It seems like this subject is coming up a lot lately as I've encountered it in churches, in conversation, and even in podcast discussions. Sadly, the understanding of this question is often lacking.
I listened to one podcast in which the host in addressing
this question seemed to think it was just a matter of ecclesiology – of
procedure and bureaucracy at which point he argued that though there was no
Biblical commandment or reason for denying the Supper to a non-baptized
'Christian', nevertheless it was within the purview or prerogative of the
church leaders to decide thus. All I can say is the host (an apologist and
promoter of Christian 'worldview') completely missed the point and obviously
has very little understanding regarding the authority of Scripture, New
Testament ecclesiology – not to mention its sacramentology. Like so many
apologists he focuses on coherence and the quest for a unified theory but
misses the forest for the trees. For him Christian theology is effectively
philosophy and using foundational principles he relies on deduction – and not a
little emotion-driven intuition. The resultant theology may have the appearance
of being sound in terms of logic but at the same time can be miles away from
what the Scriptures are actually teaching.
All of this stems from the Evangelical understanding of
soteriology which essentially views all externals as useless since the Spirit
alone gives life. In reaction to Rome, salvation is viewed in purely subjective
terms and means have no place in its theological framework – regardless of
whatever the New Testament might actually say.
Coupled with a prioritisation of Justification within its
soteriological scheme, and this tied to an experienced event (that is placed
within a normative and systematic framework) has led them to this point – one
which (in all actuality) is quite alien to the New Testament.
Making the exception the rule by appealing to incidents like
the Thief on the Cross, salvation is defined in terms of a subjective
experience that is not connected to any kind of external means – let alone
process. There are plenty of confessional Protestants who also struggle with
the latter point.
It's no surprise that in many Evangelical quarters the notion
of sanctification is non-existent or relegated to the realm of the optional.
Not only is grace cheapened under their scheme, but the multi-layered and multi-faceted
richness of what the New Testament teaches about salvation is reduced to almost
nothing and a great deal of apostolic doctrine is effectively either ignored or
explained away. In this respect it bears
remarkable similarity to Rome which also employs a great deal of New Testament
language, references to grace and the like but also reduces salvation to
something cheap – and along with its Evangelical cousins, something that often
falls prey to superstition.
In the New Testament, salvation is presented as being in a
state of union with Christ – a notion which encompasses and includes sundry
other concepts such as justification, sanctification, adoption, election, and
the like which are often expressed in already
and not yet terms, and in other cases are framed in provisional language, or used in a broad sense and applied to the
Church collectively even while promises
and warnings are also issued for individuals.
Context is critical and often the doctrines are presented in occasional or
dynamic forms that (frankly) defy attempts at systematisation.
While the ordinances, sacraments, holy rites, or even
mysteries are not absolutised nor function in magical fashion, they are
nevertheless woven into the language of salvation and inseparable from it.
Enlightenment categories which dominate Protestant and especially Evangelical
thinking struggle with these seeming dualities and antinomies or more rightly,
mysteries that (like all such questions) straddle the temporal and eternal, the
already and not yet. The Incarnate Christ should guide us on this point as
these very tensions all exist in what the New Testament reveals regarding The
Son, our Saviour, the anointed and risen King. If we take the Incarnation as
our guide to doctrinal understanding we can begin to possess the dynamic
categories needed for New Testament doctrine.
The Spirit gives life and some experience a radical
conversion, but given the language surrounding Baptism it is proper to speak of
it as the means by which this life/salvation is effected or temporally applied.
We know that some baptized people are regenerate and others are not. And indeed
there are those who show signs of being regenerate who are not yet baptized –
though they should not delay. And if they do so, they are sinning and
demonstrate a potentially dangerous misunderstanding of the gospel or even a
kind of recalcitrance that will in the end lead them into grave and even mortal
error. It's not something to take lightly or treat as indifferent. If you've
been converted, you must be baptized as the two concepts are more or less
inseparable.
Baptism grafts us into Christ, it unites us to His Person and
to His death and resurrection. Like the cleansing blood-rite of circumcision,
Baptism is both a sign and seal, it washes away our sins, and is tied to
regeneration – death and resurrection. Those who do not persevere will make
this status forfeit and fall from grace as the Scriptures say. Historic
Calvinist logic won't allow for this – and the modern versions even less so. The
older Calvinism of the Reformers and Puritans had a more nuanced view of not
only the sacraments and their efficacy but the nature of perseverance.
Augustine of Hippo was able to hold both concepts in tension and for all his
faults in other areas excelled on this point.
Whether someone is regenerated at the exact moment water is
applied is immaterial and beyond our ken in any event. You shall know them by
their fruits. Visibly speaking we can associate this moment with their entry
into the Church – the moment they become Christians, the moment one is saved.
Some would cast this in 'covenant' terms and contrast this with 'election'. The
point is well meant but in some respects just adds to the confusion as covenant
and election are also used in different senses – what we might call both the
visible and invisible, the temporal and eschatological. As such we wouldn't
want to limit their meaning in order to make a point or to clarify something
when the end result generates unnecessary confusion. Using the terms in this
way tends to lock-in or absolutise the meanings of these words but in the
Scriptures they exhibit a dynamism that ranges beyond these limitations.
The notion of an unbaptized Christian is an oxymoron. A
person with a testimony of conversion needs to be baptized without delay. If
they refuse then their conversion needs to be questioned as they are either
failing to understand the nature of revelation and obedience to it or they have
been misled by some kind of watered down or even fatally compromised
presentation of the gospel – asking Jesus into your heart or letting him into
your life, or some other framing usually associated with the flawed theology of
the altar call.
Communion and the blessings (or curses) it provides are
within the context of the New Covenant. It is the New Covenant meal. Baptism is
also tied to this concept and someone unbaptized is not yet in covenant with Christ.
