Category: Sacraments

This is from some Baptist Minister in Houston Texas serving at a Mega Church. Like most mega Churches the ministers are long on feel goods and short on doctrine. His name is Rev. L. David Fairchild.

Fairchild writes;

“The fatal flaw in paedobaptism is that it treats the New Covenant like the Old. A mixed bag. Some believe, some do not. But that is not how the Bible describes it. Jeremiah 31 and Hebrews 8 are clear. The New Covenant is made with those who know God. Who have been forgiven. Who have the Spirit. That is not a crowd you get into by birth. That is a regenerate people.

BLMc responds,

This would be true if it were not the case that the Old Covenant is like the New Covenant. The only difference is that the Old Covenant is the New Covenant not yet come to full flower. The Old Covenant is the not yet mature New Covenant.

That the New Covenant is like the Old Covenant in that both covenant are a mixed bad is seen in the fact that in the Old Covenant not all of Israel was of Israel as the Holy Spirit says in Romans 9. Some of Israel belonged to the outward administration of the covenant without having the essence of the covenant. In the same way the New Covenant is a mixed bag. We see this for example in Jesus warnings in Revelation to the seven churches that He would take their lampstands away if they were not faithful. We see this in the book of Hebrews with the warnings against falling away. We see this when John says of unregenerate people of the Church;

“They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us; but they went out that they might be made manifest, that none of them were of us.”  I John 2:19

Then there is the Wheat and Tares parable that many a theologian has seen being about the Church having in it both wheat and tares.

So Fairchild’s idea that the New Covenant is comprised only of regenerate people is just a Baptist assumption with no foundation. Now, it is true that the essence of the New Covenant, who is Jesus the Christ, is only occupied by the regenerate but there are many people who are in the administrative outskirts of the New Covenant who do not have the essence of the New Covenant who will say on that day …

22  Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? 23 And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity. Matthew 7

So, clearly it is a Baptist interpretive mistake to say that only regenerate people are in the boundaries of the New Covenant. It has always been the case, both in the Old Covenant and the New Covenant that not all of Israel is of Israel.

In terms of Fairchild’s appeal to the language of Jeremiah and Hebrews Calvin easily dismisses Fairchild’s mis-interpretative ravings on this score;

“It may be asked, whether there was under the Law (Old Covenant) a sure and certain promise of salvation, whether the fathers had the gift of the Spirit, whether they enjoyed God’s paternal favor through the remission of sins? Yes, it is evident that they worshipped God with a sincere heart and a pure conscience, and that they walked in his commandments, and this could not have been the case except they had been inwardly taught by the Spirit; and it is also evident, that whenever they thought of their sins, they were raised up by the assurance of a gratuitous pardon. And yet the Apostle, by referring the prophecy of Jeremiah to the coming of Christ, seems to rob them of these blessings. To this I reply, that he does not expressly deny that God formerly wrote his Law on their hearts and pardoned their sins, but he makes a comparison between the less and the greater. As then the Father has put forth more fully the power of his Spirit under the kingdom of Christ, and has poured forth more abundantly his mercy on mankind, this exuberance renders insignificant the small portion of grace which he had been pleased to bestow on the fathers. We also see that the promises were then obscure and intricate, so that they shone only like the moon and stars in comparison with the clear light of the Gospel which shines brightly on us.”

Calvin’s Commentary
Hebrews 8

L. David Fairchild writes,

“So baptizing someone with no faith, no regeneration, and no profession, like an infant, just does not fit. It breaks the meaning of baptism from the inside out.”

BLMc responds,

In point of fact since regeneration & justification are all God’s work with man contributing nothing baptizing infants is a perfect picture of God doing all the doing in saving helpless man. What Fairchild has done here is what all Baptists do. Fairchild has turned man’s faith into a work that he has to exchange as a work to trade in for salvation. This is justification by faith as a work alone. It is not a particularly Christian doctrine but really does lead back to some kind of pelagian arrangement. Of course it is the Baptist who breaks the meaning of Baptism from the inside out and turns the grace of God into something that is only gracious upon man’s trading up faith for grace.

