Lord's Supper

Whether we speak of the "family-integrated" or "family-centered" church, there's a problem. The Church doesn't exist to please mothers. It is not the church's purpose to keep children in the home, safe and happy until they make a home of their own. If this happens and the church has helped it come to pass, that's all good, but the church has larger fish to fry.

The church is to make disciples who obey everything our Lord commanded, and although this work normally flows in the direction of keeping families together, this work will also split families apart.

Let's put a fine point on it...

Sorry, this one is longer than usual, so please be patient and read the whole way to the end. What we're thinking about here is eternally important.

Right now, when your little family is just getting started and your newborn son or daughter is all a wonder to you, it seems a bit over the top to be talking about how important it is to find a good church. But watch out! Life seems to be passing slowly right now, but it's not. In a day or two, this infant will be leaving your home for college, and then comes marriage and grandchildren. Before you can snap your fingers, your children will be all grown up and the fruit of your fatherhood will be clear.

Last week, we saw that the most important food we provide our family is God's Word. Choosing a church where God's Word is preached faithfully is how we provide them that food. Yes, we read the Bible to our family at home, but home isn't enough. We must have the household of faith, and the most important mark of a Biblical church is faithful preaching. But there are three marks of a true church, so now we move to the second:

1. A true church has preaching that is faithful to Scripture;
2. A true church administers the sacraments as Scripture commands;
3. A true church correctly disciplines her members.

What on earth are sacraments?

Sacraments are physical things God gives us to help us in our weakness...

(This is the fifth in a series opposing paedocommunion, a practice started by some Reformed parents a few years ago in which parents require their infants and toddlers to participate in the Lord's Supper. Here are the first, second, third, and fourth in this series. For more on this subject, see the "Paedocommunion" tag.) 

Editor's note: Some have been convinced by Jeff Meyers' simplistic and novel exegesis of 1 Corinthians 11 in which he concludes that the only sin that text warns us against is the sin of disunity by not having absolutely everybody in the church partake of the Lord's Supper. His position can be summed up by his astounding statement:

I don’t believe that this passage requires an inward act of contemplating and evaluating one’s sins.

The violence this does to the text should be obvious to any man who honors Scripture and fears God. The Apostle Paul gives several examples of ways to disqualify yourself and destroy the unity of the body in his first letter to the Corinthians, including just in chapter 10 grumbling, fornication, and idolatry. Each of these sins God judged and punished with the death of his people "as an example" to us. The Apostle Paul then warns us, in verse 21, "You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons."

Chapter 11 contains yet another warning against partaking while in serious sin—this time the sin of disunity. Where most paedocommunionists err is in their astounding assumption that "unity" is determined purely by the physical external sign of participation in the meal. Such a shallow understanding of unity dismisses as inconsequential the selfishness and jealousy that caused the incomplete participation in the first place. In other words, paedocommunionists who follow Jeff Meyers raise the importance of external conformity so high that one is forced to dismiss as unimportant the inward reality, what Scripture refers to as the circumcision of the heart.

At some point, we hope to address Meyers' treatment of 1Corinthians 11 ourselves. In the meantime, we hope that those who found Meyers' paper compelling will read this in-depth exegetical treatment of the passage in question by the respected exegete George W. Knight III, our Reformed friend and father.

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1 Corinthians 11:17-34: The Lord’s Supper: Abuses, Words of Institution and Warnings

by George W. Knight III

Introduction

1 Corinthians 11:17-34 is an important section in the letter to the Corinthians and therefore also an important section in the life and teaching of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church and its Confessional Standards and Book of Church Order, as well as that of other Presbyterian and Reformed Churches.1 The Confessional Standards refer to these verses more than fifty times and especially to the warning verses over twenty times.2 It, therefore, demands our most careful attention...

(This is the third in a series opposing paedocommunion, a practice started by some Reformed parents a few years ago in which parents require their infants and toddlers to participate in the Lord's Supper. Here are the first and second in this series.) 

