This Is My Body: The Presence of Christ in Reformation Thought

by Thomas J. Davis

Overview

There are many general surveys of the Reformation available, and they all typically devote some space to how theologians such as Martin Luther and John Calvin understood the Lord's Supper and Christ's presence in the bread and wine. However, they usually do not provide a great deal of detail about the development of the Reformers' thoughts or the finer elements of their respective opinions.

This volume by Thomas Davis fills these gaps with a more narrowly focused study. He devotes several chapters to Luther and to Calvin, examining their use of language and their understanding of the presence of Christ, both in the Lord's Supper and in the broader sense of his presence in the church.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780801032455
Publisher:	Baker Publishing Group
Publication date:	08/01/2008
Pages:	224
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

Thomas J. Davis (PhD, University of Chicago) is professor of religious studies at Indiana University-Purdue University, Indianapolis. He is the author of six books, including "The Clearest Promises of God: The Development of Calvin's Eucharistic Teaching," and has produced dozens of scholarly articles and presentations.

Table of Contents

Introduction
1. "His Completely Trustworthy Testament": The Development of Luther's Early Eucharistic Teaching, 1517-1521
2. "The Truth of the Divine Words": Luther's Sermons on the Eucharist, 1521-1528, and the Structure of Eucharistic Meaning
3. "An Intermediate Brilliance": The Words of Institution and the Gift of Knowledge in Calvin's Eucharistic Theology
4. Not "Hidden and Far Off": The Bodily Aspect of Salvation and Its Implications for Understanding the Body in Calvin's Theology
5. Preaching and Presence: Constructing Calvin's Homiletic Legacy
6. Reflections on a Mirror: Calvin's Preaching on Preaching (Deuteronomy 5)
7. "He Is Outwith the World . . . That He May Fill All Things": Calvin's Exegesis of the Ascension and Its Relation to the Eucharist
8. The Communication of Efficacy: Calvin's 1 Corinthians Commentary and the Development of the Institutes
9. Discerning the Body: The Eucharist and the Christian Social Body in Sixteenth-Century Protestant Exegesis
10. Hardened Hearts, Hardened Words: Calvin, Beza, and the Trajectory of Signification