L. David Fairchild;

I know the argument. Circumcision was the sign of the Old, baptism is the sign of the New. But that logic only works if the covenant structure stays the same. And it doesn’t. The Old Covenant was temporary. Shadows and types. The New Covenant is the real thing. It is better. It doesn’t just get a new sign. It has new membership. Baptism isn’t a repackaged circumcision. It’s the sign of a new creation.

BLMc responds,

1.) This reveals the Baptist propensity to assume discontinuity between the covenants. The Reformed, on the other hand, are disposed to seeing continuity between Old and New Covenant unless explicitly told of discontinuity such as the end of the sacrificial system and the ceremonial law.

2.) To deny that there is sameness between the Old Covenant and the New Covenant suggests that

a.) God isn’t immutable but changes between Old Covenant and New Covenant. This is a serious theological problem. If there is as much change between Old Covenant and New Covenant such as Baptists like Fairchild is positing then we really have a different God in the OT then we have in the NT. This is a problem.

b.) the Old Testament believers were not saved by grace alone just as the New Testament believers are saved. This Baptist thinking posits that the OT saints if saved were saved by a different kind of salvation then the salvation by which the saints are saved by with the coming of the magnificent Jesus Christ.

c.) The reason there is a new sign for the new and better covenant is because the Lord Christ fulfills all the blood shedding required in the old covenant and so the water of Baptism is given as a sign of forgiveness. However, Baptism signifies just what circumcision signified in the Old Covenant. This explains why it is St. Paul seems to mix his circumcision and baptism metaphors in Colossians 2;

¹¹ In Him you were also circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body ^[h]of the sins of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, ¹² buried with Him in baptism, in which you also were raised with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead.

The New Covenant has come with Christ and so circumcision is no longer the sign of the covenant as was the case when the Messiah was only anticipated. The reality is that the Old Covenant promised is now realized with the coming of Christ and so the covenant sign that was both anticipatory and yet at the same time proleptic is set aside for the sign (Baptism) that the reality has come. However, inasmuch as the old covenant was a unfolding and growing reality serving as a proleptic harbinger of the new covenant the new covenant remains related to what the old covenant anticipated.

Fairchild writes,

The pattern in the New Testament is painfully obvious. Hear the gospel. Believe. Repent. Then be baptized. That’s it. Over and over. There isn’t one clear example of an infant being baptized. Not one command to do it. Every baptism you can point to involves someone responding to Christ in faith.

 BLM responds,

1.) The problem here is what St. Peter himself says in that Pentecost sermon;

“³⁸ Then Peter said to them, ‘Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the ^[k]remission of sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. ³⁹ For the promise is to you and to your children, and to all who are afar off, as many as the Lord our God will call.’”

Now, there is no way in Hades that a 1st century Jew would’ve heard these words and thought … “I can’t bring my children to be baptized.” It is just ridiculous to contend otherwise.

2.) We know from the NT record that the Jews howled and howled about the Gentiles coming in to the covenant and yet we are to believe that the Jews did not raise a peep about their children being excluded from the “new and better covenant.”

3.) There is an abundance of household baptisms in the NT. This gives us conclusive evidence that children should be given the sign of the covenant because household baptisms as practiced in the NT scream at us that if children had been present they would have been baptized since that was the very nature of NT Household baptisms.

4.) There also isn’t one clear command or example of women taking the Eucharist. Does that therefore mean that women today shouldn’t receive the Eucharist?

Baptist logic is so jejune.

Fairchild writes,

When you baptize someone who hasn’t believed, you confuse everything. You blur the line between the visible and invisible church. You give false assurance. You end up with churches full of people who think they’re Christian because water touched their forehead decades ago. That is not the gospel.

