Who Can Take Communion?

Question 9007.

When the bread and cup come round, somebody in the room is always wondering whether they may take communion, and that wondering is usually a good sign rather than a bad one. The people who worry about it are rarely the people who should be worried.

My short answer is that believers may take communion, and that the qualification is faith in Jesus and a conscience dealt with, not membership of a particular congregation or a standard of personal performance.

Who may take communion: believers only

The Lord’s Supper was instituted with disciples, and every instruction about it in the New Testament is addressed to churches. To take communion is to remember a death that saved you, to proclaim it, and to participate in the body and blood of Jesus. None of that is available to somebody who has not trusted him.

So an unbeliever taking communion is doing something meaningless at best and dishonest at worst. There is nothing for them to remember, nothing they can proclaim, and no participation to enter into. I would not physically stop anybody, but I would explain clearly beforehand what the table is and who it is for.

That explanation is a kindness rather than an exclusion. A visitor who understands that the bread is not for them has been told the gospel in the process, which is more than many church services manage.

Examine yourself, and then eat

Paul’s instruction is that a person should examine himself, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. Note where that sentence lands. It ends with eating, not with abstaining. Self-examination is the doorway to the table rather than the barrier in front of it.

The unworthy manner Paul rebukes at Corinth was specific. Wealthy members were eating ahead of the poor and getting drunk while others went hungry, so that their gatherings did more harm than good. 1 Corinthians 11:27-29 is about how they were treating the body, meaning the church, as much as about how they regarded the elements.

So when I examine myself before I take communion, I am asking whether I am trusting Jesus, whether there is unconfessed sin I am cherishing, and whether I am at odds with a brother. Those are the questions. Whether I have had a good week spiritually is not one of them.

Walking rightly with God, and with others

My working answer to who may take communion is this: any believer who is in a right relationship with God and, so far as it depends on them, with others. Both halves matter and the second gets forgotten.

Jesus told his hearers that if they came to the altar and remembered a brother had something against them, they should leave the gift and go and be reconciled first. That is a startling instruction, and it applies rather directly to a congregation about to take communion together.

The qualification so far as it depends on you is important, because you cannot compel another person to be reconciled. What you can do is make the approach. If you have made it and been refused, come to the table with a clear conscience.

Unrepentant sin is a different matter

There is a case where somebody should not take communion, and it is not the case most people worry about. A believer persisting deliberately in sin they will not confess or forsake should stay away until they have dealt with it, and if they will not, the church has a responsibility to speak.

This is what the older churches called fencing the table, and it survives in most traditions as a warning read before the elements are distributed. The warning is right. What it must not become is a general fog of guilt that keeps struggling believers away while the complacent take communion cheerfully.

Where sin is public and unrepented, church discipline is the biblical process, and exclusion from the table is part of it. That is a matter for elders acting carefully rather than for individuals policing one another.

What about children?

My position follows from believer’s baptism. The Lord’s Supper is for those who have professed faith, and in the New Testament pattern baptism precedes participation. So I would not encourage an unbaptised child to take communion, and I would explain to them why, in words they can follow.

That conversation is worth having well. A child who is told simply that they are too young learns very little. A child who is told that the bread is for people who have trusted Jesus, and asked whether they would like to talk about trusting him, has been given something.

Where a child has come to genuine faith and been baptised, they may take communion like any other believer. Age was never the criterion. I have set out the baptism question in who should be baptised.

What about visitors?

Our practice is to welcome any believer who is walking with the Lord, whether or not they are a member here, and whether or not their own church would do the same for us. That is what an open table means, and I hold it deliberately.

The reasoning is simple. It is the Lord’s table rather than ours, and the qualification he set is union with him. A believer in fellowship with Jesus is in fellowship with everyone else who is, and a local church has no authority to add a condition the New Testament does not impose. I have set out the wider debate in what open and closed communion are.

That does not mean no explanation is offered. We say plainly who the table is for before it is served, which allows anyone present to make their own decision before God rather than being either excluded at the door or swept along.

The people who stay away and should not

In my experience the believers most likely to decline the bread are the ones most conscious of their sin, which is exactly the wrong way round. The table is not a reward for a good fortnight. It is a proclamation that somebody else’s death dealt with your record.

If you are grieving, doubting, exhausted or ashamed, those are not disqualifications. Confess what you know to be wrong, and then take communion as the sinner you are, which is the only kind of person the Lord ever invited.

There is an assurance in the ordinance that we underuse. The bread is put in your hand. You did not earn it and you cannot pay for it, and somebody hands it to you anyway.

A word to those serving the table

If you lead a congregation, say clearly and briefly each time who may take communion and why. People forget, visitors have never heard it, and the two minutes spent are never wasted. Say it warmly rather than as a legal disclaimer.

Guard the poor and the awkward. Corinth’s failure was social before it was theological, and modern equivalents exist wherever a church makes some members feel like guests in a room that belongs to others.

And do not rush it. A congregation that hurries through the Lord’s table because the service is running long has communicated something about its priorities more effectively than any sermon.

The warning that frightens people

The verse that keeps believers from the table is Paul’s statement that whoever eats and drinks in an unworthy manner will be guilty concerning the body and blood of the Lord, followed by the sobering remark that this is why many among them were weak and ill and some had died.

Read in context the unworthy manner is a manner of eating, not a quality of person. 1 Corinthians 11:20-22 describes the actual offence: they were going ahead with their own meals, some drunk and some hungry, humiliating those who had nothing. Paul says that when they do that it is not the Lord’s Supper they are eating at all.

So the warning is not aimed at the trembling believer conscious of failure. It is aimed at the careless and the socially cruel. Nobody who takes communion in fear of that verse is the person the verse was written about, which is one of the sadder ironies in pastoral life.

Where churches get this wrong

Two errors are common. The first is a table so fenced that only the members of one congregation may take communion, which turns the Lord’s provision into a denominational privilege and tells visiting believers that their union with Jesus counts for less than their paperwork.

The second is a table so open that no explanation is given at all and the elements are passed to anyone in the room, believer or not, with no more ceremony than a collection plate. That is not hospitality. It is a failure to say what the bread means, and it leaves unbelievers taking part in a proclamation they do not believe.

The middle path is not complicated. Say what the table is, say who it is for, invite every believer warmly, and then trust people in front of God. Romans 14:12 reminds us that each of us will give an account of himself to God, and that includes the person deciding whether to reach for the bread.

So, now what?

So, what do you do this Sunday? If you are a believer, examine yourself honestly, confess what needs confessing, put right what you can put right, and then take communion. That is the whole instruction and it ends with eating.

If you are not yet a believer, let the plate pass and take the opportunity to think about why you cannot share in it. That thought has been the beginning of a good deal.

And if there is a brother or sister you have been avoiding, this is the week to make the call. The table has a way of raising these things, and it does so on purpose.

Let a person examine himself, then, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup.

1 Corinthians 11:28 (ESV)