Worship, Revised and Expanded Edition: Reformed according to Scripture

by Hughes Oliphant Old

Another feature of Vermigli’s sacramental theology is his profound appreciation of the biblical theology of thanksgiving. Vermigli liked to use the word eucharist in referring to the sacrament, because that word emphasized that the Lord’s Supper is a feast of praise and thanksgiving. As Vermigli understood it, one of the cardinal actions of the liturgy is the eucharistic prayer, in which the church gives thanks in joyful profusion for God’s mighty acts of creation and redemption. Vermigli, like the other Reformers, very much opposed making the sacrament into a sacrifice. To be sure, the sacrament is a memorial and a thanksgiving for Christ’s sacrifice. To be sure, Christians, having received the benefits of Christ’s sacrifice, owe to God the sacrifice of thanksgiving and the offering of their lives to his service, but it is by Christ’s sacrifice alone that our salvation has been won. Vermigli distinguished carefully between a propitiatory sacrifice that saves us from our sins and a eucharistic sacrifice that gives thanks to God for the salvation God has already granted us.