BLMc responds,

1.) Whenever Fairchild baptizes anybody he does not know they believe. I bet more Baptists have been baptized who never believed than Reformed Babies have been baptized who never believed.

2.) Who says that a baby can’t believe? John is recorded as leaping his mother’s womb for joy thus signifying his recognition of Jesus. The Psalmist (22) writes even;

9 Yet you brought me out of the womb;
    you made me trust in you, even at my mother’s breast.
¹⁰ From birth I was cast on you;
    from my mother’s womb you have been my God.

3.) How can Fairchild even talk about a distinction between the visible and invisible church when he has said that he holds that all in the church are regenerate. The whole distinction between visible and invisible church rests upon the reality that not all members who say they are regenerate are indeed regenerate.

4.) The whole idea that paedo-baptist churches give false assurance is just Baptist bloviating. As paedo-baptist churches routinely preach to their people the 1st use of the law there is no false assurance going on.

5.) If Baptists want to talk about false assurance being given they should worry about the false assurance that comes with telling their membership that they are all regenerate.

Fairchild writes,

If you baptize someone who cannot believe, then you either have to say baptism doesn’t mean what Scripture says it does, or that it does something magical without faith. That’s precisely how you slide into baptismal regeneration, whether you admit it or not.

BLMC responds

1.) Scripture does not teach that infants can’t believe. See above.

2.) No paedo-Baptist teaches the Roman Catholic/Lutheran doctrine of Baptismal regeneration. Fairchild writing this just demonstrates the man’s ignorance on the subject once again.

Claiming that  paedocommunion isn’t found in Reformed history, as some of the well intended Reformed harpie police will shriek isn’t true. The Reformed tradition drew from Augustine, who advocated for paedocommunion as quoted below. In point of fact paedocommunion was non-controversial in his day. The great forerunner of the Reformation, Hus, was a paedocommunion advocate. As quoted below, during the Reformation, Wolfgang Musculus also advocated for paedocommunion and Luther, as we see below, was at least open.

Paedocommunion is not some strange modification of Reformed theology. It is consistent with Reformational baptismal theology and covenant theology.

“Those who say that infancy has nothing in it for Jesus to save, are denying that Christ is Jesus for all believing infants. Those, I repeat, who say that infancy has nothing in it for Jesus to save, are saying nothing else than that for believing infants, infants that is who have been baptized in Christ, Christ the Lord is not Jesus. After all, what is Jesus? Jesus means Savior. Jesus is the Savior. Those whom he doesn’t save, having nothing to save in them, well for them he isn’t Jesus. Well now, if you can tolerate the idea that Christ is not Jesus for some persons who have been baptized, then I’m not sure your faith can be recognized as according with the sound rule. Yes, they’re infants, but they are his members. They’re infants, but they receive his sacraments. They are infants, but they share in his table, in order to have life in themselves.”

St. Augustine, Sermon 174, 7

(1) Those who possess the thing signified also have a right to the sign

(2) Children who can receive the grace of regeneration (as is evident from Baptism) can also be nurtured in their spiritual lives without their knowledge.

(3) Christ is the Savior of the whole church, including the children, and feeds and refreshes all of its members.

(4) The demand for self-examination (I Cor. 11:26-29) is not intended by the apostle as a universal requirement.

Wolfgang Musculus — Loci Communes
Second Generation Reformer

Luther considered communing children to be not necessary but also not sin. He offered here;

“[They] pretend that children, not as yet having reason, ought not to receive [the sacrament]. I answer: That reason in no way contributes to faith. Nay, in that children are destitute of reason, they are all the more fit and proper recipients of [the sacrament]. For reason is the greatest enemy that faith has: it never comes to the aid of spiritual things, but – more frequently than not – struggles against the Divine Word, treating with contempt all that emanates from God.”

