Sola Scriptura Is Not Biblicism
Venema observes that the Reformed churches are committed to the principle of sola Scriptura which means that the Scriptures are to be “regarded as the supreme standard for their faith and life,” but that principle does not mean that we read the Scriptures in isolation from the church or from church history (27).
One of the marks of biblicism is doing just that: refusing to read the Scriptures with the church. This is a quite different principle than that by which Rome operates. She makes the Scripture the product of the church. That is exactly backward. The church is the product of the divine Word. The Word is not the product of the church. So the Reformed churches neither conform to the general pattern of evangelical biblicism (though more than a few Reformed folk have become biblicists in the modern period), nor do we conform to the Roman pattern of making church norm the Scripture.
Venema says the question of paedocommunion cannot be settled merely by appealing to Scripture. “It is also necessary to study what the Reformed churches have confessed regarding the proper recipients of the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper” (27). The evidence from the confessions is that “Reformed believers held that the Lord’s Supper ought to be administered only to professing believers” (27). In distinction from the Baptists, the Reformed churches affirm that “the children of believers, together with their parents, are recipients of the gospel promise and ought to receive the sacrament of baptism, which is a sign and seal of incorporation into Christ and membership in the covenant community of the church” (27). The Reformed churches also require, however, that children undergo instruction prior to attending to the table (27).
He proceeds to give a summary of the confessional teaching on the relation of the Word and sacraments, the distinctive nature of the sacraments, the two sacraments of the new covenant, and the proper recipients of the Lord’s Supper. He asserts that the dictum often assigned to Cyprian (but actually a received summary of his teaching on this question), “extra ecclesiam nulla salus est” (outside of the [visible] church there is no salvation) is “not explicitly echoed” (29) in the Reformed confessions, but this is hard to understand since in footnote 2 (p. 29) he writes, “Cyprian’s dictum is using the Westminster Confession of Faith, Chap. XXV . . . and the Belgic Confession, Art. 28.” One wonders if the “not” was an editorial oversight?
In the Reformed confessions, the preaching of the gospel has “a priority” in relation to the sacraments (29–30). “The sacraments do not communicate anything other than the grace of God in Christ, the grace that is communicated firstly and primarily through the preaching of the gospel” (30).
The sacraments are auxiliaries, appendices to the preached gospel. This is the teaching of Heidelberg Catechism (HC) 65. He addresses the question of the relative necessity of the sacraments. Are they indispensable? Venema writes, “The best answer to this question . . . must be that ordinarily the sacraments are necessary and indispensable” (30). That indispensability is not absolute. It is a consequence of the Lord’s “appointment of the sacraments for the believer’s benefit” (30–31). It is ingratitude to neglect the sacraments.
The sacraments have the most intimate relation to the grace signified and yet they are distinct from that grace. They are signs and not the thing signified (32–33). They add nothing new to the grace of Christ promised in the gospel and like the gospel they must be received in faith (33). Thus, the Reformed rejected the doctrine of sacramental regeneration apart from the Spirit’s working through the Word. They “do genuinely serve, as means of grace, to confer and to communicate the grace of God in Christ” but only as the Spirit “is working through them and as they confirm the faith required on the part of their recipients” (34; emphasis original).
As addressed above, the Reformed churches confess two distinct sacraments with two distinct roles or functions (35). Baptism is the sign and seal of the adoption of believers. The emphasis falls on the privileges of baptism, but the Westminster Larger Catechism also teaches the accompanying obligations of baptism (36). They do not teach baptismal regeneration, but they do teach “a real efficacy” in “conferring the grace of God in Christ on believers” (36). It is not merely a visible testimony to the believer’s subjective state. Because it is a promise by God and commanded by God, baptism is to be administered to believers and to their children (37). We do not baptize infants on the ground of presumed regeneration or infant faith (38).
The Supper is the sign and seal by which God “continually nourishes and strengthens the faith of its recipients” (39). Unlike baptism, it is meant to be repeated. The governing metaphor in the confessions is that the Supper is a “sacred meal” (39; emphasis original). It is a memorial but not merely that (39–40). It is a means of assurance. It is a holy communion with Christ. “It also serves the purpose of uniting believers more intimately with Him and calling them to a life of loving obedience and holy consecration” (40). Those who receive “Christ through the sacrament with the mouth of faith genuinely partake of him” (41). “In several of the confessions, the language used to describe Christ’s presence is quite robust” (41). Nevertheless, we reject the Roman and Lutheran doctrines of the Supper.
