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Spirit and Flesh: on the Significance of the Reformed Doctrine of the Lord's Supper for Pneumatology Christopher Ganski Marquette University

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Spirit and Flesh: on the Significance of the Reformed Doctrine of the Lord's Supper for Pneumatology Christopher Ganski Marquette University Marquette University e-Publications@Marquette Dissertations (2009 -) Dissertations, Theses, and Professional Projects Spirit and Flesh: On the Significance of the Reformed Doctrine of the Lord's Supper for Pneumatology Christopher Ganski Marquette University Recommended Citation Ganski, Christopher, "Spirit and Flesh: On the Significance of the Reformed Doctrine of the Lord's Supper for Pneumatology" (2012). Dissertations (2009 -). Paper 173. http://epublications.marquette.edu/dissertations_mu/173 SPIRIT AND FLESH: ON THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE REFORMED DOCTRINE OF THE LORD’S SUPPER FOR PNEUMATOLOGY by Christopher J. Ganski, B.A., M.Div. A Dissertation submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School, Marquette University, in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Milwaukee, Wisconsin May 2012 ABSTRACT SPIRIT AND FLESH: ON THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE REFORMED DOCTRINE OF THE LORD’S SUPPER FOR PNEUMATOLOGY Christopher J. Ganski, B.A., M.Div. Marquette University, 2012 This dissertation explores the pneumatological significance of the Reformed doctrine of the Lord’s Supper. Confessional Reformed teaching is distinguished from Lutheran and Roman Catholic accounts of eucharistic presence by claiming that it is through the power of the Holy Spirit that believers are made to participate in the flesh and blood of Christ. The Spirit is not a mere proxy presence of Christ, but mediates to us in the eucharistic celebration the presence of the whole Christ. This position, I argue, reflects the pneumatological orientation of Reformed Christology and points to an understanding of the Holy Spirit as the reality constituting agency of God in the world. At one level this work is a commentary upon the implicit pneumatology of the Supper, at another level it is a systematic development of its potential in the areas of Christology, ecclesiology and spirituality. Although this is a constructive work my reflections are rooted in classical sources of the Reformed tradition, in particular the thought of John Calvin, John Williamson Nevin and the English Puritans. The center of my argument is that the whole of life in the Spirit, inside and outside the eucharistic context, is oriented around union with the glorified body of Christ. Scripture conceives of the eschatological consummation of human salvation as coming into possession of a body like that of Jesus— resurrected and glorified. Such a possibility highlights the eschatological work of the Spirit as well as accenting the Spirit’s unique historical relationship to the bodily humanity of Jesus within the economy of salvation. This means that we cannot simply think about the Spirit “spiritually;” we must think about the Spirit “corporeally.” Human experiences of the Holy Spirit are therefore best understood to be embodied experiences, emerging theologically where the Spirit and the ascended humanity of Jesus touch and conjoin. John Calvin understood the grace of the Lord’s Supper to be the “visible Word,” by which Christ in the Spirit is accommodated to the human body. Against the deep suspicion within American Protestantism towards mediating agencies (i.e. church and sacraments) and the tendency to set the work of the Holy Spirit in opposition to corporeal and visible reality I argue for an embodied pneumatology that leads towards a revitalization of the spirituality of the visible church. i For Christ Presbyterian Church New Haven, CT ___________________________ Where I discovered a Reformed Eucharistic Piety ii TABLE OF CONTENTS PREFACE ...............................................................................................................v ABBREVIATIONS ............................................................................................ viii INTRODUCTION ..................................................................................................1 The Holy Spirit and the Lord’s Supper in the Reformed Confessions .......4 Tradition of the Holy Spirit .........................................................................8 Eucharist-Oriented Pneumatology ............................................................17 Outline of Dissertation ..............................................................................21 CHAPTER ONE: MEDIATIONS OF THE SPIRIT ............................................25 The Fate of Calvin’s Eucharistic Doctrine in Reformed America ............25 Spirit and Mediation in American Religion ..............................................32 B.B. Warfield and the Legacy of Puritan Pneumatology ..........................38 John Nevin’s Sacramental Critique of American Pneumatology .............48 Nevin’s Theory of Religious Change .......................................................57 The Sphere of the Spirit ............................................................................63 Nevin’s Spirit-Christology ........................................................................70 Nevin’s Pneumatological Response to Charles Hodge .............................75 Assessing Nevin’s Contribution ................................................................81 CHAPTER TWO: ACCOMODATIONS OF THE SPIRIT .................................87 Revitalizing Word-Spirit Model of Pneumatology ...................................87 Calvin’s Concept of Sacramentality .........................................................93 Habits of the Spirit ..................................................................................103 The Holy Spirit and Sacramental Experience .........................................112 iii CHAPTER THREE: SPIRIT AND EUCHARISTIC FLESH ............................131 Convergences of the Spirit ......................................................................132 The Critical Pneumatology of Calvin’s Eucharistic Theology ...............139 Contra Zwingli: On the Importance of Eucharistic Flesh .......................147 The Spiritual Mode of Substantia in the Supper .....................................160 Contra Lutherans: On the Importance of Ascended Flesh ......................170 The Eschatological Structure of the Spirit’s Work in the Supper ...........177 CHAPTER FOUR: CHRIST AND THE SPIRIT ...............................................186 The Holy Spirit and Experiential Christology ........................................186 The Holy Spirit and the communicatio gratiarum ..................................190 Eucharist and Spirit-Christology .............................................................196 The Office of Mediator and the Spirit .....................................................198 The Threefold Office and the Two Estates of Christ ..............................205 Prophetic Office and the Spirit ...............................................................207 Priestly Office and the Spirit ...................................................................215 Kingly Office and the Spirit ....................................................................228 Extra Calvinisticum and the Holy Spirit .................................................235 CHAPTER FIVE: SPIRIT AND ESCHATOLOGY ..........................................243 Ordo salutis and Corpus Christi .............................................................243 The Pneumatological Significance of ordo salutis .................................252 The Problem of ordo salutis ...................................................................255 Resurrection and ordo salutis .................................................................259 Life-Giving Union and Forensic Justification ........................................265 Ordo Salutis and the Eucharistic Body ...................................................286 The Holy Spirit and Time .......................................................................292 iv CONCLUSION: SPIRIT, EUCHARIST AND CHURCH .................................298 BIBLIOGRAPHY ...............................................................................................310 v Preface Reformed Protestants typically don’t have Lord’s Supper experiences. In my case it should be even less likely since I became a Christian through non-church attending Pentecostals and learned early in my Christian life that the most exciting works of the Spirit generally happen outside the visible church. Yet it was weekly participation in the Lord’s Supper that was the spiritual breakthrough of my adult life. It was at the Lord’s Supper that I experienced in the most palpable way justification by grace through faith alone. What I discovered in the bodily act of taking communion, to my surprise, was a deeper experience of this grace which had eluded me for years. As a young Christian I desired to find something in the celebration of the Supper. There were times when I withheld my participation because of feelings of guilt for sin. I often meditated on the theological meaning of the symbols of bread and wine. I was trained to think that the spiritual key to the Supper was in the sincere genuflection and moral probity that I brought to the table. It was largely up to me to make it into a meaningful spiritual experience. My breakthrough to grace happened when I realized that what was most significant about the Supper was not what I brought to the table, but what I received there. It did not matter if I had an experience, an “ah ha” moment, or felt my heart strangely warmed—what mattered was the promise that in partaking of bread and wine, alongside Christian brothers and sisters, Christ
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