Ronald Wallace notes that the response of the believing individual to the Church is seen by Calvin as identical to responding to Christ. This is affirmed by Calvin in his Commentary on Isaiah 45:14:
When he says that the Israelites shall be victorious over all the nations, this depends on the mutual relation between the [...]
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[In baptism] the infant, a silent preacher of the doctrine of St. Paul, cannot even appear to be performing a work of righteousness, it only “suffers the divine love.” The child of nature’s womb has first of all to be re-formed in the Church’s womb, elevated to the point of being able to have a [...]
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I recently presented (in class) a study concerning the placement of Thomas Aquinas and John Calvin within Henri de Lubac’s historical scheme (in his Corpus Mysticum). I concluded that they were men of there times but that they both retained a strong ecclesiology. I also concluded the following: Neither Thomas nor Calvin believed Christ’s presence [...]
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Calvin affirms that God is not a deceiver,
… God does not sport with us by unmeaning figures, but inwardly accomplishes by his power what he exhibits by the outward sign. (Calvin’s Commentary on Titus 3:5).
Christians are to trust that the sign actually signifies something, whether the sign be bread and wine or the church body [...]
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‘They drank,’ he [Paul] said, ‘of the spiritual Rock that followed them, and that rock was Christ.” Thus the bread, thus the drink. The rock was Christ in sign; the real Christ is in the Word and in flesh …. But this is what belongs to the virtue of the sacrament, not to the visible [...]
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