s Reply
                                (John C. Olin, editor.)
To be consulted: Francois Wendel, Calvin: The Origins and Development of his Religious Thought.

Evaluation:
essay: 40%
examination: 60%

 

Jan. 22	Introductions, Requirements; Calvin Biography
Jan. 29	Knowledge of God	Book I: chapters 1-5
Feb. 5	Scripture	I:  6,7,9,10
Feb. 12	Providence	I:  16,17,18
Feb. 19	Trinity	I:  13
Feb. 26	Law and Gospel	II:  7,9-11
Mar. 4	The Mediator and His Work	II:  6,12,13,15,16
Mar. 11	The Holy Spirit and Faith	III: 1,2
Mar. 18	No Class: Reading Week
Mar. 25	Justification	III: 11,14
Apr. 1	Predestination	III: 21,22 (omit 6-9), 23,24
Apr. 8	Church and Ministry	IV:  1,8
Apr. 15	Sacraments, Baptism	IV:  14,15,17
Apr. 22	Lord’s Supper	“
Apr. 29	Examination

 

A bibliography will be distributed in class.

 

Law and Gospel

[1]  Jesus Christ is the substance of the law.  (Compare C. on scripture: JC is the substance of both testaments) – otherwise, God speaks with a forked tongue.

Note C’s characteristic remarks throughout his commentaries:
e.g., the law was given for the purpose “of keeping the ancient people in the faith of Christ.” (Gal. 3:19; Heb. 8:5)
e.g., the design of the law is that through it we should come to know “God’s paternal favour” (Jer. 31:33), which paternal favour is known only in Christ (passim in C.)
e.g., “God brings forward in the gospel nothing new but what the law contains.” (Jer. 31:33)
e.g., the New Testament contains “nothing but a simple and natural explanation of the law and the prophets.” (2 Tim. 3:17; 1 Cor. 14:21)

The cult (ceremonial law), no mere “holding action” to differentiate Israel from absorbing the surrounding paganism, was to “foster hope of salvation in Christ” (Inst. 2.7.title)

Since the law aims at quickening faith in the Mediator, therefore legalism and moralism were never the purpose of the law.  (Torah isn’t essentially a code.)

 

[2]   First Use of the Law

  Law, like gospel, is both gift and claim.

To whom is the law given?  “We are so driven by the power of sin that our whole mind, our whole heart and all our actions are inclined to sin….We are so addicted to sin that we can do nothing of our own accord but sin.” (Rom. 7:14)  (NB the Reformers’ understanding of Total Depravity.)

When the law means our sin, the nature of the law doesn’t change but its function does.
Now the law renders us aware of our condition and our condemnation.
This function of the law is “accidental”; yet even as “accidental” it is part of the purpose of the law. (Deut. 10:12)

But since JC is blessing only, and since he is the substance of the law, therefore the law, even in its “slaying” function, is given for life. (Even though the sinner, terrified by the law, may not come to life.)

When C speaks of law and gospel as contradictory he always has in mind the law denatured, abstracted from the gospel, reduced to a code by which we attempt to achieve our own righteousness: “the bare law in a narrow sense.” (2.7.2.)
This misrepresentation of the law C speaks of as “letter”: the letter is the law minus the grace of adoption. (James 1:25)

 

[3]  The Second Use of the Law  (First for Luther)

The second use is to inculcate fear of punishment so as to constrain malfeasance and therein promote social order.

By schooling people in civil obedience (i.e., obedience to a code) it acquaints them with a form of obedience which they will then fill with the specific content of obedience to the person of Jesus when they come to faith.

 

[4]  The Third Use of the Law  (Philip Melanchthon was the first to speak of this.)

The third use is the chief use: that by which believers obey JC and are conformed to him.

The believer is motivated twice over to obey the law;
(a)    as creatures we are under obligation to the Creator
(b)    as beneficiaries of God’s mercy we are everlastingly grateful.

Note: while the command of God ever remains command (not suggestion or recommendation), since mercy is the ground of God’s claim, believers find the claim not an imperious demand but an invitation: “God chooses rather to invite his people by kindness than to compel them to obedience from terror. (Deut. 7:9)
while we are “alarmed by the majesty of God” we are also “gently attracted, so that the law might be more precious than gold or silver, and at the same time sweeter than honey.” (Exod. 20:1)

 

[5]  Do Believers Need the Law?

