You Must Be Baptized to Receive the Lord’s Supper – Article Up at Mere Orthodoxy
I have an article this morning up at Mere Orthodoxy. This summer I had several conversations with members of my congregation about this, and then the EPC General Assembly debated the topic. Looking around, I discovered there was very little actually written about this subject, and so wrote this to serve as a kind of googleable default for people wondering about this question.
Here’s an excerpt,
Discerning the body entails seeing and acknowledging in the sacrament what and why Jesus has acted for our salvation.
This last aspect of trust has a dual implication. On the one hand it means the act of faith: resting upon the body and blood of Jesus for salvation. Coming to the table, eating and drinking, is trusting in the work of Jesus on the cross for your salvation, which he gives to you as surely as you eat the bread and drink the cup. On the other hand, trusting Jesus means following him in repentance. He has bought us with his body and blood, and discerning that includes our acknowledgement of our grateful duty to him. Trusting Jesus means following him.
This is why discerning his body in the sacrament is part of our self-examination. We are judging whether we truly grasp our need for a savior and rest in the death of Jesus for that salvation. Failure to repent, the Corinthian problem, means that we don’t take the death of Jesus seriously: we welcome the benefits (salvation, the meal) without being moved to see that we and our sinful ways were the cause of Christ’s death.