The proper recipients of the Supper are limited by the nature of the Supper as a sacrament and its intended purposes. The confessions describe the “kind of faith that is competent to remember, proclaim and receive Christ through the Lord’s Supper” (43). This is why we fence the table. Unbelievers are not to be admitted. It violates the nature of the sacrament to allow the unbelieving or impenitent to the table (44). The confessions require the active participation of believers in the Supper (44). They warn against the danger of eating and drinking judgment to oneself (45). They explicitly limit participation to those who are capable of articulating their faith who are, as HC 81 says, “displeased with themselves for their sins and yet trust that these are forgiven them for the sake Christ.” (45). The marks of true faith in HC 81 are the same as the three parts of the HC: guilt, grace, and gratitude. This was intentional. This was the consensus of the Reformed churches in Europe and Britain (46–48).
What Does Scripture Say?
At the heart of the revisionist, paedocommunionist case is that the confessional and historic Reformed theology and practice of the supper effectively denies the Old Testament pattern of, as it were, infant communion, and excommunicates children unjustly.
Venema does a fine job surveying the paedocommunionist case (53–59). He concludes that “the Old Testament does not provide a case for the admission of children to the Lord’s Supper” (59). In his critical evaluation of the paedocommunionist appeal to the Old Testament, he notes that they tend to slight two principles of interpretation: 1) “The ultimate norm for the practice of the church must be the New Testament description of the administration of the new covenant.” 2) “Participation in the observances of the covenant . . . must be governed by the Lord’s insistence that His people worship him ‘in spirit and in truth’ (John 4:24)” (59).
Reformed covenant theology has always acknowledged that the old and new covenants are “one in substance” and various in “mode of administration” (WCF 7.6; p. 60). He also notes that we cannot assume that “simple membership in the covenant community automatically grants to believers and their children access to all its rites and observances” (61).
The paedocommunionist appeal to the manna in the wilderness (1 Cor 10; Exod 16–17) proves too much. It is true that children ate the manna. Presumably strangers to the covenant ate the manna as did animals (62). The manna was a type, not a blueprint. It was also a means of bodily sustenance. The sacrament is a means of spiritual sustenance, but it is not intended for bodily sustenance. There are differences between the Old Testament types and the New Testament fulfillment. Circumcision was, in the nature of the thing, applied only to males. Baptism is applied to both sexes. The Passover was annual and the Supper was frequently administered (62).
Children participated in the feasts of Weeks and Booths, but children did not participate in those that “more directly ‘typify’ the sacrifice of Christ, which the Lord’s Supper commemorates and proclaims” (63). The work of atonement and their accompanying meals was restricted to Levitical priests. Venema faults the paedocommunionists for highlighting those places that teach the participation of children while “downplaying those that stipulate restrictions” (64).
One of his more interesting observations/arguments, one that I find compelling, is the New Testament usage of Exodus 24 (Heb 9:20). The New Testament regards this as perhaps the most important Old Testament precedent for the Supper. Moses, the covenant mediator, “sacrificed young bulls as fellowship offerings before the Lord” (65). He spread the blood over both the altar and the people (including the children). The accompanying fellowship meal was celebrated on the mountain. Infants did not participate in this meal, but our Lord appealed to this typological event in the institution of the Supper. There are significant Old Testament precedents for the Supper that do not support paedocommunion (66).
As to the Passover, there is “no indisputable evidence for or against the claim that all of the children of the covenant participated fully in its celebration” (67). Venema helpfully distinguishes between the first celebration of the Supper and its subsequent celebrations (68). The initial celebration was a household event, but the subsequent celebrations were pilgrim feasts that “required only male members of the covenant community to keep the Passover and the other two pilgrim feasts (i.e., feasts and booths) (68). Since there is no “clear biblical evidence that women or children attended the pilgrim Passovers” (71) it does not follow, therefore, that exclusion from Passover was tantamount to excommunication.
Perhaps the most helpful thing Venema does in this chapter is to challenge some of the more fundamental paedocommunionist assumptions about the way things “must” have been and about the way continuities between typological and fulfillment periods in redemptive history should be viewed and used.
In chapter five, Venema addresses the evidence (or lack thereof) for infant communion in the New Testament. Thus far he has argued that the case from history is mixed at best. The case for paedocommunion from the Reformed confessions does not exist. If the case from the Old Testament is lacking, then the case for paedocommunion is tottering precariously at best.
He proposes to resolve the debate “only on the basis of an argument that considers general features of the New Testament doctrine of the Lord’s Supper and its relation to the Word of the gospel” (78). For example, the accounts of the institution of the Supper in the gospels “reflect an understanding that may suggest how this question should be answered” (78).
He notes also the unique characteristic of Baptism, which as a sacrament of initiation, in the nature of the case, can only be administered once (80). Either one is baptized or one is not. The Lord’s Supper, however, “is to be celebrated regularly in the context of Christian worship and the ministry of the Word of God until Christ comes again” (80). Thus Paul quotes the words of institution, “this do as oft as ye drink it” (1 Cor 11:25), with the “obvious implication” that the Supper is to be “celebrated frequently by the church” (80).