While sin doesn’t rule believers (Christ reigns in them), sin is still present.

Believers continue to need the law as “bridle” and “spur”. (Gal. 3:25)

Either we aspire with all our heart to obey the law, or we are fixed in a “deadly sleep”. (2 Tim.2:25)

Believers love the law (because they love JC, its substance) and “embrace” the law “with sincere affection” (Deut. 11:18), with “prompt and cheerful affection” (Psalm 19:7)

 

 

[6]  This Obedience is not Conformity to a Code

The nature of our obedience (to the law) is appraised by the “character” (ingenium, disposition) of God.  God’s “character” is not that of legislator (in the legal sense) or codifier, but self-giving love.  Then self-giving love is what believers must render to the person of God through their obedience to the law.

Law, for C, is a standard impersonally only when it is abstracted from Christ.  “God himself” guides believers.  (Psalm 119:59)

 

[7]  The Rewards of the Law

Since no one observes the law wholly, do believers forfeit the rewards promised to law-keeping?

The rewards promised to law-keeping accrue to believers inasmuch as they cling to the obedience of Christ; i.e., inasmuch as they cling to the obedience that Jesus Christ, as covenant-keeper (the only covenant-keeper), renders his Father.

 

The Mediator

[1]        All humankind “perished” in the fall and is now dead (not merely ill) coram Deo. 2.6.1.

[2]        In the wake of the fall there is no saving knowledge of God apart from the Mediator.  2.6.1

[3]        Only that worship whose object is Jesus Christ pleases God.  (I.e., all other “worship” is superstition.)  The godly hope in Christ alone.  (I.e., Christ renders hope hope as opposed to wishful thinking.)  2.6.1.

[4]        The foregoing presupposes that faith in Christ is the same as faith in God.  (2.6.4)  (Recall the homooousion.)

[5]        All talk of worshipping “the Supreme Majesty” or the “Maker of heaven and earth” bespeaks idolatry, for only by means of the Mediator do we “taste” (experience) God’s mercy and thereby become persuaded that he is our Father.  (2.6.4.)  Apart from our experience of God’s mercy (apart from our intimate acquaintance with him as Father) we are ignorant of God and exposed to his judgement despite all talk of “Supreme Majesty” etc.

[6]        We can be admitted to such intimacy with God inasmuch as the Mediator, in his provision for us, has effected an “exchange” concerning us and God. (2.12.2.)  (This motif, important in Calvin, is huge in Luther.)

[7]        Propitiation, not merely expiation, is the heart of the atonement. (2.12.3.)

[8]        The Father chose us in Christ from before the foundation of the world.  Calvin upholds supralapsarianism rather than infralapsarianism. (2.12.5.)

[9]        “Christ”, therefore, implies “reconciliation” (“grace”).  There is no speculative purpose intended or permitted in the Christ event. The one act of God in Christ propitiates God, expiates sin, calls sinners, and effects their salvation. (2.12.5.)

[10]      Marcion denies the Jewishness of Jesus and all that this entails. (2.12.6)

Osiander undervalues (denies) humankind’s essential creatureliness. (2.12.6.)

Menno Simons undervalues (denies) Christ’s essential creatureliness. (2.13.4.)

[11]      The truth is, Christ took on our humanity under the conditions of sin while remaining sinless himself.  The Virgin Birth attests this truth; namely, that the redeemer of human history can’t be generated by that history, for human history, sin-riddled, cannot generate that which is sin-free. (2.13.4.)

[12]      In all of this it must remembered that humankind’s corruption is “accidental” and not “essential” (contra the Gnesio-Lutherans.) (2.13.4.)

 

  Christ as Prophet (revealer), King (ruler), Priest (redeemer)

 

[13]      The anointing Christ received in order to teach is the anointing wherewith he anoints the church so that it might teach in the selfsame power of the Spirit. (2.15.2.)

Since Christ is effectual prophet, he concludes the line of prophets (contra the ABTSTs.) (2.15.2.)

[14]      Christ’s kingship is spiritual (contra RCs and ABTSTs.) (2.15.3.)

