by Cory Thompson
When the church observes the Lord’s Supper, who is invited? All believers? Only properly baptized believers? Only members of that particular Baptist church? Baptists have debated the question of who may come to the Lord’s Table since their beginning.
Defining Open and Closed Communion
Baptists have answered this question in two ways: closed communion and open communion. Closed communion is the position that only properly baptized believers are welcome to the Lord’s Table. Within this position there are some variations. For instance, there is a distinction between closed communion (restricting the Lord’s Table to baptized members of the local church observing communion) and close communion (allowing baptized members from other churches of like faith and order to participate).[1]
Open communion, on the other hand, is the position that the Lord’s Table is open to all genuine believers regardless of whether they were baptized by sprinkling, pouring, or immersion, or even if they received infant or believer’s baptism. A survey of Baptist history shows that the division between open and closed communion was not confined to one tribe of Baptists. Among the General Baptists, some affirmed open communion and others closed communion. The same is true with the Particular Baptists.
Problems with Closed Communion
The closed Communion position is based on the Biblical paradigm of the order of the Christian life in texts such as Matthew 28:19–20 and Acts 2:41–42, in which baptism precedes the Lord’s Supper. It is not that this understanding is wrong, for this is the observable pattern in the New Testament and the church should conform to such. The problem, however, is that these texts are understood differently among believers regarding baptism. The debate between open and closed communion is not about allowing people to the Lord’s Table who refuse baptism but focuses on genuine believers who consider themselves baptized even though they were not immersed as believers. Those who do not share the Baptist understanding as to the proper mode and subject of baptism contend their “baptism” is Biblical.
Furthermore, when genuine believers who are in good standing with their churches but differ on doctrines that are non-essential to salvation are forbidden from the Lord’s Table, they are treated as an unbeliever (1 Cor. 5:9; 10:21; 11:28). Therefore, forbidding a true believer from the Lord’s Table seems dreadfully wrong and inappropriate when they will share in the messianic banquet (Mt. 8:11; Lk. 13:29) and the marriage supper of the Lamb (Rev. 19:8–9) at the end of the age.
A Cautious Approach to Open Communion
Historically open communion has been a distinctive of Free Will Baptists within the Baptist family.[2] Yet the historic Free Will Baptist position is more cautious, careful, and nuanced than the broader understanding of open communion. Free Will Baptists believe there are prerequisites to the Lord’s Table and that it is the proper duty of the church to forbid those who do not meet the prerequisites.
Several examples from 1 Corinthians demonstrate when the church may forbid someone from the Lord’s Table. In 1 Corinthians 5:11, Paul exhorts readers “not even to eat” with members under church discipline (NKJV). At the very least, this means to forbid that person from the Lord’s Table. In 10:21, he states “You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons; you cannot partake of the Lord’s table and of the table of demons.” Likewise, in 11:29-30, as a result of coming to the Lord’s Table in an “unworthy manner” and “not discerning the Lord’s body,” many were sick and many died. Or to say it another way, many were sick and many died because they had no right to come to the Lord’s Table.
Consequently, those who hold the position of open communion must explicitly define the participants in the Lord’s Supper as believers and even intentionally regulate admission. The Lord’s Supper is a supremely holy meal and should be treated as such. The right administration of this ordinance is the mark of a true church, and if unbelievers do not understand they are outside of Christ due to pastoral negligence, then the meaning of the ordinance is undermined. Additionally, failing to regulate intentionally the Table to believers can serve as a foil to evangelism by encouraging false assurance of salvation.
Open Communion and Confessional Tradition
Free Will Baptists would do well to look to past confessional statements and writings from the Randall and Palmer movements on the issue of intentionally regulating the Lord’s Table to genuine believers. Among the Randall Free Will Baptists, John J. Butler captures the necessity of preserving the integrity of the Lord’s Table:
Nothing is more certain than that the impenitent world have no right to this sacred ordinance. To throw open the doors, and allow all who might be disposed, to come in and partake, would be an utter perversion and profanation of it; and if any professed minister of the gospel do thus, their course cannot be too severely reprehended. If there is any force in language, or any authority in the inspired volume, it is evident that no one but those who exhibit proper evidence of Christian character should ever be admitted to the eucharist.[3]
For Butler, it was not enough to speak in generalities regarding the terms of admission; to do so allowed “Unitarians, Universalists, Mormonites, or Infidels” to the Table of the Lord which was “sacrilege.”[4] Instead, Butler believed that the right course was for the church to have decisions of who was admitted. The church reserves this privilege because it is the “representative of Christ on the earth, it is his body, composed of his elect saints, and through it the authority of Christ flows, the church then under Christ, and in conformity to his will has the sole right of deciding who are reputed believers, and thereby entitled to the sacramental elements.”[5] Just as the church has the right to receive or reject a person for membership, so too they have this right regarding admittance the Lord’s Table (cf. Mt. 16:18–19; 18:18–20).