They are not in union with Him. They are not part of the Body which is so
central to what communion represents. It is in the context of the Church, and
the Church is comprised of those in Christ – those who are baptized. Apart from
Christ and the New Covenant they have no right to partake – indeed they dare
not.
This was universally understood in the early Church. Only
later due to an abuse of baptism and the question of post-baptismal sin was the
water rite delayed. It had nothing to do with Evangelical or Baptistic-type
arguments. Further, the off-base discussions which seek to drive a wedge
between Spirit and water baptism are also misguided. For continuationist
Charismatics and the larger Holiness tradition the distinction can be made as
they are looking for a second work of Grace – a result of deduction not
exegesis.
But in terms of normative post-apostolic Christianity which
is already being hinted at in the New Testament, the two concepts of water and
Spirit baptism are inseparable.
The Lord's Supper is only for those who are baptized.
I realize this is subject to further confusion when filtered
through many common misunderstandings surrounding paedobaptism. Most
paedobaptists are inconsistent at this point and have allowed themselves to be
influenced by an unfortunate tradition and practice that was not born of New Testament
exegesis but rather the Western tradition that emerged in light of the doctrine
of transubstantiation. Paul's words in 1 Corinthians 11 were never meant to
exclude baptized children but rather were in the context of a rebuke to the
Corinthians for their practices and abuses of the Holy Meal. The idea of
non-communicant members is also an oxymoron that has no basis in the New
Testament nor precedent in the Old. The rite of confirmation is also nowhere to
be found and did not emerge in Church history until many centuries after the
time of the apostles.
In terms of the visible or temporal application of the
covenant, the ordained means utilized by the Holy Spirit – to be a Christian,
one is baptized and partakes of communion. One is a rite of initiation and the
other is associated with ongoing participation and renewal.
The Covenant language found in the Old Testament and unfolded
and developed within its context is continued in the New and reiterated and the
language surrounding baptismal promises to households makes absolutely no sense
in the dominant Baptist-Evangelical framework that many paedobaptists still
retain. Baptised children are reckoned as Christians – once again the question
is one of perseverance versus apostasy. They too partake of the Holy Supper as
soon as they are able to digest bread and wine - obviously beginning with the
latter.
Unbaptized persons must be excluded from communion – for the
sake of the Church and for their own good. If they profess Christ then they must
be baptized. If they have delayed this, they are to be rebuked.
Because baptism has been redefined as a largely empty but
personally symbolic and thus subjective 'first act of obedience', it is
completely divorced from not only Christian profession but Christian status.
Requiring baptism in order to take communion is not legalism, rather the common
Evangelical way of thinking about this question is the result of a very skewed
paradigm that necessarily must explain away a great deal of Scripture.
The Lord's Supper is also a means utilized by the Holy Spirit
wherein blessing is conveyed – that's the language of Scripture. This too is
problematic to some and at this point it needs to be said that hyper-Calvinism
falls into the same types of Evangelical traps albeit from a different
foundational point. Whether one makes a subjective experiential understanding
of Justification central or even Divine predestination, the ideas of
perseverance, means, and the reception of blessing (let alone warnings and
possible curse) seem superlative at best. Indeed, if one is merely
saved/unsaved (or elect/non-elect) then how can one truly or actually benefit
from the conveyance of grace? One cannot be more or less saved, right? It's a
logically rooted argument but unfortunately it represents a departure from Scriptural
language and categories. The apostles do not frame the salient questions in
this manner and thus the problem is one of faulty epistemology that overrides
and distorts exegesis and the nature of Biblical doctrine. Needless to say the
wondrous and humbling language of Christ in a passage like John 6 is completely
lost on them. While it antedates the institution of the Supper it certainly
anticipates it and only by means of a kind of stubborn willfulness can it be
excluded from Eucharistic theology. Once again, just because Rome absolutises
this in terms of its outward form and weds it to a faulty sacerdotal framework –
in no way does that mean we should reject or flee from the high and mysterious
language related to it and how it expresses the transformative presence of
Christ.
While Justification is surely glorious and predestination and
election are expressly taught and sources of great comfort, assurance, and
wonder – the Scriptures pursue these larger sets of questions in a very
different manner. As such, we find that perseverance is a necessity and as such
we are given rather stark and sometimes severe warnings regarding the faith and
our profession. The interaction between the temporal and eternal which is at
the heart of our faith and even our very identity is central and finds
expression in not only the mystery of prayer, but patterning the Incarnation – we
also find such dynamics at work in the rites of baptism and communion. They can
be subject to abuse, idolatry or when absolutised can be misunderstood. But
likewise when they are minimized in light of some kind of subjective experience
or the absolutizing of one aspect of facet of the larger soteriological
equation – this too is error and potentially dangerous as much of the
Scriptures end up being downplayed or explained away.
Much more could be said about how baptism and the Supper
relate to the question of the Kingdom of Heaven and the nature of our worship vis-à-vis
the Divine Council and eschatology. These questions shed even more light on
what it is we're doing when we gather and administer the rites given to us by
the Holy Spirit. There is a richness and wonder here – and no small degree of
mystery that is wholly missed by the impoverished and superficial theological
constructs of modern Evangelicalism and among those who fall into the spectrum
of hyper-Calvinism and its cold rationalism.
The Lord's Supper is for the baptized. Those who insist
otherwise demonstrate a minimalist and erroneous understanding of New Testament
doctrine. What has been said here grants nothing to Rome though some (in their
confusion) may think so. Sadly the Evangelical movement has strayed so far
afield from the New Testament that in some respects (in its zeal to be
anti-Rome) it has created something every bit as off-base and doctrinally
corrupt.