Across the landscape of Christianity, virtual signs of 'access reserved' often stand at the door to the Lord's Supper. Is this right?

Closed or Open Communion? What should it be?

To answer that, we need first to understand the Biblical perspective on this most sacred celebration of the Christian Church.

Paul's correction of the Corinth Church is a lesson to us today. He writes that the the Lord's Supper, which the Corinthian Christians thought they celebrated, was not really the Lord's Supper or Holy Communion, for they celebrated it in contradiction of its essential character –

Regardless of their individual sincerity in worshipfully eating what they understood to be a celebration of the Eucharist or Lord's Supper, God who administers all true blessings, did not see it as such: because they were not – "discerning the Body"!

In its context the word 'Body' here refers, not to a mental image of the crucified Christ, but to the congregation of God's people gathered in faith as Christ's living representative presence on the earth (the local church); not the sacrament – the people!

This is made clear in the preceding chapter. The "body" is the body of believers with whom the celebration is fulfilled! There is no other meaning if it is read within the sequence of its own context.

This emphasis on unity among believers, because they together are one as Christ is one, is based on the representative nature of Christ's gathered congregation. It is meant to represent Him. Therefore in Corinth, attitudes among the believers which degraded the practice of this unity ("divisions") negated the reality of their celebration.

Their failure to consider/value each other appropriately as part of Christ's Body meant that they, no matter how unintentionally, in effect despised – "the Church of God".

Against this background the believers are therefore instructed in remedy to –

In other words, the picture here is not of individual celebrants receiving the sacrament from ministering clergy. Rather, it is a group celebration of the Redeemer's redemptive act on behalf of all, by which the celebrants share and are part of each other's spiritual identity and welfare. Less than this is not the Lord's Supper in His sight.

This act is simply Christ's congregation corporately expressing its essential shared identity in Him as His Church as a consequence of His atonement. Therefore, the attitude of the participants toward each other has a decisive effect on whether that celebration is recognized by God as the 'Table of the Lord'. Only seeing each other as co-inheritors in Christ and so 'one body', Christ's Body on earth, allows the spiritual dynamic of this celebration to be true, or it is false.

The spiritual inclusivity of this corporate/shared event declares our mutual identity, and calls us to account in practice regarding the goal in this present world of our holy redemption in Christ, namely – a unity no less than that of God Himself. As the Lord Himself expressed it in His prayer to our Father –

"if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.
If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing."

Sadly, this New Testament perspective on the celebration of Communion has been lacking through most of Christian history, – a lack that has laid this sacred act open to misrepresentation and abuse, to the damaging of Christ's heritage.

Yet the need to limit this celebration, to those who have some form of Christian character, has been a driving influence in its administration for most of Christian history. Religious initiations, such as Baptism and Confirmation, have been set as prerequisites to qualify the individual. Others have added Church-Elder-approval of the moral character of the individual. All of this adding up to the need to protect this celebration from the unworthy believer.

The disciplinary instruction of Paul concerning the fallen believer "...not even to eat with such a one" has even been used to this effect, as though the word "eat" made it a reference to Holy Communion. But, this is simply not true!

The context makes a plain reference to social relationships. It is the social relationship, typically expressed as eating together, that must be severed with those that refuse to turn away from their continuing sin; in this case it is sin that is offensive even to an ungodly world.

This discipline should not even reach the issue of participation in the most sacred celebration. It has reference to a discipline that stops all personal association between the unrepentant believer and the believers (as individuals), with regard to behaviour which the world would regard as ungodly. Holy Communion can, therefore, not even be within view.

The Lord's Table today needs protection no more than the Lord's Sabbath did in the time of Jesus. As Jesus taught about the Sabbath, so also with Holy Communion. It was instituted for the benefit of God's people. It is always the benefit of the participants that is the issue, never the safety of the sacrament. 

Therefore, concerning whether a person is really qualified to have part in this holy act, the Bible makes it clear that –

and that it is therefore the responsibility of the individual to practice his Christian identity [if it is true] by –

Even Baptism, although its character associates it with entrance into the Christian Faith, the event is not in itself a precondition to celebration of the sacrament. It is the faith represented in Baptism which qualifies participation. Hence if a person considers themselves or their child not ready for Baptism, they are for that reason also not ready for the Lord's Supper. Their can be no distinction in the character of the faith required.

Baptism theologically belongs to the initiatory moment of faith, but, as an experience of the believer, it is not a precondition to Communion. Salvation does not begin with Baptism, it begins with faith. It is this same faith that is expressed in the spiritual enjoyment of this most sacred celebration, and no less.

Remember, where Holy Scripture says that "Baptism now saves you", this is by the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, not by His Atonement. In other words, just as the resurrection of Jesus was the physical demonstration that God had accepted Christ's atonement for our sins on the Cross, so water baptism is now the physical statement that the believer has personally surrendered to that cleansing atonement.

Nevertheless, Christian parents need to be aware that both Baptism and the Lord's Table require the same personal faith and therefore a child that is not ready for Baptism is a child that is not ready for Holy Communion. To ignore this in the administration of the Lord's Supper is to invite disrespect of an instrument of faith among those most vulnerable to disrespect.

The inclusive character of Communion among God's people is so intrinsic to its celebration that anything that contradicts or lessens this threatens to annul the celebration itself – at least, as far as the Lord is concerned!

To celebrate it at particular times or in places that effectively limit attendance or make it exclusive to a special interest group, no matter how small or how large, therefore contradicts the openness of Christ's salvation, and thereby denies His Cross which it claims to celebrate.

To celebrate Holy Communion in any other way than that which expresses its character (of His people being one body in Christ through His holy sacrifice) is simply not Holy Communion.