I have worked on this matter for many years and have come to the conclusion that the practice of paedocommunion is contrary to the clear teachings of Scripture.  With this brief document I intend to present the contents of the argument detailed in my book, Daddy, May I Take Communion?  Hence, if one is interested in a more detailed historical, exegetical theological argument I refer him to that work.
  There are two positions included under the general heading paedocommunion: infant communion and child communion.  The first is what all the biblical argumentation supports while the second rests upon practical considerations.  Those who hold the first have extensively written defending their position with clear biblical arguments.  Those who defend the second, it seems to me, offer no exegetical argumentation but conclude that the inability of infants to digest the elements offered in the Lord's Supper preclude their participation. However, for me, it is neither convincing or consistent to set forth the arguments for infant communion and then conclude with an entirely different position.  Nonetheless, since both positions rest on the same biblical argumentation, the argumentation I offer here counters both positions.
  The argument for paedocommunion is simply expressed: the New Testament teaches that the Lord's Supper is the continuation and fulfillment of the Passover, i.e, the New Testament "equates" the Passover and the Lord's Supper.  Hence, the Lord's Supper relates to baptism just as Passover relates to circumcision.  Circumcision is a prerequisite for and admits its object to participation in the Passover.  Baptism is a prerequisite for and admits its object to the Lord's Supper.  Therefore, just as under the old covenant all circumcised children (and all girls whose fathers were circumcised) were admitted to the Passover, so under the new covenant all baptized children are to be admitted to the Lord's Table.
  Upon examination this argument involves numerous logical and biblical fallacies.

  The New Testament "equates" the Lord's Supper with the Passover.  There are three lines of argument offered in support of this conclusion.

I. ARGUMENT NUMBER ONE: The New Testament specifically calls Christ our Passover and thus identifies or "equates" the Passover meal and the Lord's Supper.[1]  Therefore, the terms of admission governing the Passover govern the Lord's Supper.  But there is a serious problem here, for if the New Testament identification of the Passover and the Lord's Supper proves the terms of admission are the same for both rites then the New Testament identification of the Lord's Supper with other Old Testament meals and rites proves the terms of admission are the same for the Lord's Supper and all those other Old Testament antecedents.  Therefore, this argument proves too much:  the New Testament material demonstrates that there is no single antecedent to the Lord's Supper, and that there are multiple "terms of admission."  So, an examination of the biblical material shows this argument reduces to an absurdity.
  The following chart will help to set forth the salient material.  We note here the Old Testament meal or rite, its terms of admission and, where the material is not commonly known, the New Testament passage(s) which identifies or "equates" the Old Testament antecedent and the Lord's Super. In the chart the numbers (1-8) enumerate the various meals and sacrifices while the letters (A-F) order the meals as to how broad were their terms of admission (meal A admitted the widest diversity of participants; meal B the next widest, etc.).
 
 

Meal or Rite	Terms of Admission
1/C  The Egyptian Passover meal	Admitted circumcised and uncircumcised people; including a mixed multitude of uncircumcised non-Israelites (Lk. 22:7, 15-16 (?); Exod. 12:37-38; cf. Num. 11:4).
2/A  The manna & water (meals) supplied in the wilder-ness	Admitted circumcised and uncircumcised people and animals including a mixed multitude of uncircumcised non-Israelites (John 632-33, 35, 51, 53-58; I Cor. 10:1ff.; cf., Num. 11:4, Exod. 17:6, 3 (water for the animals and the mixed multitude, Num. 11:4, 6).[2]
3/D  The levitical Passover	Admitted only circumcised males and those under their spiritual headship (Lk. 22:7, 15-16 (?); Exod. 12:43-48).
4/F  The covenant instituting meal on Mt. Sinai	Admitted only the titular heads of Israel: Moses, Aaron, Nadab & Abihu (the two sons of Aaron), and 70 elders of Israel (Exod. 32:11; cf., Exod. 32:8 and Lk. 22:20, Heb. 10:29).
5/E  The guilt offering  meal	Admitted only ordained priests (Lev. 6:17-20; cf., I Cor. 11:26-301).
6.  The sin offering	Admitted only priests (I Cor. 5:21, here, Christ is called the sin -offering).
7.  The great atonement	Admitted no one to a meal and only the high priest to participation and that only once a year (Heb. 10:19-22; 13:10).
8/B  The fellowship meals	Admitted all Israel and sometimes uncircumcised so-journers (Deut. 31:12; cf., I Cor. 10:18, Heb. 10:4-12).