Christ rules and preserves the church insofar as it is properly “church”; i.e., insofar as it attests him and looks to him alone as the subject and object of its faith. (2.15.3.)

While Christ’s kingship is spiritual, the world’s savagery is temporal.  Therefore Christians live by “hope of a better life” and “await the full fruit of this grace in the age to come.” (2.15.3.)  I.e., believers know they will be vindicated only in the eschaton. (2.15.5.)

[15]      Christ’s intercession for us is relentless, for we need the continuing efficacy of his once-for-all sacrifice. (2.15.6.)  At the same time, faith must be humanly exercised; we must “repose in him voluntarily.” (2.15.6.)  (We must exercise faith as a deliberate act of the will. Voluntas=will)

“Voluntarily” clinging to Christ, we are blessed twice over: we are freed from bondage to death and our flesh is (to be) mortified.” (2.16.7.)

The Ascension

(Note: Christ’s resurrection means he was victorious over sin and death; his ascension means the victorious one rules.)

[16]      Christ “truly inaugurated his kingdom only as his ascension into heaven.” (2.16.14.)  His ascension, however, never means that he is now absent. (2.16.14.)  On the contrary, as ascended Jesus Christ is now always “majestically” (i.e., effectively) present to us. (2.16.14.)

[17]      Even so, such “majestic” presence doesn’t mean his effectual rulership can be read off the face of world-occurrence. (2.16.17.)  Note Calvin’s reminder: “[W]hile God spares the most wicked for a time, even shows them kindness, he tries his servants like gold and silver.” (Preface, Commentary on Daniel.)

[18]      In sum, “we see that our whole salvation and all its parts are comprehended in Christ….[S]ince rich store of every kind of good abounds in him, let us drink our fill from this fountain, and from no other.” (2.16.18.)

 

The Holy Spirit and Faith

Note C’s fullest definition of faith:

“A firm and certain knowledge of God’s benevolence towards us,
founded upon the truth of the freely given promise in Christ,
both revealed to our minds and sealed upon our hearts
through the Holy Spirit.”  3.2.7.

While the foregoing may appear abstract, faith (which is the “putting on” of Christ or the bond that unites us with Christ) bespeaks utmost personal intimacy:

“We ought not to separate Christ from ourselves or ourselves from him.  Rather we ought to hold fast bravely with both hands to that fellowship by which he has bound himself to us.”    3.2.24.

Faith is never a human achievement, but it is always a human event, a human affirmation, a human act.  Faith is a gift (from God) that must always be humanly exercised.  As the bond by which we are bound to Christ faith is that “fellowship” to which we must hold fast bravely with both hands.

 I

A: Book III is the climax (in my opinion) of the Institutes; books I and II are for the sake of book III, “The Way in which We Receive the Grace of Christ: What Benefits Come to Us from It, and What Effects Follow.”

The place of faith in C’s theology cannot be overemphasised: apart from our “putting on” Christ in faith we don’t “benefit” from him.  All he has done for us is “in vain” unless it is also done in us through faith.

B: The discussion of justification (always related to faith in the Reformers) lands us in some of the most impassioned writing of the Reformation.  (Justification and the eucharist were the occasion of greater controversy than anything else.  Concerning sanctification, for instance, there was little controversy.) Unlike us modern degenerates who see theology as little more than pointless head-games, the 16^thcentury recognised Truth to be at issue, and with Truth (i.e., reality as opposed to error, delusion or falsehood), truths as well.

What is the relation between Truth and truths?

II

Holy Spirit

(i)               In C the HS is always conjoined to the Word, for “there is a permanent relation between faith and the Word.”  3.2.6.

(ii)              Faith is the principal work of the HS.  3.1.4.  Faith is the proper and entire work of the HS.  4.14.8.
We cannot quicken faith in ourselves or predispose ourselves for it in any way.  “There is not in us any commencement of faith or any preparation of it.”   Comm. John 6:45

(iii)            Faith is always determined by its author and its object (the Word.)  The Word is Jesus Christ, but not this figure alone.  The Word is Jesus Christ together with the apostolic recognition of the truth concerning him.  I.e., the Christ we are to receive is always and only “as he is offered by the Father: namely, clothed with his gospel.”  3.2.6.