Martin Luther

Going behind the Reformation we find the Apostolic Constitutions written not by the Apostles circa 380 AD. The Apostolic Constitutions would have been written during the lifetime of St. Augustine. In this early church liturgy document we read that the children are included among the faithful that remain and take communion after the readings. Others who are not initiated (baptized) are excluded and excused from the communion. A door-wathcher keeps non-initiated out.

“As to the children that stand [the infant children do not stand, but are among the initiated who are prepared for communion], let their fathers and mothers take them to themselves …. After this, let all rise up with one consent, and, looking towards the east, after the catechumens and the penitents are gone out, pray to God eastward, …. Then let the sacrifice follow, all the people standing, and praying silently; and, when the oblation hath been made, let every rank by itself partake of the Lord’s body and precious blood, in order, and approach with reverence and holy fear, as to the body of their King. Let the women approach with their heads covered, as is becoming the order of women. Moreover, let the door be watched, lest there come in any unbeliever, or one not yet initiated. P 65

Let no one eat of them that is not initiated; but those only who have been baptized into the death of the Lord [all that are baptized, to include infants and children] p.145

[nowhere are baptized children excluded from any part of the Lord’s Day communion.]

Of course forbidding the covenant children from the sacrament of communion exists upon the same logic of forbidding the covenant children from the sacrament of Baptism. This forbidding amounts to a halfway covenant. Covenant children are seen as having one foot in the covenant and one foot outside the covenant. They are akin to the actual splitting in half of the legendary Solomonic baby and those Presbyterian and Reformed who refuse to commune their children, themselves have one foot in and one foot outside the circle of being logically consistent.

If I were a Baptist today and if I were debating a Presbyterian on the issue of covenant I would be forever banging the Presbyterians over the head regarding their wet but unfed covenant children.

This is just one reason why we insist that putative Presbyterians today are “wet baby Baptists.”

 

Rev. Tim Bushong wrote,

ALL – covenant members ‘know the Lord,’ they are regenerate, have all their sins forgiven, and have God’s Law written on their hearts and minds, and all these blessings are a present reality for all of them, since “He always lives to make intercession for them.”

BLMc responds,

If all covenant members ‘know the Lord’ and are regenerate then why the warning

26 For if we sin willfully after we have received the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, 27 but a certain fearful expectation of judgment, and fiery indignation which will devour the adversaries. 28 Anyone who has rejected Moses’ law dies without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. 29 Of how much worse punishment, do you suppose, will he be thought worthy who has trampled the Son of God underfoot, counted the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified a common thing, and insulted the Spirit of grace?

Clearly, the warning implies that there are those who are in the outward administration of the covenant of grace but who may indeed not have the substance of the covenant (Christ.). All covenant members who have the essence of the covenant do indeed know the Lord but not all who are in the circumference of the covenant necessarily have the substance of the covenant and so need this warning in order that they may take seriously their covenant membership and so not abandon the faith. Those who have the substance of the covenant will take heed of this warning and not trample the Son of God underfoot. It still remains the case even in the Church that not all of Israel is of Israel; that is not all of the Church is of the Church.

TB wrote,

I believe that the particular structure of this version of covenant theology does something unnecessary (at best) to the nature of the New Covenant, and returns to prioritizing OC typology.

BLMc replies,

I believe that the insistence that church membership is universally regenerate is a particular structure of the version of the new and better covenant that finds us insisting that there were two different ways of covenantal belonging, and so two different ways of salvation. The implication here is that in the Old Covenant covenantal belonging was not by grace alone while in the NC covenantal belonging is by grace alone. This is to severely misunderstand the continuity between the OC and the new and better covenant.

TB wrote,

The discontinuity, or maybe just one of the differences, between the Covenants is evinced in the exchange between local and physical (Israel) with the universal and spiritual (the whole world).

