James writes to ask about when children should make profession of faith and receive communion. He has observed young children being admitted to the table and wonders whether that is proper, whether children are really professing faith or merely parroting what they have heard their parents (and pastor) say.
Dear James,
The key word here is “credible.” Can a 6 year-old make a “credible” profession of faith? My understanding of childhood development is strongly influenced by the view of humanity represented by Dorothy Sayers’ lecture and essay, “The Lost Tools of Learning.” I tried to apply that approach to practice of catechesis with my own children and to encourage others to do the same. If that view is correct, children generally develop in three stages: parrot, pert, and poet. In their younger years they naturally delight in repeating what they are told. They have a remarkable facility for memorization. This is when children should be memorizing Scripture and catechism. As you suggest, however, being able to repeat is not necessarily the same thing as being able to understand—though there are exceptions. The second stage, the pert stage, is that season in which children begin to analyze what they have memorized. They are immature so the questions may come out ill-formed or, to put it plainly, smart-aleck, hence “pert.” It is important for parents, pastors, and elders to persevere, however, with the child because what he is really asking is “do you really believe this or are you just going through the motions?” The third stage of development is the “poet” in which the child begins to realize that there are transcendent realities to which symbols point and it is somewhere in this stage that we might expect a child to make profession of faith, when he has more prepared to speak for himself, when the faith in which has been catechized has become not just an inheritance but a personal possession.
Children are not computers and childhood development occurs at different speeds in different children. Social and cultural changes affect the process too. Calvin expected children to make profession by 10. Memorization was more widely practiced then than it is now. Lifespans were shorter. In our culture, in some ways children seem to be pushed toward maturity in the wrong ways (e.g., sexual development) but in other ways their growth seems to be retarded by misguided educational philosophies that emphasize subject experience over objective reality and approaches to parenting (e.g., helicoptering) that slow the ability of children to explore the world for themselves and to take responsibility for themselves at an earlier age.
Assuming that a child has been well catechized and raised in a reasonably normal Christian way, i.e., that the child has been lovingly disciplined, that he has been included in public worship and that the family has attended faithfully to the means of grace (preaching of the Word and the sacraments as appropriate) parents might ordinarily expect their child to begin to be ready as early as age 12—perhaps a little earlier or later. Certainly we should expect covenant children ordinarily to be prepared to profess faith before the elders before high school graduation and parents should not assume that profession must be postponed as if profession and graduation must go hand-in-hand.
Remember, we have two sacraments: the sign and seal of initiation into the covenant community (baptism) and the sign and seal of renewal or personal appropriation: the Lord’s Supper. These sacraments have different functions and we do not collapse them by restricting initiation into the covenant community only to those who make profession (that is the Baptist practice) nor do we collapse them so as to admit infants to communion, that is the error of paedocommunion. In the New Testament sometimes we see adult converts profess faith and receive the sign and seal of initiation (e.g., the Philippian jailer) and sometimes we see whole households receive baptism. See this essay for a discussion. Baptism is for unbaptized adult converts and for the children of believers. God has not revoked his promise: “I will be a God to you and to your children” since Peter said expressly, “for the promise is to you and to your children (Acts 2:39).” Communion, however, is for the baptized and the instructed (catechized) Christian.
May a 6-year old sufficiently understand the mysteries transpiring in the Lord’s Table to be able to participate in holy communion? Perhaps but it would be an extraordinary case. After all, the Reformed churches confess in Heidelberg 75
…that Christ has commanded me and all believers to eat of this broken bread and to drink of this cup in remembrance of Him, and has joined therewith these promises: First, that His body was offered and broken on the cross for me and His blood shed for me, as certainly as I see with my eyes the bread of the Lord broken for me and the cup communicated to me; and further, that with His crucified body and shed blood He Himself feeds and nourishes my soul to everlasting life, as certainly as I receive from the hand of the minister and taste with my mouth the bread and cup of the Lord, which are given me as certain tokens of the body and blood of Christ.
A believer, who is admitted to communion on the basis of a credible profession of faith, says that, in communion, we are
so united more and more to His sacred body by the Holy Spirit, who dwells both in Christ and in us, that, although He is in heaven and we on earth, we are nevertheless flesh of His flesh and bone of His bone, and live and are governed forever by one Spirit, as members of the same body are by one soul (Heidelberg 76).
and in Heidelberg 77 we say:
we are as really partakers of His true body and blood by the working of the Holy Spirit , as we receive by the mouth of the body these holy tokens in remembrance of Him.
It is essential that a believer understand the difference between being nourished by ordinary bread and wine and being nourished, by the work of the Holy Spirit, on the true, “proper and natural” body and blood of Christ through faith alone. This is the distinction we make in Belgic Confession art. 35:
Thus, to support the physical and earthly life God has prescribed for us an appropriate earthly and material bread, which is as common to all as life itself also is. But to maintain the spiritual and heavenly life that belongs to believers he has sent a living bread that came down from heaven: namely Jesus Christ, who nourishes and maintains the spiritual life of believers when eaten—that is, when appropriated and received spiritually by faith.
Ordinary eating is common to all humans, believer and unbeliever alike. Communion, however, is a holy sacrament, in which only believers actually eat and drink Christ by faith:
To represent to us this spiritual and heavenly bread Christ has instituted an earthly and visible bread as the sacrament of his body and wine as the sacrament of his blood. He did this to testify to us that just as truly as we take and hold the sacraments in our hands and eat and drink it in our mouths, by which our life is then sustained, so truly we receive into our souls, for our spiritual life, the true body and true blood of Christ, our only Savior. We receive these by faith, which is the hand and mouth of our souls.
How this happens is a mystery and no one comprehends a mystery fully, since in the nature of the thing it is “incomprehensible,” as we confess, but a communicant must ordinarily (there are exceptional cases as is the developmentally delayed) apprehend or be able to appreciate that it is a mystery. He must be able to apprehend and appreciate something of the mystery of being fed by Christ’s true body, through faith, by the work of the Spirit.
It is essential that the elders and pastor(s) who hear a child’s profession be convinced that the profession of faith is genuine and well-informed because there is some jeopardy attached to the Supper (Heidelberg 82). God’s Word says:
Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty concerning the body and blood of the Lord. Let a person examine himself, then, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment on himself. That is why many of you are weak and ill, and some have died. But if we judged ourselves truly, we would not be judged. But when we are judged by the Lord, we are disciplined so that we may not be condemned along with the world (1 Cor 11:27–32; ESV).
Because believers are fed by Christ (and not by the person sitting next to them) it is a sacred feast, it is a communion, a mysterious, Holy-Spirit-enabled fellowship between believers and the risen Christ. It is not for unbelievers. Hypocrites, i.e., those who profess faith but who do not believe put themselves in jeopardy when they come to the table. This is why we fence the table. It is not our table (and it is not Rome’s to change or pollute as she will). It is the Lord’s Table to which believers, in good standing in Christ’s church, are invited.
This is why we say that only those are to come to the Lord’s Table “who are displeased with themselves for their sins, yet trust that these are forgiven them, and that their remaining infirmity is covered by the passion and death of Christ; who also desire more and more to strengthen their faith and to amend their life. But the impenitent and hypocrites eat and drink judgment to themselves.” (Heidelberg 81) Can a 6-year old meet these tests? Perhaps but again, in the ordinary providence of God, young children, though they may well have a strong sense of right and wrong and of sin (especially those of others), usually gain gradually a sense of what it means to be forgiven by God and what it means to amend one’s life. Christian adults struggle daily to keep together the truth that we are sinners with “remaining infirmity,” which is covered by Christ’s righteousness imputed, and the necessity of daily dying to sin and being made alive to Christ (HC 88–90). Covenant children are often given a simple, heartfelt trust in Christ but it takes time to be able to articulate it and communion is, ordinarily, for those who can given a credible account of their trust in Christ.
These are reasons why we catechize our children so thoroughly, why we used to require them to memorize the catechism—and perhaps should again—so that they would have in their bones, as it were, the theology, piety, and practice taught by God’s Word and confessed by the Reformed churches. It would surprising if a 6-year old had memorized the catechism or been so-prepared that he should be admitted to the table. In my experience, when younger children are admitted to the table the definition of “profession of faith” has been revised and the bar has been lowered. It is sufficient for a child, who is not developmentally disabled, to be admitted to the table upon being able merely to say “I love Jesus”? Historically and confessionally the Reformed and Presbyterian churches have not taken this position.
