Paedocommunion: Calvin Misunderstood “Discerning the Body”

by Luke A Welch

CALVIN IS FLAT WRONG BECAUSE HE MISSED THE CONTEXT
Calvin fears that, in paedocommunion, tender children will poison themselves by being intellectually incapable of having a formed mental opinion about the presence of Christ in the elements. Paul is actually just saying that we can’t use the unity meal to despise the church by ignoring the weaker or lesser members while we eat. But Calvin misses all the context (see my post containing a quote of Calvin’s treatment in the Institutes).

Dives and Lazarus – Bonifacio Veronese

If Calvin is right about the meaning of 1 Cor 11, then children have no business at the table, but this is contextually impossible in a section that repeatedly tells us that all the baptized are also unified in the eating of the meal. Calvin has missed tying the phrases in question (“discerning the body,: and “eating in an unworthy manner”) to their immediate context, and to the context of the surrounding chapters. If you have time to wade through a few reasonably simple arguments, I beg you to stick around through the end of this. I believe this post, and the future post on self-examination, to be able to remove the obstacle of 1 Cor 11 from giving all covenant members their due invitations to the meal of the Lord. So we start here:

ONE BODY with MANY MEMBERS
Church is about to begin, so you are preparing your heart and mind by reading the bulletin insert sheet prepared for sermon notes. You notice that the pastor is beginning a new sermon series on 1 Corinthians. The title of the series is “The Body of the Lord: Divided, or United.” You know enough about 1 Corinthians to answer the question, “what does the pastor mean by ‘body’ in that sermon title?”

Thinking about the word “body” in 1 Corinthians, has taken your mind to 1 Cor 12, the passage which is famous for saying that the church is one body made of many members. Paul says the fact that your own body is one with many members is a picture of the same thing in the church. And he also says this is created through the church’s unified use of both sacraments (both baptism and the meal). Let’s look at 1 Cor 12.12-13:

For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body- Jews or Greeks, slaves or free -and were all made to drink of one Spirit.

There is very clearly in those words a connection between the sacraments and the unity of the body of the church. Paul actually said that baptism and the meal are HOW this unity is true. The sacraments unify us. And all who are unified are…one. We need go no further before we note that there is a one-to-one-to-one correspondence between membership and baptism and communing at the table. But that isn’t the only reason why I have pointed out this verse. First I hope to show that…

THE BODY MEANS THE CHURCH, EVEN WHILE TALKING ABOUT SACRAMENTS

Let’s hear a very similar verse in 1 Cor 10.17:

Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread.

Again, the unity of the church is displayed and even created by the unified taking of the sacraments.

Both chapters 10 and 12 say the sacraments create and symbolize the unity of the body of the church, which is called “the body of Christ.” And in both cases, we see that it is possible to be referring to “the body” in the middle of the discussion of the Lord’s Supper and yet to mean “the people of the church” and not the presence of the body of Jesus in the elements. I’m not saying that “body” always means this in these chapters. But after analyzing what is happening in 1 Cor 11, it should be obvious that “discerning the body” (in v.29) means “recognizing the people of the Church.”

WHAT IS HAPPENING IN 1 CORINTHIANS 11
If the point of the meal is, in part, to create the covenant unity of the body of the church, then to use the supper of the Lord for disunity is to violate the very nature of the meal. It is to speak against an instituted creative word of God. The meal says one thing, but we say another. It would be to mishandle a holy instruction. It would be to mix strange fire along with Nadab and Abihu.

In other words, it would be to eat the Lord’s supper in an unworthy manner.

And to blaspheme God by countermanding his word of covenant unity in the meal would worthily receive the wrath of God. Since it is dangerous, we ought to make sure we’re not doing this. And this is exactly what Paul is talking about in 1 Cor 11. The rich, used to eating at parties, and sharing food, were gorging and getting drunk while the poor were left outside to wish they could share in the meal. In context of the surrounding chapters, we see that they were defining the poor as essentially outside the church. That means that when we exclude baptized children, we are defining them as outside as well.

On the left side, in 1 Cor 10, Paul tells them that the picture and the power of the meal is the unity of the body of Christ. On the right side, in 1 Cor 12, he says the same thing. And in the middle, in 1 Cor 11, Paul shows the consequence of the contrary, and he asks the people to check whether they are being part of the problem.

This is very similar to what Jesus says about leaving one’s gift at the altar, and going to your brother to be reconciled. It actually demonstrates what Jesus was talking about: not taking the peace offering (communal unity meal) while marred by disunity.

So if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift. (Mt 5.23-24)

It is also very similar to the covenantal disunity shown in the Parable of the rich man (Dives) and Lazarus. The rich man ate and ignored the poor fellow church member who waited outside begging. Jesus showed that this was a problem in Israel, and now Paul was having to work it out of the Church.

Now, is disunity the only sin at the table in 1 Corinthians? No, but it is the only one directly in question in the verses that talk about taking the meal in “an unworthy manner.” We will also see that there are other sins included that we should expect are worthy of judgment at the table. But exegetically, these may be added on due to warnings in 1st Cor 10: idolatry, and sexual immorality. We will talk about all of this in a future post, the one on “self-examination.” But for now, suffice it to say, that young covenant children are not capable of being in any danger of these dangerous sins.

BUT I DIGRESS
And that is about as far off track as I am willing to go before dealing briefly with Calvin’s second point. But all that prologue was the meat of our counter-assertion. So, the counter-assertion, then Calvin’s point.

• My assertion:

I assert that “discern the body” means “discern the church.” I would translate it this way (as is a correct possibility): “recognize the body.”