BLMc responds,

Of course this is the common Baptist assertion of radical discontinuity between OC and NW. The OC was not merely local as seen in, for example, Jonah’s work with the Assyrians (Nineveh). Also there are other examples such as Naaman’s cleansing and Nebuchadnezzar’s confession in Daniel. As such we see a hint of the Universal and the spiritual in the OC. With the new and better covenant this is expanded but it remains present in the OC. In the same way there is continuity in the OC to the NC with the administration of the covenant sign to the children of the covenant and the expansion of this covenant sign is seen in the fact that not only males are given the sign of the covenant. Still, just as children in the OC were members of the covenant so children in the NC are members of the covenant and so should be given the ratification sign of the covenant. This is a serious error wherein Baptists fail.

TB wrote,

IOW, the price of ‘all the nations’ being included in the New Covenant meant that mere human progeny was no longer the ticket of admission—axiomatically ‘automatically in’ the Covenant by genealogy—as was the case in the Old Covenant.

BLMc responds

This is just not accurate. The price of all nations being included in the NC is clearly articulated in the OC in speaking of Christ;

“It is too small a thing for you to be my servant
to restore the tribes of Jacob
and bring back those of Israel I have kept.
I will also make you a light for the Gentiles,
that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth.”

The price of all nations being included in the NC was not the exclusion of the children of God’s children. The price of all nations being included in the NC was the precious blood of Jesus Christ which spoke of a better covenant than one that was only typified by the blood of bulls and goats.

Baptist thinking on this subject does not treat the Scriptures organically and because of that posits an unfortunate individualistic take on covenant theology.

I Corinthians 11:27 Therefore whoever eats this bread or drinks this cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of the body and [f]blood of the Lord. 28 But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of the bread and drink of the cup. 29 For he who eats and drinks [g]in an unworthy manner eats and drinks judgment to himself, not discerning the [h]Lord’s body. 30 For this reason many are weak and sick among you, and many [i]sleep. 31 For if we would judge ourselves, we would not be judged. 32 But when we are judged, we are chastened by the Lord, that we may not be condemned with the world.

33 Therefore, my brethren, when you come together to eat, wait for one another. 34 But if anyone is hungry, let him eat at home, lest you come together for judgment. And the rest I will set in order when I come.

Last time we gathered for the Eucharist we considered the subject of whether or not children should be taking of the Lord’s Table. We dealt then specifically with the issue of whether of whether or not wee children can come to the table and “do this in remembrance of me.”

We saw then that this requirement to “do this in remembrance of me,” was not a barrier for children because remembrance there is not primarily about our subjective remembrance but rather it is primarily a requirement “To do this in observance of me,” or if you prefer, “Do this unto my remembrance.”

We spent 30 minutes examining that theme and if you do not recall the work accomplished there I would encourage you to go to sermon audio and consider anew all that was said there.

This week we continue to look at the issue of children coming to the table. We begin by noting again that this is a volatile issue that can easily get various shorts into sundry knickers as being worn by people on both sides of the debate. As we noted last week the majority report historically among the Reformed and Presbyterian has been that children are banned from the table.

This is for several reasons. As we noted already one reason for that is because children are not able to take the table in remembrance of Christ.

This morning we look at a second reason why Presbyterian children are not typically allowed to come to the table. And that second reason is found in the passage this morning. That second reason given why the children cannot come to the table is because children are not able to do what the text requires here. Children cannot, so the argument goes, examine themselves.

Simply put, the argument goes like this;

1. There’s a command for partakers to self-examine (1 Corinthians 11:28). Infants can’t self-examine, therefore infants can’t partake. A version of this same word δοκιμαζέτω – δοκιμάζετε – appears in 2 Corinthians 13:5, in which we’re told to examine ourselves to see if we’re in the faith. This self-examination is beyond an infant. It is also beyond a toddler and beyond a young child also.

This is clear enough. We must ask ourselves if this is a defeater for the position of paedo-communion? Does this argument shut down allowing children to come to the Lord’s table?