It is the elders and pastors who have the responsibility before the Great Shepherd of the Sheep, our Lord Jesus Christ, to fence the table and no one can do it perfectly. Unbelievers will come to the table but as much as lies within them, elders and pastors must make every good-faith effort to see to it that covenant young people admitted to the table on the basis of profession have made a credible, informed, thoughtful, and heartfelt profession of faith.
This is a very well stated and timely post.
Sometimes a child’s profession can go hand in hand with a complete change in behaviour – I’ve seen it happen, and am convinced that the child was truly converted. However, he wasn’t rushed into baptism by his parents.
Dr. Clark,
Thank you. I particularly appreciate your last line: “Unbelievers will come to the table but as much as lies within them, elders and pastors must make every good-faith effort to see to it that covenant young people admitted to the table on the basis of profession have made a credible, informed, thoughtful, and heartfelt profession of faith.”
I would just add one thing. You write: “May a 6-year old sufficiently understand the mysteries transpiring in the Lord’s Table to be able to participate in holy communion? Perhaps but it would be an extraordinary case.” I agree with you as far as you go. But I also have a practical problem as a Minister. While the 6 year old’s faith and apparent (partial) understanding of the Lord’s Supper may be genuine, I have significant doubts about my ability and the ability of my fellow Elders to make the judgment that a six year old is making a “credible, informed, thoughtful, and heartfelt profession of faith.” Since the Lord of the Church has entrusted us with the responsibility of fencing His table by making and declaring our determination in this matter – our inability is sufficient grounds in my judgment to require the child to wait until he or she is older.
When parents suggest to me that their very young child is a believer and they think he or she is ready to take communion, I always tell them that their child may be a believer who has an adequate partial grasp on the meaning of the Lord’s Supper but I am incapable of responsibly making such a judgment about them at this early stage in their development. The youngest person where my Session has ever determined that they were making a credible profession of faith was 9 – and I definitely think that this is the exception rather than the rule.
Best wishes,
David
With regards to Reverend Gregga’s query above: some may think this overly legalistic, but likely this practice which I am about to mention probably goes back to the Scottish Reformation.
The Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland does not admit communicants under the age of fifteen. Even there, the Church is reticent to receive most at even that age, and is more inclined to wait, as a rule, until after the youth is eighteen. The logic is that teenagers can be emotional, and be swayed by emotion to make a profession, without having a true saving change in the heart. Accordingly, it is better to wait, until there is lasting evidence of fruit.
I freely allow that very young children can be converted! But in our Church, children understand that they will not be admitted until later, so there are no hard feelings.
My personal fear would be that, in admitting as a rule young children, many could be admitted with mere historical faith, without their having genuinely experience savingly their misery, deliverance, and gratitude, as specified in the Heidelberg Catechism.
Keep in mind that also the Jews have bar Mitzvah, a catechism of the child, before he is admitted as a full member of synagogue. In all probability, this practice goes back to the times of our Lord and Saviour, and even before, when there were still many believers in Jesus the Messiah in the synagogues.
My thoughts, anyway…
David,
Thanks for this helpful addition. Indeed, Elders and ministers should recognize their own limits. This is why it’s important for a communicant, ordinarily, to be able to articulate his faith.
This is very interesting, and it serves to bring up a distinction between the URC view and the Presbyterian view.
Dr. Clark, I see you emphasizing the need for children to articulate and understand certain theological realities. Of course this must be the case when you employ confessional membership. I’m not opposed to this per set, but its not how Presbyterians operate.
Presbyterians do not ask members to subscribe to the Westminster standards. Elders do not expect that everyone who is worthy to partake of the Lord’s Supper (e.g., all who can be reasonably judged as heaven bound) can articulate the theology behind the Lord’s Supper. Presbyterians will admit Baptists to the table as heaven bound brothers in Christ. For this reason, they are also allowed to become members upon credibly professing their faith.
Many think that that’s all that can or should be said about it, but its not. A real weakness of this way of doing things is that few consider that the idea is for those who disagree with the church’s teachings to be gently brought into conformity. They are not supposed to simply remain a Baptist indefinitely.
Why not? Because if you’re a Baptist attending a Presbyterian Church, you don’t just have a tiny different view of a completely detached practice unrelated to anything else – you have a very different view of all of Scripture.
For example, Baptists see baptism as their commitment to God, their pledge to follow him and obey him. They are publicly announcing their commitment to Jesus, saying, “I have decided to follow Jesus, no turning back, no turning back”.
Presbyterians/Reformed understand baptism not as our pledge to God but God’s pledge to us! What a difference! Baptism is not like Abraham’s obedience to leave everything and go to the land that God will show him, it’s more like when the smoking firepot of God’s presence passes between the pieces of the animals! It is God saying to us, I will be faithful to you! I will bring you through the flood waters of judgment unscathed – if you only believe.
These are completely the opposite approaches to what you’re even looking for in Scripture! We look for what God has done for us and promised to do for us, but Baptists look for what he demands of us. Obviously both are present, but its a very different emphasis that lkeads to seeing very different things in Scripture.
So how can you submissively sit under preaching on a regular basis that you’re convinced misunderstands Scripture on such a fundamental level? You must conform, however slowly, or leave. You cannot continue to smugly disagree with your pastor’s entire approach to Scripture and submit to his preaching. That’s unsustainable.
But because we say Baptists can join, Baptists can eat and drink Christ, therefore no one demands any more of them. I cannot tell you how much that grieves me and I am fully convinced it grieves the Lord.
But I am not convinced the URC has the answer either. Christ commands us in his word to eat and drink, to join the church. We are not justified by the extent of our theological knowledge, though of course there is a minimum standard by which we must be able to judge a profession. And yet, when young mothers have a miscarriage, we do not hesitate (I hope) to assure her that her baby is with the Lord and will have no lesser portion in the resurrection. My own first child suffered just such a fate. I feel absolutely confident in the salvation of that child and of my two children under 5.
I don’t know, I think its a matter of wisdom which cannot be legislated. Can a child convince elders that they truly believe and hope in Christ alone for salvation? That’s the question. They have to PROVE that with their words.
My 4 year old recently expressed frustration at being unable to participate. “But I believe too!” he insisted. And yet, he cannot articulate what he believes and doesn’t really understand it. He just feels left out. I feel sorry for him, but I am not going to let him partake, even if I’m convinced he’s heaven bound, because its not HIS word that convinces me of that – its God’s.
Hi Michael,
Thanks for this.
To be clear, I’m not arguing a “URC” view. This is the view that was taught by all the Reformed and Presbyterian churches in the 16th and 17th centuries. The distinction you note developed later. Presbyterians were requiring children to memorize the Shorter Catechism well into the 19th century.
You probably know this but there’s a chapter on confessional subscription in RRC.
Tell me, brephobaptists (I use this term because some credobaptists will baptize children who are held to be making a credible profession and are, therefore, not non-paedobaptist), when you proceed to the Lord’s Table, is that about your pledge to God, with its Arminian overtones, or is it a profession that God has wrought in you the work of conversion? If the latter, why will you not accept that to Particular Baptists baptism means exactly what coming to the Lord’s Table for the first time means to you?
Once again, very helpful teaching. Good comments also. Thanks, Scott and all. I’m passing the link on…
Thanks Jack!
Presbyterians will admit Baptists to the table as heaven bound brothers in Christ. For this reason, they are also allowed to become members upon credibly professing their faith.
Many think that that’s all that can or should be said about it, but its not. A real weakness of this way of doing things is that few consider that the idea is for those who disagree with the church’s teachings to be gently brought into conformity. They are not supposed to simply remain a Baptist indefinitely.
Michael, bingo. I’ve never understood this line of reasoning either. Why invite potential problems up front? What happens when the member has children and still refuses practice the faith (a great sin, per WCF)? The reasoning often seems to be that most eventually do come around. Great, but if that’s the case why not withhold membership until that happens? Why jump the gun and make members of those who deny an essential doctrine and practice? I smell big tent.
Zrim,
The issue of what must a person confess to become a communicant member is complicated, but I don’t think the possibility of inviting future problems is a sufficient reason to tell fellow Christians they are not welcome at the Lord’s Table or that they are not allowed to be members of the local church. A few thoughts:
1. One of the common expressions used by Presbyterians who believe that church membership should be minimally confessional is “The gates of the local church should be as wide as the gates of heaven.” There is something to that. As I regularly tell my congregation as part of fencing the Lord’s Table: “This is not the table of this local church or even of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. It is the table of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.” I’m pretty sure that you believe that too.
