Preaching as Sacramental in Calvin & the Reformed Tradition

A number of scholars have argued that Calvin thought of preaching as sacramental. Since this thesis draws on Calvin’s doctrine of the sacraments and of the Lord’s Supper, it seems fitting to explore this suggestion in some detail. Particular attention is paid to what these scholars mean by calling Calvin’s preaching sacramental and often their own words are quoted. It will then be asked whether these formulations could be applied to God’s word written as well as God’s word preached.

Although Calvin does not call preaching a sacrament, in some ways the Word of God serves a similar function to the Lord’s Supper and the language Calvin uses of preaching and the Supper is sometimes strikingly similar. Calvin can make very strong statements about the unity of Word and Sacrament. For example, Wallace says: “To those men whose formal practice is daily to cry, “The Word of the Lord, the Word of the Lord” in their anxiety that the Scripture shall have first place of honour in the Church Calvin says, “They will find nothing applicable to the Word which we do not also give to the sacraments.”[1]

Michael A. Farley argues that “for Reformed theologians … the preaching of the Word has effectively functioned as the central liturgical and sacramental event in Reformed worship.”[2] Similarly Gerrish argues that for Calvin:

The word is not simply information about God; it is the instrument through which union with Christ is effected and his grace is imparted. The word of God, in Calvin’s thinking, assumes the function that medieval theology ascribed to the sacraments. In this sense, it is the sacramental word.[3]

Further, he says that Calvin ascribes “to the proclaimed word of God the power and efficacy that the medieval church credited to the seven sacraments.”[4]  For example, Calvin writes, God “has ordained his word as the instrument by which Jesus Christ, with all his graces, is dispensed to us.”[5] Again, Gerrish says: “the Protestants at the time of the Reformation really did transfer to the proclamation of the gospel the salvific efficacy medieval scholasticism ascribed to a sacrament. But they did not substitute one for the other. They kept both and interpreted each in the light of the other.”[6]

Similarly, Peter Adam says that for Calvin “God is present [when his word is preached] and his words preached are an effective means of grace.”[7] He goes on to say that DeVries has shown that this idea was not common in the Roman Catholic church of Calvin’s day[8].  Adams says “by medieval times the sacraments alone were [thought of as] the means [of grace], and the Word was merely educative.”[9] He quote DeVries: “The Preached word itself, so far from conveying the healing medicine of divine grace [on the understanding of the Roman Catholic church of the time], was rather a prescription for the medicine which was available only in the sacraments.”[10]

Clearly there is a risk of theological confusion in thinking of the Word as a Sacrament since for Calvin as for Augustine the Word of God added to the element makes a sacrament. If the Word itself is a sacrament then does the Word make itself a sacrament? What is the element to which the word is added in this case? Gerrish’ discussion is worth quoting:

Calvin himself describes the word as verbum sacramentale, the “sacramental word”. He means the word that constitutes, or makes, a sacrament. And his argument is that the word, in this sense, cannot be a magical incantation muttered by the priest over the earthly elements, while an uncomprehending people looks on.[11]

This word is the proclaimed word of faith, God’s promise[12]. Gerrish contends:

Since Calvin elsewhere so plainly assigns the proclaimed word of promise the very functions that the medieval church looked for in the sacraments, we may fairly extend his use of the term verbum sacramentale to denote a proclamation that not only makes a sacrament but also, as an efficacious means of grace, is a sacrament.[13]  

John H. Leith argues that: “For Calvin, preaching is sacramental in the context of the order of salvation and as a means of grace, and not in the more general sense by which all creation may be sacramental.”[14]

Describing Calvin’s doctrine of preaching, Wolterstorff says: “The reading in the church of the anciently spoken word of God provides the basis for the here-and-now speech of God to God’s people. The sermon is “sacramental” of the speech of God – not of the static presence of God but of God’s very speaking.”[15] He adds:

Often it is said that the churches of the Reformation have no sacramental consciousness. The truth is that the Calvinistic wing of the Reformed tradition, and the confessional documents of the tradition as a whole exhibit an intensely sacramental consciousness, more than is typical of such as the Roman and Anglican traditions. Part of this “more” pertains to the sermon. More than any other traditions in Christendom, the churches of the Reformation – Reformed, but Lutheran as well – have emphasized that by way of church proclamation, God acts graciously towards God’s people.[16]

Wolterstorff also sees a parallel between the notion of sacramental efficiency and the efficiency of the sermon. Neither depends for their power on the minister:

Those who are hesitant to ascribe to the sermon so “sacramental” a status as did the Reformers will usually focus on the deficiencies of sermons and the shortcomings of preachers. The answer of the Reformers to this objection is structurally the same as that given by the medieval church to the suggestion that the effiecney of the sacrament depends on the holiness of the priest: God uses fallible human material to accomplish God’s ends.[17]

Wolterstorff also suggests that the Reformed practice of praying for illumination before Scripture reading and sermon is an analogous to the epiclesis in the service of the Lord’s Supper. In both cases the work of the Spirit is understood to be essential[18].