(Word as subject or author)  Only Jesus Christ can direct faith to Christ; i.e., the Word alone creates access to the Word.  While Jesus Christ is the “goal” of our faith, the gospel (ultimately, JC as attested by the apostles in the power of the Spirit) must “go before us.”  3.2.6.  The gospel alone admits (and invites) people to the gospel.  “Hence we infer that faith is not in one’s power, but is divinely conferred.”  Comm. 1 Cor. 2:14

(iv)            Mercy is that aspect of the Word which quickens faith.  In fact, so thoroughly does mercy determine the Word that Calvin doesn’t hesitate to say that the Word is mercy.  (We seek God after we know ourselves to be the beneficiary of God’s mercy [salvation].  3.2.7.) While God addresses many words to us, the Word (of mercy) gathers them up and melds them into that which subserves the one, determinative word of mercy; i.e., everything that God says and visits upon us is ultimately an expression of his mercy – even as penultimately it may be anything else at all: rebuke, warning, anger, denunciation, testing, encouragement, gentleness, severity, etc.  See Comm. Psalms  40:10; 25:10; 86:5; 103:8; 145:9; Rom. 10:8.  In Inst. 3.2.29 C maintains that mercy is the “proper” goal of faith.  The Latin text reads, fidei in proprium scopum.  Proprium means “characteristic”, “essential”, “exclusive”, all of which are stronger than Battles’ “proper.” Mercy is that in God upon which we can “rest.”  Comm. Hebrews 11:7

(v)             Faith, while not reducible to understanding doctrinal assertions (notitia, if found alone, is what C calls “empty notions flitting in the brain”) is none the less knowledge.  Faith is a singular kind of knowing, not an alternative to knowing or a vagueness that falls short of knowing.

(vi)            Faith entails assurance.  “Where there is no assurance of faith there is no faith.”  Comm. Rom. 8:16    “As assurance of this nature is a thing that is above the capacity of the human mind, it is the part of the Holy Spirit to confirm within what God promises in his Word.” Comm. 2 Cor. 1:22

Note:  Since faith is the entire work of the HS, then the HS imparts assurance only by imparting faith in Christ, which faith brings assurance with it.  “The Spirit of God gives us such testimony that when he is our guide and teacher our spirit is made sure of the adoption of God; for our mind, of itself, without the preceding testimony of the Spirit, could not convey to us this assurance.”  Comm. Rom. 8:16

(vii)           Faith is always to be distinguished from “implicit faith” and “unformed faith.”  “Implicit faith” is lending assent to what the church (of Rome ) teaches without understanding any of it.  Something of the gospel has to be understood or faith is indistinguishable from superstition.  Calvin opposes any notion that the church can “do our thinking and believing for us.”  At the same time he admits that there is a legitimate “implicit faith”: even as we embrace Christ truly, we never know him exhaustively.  At every stage of our discipleship our understanding and experience of Christ now, however profound (and Calvin’s point is that it’s never very profound) is “implicit” compared to the vastly “more” that is to be rendered explicit.

Unformed faith, says Calvin, is no faith at all.  Roman Catholic thought maintained that faith is formed by love.  If faith is formed by love then faith requires supplementation (and our supplementation at that!) in order to be faith.  Faith that requires supplementation is not faith.  Calvin prefers to say that faith is active in love.  Yet Calvin is aware of how little love is frequently found active in faith.  Vide his Comm. John 13:17: “Since…there are many who are cold and slow in the duties of love…it shows us how far we still are from the light of faith.”

(viii)         Calvin’s notion of faith does not support the Weber/Tawney thesis at all.  Faith is aware that “God will never fail”, even as “faith does not certainly promise itself either length of years or honour or riches in this life, since the Lord willed that none of these things be appointed for us.” 3.2.28

Luther’s Theologia Crucis

 

The hidden God is the revealed God
and
The revealed God is the hidden God

 

The world perceives                The truth is

shame                                          glory

weakness                                    strength

folly                                              wisdom

condemnation                            acquittal

sin                                                 righteousness

death                                             life

 

In order to “benefit” from the gospel (i.e., be a beneficiary of Jesus Christ and all that he has wrought for us) we must “shut our eyes and open our ears.” (Luther)
“The gospel is essentially oral (aural).” (Luther)

 

The theologia crucis is always to be distinguished from a theologia gloriae.

