For those just tuning in, I’m reviewing Cornelis Venema’s book Children at the Lord’s Table? which is against serving communion to baptized, (pre-adolescent) children, and have now come to his penultimate and climactic chapter A Key Passage: 1 Corinthians 11:17-34. Venema emphasizes this passage because in his view it is the only passage in the New Testament that has clear implications for determining who may be admitted to the Lord’s Table.

We have already noted that in the late Middle Ages, as superstitions (transubstantiation) and clerical abuses arose, communion was forbidden from children—lest little Johnny spill some of the body and blood of Jesus all over the carpet—as well as the cup from the all the laity. Many were lucky to take communion once a year. While Calvin (and other Reformers) didn’t restore the ancient practice of giving the Supper to children, he did want weekly communion which is far more than most Reformed pastors want today. I mention this here because the interpretation of this passage inevitably centers on Paul’s instructions not to partake “unworthily”, and the common practice of taking the Supper infrequently (quarterly, twice a year, etc) and of individuals suspending themselves from the Supper reflects a disposition that not only are we required to partake worthily (which in this Corinthian context means not fighting and drunk), we are supposed bring a worthy faith to the Table. I’ve been in more than a few communion services where individuals in the congregation roll up into a quiet ball of repentant piety (as led by the pastor), seemingly confessing sin and often not taking the Supper if some part of their Christian life is sagging. In contrast, a biblical understanding is that communion is typified in the Old Covenant by the peace offering, one that followed the sin and ascension offerings and was marked by joy and fellowship with God. Looking forward, the Lord’s Supper is a foretaste of the consummation of all things, the wedding supper of the Lamb. Communion is a place to celebrate and be nourished in your salvation, not a place to doubt it or lament your lack of sanctification. We’ll consider later how the barring of children causes the exact doubts in ought to dispel.

Venema considers 1 Corinthians 10:16-17 which says that the body of Christ ought to partake of communion: “Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body for we all partake of the one bread” (v17). All who are Christ’s get bread; all who are part of the loaf eat from the loaf. Venema admits this “appears to support the paedocommunion case … [but] admission of such children can be sustained only if the particular teaching of 1 Corinthians 11:17-34 does not stand in opposition to it.” This is good. Baptized children are included in the body of Christ. The body of Christ partakes of Christ in the loaf. Ergo, children ought to partake of the Lord’s Supper. Or at least it seems so. At least in this context, Venema admits, almost explicitly, that the burden of proof to exclude children from communion falls on this passage, and he has also stated that it doesn’t explicitly address the paedocommunion issue. So we’re in for quite a show.

Venema does a good job describing the divisions and heresies that were prominent in the Corinthians’ observance of the Lord’s Supper (vv18-19). Paul says they weren’t coming together to eat the Lord’s Supper because some were eating before others, some went hungry and others were drunk (vv20-21). It is in this particular context that Paul warns against eating and drinking in an unworthy manner because to do so is to “be guilty of profaning the body and blood of the Lord” (v27). How were the Corinthians profaning the body and blood of the Lord? By cutting in line, getting drunk, and not loving Jesus or his church; they were failing to discern the body of Christ (v29). Venema objects to one interpretation which insists this passage means “we should make no distinctions between members of the covenant community”. He doesn’t reference an opponent at this point and seems to demolish a perfect straw man. Paedocommunionists, at least the ones he references elsewhere in the book and others I am familiar with, aren’t saying the main thrust of this passage instructs us not to exclude anyone—afterall, Paul is pointing out those who should not be partaking in an unworthy manner. He is saying the partaker must discern the body, and he says so while addressing particular sins of some people in the church at Corinth. Are there other ways to fail to discern the body? Of course. And among them is keeping out five-year-olds who profess their love for Jesus. Venema is a consistent enough paedobaptist to acknowledge the inclusion of the children in the Lord’s body as described in 1 Corinthians 10. But now he has to impose awkward things on the text in order to exclude these same children like pitting one interpretation of discerning the body, referring to the church, against another which sees the “the body of Christ” as Jesus himself. Does Paul mean the partaker must discern the church, or discern Jesus? Venema says the latter and thinks paedocommunionists the former. In the context of the Lord’s Supper, the Corinthians were required to do both. Communion is done in remembrance of Jesus, and it is done in the presence of all his people. Sinning against one is sinning against the other, and both the elements and the people are totus Christus, the body of Christ. Venema’s glaring omission here is the same as throughout the entire book: he assumes young children cannot have or profess “active faith.” He doesn’t even argue they cannot. But if you know your Old Testament or your Heidelberg catechism, you knowing that teaching young children by way of question and answer to love and trust God is perfectly valid. They repeat back the answers you give them, actively confessing their faith, “improving on their baptisms” in the language of some divines. What does it mean to keep them from communion because their faith isn’t “active” according to a bizarre and inconsistent definition of “active”? It means you are calling them liars or puppets. Moses didn’t say to teach God’s commandments diligently to your children so that when they’re older and not so clueless they’ll believe them. And Jesus didn’t tell us not to keep little children from him because they can’t really come to him, but because of them is the kingdom of heaven.

Toward the end of this chapter, Venema states “The normative understanding of these requirements in the Reformed churches is that the believer is expected to test the genuineness of his Christian profession before partaking of the sacrament. Such self-examination amounts to no more than a testing of his faith by the biblical standard of what belongs to a true Christian profession.” Paul says no such thing. He says that in the Lord’s Supper we are proclaiming the death of Jesus, and that we are to discern the body, knowing the meal is about Jesus and his people. Taking communion, according to Paul, is an active profession of faith. If we’re sinning against people as we partake, it would be better not to eat at all. And if we cause little ones to stumble, insisting that their baptismal and verbal professions don’t count (we’ll see if they mean it in a few years) and refusing to allow them to proclaim the death of Christ and their trust in him, how do we avoid the charge of causing them to stumble? Notice that this interpretation doesn’t require us to give communion to an infant who doesn’t know the difference between bread and rocks, or to someone in a coma. But it does require us to discern the body of Christ, even the small parts, and bring them to his Supper.