As stated in the previous post in this series, Jeff Meyers's novel exegesis of 1 Corinthians 11 subscribed to by paedocommunionists leaves them convinced that, when the rest of the Covenant community is partaking of the Lord's Supper, regardless of age, for a member of the Covenant community to abstain is sin. Those who refuse to commune with the rest of the covenant community have failed to discern the body. In fact, Meyers demands that orthodox Presbyterians examine themselves by this rule coming out of his exegesis. As he sees it, the historic Presbyterian and Reformed church's requirement that all who partake of the Lord’s Supper must be able to discern the body is proof the historic Presbyterian and Reformed church has failed to discern the body, and thus they are guilty of breaking apart the Church's unity—the sin of schism.

Yet, when we examine the range of practices among paedocommunionists, particularly with regard to “discerning the body" around the Lord's Table, it is clear this is no united group holding to the same doctrine and practice. Rather, paedocommunionists are split into two camps: first, there are those who require no discernment at all from the Covenant child; and second, there are those who demand the Covenant child has enough discernment to recognize he is part of the body. Even within these two camps, though, there is inconsistency of belief and practice.

In this post, we'll focus on the first of the two groups—those who require no discernment at all from the Covenant child...

[The sacraments] are no means of grace except through the faith of the recipient, and in consequence of his own spiritual state and act. There is no inherent power in the ordinance itself to confer blessing, apart from the faith of the participator, and except through the channel of that faith. There is no deposit of power—whether, with the Church of Rome, we deem it physical and ex opere operato, or whether, with Tractarians and High Churchmen, we call it spiritual—in the Sacraments themselves to influence the mind of him who receives them. They have no virtue of themselves, apart from the work of Christ through His Spirit on the one side, and the spiritual act of the recipient through his faith on the other side. - James Bannerman, The Church of Christ

This is an introduction to a series of posts on paedocommunion, the practice of communing at the Lord's Table children who have not yet confessed their faith and been examined by their pastor or the elders of their church. This practice is most common today within the broad Evangelical church where parents simply commune their own children. When the bread and wine are passed, the children whisper to their father or mother that they "want some, too," and the parents see no reason to say "no."

What we are going to examine, though, is a much less common version of paedocommunion found in a small number of congregations in the Protestant and Reformed tradition. Their practice differs from that of the broader Evangelical church in three ways: first, those young children in mainstream Evangelical congregations who commune have not yet been baptized while the children communed by their parents in Protestant and Reformed congregations have been baptized. Second, children communing in mainstream Evangelical congregations don't normally do so because their fathers and mothers believe paedocommunion is Biblical and have developed a system of doctrine to defend their practice. It's really only an ad hoc practice which exists because no one's thought about it and parents aren't inclined to tell their children "no" when they want to do something that seems good, spiritually. On the other hand, parents who commune their children in the small group of paedocommunion Protestant and Reformed congregations believe Scripture requires their children...

...why should we offer poison instead of life-giving food to our tender children?

                                             - John Calvin condemning infant communion

Under another post, a commenter entered into the comment field three paragraphs of text written by the Rev. Dr. Rob Rayburn promoting infant communion (commonly referred to as “paedocommunion”). Dr. Rayburn’s promotion of this practice—condemned by Protestants and Roman Catholics alike at the time of the Reformation—is a good example of fashion replacing Biblical doctrine and theological precision. Men who have climbed on the “paedocommunion” bandwagon have believed Dr. Rayburn’s assurance that “none of our authorities favored the practice or, in most cases, ever discussed it.” 

Rayburn's point in saying this is not to warn readers that our Reformed fathers condemned paedocommunion, but rather to dismiss their condemnation under the reasoning that they had not given the practice proper consideration. After all, “in most cases” they had not “ever discussed it."

What Dr. Rayburn writes is not true. John Calvin discussed infant communion in his commentaries and Institutes, considering many arguments in favor of the practice while consistently condemning it.

So then, here are the first two sentences of the three paragraphs by Dr. Rayburn in defense of paedocommunion...