The Supper is to be observed and celebrated “in remembrance of Christ.” Participation is “in response to an imperative” (80). The sacrament is a sign to be received “remembering and believing” (80; emphasis original). The Supper requires “the active participation” from the recipient that is not required in baptism (80). This is “particularly significant” for the question of paedocommunion (81).
He notes that Jesus’ meal with the two men on the road to Emmaus has been understood to refer to the Holy Supper and that the men “knew” that he was the risen Lord (81). Acts 2:42 records the practice of the apostolic church and the “breaking of bread,” which “may be an allusion to the regular celebration of the Lord’s Supper” (82). If so, then it is significant that those who ate the Supper are said to have received the preached Word. Communion is observed in the context of the preaching of the Gospel. He points to two possible allusions to the Supper in Revelation 3:20 and 19:1–9 wherein it is described as a means of fellowship with Christ and in which it could be withdrawn as a matter of discipline (82).
Thus far, he says, nothing “in this evidence argues for the admission of non-professing children to the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper” (83). “In its basic form, the argument of many paedocommunionists is easily stated: if all children (with the exception of unweaned infants) in the old covenant participated fully in the Passover meal, and if the Lord’s Supper is a new covenant form of the old covenant Passover, it follows that children should be admitted to the Lord’s Table.” (84)
The middle premise here is that the Supper is a New Testament Passover. To this question Venema now turns his attention.
Since the Supper was instituted in connection with the pascha, the premise has “apparent plausibility” (85). It has been traditionally believed that the elements used in the institution of the Supper were Passover elements, but, he notes, that traditional belief has been questioned. There is some “apparent discrepancy” between the synoptic (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) accounts and John’s account (86). One resolution is to read John’s language as indicating that the meal occurred on “Friday of Passover week” (86). The “similarities between the Lord’s Supper and the Passover should not be overstated on this account” since “there are several important differences between them” (86). First, there are the words of institution which were derived from “the covenant renewal ceremony of Exodus 24—a ceremony that was reminiscent of the way the Lord had confirmed His covenant with Abraham” (87). Like M. G. Kline, Venema observes that these Old Testament antecedents of the Supper involved a bloodletting to signify the “solemn bond between them” (87). The Lord bound himself to them with a “self-maledictory oath” and taught that covenant breaking requires a blood atonement (87). Thus “Christ’s words of institution do not connect the Supper with the Passover, but with the covenant renewal meal that Moses and the elders of Israel celebrated on Mount Sinai” (87; emphasis original). The Passover was the setting, but the true antecedent was not the private family Passover meal; rather, it was the public, religious fellowship meal shared by Moses, Aaron, Nadab, Abihu, and the seventy elders.
The Passover commemorated the Exodus. The Supper commemorates “Christ’s sacrificial death, which is the fulfillment of all the types and ceremonies of the law, especially the sin and guilt offerings of the old covenant” (87; emphasis original). The Passover is certainly fulfilled in the Supper, but the Supper recapitulates and fulfills much more (87–88).
Is membership in the covenant of grace sufficient ground for admission to the table? To answer this question Venema appeals to John 6 and 1 Corinthians 11. The former has important implications for our understanding of the Supper (90–91). Here Venema is following Calvin, quoting his commentary on John 6:56: What is in view in John 6 is not the Supper directly but rather the eating of Christ by faith. That eating says Calvin, however, is “figured and actually presented to believers in the Lord’s Supper” (93; emphasis original in Venema’s quotation). For Calvin, Christ made the Supper a “seal of this discourse” (93). It is necessary to participate in Christ, but the only way to participate in Christ then is to do so by faith, and the Supper is the sign and seal of that faith (94–97).
Thus, in the Belgic Confession, we confess that “the manner of our partaking [of Christ by means of the Lord’s Supper] is not by the mouth, but by the Spirit through faith” (BC 35; quoted on p. 98). The Belgic echoes the teaching of John 6. The “general teaching of John 6 regarding how believers participate in Christ’s body and blood has a clear and compelling implication for any mode of communion with Christ, whether by means of the gospel Word or the sacrament that accompanies the Word” (98; emphasis original). Thus “the church’s requirement that those who are admitted to the Table of the Lord” make a credible profession of faith before communing is a “legitimate application of the teaching of this passage” (98).
©R. Scott Clark. All Rights Reserved.
Editor’s Note: This review was published originally on the Heidelblog as a series in 2009 and appears here slightly revised.
You can find this whole series here.
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R. Scott Clark
R.Scott Clark is the President of the Heidelberg Reformation Association, the author and editor of, and contributor to several books and the author of many articles. He has taught church history and historical theology since 1997 at Westminster Seminary California. He has also taught at Wheaton College, Reformed Theological Seminary, and Concordia University. He has hosted the Heidelblog since 2007.
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