 

PROBLEM NUMBER ONE: This argumentation proves much more than the paedocommunion protagonist desires.  If the paedocommunion protagonist consistently sticks to the logic of his argument and submits to the biblical material then he proves that there are no less than eight different "terms of admission" to the Lord's Supper.

PROBLEM NUMBER TWO:  This argumentation places the Passover as one of the many Old Testament rites and meals.  It makes it but part of the entire system.  By doing this it removes the Lord's Supper from the center of Christ's atonement by four steps.  In so doing, it presents the Passover as much less than the very heart of what applies salvation to the believer (viz., the great atonement).  The following diagram will help demonstrate how this is true.

               Outer altar                                           Inner altar

2.  Top / Horns         ________________	1. Altar / Mercy Seat
3. Center     ----------------------------
4.  Bottom

  As part of the entire levitical  system the Passover relates to number 4 above.  Each number represents where the blood of particular sacrifices was applied.  Number 1 represents the altar or the mercy seat in the most holy place where the blood of the yearly atonement was applied.  Number 2 represents the top or horns of the altar in the holy place where the blood of the sin offering was applied, number 3 the center of that altar where the blood of the guilt offering was applied, and number 4 the bottom of that altar where the blood of the fellowship (including the Passover) offering was applied.  It should be obvious that although all sacrifices (offerings) were essentially interrelated they did not all relate equally to the center of the entire system (they signified and sealed salvation corporately).  Only the great atonement and its offering were at the heart of the entire system, and brought the worshipper most near to God and into the life (salvation) which was accomplished in the sacrifice of Christ.  Each of the other types of sacrifice/offering were removed from that central rite by degrees in accordance with where the blood was applied.  In the book of Hebrews it is the great atonement, above all, that is the climax of the Old Testament system and to which Christ and His self-sacrifice are especially "equated".  So, if only the Passover is what is "equated" with Jesus by the New Testament "equation" of the Lord's Supper and the Passover, a very hard to accept and false picture of Christ's work is depicted and celebrated in the Lord's Supper.

  In order to avoid these conclusions the paedocommunion argument moves on to argument number two.

II.  ARGUMENT NUMBER TWO: Only the Passover is sacramental and, therefore, it must contain in principle all of the constitutive elements of the entire Old Testament system.  This argument, if true, does avoid the problems just presented.  But this argument is clearly contradicted by the New Testament explanation of the effect of all of the Old Testament meals and rites presented in the chart above.  If a sacrament is a means of grace, i.e., a means by which God acts spiritually on the participants (not ex opera operato and aside from any communication of grace mechanically, but communicating grace in the same way grace is communicated in the preaching of the Word), then the New Testament teaches that the eating and drinking supplied by God in the wilderness as well as the entire Old Testament levitical system were sacramental (cf., I Cor. 10:1ff.; 10:18, Heb. 10:4-12).

  So, the paedocommunion protagonist faces PROBLEM NUMBER THREE: the needed proposition is unbiblical since the New Testament presents all of the rites and meals listed in the chart above as sacramental.

III.  ARGUMENT NUMBER THREE:  The New Testament identifies the Lord's Supper with the Exodus Passover, the primordial sacrament.  This argument avoids the previous problems, but raises problems of its own.
  It solves the problem of how all of the Old Testament meals and rites could be sacramental and yet the Passover unique.  As the first or primordial rite, the Passover, it may be said, entails all of the others.  So, they are all sacramental but only in so far as they repeat some part of the Passover.  With the entire system, being sacramental is a derived characteristic, whereas with the Passover, it is a primary characteristic.  Hence, it is logically and biblically wrong to depict the Passover simply as one part of the system and explain its theological import accordingly.  Instead, the Passover should be seen as standing on its own and as entailing all the theological import later and more fully defined by the entire system.  Hence, it might be said that the primordial Passover is the prototypical (first pattern) or ektypical (that on which all others built and were theologically derived) rite and involved not only all the steps leading up to the great atonement but all that is involved in the great atonement itself.

