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Peace on Earth (Leviticus #3)
Christ Church on October 3, 2021
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Child Communion and the Keys (Part 2)

Joe Harby on

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Introduction

As you are bringing your children up in the covenant, your operating assumption ought to be that your God is their God, and that they are, adjusting for levels of maturity, faithful covenant members. Your attitude should not be that of assuming that “your sweet baby” must be converted despite a sullenness that ascends to the skies, and your attitude should not be one of chronic suspicion either. Rather, you should “trust but verify.” But how do we verify?

The Text

“We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren. He that loveth not his brother abideth in death” (1 Jn. 3:14).

Summary of the Text

The apostle John does not assume that we are trying to figure out who was baptized and who not. That is too easy. They remembered when those baptisms occurred—these were first generation Christians after all. The tests for assurance of salvation are given to us so that we could know who had passed from death to life among those who are professing Christians. This has been a problem from the very first—I don’t doubt that it began at Pentecost.

There are two things to mark here. Passing from death to life is one of them, and knowing that you have is the other. The first indicator here is that of love for your fellow Christians. Love is the mark of a real Christian.

Important Caution

When you talk about assurance of salvation, there is always the Christian with a tender conscience, ever eager for reasons to doubt that he is saved. But that is not what we are doing here. The contrast is being loving and hating, not between loving as much you should and not loving as much as you should have. We are not contrasting playing the piano superbly and playing it like a hack musician, but rather playing the piano and playing a trash can lid with a wooden stick. We are not contrasting big red apples and smaller red apples, but rather apples and road apples.

The works of the flesh are manifest (Gal. 5:19ff). Look at the sorts of things that the New Testament lists as being inconsistent with inheriting the kingdom of heaven (1 Cor. 6:9-10; Gal. 5:21; Eph. 5:5). You will not find on these lists anything about how many times this week you missed your Bible reading.

A Checklist, Gingerly Held

Here is a checklist which should not be treated as a checklist, if you know what I mean. The center of all assurance means looking to Christ, not yourself. But how can you know you are looking to Him, and not just striking a pose for everybody?

  • Loveforthebrothers:Aswesawinourtext(1Jn.3:14),realChristiansloveotherreal Christians. Before salvation, Christians were insufferable; afterwards, they somehow became a delight. For those growing up in the covenant, there should be a real attraction for real Christians.
  • Obediencestartstohappen:“Andherebywedoknowthatweknowhim,ifwekeephis commandments” (1 Jn. 2:3). Note that our salvation is not based on obedience, but our assurance should be. For those growing up in the covenant, there should be an orientation to obedience, mediated through obedience to parents.
  • What happens when we disobey: “If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not? But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons” (Heb. 12:7-8). The previous point is not a perfectionistic one. We all fail and fall. But what happens when we do? For those growing up in the covenant, there is a pattern of putting things right because God spanks you.
  • Understanding of spiritual things: “But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned” (1 Cor. 2:14; cf. 1 Cor. 1:18). There is a certain upside-down-ness to the way God does things. Christians get it. For those growing up in the covenant,
  • Holding fast to the truth: “Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in him, and he in God” (1 Jn. 4:15). The Christian faith has a clear center of dogma, and Christians hold to it. For those growing up in the covenant, there is a desire to understand so that you can hold to it faithfully.
  • The presence of the Holy Spirit: “Hereby know we that we dwell in him, and he in us, because he hath given us of his Spirit” (1 Jn. 4:13). When the Spirit is given, He causes us to cry out, “Abba, Father” (Rom. 8:15-16; Gal. 4:6-7). For those growing up in the covenant, this is the gift that enables you to evaluate this list without a counterproductive form of navel gazing. This is all about relationship. 

    What is the Direction?

    When a child is baptized, one of the things we do as a congregation is promise to assist the parents in the Christian nurture of their child. We do not promise to do this only so long as the parents are totally not defensive about it.

  • Although “parent” is not an office in the church, the fact that we are coming together as families means that parents are usually the ones called to speak the words of the gospel to their children as we administer the Supper.
  • Your children can be included as soon as they are tracking in the service—and you can tell this by when they start to notice that they are being excluded.
  • As your children grow up, you will probably have (early on) some communion flip out stories —when your child has to be taken outside for some discipline in the middle of the observance. We don’t do this with grown-ups, but a lot of communion services would probably be greatly improved if some of the adults got spanks.
  • If a child is “old enough to know better,” and the attitude is still rebellious or sullen, or if their demeanor in church is fine, but they are living wildly, then parents (or their friends) should call for pastoral help from the elders.

A godly church should never have discipline on a hair trigger. But if we are going to commune our children, it is because we believe the promises, and we want them to walk with God all the days of their lives.