The following is found
(i)              when God is identified with metaphysical speculation
(ii)            when the church becomes triumphalistic
(iii)           when it is thought that the truth and nature of God can be read off nature
(iv)           when it is thought that the truth and nature can be read off the face of history, of world-occurrence.

 

Implicates of a theologia crucis:

(i)              the Christian life can never be identified with our evident life, whether public or private.
(ii)            the Christian life can never surrender its incognito.
(iii)           the hidden life of a Christian is real but isn’t perceived; it is hidden so deeply that it isn’t
fully perceived by the Christian herself.
(iv)           the Christian necessarily incurs the hostility of the world.
(v)             peace is ours through faith as a gift of Christ in the midst of turbulence; to seek the peace (of the world – here Luther includes the peace of pietism) is to “tempt” God.
(vi)           God’s promises are the cause of joy; the Christian’s joy is determined (ultimately) eschatologically.
(vii)         in our “trial” (Anfechtung) the Christian must cling to the Word (Jesus Christ).
(viii)        the “turning point” in the trial has arrived when faith recognises the trial as an alien work (of God).  (God conceals himself under the devil’s hostility.)
(ix)           once we have recognised the hidden God in his alien work, we find the revealed God in his proper work, and therein know unspeakable comfort.
(x)             the worst kind of trail is to have no trial, for trial keeps faith alive and vibrant.

 

Supra- (and Infra)lapsarianism

 

 

Su=supralapsarian(ism)
In=infralapsarian(ism)

Su: The decree of election precedes the decrees of creation and fall.
The fall is decreed.  Its being decreed magnifies God’s glory, since
(i)  nothing happens apart from God’s will,
(ii) that fall which God decrees ultimately renders even more splendid the splendour of redemption.

In:  The decree of election follows creation (which God wills) and fall (which God permits.)

 

 

Comments and Criticisms

Su:
(i) puts grace at the head of all Christian knowledge and understanding,
(ii) affirms God to be utterly unconditioned, since his redeeming activity is not something brought in as if the fall had (for the moment) obstructed his plans,
(iii) accuses In. of impugning the omniscience and omnipotence of God (since something happened – the fall – that God didn’t will),
(iv) affirms that creation is the venue or theatre by which God concretises the twofold decree (election and reprobation.)   (QUESTION: Is this a biblical understanding of creation?)

 

————————

 

In:
(i) subordinates election/reprobation to providence (as Calvin did in 1536 Inst. but “corrected” in 1559 Inst.)
(ii) insists that God permits evil; God makes use of evil in the course of God’s glorifying himself.  But God doesn’t will evil in positing the decree of election.

Note I: Since election is subordinate to providence, (i.e., since providence precedes election), therefore the God who wills a people for himself in Jesus Christ cannot be the God with whom we have to do.  Then who is God?  I.e., who is God if God isn’t he who elects in Christ from eternity a people for himself?  Is God a deity whose nature remains unknown to us in that whatever his nature, fashioning a people for himself is tangential to his nature?  Is the heart of God something other than mercy?

Note II: Because humankind was not created as elect in Christ, infralapsarian anthropology tended not to be a predicate of Christology, and therefore degenerated into a naturalistic doctrine of humankind.
Su. was accused constantly of making God the author of sin.  I.e., Su. exalted the sovereignty of God in such a way as to demystify the mystery of evil and to make the irrational rational – all in the course of making evil a part of the divine world-order and therefore a necessity.

In. was accused of being dualist, because something exists (evil) that isn’t God-willed.

In. defended itself
(i)              evil is real as evil, not as an aspect of good.  (It would have to be an aspect of good if God (who is good) decreed it.)
(ii)            God foreordains no one to perdition, the reprobate receiving the justice of God.  They merit this on account of their fall, but their fall isn’t God-ordained.
(iii)           to say that God’s purpose includes evil for a the sake of election/reprobation is to excuse evil.

 

The strength of Su: God is he who elects a people for himself from all eternity in Jesus Christ.  Everything else subserves this truth.

