Scripture and the Church

Is 'Closed Communion' Biblical?

By Dr. Paul M. Elliott
There is no Biblical warrant for excluding a believer from the Lord's Supper because an individual is not on the membership roll of a local church.

From the TeachingtheWord Bible Knowledgebase

There is no Biblical warrant for a church to exclude people who are not on its membership roll from partaking of the Lord's Supper. Scripture opens the Table to all true members of the Body of Christ.

From time to time, readers and listeners around the world contact us because they have encountered a church that practices "closed communion". This means that only individuals whose names have been placed on the membership roll of the local church are permitted to partake of the Lord's Supper.

And so they ask us, "Is the practice of closed communion Biblical?" "I am trusting in the shed blood of the Lord Jesus Christ alone for my salvation. Why should I be excluded from the Lord's Supper simply because I am not on the membership roll of a particular church?"

The answer is that Scripture gives no warrant for excluding a believer from the Lord's Supper unless the individual is living in open, unrepentant sin. All believers are welcome at the Lord's Table. Scripture gives two reasons for this, and both are demonstrated in Jesus' institution of the Lord's Supper.

Your Names Are Written in Heaven

First, all believers are "inscribed members" of the body of Christ. They are inscribed, not in a book made by men on earth, but by God in Heaven:

Nevertheless do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rather rejoice because your names are written in Heaven. (Luke 10:20)

And I urge you also, true companion, help these women who labored with me in the Gospel, with Clement also, and the rest of my fellow workers, whose names are in the Book of Life. (Philippians 4:3)

But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are registered in Heaven, to God the Judge of all, to the spirits of just men made perfect, to Jesus the Mediator of the New Covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaks better things than that of Abel. (Hebrews 12:22-24)

The Lord Adds to His Church

Second, it is not the word or the hand of man, but the living God, who adds individuals to His true church, the Body of Christ:

So continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, they ate their food with gladness and simplicity of heart, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to the church daily those who were being saved. (Acts 2:46-47)

And so, as the Apostle Paul under Divine inspiration wrote to the Corinthian believers,

The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ? For we, though many, are one bread and one body; for we all partake of that one bread. (1 Corinthians 10:16-17)

The Precedent Set at the First Supper

On the night before He went to the cross, the Lord Jesus instituted the Supper which believers in Christ have observed ever since that night by His command. It is noteworthy, as recorded in the Gospel accounts, that Jesus identified unbelieving Judas as His betrayer, and dismissed him from the Upper Room, after the observance of the Old Covenant Passover but before the institution of the New Covenant ordinance. Both believers and unbelievers observed the Passover together. But the observance of the Lord's Supper from the beginning was limited to believers - in the very first case, the eleven remaining apostles.

Within hours after the institution of the Lord's Supper, Peter would deny Christ. All of the eleven would flee as Jesus was arrested and put on trial. The omniscient Lord Jesus knew these things, and predicted them literally within minutes of the conclusion of this first Supper. Yet, these eleven men were all sinners saved by His grace. He was about to give His life as a ransom for them, for the remission of their sins. As the objects of His grace, our Lord did not deny any of them access to that first Table. He personally invited each and every one of the eleven to eat of the bread and drink of the cup without further qualification.

Part of a Pattern of Legalism

Let me also say that I have found that quite often the churches that practice "closed communion" tend to be legalistic and controlling in other ways that are also un-Biblical. For example, the leaders of "closed communion" congregations often impose upon their people lists of things that they may or may not do, which are not specifically mentioned in Scripture, rather than systematically preaching the Word so that the people will be equipped to make godly judgments in such matters on the authority of the Word by the illuminating aid of the indwelling Holy Spirit.

For all of these reasons I urge churches that practice "closed communion" to abandon this un-Biblical practice, and I urge believers to avoid churches where it is practiced.

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