You Must Be Baptized to Receive the Lord's Supper

Why do the vast majority of Christian churches, including Reformed churches, require those coming to the Lord’s Table to first be baptized? Nowhere in the Bible does it specifically say that “Those who receive the Lord’s Supper must be baptized first,” nor do any of the great Reformed confessions of faith say something similar.

This baptismal prerequisite for partaking of the Lord’s Supper is thoroughly biblical and for that reason has been the consistent practice of the church since its earliest days.

The Lord’s Supper

For all of the significance the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper holds in Christian liturgy and theology, it is sparsely mentioned in scripture, and only within a few of those passages are we given insight into criteria for partaking in it. The clearest passage is 1 Corinthians 11:27-29. Here Paul instructs the church that we are to “examine ourselves” before we come to the sacrament, and this examination includes discerning the body of Christ, lest we eat and drink judgment upon ourselves.

To discern the body encompasses several things. The sacraments communicate the body and blood of Jesus for our salvation. That means in coming to the table we need to recognize the bodily sacrifice that Jesus made, our need for that sacrifice, the sufficiency of his body and blood for our salvation, and then trust in what Jesus did on our behalf. The table is a memorial to Christ’s finished work, wherein we recall what he has done for us and trust him for that. Discerning the body entails seeing and acknowledging in the sacrament what and why Jesus has acted for our salvation.

This last aspect of trust has a dual implication. On the one hand it means the act of faith: resting upon the body and blood of Jesus for salvation. Coming to the table, eating and drinking, is trusting in the work of Jesus on the cross for your salvation, which he gives to you as surely as you eat the bread and drink the cup. On the other hand, trusting Jesus means following him in repentance. He has bought us with his body and blood, and discerning that includes our acknowledgement of our grateful duty to him. Trusting Jesus means following him.

This is why discerning his body in the sacrament is part of our self-examination. We are judging whether we truly grasp our need for a savior and rest in the death of Jesus for that salvation. Failure to repent, the Corinthian problem, means that we don’t take the death of Jesus seriously: we welcome the benefits (salvation, the meal) without being moved to see that we and our sinful ways were the cause of Christ’s death.

It’s for this reason why failure to discern and self-examine leads to liability for Christ’s body and blood (v.27) and judgment by God (v.29). If we don’t judge (evaluate) ourselves rightly in coming to the table, then God will rightly judge us.

Coming to the table is engaging Christ on his terms, and Christ’s terms are covenantal. God deals with his people through covenants, relationships that he establishes with us and guarantees by his word. These relationships are established with terms and conditions. The new covenant made in Christ is that God has provided him as our savior by his death and resurrection, and we receive that salvation if we turn him by faith. To become party to the covenant is to accept its terms and condition, to be crucified with Christ and to be joined to him in his resurrection. Covenants are confirmed through signs and seals that represent its terms and conditions, and the new covenant is no different. Jesus provides two sacraments as those signs and seals: baptism and the Lord’s Supper. The Lord’s Supper is described as the covenant in Christ’s blood (Matthew 26:28, Mark 14:24, Luke 22:20, 1 Corinthians 11:25) in every instance its establishment is recounted. 

Receiving the Lord’s Supper then is affirming agreement with the covenant it represents: it is affirming participation in the death of Jesus by faith. Being party to the covenant, belonging to Jesus, is a necessary condition of receiving the Supper.

And being party to the new covenant comes with expectations for moral behavior. This is the logic of church discipline: to belong to the church means individual believers should conduct themselves as becomes followers of Jesus, and the church should hold its members to that standard, up to and including barring them from the table of the Lord. 

Paul makes this connection in 1 Corinthians 5:3-13 when he utilizes sacramental imagery and says that unrepentant, egregious sinners should be expelled from the feast of the church. This is not a matter of self-examination, but the church taking steps to make sure that prerequisites for coming to the table are met. The gospel is signed and sealed in the sacraments of the new covenant, and the church ensures that those terms and conditions are being met when receiving the sacraments. 

When Peter confesses that Jesus is the Christ, Jesus tells him that he has been granted the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and that whatever Peter binds or looses on earth is bound or loosed in heaven (Matthew 16:18-19). Jesus further explains that this binding or loosing is exercised through the church admitting or expelling sinners from the church (Matthew 18:17-18). There is an authority given to the apostles, and through them the leaders of the church today, to do this work of binding and loosing (John 21:22-23, Ephesians 4:11-13), of opening and closing the kingdom of God by overseeing access to the gospel and its covenantal signs. This is what Paul intends when he describes the apostles as “stewards of the mysteries of God” (1 Corinthians 4:1). The church through its officers is tasked with ensuring that the sacraments are rightly handled and are approached on the terms Christ has set.

