Participants At The Lord’s Table

By DOUGLAS HAMMETT, Pastor

LEHIGH VALLEY BAPTIST CHURCH

4702 COLEBROOK AVENUE

EMMAUS, PENNSYLVANIA

That our Lord has restrictions on His table should come as a surprise to no one. The Table is restricted as to purpose, elements, and design as well as other ways. Here we are concerned with the participants at the Lord’s Table.

Only an unthinking man would declare there are no qualifications to eat at the Lord’s Table. Any true Christian would be horrified to think that a drunken, murderous pagan would be given freedom to participate. Therefore, all would agree there are restrictions to participation at the Lord’s Table.

There are basically three positions held by persons regarding who may observe the Lord’s Supper.

I. Open Communion

This view is the view of many Protestant Churches. Depending on the person administering the Lord’s Supper, the definition is applied somewhat differently. Under this definition, all persons who are "Christians" are invited to participate regardless of their church affiliation.

The rationale for this position is based on a belief in a universal, invisible Church. Those who believe that all "Christians" are members of Christ’s invisible Church are therefore qualified to eat at the Lord’s Table.

If indeed all saved persons are members of one universal invisible Church, then we would have no Biblical right to refuse them a place at the Table. The only exception within this view is the qualification found in 1 Corinthians 11:28, "Let a man examine himself."

However, since there is no such institution as a Church that is universal and invisible found in the Scriptures, the view of open communion must be rejected.

II. Denominational

Communion

This is the view of the Roman Catholic Church. Only those members of the visible Church on earth have the right to participate. This is also the view of some other types of churches when they state "only those of like faith and practice" may participate at the Lord’s Table.

For a Baptist Church to take this stand is to recognize the view of Denominational Unity. (Only those of the same denomination can participate.) However, the Scripture never mentions a denomination or universal, visible Church.

The qualifications under this view are membership in the same type of a Church, and the "Let a man examine himself" qualification found in 1 Corinthians 11:28. But this view also must be rejected since there is no denominational Church or universal visible Church taught in Scripture.

III. Restricted Lord’s

Supper

This is the view of many Baptist Churches as well as the teaching of Scripture. Under this view only ones who are members of the particular Church observing the Lord’s Supper are invited to partake.

Therefore, the qualifications are salvation, baptism, and membership in good standing, as well as the qualifications in 1 Corinthians 11:28, "Let a man examine himself." Why is such a view scriptural?

A. An Ordinance of God

Some would attempt to determine who can observe the Lord’s Supper on the basis of emotions and sentiment. We do not have the right to determine the rules of the Lord’s Table on the basis of our established customs, since God has already told us to beware of the traditions of men. (Col. 2:8) We are reminded in 2 Cor. 10:20-21 that it is the Lord’s Table of which we are eating.

The emphasis here is upon the Lord’s Table. The Supper belongs to God, and therefore not to man. As an ordinance from God, His rules are to be obeyed, rather than our own pre-conceived ideas.

To attempt to open the Table more widely than what God Himself has done is to make it man’s table instead of God’s. Therefore, it is God that lays down the rules regulating and governing the observance of the Lord’s Supper. We have no right or authority to set aside the Word of God in preference to our emotions and customs.

B. An Ordinance Given

To The Church

The real discussion revolves around the question, "Who was given the Ordinances to administer?" Matthew 28:16-20 gives the Great Commission to the local Church and not to individual Christians. The Lord was speaking to His disciples as a group.

The proof of this is quite simple. The Great Commission states that we are to win people, baptize them, and then teach them all things. If this commission was only given to individuals, then we must definitely say it is only given to individuals that are saved.

I think there would be little disagreement with that statement. Let’s take baptism as an illustration. If a person has been baptized by an individual that was not saved, then their baptism is invalid because the person doing the baptizing had absolutely no authority from God.

The question then comes, "Is there any way in which a Christian can be sure that the person which baptizes them is themselves a child of God?" The answer is absolutely NO, for we cannot know another person’s heart. Therefore, if after being baptized, we find out that the one performing the baptism was not saved, then we must return to the water again, so that our baptism can be from Scriptural authority.

All of this is foolishness of course, because the Lord Jesus Christ gave the Great Commission to the disciples as a corporate body, as the Lord’s Church that He established during His earthly ministry. The authority to baptize, therefore, does not rest within the individual doing the baptizing, but rather rests within the local church.

Therefore, we state that baptism definitely is an ordinance given to the local church to observe. We are told in 1 Corinthians 11:2, "Now I praise you brethren, that you remember me in all things, and keep the ordinances as I delivered them to you."

Therefore, we see the ordinances are more than one. As we study Scripture, we find that there are actually only 2 ordinances: baptism and the Lord’s Supper. 1 Corinthians 11:2 states in context that the ordinances were given to the local church. In this case, the church at Corinth was to not only observe the Lord’s Supper, but to keep the ordinances as they were delivered.

As Matthew 28 gave the church the order, Christians are not to observe the Lord’s Supper, which falls under the third sections of "observing all things, whatsoever

I have commanded you", until the first two pre-requisites have been met. The first two pre-requisites are salvation, then baptism.