The strength of In: God is not the author of that which contradicts him and against which his face is set.

Calvin on Justification

 

All of the magisterial reformers recognise that “justification by faith” is shorthand for “justification by grace through faith in Christ”; i.e., faith “puts on” Christ and he (alone) is our justification.  There is no quality inhering faith that renders “my faith” “my justification.”  If a quality inhering faith is thought to justify, then faith becomes another form of self-justification.  Barth insisted that the point of “justification by faith” is that it is God who justifies us rather than we who justify ourselves.

We are justified by grace (alone) through faith (alone) on account of Christ (alone.)  Note that when Paul speaks of justification “by” (“through”) faith, he writes dia pisteos not dia pistin.  In Romans 3 Paul does not use “alone” when he speaks of justification, but Luther correctly saw that this was the meaning of the text; hence L’s “alone” was not out of place.

[1]  Faith puts on Christ who is both our justification and our sanctification.  Justification plus sanctification together are the grand sum of the gospel.  Calvin repeats this in his work passim.  3.11.1

[2]  Since Christ can’t be divided, justification and sanctification can never be separated even though they must always be distinguished.

[3]  Neither justification nor sanctification is the ground of the other.

[4]  Justification means that ultimately the believer has to do with the gracious Father rather than the just (and therefore undeflectable) judge.  3.11.1.

[5]  Justification is the “main hinge on which religion turns.” 3.11.1.
Valentius Loescher, a 17^th century Lutheran, insisted, Iustificatio est articulus stantis et cadentis ecclesiae.  (articulus: article, point, crisis, division, hinge {thumb})
Most religions repudiate this articulus formally (e.g., Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses); most church folk repudiate it informally – i.e., operatively.
Those who would never repudiate it formally are often found repudiating it subtly and thereby fall into one or another form of self-justification insofar as
we are justified by our grasp of the doctrine of justification
by our ability to articulate the doctrine in private or publi c
by faith as the substance of our justification
by “grace” and “works” in that grace by provides an outer framework whose inner content is our achievemement
by (in modernity with its psychological preoccupation and its emphasis on ego-strength, etc.) our awareness that “we need do nothing to be accepted.”
In other words, modernity tends to abstract justification from its rootage in Christ

[6]  To be justified is to be both “reckoned righteous” and to be “accepted.” 3.11.2
“Reckoned” echoes Paul’s forensic model; “accepted” adds the relational (personal) dimension.
Again, one must be aware of the secularisation of the doctrine today.  God, however, “sees” in Christ only those who are in Christ (by faith in Christ.)  3.11.3.

[7]  Dispute with Osiander.  (See class notes on “The Mediator and His Work.”)
O. documents from scripture that Christ is one with believers, yet fails to grasp the nature of this oneness: by faith we are bound to Christ in utmost intimacy, but Christ is never transfused into us thereby obliterating the distinction between us, obliterating our identity, and rendering us incarnations as well. 3.11.5.
Osiander’s errors: we are justified inasmuch as we are made righteous through the impartation of holiness.  (Problem: no believer is sufficiently holy to secure his own righteousness.)
: Christ is our righteousness simply in virtue of his deity.  (Problem: our sin isn’t seen as serious enough to be that for whichatonement (propitiation) is needed.  We merely need to be elevated (divinised.)  Note the affinities here with modernity.

[8]  While C retains “imputation” in that he feels it essential to the truth of justification, he rejects the accusation that such terminology suggests iciness, sterility, the mechanistic or the impersonal.  For when we “put on” Christ we cease “contemplating him from afar”; we are “engrafted into his body”; we are “made one with him”; we “glory that we have fellowship of righteousness with him.” 3.11.10.

[9]  “Justification”, “forgiveness’, “free remission”, “reconciliation with God” are all synonyms. 3.11.11 and 3.11.21.

[10]  Note the following in the 3.11.11:

(i)               Since justification is never separated from sanctification, and sanctification is never separated from mortification, C can’t be accused of “cheap grace.”

(ii)              Battles’ “traces” (of sin) for reliquae (remainder) is much too weak.  Reliquum means “remainder”, “arrears”, “debt”, “outstanding (sum)”, “residue”, “subsequent.”

