Sárospataki Füzetek 14. (2010)
2010 / 1. szám - TANULMÁNYOK - Sell, Alan P. F.: Milyen megoldásra váró feladatok elé állítja Kálvin a 21. századi egyházat?
Sell, Alan p. F. Calvin further thinks that the Lord’s Supper is to be observed regularly.52 It is well-known that his preference that the Word and sacrament be present together in worship every Sunday was denied by the Genevan magistrates, and that he setded at first for observing the Supper monthly, and after 1541, for holding it at Christmas, Easter, Pentecost, and on the first Sunday of September.53 To him the Supper was ‘a spiritual banquet, wherein Christ attests himself to be the life-giving bread, upon which our souls feed unto true and blessed immortality.’54 It ‘consists in two things: physical signs, which ... represent to us ... things invisible; and spiritual truth, which is at the same time represented and displayed through the symbols themselves.’55 As regards both baptism and the Lord’s Supper, Calvin viewed them as sacraments of the Church and hence the former was for children of the covenant, the latter for professed believers. While Calvin could not readily understand a Christian who would avoid the sacraments, he nevertheless stopped short of affirming their necessity to an individual’s salvation: ‘the grace of God is not so bound to [the sacraments] but that we may obtain it by faith from the Word of the Lord.’56 Again, ‘by neglecting baptism, we are excluded from salvation; and in this sense I acknowledge that it is necessary; but it is absurd to speak of the hope of salvation as being confined to the sign.’57 Baptism, Calvin contends, ‘first points to the cleansing of our sins, which we obtain from Christ’s blood; then to the mortification of our flesh, which rests upon participation in his death and through which believers are reborn into newness of life and into the fellowship of Christ. ... [BJaptism is also a symbol for bearing witness to our religion before men.’58 He elsewhere expands upon this, remarking that baptism signifies our unmerited adoption by the Father into his Church; our restoration to the Father by Christ’s blood; and our re-creation by the Spirit.59 Or again, ‘baptism ... is an entrance and a sort of initiation into the church, through which we are numbered among God’s people: a sign of our spiritual regeneration ...’60 Baptised infants receive ‘some part of that grace which in a little while they shall enjoy to the full.’61 With this assertion Calvin seems to allow that the Spirit may bestow a blessing on an infant at baptism, whilst not wishing to assert that baptism is always and necessarily the occasion of regeneration. While believing that some infants ‘are surely saved from that early age’,62 more generally the seed of fűmre repentance and faith ‘lies hid52 See Institutes, IV.xvii.44. 53 For a full account of the subject see Ronald S. Wallace, Calvin’s Doctrine of Word and Sacrament, Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd, 1953. 54 Institutes, IV.xvii.l. 55 Ibid., IV.xvii.il. 56 Ibid., IV.xv.22. 57 Commentary on John, 3: 5, trans. W. Pringle, 110; CNTC trans. T. H. L. Parker, 1961, 64, who gives, ‘it is absurd to confine assurance of salvation to the sign.’ 58 Institutes, IV.vi.2. 59 See Commentary on 1 Cor. 1: 13, trans. John Pringle, 1848, 69-70; CNTC trans. John W. Fraser, 1960, 29-30. 60 Institutes, IV.xvi.30. 61 Ibid., IV.xvi.19. 62 Ibid., IV.xvi.17. 90 SÁROSPATAKI FÜZETEK