It's impossible to reconcile the Zwingli-bashing of former Baptists within the Covenant Renewal Worship, Federal Vision party with the actual words of Zwingli at the Marburg Colloquy and here in Zwingli's Short Exposition of the Christian Faith (1531). Zwingli is no "mere memorialist." Read his doctrine below. Then read his actual liturgy for the Eucharist, asking yourself if anyone in the Covenant Renewal Worship, Federal Vision group would object to this liturgy if they had no idea where it came from?

Two things they may object to (even not knowing they were hearing Zwingli's liturgy) are things where Zwingli is right: namely, Zwingli's repudiation of special attire for the celebrant and the faithfulness of Zwingli's warnings of danger to participants who don't eat and drink by faith.

The liturgy is at the end of the Short Exposition, beginning with the words, "Here follows substantially the order of service we use at Zurich, Berne, Basel, and the other cities of the Christian alliance." It's also instructive to read the text from Augustine near the end of the Short Exposition which Zwingli cites as an explication of in his position. Scroll to the end for Zwingli's liturgy and his defense from Augustine.

A Short and Clear Exposition of the Christian Faith

by Ulrich Zwingli

Chapter IV: The Presence of Christ's Body in the Supper

To eat the body of Christ sacramentally, if we wish to speak accurately, is to eat the body of Christ in heart and spirit with the accompaniment of the sacrament.

I thank God that I baptized none of you except Crispus and Gaius, so that no one would say you were baptized in my name. Now I did baptize also the household of Stephanas; beyond that, I do not know whether I baptized any other.

For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel, not in cleverness of speech, so that the cross of Christ would not be made void. For the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.  - 1Corinthians 1:14-18

Luther didn't bother writing a systematic theology because his dear friend Melanchthon had. Luther held Melanchthon's volume of systematics titled Loci Communes (Commonplaces in Theology) in such high esteem that he declared them worthy of inclusion in the canon: "Invictus libellus non solum immortalitate, sed quoque canone ecclesiastico dignus."

Considering the current fascination with all things sacramental among the Federal Vision crowd and Covenant Seminary alumni... 

(This is the eleventh and last in a series of posts critiquing Dr. Peter Leithart's recent call for the "End of Protestantism." Here are links to the prior posts: one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, and ten.)

'Peace' is certainly a pleasing word; but cursed is the peace that is obtained at so great a cost that there is lost to us the doctrine of Christ, by which alone we grow together into a godly and holy unity.  - Calvin on Acts 14:2

The Presbyterian Church in America's Dr. Peter Leithart is calling for an "ecumenical" peace with Rome and Constantinople and he labels his movement the "End of Protestantism" project, promoting it through his journalistic residence at the Roman Catholic journal, First Things.  Dr. Leithart has laid claim to be the new fresh face of the "ecumenical" movement and tells us his project seeks nothing more than the unity of the Church that Jesus asked of His Father during His Great High Priestly Prayer:

The glory which You have given Me I have given to them, that they may be one, just as We are one; I in them and You in Me, that they may be perfected in unity, so that the world may know that You sent Me, and loved them, even as You have loved Me. (John 17:22, 23)

No man who loves Jesus Christ can be a stoic concerning the unity of the Church. Nevertheless, across the centuries, calls for unity have often been used to cloak attacks upon the Gospel. Surely the Judaizers in Galatia attacked the Apostle Paul for divisiveness when his epistle to the Galatians was read to their congregation. And during the Reformation, the Roman Catholics never stopped accusing the Reformers of dividing the Church.

Yet what is the Church—this is the question Dr. Leithart avoids, crafting his appeals for unity as if there were no true and false Gospel, no true and false church.

When the Roman Catholic church charged the Protestant Reformers with schism, the Reformers faced the charge directly and this response found in the Scots Confession (1560) is typical. Here the Scots Confession begins by teaching that false churches have always existed and that those false churches have done their best to destroy the souls of men and persecute the godly. Therefore it is imperative the godly learn to distinguish between true and false churches ("kirk" means "church")...