Why We Require Church Membership at the Communion Table
Every week, our church gathers at the communion table to participate in a meal that God’s gathered people have practiced for two thousand years. The Lord’s Supper was first observed in an unnamed upper room in Jerusalem by Jesus and his twelve disciples on the night before his crucifixion. On that evening Jesus transformed the Passover meal that celebrated God’s redemption of his people from bondage in Egypt into the Lord’s Supper that celebrated God’s redemption of his people from bondage to sin through “the new covenant in Christ’s blood” (Luke 22:20). We gather at the table every Sunday to “proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes” (1 Corinthians 11:26).
At our church each week, one of the pastors presents an invitation making it clear who should come to the table. Since the Lord’s Supper commemorates the New Covenant, only those who are members of the New Covenant are invited. Therefore, we specify that anyone who is a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, who has been biblically immersed, and who is an accountable member of a gospel-preaching church may come to the table.
I rarely sense resistance on the first two requirements. After all, every church tradition in history has required baptism as a prerequisite before communing with Christ and his people at the table. While our understanding of baptism omits infants who have yet to believe the gospel, we agree with pedobaptists that baptism must precede communion. It’s our last requirement that often invites opposition. Several times per year, someone asks me to explain why we require church membership. To be clear, we don’t limit communion to members of our church. We simply ask that everyone who comes be a baptized member of a church of similar faith and practice.
We are not trying to be unnecessarily exclusive with this practice. We are, however, attempting to be faithful to what God has revealed about the nature of the Lord’s Supper and who he says it’s for.
Consider 1 Corinthians 10:16-17: “The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ? Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread.”
This passage shows us that the Lord’s Supper has both a vertical and a horizontal dimension. Vertically, we participate or fellowship in the blood and body of Christ. We have been saved by Christ’s sacrifice, and we gather each week to renew by faith our standing in the New Covenant. Every time we gather to eat the bread and drink the cup, we enjoy the benefits of Christ’s sacrifice again. Through bread and cup, we participate by faith in what the bread and cup signify—namely, the sacrificial death of Christ.
But don’t miss the horizontal dimension. In verse 17, Paul argues that our participation in the blood and body of Christ makes many into one body. Through our vertical reconciliation with God through Christ’s sacrifice, we are horizontally reconciled to one another in the church, and the Lord’s Supper signifies all of it. The Lord’s Supper, therefore, is not an ordinance for individual Christians. It’s a church ordinance. When we gather at the table, the united church becomes visible. Those who come to the table should be church members because the table exists to display the glory of God through the visible church.
All the instructions that follow in Paul’s letter assume the participants are members of the church. We are called to “discern the body” as we participate (1 Corinthians 11:29), meaning we must lovingly consider the needs of the whole church rather than just ourselves at the table. Similarly, we are called to “wait for one another” (1 Corinthians 11:33), rather than rush ahead without consideration. Identifying “one another,” a common reference in Paul’s letters, becomes clear when we realize that Paul was writing to local churches.
We must remember that the local church alone has been entrusted with the keys of the kingdom (Matthew 16:19; 18:18), meaning local churches have been deputized by Christ to determine right doctrine and right practice in reliance on God’s word. The local church, in other words, acts on Christ’s behalf to speak authoritatively about what gets taught and who gets to enter. In the words of David L. Turner, “the church is the agency of kingdom authority on earth.” Just as an embassy acts on behalf of the nation in a foreign land, the church acts on behalf of the kingdom of Christ in this world.
In the New Testament, churchless Christianity isn’t recognized as a legitimate reality. Therefore, we reject churchless communion as well.
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