(iii)            Reformation of life is gradual (and frequently slow.)

(iv)            At all times Christians, of themselves, merit condemnation.  (See 3.11.21.)

[11]  The Spirit reforms the justified person (i.e., advances her in holiness) not directly but through the Son.  3.11.12
Since the Spirit is the Spirit of the Son, C endeavours here to disavow what he regards as Anabaptist vagaries concerning the Spirit; on the other hand, he endeavours here to disavow what he regards as RC vagaries concerning holiness: holiness consists in adopted sons/dtrs being conformed to their elder brother.
At no point does justification mean that we are deemed righteous on the ground of Spirit-wrought fruits of regeneration in believers. 3.11.14.

[12]  For C assurance is always assurance of our standing with God, which standing is grounded in Christ (not ourselves).  For “papists and schoolmen”, on the other hand, assurance is assurance of conscience that their Spirit-inspired quest for holiness merits God’s recognition and reward.  (Hence C speaks of them as “doubly deceived.”) 3.11.14.
Justification by faith, rather, directs our contemplation away from ourselves in all respects to “God’s mercy” and “Christ’s perfection”alone.  3.11.16.

[13]  While always aware that justification is the antithesis of moralism, C recognises moral distinctions.  Not to do is both silly and a threat to social order.  3.14.2.  Still, moral virtue is qualitatively distinct from the Kingdom.  Here C parts company with modern liberalism, mediaeval scholasticism, and some forms of contemporary RCm.  (E.g., Karl Rahner’s “anonymous Christian.”) 3.14.3.
When C speaks of the “sheer disgrace of need and emptiness” he is not speaking morally but rather theologically.  His point is that the moral people are yet un-graced.  Neither is he speaking psychologically.  C thinks theologically throughout the discussion. 3.14.5.
Justification is the beginning of love for God.  (What “righteousness” could ever precede it?)  Our works-righteousness, so far from exemplifying love for God, is actually defiance of him.  Only the justified person loves God.  3.14.6.

[14]  The justified person has “regard not for the work of the law but for the commandment of God.” 3.14.10.  Luther is magnificent on this matter.  Every commandment can be fulfilled only in faith.  Commandments 2 through 10 are properly and profoundly obeyed only if the first is; i.e., only in faith.

[15]  Remember: to undervalue justification by faith means that we do “not realise what an execrable thing sin is in God’s sight.”  3.14.13.

[16]  The sum of the doctrine is

“we are received into grace by God out of sheer mercy”,

“this comes about by Christ’s intercession and is apprehended by faith”,

“all things exist to the end that the glory of divine goodness may fully shine

forth”.  3.14.17.

 

Professor V. Shepherd

Luther (1483 – 1546), Calvin (1509 – 1564) and Zwingli (1484 – 1531) and Anabaptists

On The Lord’s Supper

 

LUTHER

The conceptual “tools” in his toolbox were those of mediaeval Aristotelianism: substance and accident.

Substance:  a thing’s definition, its “whatness”; e.g., that which renders bread bread.

Accident: a thing’s appearance; e.g, bread’s colour, taste, smell, texture.

 

Luther objected to Rome’s notion of transubstantiation (promulgated at the Fourth Lateran Council, 1215). It presupposed

(i)               priestly powers vested in a man by virtue of ordination at the hands of an institution defined by its hierarchical order of priest, bishop, cardinal, pope;

(ii)              the sacrifice of the mass.

 

Luther maintained

(i)               the mass is not a sacrifice;

(ii)              ordination (by church of Rome) does not confer power to effect transubstantiation.

(iii)            the clergy do not constitute the church;

(iv)            all Christians are “priests”, ordained through baptism;

(v)             there is no distinction before God between clergy and laity; therefore the cup should be given to the laity (and clergy should be allowed to marry);

(vi)            Christ is “really” present in the sacrament.  “Before I drink mere wine with the Swiss I shall drink blood with the pope”;

(vii)           the manner of Christ’s presence is consubstantiation, since the substance of Christ’s body and bloody (i.e, Christ himself) is present with the substance of bread and wine;

(viii)         while Christ’s ubiquity means he is present everywhere, he is received “sacramentally” on account of the promise attending the institution;

(ix)            Since Christ is “in” the elements, all communicants receive him; believers to their blessing, unbelievers to their destruction.

