Almost everybody, on some level, practices restricted communion. Very few churches say literally anybody can take it on a Sunday. For most, the restriction centres on something like ‘a personal relationship with Jesus’ or ‘knowing Jesus as your Lord and saviour’. That is, the restriction is at the level of being a Christian.
This is the interesting thing about Open Communion advocates. They aren’t quite as open as they often claim. Indeed, most of them – even as they insist the matter is one of conscience – nevertheless soon start talking about removing communion from people in sin. Which suggests their openness isn’t really centred on conscience at all. What they mean is, you can have communion according to your conscience on the matter unless we decide we want to overrule your conscience, then you can’t. Then, it is the elders’ conscience that will bind you.
A couple of things are worth saying about that. For one, it makes a mockery out of claiming the matter is one of personal conscience. Indeed, I think it is a little dishonest to say you may partake based on personal conscience whilst, at the same time, stopping people partaking whose consciences you have determined to be gauging things wrongly. Either make the matter one of personal conscience and accept that quite a lot of people who you really don’t think should be having communion are going to partake or stop saying it is fundamentally a conscience issue when it clearly isn’t!
Second, this approach often becomes arbitrary. Some determine their conscience is fine before the Lord whilst the elders disagree. Yet others, whose consciences are equally not right before the Lord, are given continued access to the table. The grounds of who is and is not welcome is particularly murky and elders are open to charges of favouritism. If the issue is one of personal conscience, the elders free themselves from such charges. But, of course, if they don’t allow everybody to act in line with conscience no matter how incredible they find it, the charge inevitably sticks as the line they pronounce is not actually held.
Third, it puts the church in a strange position. On the one hand, here are some people who will not join the church in membership and the church themselves are not able to affirm their profession of faith. On the other, personal conscience allows them access to an open table whereby the church seemingly are affirming something about them (though, increasingly, it is unclear what). Those who won’t submit to church elders in church membership as Jesus commands nevertheless rock up to the table and claim to submit to the very Lord Jesus whose commands on these things they merrily ignore.
Fourth, it makes matters personal. The line from the church might be something like, ‘if you are a bible-believing Christian with faith in Jesus for the forgiveness of your sin’ then you may join in communion. The official line is that is a conscience matter. Except, if the elders happen to think you’re not a Christian, they will then stop you taking communion. Which makes it neither a matter of conscience nor of personal profession in Christ. But if not on the basis of those official lines, on what grounds do the elders withhold access to the table? Suddenly, they must be quite personal about the matter. Not least when others, whose professions may not be as clear as they might like, get to partake. What is it about this person that specifically stops them partaking as opposed to those others. What is it about this sin (assuming it is sin) that stops them but that sin doesn’t?
By contrast, if we are a teensy bit tighter with our restriction – and limit communion to active members of local churches who are, therefore, affirmed by a church – we avoid all these issues. We don’t pretend communion is a conscience matter when it clearly isn’t. Instead, we draw an objective line: faith in Jesus manifested in membership of the church. The individual’s conscience about where they stand becomes less important than the church’s (in the case of visitors, any church’s) affirmation of them as a believer.
Suddenly, not granting communion is no longer personal. I mean, it is personal inasmuch as the church are saying they cannot affirm your profession. But they’re not affirming your profession based on the fact that you won’t join the church in line with Jesus’ commands. Those who are in membership may take it and those who aren’t cannot. There is no arbitrary picking over who does and doesn’t get it based on the elders’ say so. There is simply a clear line: have you trusted in Jesus and obeyed him by joining the local church?
Nor does the church end up in the awkward position of not affirming a person in membership whilst simultaneously affirming them at the table. The church either affirms – in baptism, membership and access to the table – or it doesn’t by withholding the signs of the covenant. One is either affirmed or not; and if not, might recognise the need to rectify some of the issues that has led to them.
The line is not arbitrary, but objective. The claims of personal conscience being overridden by elders no longer apply. The affirmation of the church on the one hand without the affirmation of the church on the other is gone. Membership of the church itself suddenly has meaning rather than being able to access all the benefits of church membership without any of the responsibilities.