the geneva catechism 4 (continued)
To signify that as it is the particular virtue of bread to nourish our bodies, to refresh and sustain us in this mortal life, so it pertains to His body to act toward our souls, i.e., in nourishing and quickening them spiritually, so His blood is our joy, our refreshing and our spiritual strength.
342. Do you mean that we must truly communicate in the body and blood of the Lord? I understand so. But since the whole affiance of our salvation rests in the obedience which He has rendered to God, His Father, in order that it may be imputed to us as if it were ours, we must possess Him: for His blessings are not ours, unless He gives Himself to us first.
343. But did He not give Himself to us when He exposed Himself to death, to reconcile us to God His Father, and deliver us from damnation? That is true; but it is not enough for us unless we receive Him, in order that we may feel in ourselves the fruit and the efficacy of His death and passion.
344. Is not the way to receive Him by faith? Yes. Not only in believing that He died and rose again, in order to deliver us from eternal death, and acquire life for us, but also that He dwells in us, and conjoined with us in a union as the Head with the members, that by virtue of this conjunction He may make us partakers of all His grace.
345. Does this communion take place apart from the Supper alone? Yes, indeed, we have it through the Gospel, as St. Paul declares (I Cor. 1:9): in that the Lord Jesus Christ promises us in it, that we are flesh of His flesh and bone of His bone (Eph. 5:30), that He is that living bread which came down from heaven to nourish our souls (John 6:51), and that we are one with Him, as He is one with the Father (John 17:21).
346. What is the blessing that we have in the Sacrament, and what more does it minister to us? This communion is more abundantly confirmed in us, ratified as it were, for although Jesus Christ is truly communicated to us both by Baptism and by the Gospel, nevertheless this only in part, and not fully.
347. What then fully do we have through the sign of the bread? That the body of the Lord Jesus which was once offered to reconcile us to