In principle this signifies that there are criteria for coming to the Lord’s Table, and that the church’s officers are tasked with enforcing that criteria. While the scriptural test cases focus on Christians sinning unrepentantly (church discipline), this is the application of the principle that there are covenant terms and conditions that must be met in receiving the sacrament, and the church’s officers are Christ’s servants tasked with maintaining that criteria.

To summarize: you must have faith in Christ and be a faithful follower of Jesus to come to the table; you must be party to the new covenant to come to the table; and the church has a responsibility to ensure that the foregoing two points are met and has the authority to enforce them.

Baptism

So, what’s the connection to baptism? Throughout the New Testament, baptism is thematically and sacramentally intertwined with salvation. To be saved is to be baptized and to be baptized is to be saved — Acts 2:37-38, 41, Acts 8:12-13, 36-39, Acts 10:47-48, Acts 16:14-14, 31-33, Acts 18:8, Acts 19:1-5. The act of baptism is treated as synonymous and representative of salvation; if you have faith in Jesus, you are baptized, and if baptized, you have faith in Jesus. Baptism signifies being joined to Christ and the renewal that comes with faith in him (Acts 22:16, Romans 6:1-4, Galatians 3:27, Colossians 2:12, Titus 3:4-7, 1 Peter 3:21).

Being joined to Jesus makes one party to the new covenant of his grace. That joining and initiation is signified by baptism. The beginning of salvation is being washed in the blood and Spirit of Jesus and thereby being united to him. The washing with water in baptism represents that spiritual reality of being born again (John 3:5-6, Acts 1:4-5). Baptism is the sign and seal of entering the new covenant; the Lord’s Supper is the sign and seal to re-confirm us in that new covenant. Christ washes us, and then he feeds us. 

Paul uses this order to explain our salvation in 1 Corinthians 12, right after his instructions on the Lord’s Supper. We are baptized by the Spirit into Christ, and then we drink of that same Spirit (1 Corinthians 12:13). We experience union with Jesus in baptism. In the Lord’s Supper, our communion with him is strengthened. The cup of blessing and the bread we break are participation (i.e. communion or fellowship) in the body of Christ (1 Corinthians 10:16-17), to which we were united in baptism.

Baptism is inherently public. Baptism is about being joined to a covenant community, the body of believers of Christ on earth, the church. To be part of the church is to be baptized and to be baptized is to join the church. Baptism is the declaration that we are parties to the new covenant of grace in Christ, along with all of its terms and conditions. To follow Jesus then requires baptism, and one is treated as a follower of Christ if they are party to the covenant of grace — represented in the sacrament of baptism. Christians are baptized people because Christians are united to Jesus in his death and resurrection. To be a true believer is to be a baptized believer.

Baptism and Coming to the Table

What that means is that you cannot meet the criteria for coming to the Lord’s Table without first being baptized. To come to the table, you must discern the body and blood of Jesus, and the first thing that signifies that you have obedient faith in Jesus is your baptism. To eat and drink in a worthy manner you need to acknowledge your need for the worthiness of Christ, which is communicated through him washing away your sins in baptism. To be unbaptized, to be unwashed, is to be unworthy because you are not united to Jesus by faith. 

Faith that is obedient is expressed in repentance and baptism; to claim to be a Christian, to come to the table unbaptized, is to eat and drink in an unworthy manner because you are disobedient. The Lord’s Table is a covenant meal, and you can only faithfully partake if you are party to the covenant of grace with all its terms and conditions, which includes being baptized into Christ as his faithful follower.

The church and its officers are obligated to maintain this criterion in coming to the table, which means they have a duty to ensure that this very basic principle of partaking is met: faith and union with Christ. Now, pastors cannot infallibly know the hearts of everyone in church, but they can know their behavior and profession — if you believe in your heart and confess with your mouth (Romans 10:8-10) then you will be saved. The “confess with your mouth” part is the public profession of faith, which if sincere, should encompass baptism. Officers of the church have a duty to correct those who are out of step in coming to the table, and that means mandating that those who come to it are professed, penitent, and baptized believers.

What About Children and the Reformed Confessions?

As a Presbyterian, I believe that children of believers should themselves be baptized, even before they can profess faith. This is not the space to settle the debate with my Baptist brethren, but it does raise a pertinent question: If kids can be baptized before they profess faith, aren’t we being inconsistent to require a profession of faith for them to partake of the Lord’s Table? It’s often commented that the transition from Old to New Testament brought with it a transition in sacraments: circumcision to baptism and the Passover to the Lord’s Supper. Circumcision was received by infants, and that is part of the basis for the argument to baptize children. Yet the Passover meal was also eaten by young children, while Presbyterians normatively require a profession of faith to receive the Supper.