PROBLEM NUMBER FOUR: If the first Passover is the primordial sacrament, and if its theology defines the theology of the wilderness "meals", the entire levitical system, and the Lord's Supper, then its terms of admission also are primordial, prototypical and ektypical and define the terms of admission for the Lord's Supper.  Therefore, since participation in the Egyptian Passover needed neither profession of faith nor circumcision nor  membership in Israel (the church) and was served to anyone within an Israelite house (it was not a church rite), the Lord's Supper needs neither profession of faith nor baptism nor church membership and may be served to anyone within a Christian home (it is not a church rite).
  It is obviously wrong (a case of special pleading and false circular reasoning) to argue that (1) the Lord's Supper is patterned after the levitical Passover with circumcision a necessary prerequisite for participation with a view to making (a) baptism a necessary and sole prerequisite to participation in the Lord's Supper and (b) the Lord's Supper a church ordinance requiring church membership, but (2) in order to avoid seeing the Passover as a secondary part of the levitical system and hence depicting only a "lesser" part of the atonement, then (3) to say the Lord's Supper was not patterned after the levitical Passover but regarding its theological significance was patterned after the Egyptian Passover, and then (4) in order to avoid concluding the terms of admission to the Egyptian Passover govern the Lord's Supper, to (5) say the Lord's Supper was patterned after the levitical Passover.  One cannot be faithful to reason and Scripture and so arbitrarily bounce back and forth between such mutually exclusive propositions.

PROBLEM NUMBER FIVE: This paedocommunion argument seems to ignore the principle and application of progressive revelation.  The progressive nature of God's revealing His will to us rejects a dispensational or semi-dispensational model by which portions of the Bible are set aside as a kind of revelational parenthesis.  The levitical system is not parenthetical and simply expository of the Egyptian Passover.  Rather the levitical system explains the import of that first Passover and sets it in its proper context as it relates to the rest of the levitical system and to the church of God.  So, to understand the import of the Passover one must start with the Egyptian Passover and work through the levitical material.  This defines the theological import of the Passover.  Hence, the true import of the Passover, as to its place in typifying Christ's atonement is the levitical system and this returns us to problem number two above.

PROBLEM NUMBER SIX: This paedocommunion argument undervalues the import of other pre-levitical meals and rites.  It seemingly ignores the existence of pre-mosaic sacrifices with the distinction between clean and unclean animals (Gen. 4:3; 8:20; 12:7-8; 13:4, 18; 22:9; 26:25; 33:20; 35:1, 3, 7), and the festive days (Sabbaths) preceding the giving of the levitical law (Gen. 2:3 [cf., Mark 2:27]; Exod. 16:23-20).  These pre-Mosaic sacrifices rested on the divine sacrifice of animals and the covering of "sin" afforded by their deaths (Gen. 3:20-21) which covering, and the work of the future Seed of the Woman (Gen. 3:15) that it signified, worked to establish and continue communion between God and man.  Hence, all subsequent sacrifices rested on the same basis and involved communion with God apart from a commemorative meal.  According to Hebrews 4:3-4 the Sabbath is a creation ordinance, i.e., it was instituted at the creation when God set forth the pattern for all man's activities (cf., Gen. 2:2-3), and, I believe, according to Genesis 4:26, began to be observed by the descendants of Seth (as over against the lack of observance by the descendants of Cain).  Is it going too far to conclude that since the Sabbath was the divinely instituted day of worship and since the sacrifice was a divinely instituted means of worship, that the sacrifices took place on the Sabbath?  Surely not.  Is it too much to use the paedocommunion argument that precedence in time involves prototypical significance so as to argue that the Passover itself was not primordial?  Surely not.  Rather, the sacrifice implied in Genesis 3:15 and all its subsequent Sabbatical observances are the prototype and ektype.
  In one way the Passover started something new, celebrating Israel as the people to whom the promises of the Abrahamic covenant were now being fulfilled (Exod. 6:3-4).   On the other hand, the Passover is but part of the larger sacrificial system which predated it.  Those former sacrifices entailed whole burnt offerings (e.g., Gen. 8:20; 22:9), sin offerings (Gen 12:7; 33:3, 7), and fellowship with God.  The Passover instituted a new kind of offering celebrating a long standing principle involved in divine worship (viz., fellowship with God).  Hence, it appears more biblical to conclude that those offerings were the prototype of the Passover and of all that followed it, and that the Passover focused especially on only one aspect of that former practice.

