PC offers a different view of the Lord’s Supper than that which is found in the Westminster Standards and other confessional documents. A question that reveals the theology that supports PC is precisely this: what benefit does an infant derive from taking in the Supper? If you say that Christ is communicated with all His benefits to those who partake of the Supper, even among those who have not yet professed faith, then you have departed significantly from those within the Reformed tradition and may have unwittingly adopted a view that is superstitious and sacerdotal (ex opere operato).
I feel somewhat like a “Johnny-come-lately” when it comes to the debate surrounding the doctrine of paedocommunion (PC from here on). I was, as they say, “knee high to a grasshopper” when Reformed denominations were at work discussing and even debating the matter at the height of the Federal Vision controversy. I won’t tell you how old I was when PC was discussed as a standalone topic long before the Federal Vision was on the map.
While things have certainly shifted over the years, and the conversation around Federal Vision has generally fallen to the background, one of the remnants of the “old days” is confusion concerning the proper recipients of the Lord’s Supper. I currently minister in a place that is no stranger to the practice of admitting infants to the table (North Idaho), but this issue is not limited to a geographical corner of the United States or bound to any one Reformed denomination – it seems that there isn’t a minister that I have talked to in recent months who hasn’t had a congregant who is on the fence with PC.
My purpose in revisiting this issue is to encourage church members who are either on the fence regarding PC (or may even desire to push their churches in the direction of allowing the practice) to pause for a moment and consider the ramifications of holding such a view. My caution to those who are already on the other side of the fence is that PC might not be all that it professes to be: a biblical, historical, and beneficial practice – and that there may be some wisdom from those within the confessionally Reformed tradition that is being overlooked.
No, We Aren’t Baptists
A few months ago, I was sitting across the table from friends who recently started attending a church that practices PC. The wife was raised in a congregation of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church (OPC), but she found the arguments for PC to be quite convincing. I did my best to explain biblically and historically why the view had significant issues, but it was met with the rejoinder: “You sound a lot like a Baptist right now.” That wasn’t the first time I had heard such an accusation, and so it’s worth addressing.
The argument goes something like this: those who admit infants to the Font but not the Table are inconsistent in their admission of persons to the sacraments. How can a child belong to the covenant but not have the right to all the benefits of the covenant? Essentially, those of us who hold to a view that allows for only one sacrament to be applied to infants are adopting a Baptist framework of evaluating someone’s worthiness to partake in a sacrament by their visible faith.
While the argument of consistency may be appealing to some, it’s worth asking: why is it so appealing? I would contend that it’s far more of a Baptist framework to insist upon infants receiving both sacraments than to bifurcate them as different sacraments with different principles of inclusion (which is how the Westminster Divines treated the issue). To prove my point, watch this PC debate between a credobaptist and a paedocommunionist. You will notice that the discussion inevitably reverts to debating infant baptism. Why? They do not differ on whether a person who receives baptism can receive communion; they only differ on whether the child can receive baptism in the first place.
Returning to the original claim that those of us who do not hold to PC “still have some Baptist” left in us, consider a simple question: why are there two sacraments anyway? My concern is that the “consistency” approach invariably flattens the differences between baptism and the Lord’s Supper. Yes, they are both signs and seals of the covenant of grace, and their value is found sacramentally in their connection to Christ and all his benefits. Yet, their function is different.
Baptism is that sign of inclusion into the covenant people of God, and the Lord’s Supper is that sign of strengthening, nourishing, and feeding upon Christ by faith. There is a different experience of enjoying this sacrament: we do it as a body and in perpetuity. There are even sanctions through discipline that can bar someone from the Lord’s Table, whereas baptism is only administered once and cannot be “undone.”
Now, at the time of writing this, I admit that I was a Baptist just eight years ago, so perhaps someone can legitimately claim that I am still thinking ‘baptistically.’ However, the same can’t be said of the men who wrote the Westminster Standards. Note how they see a pertinent difference between the sacraments, which ties into their views of the proper recipients of the sacraments:
- Wherein do the sacraments of baptism and the Lord’s supper differ?