 

CALVIN

Superbly trained as a humanist (like Zwingli) Calvin’s toolbox contained the tools of Renaissance humanism rather than mediaeval philosophy.  (The Renaissance wrote much literature, very little philosophy.)

 

Calvin objected to Luther’s consubstantiation, finding it no improvement on transubstantiation, and regarding it as cannibalism in any case.

 

Calvin maintained

(i)               Jesus Christ is not ubiquitous throughout the universe but rather is “located” in heaven;

(ii)              by the strength, power (vis, vires [plural], Latin) of the Holy Spirit, believers are drawn up to heaven whereby they receive Christ to their blessing; (this position, following the Latin, is sometimes called “virtualism”.  However, “virtualism” has nothing to do with modern notions of “virtual”, “as if”);

(iii)            faith alone receives Christ (everywhere in Calvin, because everywhere in scripture); unbelievers do not receive him, since the Saviour cannot be received to anyone’s destruction;

(iv)            communicants receive Christ in the totality of his reality: body and blood; i.e., they do not receive something “spiritual” in the sense of a disembodied spectre.  At the same time, they do not “chew his flesh” (Luther).  Concerning this viewpoint Calvin said, “Every time Luther mentions the Lord’s Supper he has in mind something that a butcher handles”;

(v)             the primary purpose of the sacrament is to strengthen weak faith (i.e., strengthen in Christ those who remain sinners in themselves); the secondary purpose is to pledge publicly our loyalty to our Lord.

 

 

ZWINGLI

Zwingli, following the Latin meaning of sacramentum (the oath whereby a Roman soldier pledged his loyalty to his commanding officer), puts first what Calvin put second.

 

Zwingli is everywhere falsely accused of “bare memorialism”– e.g., “For Calvin the elements exhibit a Saviour who is present; for Zwingli they recall one who is absent.”

 

Zwingli, the most woodenly literal of the Reformers in his reading of scripture, yet the least literal on the Lord’s Supper, maintained

(i)               in Hoc est meum corpus the word est means not “is” but “signifies” (as in “I am the door” — i.e., Jesus isn’t telling us he is rectangular and made of wood);

(ii)              in the Supper believers do receive Christ, but they don’t eat him; i.e., Jesus is the diner but not the dinner.  (Three months before his death Z. wrote, “Jesus Christ is received in conjunction with the elements”);

(iii)            Calvin was wrong in accusing him of proffering an empty sacrament (“naked and empty signs”);

(iv)            Calvin was correct in points (i) through (v) above;

(v)             Calvin was deficient in not recognizing the sacrament to bind believers to one another in the congregation as well as to their Lord.  {NB}

 

ANABAPTISTS

There were many Anabaptist spokespersons, the best-known of whom is Menno Simons.  In general they maintained

(i)               a “thing-holiness” is indefensible ; holiness does not pertain to things (books, bread, wine, vestments, candles, bells) but rather to relationships.  Here the Magisterial Reformers are no better than Rome — both are wrong — in discussing the Lord’s Supper in terms of a holiness that attends elements.  (Shepherd: I think it can be asked fairly if the Magisterial Reformers ever upheld what the Anabaptists imputed to them.)

(ii)              they are unjustly accused of promoting “bare memorialism”; Christ is “really” present not to inert elements but rather to the congregation.  In other words, the fellowship of believers rather than the elements is the vehicle of Christ’s continual self-bestowal.  (I.e., they too do not believe in the “real absence”);

(iii)            the church consists of Christians who are sinless by definition [here the Magisterial Reformers disagree totally: sinless people would have no need of the supper]; the supper maintains them in their sinlessness;

(iv)            the supper pledges believers in the Anabaptist congregation/community to give up their lives for each other as Christ gave up his for them. {NB}

 

 

 

Note: Everything said above with respect to the Lord’s Supper could be said of preaching; namely, how is a creaturely item (a sermon delivered by a human being and a sinner as well) become the vehicle of Christ’s self-utterance and self-bestowal?

(It is assumed that no one will admit to believing in the transubstantiation of the sermon, the unqualified identification of the words of the preacher with the self-utterance of God.)