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Child Communion and the Keys (Part 1)

Joe Harby on

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Introduction

As anyone who has worshiped with us can see, it is our practice to include our baptized children with us in our celebration of the Lord’s Supper. We do not want to be superstitious about it, as though the elements of bread and wine were magic, but it is a routine practice for us to begin including children in the Supper at a pretty tender age. This is what we mean by child communion. What is meant by “the keys?” This refers to the authority of the church in discipline. It is not possible to talk about communication of the elements without also talking about excommunication (Matt. 16:19). So how should we relate these issues? It is necessary to take the right kind of great caution.

The Text

“Moreover, brethren, I would not that ye should be ignorant, how that all our fathers were under the cloud, and all passed through the sea; And were all baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea; And did all eat the same spiritual meat; And did all drink the same spiritual drink: for they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them: and that Rock was Christ. But with many of them God was not well pleased: for they were overthrown in the wilderness. Now these things were our examples, to the intent we should not lust after evil things, as they also lusted” (1 Cor. 10:1-6).

Summary of the Text

The Corinthian Gentiles had begun to put on airs, over against the Jews. “We are baptized. We have spiritual drink. We have spiritual food.” So did the Israelites in the wilderness, Paul says, and look what happened to them. The nation of Israel passed through the cloud and the sea (v. 1), which Paul identifies as their baptism (v. 2). Not only did they have that monumental baptismal experience, they also ate spiritual food (v. 3), referring to the manna, bread from Heaven. In addition to that, all of them drank from the Rock that traveled with them, and that Rock was Christ Himself (v. 4). But if the Israelites were tempted to gloat in these spiritual privileges, they ought not to have. God was not pleased with many of them, and they were overthrown in the wilderness (v. 5). These things were written down, Paul says, to provide an example for new covenant Christians (v. 6), that we not fall into lust as they did.

The key thing to take away here is the fact that modern Christians often draw old covenant/new covenant contrasts at just the place where the New Testament demands that we draw parallels. These things happened to them as examples for us.

Clearing Some Debris

There are two things to keep in the forefront of our minds as we reflect on our inclusion of children in the Supper. First, we do not do it because it is “cute,” or “endearing.” If children are included for sentimental reasons, then if discipline ever becomes necessary, a number of people won’t want to do it . . . for those same sentimental reasons. We cannot have it both ways—if we object to discipline because “he is too young,” then we need to object to the communication of the elements for the same reason.

Secondly, we do not include our children through a misguided tribalism. The church holds the power of the keys, and not the patriarch of the family. The father has a key shepherding role to play, working with the elders, but he is not the church.

In stating these caveats, we should acknowledge that in some ways, child communion was an easy sell in some quarters for all the wrong reasons. But our thinking should be covenantal—not sentimental, and not familialist.

The Holy Spirit Does Not Need a Manager

When Jesus teaches us about the importance of the new birth, He does so by telling us that the Holy Spirit comes and goes as He pleases (John 3:8). We cannot bottle Him. We cannot anchor Him to the waters of baptism, or to the bread and wine, or to the Red Sea, or to the manna, or to the Rock. He is sovereign over us, not the other way around.

So our hunt for “badges” of the new birth usually gravitates to things we can manipulate or control— whether they are biblical things like baptism and the Lord’s Supper, or extra-biblical things, like throwing pine cones in the fire the last night of youth camp. We want things we can count—we want to put a turnstile on the gates of the kingdom with an automatic clicker in it.

Light Lights Up

The scriptural response to this does not flatter us. The differences between the converted and unconverted are not subtle. It is the difference between light and dark. It is the difference between righteousness and unrighteousness (John 3:19). It is the difference between clean and filthy (1 Thess. 4:7). It is the difference between love and hate (1 Jn. 3:12-14). The works of the flesh are manifest, Paul says (Gal. 5:19). People who live that way won’t inherit the kingdom (Gal. 5:21). Don’t over- engineer this. When it comes to assurance of salvation, we do not need to know what time the sun rose to know that it is up.

You never get an apple crop as the result of throwing a lever in the control room. Fruit doesn’t work this way. And the presence of the Spirit for blessing is indicated by gracious fruit (Gal. 5:22-23)—not by His gifts (1 Cor. 1:7; 1 Cor. 3:1), not by His sacraments (1 Cor. 10:1-6), not by doctrinal prowess (1 Cor. 13:2), and not by external good deeds (1 Cor. 13:3). But we tend to want a lever, any lever, because we think that our hands must be able to reach it.

Vessels of Wrath, Vessels of Mercy

The Bible teaches that all of our children are by nature objects of wrath (Eph. 2:3). They, just like us, have descended from Adam. In order for anyone to be saved, our children included, they must be transferred from one human race to another. The perennial temptation is for us to try to effect this transfer, instead of resorting to the gospel of Christ, and waiting upon Him. We come to the gospel, and we do so in order to hear it, believe it, wash with it, taste it, swallow it. It is not the outside of the thing, obviously. But neither is it faith to throw away all these means that God has so graciously provided.

What would happen to a man who ate the manna without faith? He would die in the desert. What would happen to a hyper-evangelical Israelite, who refused the manna because he just wanted to treasure up spiritual manna in his heart? Well, he would die too.

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