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Today’s Readings Podcast Description The Supper has two things: a sign the eye can hold, and a truth the sign both figures and gives. Calvin names three parts—promise, matter, effect. The matter is Christ himself, dead and risen. The effect is every blessing that flows from being one body with him. Superstition then binds him to the crumb. Rome would have the body locally present, taken in the hand, chewed, swallowed. The human body of Christ is in heaven until he comes. There is no need to drag it under corruptible elements. The Spirit is the channel. The Schoolmen speak more softly and still hide him under the leftover colour of bread. Transubstantiation is late. The Fathers used “conversion” to say that consecrated bread is no longer common food, not that the bread has vanished. Baptism is called a conversion too, and the water remains water. If the sign is only a mask, the analogy dies. True bread must stand for a true body, or the sacrament itself is lost. ### Today’s Readings: John Calvin — Institutes of the Christian Religion, Book 4, Chapter 17, Sections 11–14 --- ### Explore the Project: Through the Church Fathers – https://www.throughthechurchfathers.com Patreon – https://www.patreon.com/cmichaelpatton Credo Courses – https://www.credocourses.com Credo Ministries – https://www.credoministries.org Donate toward publishing Through the Church Fathers in a Year – https://www.credoministries.org (click “Donate”) #ThroughTheChurchFathers #JohnCalvin #Institutes #LordsSupper #Transubstantiation #RealPresence #Sacrament #Communion #Berengarius

Today’s Readings Podcast Description Augustine said we eat by believing. Calvin grants the point and then presses it. Faith does not gaze at a distant Christ. Faith joins head and members. Chrysostom will not let “faith” mean a mere picture in the mind: Christ makes us his body in reality. Some stop at a share in the Spirit and never mention flesh and blood. Then why did he call his flesh meat indeed? Life was in the Word from the beginning. That life took flesh so that alienated men might find the fountain in their own nature. His flesh is not life of itself. It is a conduit. Water does not irrigate the field of its own motion; it is drawn from the spring. So the Godhead pours life into the flesh he assumed, and from that flesh into us. Distance of place is no barrier. The Spirit unites what space divides. The bread is a symbol, not an empty one. God does not hold out a lie. Today’s Readings: John Calvin — Institutes of the Christian Religion, Book 4, Chapter 17, Sections 6–10 --- Explore the Project: Through the Church Fathers – https://www.throughthechurchfathers.com Patreon – https://www.patreon.com/cmichaelpatton Credo Courses – https://www.credocourses.com Credo Ministries – https://www.credoministries.org Donate toward publishing Through the Church Fathers in a Year – https://www.credoministries.org (click “Donate”) #ThroughTheChurchFathers #JohnCalvin #Institutes #LordsSupper #RealPresence #Communion #FleshAndBlood #HolySpirit #Sacrament

Today’s Readings Podcast Description Baptism brings us into the house. The Supper keeps us fed. The Father will not treat sons as hired servants. He gives a pledge of ongoing care: bread and wine as the figure of a food the eye cannot see. The end of the mystery is this: the body once broken is still our meat, the blood once shed is still our drink. The energy of the sacrament sits in two phrases—broken for you, shed for you. The wondrous exchange follows: he became the Son of Man that we might become sons of God; he took our death and gave us his life. The signs must not be torn from what they mean, nor praised until the mystery itself is hidden. Some say to eat his flesh is only to believe. Calvin grants that there is no eating but by faith. He will not grant that eating is faith. Faith is the hand. Eating is what the hand receives. Christ’s life passes into us as bread passes into the body. Today’s Readings: John Calvin — Institutes of the Christian Religion, Book 4, Chapter 17, Sections 1–5 Explore the Project: Through the Church Fathers – https://www.throughthechurchfathers.com Patreon – https://www.patreon.com/cmichaelpatton Credo Courses – https://www.credocourses.com Credo Ministries – https://www.credoministries.org Donate toward publishing Through the Church Fathers in a Year – https://www.credoministries.org (click “Donate”) #ThroughTheChurchFathers #JohnCalvin #Institutes #LordsSupper #Eucharist #Sacrament #Communion #LivingBread #WondrousExchange

