Keith A. Mathison’s Given for You: Reclaiming Calvin’s Doctrine of the Lord’s Supper explains Calvin’s doctrine of the Eucharist, chronicles how Reformed churches have moved from Calvin, and the Biblical basis for the historic Reformed understanding. Mathison divides his work into three sections: history of the doctrine, Biblical witness, and theological/practical issues.
The largest section is the first where he shows several Reformed theologians of the 16th through 20th centuries on the subject of the Eucharist. The authors shows that there were two Reformed views in the time of the Reformation, that of John Calvin and Heinrich Bullinger. (Zwingli’s views were not widely received after his death.) Bullinger’s view were similar to his predecessor, Zwingli, but there were several important differences that brought Bullinger’s mature thought closer to Calvin. (Cf. The Second Helvetic Confession.) Through the centuries Reformed theologians moved from the Reformed consensus on the supper held by Calvin, Bucer, Beza, Martyr, and others. Beginning in the 17th century, theologians began to hold more subjective views on the Supper; this trend continued in the 18th century with Edwards and others, and in the 19th century Calvin’s view of Holy Communion reached a nadir as many theologians (e.g., Hodge and Dabney) expressed explicitly Zwinglian views. Mathison notes that in 20th century the Reformed Church has moved closer to the doctrine of Calvin, if (in some instances) only by republishing Bullinger’s thoughts as mediated through Turretin.
In the second section, Mathison discusses the Biblical doctrine of the Lord’s Supper. He starts in the Old Testament, ‘To fully understand the new covenant sacrament of the Eucharist, it must be understood in the context of its old covenant types and shadows. (p. 179)’ By examining the Passover we can grasp a context for the Lord’s Supper. The book discusses not only the Exodus accounts but discusses the covenant and community. Particular attention is given to the accounts of the prophets. In the New Testament there are four accounts of the Lord’s Supper (the Synoptics and 1 Corinthians). Mathison discusses each of them and how they illustrate aspects of the teaching of the Eucharist.
The last section deals with theological and practical issues. The author briefly discusses other views of the Eucharist (Roman, Lutheran, memorialism) and proposes the name suprasubstantiation for the Reformed view. In his chapter on practical issues he discusses frequency, the use of grape juice, and pædocommunion.
Overall I thought the book was good but Keith Mathison did leave some questions unanswered and some issues unclear. He did not explain well Calvin’s belief of the sacraments as instruments. At times, he also seems to make Holy Communion equal to the preached Word and not as the Reformers would put it, ‘an appendix’. While he probably does not intend this, he does not discuss the relation of the Word to Sacrament explicitly in the book. His strong point is that he succinctly shows the history of the doctrine of the Eucharist in Reformed circles. He even includes a section on the doctrine in pre-Reformation Christianity.