Before we get to the details of this passage though, let us consider the theological implication of what is happening if we are going to make this passage mean that only those who can preform some form of introspective act are allowed to come to the table.

So, first we turn to the Theological implications of requiring the ability of introspection before coming to the table;

From a Theological point, if we follow the logic of the classical Presbyterian view, one would wind up with a works salvation. This is because in the traditional Reformed view a communicant coming to the table must demonstrate an intellectual understanding of the Gospel in order to earn the right to come to the Table; they have to examine/prove themselves worthy to take Communion.

This morphs the sacrament from being about God doing the doing in giving grace in the sacrament to being about our effectuating the work by our introspective examination. Just as with baptism, the Eucharist is not about our promises to God, but His promises to us. The Eucharist is a token of God’s Covenant faithfulness, just like the rainbow with Noah and the blood on the doorposts at the first Passover; in both cases God said, “When I see… I will remember my Covenant”.

At the Last Supper Jesus said, literally, “Do this in My remembrance”. The English translations obfuscate the Covenantal language that Christ uses but the literal puts the emphasis on His remembrance, just like with the rainbow and the blood on the doorpost. Neither sacraments are about our efforts, they are tokens of God’s faithfulness to us in remembering His Covenant. To require a litmus test on a Covenant child is to turn the whole grace-based intent of the Eucharist on its ear.

In the OT, a circumcised child of Israel was considered a member of Israel until such a time when they turned away from the promises of the Covenant. In the common Presbyterian view, a child of believers first has to start as one who is excommunicated and then must prove their worth before they are accepted. The beginning presupposition here is that baptized children are outside the covenant and so can’t come to the table until they achieve a certain level of intellectual and cognitive ability. To the contrary our presupposition is that because of God’s faithfulness and promises in Baptism we presuppose that our children that God has given us are Christian until such a time, God forbid, they abandon the covenant and the God of the covenant.

I cannot see how the beginning presupposition that our children are strangers to the covenant is consistent with God’s promises and certainly not consistent with Covenant Theology. Covenant Theology begins with God’s declaration of “who we are and then follows with the imperative of who therefore we should be.” In other words it is the idea that “You are a child of the Covenant, therefore live like one,” This follows the model of the preamble of the Ten Commandments establishes the relationship between God and His people first and then comes the commands. In the classical view that blocks children from coming to the table, this order is turned the other way around.

Secondly, we now turn to the textual considerations here in I Corinthians 11

“A man ought to examine himself before he eats of the bread and drinks of the cup.”

George Knight III consistent with many other commentaries claims: that “the only guidance that we can ascertain is the meaning of the verb ‘examine,’ and Knight’s interpretation of this verb is that “Every person individually is to look into his own being to determine if he or she is taking the Lord’s Supper in an unworthy manner.”

This is the common understanding among the Reformed. It is the understanding of the Westminster Larger Catechism. It is the understanding of John Calvin

“A self-examination, therefore ought to come first, and it is vain to expect this of infants… Why should we offer poison instead of life giving food to our tender children? (Inst. 4.16.30)

But is this kind of examining the kind of examining that the inspired Apostle is calling for here? We think not. Let us consider why this is a misunderstanding.

The Greek verb in this text (dokimazeto) means to “prove, approve, or test.” We find this translation in the English Revised Version;

“But let a man prove himself, and so let him eat of the bread, and drink of the cup.”

Elsewhere in St. Paul’s usage of this verb it does not mean to the work of introspection that requires a kind of a self-reflecting glance (see I Cor. 3:13, II Cor. 13:5). Instead the Greek word “prove” carries the meaning of “proving,” or “approving,” such as is found in;

1 Cor. 3:13: ‘The work of each one will become manifest, for the day will make it clear, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test (“dokimasei”) each one’s work, [to prove] what kind it is.

Here Paul uses the verb as the culmination of a series of expressions denoting public and objective revelation. And if one is to consider the verb as used in the wider Greek usage in the wider Greek world one would find that it was always used with this kind of objective aspect.