Today’s Readings Podcast Description Servetus heaps argument on argument against infant baptism. Perfect signs require perfect people. The wrath of God abides on those who do not believe. Spiritual things are for the spiritual. Harvest is the only season. Disciples and Christians are the same name. He even calls Trismegistus and the Sibyls to the font. Calvin answers one by one. Perfection in baptism is a lifelong progress, not a single hour. Examination belongs to the Supper, not to baptism. Christ blesses infants; those he blesses are not under the curse. The usual way of faith is hearing; God is not forbidden another way with those too young to hear. Cornelius received the Spirit first; the eunuch and the Samaritans received the water first. One instance is not a law. The last stroke is pastoral. Satan’s aim in this quarrel is to hide the father’s care that outlives the parent and still claims the child. Present the infants. He has already given them a place among his friends. ### Today’s Readings: John Calvin — Institutes of the Christian Religion, Book 4, Chapter 16, Sections 31–32 --- ### Explore the Project: Through the Church Fathers – https://www.throughthechurchfathers.com Patreon – https://www.patreon.com/cmichaelpatton Credo Courses – https://www.credocourses.com Credo Ministries – https://www.credoministries.org Donate toward publishing Through the Church Fathers in a Year – https://www.credoministries.org (click “Donate”) #ThroughTheChurchFathers #JohnCalvin #Institutes #Paedobaptism #Servetus #Anabaptists #InfantBaptism #Covenant #Baptism

Today’s Readings Podcast Description “Go, teach, baptise” is a charge to gather those who can hear the gospel. Baptism is appended to that preaching. There is not a syllable in the discourse about infants. A rule spoken to adults is not a fence against children. To starve an infant because Paul said those who will not work should not eat is the same kind of wresting. Christ waited until thirty because that was the opening of his public ministry, not a legal age for the font. Servetus himself broke his own rule. Baptism and the Supper are not the same door. Baptism is entrance and new birth. The Supper requires examination, discernment of the body, and a showing forth of the Lord’s death. Infants cannot do that. Circumcision was given to infants; the passover waited until a child could ask what it meant. The early Church sometimes gave the cup to infants. The practice justly ceased. One sign initiates. The other feeds those who can remember. ### Today’s Readings: John Calvin — Institutes of the Christian Religion, Book 4, Chapter 16, Sections 28–30 --- ### Explore the Project: Through the Church Fathers – https://www.throughthechurchfathers.com Patreon – https://www.patreon.com/cmichaelpatton Credo Courses – https://www.credocourses.com Credo Ministries – https://www.credoministries.org Donate toward publishing Through the Church Fathers in a Year – https://www.credoministries.org (click “Donate”) #ThroughTheChurchFathers #JohnCalvin #Institutes #Paedobaptism #LordsSupper #Baptism #Passover #Circumcision #GreatCommission

Today’s Readings Podcast Description If baptism is for the remission of sins, infants need it from the womb. They are born sinners. God does not shut that age out of mercy; the lesser thing, the sign, should not be withheld. The Church Christ washes includes those he calls heirs of the kingdom. Adult converts must repent and believe first: Peter to the crowd, Philip to the eunuch, John to those who confessed. Abraham believed, then was circumcised. Isaac received the sign before he understood. The child of believers is in the covenant by hereditary right. The child of unbelievers is an alien until faith unites him. “Born of water and the Spirit” is not a baptismal order of words. Water is the Spirit’s own work, as fire is in John’s saying. To damn all the unbaptised is to condemn the youth who dies waiting for the font, and to consign every infant to death against Christ’s “of such is the kingdom.” “Teach and baptise” is not the first institution. Christ had already ordered baptism from the beginning of his ministry. Word order is not a fence around the covenant. Today’s Readings: John Calvin — Institutes of the Christian Religion, Book 4, Chapter 16, Sections 22–27 --- Explore the Project: Through the Church Fathers – https://www.throughthechurchfathers.com Patreon – https://www.patreon.com/cmichaelpatton Credo Courses – https://www.credocourses.com Credo Ministries – https://www.credoministries.org Donate toward publishing Through the Church Fathers in a Year – https://www.credoministries.org (click “Donate”) #ThroughTheChurchFathers #JohnCalvin #Institutes #Paedobaptism #Baptism #CovenantChildren #Nicodemus #GreatCommission #InfantBaptism