Therefore, the Word of God clearly lays down that the Lord’s Supper is given to the loca1 church to observe. Never in Scripture do we read of Christians observing the Lord’s Supper across church boundaries. Church members from other churches are not invited.

Otherwise, that would be denominational communion which is never taught in the Word of God. The Lord’s Supper is not given to a denomination, nor is it given to all Christians. It is only given to local churches to observe.

The burden of proof that God wants others outside the local church to be admitted to the Table lies in the lap of those wanting to observe denominational communion. The Table was given to the local church to observe and not to anyone else.

C. An Ordinance

Of Cleansing

The Lord’s Supper is an ordinance meant to keep purity in the local church. As baptism is the door to the church to keep out those who are unsaved and uncommitted, so the Lord’s Supper encourages Christians to keep their life right with God with periodic self-examination.

However, the church is only to let those approach the Table who have shown evidence of salvation and commitment to Christ within the context of the church.

We are told in 1 Corinthians 5:11 and 13, "But now have I written unto you not to keep company, if any man that is called a brother be a fornicator or covetous, or an idolator or a railer, or drunkard, with such a one, no, not to eat. But them that are without God judgeth. Therefore put away from among yourselves that wicked person."

These verses tell us that the child of God has the obligation to break fellowship with the believer that is not walking orderly with God. However, this does not rest upon the individual, as the context lays out. Rather, the responsibility rests upon the church as a corporate body to break fellowship with that person.

Some would state that the Lord’s Supper is to be a conscience matter, or up to the individual as to whether he is right with God. But as we see in 1 Corinthians 5, the responsibility of breaking fellowship rest squarely upon the shoulders of the local church.

1 Corinthians 10:20-21 states, "But I say, that the things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to devils, and not to God; and I would not that ye should have fellowship with devils. Ye cannot drink the cup of the Lord, and the cup of devils. Ye cannot be partakers of the Lord’s table, and of the table of devils." Here Paul is stating that those who have left the faith that had been delivered to the saints are not to eat at the Lord’s Table.

We read in 2 Thessalonians 3:6, "Now we command you, brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye withdraw yourselves from every brother that walketh disorderly, and not after the tradition which he received of us." Again, the separation is not left up to the one that has sinned, but rather is left up to the Church.

In 2 John 9-11 we are told, "Whosoever transgresseth, and abideth not in the doctrine of Christ, hath not God. He that abideth in the doctrine of Christ, he hath both the Father and the Son. If there come any unto you, and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into your house, neither bid him God speed. For he that biddeth him God speed is partaker of his evil deeds."

Again, it is the Christian who is required not to receive the one who denies the doctrine of Jesus Christ into fellowship. However, the context of 2 John clearly lays out that this is a church matter of not fellowshipping with an erring person, and a church matter of not receiving someone who is heretical in doctrine.

In George W. Truett’s book, The Supper of Our Lord, on page 19 he states, "Since the Supper is an ordinance of the Church, it must inevitably follow that whatever would debar a man from a Church must also debar him from the Lord’s

Table in that Church. It is illogically inconceivable that one should be deprived of membership in the Church, and yet not also be deprived of coming to the Lord’s Table in that Church, since the first privilege is the source and foundation for the second."

The Lord’s Table, therefore, was meant to be a cleansing element within the Church. As the child of God comes to the Lord’s Table as a member within that Church, he is to examine himself to make sure everything is right, and confess all sin.

However, those who openly sin and refuse to make things right with God are to be barred, not only from the Lord’s Table, but also from Church membership.

Here a problem arises. How do we, as a local Church, know that a Christian coming from another locality and Church has not been disciplined at that Church for some sin which he had committed and would not get right?

We are given the order to separate from disorderly brethren. Yet, if we do not know them, if they are not from our church, we cannot know for sure whether or not they are disorderly. Therefore, the Table is limited to Church members because this is the only practice that can be consistent with Church discipline.

D. An Ordinance to Show

Fellowship

One of the problems with the Church at Corinth was that their fellowship was incomplete because they had a church full of clicks and schisms. Paul rebuked them for this. In 1 Cor. 11:24 he had reminded them of the proper way to observe the Lord’s Supper.

As the bread was broken, Christ had said, "Take eat, this is My body which is broken for you. This do in remembrance of Me." Then in Chapter 12 he says the local church is the body of Christ and each person is a member in particular.

As the context shows, the body is not a universal group but rather a local church. As the bread is broken and given to each member, it is a picture of the church being the body of Christ. Each member of the church is therefore a member of the body and portraying their commitment to every other member of the body.

Therefore, to maintain the symbolism of the body of Christ and the symbolism of the ordinance, we must admit only those of our own church membership. To accept at the Lord’s Table members of another church negates this symbolism of the ordinance.

In conclusion, we state that the position of a restricted Lord’s Table as being only for members of the particular Church observing the Supper is a position that is consistent with Scripture. It is a position which is supported by the fact that the Lord’s Supper was not given to a denomination.

It is a position consistent with Church discipline, in that no other way of keeping the ordinance among only believers that are outwardly walking with God can be devised. It is a position which is consistent with the symbolism shown. Therefore, the Lord’s Supper is restricted to members of the local Church. Anything else violates God’s Word.

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