Opbouw, Vol 9, No 1 (2 April 1965), pp. 400-401
Translated by Jim Witteveen from the works of Gerard Visee
Children and Self-Examination
As an objection to the participation of children in the Lord’s Supper, we often argue that they are not yet capable of examining themselves and of “discerning the body of the Lord” (1 Cor. 11). But once again, everything depends upon what we—or rather, what Scripture—understands by self-examination. At this point there is often great lack of clarity and much confusion among us.
There are those who believe that examining oneself means that each person must determine for himself whether he is in fact entitled to celebrate the Lord’s Supper. The very question proceeds from uncertainty and doubt. Then, by means of self-examination—by searching for the marks of true “saving” faith—each person must attempt to move from uncertainty to certainty, namely, believing for himself that God’s promises also apply to him.
For others, however, this latter question has been settled once and for all. They have been converted, either suddenly or through a long, experientially difficult spiritual struggle, and that fact stands in their lives like an immovable anchor. Once converted, always converted. The basis for coming to the Lord’s Supper is therefore not the sure and certain promise of God, revealed in the gospel and given to the congregation; it is not God’s covenant, which He has established over us. Instead, it is the subjective certainty that those promises also apply to me.
In these and similar conceptions of self-examination, various influences are at work. Anabaptist influences: that baptism and the Lord’s Supper are only for those who, by receiving baptism and by participating in the Lord’s Supper, are able to confess what has “taken place in the soul.” Remonstrant influences as well: the decision whether or not one will partake of the Lord’s Supper is determined, not by the sovereign appointment of the LORD, who gave us a place among His people and, before we ever asked for it, before we sought Him, caused us to share in His covenant before we even knew it, but by man himself, who, independently of these sovereign ordinances of the LORD, chooses either for or against Him. The world of Pietistic thought is also at work here. It likewise seeks assurance of salvation not outside oneself in Jesus Christ, the only Savior, but in an experientially lived-through struggle of conversion.
And if these requirements are indeed those which Scripture and God’s Word require us to impose, then the question of the participation of the younger members of the congregation in the Lord’s Supper has already been decided, and it must be answered in the negative. Then we do well to wait until they either know what has happened to them (Anabaptist), or have made the sovereign choice themselves (Remonstrant), or have consciously passed through a struggle of conversion (Pietist), or have consciously given their heart to the Lord (Methodist). But then we had also better make sure that we are not—as we have already noted in passing—removing the foundation from beneath infant baptism. And then we are far removed from the spirit of the Torah—the instruction of the LORD, His laws, His judgments, and His statutes—over which the Psalms (19, 81, 119, and others) rejoice. Far removed from:
For this is the command
of the Lord of lords
to His Israel;
this is the lofty ordinance,
the decree of Jacob’s God,
which we rightly honor.
1 Corinthians 11
Scripture shows us the right way in 1 Corinthians 11. The apostle’s command, “But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of the bread and drink of the cup,” has nothing whatever to do with a command to examine oneself whether one ought to partake of the Lord’s Supper. On the contrary. The command of Christ, “Do this in remembrance of Me,” is not “set aside” by the apostle. Rather, the apostle confirms it: “Let the person eat of the bread and drink of the cup.” That the members of the church must celebrate the Lord’s Supper is beyond dispute. The only question is how they are to do so. Namely, in a manner worthy of Christians. They must “discern the body of the Lord.” That is to say, at the Lord’s Supper they must remember that the Lord Jesus Christ gave His body over to death for them, and that the Lord has also purchased their brothers with His blood.
The party spirit in the congregation at Corinth was completely at odds with this (chapter 1), as was the sexual immorality tolerated in the congregation (5:1–13), the lawsuits against one another before pagan courts (6:1–11), and the lack of love toward brothers who had difficulty regarding the eating of meat offered to idols (8:7–13)—brothers for whom Christ died (8:11). Likewise contrary to this discerning of the Lord’s body was the fact that, at the agapae, the love feasts, one person ate and drank to excess while another still remained hungry (chapter 11). All these incomprehensible situations arose from the fact that they “did not discern the body of the Lord.” They had no eye for the unspeakable gift which the Lord Jesus Christ has given us by dying for us, and which He seals to us in the Lord’s Supper. This was not how things ought to be. Whoever celebrates the Lord’s Supper as a Christian must live as a Christian, in love toward the brothers through faith. He must demonstrate his faith by that love.
The Form for the Celebration of the Lord’s Supper
The Reformed Form for the Celebration of the Lord’s Supper speaks in a beautiful way about self-examination—that is, about preparing oneself to proclaim the Lord’s death in a worthy manner, as is fitting for Christ’s congregation.
- Let each person consider his sins and the curse resting upon them.
- Let each person examine his heart to see whether he believes the sure promise of God that all his sins are forgiven solely because of the suffering and death of Christ.
- Let each person ask himself whether he is sincerely resolved from now on to show true thankfulness to God the Lord throughout his whole life,
…and to live in heartfelt love and unity with his neighbor.
The Meaning of 1 Corinthians 11:28
It seems to us that, in all this, the precise intention of 1 Corinthians 11:28—“Let each person examine himself”—has been exactly hit. The Greek reads: dokimazetō heauton anthrōpos. Adolf Schlatter translates dokimazetō heauton as: “Der Mensch bewähre sich aber”— “Let the man prove himself.” Or: “Let each person show himself truly to be a Christian.” He explains himself further as follows: “The means by which one guards oneself against sin and guilt at the Lord’s Supper is an upright and sincere life as a Christian.”
