The purpose (of word) and sacrament

It seems to me that Calvin's description of the purpose of the sacraments could pretty much be applied to the purpose of the Bible too.

Calvin strikingly asserts that of the ordinary sacraments of the Old Testament that these “ancient sacraments looked to the same purpose to which ours now tend: to direct and almost lead men by the hand to Christ, or rather, as images, to represent him and show him forth to be known. We have already taught that they are seals by which God’s promises are sealed, and, moreover, it is very clear that no promise has ever been offered to men except in Christ [2 Cor 1:20]. Consequently, to teach us any promise of God, they must show forth Christ.” He adds that the only difference between the sacraments of the Old and New Testament is that “the former foreshadowed Christ promised while he was as yet awaited; the latter attest him as already given and revealed.” (Institutes 4.14.20)

Now, I fully admit that there is a danger of theological confusion here. We often tend to describe the sacraments in contrast to the Word, and some of that may be going on here. You could say that the Scriptures are the promises of God and that the sacraments seal them. But I think you could equally say the scriptures present (and seal?) the promises of God, could you not?

That the sacraments are images need not trouble us too much since words are symbols or signs too.

Ground and fired

Thomas Boston (1676-1732) has several meditations on the bread and wine. One of the more outlandish is:

bread is prepared by being ground between millstones and baked in a fire, so Christ was ground between the upper of the Father's wrath and the lower millstone of the malice of men and devils, and then cast into the fiery furnace of justice;

Works, vol 2, 'The Nature of the Lord's Supper'

How's that for a bit of interpretative maximalism / natural symbolism etc.?

Wine is medicine and cheers. etc.

All symbolic, not all instrumental

Calvin gives us an important principle that we can use when considering the oft-made claim that everything is somehow 'sacramental'.

Calvin distinguishes a broader category of things or actions that are symbolic (e.g. some annointings with oil, such as of the sick) from a narrower subset which are also instrumental. Sacraments proper belong in the instrumental category.

For example, everything is symbolic: it carries the marks of its creator. Everything speaks to us of God. But the Bible is the instrument in or by which God has promised to speak in a special sense.

All bread is symbolic of daily nourishment, of human work blessed and so on. But it is the sacramental bread of the Lord's Supper that speaks to us of the death of Christ and much more, spiritually communicates Christ to us as an instrument to which God has attached his promise of the work of the Spirit when we receive it by faith.

See further Institutio 1536 V.46, CO 1:178B; Inst 1536:159 cited in Zachman Image and Word p319

Free use of symbols and ceremonies

According to Zachman:

According to Calvin, both the apostles and Jesus were rather free in their use of such symbols and ceremonies, as when Jesus at times uses dust and spittle, at other times just a touch, or the apostles heal by word or touch, as well as by oil. (Image and Word etc. p319)

Granted that Jesus and the Apostles had the authority to institute ceremonies and symbols which we do not have, and wisdom which we cannot fully achieve, is it not still reasonable to take their actions as a model for our own? At least their actions show the lawfulness of symbols and ceremonies, even ones for which there is little explicit commandment in the Word of God, and not just in an entirely Old Testament context since Jesus is bringing in the Kingdom.