Today’s Readings Podcast Description Leave infants as sons of Adam, and you leave them in death. In Adam all die. Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom. If any who die in earliest infancy are saved, they were first regenerated. That work is beyond our capacity. It is not therefore null. John was filled with the Spirit before birth. Christ himself was sanctified from infancy, that he might sanctify the elect at any age. Hearing is the usual way of faith, not the only way. God has called many by the inward light of the Spirit. Calvin will not rashly say that infants have the same faith we know. He will not let men fence in what God may do. Circumcision was already a seal of the righteousness of faith, and it was given to infants. They received it for a mortification they would later pursue. Children are baptised for future repentance and faith; the seed of both is hid by the Spirit. The sign may precede the full understanding. What is required now is that the covenant be sealed. The rest follows in God’s time. ### Today’s Readings: John Calvin — Institutes of the Christian Religion, Book 4, Chapter 16, Sections 17–21 --- ### Explore the Project: Through the Church Fathers – https://www.throughthechurchfathers.com Patreon – https://www.patreon.com/cmichaelpatton Credo Courses – https://www.credocourses.com Credo Ministries – https://www.credoministries.org Donate toward publishing Through the Church Fathers in a Year – https://www.credoministries.org (click “Donate”) #ThroughTheChurchFathers #JohnCalvin #Institutes #Paedobaptism #Regeneration #InfantFaith #Covenant #Baptism #Circumcision

Today’s Readings Podcast Description There is a spark of truth in saying that Abraham’s children are now those who share his faith. The error is to stop there and deny that the spiritual promise was ever made to his carnal seed. God said he would be a God to Abraham and to his seed. Those who receive Christ inherit that word; that does not empty the word spoken over infants in the household of faith. Abraham is father of the uncircumcised believer and father of circumcision. The wall came down; baptism took the place of the old seal. Ishmael and Esau prove that flesh does not save. They do not prove that flesh means nothing. The gifts and calling of God are without repentance. Peter still says, “The promise is unto you and to your children.” Christ is a minister of the circumcision to confirm the promises made to the fathers—not as allegory. Forced contrasts between the first day and the eighth day contradict themselves. Fix on what is the same: office, promise, use, and effect. ### Today’s Readings: John Calvin — Institutes of the Christian Religion, Book 4, Chapter 16, Sections 12–16 --- ### Explore the Project: Through the Church Fathers – https://www.throughthechurchfathers.com Patreon – https://www.patreon.com/cmichaelpatton Credo Courses – https://www.credocourses.com Credo Ministries – https://www.credoministries.org Donate toward publishing Through the Church Fathers in a Year – https://www.credoministries.org (click “Donate”) #ThroughTheChurchFathers #JohnCalvin #Institutes #Paedobaptism #Abraham #Covenant #Circumcision #Baptism #Election

Today’s Readings Podcast Description Christ does not baptise the children in his arms. He receives them, blesses them, and says the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these. If they may be brought to him, why may they not receive the sign of communion with him? The Evangelists call them βρέφη καὶ παιδία—infants still at the breast. “Of such” includes the infants themselves, not only those who resemble them. That no infant baptism is named in Acts does not exclude it. Households are baptised; women are never named at the Table, yet no one bars them from the Supper. The end of the ordinance decides who may receive it. The sign on the child seals the parent’s promise and marks the child as adopted before he can name his Father. To treat Israel’s covenant as only land and livestock is to turn the fathers into swine fattened for a season. Colossians joins circumcision without hands to burial in baptism. One mystery. Two signs. The earthly gifts confirmed a hope that was already eternal. ### Today’s Readings: John Calvin — Institutes of the Christian Religion, Book 4, Chapter 16, Sections 7–11 --- ### Explore the Project: Through the Church Fathers – https://www.throughthechurchfathers.com Patreon – https://www.patreon.com/cmichaelpatton Credo Courses – https://www.credocourses.com Credo Ministries – https://www.credoministries.org Donate toward publishing Through the Church Fathers in a Year – https://www.credoministries.org (click “Donate”) #ThroughTheChurchFathers #JohnCalvin #Institutes #Paedobaptism #InfantBaptism #Covenant #Circumcision #Baptism #LittleChildren

