Should Our Children Participate in the Lord’s Supper? Part IV

The Lord’s Supper as a Means of Instruction

What has been said about baptism as a means of instruction also applies, with the necessary modifications, to the Lord’s Supper. The Lord’s Supper is also a means of instruction. We have already referred to the Passover in Exodus 12:26. We have also referred to its institution by the Lord Jesus Christ, who first acted: He broke the bread and distributed it, gave the cup to His disciples, commanding them to eat and drink, and only after having fixed the disciples’ attention by these actions of His, did He explain the meaning of these symbols to them.

The confessional standards likewise call attention to the Lord’s Supper as a means of instruction. We have already referred to Question and Answer 66 of the Heidelberg Catechism. We also recall Question and Answer 75, which, like Answer 69 in this connection, speaks of our being admonished—that is, instructed, or reminded—of God’s promises through the breaking of the bread. Question and Answer 75 furthermore contains the remarkable statement: “Thus: that Christ has commanded me and all believers to eat of this broken bread and to drink of this cup in remembrance of Him.” We teach this to our children at home, at school, and in catechism instruction. And we mean it, just as, on the basis of God’s commands and God’s promises, we also sincerely place upon their lips the only comfort of Lord’s Day 1.

Now suppose that one of those children were to ask: “So Christ has commanded this to me and to all believers. Shouldn’t I do it as well then?” What answer do we give? The fact that children do not ask this question may well be our fault. For we have already accustomed them to the idea that the Lord’s Supper is not something that concerns our boys and girls, but something for adults. In some Reformed circles, it is an affair for “converted” and “well-advanced” adults.

Have we perhaps, through our practice regarding the Lord’s Supper, prevented this question from ever arising in the minds of our children? Have we ourselves placed that obstacle—that stumbling block—in their way? In this connection I may perhaps tell of an incident. A catechism student of about twelve years of age once asked me: “Why am I not allowed to come to the Lord’s Supper?” The answer was: “Because you don’t understand it yet.” The child replied: “But it isn’t all that difficult, is it? It simply means that the Lord Jesus died for us, doesn’t it?” Then I said: “Yes, but you are not yet able to examine yourself.” The child left. Satisfied? Now she has reached the point where she is wondering whether she may even make public profession of faith. And for years now that conversation has weighed upon my pastoral conscience.

Did I answer that sheep of the flock from God’s Word? And from the Catechism? Its authors admitted such children to the Lord’s Supper. I remind you of what I related concerning the practice of Ursinus and Olevianus and the Reformed churches of the Palatinate. 1563! Or did I cause that child to stumble by making an easy appeal to… our tradition? The Belgic Confession likewise speaks no differently in Article 33.

And the question remains: May we withhold this means of instruction from the children? Or may our children receive, partake of, and use this means of instruction only after they have become fully instructed? But which one of us has ever become fully instructed in these matters?

What Knowledge Is Necessary for the Lord’s Supper?

Everything depends upon what we mean here by “fully instructed.” Is it the person who thoroughly knows the Roman Catholic doctrine of the Lord’s Supper? The one who knows about transubstantiation, ex opere operato, and the distinction between the Lord’s Supper and the Roman Mass?

The one who, when the Form for the Celebration of the Lord’s Supper is read, recognizes the rejection of transubstantiation in the words: “Therefore, that we may now be nourished with the true heavenly bread, Christ, let us not cling with our hearts to this outward bread and outward drink…” and so forth? Is that person fully instructed—the one who is able to refute both transubstantiation, the doctrine of the Mass, and the teaching of ex opere operato? Or is it the one who knows the Lutheran doctrine of consubstantiation—that Christ is present “under, with, and in the bread and wine”—and can argue against it?

Or is it the one who knows the extra Calvinisticum of Lord’s Day 18, Question and Answer 48 of the Heidelberg Catechism: that the two natures of Christ are not separated from one another by the teaching that, according to His human nature, He is no longer on earth but in heaven, while according to His divine nature He is everywhere present? Thus: “Not at all; for since the Godhead is incomprehensible and everywhere present, it must follow that although it is indeed beyond the human nature which it has assumed, nevertheless it is also in that human nature and remains personally united with it.”

How many adult communicant members know these things in this doctrinal sense? How many, let us say, ordinarily intelligent confessing members, not to mention those of limited understanding? Let us be honest: the Reformed have never been so rigorous as to require this degree of knowledge for admission to the Lord’s Supper. On the contrary, making proper distinctions, they have admitted many who possessed only limited understanding but who nevertheless gave evidence of sincerely desiring to serve the LORD. Indeed, they rightly rejoiced even when intellectually disabled persons were admitted to the Lord’s Table. And we have already seen with what minimal requirements the Heidelberg of our Catechism was satisfied in the very year in which the Catechism itself appeared.