2. The local Church is not a club. Christians are obligated to unite with a local church and each church doesn’t get to make up its own rules. When we read the New Testament we see a consistent pattern: Everyone who converts as an adult is baptized the same day (not after a long period of catechesis) and there is no indication that any believer in Jesus who is seeking to follow Jesus is ever excluded from the Lord’s Supper.
3. There are also two practical problems with requiring people to confess their belief in lengthy confessional documents as a condition for membership in a local church. The first problem is that this encourages hypocrisy on the part of those who want to join the church but don’t really understand the documents. The only practical way to address this is by requiring a lengthy period of catechesis prior to allowing these believers to become members of the local church. Such a practice is both contrary to the consistent pattern of the New Testament and the introduces the strange practice of leaving the most immature and vulnerable believers outside of the membership of the visible church.
4. Let me illustrate the second practical problem with a story. Imagine there are three churches in your town. Your church, a Roman Catholic Church, and a charismatic dispensational Baptist church. Someone comes to your town from Grace Community Church and starts attending worship at your church. This person has been trained to be a baptist for 30 years – but values the solid doctrine and reverent worship in your congregation. He says he wants to join your church but you won’t let him because after having many discussions with the Elders of your congregation he still doesn’t see that the Bible teaches infant baptism. But this man is conscientious. He knows that he needs to join a local church, so he asks you: “Which of the other two churches in town should I join?” What do you tell him? [Yes, I know I created a somewhat artificial situation for the sake of simplicity. But I can assure you that in New England where I live it would not be at all unusual for there to be only one church you could recommend with confidence in a 30 minute driving radius]
Best wishes,
David
David, to be clear, I’m not really talking about the table per se but membership. I don’t see how properly fencing the table would preclude visiting Baptists. But membership is a different matter. Whatever else it entails, certainly it entails affirming the Reformed faith and practice by making those who do members. I don’t see how affirming those who reject it doesn’t make a mockery of membership and the doctrines we confess and practice. One solution could be to dial down the essence of baptism. Until that happens, I don’t see what harm there is in dialing up the requirement for membership. But you can’t have it both ways—baptism is essential but you don’t have to agree with us on the content. Huh? Makes more sense to say baptism isn’t essential so you can hedge.
I’m also not saying membership requires special theological erudition of each member. In fact, I’d suggest that there is something to be said for obedience preceding understanding. But to clearly and openly reject what is clearly and openly affirmed is something else altogether.
As to your hypothetical, my response would to be to discourage anything but an orthodox Reformed church. And I would use his desire to cling to ours as incentive to get this piece of the puzzle in place. I would encourage him to remain with us informally and for all to exercise patience and long suffering, putting formal membership off until he either understood or was willing to set his understanding aside for the sake of obedience. I might even relay my own experience as a credo-baptist who so desired Reformed membership that I was willing to submit to paedobaptistic teaching and practice to get it and come to understand later.
Zrim,
I have a question for you, but I want to preface it by saying that I’m not trying to pick at what you wrote. I freely confess that this is a challenging subject.
Here is my question: You write “… putting off formal membership …” My question is, what other type of membership is there?
I ask this because I think your answer really amounts to telling a person that he shouldn’t be a member of any local church. Adding the word “formal” softens how this sounds but doesn’t change the reality. Furthermore, at least as I see it, this person who is not a member of any local church should not be coming to the Lord’s Supper either.
BTW – While we are talking about Baptism the number of potential issues that could be raised as a bar to church membership is quite large once we think theological agreement rather than a credible profession of faith are the requirements for church membership.
David
David, I consider my answer not to discourage membership in a local church but in fact to esteem membership so highly and take it so seriously that it ought not be granted with the sort of latitudinarianism apparent in some Presbyterian communions. He should be a member in a local church, and the requirement should be a vow to confess and practice the Reformed faith. What does that sound and look like? Paedobaptism. If we don’t believe that then we should revise the confessions accordingly. But until then, what I am saying seems the honest way to handle membership. Does a credible profession include a rejection of an essential doctrine and practice?
To the extent that it is the mirror error of credo-baptism, I presume you reject paedocommunion as contrary to the confessed Reformed faith. Would you make a member of him who fully intends to feed his baptized but unexamined and unprofessing child the Supper (as he who fully intends to withhold baptism from his children, which again, is confessed to be a great sin)?
Zrim,
I think we may be at an impasse and I have enjoyed interacting with you. It has been helpful.
Perhaps there is one other area where we could move the issue forward raised by your question of “Why not wait until Baptists make the change in their thinking to allow them to become members?” So here is my question:
“Where does the Church get authority to define what is required to become a member?”
My answer: The only authority the church has to determine who to admit and who to keep out comes from Scripture.
David
Zrim,
That is an excellent question.
First, let me give you a clear answer to your question: I would not admit anyone to membership in our church who practiced paedo-communion by feeding his very young children the Lord’s Supper. Of course, I also wouldn’t admit anyone to membership in our congregation who tried to administer the Lord’s Supper at home to their children who had been declared to be communicant members of the church by our Session.
Second, I wouldn’t excommunicate an individual because he or she believed in paedo-communion. In fact, in churches that I have been a part of over the past two decades we have had a small number of people come to our church who did believe in paedo-communion. This is not a bar to membership. In the past we have had Ministers in the OPC who believed in paedo-communion (the majority report for the OPC on paedo-communion was actually in favor of adopting the practice). I’m not sure if someone would be ordained today who believed in paedo-communion because this has not come up in my Presbytery – but it is at least theoretically possible. Is there a difference between insisting that an individual not practice paedo-communion and not requiring someone to positively bring their children to be baptized? I think that there is, but to be honest I’m not entirely sure. I may just be inconsistent on this point. In practice, the very small number of people who have come to churches I have been a part of who believed in paedo-communion did accept that only the church had the authority to administer the Lord’s Supper and they accepted our church’s practice.
Third, I actually think that you are on better grounds to require infant baptism than the broader expression “to confess the Reformed faith.” As I mentioned above, the examples we see in the New Testament all involve adult converts being baptized on the very day they confessed Christ. While such an individual could be expected to follow all the practices of the church (we actually aren’t told about this either way) it is clear that such individuals wouldn’t have a mature understanding of the Christian faith. When we read the letters written to churches in the New Testament, it becomes clear that many of the members of the Apostolic church had significant doctrinal deviations and yet they were in fact members of the local body.
May I add an analogy? Most of the NAPARC churches that I am familiar with practice a very patient approach to helping people embrace Sabbath observance. This has been true of the churches I have been a part of. We teach on the Sabbath. I have personally spent a fair amount of time in one-on-one discipleship trying to help people learn to enter into divine rest in the midst of our human restlessness on the Sabbath day. Nevertheless, I am not aware of a single case of a person being denied membership into a local church because of his or her views on the Sabbath. This may be different in the URC (I would appreciate knowing how they deal with this issue). Does this make us latitudinarian? I’m sure that many of the Puritans would say: “Absolutely!” But I think it is part of wisely proclaiming Christ in a very different culture.
This brings me back to my biggest problem with confessional church membership: Where is the Biblical support for this approach?
Thank you for your thoughtful interaction. As I said, I think this is complicated issue.
David
David,
Thanks for this and your other candid comments in response to Zrim. As someone also in the OPC, it’s encouraging for me to see others thinking through these kinds of issues.
Blessings…
David, thanks as well for the interaction. Just a clarification. When I said “feed his feed his baptized but unexamined and unprofessing child the Supper,” I don’t have in mind something going on privately. I mean that when the plate is passed or the pew is invited forward, our friend allows his said child to partake.
You say: “Is there a difference between insisting that an individual not practice paedo-communion and not requiring someone to positively bring their children to be baptized? I think that there is, but to be honest I’m not entirely sure. I may just be inconsistent on this point.” As I suggested above, I am convinced that PC and CB are born of the same error, so I see no difference; to rush a child to the table is as much an error as withholding one from the font. If we insist on abstaining from rushing to the table, I don’t see why we ought not insist on presenting to the font.
