The following is a post I made in a discussion group online:
Thanks for all the feedback/discussion yesterday concerning paedocommunion. I'm more decidedly non-paedocommunion now than before, but also more informed of the paedocommunion position. I think most who embrace PC in the Reformed camp want to affirm that the baby/very young child does in fact have faith.
If that is the case, then to me this is not really "paedocommunion" as I have been understanding it, but credo-communion coupled with a particularly unique interpretation ( I would argue erroneous) of I Cor. 11 and an insistence that the OT feasts/Passover, etc., always or at least often required all the children and even the babies (or perhaps all children once weaned) to partake. Since the Lord's Supper is a fulfillment of these things in Christ, a pretty straight line is drawn to say that all weaned covenant children may, and most PC's seem to argue stridently that they must/ought, partake of the bread and wine of the Lord's Supper. This also seems to require a commitment to presumptive regeneration and paedo-faith, and that an examination by elders is either unscriptural/inappropriate, or at most is nothing more than a brief talk with the parents and child/baby, perhaps occurring even while the elements are being distributed.
A big watershed in my thinking on this is whether a PC advocate maintains that the efficacy of the sacrament comes from Christ, through the Spirit, working in the word and received in faith by the recipient. This would pertain especially to the Lord's Supper given the commands in I Cor. 11 to the recipients, though I know the PC'er neuters these quite a bit. Equating eating and drinking of itself with receiving by faith is a serious error, though some seem to imply this by saying that Communion is a memorial, a remembrance of Christ and His death, and the simple act of eating and drinking accomplishes this, the subjective heart/mouth of faith being completely irrelevant.
Rather, I would argue, and I think the Reformed tradition in the main would as well, that worthy partaking/participation vs. unworthy really hinges on whether the recipient eats and drinks with a heart/mouth of faith or not. If the feeding on Christ were carnal/physical, a heart of faith would be irrelevant. But the true feeding on Christ, whether in word, prayer, or sacrament, comes by faith, and John 6 is quite clear concerning this. As we know, receiving the word, prayer, or sacraments but not having faith/apostatizing only heaps up judgment for the recipient, rather than blessing. So the idea that worthy participation has nothing to do with faith is an incredibly foolish error, and that sort of paedo-communion requires a re-imagining of the sacraments, and perhaps more, that is far from biblical.
Paedo-communion that presupposes faith is a different matter. I think it odd and strained, like the Reformed Baptists who form an entire system of the covenant to remove their children from it, but at least the paedo-communion folks like this are arguing in the other direction. I think something they are rightly reacting with disgust, as I do as well, to the idea that covenant children should not be expected or capable of repenting and believing in Christ, should not be expected any more than any other child of the world/devil to love the Lord truly at a tender age. I have heard this more or less said, to my shock and repulsion, by Reformed/Presbyterian ministers. This coincides with a downplay of covenantal/parental duties to raise the children in the fear/admonition of the Lord at times, or to misunderstand it and think if a child apostatizes, that's just the Spirit blowing as it wills, or not blowing, and no examination of the parenting or pastoring/shepherding need take place.
We should GRIEVE when a covenant child is lost. We should consider snatching DEFEAT TO THE DEVIL out of the jaws of CHRIST'S KINGDOM when our covenant/kingdom children apostatize, because that is exactly what is occurring! To be a child of God, and to be parents or pastors of such children, and to just YAWN at their apostasy or to expect it to be a frequent and regular reality, makes a mockery of the covenant/kingdom and its blessings, and the tender mercies of God in Christ to our/His covenant children. Such apostasy is unnatural, it doesn't occur in a vacuum, and I doubt any parent or pastor would pretend to shepherd/parent perfectly. So repentance and grieving in sackcloth and ashes should occur when a covenant child is lost. But we have normalized this, have even said, "that's just how it goes in this day and age" as if the powers of this world are more powerful than the Power of Heaven, and find it no more strange than someone today claiming to be transgender or a homosexual. It's "just the way it is" now. Now look who is lacking faith!
So when paedo-communion comes in this spirit, maintaining the necessity of faith, even if just infant faith, to partake of the body and blood of Christ in the sacrament, for the love and sake of our covenant children and in expression of faith in the promises of God, over against the wicked forfeiting of these covenant privileges by failing to nurture our children/raise them in the fear and admonition of the Lord, I have tremendous sympathies. I simply am unpersuaded from Scripture that the paedo-communion position, and a sort of incipient paedo-faith/inclination toward faith, is all that is required to come to the Lord's Table.
I do think something that has helped me as I have studied, and should hearten some PC'ers, is that not all non-PC'ers deny that children have a right to the table. In fact, when I first heard the shrieks of PC'ers saying "You're excommunicating your children!" I found it absurd and hard to take serious. But I realize they are particularly reacting against those who think, or at least imply by their detailed exams and mountains of requirements, that communion is only for a mature, very sanctified, faith, only for the strong and healthy Christian. That view certainly seems to exist, though not stated that way. It occurs in practice if not in explicit teaching, and that, too, is contra our Confessional standards, which says that Communion is for even the weak and doubting Christian (WLC 172).
But it seems there are many today, and I would imagine throughout church history among the Reformed, who teach that children, by virtue of being in the covenant and baptized, do have a right to the Lord's table, and as such, will be admitted when they partake in faith. If it is a covenant child/baby who is not yet able to express faith/examine himself/discern the body, the child is not thereby excluded, but is still being prepared, trained, built up in the covenant by God and all the various means of grace that the child can and does receive (Word, prayer, baptism, nurture, etc.). I expect my children to partake in Communion, the body and blood of Christ. They belong to Him, they are in covenant because of His body and blood. Just as I expect my newborn to continue to grow and move from milk to meat in time, all the while he is at the dinner table with us, because he is part of the family and has a right to that table even before he can eat. Likewise, covenant children are part of Christ's family, and have a right to that covenant meal with the family, and should be expected to eat of that meal with the mouth of faith, feeding on Christ inwardly/spiritually in the eating and drinking of the bread and wine.
This does not mean that the spiritual feeding will occur at the same moment that physical eating of meat for a young child/baby can occur (as the PC'ers seem to claim), but it sure indicates that withholding communion while holding your breath, anxiously expecting your covenant young child, then older child, then teen, then young adult apostatizes is a mockery of the communion meal. It doubts their right and place at the communion table, which really means it is a doubting of their baptism and a doubting of their standing in the covenant/kingdom of God. I and others who are not PC also are NOT doubting the place our children have in the kingdom of God/covenant, and the right to the King's table. Further, we recognize that a child, prior to exercising faith/confessing and discerning, is being nurtured and prepared to do this very thing, and the expectation is that God will bless these labors and bring the child to such a blessed confession and understanding. Until they do, in God's kindness, they are covered by that very body and blood of Christ that covers their household, like the blood of the Passover lamb smeared on the doorposts of the house, until they can eat of that sacrificial body and blood, not just by chewing the physical elements of bread and wine, but by digesting/receiving the spiritual sustenance of Christ's efficacious sacrifice inwardly with the stomach of faith.
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