https://gospelreformation.net/dear-pastor-may-my-child-take-the-lords-supper/
Spinnenweber is to be commended as he covers all the bases and his treatment of the subject is fair. Unfortunately his conclusions are completely wrong.
It's sad, even tragic that this boy is asking about the Supper and yet still denied partaking. Even those who wrongly think the passage in Exodus 12 vindicates this approach cannot defend this state of affairs. If he's asking, then he's certainly eligible. The delay is inexcusable, subjective, and even tyrannical. The fact that newborn infants cannot chew the bread is immaterial. We needn't force feed infants but as soon as they are able - they should partake. And so it was with the Passover. Exodus 12 does not teach non-participation until inquiry. That's a rather individualist and Baptist notion to impose on the Old Testament polity.
I don't think I've ever encountered a paedocommunion advocate who would argue that Christ does not fulfill all the Old Testament feasts and sacrifices. But it's clear the Supper is particularly connected to Passover. Regardless, the argument that since children didn't necessarily participate in all the Old Testament rites, it follows they should be denied the Supper is a reach to say the least. There is no need for 'exact correlation' and I find such arguments are an attempt to lose the debate in the weeds. It reminds me of Leonard Coppes' tiresome work from the 1980's.
The same is true of Spinnenweber's dealing with 1 Corinthians 11 and the questions regarding the body and the bread. The apostle is connecting the communion rite with the actual doctrine of communion. They are being treated as an organic unit. It's a mystery (to which the apostles are stewards) and this is further emphasized by the curse that comes when it is treated with contempt. Spinnenweber is splitting hairs that don't need to be split and he reveals that not only is he a functional baptist in his understanding of the sacraments, his very thinking is anti-sacramental. This is all too common among contemporary Confessional Presbyterians.
And in 1 Corinthians 11, Paul is dealing with a problem. His call to examination (if understood the way it is being argued) would potentially ban senior citizens and really anyone who unable to properly elaborate the doctrinal questions surrounding the Supper. There's no suggestion that the bar be set to that level. How are these lines drawn? Should someone have to be able to recite a catechism?
And if understood in terms of subjective introspection - well, we can all talk ourselves out of participation. No one is 'right' and properly prepared to take it and likewise no one is properly grasping the layers and dynamics revealed in Communion.
The apostle's words have been used in a way he never intended.
I found Spinnenweber's comments regarding this inquiring boy to be a terrible example of pastoral malfeasance. The boy if baptised is already committed. He's part of the Church. By denying him the signs and seals of Church life he is being confused and misled. He is being treated as if he were not part of the Church. Which is it?
While I reject the PCA's vows and some of the assumptions they make - in fact the very assumptions at work in crafting them, I will also argue that one's understanding of these questions is bound to change over time. If you ask the many people in a congregation coming from different backgrounds and different ages, you're going to get a lot of different answers. Teaching everyone to repeat words by rote makes for good form or presentation but means little in the end. I am so often struck by Presbyterianism's faith in form over substance and this is no exception.
The problem is both Testaments teach that children of believers are not half-way members of the Church but fully part of God's people. They are Christians until demonstrated otherwise by a failure to persevere or by active turning away (apostasy). Raise them as such. Teach them. There is no 'Church Membership' apart from baptism and the Supper. In normative terms without Baptism and the Supper one cannot be said to be a Christian.
This is obviously at odds with Evangelical understandings of the gospel and as such they resort to hermeneutical gymnastics to explain away the many passages that oppose them. To prioritise perceived 'gospel' statements and passages and use them to effectively cancel out what other portions of Scripture say about the larger question of salvation is an exercise in rationalism not faithful submission to revelation. Once again the 'Born Again' experience theology is being used to override much of Scripture. Regeneration can occur in a tangible moment for some but the Damascus Road experience is not normative - and shouldn't be for Christian children. But regeneration is also an ongoing process. Calvin frequently used the term synonymously with sanctification. Do that today, and you'll get called a heretic.
Spinnenweber's statements regarding 'Do I, not my parents' reveal that he is Baptist. He may conduct wet dedications when it comes to infants, but he is in the end a Baptist. Indeed the faith must be owned by us as individuals (not once but all throughout our lives) but this way of thinking, this way of framing the issues as an individual looking to a watershed personal experience and placing this as the primary criterion is not Reformed and (broadly speaking) it is not found in the Church until the time of the Magisterial Protestant Reformation with the Anabaptists, and in the Calvinist heritage not until several centuries after. It was not the approach of the Early Church or elements within the First Reformation, and I would argue it is not the governing assumption in the New Testament.
Spinnenweber's discussion of 'when' is subjective muddle and I have to keep reminding myself that this is a Presbyterian. It reads like a primer in Baptist theology and practice.
Obviously the consensus in the Magisterial Reformation rejected paedocommunion. On that point he is correct, but it's no feather in his cap. Rejection of paedocommunion is the Confessional position but I will contend that the thinking on display here is something you didn't find before the 19th century and the rationalist shift that took place in Reformed theology. He quotes the Confessions but their very approach to means and how they work in the life of the Church is alien to him. The notion that the sacraments are efficacious and that the Supper is spiritually nourishing and sanctifying would no doubt be rejected by him. In fact if one were to speak of the presence of Christ at all, it is dependent on the faith of the communicant - a subjective standard that turns communion into what the individual says and believes about Christ and the Church, rather than Christ declaring His presence and blessing His people.
The Reformers were wrong about many things - maybe even most things and for my part I care little about conformity to Confessionalism or Reformed Orthodoxy. What concerns me here is the method of thinking and reasoning and how this affects theology. In terms of the Reformation, there was some debate over this point and there were some advocates for paedocommunion. And yet it's clear the influences of Latin theology overshadowed the Reformers on several points - this being one of them. Though they repudiated transubstantiation the practical effects of this doctrine and how the Supper was administered in the late middle ages shaped and affected the thinking of the Reformers. For them a return of the cup was enough of a leap - the return of the cup and the readmission of children was (it would seem) a step too far.
Paedocommunion remains the dominant position in Church history. This doesn't mean it's right but it cannot be dismissed so easily. The Utraquist branch of the Hussites revived the ancient practice before and after the Reformation but when they were wiped out in the 17th century the practice died with them. The early Hussite leader Jakoubek of Stříbro (1372-1429) 'believed that the exclusion of children from communion divided the Kingdom of God and denied the power of Christ to heal all divisions of status'.*
The Bohemian Brethren (later Moravians) wrestled with it but never adopted the practice as the Utraquists did - that is until the 20th century.
It is to be lamented that the most vocal advocates for the practice in our day are tainted with the errors of Theonomic Postmillennialism. Unfortunately this reality tends to overshadow debates and is used (fallaciously) as a means to discount the position.
------
* p.84, The Theology of the Czech Brethren from Hus to Comenius, by Craig Atwood, Penn State University Press (2009)