Agreed on Sabbath observance. My view here flows from the fact that we confess three marks of a true church, and the proper administration of the sacraments are second. If we raise baptism (and the Supper) to that which marks the true church, I don’t see why we ought not require those who want to be her members to confess and practice in accordance with those marks as we confess them. If we think that’s too difficult for her members, then perhaps we should also lower the bar for what marks a true church. I know that some have difficulty with these marks because it means they must maintain something about Baptist churches being “less true,” and I think this latitudinarianism about members is a variant of that discomfort. Be that as it may, it is what we confess, and so until we dial down how we discern a true church I’m not sure how what I am saying doesn’t obtain.
We’ve discussed via the hypothetical how this affects an individual. Fair enough. But my other concern is what we convey in general about what we confess about the church to our members and beyond. In a word (and sorry to be repetitive), to affirm by membership those who deny what we confess as essential and refuse to practice what we practice accordingly is to undermine that very confession and practice to others who do. What are we saying to those who confess and practice the essentials of the faith when we affirm by membership those who don’t?
Zrim,
I’m finishing up one of my sermons for tomorrow, so I am just going to add two quick comments:
(1) I like your point about the right administration of the sacraments being one of the marks of a true church. But this hasn’t quite pulled me fully over to your point of view. First, I think the Sabbath example is important because keeping the Sabbath is in fact one of the Ten Commandments and it is quite central to how the LORD relates to His people. It would be hard to argue that infant baptism is somehow more central to Biblical Christianity than the Sabbath is. Second, at least in the OPC we haven’t actually declared that Baptist Churches are in fact false churches because of how they administer Baptism. If we did, we wouldn’t allow Baptists who visit our congregation to partake of the Lord’s Supper since they would not be members of a true church [As we keep in mind the distinction between a genuine church and a rightly ordered church]. I admit that perfect consistency is probably always going to elude us as we deal with ministering faithfully to the people who are actually in front of us but so long as we are treating Baptist churches as genuine churches that have a distorted administration of Baptism it makes sense to me that having a wrong view of Baptism would not necessarily bar one from membership in Presbyterian church.
(2) The other thing you might be interested in is how practically men on my side of the fence work to avoid minimizing the importance of covenant children and infant baptism when we admit Baptists to membership. First, my Session always tells such Baptists that this isn’t a matter of different strokes for different folks and that we feel compelled to try and convince them from Scripture that infant baptism is what God has established as the right practice for his church and that they are obligated to listen to this teaching thoughtfully as part of their commitment to submit to the leadership of our congregation. Second, I publicly teach on this doctrine. A few years ago I had a couple of Baptists join our congregation. I responded by teaching what I think was a 10 week Sunday school series on baptism. One of the families subsequently left our congregation to join a Baptist church. That will happen. Others have come around to the Biblical point of view. I mention this because I have seen some large PCA churches where the Session stopped clearly teaching the Reformed doctrine of Baptism so as not to disturb the Baptists in their congregation. I think that such an approach is unfaithful to our calling as Ministers and Elders.
Thank you again. Speaking of the Sabbath, may you have a wonderful Sabbath day tomorrow resting in the LORD and worshiping with His people.
David
David, thanks again. If you’ll indulge me a bit more, what would you do with those credos you’ve made members who have children (or didn’t at the time of membership but now do), have honestly engaged your teaching, remain unconvinced, yet instead of moving on to a Baptist church also desire to remain members? WCF 28.5 says it is “a great sin to contemn or neglect this ordinance,” and BCO 56-1 says that “baptism is not to be unnecessarily delayed.” It seems to me that what you essentially have are members who are sinning by neglecting and unnecessarily delaying this ordinance. Do you discipline them?
Zrim,
(1) The issue of parents sinning by continuing to deny the sacrament of baptism to their children as they remain as members in good and regular standing in a NAPARC church is a significant concern to me.
(2) I am grateful that I have not had to deal with this situation as those Baptists who have joined churches that I have been a part of, who had or would later have children, all quickly adopted paedobaptism. Regretfully, this isn’t guaranteed [Although I do think that it helps that our Session is very clear about teaching these individuals the Biblical doctrine of baptizing our covenant children]
(3) Yes, of course anyone engaged in a sin such as neglecting to have their children baptized needs to be under the discipline of the church. The question is what should that discipline be? The most common discipline of the church is the teaching and preaching of the word of God and this is the discipline that our Session would intend to apply to parents who do not baptize their children (which we haven’t had to deal with) and Sabbath breakers (which we have had to deal with).
(4) I know this is obvious, but I think that it is worth stating: There is a difference between someone who is sinning because they are doing what they know God forbids and those who are sinning because they are following their consciences and their consciences need to be reformed by the word of God.
(5) I mentioned the Sabbath again because you have appropriately pointed out that the WCF calls neglecting the baptism of our children to be a great sin. If you read the Larger Catechism Q/As 115-121 I’m sure that you will agree that the Westminster Standards also teach that to neglect the Sabbath is a great sin – even though they don’t use those exact words. It therefore seems appropriate that we would approach discipline in similar ways (the public and private teaching of God’s word) in both cases.
On a tangential note: I had lunch with a fellow pastor this week who was reminding me of how patient (longsuffering!) Jesus was when He dealt with His disciples. Even at the end of His earthly life His disciples were arguing over which of them would be greatest. My friend said: “If I were Jesus, I think I would have recruited 12 new disciples at that point. Yet, that is not what Jesus did.” While we weren’t discussing anything related to church discipline, I think that Christ’s example points us towards exercising a great deal of patience with people who are sinning through ignorance rather than out of open rebellion against God’s revealed will.
David
David, speaking of patience and long-suffering, thanks for keeping up with my questions, etc. Sorry to make this lengthy, but I want to respond selectively to some of your more interesting points.
(2) I am grateful that I have not had to deal with this situation as those Baptists who have joined churches that I have been a part of, who had or would later have children, all quickly adopted paedobaptism. Regretfully, this isn’t guaranteed [Although I do think that it helps that our Session is very clear about teaching these individuals the Biblical doctrine of baptizing our covenant children]
I hear this frequently an am grateful for it. But my remaining question is this: If your experience is that they come around quickly, why not wait until they do to make them members? Or is it that you think making them members somehow helps the quick change (and that denying membership is an obstacle)?
(3) Yes, of course anyone engaged in a sin such as neglecting to have their children baptized needs to be under the discipline of the church. The question is what should that discipline be? The most common discipline of the church is the teaching and preaching of the word of God and this is the discipline that our Session would intend to apply to parents who do not baptize their children (which we haven’t had to deal with) and Sabbath breakers (which we have had to deal with).
But that sounds like what you’ve already been doing, namely engaging them thoroughly through teaching, etc. My question presupposed that you’ve already been discipling. We are now hypothetically at the end of that, and they still refuse to modify their views and practice. Now what?
(4) I know this is obvious, but I think that it is worth stating: There is a difference between someone who is sinning because they are doing what they know God forbids and those who are sinning because they are following their consciences and their consciences need to be reformed by the word of God.
Agreed. But this is where I sense the latitudinarianism. We confess that God is very clear on who is to be baptized. As you said above “…this isn’t a matter of different strokes for different folks and that we feel compelled to try and convince them from Scripture that infant baptism is what God has established as the right practice for his church and that they are obligated to listen to this teaching thoughtfully as part of their commitment to submit to the leadership of our congregation.” Agreed, but this latest point sounds like you’re saying baptism isn’t so clear and Baptists have good and compelling reasons to be allowed to follow their conscience within the fold. I agree that they should be allowed to practice their conscience from a civic perspective, i.e. freedom of religion. But if they are being governed spiritually, it’s another story altogether. I mean, do we allow for Arianism to be adhered to within the church? My sense is that some this owes to the idea that baptism isn’t easily sorted out theologically. Some will appeal to the complex nature of Trinitarian and Christological doctrine, but my confident guess is that we don’t allow Arianism to appeal to freedom of conscience. If what is arguably a harder doctrine to conceive is also expected to be confessed nevertheless, why not one that is less difficult?
On a tangential note: I had lunch with a fellow pastor this week who was reminding me of how patient (longsuffering!) Jesus was when He dealt with His disciples. Even at the end of His earthly life His disciples were arguing over which of them would be greatest. My friend said: “If I were Jesus, I think I would have recruited 12 new disciples at that point. Yet, that is not what Jesus did.” While we weren’t discussing anything related to church discipline, I think that Christ’s example points us towards exercising a great deal of patience with people who are sinning through ignorance rather than out of open rebellion against God’s revealed will.
