Thoughts on the Divine Service
28. Closed Communion
Dear friends,
One more email on the practice of the Lord’s Supper before we get back to the liturgy proper.
Holy Baptism and Holy Communion have a huge joy in common: as means of grace, they both deliver the forgiveness of sins. They both deliver Christ and His gifts to sinners.
At the same time, there are differences between the two sacraments. Obviously, Holy Baptism features water as the physical element, while Holy Communion has bread and wine. Holy Communion emphasizes the person of Jesus—you receive His body and blood (1 Corinthians 10:16), while Holy Baptism highlights the work of Jesus—you’re joined to His death and resurrection (Romans 6:4-5). (This emphasis is not to divide the person and work of Jesus: where one is, there is the other!)
Here’s a big, but often disregarded, difference: people cannot be baptized to their harm. However, they can suffer judgment for receiving the Lord’s Supper.
In other words, let’s take an extreme example and say that a grown man undergoes instruction and asks to be baptized; but after he’s been baptized, he declares that he never believed and was only baptized in order to mock Christ. There is no verse in Scripture that says that baptism brings judgment upon him for his mockery and misuse. That doesn’t mean he’s going to heaven: as long as his heart is so hardened, he rejects the gifts of forgiveness and life that Holy Baptism delivers.
When it comes to the Lord’s Supper, though, Scripture clearly 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” (1 Corinthians 11:27-29).
Christian love demands that we do not harm our neighbor by sins of commission or omission. This is why, from the earliest of times, the Church has consistently practiced closed Communion, lest we assist our neighbor in bringing God’s judgment upon himself.
In 1 Corinthians, St. Paul lists two criteria for worthy reception of Holy Communion. The first is self-examination: in other words, the believer examines his need against the standard of God’s Word. In the Small Catechism, the section “Christian Questions and Their Answers” is a great tool for self-examination, but it could be summarized by this short Q&A:
Q: What is the Lord’s Supper?
A: It is Jesus’ body and blood, in/with/under bread and wine.
Q: What is the Supper for?
A: It is for the forgiveness of sins.
Q: Do I need forgiveness?
A: Yes, because I am sinful and I am sorry for my sins.
Agreement with those answers means one is worthy and well-prepared for the sacrament. Disagreement with any of those answers means that one disagrees with Scripture and will receive Holy Communion to his harm.
The second criterion is really a subset of the first: St. Paul warns that the one who does not “discern the body”—the one who denies the Real Presence of Jesus in the sacrament—will bring judgment upon himself. While some consider the Real Presence a trivial matter, it’s quite a thing for Jesus to say, “Here I am;” and for sinners to respond, “No, You’re not.”
Thus the Church has practiced closed Communion out of love for neighbor from the very beginning. (Open Communion is a recent invention, appearing in disparate groups after the Reformation.) We cannot read minds, so we go by what people say and do; and if their words and deeds indicate that they will receive the Supper to their judgment, we ask them to refrain from receiving the sacrament until their words and deeds confirm they will receive it for their good.
Two quick examples to illustrate…
• Let’s say a parishioner is unrepentant of some known sin, like sexual immorality. The one who is not repentant by definition does not desire forgiveness, which is what the Lord’s Supper is for; therefore, it would not be Christian love to help him misuse Christ’s body and blood.
• Let’s say that a visitor identifies himself as a member of a Baptist church but desires to receive Holy Communion. I’m going to give him the credit that he believes what his home church teaches, and Baptist theology denies the Real Presence. Therefore, I’m going to ask him to refrain because Scripture says he would eat and drink to his judgment. It would not be Christian love to assist him in becoming guilty of Christ’s body and blood.
Do you see? Closed Communion is akin to a physician examining a patient to make sure that the treatment won’t do harm instead of good.
Another way to say this is that the practice of the Church has always been that Communion is to be shared by penitent Christians who are in full doctrinal agreement. When I chat with a visitor about receiving Communion, I put it this way: “To take Communion at a church is to say, ‘I know what this church teaches and I believe what this church teaches.’ If you can’t say both of those, you’d be making a false confession before God by receiving the Supper today, and I don’t want you to make a false confession.”
Some will object that 1 Corinthians 11 does not require full doctrinal agreement. However, let’s run this little test, using the example of infant baptism:
• If two Christians disagree on whether infants can be baptized, can they both be right? No.
• Is the one who is wrong asserting a doctrinal error? Yes.
• Is it sin to hold onto doctrinal error? Yes.
• Should we give Holy Communion to someone persisting in doctrinal error? No, because they would receive it to their harm.
Again, the practice of closed Communion is an act of Christian love. It is a great tragedy that so many church bodies have lowered the bar in claiming that the Supper is only bread and wine. See, if a church’s theology denies the Real Presence, then the communion isn’t with Jesus because He’s not especially there. If He’s not there, it only makes sense that the communion must be between Christians. Such churches therefore teach that the purpose of Holy Communion is to show unity between Christians as long as they can say that Jesus is Lord. In such a church, to deny people communion is to declare that they are not Christians.
This is why the scriptural practice of closed Communion can be frustrating. When we ask a fellow Christian from a different church to refrain from the sacrament, we are saying, “We want to give you Communion, but we want to be sure you don’t receive it to your harm!” However, what the visitor often infers is that we are saying he is not a Christian—not because we have said so, but because their home church has given them the wrong idea.
We live in a time when the church is terribly fragmented, and it is a godly thing to desire unity in Christ. However, unity in Christ is found by unity in His Word, and there are no shortcuts to doctrinal agreement. That’s a tall order for the Church on earth; but I give great thanks for the unity that we have here, and that we bow before the Lord in Holy Communion together; and I look forward to the day when all Christians stand before the throne, in the glorious real presence of Jesus, forever. What joy!