LCMS Convention Workbook St. Louis, Missouri — 2016, Page 176

Transcription machine transcription, uncorrected

⤓ Download .txt · copy text

176

IV. THEOLOGICAL DOCUMENTS­­—COMMISSION ON THEOLOGY AND CHURCH RELATIONS

Christ’s death in order to share Christ’s life.” 11 Although this remembering and proclamation
certainly includes the action of eating and drinking, Paul’s discussion of the lives of the
Corinthians individually and together precludes limiting the proclamation of Christ’s death to the
meal itself. It is difficult to see how any of this discussion could be applied meaningfully to
infants and very young children.
Question 4: But don’t Luther and the Confessions teach that faith is the only requirement for
worthy reception of the sacrament?
This has indeed been one of the most vigorously asserted points in the discussion among
Lutherans. Previous treatments of the material in Luther’s writings and in the Confessions need
not be repeated here. In the Commission’s 1997 response to South Wisconsin District Circuits 18
and 19, a distinction was made between “being worthy to receive the sacrament and a worthy use
of the sacrament.” 12 This statement notes an important distinction. Certainly Paul was writing to
baptized believers when he wrote the words of 1 Corinthians that we considered above.
Otherwise, would he not have excluded them from future participation until they had become
such? And yet, he is clearly denouncing the reception of the sacrament by some members of the
baptized and believing community as improper (cf. 1 Corinthians 11:29-30).

Here, too, Luther speaks of the faith necessary for a right and beneficial reception of the
sacrament, but notice the way in which he describes this faith. In this fuller description of faith,
Luther shows us that Paul is adding no “second requirement” when he requires believers to
examine themselves. When this faith is not properly considered or defined, an unworthy use of
the sacrament, harmful to both the recipient and the community, may result. It is already difficult
to see how Luther’s words could be used to describe an infant or small child, even a baptized
one, and Luther himself could not discern this kind of faith in infants. The reasoning that, since
baptized infants have faith, they must be admitted to the Lord’s Supper is even further
challenged by the point Luther makes immediately before the statement just quoted:
Therefore, I ask again that all Christians take my advice concerning the sacrament
and all other things. First, since Satan through the ordinance of the pope has
thrown the sacrament before swine [Matt. 7:6] by compelling everybody to
partake of the sacrament at Easter, whether they believe or not, whether they love
or not, and since he has also concealed from them the words of the sacrament, on
which faith must depend and nourish itself, let us therefore labor first to raise the
sacrament above the level of the swine. We do this, however, only as we dissuade
and keep the people from it by teaching and exhortation, so that no one goes to
the sacrament out of compulsion by, or obedience to, the pope’s ordinance. For
the sacrament does not admit of people being compelled or driven to it. Rather,
instructed by the gospel, people should request and insist upon it of their own
accord, because they are driven by the hunger of their believing hearts. 15

How, then, you may wonder, can the Commission’s own previous statement about admission to
the Lord’s Supper speak about faith as the necessary and sufficient qualification for worthy
reception of the sacrament? 13 That does appear, at first glance, to be inconsistent.
There is a passage from Luther that is very instructive on this point, and it is perhaps even more
pertinent because it has been cited in support of communing infants:
Now anyone who thinks he has this kind of hunger should see to it that he does
not deceive himself. He should make sure that it is no mere desire of the human
flesh that prompts him. He should examine his faith and determine whether it is
genuine, as St. Paul admonishes in I Cor. 11[:28]: “Let a man examine himself.”
This examination, however, covers your whole life. You must find within yourself
a smiting conscience which is weighed down with a sense of sin and longs for the
grace of God, a conscience that stands in dread of death or hell and longs for
strength, a conscience that seeks and takes the sacrament, firmly relying on
Christ’s word, in order to receive such grace and strength and help. For as I have
said, this sacrament requires a hungry, thirsty, oppressed, and anxious soul, that
comes of its own accord, conscious of its own need and thirst, with utter
confidence, and without regard to the pope’s laws or lawlessness. That is the
proof of faith; it is an inward matter. 14
11

For the sake of the recipients and their protection from a wrong reception of the Lord’s Supper,
Luther prohibits all compulsion or obedience to human authority. People must come of their own
accord, driven by their own hunger, requesting and insisting upon this sacrament.
Luther does not find his statement that faith is the proper preparation for the sacrament at all
inconsistent with his principle that this faith involves knowing and understanding certain things.
As he writes in the Large Catechism:
1

As we treated Holy Baptism under three headings, so we must deal with the
second sacrament in the same way, stating what it is, what its benefits are, and
who is to receive it. All these are established from the words by which Christ
instituted it. 2So everyone who wishes to be a Christian and go to the sacrament
should be familiar with them. For we do not intend to admit to the sacrament and
administer it to those who do not know what they seek or why they come. 16
Question 5: Are we denying the weakest and most vulnerable children of God the gift of His
grace by not communing them?

Anthony C. Thiselton, The First Epistle to the Corinthians, New International Greek Testament Commentary
(Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000), 887.
Commission on Theology and Church Relations, Response, 10.
13
Cf. CTCR, Admission to the Lord’s Supper: Basics of Biblical and Confessional Teaching (November 1999), 32.
14
Martin Luther, “Receiving Both Kinds in the Sacrament (1522)” Luther’s Works, Volume 36: Word and
Sacrament II, ed. J. J. Pelikan, H. C. Oswald, and H. T. Lehmann (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1959), 263-264.