Perhaps tangential but no less important a point and closely related to point 4 above. I want to be clear that none of what I’m saying involves wanting to be less than patient with folks striving to be faithful; I think we’re all trying to do that and we do well to remember that’s what others are trying to do. I have good friends who are Baptist, and the irony can be that some of the more honest ones actually agree with me on this score more so than many PB Presbyterians. I know transient Baptists who have been made associate members of a Reformed church who, while glad for the formal oversight membership brings, also doubted the wisdom of doing so. That said, my point in all of this is also to strive to be faithful and ensure for others doing the same that we don’t cause them to stumble. And to that end, I seriously wonder if allowing them to continue in error is right. I would want those who are coming to the Reformed faith not to be scared off, and I would want to be clear that everything being done is to actually attract them to us, not run them off.
Zrim,
Thank you for the further questions. I just want to reply to four aspects of what you asked:
(1) I’m not sure what you mean by coming to the end of teaching and preaching as a form of discipline (“we are now hypothetically at the end of that”). I only think this ends when people die or Christ returns.
(2) When we talk about any doctrine being clearly taught in Scripture we need to qualify that by who we mean that this should be clear to. Since infant baptism is based upon a necessary consequence of what the Scriptures teach it is by no means as clear to an immature Christian as the necessity of being born again. With the latter you could simply go to John 3 and show the person that this is what Jesus teaches. This simply isn’t the case for infant baptism where the person will need to learn how to read the Bible biblically.
(3) The reason to not keep those who trust in Christ but don’t yet embrace the necessity of baptizing their children out of the Church until they earn a higher score on a theology exam is because Jesus doesn’t. I really do think that there is something to the idea that “the gates of the church should be as wide as the gates of heaven.” [Where I think your argument gains traction is if you say: We understand that you don’t see that the Bible teaches infant baptism but we do so presenting your children for baptism is part of submitting to the leadership of this church. What gives me pause about such an approach is: I am more than a bit uncomfortable requiring people to do something that they think is contrary to Scripture (cf. Romans 14:23]
(4) Your example of Arianism is helpful because we define Arianism as heresy. We (at least in the OPC) do not think that all Baptists are heretics. To put this in concrete terms, if Al Mohler visited my congregation for morning worship and brought a Mormon and a Jehovah’s Witness with him, I will tell Dr. Mohler that he should partake of the Lord’s Supper and the Mormon and Jehovah’s Witness that they must abstain from doing so. Since I recognize Dr. Mohler as a brother in Christ whom we would admit to the Lord’s Table why wouldn’t I admit him to membership in our church? What Biblical passages could I appeal to as the ground for refusing to admit Dr. Mohler to be a member of our local church when I happily call Him my brother in Christ?
David
David, I don’t think I can respond to points 2 and 3 without getting repetitive. When I insert ‘Christology” for “PBism,” I can’t see your reasoning working very well. That is to say, to my knowledge immaturity and conscience aren’t justifications for holding onto essential errors. At some point repentance is expected and if it doesn’t happen within a reasonable amount of time, don’t more sober steps have to be taken? Which brings me to point 1:
I’m not sure what you mean by coming to the end of teaching and preaching as a form of discipline (“we are now hypothetically at the end of that”). I only think this ends when people die or Christ returns.
I’m distinguishing between what might be considered more informal discipling (teaching and preaching) and a more formal and difficult (even ironic) process that also aims to foster faith, namely ex-communication. Granted, the former is preferred, but the fact that you ask makes me wonder if the latter isn’t in play as a possibility in your mind. So to recap: you have duly exhausted all your informal teaching and preaching efforts and they still refuse to present their child for baptism. Does this go unaddressed indefinitely, as in no formal action?
To point 4 and the Mohler/Mormon/JW example, first, I’m not wild about appealing to religious celebrity; it hampers honest discussion. I don’t care what the name of our Baptist friend is; I only care about his doctrine and practice. That said, I think a better method of fencing the table is something like the URC form which succinctly delineates orthodox doctrine and life to those contemplating participation, and I trust the Spirit to work in such a way as to draw his elect and discourage the unworthy. Now, if by framing point 4 the way you do you mean to make comment on the error of CB and Arianism, again, I’m having a hard time seeing how both aren’t essential errors. And if PB is not of the essence (like Nicea is), then we should adjust our confessional language accordingly. If PB is of the essence, I still haven’t heard anything from you that persuades me to believe that those who deny an essential doctrine and practice should be affirmed by membership.
It is of the essence that the children of believers should receive the sign of the Covenant, in the same way as the children of Old Testament believers should receive the sign of the Old Covenant, which was circumcision on or after the eighth day. How do the differences between circumcision and conversion accompanied by baptism (i.e., credobaptism) compare with the differences between circumcision and baptism irrespective of conversion (i.e., brephobaptism)? The obvious differences in the first paradigm are (1) Circumcision takes place in infancy, whereas conversion does not, (2) Circumcision does not essentially entail spiritual change, whereas conversion does, and (3) Circumcision is bloody, whereas neither conversion nor baptism are. However, it can be argued that (1) the definite period of time preceding circumcision is typical of the variable but definite time that proceeds conversion, and the fact that the period for the Old Testament type finishes in infancy is not significant, (2) the physical in the Old Testament is often a type of the spiritual, and (3) the fact that the permanency of the physical change wrought in circumcision is typical of the permanency of the spiritual change wrought in conversion, of which baptism is a sign, is far more significant than bloodiness or otherwise. The differences in the second paradigm are (1) Circumcision takes place after a prescribed period of time, whereas brephobaptism takes place as soon after birth as possible, raising the question of why God didn’t command circumcision as soon after birth as possible and create human physiology to make this safe if He meant baptism to be as soon after birth as possible, (2) Circumcision essentially entails a permanent, irreversible change, whereas brephobaptism, the removal of the filth of the body, is quickly reversible (a child’s body can get dirty again) and if providence were to take the infant away in infancy from its church and parents, or shortly after (God hasn’t promised that such a thing can never happen), there may be no evidence at all to show that the person has been baptized, and (3) as before, circumcision in bloody, whereas baptism is not. With regard to point 3, it can be argued that Christ was circumcised in our place and, therefore, we do not have to be subjected to this bloody ritual.
Is the Sign of the Antitypical Covenant baptism on its own without conversion, or conversion accompanied by baptism? Compare “He that is not circumcised shall be cut off from his people” with “He that believeth not shall be damned”.
Circumcision was instituted 500 years before the Old Covenant (Gal 3-4). Abraham was not Moses.
I actually tried to answer that as my # (3) above. We may be talking a bit past each other because we have different presuppositions, but my point really is that simple: (1) I see no evidence in the NT for having anyone wait to join a church; (2) If we recognize someone as a fellow believer we are saying that Jesus accepts them (or perhaps better “has brought them”) into His Church. As much as possible I want my standards to match Jesus’ standards since it is His Church.
David, I think it’s the difference between the visible and invisible church. I don’t think by holding off membership in the visible church we are saying one is not a member of the invisible church. I simply think we are saying that there are some essentials that must be confessed and practiced before that privilege is extended. I appreciate your point about what those basics should be, i.e. where do we draw the line and let’s not make this harder than is warranted. Which is why I think latitude is called for on things like eschatology and Sabbath, etc. Is a grasp on (the gospel) sacraments really that demanding?
You call both Credo Baptism and Arianism “essential errors.” The obvious question is: “Essential to what?”
As I mentioned above, Arianism has long been declared to be a heresy. That is, we don’t think that Jehovah’s Witnesses are Christians at all. I thought you agreed with this distinction because you had previously stated that you wouldn’t forbid Baptists from participating in the Lord’s Table. So, this isn’t an arbitrary distinction on my part. I am simply bringing the longstanding practice of distinguishing between those doctrines and practices which make a church disordered and those which would make us say it is no longer a true church into the question of church membership.
Essential to the Reformed faith and practice, to Christian orthodoxy. Again, we confess the proper administration of the sacraments to mark the true church, which seems to me a statement of essence (thus, her members should reflect that in their doctrine and life). When I said I wouldn’t forbid Baptists from the Table, I had in mind the difference between visitors in our midst and formal membership. And as I said more recently, I would rather the Table be properly fenced by publicly delineating orthodox doctrine and life, trusting the Spirit to draw and discourage as he sees fit. I don’t think it’s a good portrayal to talk about “allowing or forbidding Baptists to the Table” because that’s not actually how things work in reality—who knows if there are Baptists in our midst? Maybe we do, but even then, I doubt the wisdom of actually saying something directly to them about participation. However, when it comes to church membership, it’s an entirely different situation because we know what we have in front of us, and what we have is someone who denies what we confess to be essential.