PROBLEM NUMBER SEVEN: This paedocommunion argument does not properly consider that the New Testament identifies the Lord's Supper with the Exodus Passover as much as with the traditional Passover.  This is clear at the institution of the Lord's Supper where Jesus does not distinguish between the Egyptian Passover, the levitical Passover and the traditional Jewish Passover.  While it is certain that the Lord's Supper is an initiatory rite just as was the Egyptian Passover, it was also identified with both the levitical Passover (it was not eaten in haste while dressed in traveling clothes, and was eaten in the environs of the central sanctuary) and the traditional Passover (they ate lying down, dressed in festal clothing, added wine to the Passover menu, etc.).  Hence, the Passover as observed by Jesus was the "generic" Passover.
  The effect of this is to repudiate "equating" the Lord's Supper with any particular "Passover", to deny that any particular Passover was primordial, and to repudiate equating the terms of admission of either the Egyptian or levitical (and the traditional) Passover to the terms of admission to the Lord's Supper as the paedocommunion argument necessitates insofar as it is logically contradictory to propose two mutually exclusive "terms of admission" for the Lord's Supper.

PROBLEM NUMBER EIGHT: At the institution of the Lord's Supper Christ identifies His sacrament with the Passover but does not equate the two.  As a matter of fact, He clearly distinguishes the Lord's Supper from the Passover.
The distinction is seen in what Christ does: His initiating the Lord's Supper after the Passover rites were completed, His inviting only the twelve apostles rather than His own family (as the head of His family it was His responsibility to lead them in the Passover), His not having repeated the elements of the Passover as elements of the Lord's Supper (eating lamb and bitter herbs), His giving the cup to all of them as a primary element of the sacrament (the cup was not part of the Egyptian or levitical Passover rites).
  This distinction between the Passover and the Lord's Supper is also seen in what Jesus says in instituting  the  latter.   The following have no parallel in the Passover and clearly separate the Lord's Supper from it: His command to appropriate the bread (and not the lamb), the identification of the bread with His body, the explanation that His body was given "for you", the charge to do this (eat the bread, His body) in remembering Him, the command to drink the wine as symbolical of drinking blood, the description of the cup as the blood of the covenant or the new covenant in His blood, the explanation that His blood was shed or poured out for many unto the remission of sins, the remembering clause, and the eschatological clause.[3]

PROBLEM NUMBER NINE: At the institution of the Lord's' Supper, our Lord does not quote or use the litany of the Passover but repeats the words of the covenantal dedicatory meal on Mt. Sinai (Exod. 32).  With the words explaining His as the blood of the new covenant Christ identifies His supper with the meal eaten on Mt. Sinai.  This and the words immediately attached to taking the bread and wine, constitute a declaration of the central significance of the elements and theology of the Lord's Supper, and it is clearly distinguished from the central significance of the elements and theology of the Passover.  Hence, the Lord's Supper is a different meal, a new meal.

PROBLEM NUMBER TEN: Hebrews identifies the Lord's Supper with the great atonement.  This identification is evidenced elsewhere in the New Testament, but is most extensively set forth here (Heb. 10:19-22).  Hebrews pointedly and in detail handles the relationship between the person and work of Christ and the Old Testament levitical system.  It teaches that all of the Old Testament sacrifices find their meaning and fulfillment in the great atonement and that the great atonement finds its meaning and fulfillment in the work of Christ.  The entire levitical system was patterned after the true sanctuary and its heavenly rites.  Only insofar as those heavenly rites are efficacious and the earthly rites are spiritually tied to them, are the earthly rites efficacious.  Christ entered into the heavenly holy of holies and once for all covered the mercy seat with His own blood thereby forever atoning for the sin of His people.   To commemorate His great priestly work He instituted the Lord's Supper.  Therefore, it is a meal directly attached to the holy of holies in heaven.  Whereas all Old Testament meals were eaten outside the holy of holies, our Lord instituted a meal eaten inside that sanctuary.  So, "we have an altar from which those who serve the tabernacle have no right to eat.  For the bodies of those beasts, whose blood is brought into the sanctuary for sin, are burned outside the gate."  The bodies of the atonement goats (the only sacrifice made in the holy of holies and the only altar from which the Old Testament priests could not eat) which were killed each year were not consumed by the priests (let alone by other worshippers) but were destroyed, whereas the body (and blood) of Christ (which was offered on the altar in the heavenly holy of holies) is consumed by the worshippers.  Those Old Testament worshippers are barred from the Lord's Supper/Meal.  They can and could do no more than the levitical law allowed.  Under the new covenant, Christ admits even the common believer to the holy of holies and there hosts a meal for them (Matt. 26:29; Heb. 13:10).

