What Is Open vs Closed Communion?

Question 9009.

Churches answer the question of who is welcome at the Lord’s table in three broadly different ways, and open communion is the practice I hold and teach. The alternatives are held by serious people for serious reasons, and I want to give them a fair hearing before saying why I am not persuaded.

This is not a first-order matter. Nobody’s salvation turns on it. But it shapes how a congregation treats visiting believers, and that is not nothing.

Defining the terms

Open communion invites all professing believers to the table, whether or not they are members of that congregation or of any congregation. If you are trusting Jesus and walking with him, you are welcome.

Closed communion restricts the table to members of that particular local church. Close communion, which is sometimes spelled the same way and often confused with it, restricts the table to members of churches of like faith and order, meaning in practice other baptistic congregations with the same convictions.

There is a fourth variety worth naming, sometimes called guarded or responsible open communion, in which the invitation goes to all believers but the church states clearly what a believer is and expects those coming to have been baptised. That is close to where I sit.

The case for closed communion

The strongest argument runs from church discipline. Paul tells the Corinthians to remove the wicked person from among them and not even to eat with a brother living in open sin. If the table is where that exclusion becomes visible, a church can only enforce it over people it actually knows.

The second argument is about order. Baptism precedes the Lord’s Supper in the New Testament pattern, and church membership follows baptism. Admitting to the table somebody who has not been baptised as a believer arguably reverses the order Jesus established.

The third is pastoral responsibility. Elders will give account for the souls in their care, and they cannot assess the standing of a stranger who arrived twenty minutes ago. Better, on this view, to guard the table than to risk somebody eating and drinking judgement to themselves.

The case for open communion

Against that, I would begin with whose table it is. Paul calls it the Lord’s table, and Jesus set the qualification himself when he said do this in remembrance of me. The condition is union with him, and no local church has authority to add a further condition to something it did not institute.

Open communion also follows from what the ordinance signifies. Paul says that because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread. 1 Corinthians 10 makes the meal a picture of the unity of Christ’s people. A practice that divides believers at the table contradicts the very thing the table is showing.

Then there is the plain absence of any instruction to the contrary. Paul writes at length about the Lord’s Supper to a church with visitors, factions and serious disorder, and he never once tells them to check membership. He tells them to examine themselves.

Where I have landed

I hold open communion. Any believer in a right relationship with God and, so far as it depends on them, with others, is welcome at the table in our church. Membership here is not required. Membership anywhere is not required, though I would want to ask a Christian who belongs nowhere why that is.

I hold it because the qualification Jesus set is faith in him, and because I would rather err on the side of welcoming a brother I do not know than of excluding one. If a person comes wrongly, that is between them and God, and Paul places the responsibility exactly there when he says let a person examine himself.

This does not mean I am indifferent to baptism. I teach believer’s baptism plainly and expect it before membership, as I have set out in who should be baptised. I simply do not use the Lord’s table as the instrument for enforcing it.

What open communion does not mean

It does not mean the table is open to everybody in the room. Unbelievers are not welcome to take the elements, and saying so clearly is part of an honest open communion practice. The invitation is to believers, and an invitation that never says so is not open, it is vague.

It does not mean that church discipline is abandoned. Where a member is under discipline for unrepentant sin, they are excluded from the table by the church’s action, and open communion does not override that. The two operate in different registers.

And it does not mean nothing is said. We explain, briefly and warmly, before every observance what the table is and who it is for. That protects the ordinance without turning the door into a checkpoint.

The visitor’s experience

Consider what closed communion actually feels like from a pew. A believer visits your church, perhaps on holiday, perhaps having just moved to the area, perhaps in some distress. The bread comes round and passes them by, and the message they receive is that their union with Jesus counts for less here than their paperwork.

I have been on the receiving end of that and it is a chilly experience. Whatever the theological justification, something has been communicated about who belongs, and it is not what the New Testament communicates about the body of Christ.

Advocates of the closed position would answer that the discomfort is the price of order. I understand the reply. I simply weigh the two considerations differently, and I think Paul’s emphasis on the one loaf and one body weighs more.

Talking about it in a congregation

This is a question on which a church should be settled and clear rather than improvising each month. Whatever your practice, teach it, explain the reasoning, and say it out loud when the table is served so that nobody has to guess.

If you are considering a change, take it slowly and take the congregation with you. Practices around the Lord’s Supper carry a great deal of feeling, often inherited rather than argued, and a change pushed through quickly will cost more than it gains.

And if you are a member who disagrees with your church’s practice, this is exactly the sort of secondary matter on which a Christian should be able to submit graciously. I would not encourage anybody to leave a faithful congregation over open communion.

Keeping the proportion right

I want to end where I began. This is a real question, worth thinking through, and it is not the main thing. Two churches can differ here while preaching the same gospel and loving the same Saviour, and Christians have a long and unimpressive history of turning secondary questions into tests of fellowship.

The more urgent problem in most congregations is not who is admitted to the table but how carelessly those admitted approach it. A church can debate open communion for a decade while its own members take the bread thinking about lunch.

So argue the question by all means, and then go and prepare your heart for Sunday, which will do you more good.

Does baptism have to come first?

This is the sharpest objection to open communion from within my own tradition, and it deserves a straight answer. In the New Testament pattern, people believed, were baptised, and were then part of a church that broke bread together. So should an unbaptised believer be admitted to the table?

My answer is that the order is descriptive of a normal Christian life rather than a gate placed at the table. Paul, writing the fullest instruction we have on the Supper, tells the Corinthians to examine themselves. He does not tell them to check whether they have been baptised, and I am reluctant to install a requirement the apostle left out of the very passage where he was correcting abuses. I have written on the ordinance itself in what the Lord’s Supper is.

So I teach baptism plainly, expect it before membership, and do not refuse the bread to a believer who has not yet obeyed in that respect. Romans 15:7 tells us to welcome one another as Christ has welcomed us, and I would rather be answerable for over-welcoming than for turning away one of his.

A note on the word closed

Language causes trouble here. Some churches describe their practice as closed when they mean guarded, and visitors hear a slammed door where none was intended. Others say open when they mean unexamined, and an unbeliever ends up holding the bread with no idea what it signifies.

If your church practises open communion, say what open means. If it practises a restricted table, say what the restriction is and why, and say it without implying that the excluded are second-class Christians. Colossians 4:6 asks that our speech be gracious and seasoned with salt, and a communion notice is speech like any other.

So, now what?

So, what should you do with this? If you lead a church, make sure your practice is stated plainly every time the table is served. Most confusion here is a communication failure rather than a theological one.

If you are visiting a church that practises a closed table, respect it without resentment. They are trying to guard something precious, even if I think they have chosen the wrong instrument for the job.

And whichever practice your church follows, come to the table having examined yourself. That instruction is given to every believer in every congregation, and it will occupy you more profitably than the debate will.

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.

1 Corinthians 10:16-17 (ESV)