For what it’s worth, and I know you don’t subscribe it, but if we believe what the Belgic Confession 34 says (in part) about the error of credo-baptism then I don’t see how we can affirm via membership those who hold the views we condemn. And I’d recall your own words that this is not a “to each his own” issue, but I don’t see how tolerating what we condemn doesn’t send that exact message.
“For that reason we reject the error of the Anabaptists who are not content with a single baptism once received and also condemn the baptism of the children of believers. We believe our children ought to be baptized and sealed with the sign of the covenant, as little children were circumcised in Israel on the basis of the same promises made to our children.”
So, again, the choice seems clear: either withhold membership from those who affirm what we condemn, or stop condemning CB as an error.
Oops! The bread and wine which Melchizedek brought out to Abraham could not have been the Lord’s Supper, because Abraham had not at that stage been circumcised or baptized (In due course he was circumcised later, but not the other) – unless, of course, one teaches that a regenerate person may partake of the Lord’s Supper prior to any form of water baptism, as I was once taught.
I should explain that I had made this mistaken connection between Melchizedek’s bread and wine and the Lord’s Supper in connection with a explanation that in my most recent post about circumcision and baptism I was using the term “Old Covenant” to refer, not to the Mosaic Covenant, but the Covenant that God made with Abraham 500 years earlier when circumcision was instituted. This Covenant was a covenant of grace (but then so, as given by God, but not received as such by the people, was the Mosaic Covenant, which was not just the Commandments, but the entire sacrificial system), but expressed in elements superseded in the New Testament Covenant, such as circumcision and animal sacrifice (Yes I know that Melchizedek did not offer animal sacrifices specifically for Abraham and his seed, but Isaac was redeemed with animal sacrifice. Also the Passover was instituted under the Covenant with Abraham, before the Mosaic Covenant). For this reason I referred to it as the Old Covenant. My entire spiel concerns the circumcision originally instituted with Abraham, 500 years before Moses.
John,
Look at this. Though we tend to use the term “Old Covenant” broadly, and that’s alright so long as we’re aware of what we’re doing, properly, narrowly, strictly, “old covenant” as used in Scripture refers to Moses,
In that very important—essential even&mash;sense Abraham and the fundamental Abrahamic promise, “I will be a God to you and to your children” is not an “old covenant” promise.
Dr Clark, I agree that the Covenant with Abraham is the enduring Covenant, of which the Mosaic covenant is an expression in type and the New Covenant is the expression in antitype. However, within the Covenant as Abraham received it were types, to be replaced with antitypes in the New Covenant. That a male that is uncircumcised shall be cut off from his people is in Genesis 17:14, yet Paul was able to expel circumcision from the New Covenant. We may not go back either to circumcision or animal sacrifice, even though both were clearly in the Covenant as received by Abraham.
Now to the article to which you directed me: This Baptist does NOT “hold that infant initiation belonged to the old covenant and expired with it”. This is because this Baptist does not believe that infant initiation belonged to the old covenant to start with, except by birth, by which it also belongs to the New Covenant. The eighth day is not the first day, and indeed it follows seven days (or at least six), which this Baptist holds is typologically significant. The physically permanent change that circumcision produces in the body is typical of the spiritually permanent change wrought by regeneration, as circumcision as a ceremony is typical of baptism as a ceremony. Ishmael received (as his descendants did and, I think, still do) both the ceremony and permanent physical change when circumcised, so received the full Sign of the Covenant as far as Abraham was concerned (I am not convinced, either, that he personally finally failed of the grace of God. He was back to bury his father; and his brethren, presumably including Isaac, were around him when he died). This is why, I believe, Abraham was able to obey God’s command to circumcise Ishmael.
Having said this, I notice that Abraham didn’t just circumcise Ishmael. He circumcised everyone born in his house. Is this not typical of Gentiles coming into the Church? Whilst his seed was to be called in Isaac, even then the Covenant was not to be an exclusive Covenant, but others were to come in. We don’t look to just baptize the children of believers, but anyone else who comes to faith (And we know that Abraham’s eldest servant came to faith, even though Abraham’s seed was not to be called in him. Indeed I heard a former missionary to Peru preach a missionary sermon using Genesis 24 as his text).
David, I want to make sure this doesn’t get overlooked because I am genuinely interested in hearing your answer based on your experience…
I am grateful that I have not had to deal with this situation as those Baptists who have joined churches that I have been a part of, who had or would later have children, all quickly adopted paedobaptism. Regretfully, this isn’t guaranteed [Although I do think that it helps that our Session is very clear about teaching these individuals the Biblical doctrine of baptizing our covenant children]
I hear this frequently an am grateful for it. But my remaining question is this: If your experience is that they come around quickly, why not wait until they do to make them members? Or is it that you think making them members somehow helps the quick change (and that denying membership is an obstacle)?
Hi Zrim,
I actually tried to answer that as my # (3) above. We may be talking a bit past each other because we have different presuppositions, but my point really is that simple: (1) I see no evidence in the NT for having anyone wait to join a church; (2) If we recognize someone as a fellow believer we are saying that Jesus accepts them (or perhaps better “has brought them”) into His Church. As much as possible I want my standards to match Jesus’ standards since it is His Church.
This is also why I asked you: “What Biblical passages could I appeal to as the ground for refusing to admit [a Southern Baptist with credible profession of faith] to be a member of our local church when I happily call Him my brother in Christ?
I am going to give a short response to your comments about “essential error” in a separate post.
David
Zrim,
You call both Credo Baptism and Arianism “essential errors.” The obvious question is: “Essential to what?”
As I mentioned above, Arianism has long been declared to be a heresy. That is, we don’t think that Jehovah’s Witnesses are Christians at all. I thought you agreed with this distinction because you had previously stated that you wouldn’t forbid Baptists from participating in the Lord’s Table. So, this isn’t an arbitrary distinction on my part. I am simply bringing the longstanding practice of distinguishing between those doctrines and practices which make a church disordered and those which would make us say it is no longer a true church into the question of church membership.
David
Dear David,
With regards to your query above – “essential to what?” – it’s important to remember that there are historic confessions of the Reformed faith, and one of them is certainly the Belgic Confession of Faith. In the Belgic Confession of Faith, three marks are listed as essential to a true Church of Jesus Christ:
1) The *pure* doctrine of the Gospel must be preached;
2) There must be the *pure* administration of the sacraments.
3) There must be church discipline rightly maintained.
With regards to those who hold to paedocommunion, I must ask: is this the pure and Scriptural administration of the sacraments? Is this church discipline rightly maintained? Is this the pure preaching of the Gospel; i.e., is Kuyperian presumptive regeneration a true declaration of the way of salvation?
Below follows the text of the actual article:
Article 29: Of the marks of the true Church, and wherein she differs from the false Church.
“We believe, that we ought diligently and circumspectly to discern from the Word of God which is the true Church, since all sects which are in the world assume to themselves the name of the Church. But we speak not here of hypocrites, who are mixed in the Church with the good, yet are not of the Church, though externally in it; but we say that the body and communion of the true Church must be distinguished from all sects, who call themselves the Church. The marks, by which the true Church is known, are these: if the pure doctrine of the gospel is preached therein; if she maintains the pure administration of the sacraments as instituted by Christ; if church discipline is exercised in punishing of sin: in short, if all things are managed according to the pure Word of God, all things contrary thereto rejected, and Jesus Christ acknowledged as the only Head of the Church. Hereby the true Church may certainly be known, from which no man has a right to separate himself.”
Hi Albert,
I think you are mixing two things together when you write: “With regards to those who hold to paedocommunion, I must ask: is this the pure and Scriptural administration of the sacraments?”
That is, individuals believing that the church should practice paedo-communion is different from a church actually practicing paedo-communion. The former has, in my judgment, no bearing on whether a denomination is well ordered in terms of how they administer the sacraments.