John Pless has answered this question in a very simple and straightforward way in his “Theses on
Infant/Toddler Communion”:

5

6

4. Arguments for infant/toddler communion bypass the truth that in
Baptism, we receive “victory over death and the devil, forgiveness of sin,
God’s grace, the entire Christ, and the Holy Spirit with his gifts” (LC IV:41–
42, Kolb/Wengert, 461) as though the promise of Baptism remained
unfulfilled without the Lord’s Supper. By waiting until children have been
instructed, examined, and absolved before admitting them to the Lord’s
Supper, they are not being deprived of Christ.

“Can we expose them to the possibility not only of blessings so great, but of
judgment so severe?” 19

12

In the New Testament and the Lutheran Confessions, Baptism is not an event in a
series of “rites of initiation” that is left incomplete without participation in the
sacrament [of the altar]. Instead Baptism bestows the “entire Christ” and
encompasses the whole life of the believer. Not only is it foundational, but it is
also enduring in the life of [the] Christian. The teaching that our Lord attaches to
Baptism (see Matt. 28:16–20) surely leads the baptized to eat and drink his body
and blood as the Lord bestows his gifts in more than one way, but infants and
young children are not deprived of Christ before this teaching has been
accomplished.
Pless continues:
Maxwell E. Johnson, himself an advocate of infant communion, notes that
through a coupling of John 3:5 (unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he
cannot enter into the kingdom) and John 6:53 (Unless you eat the flesh of the Son
of Man) into a single logion in the traditio fidei, both Baptism and the Lord’s
Supper are made necessary for membership in the Christian community. 17 [In
contrast], the Lutheran Confessions do not operate with what might be called a
“unitive” understanding of the sacraments. Baptism is the rebirth into the body of
Christ as in it sins are forgiven and the Holy Spirit bestowed. The Lord’s Supper
is not an additive to Baptism but serves instead to strengthen the Christian in the
forgiveness of sins according to the word and promise of Christ to which faith
clings. 18
Todd Nichol raises an additional and serious question in response to those who feel that not
admitting infants to the supper is “denying them” or “leaving them out”:
When the question of communing infants arises, it is frequently referred not to the
norms of the church, but to the realm of sentiment. Rhetorical inquiries like “Can
we leave the children out?” and “Can we deny them food when they reach for it?”
are questions regularly assumed to be arguments. It has only rarely been asked:

15

Martin Luther, “Receiving Both Kinds,” 263.
LC, Fifth Part, 1-2; Tappert 447.

16

Question 6: How do we best exercise our stewardship of this great treasure that our Lord has
entrusted to us?
We have been unable to find any reason to commune our infants and very young children. No
exegetical, systematic, confessional, historical, or pastoral argument was found to either require
or encourage such a practice among us. The understanding of the Lord’s Supper—its nature and
its benefits—that we have derived from our study has confirmed the reformers’ practice of
continuing to require the sort of careful self-examination required by Saint Paul and, more
importantly, by the Lord who spoke through Saint Paul and whose Supper this is. For the sake of
those being examined, careful, thorough, and life-long instruction was to be provided. The
insistence seen on the part of the reformers and of our synodical fathers that such examination
conclude with confession and absolution is perfectly in line with the Apostolic and Dominical
instructions concerning the worthy and beneficial reception of the sacrament. The pattern for
baptized children in Lutheran congregations has been clear and consistent until very recently:
instruction was followed by examination leading to confession, absolution, and the reception of
the Lord’s body and blood. As more and more groups promote the Eucharist for all the baptized
or simply the Eucharist for all, it becomes all the more important that we remain faithful
stewards in our own generation of the mysteries entrusted to us. At the same time, ongoing study
of our understanding of the sacrament and of the resulting understanding of its worthy reception
can only be beneficial, provided it is carried out under the supervision of the supreme norm of
our thought and practice, the Holy Scriptures, and informed by their faithful and true exposition,
the Lutheran Confessions.
Adopted September 13, 2014
Commission on Theology and Church Relations
The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod
WORKS CONSULTED
…and do not hinder them: An ecumenical plea for the admission of children to the eucharist.
Faith and Order Paper No. 109. Edited by Geiko Müller-Fahrenholz. Geneva: World
Council of Churches, 1982.
Bagnall, Ronald B., Editor. Lutheran Forum 30:4 (1996).
Barry, A. L. “What about… the Sacrament of the Altar.”
http://lcms.org/page.aspx?pid=726&DocID=1088.

17

Maxwell Johnson, The Rites of Christian Initiation: Their Evolution and Interpretation (Collegeville: The
Liturgical Press, 1999), 68–69.
18
John T. Pless, “Theses on Infant/Toddler Communion” (Blogia. The Blog of Logia: A Journal of Lutheran
Theology, October 31, 2013), bolded section in original. An example of a “unitive” view, and one that highlights the
contrast with the Lutheran understanding of Baptism, is the statement of the Orthodox view by Thomas Hopko:
“But to baptize anyone, according to the Orthodox understanding, without Chrismation and Holy Communion
following immediately is like being born without living.” Cf. Thomas Hopko, “Children and Holy Communion,”
Lutheran Forum 30:4 (1996): 33.

7

2016 Convention Workbook

Beckwith, Roger T. “The Age of Admission to the Lord’s Supper.” Westminster Theological
Journal 38:2 (1976): 123-151.
19

Todd W. Nichol, “Infant Communion in Light of the Lutheran Confessions,” Lutheran Quarterly n.s. 10:3 (1996):
245.

8