Paedobaptism is attacked as a human invention with no word of God to hang on. Calvin answers by refusing to stop at the water. A sacrament lives by the promise it seals. Circumcision already carried that promise: God would be a God to Abraham and to his seed; sins forgiven; the heart circumcised by grace; Christ the foundation. Baptism now does the same office. The ceremony changed. The covenant did not. If infants under the old sign were given the reality, they cannot be refused the new figure. The word of the covenant is for them; the sign is only its appendage. To say Christ narrowed the grace once given to Jewish children is to insult the brighter revelation he brought. One believing parent still marks a holy seed. The mode of sealing differs. The reason for sealing does not. Today’s Readings: John Calvin — Institutes of the Christian Religion, Book 4, Chapter 16, Sections 1–6 Help Publish Through the Church Fathers in a Year I’m working toward publishing Through the Church Fathers in a Year beginning next year, with each year taking us through a different group of Church Fathers. If you already support me through Patreon, thank you. You are already helping make this work possible, and my patrons will be acknowledged generally in the books. If you would like to help specifically with the costs of editing, design, formatting, copyright, and publication, you can make a tax-deductible donation through Credo Ministries. Those who give toward the publishing project will also have the opportunity to be acknowledged in the books at different levels of support. Donate here: https://www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=XXKR2UJ5ED8VS You can also go to CredoMinistries.org and click “Donate.” A PayPal account is not required. Explore the Project: Through the Church Fathers – https://www.throughthechurchfathers.com Patreon – https://www.patreon.com/cmichaelpatton Credo Courses – https://www.credocourses.com Credo Ministries – https://www.credoministries.org #ThroughTheChurchFathers #JohnCalvin #Institutes #Paedobaptism #InfantBaptism #Circumcision #Covenant #Baptism #AbrahamicCovenant

Today’s Readings Podcast Description Leave the pomp. Water, the Name, the promises, the prayers of the Church: that is Christ’s institution. Taper, chrism, exorcism, and spittle bury it. Immersion or sprinkling is not the point. Churches may use either. What is not indifferent is who baptises. The office belongs to those Christ sent, not to any private person, and not to women even in supposed necessity. Augustine doubted the emergency practice. Carthage forbade women without exception. Zipporah is no precedent. She acted in passion, under the eye of Moses. The dogma that none are saved who miss the water makes the New Testament poorer than the Old. Before the eighth day the promise already saved. Children of believers belong to the body of Christ by the covenant first; the sign seals what was already theirs. If the sign is omitted without sloth or contempt, they are not shut out of the kingdom. Grace is not chained to the element. ### Today’s Readings: John Calvin — Institutes of the Christian Religion, Book 4, Chapter 15, Sections 19–22 --- ### Explore the Project: Through the Church Fathers – https://www.throughthechurchfathers.com Patreon – https://www.patreon.com/cmichaelpatton Credo Courses – https://www.credocourses.com Credo Ministries – https://www.credoministries.org #ThroughTheChurchFathers #JohnCalvin #Institutes #Baptism #InfantBaptism #Covenant #ChurchOrder #Sacraments

Today’s Readings Podcast Description Cornelius already had the Spirit when he was baptised. He was not seeking a new pardon, but a pledge. Ananias told Paul to wash away his sins by baptism: receive the promise and be secure. The sign is nothing without faith; with faith it is God’s own seal. The worth of baptism does not rise or fall with the minister. A letter is valid if the hand and seal are the king’s, whoever the messenger may be. Donatists and Catabaptists measure the sacrament by the man. We were baptised into the name of the Father, the Son, and the Spirit—not into the ignorance of those who poured the water. Unbelief can bury the promise for years. It cannot cancel it. God remains true though every man is a liar. Josiah did not recircumcise Israel. He called them to a new heart. Paul did not rebaptise the disciples at Ephesus. He laid on hands, and the visible gifts of the Spirit came. If every later correction of ignorance required another washing, no rivers would suffice. ### Today’s Readings: John Calvin — Institutes of the Christian Religion, Book 4, Chapter 15, Sections 15–18 --- ### Explore the Project: Through the Church Fathers – https://www.throughthechurchfathers.com Patreon – https://www.patreon.com/cmichaelpatton Credo Courses – https://www.credocourses.com Credo Ministries – https://www.credoministries.org #ThroughTheChurchFathers #JohnCalvin #Institutes #Baptism #Donatists #Anabaptism #PromiseOfGod #Sacraments #Faith