Is a church that practices paedo-communion disordered in terms of how they administer the sacraments? My answer is: Absolutely. We need to talk about our differences honestly and openly. This is one of the things I appreciate about Mark Dever. He says that I am sinning when I baptize the children of believers (something I, Lord willing, will be privileged to do again this coming Sunday) and I say that he is sinning when he refuses to baptize the covenant children in his congregation. We therefore call each other to repentance while at the same time calling each other “brother.” The same should be said with respect to those who practice paedo-communion.
The question that follows from this is: Do these deviations from rightly administering the sacraments mean that Baptists and those who practice paedo-communion are not true churches? Or does it mean that they are true but wrongly ordered churches? In the OPC we say that latter. If you admit Baptists to the Lord’s Table you are in principle saying the latter as well.
In this regard it may be helpful to consider WCF 25.4-5:
“4. This catholic church hath been sometimes more, sometimes less visible. And particular churches, which are members thereof, are more or less pure, according as the doctrine of the gospel is taught and embraced, ordinances administered, and public worship performed more or less purely in them.
5. The purest churches under heaven are subject both to mixture and error; and some have so degenerated, as to become no churches of Christ, but synagogues of Satan. Nevertheless, there shall be always a church on earth, to worship God according to his will.”
I hope that helps.
David
Dear David,
In reply to your post regarding the admission of paedocommunists (which, with Dr Clark, I strenuously oppose!), I would reply as follows:
1) Let me here emphasize that I am paedobaptist!
2) Let me ask: can a Baptist who neglects his duty to baptize his children nonetheless be saved, and can his children be saved?
3) Is there indeed a danger that a paedocommunionist will beget in his children a false hope for eternity, namely, that they are saved by merely being under the covenant of grace, and thus (according to their scheme) they do not need experimentally to come to know their misery, deliverance by Christ, and Spirit-witnessed gratitude for salvation? In short, is there a serious danger that paedocommunionists are indeed deceiving the covenant seed of the Church for time and for eternity?
A Baptist can be a Baptist without undermining the essential truth that all members of the Church, in order to be saved, much know experimental conversion. On the contrary, a paedocommunionist can well undermine the essential doctrine that merely being born under the covenant, and merely assenting to the doctrines of the Church with a mere historical faith, is not enough for eternity. In other words, would such who hold to such doctrines actually jeopardize the salvation of their own children, the covenant seed of the Church, by filling them with a false hope, a ‘lie in their right hand.’
I hold to the above doctrine, with my Church, the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland (http://www.fpchurch.org.uk). In my Church, any minister tolerating paedocommunion would be excluded from the Lord’s Table, and debarred from being a minister of the Gospel.
In our Church, all prospective communicants must apply to the Session. They must evidence, 1) competent saving knowledge of the doctrine of salvation, 2) they must evidence a truly godly and Christ-centred life, including strict Sabbath observance, and 3) they must be able to testify of the Lord’s having wrought in them a saving change, from life to death. Without all three, they will not be admitted to the Lord’s Table.
This is the historic practice of the Church of Scotland of the Reformation, and of days gone by. The Free Presbyterian Church is the alone heir of the Reformation Church of Scotland.
The American Presbyterian churches are sick indeed. They have strayed from from the historic doctrine of our Reformed forefathers who paid for their faith with their own blood.
Dear Albert,
Regarding your third question, I (as a former Baptist) would say that the concerns you express here about paedocommunion are equally valid regarding paedobaptism. That is, there is no effective difference in the unregenerate person who says, “I took communion as a kid, so God’s good with me and I can do whatever I like” vs. “I was baptized as a baby, so God’s good with me etc.”
I don’t want to appear to equate paedocommunion and paedobaptism, but it seems to me that structuring the Sacraments to avoid them being misunderstood by unbelievers is not the best way to do it. That is, either baptism or communion could give a false security to those who don’t understand either and are unrepentant, and that is thus not a good argument against paedo-either one.
From the Westminster Larger Catechism, Question and Answer 177:
Q. 177. Wherein do the sacraments of baptism and the Lord’s supper differ?
A. The sacraments of baptism and the Lord’s supper differ, in that baptism is to be administered but once, with water, to be a sign and seal of our regeneration and ingrafting into Christ,[1142] and that even to infants;[1143] whereas the Lord’s supper is to be administered often, in the elements of bread and wine, to represent and exhibit Christ as spiritual nourishment to the soul,[1144] and to confirm our continuance and growth in him,[1145] and that only to such as are of years and ability to examine themselves.[1146]
The Lord’s Supper, according to our Westminster Divines, is only to be administer to ‘such as are of years and ability to examine themselves.’ Accordingly, paedocommunion is entirely out of accord with the doctrine of the Westminster Standards.
Please clarify for me: does the OPC allow paedocommunionists to be ministers of the Gospel?
Hi Albert,
I’ve tried twice, but maybe the third time is the charm:
The OPC does not allow any man who practices paedocommunion to be a Minister of the Gospel.
You, however, seem unwilling to distinguish between those who practice paedo-communion and those who think we should practice paedo-communion. My guess (as I’ve repeatedly said this is only a guess) is that a man who said he believed in paedo-communion but agreed to not practice paedo-communion probably would not get ordained in the OPC right now although in the past this had been considered an acceptable exception to the Westminster Standards.
David
This is in response to your post “the third time is a charm.” Just so you know where *we* are. The Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland would not allow a man who believes in paedocommunion to come to the Lord’s Table, even if he agreed not to practice it in the Church. Much less would such a doctrine (abominable in our eyes) be considered at any time an ‘acceptable exception to the Westminster Confession of Faith.’ Nor was it ever accepted. Quite candidly, such a doctrine was never heard of in Reformed circles prior to the 20th century. (Of course, in our church, *no* exceptions to the Confession are allowed from any office-bearers.)
The question all of our sessions would ask is, how could a man who will be willing to deceive his own children for time and for eternity, by having them come to the Table without experimental conversion, possibly be born again?” You might think that a harsh assessment. But that is how the old-time Highlander Scots think. We think, with our forefathers, that such must be yet dead in their trespasses and sins, void of the experimental knowledge of Christ themselves. It may seem hard to you, but such is the historic Reformed faith.
The historic Reformed faith is stated in the Westminster Larger Catechism, Question and Answer 77. There is a *difference* between the two sacraments. Children are to be baptized and placed *under* the covenant. But only those who are of years and who are able to examine themselves, and testify of a saving, experimental conversion in their lives, and who evidence it by a competent knowledge of Biblical doctrine, together with a consistently godly life, may come to the Table. This is the only doctrine of the Reformed faith prior to the “New Calvinists” of the twentieth and twenty first centuries. For that matter, it is the doctrine of Calvin himself.
“New Calvinism” and Federal Vision are different animals – I don’t know any of the former who would admit to the Lord’s Supper without a profession of faith they considered credible.
Dear David,
You ask:
“Dear Albert,
Do you believe that the WCF and Catechisms are intrinsically infallible and therefore can never be modified?”
Dear David, do you believe the Westminster Confession of Faith and the Catechisms are in error? Apparently, you do.
Dear Albert,
Do you believe that the WCF and Catechisms are intrinsically infallible and therefore can never be modified?
David
Dear Don,
You say:
“Regarding your third question, I (as a former Baptist) would say that the concerns you express here about paedocommunion are equally valid regarding paedobaptism. That is, there is no effective difference in the unregenerate person who says, “I took communion as a kid, so God’s good with me and I can do whatever I like” vs. “I was baptized as a baby, so God’s good with me etc.”
It is important to point out that your stance is contrary to that of the Westminster divines. You must be quite confident of yourself, if you think your knowledge is greater than that of the Westminster divines!
Might I remind you of what the Westminster Larger Catechism says, in Question and Answer 177?
“Q. 177. Wherein do the sacraments of baptism and the Lord’s supper differ?
A. The sacraments of baptism and the Lord’s supper differ, in that baptism is to be administered but once, with water, to be a sign and seal of our regeneration and ingrafting into Christ,[1142] and that even to infants;[1143] whereas the Lord’s supper is to be administered often, in the elements of bread and wine, to represent and exhibit Christ as spiritual nourishment to the soul,[1144] and to confirm our continuance and growth in him,[1145] and that only to such as are of years and ability to examine themselves.[1146]”
The Westminster Larger Catechism indeed says that only those who are of years and ability to examine themselves may partake of the Lord’s Supper.
You also need to study Church history. In times past, when many were admitted to the Table who had not been duly examined, it is recorded in the annals of history that this inculcated in them a false hope for eternity.