What we are suggesting here is that the Greek word for “examine/prove” is not based in subjective reflection but in based in objective evaluation.

So, if “prove” here has an objective quality and is not a subjective inward look what is the objective quality that St. Paul is looking for from the Corinthians before they come to the table?

Well, in the immediate context of this section of Scripture (I Cor 10-12) the way that someone is to prove themselves is related to their behavior at the table of the Lord with respect to the unity of the body of Christ. A man proves himself by an eating that does not divide the body of Christ, and not by a subjective analysis completed by a introspective cognitive look.

As we see in the context of chapter 10-12 the Corinthians are having a problem. The problem was their table manners during the Lord’s Supper. This behavior contradicted the unity of one another in Christ.

20 Therefore when you come together it is not to eat the Lord’s Supper, 21 for when you eat, each one takes his own supper first; and one goes hungry while another gets drunk.

This kind of behavior is why Paul can write earlier;

17 Now in giving this next instruction I do not praise you, because you come together not for the better, but for the worse. 18 For, in the first place, when you come together [m]as a church, I hear that [n]divisions exist among you …

So, when the Holy Spirit calls them to “prove themselves,” in vs. 28 he is calling them to prove that they are not behaving like this in connection with the Lord’s Table. It is an call to an objective assessment.

Luther agrees w/ us here;

“When in 1 Corinthians (11:28) Paul said that a man should examine himself, he spoke only of adults because he was speaking about those who were quarreling among themselves. However, he doesn’t here forbid that the sacrament of the altar should be given even to children.

Luther
Works, vol. 54, p. 58

The test in view in 1 Cor. 11 is whether one is living in love and unity with one’s fellow believers. This would be, again, objectively knowable and so could be examined/proved and would seem to involve no introspection — in short, a requirement that babies do not even have the ability to break yet.

And if children cannot be guilty of this kind of behavior of dividing the boy that some in Corinth were guilty of they therefore cannot have the requirement put to them to prove themselves and therefore the requirement to “prove oneself’ does not forbid children coming from the table.

So, to recap here

In Corinth the congregation were demonstrating a behavior at the table which belied the unity of the church. At the one place where there was to be unity there was instead division. They therefore were eating unworthily. When Paul calls them to “prove themselves” he was calling for them to partake of the Lord’s Table properly. “Let a man prove himself” refers to his manner of participation at the Table, or more broadly, to his relationship with the local body of Christ.

It is not subjective contemplation that is required here, but an objective demonstration of one’s behavior with respect to the body is demanded. This is not to say that there is no need of self-reflection when coming to the table, it is to say that what is required in this text is not self-reflection.

And so since this text is not calling for introspection and is calling for covenantal unity when coming to the table therefore this text is not prohibiting the least of these from coming to the table.

So, I Cor. 11 has nothing to do with Children taking or not taking communion anymore than the requirement to repent and believe has anything to do with covenant children before they are baptized. In point of fact I Cor. 11 ironically enough supports paedocommunion since what happens when we forbid the children to come to the table is to divide the body and create factions between the adults in the covenant and the children in the covenant — the very thing that the Corinthians were doing and the very thing I Cor. 11 warns against.

Now add to what we have said in point I on the theological considerations and point II on the text itself lets us add a little thirdly, some historical consideration.

During the Reformation there were some who called for paedo-communion. For example a little known second generation Reformer with a great name “Wolfgang Musculus” wrote in a theological work;

(1) Those who possess the thing signified also have a right to the sign

(2) Children who can receive the grace of regeneration (as is evident from Baptism) can also be nurtured in their spiritual lives without their knowledge.

(3) Christ is the Savior of the whole church, including the children, and feeds and refreshes all of its members.

(4) The demand for self-examination (I Cor. 11:26-29) is not intended by the apostle as a universal requirement.