Paul does not prescribe any particular procedure for this by which we might make ourselves worthy to sit at Jesus’ table. His words are misunderstood and interpreted too narrowly when they are restricted to an act of self-examination and confession of sins. To turn inward and examine ourselves is certainly always beneficial for us. But the apostle does not make our coming to the Lord’s Table dependent upon a special exercise of piety.
Rather, with the sobriety and love of truth that always characterize him, he requires for the celebration of the Lord’s Supper that we live as Christians in earnestness and sincerity. Those who did so in Corinth were the true participants at the Lord’s Table: those who did not allow themselves to be swept along by the party spirit in Corinth, but served the peace of the congregation, who did not think of themselves, but sought the welfare and the edification of the congregation.[i]
We believe that Schlatter is right. The matter of which the apostle Paul speaks in 1 Corinthians 11:28—“self-examination”—is not something that ought to occupy our attention only at the time of the Lord’s Supper. Rather, it concerns the whole orientation of our lives. If we always conduct ourselves as Christians, if we live as Christians ought to live, out of faith that the Lord Christ purchased not only us but also our brothers with His blood, and therefore also love with word and deed those brothers “for whom Christ died,” then we prove ourselves to be genuine Christians. Then we can also commemorate the Lord’s death together in a fitting manner.
No Individualism
Now this Christian way of life, this dokimazein heauton, this “self-examination,” is not something that each of us carries out in isolation. A husband and wife, for example, will speak with one another about these things—and indeed not only “at the time of the Lord’s Supper”—provided that they truly “help and assist one another in all things pertaining to this temporal and eternal life.”
But do not father and mother likewise help their children in these matters as soon as they have “come to years of understanding”? Do they not teach them, as Christian children, to believe the Lord on the basis of His Word and to “walk worthy of their calling”? The great reality at the heart of the Lord’s Supper—that the Lord Jesus Christ is the true Passover Lamb and was sacrificed for us—surely stands at the very center of Christian instruction and upbringing. And does not that upbringing also include the fact that father and mother themselves faithfully attend the Lord’s Supper? And does not that instruction include bringing their children with them to the Lord’s Table from an early age—“mit zum Tisch des Herrn führen”—as the Church Order of the Palatinate puts it?
That is how matters were conducted in the church of Ursinus and Olevianus, in the church and in the very year in which the little book of “the only comfort” was published, at Heidelberg, in 1563. That practice, therefore, is not contrary to the Heidelberg Catechism. On the contrary, it was precisely this, and no other, that was the practice in the church which gave us the Catechism.
Public Profession of Faith
“But,” one may ask, “must not public profession of faith precede one’s first participation in the Lord’s Supper?” Among us, that is indeed the established practice. It is embodied in Article 61 of the Church Order and in the Form for the Public Profession of Faith, adopted by the General Synod of Utrecht in 1923, a form which was subsequently also adopted by the Reformed Churches. To begin with the latter: much good can be said about this form. Yet one objection to the questions asked at public profession is that they are too much adapted to the practice concerning admission to the Lord’s Supper that developed after the great Reformation of the sixteenth century. They stand far removed from the simplicity of the Heidelberg church—the church of the Catechism—1563!
If you compare them with the questions asked at the baptism of adults, it is striking that, for example, the question, “Do you promise… that in the fellowship of this Christian church you will persevere not only in hearing the divine Word, but also in the use of the Holy Supper?” is absent from the questions asked at public profession.
But I believe I have an even more serious objection to Question 4: “Do you promise to submit yourself to ecclesiastical admonition and discipline if it should happen (which may God graciously forbid) that you should go astray in doctrine or in life?” Hardly anyone, I think, could object to the matter addressed in this question. Nor is there any objection to the question itself when it is put to strangers who are entering the church. That is precisely what happens—though in different words—with those who are baptized as adults: “…and whether you are willing to gladly submit yourself to all Christian admonitions.” But it is, to put it mildly, very strange when this question is asked of those who are not entering the church for the first time by means of their public profession of faith, but who have already received baptism as members of Christ’s congregation. They are already under the oversight of the congregation. By requiring them to promise at their public profession that they will submit to possible ecclesiastical admonition and discipline, the impression is created that an entirely new situation has come into being. Parents do not require their growing children to promise that they will submit to parental admonition and discipline.
The point we have raised may seem of little importance, and in itself there is nothing wrong with making such a promise. Yet it may well be that in this seemingly minor matter we have arrived at one of the crucial points of the whole question: the distinction between so-called baptized members and professing members within the congregation. Where is the biblical basis for that distinction?
If someone were to reply that the difference between these two categories consists in the fact that professing members may be barred from the Lord’s Supper, whereas baptized members cannot be barred because they have not yet been admitted, then he is guilty of reasoning in a circle. For in reality we have already barred the baptized members as a whole. And it is precisely the legitimacy of that exclusion and of not admitting the baptized members that is under discussion. It is, of course, evident that with respect to such matters as, for example, the election of office-bearers and eligibility for ecclesiastical office, further regulation would indeed be necessary.
(To be continued).
- Visee
[i] Adolf Schlatter, Erläuterungen zum Neuen Testament, vol. 6, Die Korintherbriefe, p. 142.
