Stipulations Surrounding the Lord’s Supper? – Greg Albrecht

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Question:

I have a question about the Lord’s Supper. Can an un-baptized person take the full Lord’s Supper? Our daughter is baptized, but our son-in-law is not. Thank you in advance for your help and advice.

Response:

As with many topics, there is a short and long answer – I shall attempt something in between, in order to cover the “waterfront.”

  • 1. The Lord’s Supper is also called communion, mass,  or the eucharist.  All have something to do with “the table” – a metaphor, a symbolic reference to the life giving body and blood of Jesus. 
    • 2. That said, Christendom and its many denominations have entered the “fray” and tried to appropriate what Jesus instituted and what he offers, by the grace of God, turning this “event” into their own offering.  But we see no mention in the New Testament of God’s unique blessing on one and only religious entity authorizing them and them alone to “dispense” communion, the eucharist, the Lord’s Supper. 
    • 3. Some say “it” (let’s use communion as a common term linking all titles across the Christian spectrum) should be “taken” (I prefer the word “receive” for it conveys the nature of what is spiritually happening) once a day, once a week, once a month, every few months, or only once a  year.  All these practices have their justifications (once a year folks say once a year because we don’t want to trivialize it) – more often than that say the folks who speak of it as a spiritual meal, so why not more regularly?  It seems Paul allows for differences in frequency, as we read 1 Corinthians 11:25 – “this cup is the new covenant in my blood, do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me” (NIV).  The KJV and NKJV translates this phrase “as often as you drink it.” No frequency with which communion is received exalts any individual or group above another. 
    • 4. Then there are more storms in a  teacup, mountains out of molehills people make of whether the liquid should be wine or grape juice, or the bread leavened or unleavened.  Much ado about nothing, and in the end, again quoting Paul, “pride puffs up” and perhaps few kinds of pride puff one up as much as presumed religious superiority. 
    • 5. Then there are the credentials, the membership cards, the requirements for receiving “communion.”  One of the largest churches in all Christendom say that one may not receive communion, one may not come to the Lord’s Table, unless one “believes as we do.” Their standard is acceptance of all their doctrines and dogmas.  Others say that water baptism (those who impose this regulation usually say it must be adult baptism, not infant baptism, and some are so bold and audacious to say that the baptism must have been performed within their denomination or church!).  However, without an exhaustive study and survey of all of the passages that speak to this issue, we are well advised to look to the inclusive invitation of the gospel, wherein ALL are invited.   Churches and denominations may of course, make their own boundaries, but in my opinion, no pastor or priest is given any authority to deny the table of the Lord to anyone who wishes to come (which would not include anyone who feels forced to come under threat of damnation or condemnation, eternal or temporal.

    My response therefore, to your query, is IF your son-in-law wishes to receive communion, come to the Table of the Lord, then he should be welcome.  This will be no problem as there is no dominating authoritarian regulation that would forbid it – nor, of course, if your family and perhaps friends receive communion as a small group – without any religious authority presiding, which, by the way, is yet another imposed stipulation of Christ-less religion. 

    In Christ, Greg Albrecht

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