Today’s Readings Podcast Description A larger gift of the Spirit after the resurrection does not make a second baptism. Ministers still give water. Christ alone gives the Spirit. Whoever baptises, Christ presides. Israel was baptised in the cloud and in the sea: Pharaoh drowned, yet still on the shore; the cloud covering them from the heat. So baptism promises that our Pharaoh is drowned, though he still threatens, and that we are covered from wrath by the blood of Christ. Baptism does not restore Adam’s nature. Original sin remains a seed. What is withdrawn is condemnation. Righteousness in this life is by imputation. Concupiscence is not extinguished until death. It is not to reign. We are on the way. Paul groans under the body of death and then says there is now no condemnation to those in Christ. Baptism is also our confession before men: we have sworn allegiance. Receive the sign as from Christ’s own hand. In the water see the thing signified. He does what he figures. ### Today’s Readings: John Calvin — Institutes of the Christian Religion, Book 4, Chapter 15, Sections 8–14 --- ### Explore the Project: Through the Church Fathers – https://www.throughthechurchfathers.com Patreon – https://www.patreon.com/cmichaelpatton Credo Courses – https://www.credocourses.com Credo Ministries – https://www.credoministries.org #ThroughTheChurchFathers #JohnCalvin #Institutes #Baptism #OriginalSin #Mortification #Romans #ConfessionOfFaith #Sacraments

Today’s Readings Podcast Description Baptism is the initiatory sign by which we are admitted to the Church and accounted children of God. It is not a soldier’s badge first. It is a sealed instrument that our sins are covered and will never be imputed. Water does not save. It seals the gospel that announces washing by the blood of Christ. The washing is once for the whole of life. When we fall we do not seek another sacrament. We remember our baptism. The keys do not replace it; they preach what baptism already signs. A second benefit is mortification and new life: we are buried with Christ and raised to walk in newness of life. A third is union with Christ himself. We put him on. John’s baptism was not another baptism. Same doctrine, same repentance, same remission. He pointed to the Lamb who was coming; the apostles pointed to the Lamb who had come. ### Today’s Readings: John Calvin — Institutes of the Christian Religion, Book 4, Chapter 15, Sections 1–7 --- ### Explore the Project: Through the Church Fathers – https://www.throughthechurchfathers.com Patreon – https://www.patreon.com/cmichaelpatton Credo Courses – https://www.credocourses.com Credo Ministries – https://www.credoministries.org #ThroughTheChurchFathers #JohnCalvin #Institutes #Baptism #RemissionOfSins #UnionWithChrist #JohnTheBaptist #Sacraments

Today’s Readings Podcast Description Does Paul set baptism above circumcision when he speaks of the circumcision of the letter? Calvin says the same could be said of baptism. God regards no external washing unless the mind is purified. Circumcision made with hands is set aside only because, after Christ, the shadow must yield to the reality. The Colossians were buried with Christ by baptism: that is now what circumcision was then. “Shadows of things to come” names the mode of signifying, not emptiness. Until Christ appeared in the flesh, the signs pointed to him as still expected. Separated from him they are null. Augustine’s high praise of our sacraments is hyperbole of presence, not a different power. The fathers drank the same spiritual drink. The rock was Christ; what is set on the altar is Christ. The opus operatum is foreign to the nature of a sacrament. Believers bring nothing. They beg. ### Today’s Readings: John Calvin — Institutes of the Christian Religion, Book 4, Chapter 14, Sections 24–26 --- ### Explore the Project: Through the Church Fathers – https://www.throughthechurchfathers.com Patreon – https://www.patreon.com/cmichaelpatton Credo Courses – https://www.credocourses.com Credo Ministries – https://www.credoministries.org #ThroughTheChurchFathers #JohnCalvin #Institutes #Sacraments #Baptism #Circumcision #Augustine #OpusOperatum #Christ