Category: Word/Sacrament

For those of us who are committed to the practice of paedocommunion, Doug Wilson writes that we should explain the Supper to our children:

Young children should have the Supper explained to them by their parents in each observance of the Supper, and they should be able to attend to what is said. Please note that we are not requiring that little children be able to explain the Supper before they may partake. They are recipients; they have the Supper explained to them. We feed them the bread and wine in much the same way we begin speaking English to our children when they first arrive in our homes — not because they understand it, but rather so that they might come to understand it. It is similar here. We are not asking for anything to arise in the child or manifest itself before he is qualified to receive. He is receiving and learning, not giving and teaching.

Jim Jordan pointed out long ago that the Bible does not explicitly state that we are to sing the Psalms in worship (though the Psalms ought to permeate our liturgy for various reasons). The Bible does not even say that there ought to be preaching in every worship service (though without preaching man cannot understand the word from God). However, the Bible does say explicitly that we ought to eat bread and drink wine (I Cor. 11). One would think that every Lord’s Day the Supper would be the climactic moment of our liturgy. The opposite is true in most of evangelicalism. Preaching takes preeminence and the Lord’s Supper (and certainly the Psalter) are put aside for rare occasions. Something is wrong with this picture.

When I was in the PCA (the Christian Reformed Church also does something similar), the BCO instructed Teaching Elders to alert the congregation that the sacraments would be administered the following week. With this formality, how can the Reformed Church ever overcome her unbiblical ways? How can the church claim the apostolic witness of continually breaking bread (Acts 2:42)? The proper sacramental preparation occurs every week as God’s people confess their sins before God and prepare to be nourished in word and sacrament.

My three-month old daughter will be baptized this Sunday. This will be a significant day for us. Before coming to the Reformed Faith, I cared little about the sacraments. They were insignificant and tedious practices. In the tradition I partook of, the Lord’s Supper was administered once a month, and in case we had guest speakers it would be postponed another month. On the other hand, baptism was treated in a little more serious tone. Adults came to the baptismal pool and confessed their faith before the congregation and were immersed. This was my experience both in the Baptist and Brethren traditions. These baptisms took on a more public nature. It was celebrated. I never had any dispute concerning the legitimacy of those adult baptisms, except that for some, it had been the second or third time they were being baptized. Since a profession of faith was expected, most of them who had made early professions of faith and were consequently baptized in their youth, felt that their early baptisms were the result of an unclear and false faith. Naturally, many of my friends–myself included–went through the waters twice.

Coming to the Reformed faith meant accepting what Paul says in Ephesians that there is only one baptism, as there is one Lord and one faith. It is accepting that water poured/sprinkled on an infant actually confers the benefits of the covenant. As Peter Leithart observes:

When an infant is baptized, the baptism itself is a gift from God’s unmerited favor. Baptism itself gives the child membership in the church, an identity as a member of the people of God and as a Christian, a family of brothers and sisters whose Father is in heaven and whose Brother is on a heavenly throne, the gift of public identification with Christ, a place in the temple of the Holy Spirit, a commission to serve Christ, a deputation (to use Thomas’s language) to a place in the worship of God, and much more. These are not, I submit, merely offered or promised to the child, but actually delivered. And they are his, whether he believes and trusts or not.

Covenant children are baptized because they need a heavenly mother and heavenly Father. Baptism actually does what it says it will do: it saves (I Peter 3:21). It will bring my little daughter to the arms of her Lord just as He called the little children to Himself (Matthew 19:14), she will be united to He Savior in baptism (Romans 6) and she will partake of all the benefits of the covenant just as the children of the saints in the Old. As Abigail grows in her faith, believes in Her faithful Lord, she will be adorned and cleansed daily by the Spirit of God. When she disobeys she will look to the waters of life and be reminded of the graciousness of Her Lord. And when she repents in humble submission to her Messiah, she will know that God has been faithful to His promises.

Thus, to remove wine from the Supper is to emasculate it, to rob the needy – yes, to rob those who struggle with alcohol addictions – of the gift of healing life which Christ gives. –Tim Gallant

On the night He was betrayed, Jesus instituted a very simple rite. Two prayers, two elements: bread and wine. One would think that with such simplicity, we would have no problem following the pattern. But in truth, we do have a problem. We usually have one prayer instead of two, and in North America, wine is less likely to be served in most churches than grape juice.

Infant baptism is a God-ordained means of ecclesiastical unity.  When children are brought into the covenant of grace through baptism, the washing with water prepares him to live with others who are washed in the fellowship of the Spirit. Little ones–infants–serve as a perpetual reminder that God continues to bind together His church and the church’s households.

Our catholic communion on the Lord’s Day is the effectual means God uses to wash His bride, but what takes place in the home–the domestic church–is the continual preparation for unity. In the home, covenant children are to be reminded that their baptisms calls them to daily renewal through repentance and confession.  In order for children to understand the catholic church, they are to learn to live in the domestic church first. Hence, the parental call to train in righteousness is even higher. The disunity of the church at large may stem from the disunity of the domestic church. The baptism of the church is a baptism unto life. Hence, baptism calls infants to live in a home that is washed and cleansed from the stain of outsiders, so that they may pursue unity in the entire church.