Bring Them to the Table

Cornelis Venema’s last chapter Concluding Observations and Evaluation sums up his arguments and allows me an opportunity to address a few things in conclusion on the topic of paedocommunion.

Venema states rightly that any answer regarding admitting, or rather suspending, children to the Lord’s Supper must ultimately rest on the Scriptures. Historically, paedocommunion was commonly practiced in the church until the later Middle Ages when the superstition of transubstantiation forbade children from the elements and eventually all lay people from the cup. Still, this doesn’t prove the correctness of paedocommunion any more than the the restrictions of the Reformed confessions disprove it.

Venema oddly argues that unlike Baptism which is a once-and-for-all sign and seal of incorporation into Christ, the Lord’s Supper is administered frequently to nourish faith, therefore “it requires a prior attestation of the presence of faith on the part of the recipient.” Really? So it’s fine with God if a baby is faithless and unbelieving, but a communicant must possess faith? Where is this distinction ever made in the Bible? Nowhere, but in order to drive a wedge between the baptized who may take the Supper and the baptized who may not, you have to manufacture distinctions like this. When you go through the Bible to see what it says about the faith of children, you find a lot. You find babies getting circumcised as children of Abraham, you know, father of the faithful. Children were marked with God’s sign and seal because they were and are to be considered his. This is no different in the ritual meals of the Old Covenant.

You shall observe this rite as a statute for you and for your sons forever. And when you come to the land that the LORD will give you, as he has promised, you shall keep this service. And when your children say to you, ‘What do you mean by this service?’ you shall say, ‘It is the sacrifice of the LORD’s Passover, for he passed over the houses of the people of Israel in Egypt, when he struck the Egyptians but spared our houses.'” And the people bowed their heads and worshiped.  — Exodus 12:24-27

Moses didn’t ask his sons for a profession of faith. He simply responded to their natural questions about Passover, not that asking was the requirement for eating! Who requires their kids to ask for food in order to be fed? If their kids asks for bread, who gives them a stone?

The covenant understanding of children is that they are holy. Not maybe Christians, not we’ll see in a few years, not sew your wild Dutch oats in college and hopefully we’ll see you back at church when you are clothed and in your right mind. Paul says the children of one believing parent are holy (1 Cor. 7:14). If Venema was a baptist, then he would engage on this issue. But he is supposed to be a presbyterian, though he argues like a baptist. Are all baptized children saved? Of course not. Not all Israel are Israel. Does that mean we wait to see if they are really Chrisitans, like when they’re in late adolescence, gone through confirmation, and then see if they’re ready for the table? Should we doubt genuine covenant children because of the presence of hypocrites? Let God be true and every man a liar. Baptism is profession of faith, a declaration of unity with Christ’s death. If it means that, we should admit the baptized, provided they are not (sleeping) infants, in a coma, or otherwise incapacitated, to the Lord’s Supper. Let this nourishing meal actually nourish the young, immature and genuine faith that Christ recognized.

Venema quotes John Barach and other Federal Vision advocates trying to demonstrate that some people believe all the baptized are automatically saved and necessarily salvifically united to Christ. On the same page of Barach’s essay in The Auburn Avenue Theology: Pros & Cons quoted by Venema, Barach refers to Calvin: “Using our traditional theological language, we would say that these were non-elect members of the covenant. Using Calvin’s terminology, these people were “generally elect” but not “specially elect.” Venema blatantly misses all sorts of qualifications and nuances of his paedocommunionist opponents, showing a culpable ignorance. We give the sign that God requires us to give as we believe the promises for our children which he requires us to believe. We don’t wait to see if the kids fall away, or cause them to fall away by doubting their confessions. We don’t turn Paul’s command to discern the Lord’s body into an academic test for those who graduate from confirmation.

Near the end of the chapter, Venema says “Nothing in my evaluation of the case for paedocommunion should suggest that Christian churches do not have an obligation to lead children, on the basis of the covenant promise that was signified and sealed to them in baptism, to the Table of the Lord.” I do hope that non paedocommunion churches take this charge seriously. If they do so, and if these parents trust the promises and nourish their children like the Bible requires, they will have a tough time telling little four-year-old Johnny he may not partake even though he says he loves Jesus. Venema stays away from all of these sorts of practical circumstances. What do you do when your small child repeats back to you the Heidelberg catechism, professing his only hope in life and death? If he isn’t saying something back to you about Jesus, how can you claim to be leading him? And if he is and you refuse to acknowledge his young, seedling faith, you are failing to discern the Lord’s body and ought to be suspended from the Table yourself.

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