The Case for Closed Communion

Jesus is not a sample

A while back I made a brief point about closed communion and I’ve mentioned it on a couple of Think Deeper Podcast episodes. On each occasion, I’ve been asked either what that term means or why I believe it.

In the large majority of cases, open communion is the standard practice. Anybody can come in and partake, no questions asked.

And, while this article has waited in line for me to get around to it, I understand the idea has been going around that the church can best show the love of Christ by encouraging everybody, Christian or not, to partake of the Lord’s Supper. This goes one step further than open communion, though I’m not sure it has a name.

Closed communion, on the other hand, limits the serving of the Lord’s Supper to church members in good standing. This can include visiting/traveling members from other congregations who have confirmed their membership in some way, though some distinguish this offshoot as “close communion.”

I’m an advocate of something along these lines and, for the purposes of this article, won’t split hairs between close and closed. What I will be calling “closed communion” will here encompass both of these practices.

I’m not under any illusion that this practice is going to be picked up this week, but it’s a discussion I think we should start having.

The Scriptural Case

You’re not going to find a “thou shalt not” on this one because everything the New Testament has to say on the matter assumes only Christians are partaking. The idea of outsiders joining in is so foreign to the discussion that we have to import it to even debate the idea.

What we do see in the text is Jesus reconstituting the Passover for His own people. Yes, He “ate with sinners” many times, but not that night. That was an event reserved to Jesus and His closest disciples, something He had longed to have with them specifically (Luke 22:15). (Even Judas was still one of the 12 at the time he partook.)

1 Corinthians 10:16-17 says, “The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ? For we, though many, are one bread and one body; for we all partake of that one bread.”

The word “communion” itself implies an in-group and an out-group. We are bound by a communal ritual, something that brings us together. When we open that to everyone, we might as well stop calling it communion.

The post-Pentecost Acts 2 fellowship we all long for showed the church gathering together for teaching, the breaking of bread, and prayer. They all had one mind. They were in fellowship. That’s the point of the ritual.

Why? Because this is the meal Jesus gave us, not everyone. As the old proverb on fornication goes, why buy the cow if you can get the milk for free? If you’re under the impression you can have the body and blood of Jesus without actually following Him, why would you ever take up a life of self-sacrificial discipleship? If you can partake in the blood of Jesus without renouncing the sins that made it necessary, what motivation do you have to repent?

More than any one verse, this comes down to Scriptural sensibilities.

The idea is that our chief concern should be to never make the outsider uncomfortable, but instead make sure they are always welcome, “our honored guest.” That is not a Biblical idea. Our chief concern should be declaring the glory of a perfectly holy God.

This is the same God who required Gentiles to be circumcised if they wanted to take the Passover (Exodus 12:48); the same God who required an elaborate number of rituals and cleansings to come anywhere close to the tabernacle and temple (Leviticus); the same God who struck down two profane worshippers and said “By those who come near Me I must be regarded as holy” (Leviticus 10:3).

You might say, “But in Jesus all of that has changed!”

First of all, not all of it—God’s character remains unchanged. He still must be treated as holy by those who would draw near to Him (Hebrews 12:28-29).

Secondly, yes, things have changed. We are under a new system. In Christ we have access to God they could have never dreamed of having, and we do not have to worry about the kind of rituals they were required to keep.

But that’s the key, isn’t it? “In Christ.”

If you’re not in Him, you don’t get to draw near. And one of the most unloving things the church does is to let people think they’re near to Christ when they aren’t. 1 Corinthians 11:27 says, “Therefore whoever eats this bread or drinks this cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord.” An unworthy manner implies there’s a worthy manner, and anything that isn’t that must be unworthy.

So, by giving the Lord’s Supper to the unsaved, we’re saying “Here, eat and drink some judgment on yourself.” (You can argue 1 Corinthians 11 is only about Christians partaking in an unworthy manner, which would also prove the point that the NT totally precludes the idea of outsiders partaking.)

There is a world of difference between “The blessings of the family are only given to the children, BUT anyone can be adopted into the family” and “Anybody can have the blessings of the family.”

The entire Bible is about God purchasing a people for Himself. As His people, we have certain privileges. Those privileges aren’t ours to distribute freely.

Church history

As with the Scriptures, there wasn’t a ton of discussion on the matter in the early church. Of what was said, there is no confusion as to their practices.

The Didache: “And let none eat or drink of your Eucharist but such as have been baptized into the name of the Lord, for of a truth the Lord hath said concerning this, ‘Give not that which is holy unto dogs.’”

Justin Martyr: “We call this food Eucharist; and no one else is permitted to partake of it, except one who believes our teaching to be true and who has been washed in the washing which is for the remission of sins and for regeneration, and is thereby living as Christ has enjoined”. (First Apology, 66)

Tertullian: “I must not omit an account of the conduct also of the heretics—how frivolous it is, how worldly, how merely human, without seriousness, without authority, without discipline, as suits their creed. To begin with, it is doubtful who is a catechumen, and who a believer; they have all access alike, they hear alike, they pray alike—even heathens, if any such happen to come among them.” (Prescriptions Against Heretics: 41)

The agreement of the early Christians isn’t authoritative, but it’s quite illuminating, especially when it’s so clear like this.

The practical case

Practical reasons are not sufficient for establishing a practice, but once a Scriptural and historical case has been made, one would expect that God’s wisdom would produce tangible benefits.

For one, church hopping would be highly disincentivized. Currently, many Christians change their church membership at the first sign of disagreement or personal strife. It’s not healthy and results in regular broken unity.

If they could not just waltz into the next congregation down the road and pick up where they left off, but rather had to answer for why they left, and their previous elders were consulted, this widespread problem would shrink in a hurry.

Second, nominal Christianity would get a lot harder. With open communion being the standard practice, we are left to constantly lament how cheap the term “Christian” has become as so many say they’re converted but show no fruit for it. Widespread closed communion would fix this overnight.

I’ve been strongly advocating for church discipline to return to our ecclesial practices, and the Lord’s Table is where that happens first. With everything Paul says in the letter, it makes a lot of sense to read “do not even to eat with such a one” (1 Corinthians 5:11) in the context of church discipline as—at minimum—including a command to refuse them the Lord’s Supper.

For example—you know that family that disappears for four months every summer during travel baseball season, despite calls from the preacher and elders, who then annually walk back in like they never left? This is what God gave the church as an answer. Can you picture how differently things would go if they were informed repeatedly through the summer, “You can continue to make this choice, but when you come back you will not be served the Lord’s Supper?”

Third, barring the unfaithful and unrepentant is a blessing to the faithful and repentant. So many Christians lack assurance in their salvation.

The Lord’s Supper is supposed to signal to every partaker that they have fellowship in Christ’s body and blood, but under open communion it does nothing of the sort. Delineating who doesn’t get to partake tells all those who do that they are in good standing with God and fellow members of the body of Christ.

Being in communion with Jesus and His church is a privilege, one that none of us are owed.

I hope we would all agree with that statement. But, as much of an acquired taste as these practices may be, these are the nuts and bolts of how we treat the Ls as a privilege. Partaking the Lord’s Supper “proclaims the Lord’s death,” but anyone who is openly flaunting His death with their lifestyle is not welcome to make that proclamation. They are telling us they aren’t on the same team, and we shouldn’t pretend like they are.

More than anything it reveals how infected the modern church has become by modern individualism. In a society so focused on rights, we forget that some things are indeed privileges.

What does it say about us and our evaluation of the cross that we don’t view fellowship in the body and blood of Christ as a privilege?

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