Wolterstorff sees in Calvin’s understanding of Supper and sermon the same fundamental structure: “ God acting and we receiving, rather than we acting and God receiving. And just as in the case of proclamation, God’s action must be received in faith and applied by the Spirit.”[19]

J. Mark Beach argues that like Luther, “Calvin …  gives us a doctrine of Christ’s real presence in gospel proclamation. His doctrine … has features and accents all its own— corresponding in many respects to his distinct doctrine of the real presence of Christ in the Lord’s Supper.”[20]

Beach explains his use of the word “sacramental” is “to express the reality of God’s presence through human instrumentation or divine activity through human labor. God is agent; humans are instruments.”[21] Beach is thinking of:

the sacramental character of the Word itself—that is to say, it [this way of speaking] refers to the presence of Christ in, with, and through the Word proclaimed. The sacramental character of the Word means that God’s Word genuinely belongs to God, that it is from God and of God; it is his speech. Therefore God, through the Holy Spirit, is speaking and is the agent of grace. “Sacramental Word,” therefore, has no sacerdotal connotations. God does not transfer his work to humans or cloth human beings (or a human institution) with his power to dispense grace ex opere operato.[22]

Beach argues that: “Christ is spiritually present in the preaching of the gospel through the operation of the Holy Spirit; hence preaching possesses a sacramental character—an outward vehicle for an inward grace.”[23]

Similarly, discussing Calvin’s doctrine, Leith says: “In preaching, the Holy Spirit uses the words of the preacher as an occasion for the presence of God in grace and in mercy. In this sense, the actual words of the sermon are comparable to the element in the Sacraments.”[24]

Parker notes a similarity between Calvin’s view of Supper and sermon as God’s actions:  “Just as Christ is present at the Supper spiritually, that is, by the working of the Spirit, so he is present in the preaching spiritually—by the working of the Spirit.”[25]

According to Wallace, on Calvin’s view: “Through the preaching of the Word by His ministers, Christ therefore gives His sacramental presence in the midst of His Church, imparts to men the grace which the Word promises, and establishes His kingdom over the hearts of His hearers.” [26] And: “In the event of God’s ‘connecting Himself’ thus with the preacher, to make his act of speaking the effective Word of the Lord, a relationship is set up between the human act of the preacher and the divine action of grace which we may call a sacramental union.”[27]

Describing Calvin’s doctrine Gerrish speaks of the ““sacramental” functions” of the Word of God “as a powerful instrument of the Spirit .”[28]

It would seem that these points about preaching could have been made without recourse to the language of the sacraments. Indeed, in the view of the scholars quoted above, this was Calvin’s view, although he did not call preaching sacramental directly. These categories appear to be a legitimate and illuminating way of speaking about preaching. The comparison between the Lord’s Supper and preaching could be helpful in articulating something of what preaching involves, how it works and what it achieves.

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[1] Wallace, Calvin’s Doctrine of The Word and Sacrament, pp160-161, citing Corpus Reformatorum 9:20-21

[2] Michael A. Farley, “Reforming Reformed Worship: Theological Method and Liturgical Catholicity in American Presbyterianism, 1850–2005” (Ph.D. diss., Saint Louis University, 2007), p177, n156

[3] Gerrish, Grace and Gratitude, p76

[4] Gerrish, Grace and Gratitude, p84

[5] Calvin, Short Treatise on the Lord’s Supper (1541), quoted in Gerrish, Grace and Gratitude, p84

[6] Gerrish, Grace and Gratitude, p109

[7] Peter Adam, Preaching of a Lively Kind, p21 in Thompson (ed), Engaging With Calvin

[8] Peter Adam, Preaching of a Lively Kind, p21, citing DeVries, Jesus Christ in the Preaching of Calvin and Scleirmacher (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1996), p14  

[9] Peter Adam, Preaching of a Lively Kind,p22

[10] DeVries, Jesus Christ, p22 quotes in Adam, Preaching, in Thompson, Engaging

[11] Gerrish, Grace and Gratitude, p85

[12] Gerrish, Grace and Gratitude, p85. He cites Calvin, Institutes, 1559, 4.14.4 (2:1279-80)

[13] Gerrish, Grace and Gratitude, p85-85

[14] Leith, “Calvin’s Doctrine of the Proclamation of the Word and Its Significance for Today in the Light of Recent Research,” Review and Expositor,86 (Winter 1989): 31 p211 quoted in Gerrish, Grace and Gratitude, p76. Wallace comments that “… the nature of this [sacramental] union is as unique and unparalleled as the incarnation itself is a unique and unparalleled event; … there is no true analogy to this relationship under consideration, outside the events of the Bible and indeed outside of Jesus Christ. Calvin sees no “natural sacramental principle” running through the world of nature from the study of which we might begin our thinking about the sacraments.” Calvin’s Doctrine of the Word and Sacrament, p165. However, Zachman, Randall C., Image and Word in the Theology of John Calvin (Notre Dame, University of Notre Dame Press, 2007) argues that a sacramental sense is pervasive in Calvin’s approach to all of creation.

[15] Wolterstorff, The Reformed Liturgy, in McKim, Major Themes, p288

[16] Wolterstorff, The Reformed Liturgy, in McKim, Major Themes, p288

[17] Wolterstorff, The Reformed Liturgy, in McKim, Major Themes, p289

[18] Wolterstorff, The Reformed Liturgy, in McKim, Major Themes, p290

[19] Wolterstorff, The Reformed Liturgy, in McKim, Major Themes, p290

[20] J. Mark Beach ‘The Real Presence of Christ in the Preaching of the Gospel: Luther and Calvin on the Nature of Preaching’ Mid-America Journal of Theology 10 (1999) 77-134, p91

[21] Beach, Real Presence, p92, n38

[22] Beach, Real Presence, p92, n38

[23] Beach, Real Presences, p117

[24] Leith, “Calvin’s Doctrine of the Proclamation of the Word and Its Significance for Today in the Light of Recent Research,” Review and Expositor,86 (Winter 1989): 31 quoted in Beach, Real Presence, p93

[25] Parker, Calvin’s Preaching, 42

[26] Wallace, Calvin’s Doctrine of the Word and Sacrament, 84

[27] Wallace, Calvin’s Doctrine of the Word and Sacrament, 90-91

[28] Gerrish, Grace and Gratitude, p82