Mass-doctors

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 18 - Rome's Mass a sacrilege

8-11 - Early practice and rise of misconceptions

8. Private masses are forbidden, as Christ told us to take and divide the elements among ourselves - Luke 22:17; 1 Cor 10:16. Once they did this, they also started multiplying Masses all over, instead of bringing the body together.

9. Rome must show where this is required in Scripture or withdraw it, for obedience is better than sacrifice - 1 Sam 15:22.

10. They "thrust forward detached sentences of the ancient writers," but those ancients didn't hold to their view. They were careful when using the word sacrifice about the Supper to refer it back to Christ's cross, "as a memorial, an image, and a testimony of" it.

11. Some of the fathers referred to Communion as a "repeated or at least renewed sacrifice." They were all right in intent to interpret through the Old Testament, but wind up in error. "They have turned aside too much to the shadows of the law.

The Supper destroyed by the Mass

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 18 - Rome's Mass a sacrilege where Christ's Supper is not only profaned but annihilated

1-7 - Rejection of the Mass

1. Rome says "the Mass is a sacrifice and offering to obtain forgiveness of sins." It "buries and oppresses [Christ's] cross."

2. Christ is our priest forever - Heb 5:6; Ps 110:4 - and no priest at Mass is required. Posing as priests under Christ, they actually deprive Christ of His honor as our High priest, because Heb 7:17-24 shows Christ as our sole priest, in contrast with all the human old covenant priests before Him.

3. The cross is overthrown when an altar is set up. Heb 9:12, 26; 10:10, 14, 18; John 19:30; 1 Cor 5:7-8 all show that Christ's sacrifice was once for all. But if the Mass is a sacrifice, then the cross "lacked the power to cleanse eternally."

4. When Mal 1:11 speaks of the Gentiles offering an offering in every place, God is only referring to our spiritual worship in terms of the OT law. In the same way, turning to God is ascent to Jerusalem - Isa 2:2-3; Mic 4:1-2; knowing God more is dreams and visions - Joel 2:28.

5. The Mass makes us forget Christ's death, and look to the re-sacrifice in that Mass, instead. Is Christ slain, again (Heb 9:25-26)? They object that it is a sacrifice without blood, but men can't redefine "sacrifice" like that, and shedding blood is required for cleansing, anyway - Heb 9:22.

6. Rome says we are redeemed by Christ if we partake of Mass. But this means "we have been redeemed by Christ on condition that we redeem ourselves." This takes us away from the cross. "There is only one sacrifice, so that our faith may be made fast to His cross."

7. The Mass is a giving to God and expecting salvation as a result. The Supper is receiving from God salvation, with thanksgiving. The Mass undoes the Supper, in effect.

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?

Great pile of ceremonies

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

38-46 - Miscellaneous points

41. Who is "worthy" to partake?

Rome says those in a state of grace, purged of all sin are worthy. This would leave everyone out. Or they say that examining ourselves to account for and confess all our sins makes us worthy [often the conservative Protestant view today!]. But this doesn't work "for consciences dismayed and defected and striken with the horror of their own sin."

42. Faith and love required, but not perfection

Rome deprives sinners of receiving benefit from the supper: assurance in conscience that we are God's. Worthiness is laying our sin before God and praying for His mercy to make us worthy. This is faith and love. We cannot expect perfect faith and love before partaking "for it is a sacrament ordained not for the perfect, but for the weak and feeble."

43. On the proper celebration of the Supper

It doesn't matter how the bread and wine are distributed, if the bread is leavened or unleavened, if the wine is red or white. Using unleavened bread is more of a novelty than helpful. The Supper should be administered "at least once a week." After prayers, a sermon, and the placing of elements on the table, the minister repeats the words of institution, recites the promises for us, fences the table from those unworthy, prays for the partaking to enrich us, and distributes. During this, "either psalms should be sung, or something be read." Afterward, an exhortation to faith, love and conduct, a prayer and song of thanks, and dismissal.

44. The Lord's Supper should be celebrated frequently

"that they might frequently return in memory to Christ's Passion." In the early church "it became the unvarying rule that no meeting of the church should take place without the Word, prayers, partaking of the Supper, and almsgiving."

45. Augustine bemoaned where the church was ONLY partaking once a week, instead of daily. Chrysostem said it was crazy to go to church but then not partake of the Supper: "I am unworthy, you say. Therefore, you were also not worthy of the communion of prayer..."

46. Partaking only once a year is an "invention of the devil." The guy who started this just wanted to get everyone to confess their faith all together and publicly once a year - a good idea. But now after they commune once they think "they have beautifully done their duty for the rest of the year, [and] go about unconcerned."

Sacrilegious impiety

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

38-46 - Miscellaneous points

38. The Supper implies mutual love

The bread pictures unity, as many grains are baked indistinguishably into one loaf. "The Lord so communicated His body to us there that He is made completely one with us and we with Him." If we disagree with a brother, we disagree with Christ. If we love Christ, we must love His people.

39. The Supper can't exist apart from the Word

Promises spoken at the supper aren't directed to the elements, in consecration, but to the people receiving them. The minister should not be silent when administering the supper: "silence involves abuse and fault."

40. Unworthily partaking of the Sacrament

The Supper becomes "deadly poison" for the one who tramples upon it. The elements, entering a corrupt soul, "cast it down with a greater ruin." They "foully defile [the Lord's body and blood] with sacrilegious impiety." Defiling the Lord's Table is possible.

Fantasies of our own brains

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

35-37 - Adoration of elements is a forbidden superstition

35. They say if Jesus' body is in the bread, then He is in the bread, so it should be adored as Jesus. But Jesus said to receive and eat, not to adore the bread.

36. It isn't safe "to wander from God's simple word to the "fantasies of our own brains." Instead of adoring the elements, we should raise our hearts to heaven, where Jesus is - Col 3:1-2. Adoring the elements violates Rom 1:25, and makes the bread "a hateful idol."

37. Superstition makes no end of sinning, once it gets "past the proper bounds." The words "This is My body" are to be defined in part by the following command to "take and eat." Thus we don't adore the bread as His body.

Partaking of Christ

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

32-34 - True nature of Christ's corporal presence

32. I don't claim to understand His presence and feeding of our souls with His body. "I rather experience than understand it.... I reject only absurd things" about it. "From the substance of His flesh Christ breathes life into our souls."

33. The inquisitive demand an exaggerated mode of Christ's presence in the bread itself, but the Spirit unites us with Him. If He is present physically and automatically in the bread, then unbelievers could eat and partake of Christ without faith, just by eating bread. This can't happen. Eating and drinking judgment against oneself at the table (1 Cor 11:27) doesn't happen by eating, but by disregarding the Lord while eating.

34. Who receives the sacrament? Augustine said he "who eats with the heart, not who presses with the teeth." This is because the wicked can't be members of Christ - 1 Cor 6:15. Augustine again: "In the elect alone do the sacraments effect what they symbolize."