• Calvin’s assertions as quoted from the Institutes:

…those who are capable of discerning the body and blood of the Lord… Again: “He who eats unworthily eats and drinks condemnation for himself, not discerning the body of the Lord” [I Cor 11.29]. If only those who know how to distinguish rightly the holiness of Christ’s body are able to participate worthily, why should we offer poison instead of life-giving food to our tender children?

THREE CLUES THAT PAUL IS NOT TALKING ABOUT PRESENCE IN THE ELEMENTS

• 1. Paul says “recognizing the body,” instead of “recognizing the body and blood.”

Super short reason: As Calvin notes the significance of verse 29, he erroneously changes the words. Notice the verse only says “body”: “For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment on himself.” But when Calvin summarizes this reason he adds the word “blood,” saying that he only allows the meal for “those who are capable of discerning the body and blood of the Lord.” Such a reading would certainly mean Calvin reads discerning the body to mean “knowing that Jesus is present in the elements.” But Paul calls us to recognize the body, not the body and blood. On its own, this is a clue that something different may be in question, but it all gets stronger when considering…

• 2. …the surrounding context,

We have already reviewed 1 Cor 10.17, and 12.12-13. In context, it is likely that Paul is already thinking explicitly about the unity of the church at the meal, and that he will use the word “body” in that discussion to refer to the church, and NOT the meal. But the arguments I find to be so heavy that I do not think they can be resisted are the meaning of all the rest of 1 Cor 11. So let’s see what is going on in…

• 3. …the immediate context

People are divided. Rich are eating rich meals and ignoring the starving poor at the table. They drink all the wine while the poor have nothing. They refuse to wait for one another. Paul calls this “despising the church of God,” and says directly that this is “eating in an unworthy manner” because this is failing to “discern the body.” That’s why we must accept this interpretation, when Paul defines “recognizing the body,” he does so by showing it to mean loving the brother in the church by patience, and the honor of equality before the meal. We see strong clues in six places in a row in 1 Cor 11:

vv.17-18 – Paul says, when you eat, you do so divided. That’s the summary heading to the section by Paul. That’s what to expect throughout.

vv.21-22 – Paul shows the division by showing how they use the meal for division and “despising the church of God” and “humiliating” poor brothers in Christ:

For in eating, each one goes ahead with his own meal. One goes hungry, another gets drunk. 22 What! Do you not have houses to eat and drink in? Or do you despise the church of God and humiliate those who have nothing? What shall I say to you? Shall I commend you in this? No, I will not.

v.27 Paul says divisive behavior is “eating in an unworthy manner,” and therefore…

v.29 Paul says that dividing and humiliating the church is “not recognizing the body,” further pointing out in…

v.31 that if we “recognized ourselves truly, we would not be judged.” Verse 31 uses the same word as verse 29 for to judge/discern/recognize between things. This means once again that we must discern who are the members of the church, and not abuse them with the church service because we don’t wish to mingle with the poor.

v.33 Paul’s prescription of how to eat worthily is “Wait for one another.” He does not say, “know the doctrine of the real presence,” or of consubstantiation for that matter. He says, in effect, actually to eat together in love. That’s worthy. And only the adults can be in danger of departing from this obstinate shunning of the poor.

After understanding the story line of 1 Cor 11, it is really absurd to purport that Paul is saying “Be unified, be honoring to one another, don’t hate each other by shunning your brother or else, you’ll be judged for not having a mental recognition of the body and blood of Jesus in the elements.”

We should wonder why we think babies are prescribed the waters of baptism, marking them out as one in the Lord without any mental capacity, but that later he will kill them for being forced to eat the covenant renewal sacrament (of the same covenant already made with them) but this time, because they were too young to have the mental capacity to get the doctrine of the meal into their head before they started chewing.

According to Romans 6, all the baptized are already crucified and raised with Christ. According to Galatians 3, these baptized babies have put on Christ. According to 1 Cor 10 and 1 Cor 12, the one body with many members all participate in both baptism and in eating the meal. All of this is either true for covenant children, or we should all change to the baptist reading of the New Testament. The reformed middle position between baptist and paedocommunionist is, I believe, simply an untenable position in light of 1 Cor 10.17, and 1 Cor 12.12-13. But I know that until we finish working through the self-examination argument it will still be impossible for us to have the freedom to accept the simplicity of such a position – and this is because self-examination is the part with the deepest hold on our consciences. So there remains yet more explanation needed to be made in criticism of Calvin’s other arguments.

THE CHILDREN ARE IN NO DANGER
As I will say several times in the next post on Self-Examination, the children are in no danger of committing sins against Paul’s warnings. The children don’t direct their families to shun the poor from the meal. The sin described is an adult sin. The irony is that while we frequently think children might break Paul’s warning by not having a highly developed intellect, they actually can’t sin in defiance of the warning UNTIL they have a developed mental capacity.

1 Corinthians 10-12 directs us to see our covenant children as full members in the one, baptized and communing body, and also frees us from fearing that small and simple people can commit the high-handed blasphemy that might endanger a knowledgeable and hardened adult.

THANK YOU FOR YOUR ENDURANCE
I beg you for one more long sitting – through the next post looking at why “Self-Examination” is no challenge to children eating the covenant renewal meal.

—-

Luke Welch has a master’s degree from Covenant Seminary and preaches regularly in a conservative Anglican church in Maryland. He blogs about Bible structure at SUBTEXT. Follow him on Twitter: @lukeawelch<>mobile rpg gamesреклама в социальных сетях цены

1 Corinthians, baptism, body, Calvin, communion, discerning, eucharist, lord's supper, Paedocommunion