PROBLEM NUMBER ELEVEN:  There is only one passage in the New Testament that deals with admission to the Lord's Supper, I Cor. 11:26-30.  This passage sets forth four characteristics of the Lord's Supper none of which are specifically attached in the Old Testament to the Passover (either Egyptian or levitical) and all of which are attached to the observance of the trespass or guilt offering.   These are: (26) declaring or showing the Lord's death, i.e., declaring not simply the fact of that death but the efficacy of that death as in the Old Testament guilt or trespass offering when the priests' eating the offering within the sanctuary confines declared the efficacy of the sacrifice (so, in Isa. 53:10 Christ is called the guilt offering; there is no declaring the efficacy of an offering within the sanctuary in the Passover observance); (27) being liable to guilt or divine judgment as one partakes the elements (since the trespass offering was eaten within the sanctuary, this eating was sanctioned by divine judgment, cf., Num. 17:12-18:7); (28) the necessity of self-examination before eating the meal (this was obviously required when the priests ate the trespass offering because they ate within the sanctuary but it was not a prerequisite for eating the Passover since small children could eat without preparatory self-examination); and (29) the liability to divine sanctions (this was true of eating the trespass meal as demonstrated in Num. 17:12-18:18).  The identification of the elements of observance of the Lord's Supper here in I Corinthians 11 speaks much about the terms of admission to the Lord's Supper.  The declaration is no childish or childlike declaration but is the mature declaration of a trained and mature adult (26).  The liability to death is not to be brought upon infants and children.  In the Old Testament God makes it clear that only mature and spiritually educated adults were to face this liability (27).  So, in the New Testament, it is implied that only mature adults self-consciously pursing godliness are to face this liability.  The self-examination Paul mandates is, like the self-examination in the Old Testament and as the apostle expressly teaches, mandated upon all who partake of the Lord's Supper (28).  The liability to sickness and death manifested in Corinth is now a spiritual liability (29).  This, too, tells us that participation in the Lord's Supper requires not only "negative sanctification" (the absence of sinful acts; a state one may think is found in infants) but "positive sanctification", the presence of responsibly doing the revealed will of God (as only adults may do).
  It is not unimportant to this writer that in the Old Testament children could not approach the altar in their own persons but
through circumcision were acknowledged as being under the covenant and approached the altar in and through their federal heads (their fathers).   Jesus, the perfect son of God, like all the children of the Old Testament era did not approach the altar until he attained manhood (Lk. 2:22-24).[4]
  Hence, because of the Old Testament requirement that no one be admitted to the altar apart from a prior confession of faith (cf., Heb. 13:10), with the supporting evidence in the experience of Jesus, and the evidence that could be supplied from the book of Acts and I Corinthians that everyone who made a credible profession of faith (all qualified new covenant priests) was admitted we conclude that admission to the Lord's Supper requires a prior and adult profession of faith.

