Clark on 1 Corinthians 11
[Originally posted on my Rabbisaul blog Jan 11 2007]
I have devoted an entire chapter to 1 Corinthians 11 in Feed My Lambs, as well as articles online, so I won’t explore all the facets here. But there are some pertinent things to say with regard to Clark’s post that I think I should address.
Note first of all that Clark frames things in a vertical versus horizontal/sociological cast. Now, this places a certain colour upon the discussion from the outset, since the implication is that the Church is simply a horizontally related body, an object of “mere sociology” (Clark’s own dismissive phrase).
But of course his opponents do not think that way at all. We believe, as Paul himself writes in the preceding chapter, that the bread and cup shared are our mutual participation in Christ Himself. The whole vertical/horizontal structure is suspect to begin with. While we clearly must distinguish Christ from His people, nonetheless Paul writes, the Church is Christ’s body, “the fullness of Him who fills all in all” (Eph 1.22-23). To speak of a Church-oriented interpretation as having to do with “mere sociology” is an affront, not merely to paedocommunion advocates, but to the Church of the living God.
Second, Clark correctly, but nonetheless rather astonishingly, writes this: “In its nature, the Supper is Christ’s covenant with his people.” That is exactly right, and follows very nicely from the analogy to Genesis 17. But I say it is astonishing, because if this is the case, Clark’s anti-paedocommunion position entails the denial of the covenant to the children of believers, whether elect or non-elect, regenerate or not. In effect, the covenant is for adults, or at least, those old enough to profess faith to his satisfaction. This is not the Reformed position, and never has been.
Third, Clark attempts to isolate “what is signified and sealed” in the Supper as the point at issue with the reference to the body of the Lord in 11.29. He assumes that this is the logical course of interpretation, simply because the crucified body of Christ has been mentioned in the preceding. He writes,
If, in n v.24, “body” means “the risen, glorified, natural body of Christ,” then there is no reason for us to think that it now means “the congregation.” The meaning of “body” has already been established.
However, Clark overlooks the fact that in the preceding chapter, Paul has set all of this up in precisely the same way, and has no problem moving back and forth (in an even more abbreviated span) between the body of Christ which was crucified and raised, and the body of Christ, the Church (10.16-17). Thus there is a prima facie case to be made for understanding the “body” reference (sans mention of the blood) in 11.29 to have to do with the Church.
Nonetheless, what is even more significant is that I suspect most paedocommunion advocates do not interpret 1 Corinthians 11 as narrowly as Clark assumes; much less is it the case that we must interpret the passage in such a fashion for our position to “work.” In Feed My Lambs, I point out that no matter how strongly we interpret 1 Corinthians 11 as a whole – indeed, in its component parts, even to the point of adopting Clark’s “vertical” model as one aspect or at least application of the text – the chapter simply does not bar paedocommunion, because it stands wholly in accord with the long-established shape of God’s covenant and its rites.
This is why Paul lays the groundwork for the whole of 1 Cor 11.17-34 in chapter 10 (actually, the passage commences in 9.24ff), when he appeals precisely to the old covenant history. The judgment spoken of in 1 Cor 11 (most specifically and explicitly in 29-32, 34) is a live eschatological example, a realization of the set of judgments laid down in the matrix (tupos) fashioned in Israel’s history. That is the significance of the Pauline typology in 10.1-11.
The point once again is that Clark, as with anti-paedocommunion teachers generally, has avoided the sticky issue, which is simply this: Paul has placed the matters of judgment, of covenant-keeping, of (sacramental) memorial within the context of an existing covenantal structure – a structure which clearly welcomed children to the covenantal table and counted them as qualified participants. The old covenant too required “proving” (or, if you will, “self-examination,” in that sense), as I – again – showed clearly in my book, from numerous Old Testament passages (e.g. Isaiah 1.10-17; Amos 5.21ff). There is nothing new in this passage which all of a sudden changes the landscape and debars children. That can only arise out of a prejudiced reading of the text, a reading that demands a new standard of prerequisites for sacramental participation in the new covenant, and finds it only because it presupposes it.
