Nog 'n keer oor Calvyn en Mistiek

Ek loop hierdie opmerkings op Calvyn se opvatting van die mystia unio deur McGoldrick raak. Hy haal ‘n paar opsienbarende aanhalings van Calvyn oor die intieme verhouding en eenheid van die gelowige met Christus aan – die moeite werd om oor te neem en hier aan te haal. Ek onderstreep ‘n paar hoogs opmerklike frases – en is veral geboei deur die laaste twee daarvan:

According to Calvin, justifying faith leads to intimate fellowship with Jesus Christ. The reformer expressed his understanding in this way.

Most people consider fellowship with Christ and believing in Christ to be the same thing; the fellowship we have with Christ is the consequence of faith. In a word, faith is not a distant view, but a warm embrace of Christ, by which he dwells in us, and we are filled with the divine Spirit.34

Faith assents to the message of Scripture because the Holy Spirit illumines human minds to believe it and to embrace Christ, the object of faith. This faith establishes an eternal bond between God and his people, as his Holy Spirit resides within them. In Calvin’s words:

Not only does he [Christ] cleave to us by an invisible bond of fellowship, but with a more wonderful communion; day-by-day he grows more and more into one body with us until he becomes completely one with us.35

Spirituality entails intimacy between God as the object and believers as subjects.36 As Calvin put it to readers of his Institutes, “you must possess Christ, but you cannot possess him without being made partakers in his sanctification.”37 In other words, God never bestows the grace of justification without the grace of sanctification, a subjective experience that leads Christians to progress in spirituality toward its completion in eternity.

Calvin understood spirituality to involve deep personal communion with Christ as the fruit of justifying grace, so he scorned those people who claimed to possess faith while failing to demonstrate its reality in their lives. In pointed terms he exclaimed:

We detest these trifling sophists who are content to roll the gospel on the tips of their tongues when its efficacy ought to penetrate the inmost affections of the heart, take its seat in the soul, and affect the whole man a hundred times more deeply than the cold exhortations of the philosophers.38

Warnings to people whose faith is only cerebral or academic abound in Calvin’s writings, for he knew that a formal faith of the intellect alone could not lead to godly living. Contrary to popular myth, he was not an austere person with a countenance of stone and a heart of ice. Rather he understood the complexity of human nature, and he maintained that love for Christ must involve the emotions as well as the will.39 True faith then is not only , but fiducia fidei—a continuous trusting relationship with the Savior as empowered by the Holy Spirit. “The certainty of faith is knowledge, but [it] is acquired by the teaching of the Holy Spirit, not by the acuteness of our own intellect.”40

Since John Calvin emphasized the necessity of an intimate relationship with Christ, he did not hesitate to compare that to a marriage, as the Apostle Paul had done. Commenting on Ephesians 5:29, the Reformer wrote:

The strong affection that a husband ought to cherish toward his wife is exemplified by Christ, and an instance of that unity which belongs to marriage is declared to exist between himself and the church. This is a remarkable passage on the mysterious intercourse we have with Christ.41

Jesus, then, communicates not only his favor and benefits, but himself. More than fellowship (societas), it is comparable to the marital union.42 It may also be compared to eating, for Jesus said, “I am the bread of life” (John 6:35). This eating requires faith, and faith leads to communion with the Savior.

For faith does not merely look at Christ . . . but embraces him that he may become ours and dwell in us. . . . So it is true that we may eat Christ by faith alone, provided we grasp at the same time how faith unites us with him.43

34. Calvin, Commentaries on Galatians and Ephesians, 262 (on Ephesians 3:17).
35. Calvin, Institutes , III:2,24.
36. This is an insight of Otto Gruendler, “John Calvin: Ingrafting into Christ,” in The Spirituality of Western Christendom, ed. Rozanne Elder (Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, 1976), 180.
37. Calvin, Institutes, III:16,1.
38. Ibid., III:6,4.
39. William J. Bouwsma, “The Spirituality of John Calvin,” in Christian Spirituality: High Middle Ages and Reformation, 318–33. This is a very perceptive essay.
40. Calvin, Commentaries on Galatians and Ephesians, 264 (on Ephesians 3:19).
41. Ibid., 322–23.
42. Gerrish, Grace and Gratitude, 73–74.
43. Calvin, Commentary on Gospel According to John, 250 (on John 6:35).

(Sien: http://www.reformedfellowship.net/articles/mcgoldlrick-calvin-practical-june09v59-n6.htm)