W. Musculus — Loci Communes

Second Generation Reformer

Luther considered communing children to be not necessary but also not sin. He offered here;

“[They] pretend that children, not as yet having reason, ought not to receive [the sacrament]. I answer: That reason in no way contributes to faith. Nay, in that children are destitute of reason, they are all the more fit and proper recipients of [the sacrament]. For reason is the greatest enemy that faith has: it never comes to the aid of spiritual things, but – more frequently than not – struggles against the Divine Word, treating with contempt all that emanates from God.”

Martin Luther

Going behind the Reformation we find the Apostolic Constitution written not by the Apostles circa 380 AD. In this early church liturgy document we read that the children are included in the faithful that remain and take communion after the readings. Others who are not initiated (baptized) are excluded and excused from the communion. A door-wathcher keeps non-initiated out.

“As to the children that stand [the infant children do not stand, but are among the initiated who are prepared for communion], let their fathers and mothers take them to themselves …. After this, let all rise up with one consent, and, looking towards the east, after the catechumens and the penitents are gone out, pray to God eastward, …. Then let the sacrifice follow, all the people standing, and praying silently; and, when the oblation hath been made, let every rank by itself partake of the Lord’s body and precious blood, in order, and approach with reverence and holy fear, as to the body of their King. Let the women approach with their heads covered, as is becoming the order of women. Moreover, let the door be watched, lest there come in any unbeliever, or one not yet initiated. P 65

Let no one eat of them that is not initiated; but those only who have been baptized into the death of the Lord [all that are baptized, to include infants and children] p.145

[nowhere are baptized children excluded from any part of the Lord’s Day communion.]

Rushdoony pipes in here;

“The children of the covenant, i.e., circumcised male children and daughters of the covenant, partook of it [the Passover]…In the early church, children partook of the sacrament [the Lord’s Supper], according to all the records. The evidence of St. Paul indicates that entire families attended and participated: it was the evening meal (I Cor. 11). Joseph Bingham’s Antiquities of the Christian Church cites the evidence of a long-standing practice of participation by children and infants. This practice was clearly a carry-over from the passover of Israel, and there is no Scriptural evidence for a departure from it…Arguments against this inclusion of children are more rationalistic and Pelagian than Biblical.”~~R.J. Rushdoony, IBL, p. 46

There is one more thing I want to add here in conclusion.

If we dare not bring our children to the table for fear of the danger that the table is to them since they can’t understand it then why would we bring them to the Word preached? I mean is the table more dangerous than the Word preached? We talk about Word and sacrament being means of grace. If we dare not bring our children to one of the means of grace (the Table) why should we run them the danger of bringing them to a different means of grace that similarly they cannot understand?

As a friend as put it;

“Reformed people, in my opinion, have a ludicrously cautionary view of communion and act as though they’re handling plutonium and are about to drink hemlock if they don’t get in the right frame of mind. ”

I agree with this. The implication of this is that the Reformed believe the table is more sacred … more holy than the preaching of God’s Word. If communion is so dangerous to children we shouldn’t allow them to come to the table for fear of dishonoring God and endangering them, then we shouldn’t let those same children to come under the preaching of the Word. There is a reason why we conjoin “Word and Sacrament.”

We bring our children to Baptism as a means of grace.
We bring our children to the Word Preached as a means of grace

But then we say that the 3rd means of grace, the table, is a means of grace they cannot have because they have to bring their ability to introspect before they can have the table.

But I didn’t attend one of them elite Reformed Seminaries so I’m sure I am missing something.

Anyway, I want us to continue to esteem the table and to come to it with reverence and awe but lets be consistent.

The two sacraments are linked at the hip: the sign that brands the covenant people, and the victory meal of the covenant people. If children should be allowed to either (and they should), they should be allowed to both. The Reformed church today admits children to the church, then starves them for several years until they can adequately verbalize a profession of faith.

This ought not to be.