For centuries on end, a significant portion of the church membership has not attended the Supper of the Lord Jesus Christ. Shortly after the Great Reformation in the sixteenth century, Reformed Churches of The Netherlands agreed at the Synod of Dort to the following practice: “None shall be admitted to the Lord’s Supper except those who ... have made Confession of Religion” (Article 61). This limits attendance to about half of the church membership; children are not permitted to attend. This practice continues to characterize Reformed churches around the world.

In North America today there are a group of churches and/or theologians who have come to new appreciation for the wealth of the covenant. Much of what adherents to Federal Vision say (for that’s how their view is known) is strikingly similar to the way Canadian Reformed people have come to think and speak of God’s gracious covenant with man; that reality in turn generates in me considerable sympathy for this Federal Vision. However, the stand many proponents of Federal Vision take in relation to children at the Lord’s Supper leaves me distinctly unhappy. In their zeal to give expression to the good news that “redemption from sin and the Holy Spirit, who works faith, are promised to (children) no less than to adults” (as the church says it in Lord’s Day 27), these brothers and sisters swing through – in my judgment – to the opposite extreme so as to have children included in the celebration of the Lord’s Supper.

They seek to build their case on Scripture. ¹They refer to the Old Testament sacrament of Passover (in place of which Christ has instituted the New Testament sacrament of Lord’s Supper) and point out that the Lord commanded children to participate in this celebration. Exodus 12 contains this command from God in preparation for the Passover: “Tell the whole community of Israel that on the tenth day of this month each man is to take a lamb for his family, one for each household” (v. 3). The terms “family” and “household” invariably include the children. That’s confirmed, we’re told, by the implication of verse 26: “When your children ask you, ‘What does this ceremony mean to you?’ then tell them, ‘It is the Passover sacrifice to the Lord.’” We’re further reminded that children were to be present at other feasts of the Old Testament (see Deuteronomy 12:6f, 12, 18 and Deuteronomy 16:11, 14). Since the New Testament nowhere forbids children’s participation in the Lord’s Supper, we’re to conclude that the Lord would have the practice of the Old Testament continue – and so parents ought to take their little ones with them to the Lord’s table. ²

One wonders: have the churches over the centuries in fact misunderstood God’s intent in relation to Lord’s Supper attendance? Does God indeed wish the younger ones of the church also to eat and drink of the body and blood of the Lord? I’d like to engage the question on two levels, the first exegetical and the second doctrinal.

Exegetical⤒🔗

I will not dispute that the little ones of Israel were present at – and so free to participate in – the eating of the Passover lamb on the night when the Lord God delivered Israel from Egypt. That’s indeed the inference of Exodus 12:3. It is also true that in Israel’s subsequent annual memorial of the Passover the children had to be in a position to ask questions about this feast (Exodus 12:26). But we are to note that children asking questions about Passover (and so knowing about or being present at the meal) does not mean that the children also participated. In fact, there are indications in Scripture to the contrary.

Consider the instruction of the Lord at Israel’s first memorial celebration of the Passover one year after their exodus from Egypt as recorded in Numbers 9. The people of Israel were camped at the foot of Mt. Sinai, God had established his covenant with his redeemed people, and the tabernacle was just completed (Exodus 40:17). Then God told Moses, “Have the Israelites celebrate the Passover at the appointed time. Celebrate it at the appointed time, at twilight on the fourteenth day of (the first) month” (v. 3). Yet as the people set about to celebrate the Passover, some learned that they “could not celebrate the Passover on that day because they were ceremonially unclean on account of a dead body” (v. 6). They wished to participate and so sought Moses’ guidance as to what the will of the Lord might be for them. God’s answer was this: “When any of you or your descendants are unclean because of a dead body or are away on a journey, they may still celebrate the Lord’s Passover. They are to celebrate it on the fourteenth day of the second month” (v. 10f). It’s clear from this passage that the Lord God did not wish his people to celebrate this sacrament thoughtlessly or robotically; they were in some way to consider whether they were in a position to eat the Passover lamb. Those who had become defiled through contact with a dead body were unclean before holy God and so not to eat the lamb.

