When we come together to worship, we worship with hurting people. Some are sick. Some are grieving. Some are struggling to support their families. Some have no family. But too often, we take no notice of these things. We are too worried about our own problems to concern ourselves with the problems of others. Calvin reminds us, however, that when one member of the body is in pain, it affects the whole body. When we come together for the Lord’s Supper, it should remind us of the oneness of the body and spur us to compassion that we might do what we can to share the burdens of our brothers and sisters in Christ.

We shall benefit very much from the Sacrament if this thought is impressed and engraved upon our minds: that none of the brethren can be injured, despised, rejected, abused, or in any way offended by us, without at the same time, injuring, despising, and abusing Christ by the wrongs we do; that we cannot disagree with our brethren without at the same time disagreeing with Christ; that we cannot love Christ without loving him in the brethren; that we ought to take the same care of our brethren’s bodies as we take of our own; for they are members of our body; and that, as no part of our body is touched by any feeling of pain which is not spread among all the rest, so we ought not to allow a brother to be affected by any evil, without being touched with compassion for him. Accordingly, Augustine with good reason frequently calls this Sacrament ‘the bond of love.’”¹

For John Calvin, the primary benefit of the Lord’s Supper is that it strengthens our faith and our union with Christ. Communion with Christ, however, cannot be separated from the communion of the saints. Following Augustine, Calvin spoke of this “horizontal” aspect of the Lord’s Supper as “the bond of love.” The Supper is something that is to unite believers and encourage them to love one another. Paul tells us that Christ has only one body of which He makes us all partakers; therefore, we are all one body (1 Cor. 10:17).

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