A basic point of Reformed hermeneutics is that to find the full sense of a difficult passage of scripture one must look to clearer biblical passages. A corollary of this is that clear statements of scripture must be taken plainly rather than subordinated to potential applications that contradict its plain meaning. So yes, there is a connection and continuity between Passover and the Lord’s Supper, just as there is a connection and continuity between circumcision and the Lord’s Supper. But there is also discontinuity (just as there is with circumcision to baptism, e.g. male and female are baptized), and scripture clearly states that you need to examine yourself and discern the body and blood of Christ in order to eat the sacrament in a worthy manner. This clear point cannot be subordinated to a larger typological connection and then practically abolished.

To examine and discern are actions that necessitate understanding and faith. Children do not inherently have the ability to examine themselves and discern the body and blood of Christ. These must be taught and learned. John Calvin points out that the Supper was established as a memorial of Christ to assist us in recalling his work for our salvation (Institutes 4.16.30). “How, pray, can we require infants to commemorate any event of which they have no understanding; how can we require them ‘to show forth the Lord’s death,’ of the nature and benefit of which they have no idea? Nothing of the kind is prescribed by baptism. Wherefore, there is the greatest difference between the two signs.” 

Children need to be taught something in order to recall it. The liturgical act of administering the Lord’s Supper is a corporate commemoration, and children being present to witness the church partaking of the sacrament is a form of being taught. Yet, they will not be able to discern the body and blood of Christ by faith until such a time as they can commemorate Christ’s death as part of their self-examination. Now, it is possible that even infants have saving faith (e.g. John the Baptist, Luke 1:41-44), but that is not the same as being able to do the work of self-examination and discernment necessary in coming to the table. 

Officers of the church have the duty to ensure that the criteria for receiving the sacraments are met, and that includes ensuring that participants in the body and blood of Christ can discern it, regardless of age. Now, proponents of paedocommunion may respond that baptized children of believers should be presumed by the church to be able to self-examine and discern. Yet, this encounters the problem that clear passages of scripture (e.g. be able to discern) are being subsumed into presumptions. Officers need to be able to determine that children can examine their own hearts and discern the body and blood of Christ, which necessitates the kids can articulate a sincere profession of faith. Baptism is public, but is only one criterion for coming to the table; confessing with the mouth (Romans 10:8-10) is another. Once baptized children are able to provide a sincere confession of faith to the church that demonstrates that they can examine themselves in light of the gospel, then they should come to the table for strengthened communion with Jesus.

If baptism being a prerequisite for receiving the Lord’s Supper is so basic, why is it not explicitly taught in the confessions of the Reformation? The reason is that every single Reformational confession makes two identical claims: i) baptism is the entrance into the church and ii) the Lord’s Supper is for the church, only. The necessary conclusion from these premises is that you must be baptized to receive the Lord’s Supper, because only the church is to receive the Supper, and the only way to be part of the church is to be baptized. Credobaptist or paedobaptist, it doesn’t matter: baptism is the sign of admission into the church, and the Supper is for those who have been admitted. 

Now, the Book of Common Prayer includes the Apostles’ Creed as part of the liturgy of the table, where the people recite that they believe and acknowledge one baptism for the remission of sins. Publicly confessing as an article of faith that you believe and acknowledge baptism as a perquisite for coming to the table necessarily implies that you are, in fact, baptized. Additionally, the 1527 Anabaptist Schleitheim Confession, one of the very first confessions of the Reformation, explicitly states that sharing in the breaking of bread is reserved for those united to Christ in the congregation of God “and [joined to the congregation] by baptism”. The need for specificity here, but not in the other confessions, is because these Swiss Anabaptists believed that only credobaptism was legitimate, and since their peers had all been baptized as infants, they needed to clarify that they only considered you part of the congregation and able to receive the Supper once you had been (re)baptized. Yet there is no difference in principle from the other confessions: the Supper is for the church, which is delineated by baptism.

This confessional logic is ancient, and is spelled out in the Didache the oldest, non-canonical Christian text: “But let no one eat or drink of your Eucharist, unless they have been baptized into the name of the Lord; for concerning this also the Lord has said, ‘Give not that which is holy to the dogs.’” The distinction between the dogs and the holy is the distinction between eating and drinking in an unworthy manner and being united to Jesus in baptism, which brings one into the church. This is why baptism, since the earliest days of the church, has been required to receive the Lord’s Supper.