One can understand why this was God’s will. The annual memorial feast recalled the first Passover, when God’s angel of death went through the land of Egypt to kill the firstborn of each house on which there was no blood on the doorframe. All Egypt deserved to die, not simply because they persecuted God’s chosen people, but rather because every Egyptian was sinful – and the wages of sin is death (Genesis 2:17; Romans 6:23). For this same reason every Israelite ought to die also; they were just as evil in God’s eyes. But the Israelites would be spared because the blood on the doorframe would remind the angel of death that another would die in place of the Israelite. The substitute was ultimately not the lamb slaughtered on the night the angel passed over Egypt, but the Lamb of God who would one day come into the world, Jesus the Saviour (John 1:29). Yet God in his judgment would not continue to pass over those who did not hate the uncleanness of sin. That’s why God, through his commands about what is clean and what is unclean (see Leviticus 11-15), taught Israel to hate sin. Those who disregarded God’s holiness and his hatred for sin could ultimately not stand before his judgment and so had to be cut off from his people. But then they could not eat of the Passover Lamb until such time as they were clean – and that’s in turn symbolic of repentance from sin. This much is clear: to participate in the annual sacrament of Passover, the people of Israel needed to examine themselves as to whether they were unclean. This involved by definition a measure of knowledge and/or maturity.

The second annual memorial celebration of Israel’s escape from Egypt (and from the angel of death) did not occur two years after the initial Passover, but happened instead some forty years later (Joshua 5:10ff). This was due to the people’s rebellion after the return of the twelve spies. God’s judgment was: “In this desert your bodies will fall – every one of you twenty years old or more who was counted in the census and who has grumbled against me” (Numbers 14:29). God added: “As for your children that you said would be taken as plunder, I will bring them in to enjoy the land you have rejected” (v. 31). What is striking is that though those under twenty years of age would not perish in the desert with their parents, they did not receive opportunity to celebrate the Passover until they in adulthood entered the Promised Land.

Again, when the Lord gave Israel instructions about how they were to do things once they entered the Promised Land, God’s instruction about the annual Passover celebration was this: “You must not sacrifice the Passover in any town the Lord your God gives you except in the place He will choose as a dwelling for his name. There you must sacrifice the Passover in the evening” (Deuteronomy 16:5f). This was the place where the tabernacle was to stand, the place where God Himself lived with his people. The implication is travel and travel-by-foot by definition brings challenges for mothers and their little ones. So Elkanah permitted Hannah to stay home with Samuel for some years (1 Samuel 1:21ff). And Jesus, we’re told, went with his parents “to Jerusalem for the Feast of the Passover ... when he was twelve years old” (Luke 2:41f).

From the above material, the conclusion evident to my mind is this: it is too simplistic to conclude on the basis of Exodus 12 that God wanted all children in Israel to participate in the Passover – and then conclude in turn that this pattern holds true for the New Testament dispensation as well. On the contrary, Paul’s warning to the Corinthians against eating the bread and drinking the cup of the Lord “in an unworthy manner” and his injunction that “a man ought to examine himself before he eats of the bread and drinks of the cup” (1 Corinthians 11:27f) has roots in Numbers 9 and implies a continuing need for some maturity and/or knowledge.

We turn now to second argument that Federal Visionists supporting child participation at the Lord’s Supper neglect.

Doctrinal←⤒🔗

Sacraments, the church has learned from Scripture, “were instituted by God so that by their use He might the more fully declare and seal to us the promise of the gospel.” The promise God communicates in the gospel is delightfully rich: “God graciously grants us forgiveness of sins and everlasting life because of the one sacrifice of Christ accomplished on the cross” (LD 25). With this confession the church acknowledges that in all sacraments God is the “Speaker.” Sacraments are not about people stating something (e.g., there is faith in my heart, hence I’ll be baptized; we want to appease God’s anger, so we’ll sacrifice Christ anew, etc); sacraments are about God coming to wavering sinners with his sign and seal of reassurance concerning the truth of the gospel. Isaac as an infant of eight days old did not “say” anything in his circumcision, but God did all the communicating – for He impressed on Isaac through the sacrament that He truly claimed Isaac for Himself in his covenant of grace. Peter and Andrew and James and the other disciples did not “say” anything when they received the bread and drink from the Lord’s hand, but the Lord did all the communicating – for He impressed on his disciples through the sacrament that He gave up his body and shed his blood for them. In sacraments God does the speaking.

