Thoughts on Paedo-Communion

Calvin serving the Lord's Supper in Geneva

In his communion address this morning, my pastor compared the Lord's Supper to a family meal. As no passage came immediately to mind in support of this image, his remark distracted me as I pondered in what sense this might be true. Yes, the redeemed in Christ are adopted into the family of God. We are born again as brothers and sisters in Christ. And the Lord's Supper is certainly just that: a supper, and thus a meal.

But I quickly thought of what any paedo-communionists in the congregation would do with his image. "Yes," the would say. "Our children are not little pagans. They are part of the covenant family, as their baptism testifies. [True.] So why are they barred from the family meal?" This imaginary objection was troubling to me. So as I am entirely certain that serving communion to unconverted, unregenerate covenant children (paedo-communion) is an erroneous application of covenant theology, I was ready to jettison the family meal image as unhelpful, and confront the pastor at the door.

Then it occurred to me that the problem lay in a misunderstanding of the nature of the Christian spiritual family in contradistinction to the merely natural family. In the natural family, you come to life, then you live life, and then you die. In the spiritual family that is ours in Christ, however, you start out dead, then you come to life, and then you live life forevermore. Paedo-communionists miss this difference, and that is the root of their well-intentioned confusion. I would no sooner administer the communion elements to my infant children than I would to my deceased saintly grandfather (if I had one). Both of them are in my family. Both of them are included in the New Covenant. But both of them are dead, so to administer the bread and the wine to either one of them would be inappropriate at this time.