Even more importantly, however, Scripture itself, in 1 Corinthians 11.28 (“But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of that bread, and drink of that cup”), specifically requires that a man examine himself, and so partake of this bread. If he is not of sufficient years to examine himself, he cannot partake, without disobeying the apostolic injunction of the Apostle who was inspired directly by the LORD, and who also received this commandment straight from the Lord Himself, as he says in that very chapter. Accordingly, those who administer the Lord’s Supper to children who are not able to examine themselves rebel against the Word of God and the King of the Church! That cannot go unpunished. The righteous Lord Himself will avenge it.
Al, thanks for stating what needed to be stated regarding the threat posed by paedocommunion (following paedobaptism, anyway), which is not posed by credobaptist practices (I believe we have a duty to present our children for baptism, but not to do it too soon, any more than Abrahamic Covenant parents were required to have their children circumcised before the eighth day).
As regards your statement that “The Free Presbyterian Church is the alone heir of the Reformation Church of Scotland”, I recognize that even the Free Church Continuing was under the Declaratory Act from 1893 to 1901 or shortly thereafter. However, have you, perhaps, forgotten about the position, on paper at least, of the Reformed Presbyterian Church of Scotland? One original difference between the Cameronians and the 1689/90 Church of Scotland was that the Cameronians held that the Established Church should be exclusively Presbyterian, whereas the latter OKd it to be Episcopalian south of the border. Which of these two positions would best represent that of the Reformation Church of Scotland? Certainly not exclusively the 1689/90 Church of Scotland (of which indeed the Free Presbyterians are the alone heir)!
Dear John Rokos:
You say: “As regards your statement that “The Free Presbyterian Church is the alone heir of the Reformation Church of Scotland”, I recognize that even the Free Church Continuing was under the Declaratory Act from 1893 to 1901 or shortly thereafter. However, have you, perhaps, forgotten about the position, on paper at least, of the Reformed Presbyterian Church of Scotland? One original difference between the Cameronians and the 1689/90 Church of Scotland was that the Cameronians held that the Established Church should be exclusively Presbyterian, whereas the latter OKd it to be Episcopalian south of the border. Which of these two positions would best represent that of the Reformation Church of Scotland? Certainly not exclusively the 1689/90 Church of Scotland (of which indeed the Free Presbyterians are the alone heir)!”
My reply: what do you know of the Reformed Presbyterian Church of Scotland today? Would you consider it today to be an heir of the Reformation Church of Scotland, with its use of the modern versions of Scripture like the ESV? Similarly, as I understand it, some in the Reformed Presbyterian Church of Scotland utilize Arminian (a.k.a. ‘decisionalist’) tools in their evangelistic endeavours.
In a similar vein, I do believe that experimental Calvinism left the Reformed Presbyterian Church a good while ago. The evangelistic approach, as I understand it, is generally decisionalist. One would not hear, in a Reformed Presbyterian Church, about experimental conversion, about a preparatory law work, or about the believer struggling with assurance. As I understand it, outside the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland, and a few Free Church Continuing congregations where the minister himself is experimental, salvation is seen as quite easy – ‘easy-believism.’ It is seen as merely assenting to the doctrine of the Church and to outward practice: in other words, to what would have been considered mere historical faith in days gone by in Scotland. That is not the heritage of the Reformed Church of Scotland.
My general observation is that the Reformed Presbyterian Church in general became a political movement. More stress was placed (for a time) upon Establishment than upon conversion and the Gospel itself.
Hi Albert,
You are still mixing two things. You write: “In my Church, any minister tolerating paedocommunion would be excluded from the Lord’s Table, and debarred from being a minister of the Gospel.”
I would argue for the same thing in the OPC with a slight variation: First, assuming that the minister doesn’t repent he should be debarred from being a Minister of Word and Sacrament (and I would certainly consider removing such a man from serving as an ordained Minister for a period of time even if he did repent). Second, I would expect this former Minister to repent of his rebellion against his ordination vows as a precondition to him being readmitted to the Lord’s Table. Of course, if such an individual did repent we would happily welcome him back into communicant membership. My guess is that my clarifications are very much what would take place in the Free Presbyterian Church.
But please note, “tolerating paedocommunion” is not the same thing as believing that the church should practice paedo-communion while simultaneously also following the Book of Church Order out of submission to the broader church. As I mentioned above, I suspect someone could not get ordained today in the OPC if they believed in paedo-communion (but I don’t know this for sure). Because we distinguish between Scripture which is intrinsically infallible and our Confessions which, in theory, can be improved we don’t require ministers to treat the latter like the former. Presbyteries and the General Assembly therefore determine whether a man’s exceptions to the Confessions and Catechisms are acceptable.
I do, however, want to strongly encourage you to re-consider your language when you call the OPC “sick indeed” simply because we do not practice confessional membership. If you are going to insist on calling the OPC sick on this account, then please provide detailed Scriptural support for your position.
Best wishes,
David
Please see the above. The issue is not that of ‘confessional membership’, but rather, ‘what is required of ministers and elders’. In the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland, total subscription to the Westminster Confession of Faith is required. The Confession of Faith must be the minister’s or elder’s confession of faith,with no exceptions.
Any doctrine that undermines experimental conversion is a matter of life and death. It is no indifferent matter.
Albert, the Open Baptist church where I am in membership, does not require members to have been baptized as believers. This is only required of the minister(s), elders, and deacons (but not of others who serve the church, like Sunday School teachers, soup kitchen leaders, etc.). In this respect, we’re a sort of mirror image of you.
Albert,
I have subscribed to the Confessions and Catechisms of the OPC without taking any exceptions. You should note that since the American Version of the WCF is different from the original WCF that I am entirely comfortable with churches changing their confessions or, as Dr. Clark has suggested, writing new ones.
I can’t help noticing that you haven’t answered my question: “Do you believe that the WCF and Catechisms are intrinsically infallible and therefore can never be modified?”
David
Dear David,
I indeed answered your question. Why do you think the Confession and the Catechisms have errors in them? Obviously, you do. Obviously, you think the 1647 Confession of Faith is laced with error.
As for myself, I but cite the official stance of my Church, which appears on our website (http://www.fpchurch.org.uk). Our stance is that Scripture is our Supreme Standard, and that the Confession of Faith is our “unqualified” subordinate standard. That is, we subscribe in toto to the Westminster Confession of Faith. That said, there are doctrines in Scripture over and above those taught in the Confession of Faith. The Confession of Faith is entirely correct in expounding the Scripture doctrines it does, but there are additional doctrines besides: and this makes Scripture the supreme standard.
For example: Scripture requires head coverings of women in public worship. The Free Presbyterian Church also requires that, even though the Confession does not. Similarly, Scripture requires differentiation and modesty in the dress of men and women: and for this reason, women are required not to wear men’s attire (and vice versa). This is not required by the Confession of Faith, but Scripture requires it, and Scripture is the supreme standard of the Church.
Here is the Church’s statement in that regard:
“The Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland is a Psalm-singing Reformed Church with congregations across the world. It is committed to the inspiration of the whole Bible and the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, the only Saviour from sin.
As the constitutional heir of the historic Church of Scotland, the Free Presbyterian Church traces its Scriptural roots through the Scottish Reformation to the New Testament itself. It seeks to uphold a full testimony to Reformed doctrine, worship and government:
In doctrine, the Church’s only supreme standard is Scripture, with the entire Westminster Confession of Faith as its unqualified subordinate standard.
In worship, the Regulative Principle is applied consistently, so that nothing is brought into worship except what Scripture requires.
In government, Scriptural principles are applied to the life of the Church and to the lives of the people.”
RE: Albert Hembd comment of February 4, 2015 @ 11:27 PM
You are not quoting at me anything I disagree with, nor am I disagreeing with the divines. I don’t know what you are reading that makes you think otherwise.
You say that paedocommunion may give a false sense of eternal security. I did not disagree with that. What I say is, this is a poor argument against paedocommunion. Paedobaptism can also give a false sense of eternal security; history bears that out too. Does the unregenerate in search of (false) security differentiate between the baptism and/or communion administered in his youth? No, not really. There are plenty of baptized but unrepentant people out there who, whether or not they ever took communion, are living in a false hope and need to hear the gospel.
Are paedocommunion and paedobaptism equivalent? No. But should we order our Sacraments according to the potential for being misunderstood by the unregenerate? No.