Friday, November 27, 2009

Chewed by the teeth?

Calvin's Institutes (1559)
Book 4 of 4 - External Means by which God Invites Us into the Society of Christ and Holds Us Therein

Chapter 17 - The Lord's Supper; what it brings to us
11-15 - Relation of symbol and reality misstated; transubstantiation
11. So the Supper is not just to give a bare mental assurance, "but to enjoy true participation with Him." It is to grow in union with Him, and to "feel His power."

12. The Roman error from Satan is that "Christ is attached to the element of bread!" He is not locally present, but remains in heaven. The Spirit makes the union real, anyway - Rom 8:9.

13. Lombard and Rome say the bread is a mask for the physical body of Christ under it.
14. They can only explain this with the "fiction" of transubstantiation. Ancient writers spoke of the elements as "converted," yes. But they meant that there was something more going on than just bread and wine, not that the earthly bread and wine were annihilated and replaced with Jesus' physical body. God uses physical bread to witness that "His flesh is food."

15. The root of this error is thinking the consecration does some magic. They claim for back-up the instance when the rods being changed to serpents, yet were called rods (Ex 7). But there was an actual change to be seen there. No, the bread is a seal and sacrament "only to those persons to whom the word is directed."

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