Access Denied, Pt. 1

I spent seven years in the Reformed Church in the United States (R.C.U.S.), and in a congregation that practices the Rite of Confirmation to mark the change of status covenant children undergo when they publicly confess their faith. Ironically, long before this confirmation takes place, these children are baptized into the body of Christ as a sign and seal (viz., a confirmation) of their inclusion in the covenant of grace. The Directory of Public Worship explains this point with the following statement: 

At their baptism, it is said that the Triune God claims these children as “His very own.” We are reminded that our Savior “admitted little children into his presence, embraced and blessed them, saying, ‘Of such is the kingdom of God.’” Finally, it is declared that Baptism is the God-ordained means by which our children are “distinguished from the children of unbelievers and solemnly received into the visible church.”

Now, infant Baptism is a beautiful and biblical practice, and it is not my aim to detract from it. Rather, I seek to show that taking the wording of its institution seriously raises several important questions about Communion that deserve careful consideration. For instance, what does it mean to say that our children are included in the covenant of grace? If, in the words of the statement above, this inclusion grants them a right only to the “outward privileges of the church,” where exactly do the sacraments fit within that framework? Do we say that Baptism is an outward privilege while the Lord’s Supper is an inward privilege, such that our covenant children may receive the one and yet be barred from the other?

Some may wish to appeal to a distinction between the “administration” of the covenant, referring to what the visible church participates in, and its “substance,” which only the invisible church enjoys. But then, do we conclude that Baptism belongs to the visible church while the Lord’s Supper belongs to the invisible? Given our confessional tradition, I doubt that anyone would affirm such a claim. Yet these questions inevitably arise wherever Baptism is administered to, and Communion withheld from, the very same people.

Barring a baptized member of the Body from the Lord’s Supper is ordinarily an act of church discipline, not a matter of spiritual maturity. This is evident in the fact that we readily commune the newest adult convert as soon as he is baptized, even without an extended period of theological training. In many cases, he may have been confessing Christ for only a short time. On what basis, then, do we exclude our baptized covenant children from the Lord’s Table?

To avoid the unthinkable conclusion that our children are baptized into a state of church discipline, I would argue that the elders have only two ways to justify excluding them from the Table: either they divide the sacraments by arguing that Baptism belongs to the visible church while the Lord’s Supper does not, or they divide the visible church by claiming that there are two levels of membership, with Baptism granting entry only to the first.

In practice, most Reformed churches choose the second option, and this explains why the Rite of Confirmation functions as a necessary tradition in my previous congregation. Confirmation functions as the means by which baptized children are advanced to the second level of membership. The ritual serves as the vehicle that moves covenant children from second-class to full citizenship in the Kingdom, from partial to complete membership in the Body of Christ. And while this description may sound crass, there is scarcely another way to describe what is taking place. Indeed, it fits precisely with the final words of the Rite used in that congregation, where the minister declares to the one being confirmed, “Beloved, I now welcome you to full communion with the people of God.”

As a follow-up to the institutional conundrum created when covenant children are barred from the covenant meal, there is also a confessional conundrum. Perhaps in the interest of protecting a widely accepted practice (post twelfth century), many who subscribe to the Westminster Standards deny what appears to be an inconsistency between the definitions of its sacramental theology and their application to the Lord’s Supper.

The Confession defines the visible church as “those that profess the true religion, together with their children” (25:2), and the sacraments as “signs and seals of the covenant of grace” designed to put a “visible difference between those that belong unto the church and the rest of the world” (27:1). It also states that the sacraments of the Old Testament, “with regard to the spiritual things signified, were, for substance, the same with those of the New” (27:5).

For Reformed Christians, these definitions provide the legitimate (biblical) basis for the practice of paedobaptism. Yet the question is this: On what application of these same principles can paedocommunion be invalidated?

To avoid the conclusion that all baptized children have a right to Communion as members of the visible church, the meaning and purpose of this particular sacrament must be modified. Rather than the Lord’s Supper being a “sign and seal of the covenant of grace” (which includes our children), it must be redefined as a sign and seal of spiritual maturity (which apparently does not). Rather than the Lord’s Supper being used to “put a visible difference between those that belong to the church” (which includes our children) and the rest of the world, it is employed to draw a visible distinction between the church and the true church existing in her midst. And rather than the Lord’s Supper being “the same in substance,” with regard to the spiritual things signified, as the sacramental meals of the Old Testament (in which children always participated), it has come to be treated as a sacrament of such a different spiritual character that children must now be excluded.

But in the interest of theological and confessional integrity within the Westminster tradition, I propose that we address and resolve this matter in one of two ways. Either we allow the Westminster’s definition of the visible church to determine who may and may not partake of the sacraments, or we modify that definition to make room for the asymmetry of our practice—namely, baptizing our covenant children while yet refusing to commune them.

As it stands, most who subscribe to the Westminster Standards deny that any such tension exists, either in the Confession itself or in their practice in light of it, though it appears rather obvious to a growing number of us. This leaves us at an impasse, with some insisting that certain exceptions must be taken on biblical grounds, and others maintaining that such exceptions are neither necessary nor allowable.

Therefore, in the next article I will turn to the writings of our Reformed theologians, where these questions are more directly addressed. There we will consider the arguments commonly advanced in support of withholding the Supper from covenant children, assess how those arguments are derived from Scripture, and examine whether they truly succeed in validating such a practice.