p. 244 | CLOSE COMMUNION by J. E. Swift

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Tuesday, April 21, 1885

FromAdvent Review and Sabbath Herald, Vol. 62, No. 16

CLOSE COMMUNION.

By J. E. Swift

BY J. E. SWIFT.

The majority of professed Christians think that the Lord’s table should be free to all who may choose to come to it; and if we dissent from their view, they call it judging, and say that we think ourselves better than others. All this we disclaim, and offer the following in support of our position:—

The whole difficulty we think arises from a misapprehension in regard to the meaning and object of the Lord’s supper.

1. On the night of his betrayal, our Lord Jesus himself instituted this ordinance by blessing and giving to his disciples the bread and wine, which were to represent his broken body and spilt blood. 1 Cor. 11: 23–25.

2. The object of the supper is not to gratify appetite. 1 Cor. 11: 20–22. It is not to show that the participants, and they alone, are forgiven; for Martha, Mary, and Lazarus were not invited. It is not to show that the participants love each other; but it is to keep in remembrance the suffering and death of the world’s Redeemer until he shall come the second time to complete our redemption. Verse 26. Bear in mind that the Lord’s supper is not to express the intercommunion of believers, but the believer’s communion with the Lord. Nevertheless, let it be remembered that no one is accepted of the Lord unless he is at peace with his brethren. Matt. 5: 23, 24.

3. Those who partook of this supper were not publicans and sinners as those at the house of Levi, nor were they the multitude as on the mountain side in Galilee; but those who, according to the practice of Jesus, had been baptized. John 4: 1. They were adventists, or at least they were plainly taught the advent faith upon that occasion. (See the discourse in John 14.) They were commandment-keepers. John 14: 15, 21. We cannot conscientiously commune with any who are walking disorderly, or violating any of God’s commandments. Rom. 16: 17; 2 Thess. 3: 6.

There are those who have been baptized, but are not keeping the Sabbath; and others who are keeping the Sabbath, but have not been baptized. Now these persons may be honest-hearted and highly respectable, and yet they are not prepared for the communion, because they have not taken the steps necessary to admittance into the church. Communion is clearly a church ordinance; and only those who are members can share the privileges of church membership; otherwise the church organization would be insignificant and valueless; therefore, that which many are pleased to call “close communion” is the regular communion established by Christ himself for his church.

Perhaps a few words should be said for the encouragement of those dear souls who have fulfilled the above conditions, but who, feeling their unworthiness, and fearing that they will fall under the condemnation of 1 Cor. 11: 27–29, think themselves unfit for communion. This warning applies not to those who are conscientiously striving to walk blameless before the Lord. It was given to check a terrible condition of carelessness into which the Corinthian church had fallen. They had evidently lost sight of the object and sacredness of the communion, insomuch that they made it a scene of feasting and drunkenness. Proper order was not maintained; and instead of all sitting down together, and having the emblems administered by the proper persons, each of the more wealthy ones would sit down when he chose, and eat his supper which he had brought with him, thus leaving the poor who had brought nothing without any thing. Thus while one was hungry, another was drunken. See 1 Cor. 11: 20–22.

This communion service is a very important and solemn one; and therefore “let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of that bread, and drink of that cup.” “For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do show the Lord’s death till he come.” 1 Cor. 11: 28, 26.