Thursday, December 10, 2009

Give them the cup!

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
47-50 - Keeping the cup from the people is wrong
47. Rome wants to keep the cup only for the priests, but Jesus commanded everyone to drink of it - Matt 26:27. They say the blood is in the body/bread, anyway, but "still they defraud pious souls of the confirmation of faith which Christ gives us as something necessary."

48. The Bible doesn't limit the cup to the apostles, and neither did the early church.

49. Gelasius as late as the 490s said the church is "either to receive the sacraments entire or to be entirely barred from them." How can they be strengthened to shed their blood in confessing Christ, if they don't first receive His blood? he argued.

50. Jesus says all should eat the bread, and all should drink of the cup. If only the apostles were to receive the cup, then by what right should anyone else receive the bread? Was Paul lying in 1 Cor 11:23-26?

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