ARGUMENT NUMBER TWELVE:   The paedocommunion argument admits infants and small children to the Lord's Supper.  Some protagonists add that there are two requirements for admission to the Lord's Supper, baptism and sufficient physical maturity to ingest food.  The problem this involves is that it mandates a redefinition of the nature of the sacrament in the direction of, or in conformity to the Roman Catholic concept of ex opera operato.  This is, it seems to me unavoidable.  Little children are to be admitted to the Lord's Table before they are able to understand language and, hence, before they can feed on the Word of God conceived as propositional communication (cf., Jn. 6:63).  The only possible conclusion to the paedocommunion protagonist is that such children must feed on the Word of God in some sense other than feeding on the Word of God as propositional communication.  So, when such a child takes the Lord's Supper and it is said to be sacramental for him then communication of grace to him must be mechanical since it cannot be spiritual (as Christ and reformed theology have defined it).
  Some attempt to get around this logical necessity by adding another admission requirement (in addition to baptism/circumcision, and physical maturity), viz., spiritual maturity.  But when they do this they have no basis in the Old Testament for such a requirement.  The Passover in Egypt and the Levitical Passover both admitted children as soon as the child could eat.  Still other paedocommunion protagonists appear to confuse spiritual maturity (the ability to feed on the Word of God, i.e., the words of Christ, to discern the Lord's body, etc.) with external faithfulness to covenantal requirements.  The latter is the accompaniment with eating the Passover but hardly a prerequisite.  On the other hand, feeding on the words of God is a necessary prerequisite for eating the Lord's Supper.  Jesus said it clearly when He explained the difference between a merely physical eating of the bread/manna in the wilderness (and physically eating His body and drinking His blood or physically consuming the elements of the Lord's Supper) and a true spiritual or sacramental consuming of the elements in the Lord's Supper, when He said, "It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing.  The words I speak to you are spirit, and they are life" (Jn. 6:63).  Thus Jesus explains to us that the mere eating of the bread and drinking of the water in the wilderness, and the mere eating of the bread and drinking the wine in the Lord's Supper profit nothing!    It is not sacramental.   If a mouse, a child, or an unbeliever takes the Lord's Supper it profits him nothing.  Moreover, Paul adds that if a person takes the Lord's Supper in contempt of the Lord (which implies a degree of conscious understanding and rejection) then he eats and drinks judgment to himself (I Cor. 11:29).
  It should be clear (on the basis of Jesus' words) that it is unbiblical for the paedocommunion protagonist to argue that if the generic Passover admitted children and the generic Passover was sacramental then, even though we cannot resolve the theological problem as to its sacramental nature, we must admit children to the Lord's Supper just as they were admitted to the Old Testament sacrament, the Passover.  In conformity to what our Lord says ("The flesh profits nothing"), in my book on Paedocommunion, I seek to demonstrate that the various Old Testament meals were sacramental but they each signified and, therefore, sealed different aspects of God's redemption as it was worked out and set forth in the Old Testament.  The wilderness meals were "sacramental' but they did not simply signify and seal eternal life and neither did the Passover.  When Jesus says the flesh, i.e., the eating and drinking in the wilderness and all other mere eating profits nothing spiritually, it must be consistent with Paul in I Corinthians 10 when Paul teaches that the wilderness eating and drinking was sacramental.  The Passover signified and sealed the temporal redemption from Egypt and the divine identification of His nation/people Israel.  It has a typological significance to be sure, but it was theologically and typologically necessary for there to be more than the Passover to set before Israel the fullness of divine redemption.  It is not insignificant to me or, I believe, to God (as it appears to be to paedocommunion) that the Passover was the "lowest" (least significant as to what it signified and sealed) sacrifice and nearly the least significant of the Old Testament meals.[5]  Following up on His words ("The flesh profits nothing") and in clear contrast to the Passover, Jesus initiated the Lord's Supper as the meal which signifies and seals feeding on the Spirit, on His words.
 

FOOTNOTES

1 See below.
2 So clear is this "equation" that it was employed by Christian Keidel, "Is the Lord's Supper for Children?", Westminster Theological Journal, XXXVII (Spring, 1975), 301-341.
3 A more detailed explanation of this point appears in the author's book, Daddy, May I Take Communion?, p. 201ff.
4 For the detailed defense of this proposition see the author's book, Daddy, May I Take Communion?
5 Cf,  the chart listing the eight offerings and rites.  The meals are designated as to the breadth of admission:

A.  Wilderness meals: admitted beasts, uncircumcised and circumcised persons of all ages.
B.  Fellowship meals: admitted uncircumcised and circum-cised persons of all ages.
C.  Exodus Passover: admitted uncircumcised and circum-cised persons of all ages.
D.  Levitical Passover: admitted only circumcised males of all ages and all males and females they represented.
E.  Guilt Offering:  admitted only adult, mature circumcised male priests.
F.  Mt. Sinai meal: admitted only adult, mature circumcised males who were titular heads of Israel.

© Leonard J. Coppes