To be sure, I recognize that on the face of it, my “nothing new” appears a rather extravagant claim. Ready to hand is the substance of Clark’s own discussion: the body and blood of Christ. I do not believe in an eternal incarnation or crucifixion; Christ became man – enfleshed and “enblooded” – at a given point in history. Indeed, those who have read much of my material regarding Paul and Torah will know that I tend to stress the progression of the covenant, the newness of the new covenant, more strongly than do many Reformed theologians.
However, it must be recognized that precisely at the point of the structure of the covenant relationship (the relational typology, if you will), and specifically in connection with the sacrament, Paul affirms continuity explicitly. That is the point of his citations in 1 Corinthians 10, both of Israel’s history and of the realities connected with the altar. By appealing to “our fathers” as “types” (1 Cor 10.6, 11) and connecting their experience to the new covenant sacraments (as he does by using baptismal and eucharistic language in 10.2-4), he reveals that he sees that history as providing a controlling matrix for our own.
In addition, it is to be noted that, while Christ was obviously not yet made flesh during the wilderness rebellions of which Paul speaks, and although he speaks apocalyptically regarding the Church’s place in covenant history (we are the ones “upon whom the ends of the ages have come,” 10.11), the apostle nonetheless does not shrink from saying that Israel drank from Christ Himself (10.4). Moreover, he adds that under the law, those who eat the sacrifices are partakers of the altar (10.18). If, therefore, it is suitable to understand 11.29 to be a call to discern the sacrificed Christ (a reading which remains highly debatable, but let’s grant it for the sake of argument), rather than as a reference to the Church, it is much plainer that the sort of discernment called for in chapter 11 was already required of Israel, both in her partaking of Christ in the wilderness, and in her participation in the sacrificial altar. In short, even if we take 1 Corinthians in the fashion Dr Clark suggests, we have nothing new in the relational typology. But that means that any inference which necessitates the barring of children from the sacramental table is illicit. If the same realities in the covenant’s relational structure did not bar children under the old covenant, neither do they bar them under the new.
To conclude: It is no accident that Clark says that the Supper in a real sense is the covenant. And the truth, whether wittingly or unwittingly, has come out: the entire logic of the anti-paedocommunion position is that the children of believers simply are not members of the covenant.
That is the inescapable tangle that the anti-paedocommunion position entails. If the table is, as Paul says clearly, the table of the body (1 Cor 10.17), then those denied the table are implicitly denied membership in the body.
What the opponents of paedocommunion must face is simply this: their position does not derive from 1 Corinthians 11. Paul’s own logic stands wholly in accord with the covenantal matrix to which he has appealed, and he provides not a whiff of a hint that he wishes to challenge or alter the longstanding covenantal inclusion of the children of believers. The anti-paedocommunion position remains, at its heart, a denial of the rightful place of believers’ children in God’s gracious covenant. It remains a claim that the covenant is really only for those who have reached a certain natural capacity, and that God’s covenantal grace is null, or at least severely restricted prior to that point. (If this is not a form of salvation by works, it is at least a form of salvation by native capacity.)
In short, the anti-paedocommunion position remains a denial of the very thing that it claims to guard: the Reformed faith. Much more importantly, it is a misuse of the biblical text and a denial of the norms Jesus Himself gave us: “Let the children come unto Me, and do not forbid them… for of such is the kingdom of God.”
As I’ve noted elsewhere, in the Gospels “the kingdom of God” is specifically a new covenant term, which is why, in Matthew 11.11, Jesus says that the least in the kingdom is greater than John. Thus, when Jesus says that “of such is the kingdom of God,” He is saying very clearly that new covenant membership belongs to believers’ children.
The new covenant table, therefore, does as well.