Yet every word from God by definition demands a response from people, for no creature may ignore God when He speaks. The response God seeks is an echo of the content of what He said. God in his covenant claimed Isaac for Himself in the sacrament of circumcision and so Isaac was obligated to acknowledge God’s claim and echo God’s words with his own reply: I belong to God. Jesus Christ told Peter and Andrew and James and the rest that his body was broken for them and his blood shed for them and they were obligated to acknowledge the validity of Jesus’ statement and echo his words with their own reply: my sins are washed away through Jesus’ sacrifice. God’s word in the sacraments requires a human echo.

That echo is, of course, not to be mechanical but sincere. This echo begins in the heart where the promise of God communicated in the sacrament is embraced in faith. From the heart this echo receives voice and/or action through the sound of the voice and/or the movement of the hand. In the sacraments God is the Speaker and the person He speaks to speaks in reply – echo in faith what God has promised.

Isaac could not echo God’s promise on the day of his circumcision – for the child was but eight days old. His echo of the Speaker in the sacrament of circumcision had to come in the course of years, as Isaac grew in knowledge and maturity. The people of Israel, though, who received from God the instruction to fetch a lamb for the Passover and eat it (and so be reminded that they deserved to die but were spared through the blood of another), did not receive the option to delay their response to God’s good news. Instead, they were obligated to respond immediately through obedience and God’s intent was not that this obedience be mechanical but heartfelt; the Israelites were to embrace in faith God’s gospel of redemption and express their acceptance of this gospel through their obedient eating. The disciples also to whom Jesus extended the bread and the cup did not receive the option to delay their response, but needed to reach out their hands to accept the elements of the Lord’s Supper and eat it. Yet their reaction too was not to be automatic but one borne from a heartfelt acceptance of the Saviour’s glorious good news.

We have a difference in timing of one’s response to God’s speaking in the sacrament. The Old Testament sacrament of circumcision (and its New Testament replacement of baptism) knows a delay in response, while the Old Testament sacrament of Passover (and its New Testament replacement of Lord’s Supper) demands an immediate response to God’s gospel. The delay in the reply given to the first sacrament is based on the need to reply in faith (and with faith), and faith needs time to appear and grow. The churches over the centuries have understood this need and so insisted on an event known as “profession of faith.” This profession of faith is a child’s response to God’s promise in baptism and signifies the child’s echo of what God has said. It is a response the child makes from a position of knowledge (hence the instruction given by parents and the church). It is a response the child makes sincerely (hence the conversation with elders of the church). It is a response not meant to be perfunctory and passing, but genuine and lasting (hence the public profession of faith in the presence of the rest of the congregation). Once the child has come to that stage in life where he could respond in faith to the promises of God in baptism, he’s also able to respond immediately to the Lord when He in the other sacraments presses on him (again) the reality of Jesus’ sacrifice for him. That is why the churches have historically said not only that baptism should precede attendance at the Lord’s Table, but also that one needs to respond to one’s baptism before one attends the Lord’s Table. Hence Article 61 of the Church Order as mentioned before.

 Age←⤒🔗

Of course, one can debate at length at what age one can or ought to respond to God’s promise to you in baptism. That’s a subject of its own which I’ll not engage at this point. For now, it is enough to conclude that there are strong and valid reasons why the church has not instructed parents to take their children with them to the table of the Lord. That brothers and sisters within the Federal Vision movement yet open the Lord’s Supper to those children of the congregation who have not professed the faith before the elders and the congregation is regrettable and does not do justice to God’s revelation and the confessions of the church.