Faith and Self-Examination

In defending the exclusion of children from the Lord’s Supper, we have continually pointed to the connection between faith and the sacrament, and to the necessity of self-examination. That is a matter of the very greatest importance. Christ ordained the Lord’s Supper for believers. But here it is essential that proper distinctions be made. Whoever presses this point too rigidly and insists that anyone who partakes of the Lord’s Supper must possess a clear awareness of his own “state and condition” must beware lest he fall upon his own sword. One more step, and in Anabaptist fashion he will encounter difficulties with infant baptism. For this sacrament also accomplishes its purpose—the strengthening of faith—only when it is used in faith.

Yet the Reformed baptize their children, and rightly so. On the basis of “you and your seed” (Gen. 17), of “you and your children” (Acts 2:39), because the children of the congregation are not unclean but holy (1 Cor. 7:14). And it ought to be seriously considered whether this does not have consequences with respect to the Lord’s Supper.

Magic?

Here we must guard against the sin of magic. That sin is present when, in the Eastern Church, mothers place the eucharistic bread into the mouths of their children. But it is no less present when adults imagine that, as faithful church members, one simply ought to partake of the Lord’s Supper and that somehow, in some inscrutable way, the sacrament will accomplish its work. Let no one say that such an attitude does not exist.

I have never forgotten how one of my professors—whose memory, moreover, remains blessed!—once gave us pastoral advice during a lecture. He told us that, later in pastoral ministry, we might occasionally encounter a church member complaining that he has noticed so little of the strengthening of his faith through the Lord’s Supper. We were advised, in such a case, to reply that one does not always notice immediately, after eating a meal or taking medicine, that one has become stronger or healthier. That kind of speaking follows the line of magic. That is one side of the matter.

But on the other hand, we must also guard ourselves against a rationalistic consciousness that imagines it understands everything concerning the Lord’s Supper. Here too I would remind the reader of what the Canons of Dordt say regarding God’s work within us: “Believers cannot fully understand the manner of this working in this life” (Canons of Dordt III/IV, Art. 13). I also think of the words of the Lord Jesus Christ: “The wind”—or, the Spirit—“blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes” (John 3).

On the other hand, we may also think of what Article 35 of the Belgic Confession says: “This banquet is a spiritual table at which Christ communicates Himself to us with all His benefits, and causes us there to enjoy both Himself and the merits of His suffering and death, nourishing, strengthening, and comforting our poor, desolate soul by the eating of His flesh, and refreshing and gladdening it by the drinking of His blood.”

Surely everyone who comes to the Lord’s Supper ought to understand something of this, something of the comfort that the Lord Jesus Christ died for us, rose from the dead, and instituted the Lord’s Supper as a memorial of His death. But how old must our children be before they can understand that? Did we ourselves understand all these things when we first came to the Lord’s Supper at eighteen or twenty years of age? Did we understand as much then as we do now, after having grown older? Or have we, since that first celebration of the Lord’s Supper, grown in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ, partly through the faithful celebration of the Lord’s Supper itself?

And then there is still something else: there is also such a thing as “the measure of faith which God has personally allotted to us” (Rom. 12:3), the measure of faith of which the Canons of Dordt also speak (Canons V, Art. 9). Our children believe according to the measure of their faith, and an aged Christian according to the measure of his. In the latter, if all is well, tribulation has produced perseverance, and perseverance, proven character, and proven character, hope—a hope that does not put us to shame, because the love of God has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. (Rom. 5:3–5.)

But surely the LORD does not require that seasoned maturity—that tested character of faith—from our little children, does He? Is it not enough that they love Him according to the measure of their age? Or is that perhaps not faith? May we older believers, who still have to wrestle with the weakness of our faith and with the sinful desires of our flesh—with our sin—on a daily basis forbid the younger members of the congregation from the Lord’s Supper because they are not yet as “far advanced” (!) as we are? Or have we perhaps, as we have grown older, really progressed that much further in the struggle against the weakness of our faith and against the sinful desires of our flesh?

Be that as it may, we “daily increase our debt”—to use the language of the Catechism. That is to say, as we have grown older, the account of our guilt has certainly not become smaller. In that respect, our children are not at a disadvantage but at an advantage. And for the rest, let us require from the younger members of the church no more than what belongs to childhood.

(To be continued).

1. Visee