The unique privilege to receive or exclude, however, “cannot be exercised arbitrarily: it is derived from Christ, and must be used in accordance to his will. He has already extended the privileges of the ordinance to all his followers and to them alone; and no one can set aside his authority.”[6] The church has “no right to receive any Christ has not invited, or to erect a standard which shall exclude any who he has received.”[7]
Butler believed the invitation to the Lord’s Table as general rule is only for those “who are in regular standing in any evangelical church.”[8] He reasoned that “it is the duty of all persons, on obtaining a hope in Christ to become connected with some visible church; if they refuse or neglect to do so, they live in disobedience, and one living in known disobedience cannot be recognized as a Christian.”[9] For Butler membership in the local church “affords prima facie evidence of Christian character and entitles one holding it to the Communion in any evangelical church.”[10] Butler even goes as far to say “The practice of some in allowing professed converts before uniting with the church . . . is to be condemned.”[11]
Regarding the prerequisite of church membership for admission to the Lord’s Table, M.W. Alford writes,
It is the duty of every Christian to put himself under the government of some particular church, otherwise the churches cannot judge of their standing. On this ground, we cannot invite Christians that belong to no church, for we know not that they are in fellowship with any branch of Christ’s church, and are not commended to the Christian public, by the judgement of any branch of the Christian church. It is not expected that we shall invite any persons to come, but such as are known to be professed members of the church.[12]
Among the Palmer Free Will Baptist movement, T. F. Harrison and J. M. Barfield agreed with “Randall and his people” on the prerequisite to the Lord’s Table.[13] They were also sympathetic to closed communion Baptist, believing that baptism is an “orderly antecedent” to the Supper although not the “indispensable prerequisite.”[14] In other words the normal practice of the church should reflect the paradigm of the New Testament: baptism preceding the Lord’s Supper. But such does not preclude those whose “baptism” was by pouring or sprinkling or were “baptized” before their profession of faith, for they are part of the true church “according to their best convictions of truth and duty.”[15] Regarding baptism as the proper antecedent to the Lord’s Supper, Harrison and Barfield further write, “Baptism as a rule, as has been stated, ought to follow immediately upon faith and so precede, not the Supper alone, but everything practical of an open Christian life.”[16]
The terms of admission communicated in the writings of Butler, Alford, and Harrison and Barfield are consistent with the 1834 confessional statement, A Treatise on the Faith of the Freewill Baptists, which defines the terms as “Every True believer in Christ being a member of his body, and a part of his visible church.”[17]And in the footnote, “It is the usual practice of our connection, at the time of Communion, to invite all Christians of good standing in any evangelical church, to partake with us; as, in general such persons only are known as true believers.”[18]
Terms of Admission
In the open communion view outlined above, invitation to the Lord’s Table is for members in good standing of any evangelical church. This excludes unbelievers, professing Christians who are not members of a local church, and members under church discipline. The act of church discipline communicates a person is unrepentant and their life is consistent with an unbeliever. Their unrepentant lifestyle demonstrates there is no “participation with the blood of Christ,” Christ’s saving benefits, or “participation with the body of Christ,” fellowship with believers (cf. 1 Cor. 10:16). Exclusion from the Lord’s Table is an important act of church discipline (cf. 1 Cor. 5:9–13).
The invitation is not just for members of any local church but an evangelical church. Butler defines evangelical as those “who hold both theoretically and practically the doctrines essential to salvation.”[19] Confessional parameters of an evangelical church are the authority of the Bible, the Trinity, the virgin birth, the full deity and humanity of Christ, substitutionary atonement, bodily resurrection, bodily return of Christ, and justification by faith.
Baptism should also be explained in the invitation as the proper antecedent to the Lord’s Table. This means explaining clearly the Biblical understanding of baptism as the initiatory ordinance into Christian discipleship. While commending the “eucharistic hospitality” of open communion, Timothy George rightly observes, “The Lord’s Supper, no less than baptism, is a mark of a true church, not a trivial matter of indifference within the covenanted community.”[20]
When the congregation approaches the Lord’s Table, the administrator should warn unbelievers not to partake, connect believer’s baptism as the proper, although not indispensable antecedent, lead the congregation to self-examination, and invite all Christians who are members in good standing of an evangelical church.
About the Author: Cory Thompson serves as
pastor of the First Free Will Baptist Church in Poteau, OK. He holds degrees
from Randall University (B.A.) and Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary
(M.Div, Th.M). Cory is married to Brandy, and they have four children:
Caroline, Campbell, Carsyn, and Claire.
[1]For the sake of brevity, “closed” communion is the term used throughout this article to refer to the general position of believers’ baptism as a prerequisite for communion.
[2]William F. Davidson, The Free Will Baptists in History (Nashville: Randall House, 2001), 177.
[3]John J. Butler, “An Examination of the Terms of Admission to the Lord’s Supper,” in The Free Communionist or Unrestricted Communion of The Lord’s Supper With All True Believers Advocated; And Objections of Restricted Communionsts Considered: In Four Essays (Dover: Free Will Baptist Connection, 1841), 41.
[4]Ibid.,42.
[5]Ibid.
[6]Ibid., 43.
[7]Ibid.
[8]Ibid., 44.
[9]Ibid., 43
[10]Ibid..
[11]John J. Butler and Ransom Dunn, Lectures on Systematic Theology: Embracing the Existence and Attributes of God; the Authority and Doctrine of Scriptures, the Institutions and Ordinances of the Gospel (Boston: The Morning Star Publishing House, 1892), 418.
[12]M. W. Alford, “Communion of the Saints Communion of the Bible,” in The Free Communionist, 211.
[13]J. M. Barfield and T. F. Harrison, History of the Free Will Baptists of North Carolina (W.E. Moye, 1897), 161, 173.
[14]Ibid., 166.
[15]Ibid., 167.
[16]Ibid.
[17]A Treatise on the Faith of Freewill Baptists (Dover: Free-will Baptist Connexion, 1834), 109–10.
[18]Ibid., 110.
[19]John J. Butler, Natural and Revealed Theology: A System of Lectures (Dover: Free Will Baptist Printing Establishment, 1861), 428.
[20]Timothy George, “Controversy and Communion: The Limits of Baptist Fellowship from Bunyan to Spurgeon,” in The Gospel in the World: International Baptist Studies, Studies in Baptist History and Thought, ed. D.W. Bebbington (Carlisle: Paternoster, 2002), 61.
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