Reverend Richard Bacon is the pastor of First Presbyterian Church of Rowlett, Texas. He has written a tract entitled “What Mean Ye By This Service? Paedocommunion in Light of Passover,” printed by Presbyterian Heritage Publications (P.O. Box 180922, Dallas, TX 75218). I am writing this brief response to set forth why his argument does not prove its case, or make the anti-paedocommunion position seem even probable. As this debate continues to go on, hopefully setting forth such reasons will give us a chance to address them, so that, if paedocommunion is not the proper practice for the Church of Jesus Christ, that fact might actually be demonstrated from Scripture.
Inexplicable Use of Scripture
The first concern that needs to be dealt with, is the many instances of Rev. Bacon’s confidently declaring that the Bible says something that the Bible does not say. Running into these instances one after another does not encourage a paedocommunionist to think that he is reading a rational argument from Scripture. Thus, they not only make Rev. Bacon’s case more unconvincing, but they also alienate any reader who has not already made up his mind that paedocommunion is wrong.
Exodus 12.21 “The Moses called for all the elders of Israel, and said to them `Go and take for yourselves lambs according to your families, and slay the Passover lamb.’”
Rev. Bacon asserts that “the elders actually drew out the lambs” (p. 9) for the entire people. There is no reason in the world to believe this, however. All this indicates is that Moses could not speak to all 600,000 men at once. Rather, he relayed the message through the elders. Each head of the household selected a lamb for his household. Nothing in verse 21 modifies this. Is there any commentator or Biblical scholar who has come to Rev. Bacon’s conclusion? This sounds like a complete novelty and an unnecessary one, unless one has an axe to grind. To say the least, one needs more evidence here. As it stands, verse three and following seem abundantly clear that each family head was to take a lamb from his flock according to the mouths in his household.
Exodus 12.26-27a “And it will come about when your children say to you, `What is this service to you?’ that you will say, `It is a Passover sacrifice to the Lord because He passed over the houses of the sons of Israel in Egypt when He smote the Egyptians, but delivered our homes.’”
Rev. Bacon asserts that here we are informed that “the children are to serve a catechal role” (p. 10). Indeed, he emphasizes his contention with rhetorical questions: “What part do the children play in this meal? Does God simply leave it to our imagination? Does the Church have `discretion’ as to what part the children take?” (p. 9) On the contrary, they are “told” to ask, “What do you mean by your eating in this service?” (p. 10)
Now, this seems doubly gratuitous to me, and I would beg Rev. Bacon to add needed argumentation to this interpretation or else drop it from his tract. In the first place, it is simply adding to Scripture to assert that the children are told to ask anything in this passage. All God says is that, when they ask the question, they should be given an answer. It is the answer that the parents are told to give, but no question is commanded. In short, there is nothing about a catechism in this passage. In fact, there is nothing in the passage to mandate that Passover is being celebrated at the time the child asks the question. The point is simple: Whenever he asks about Passover, tell him about the Exodus.
Furthermore, there is nothing in the text about “your eating,” let alone anything with italics! Why is the Authorized Version suddenly replaced by this imaginative paraphrase? Granted, the child asks the parent, “What is this service to you?”, not “to us?”. But that does not prove that the child was not a participant in the rite; it only proves that he does not know the meaning of the rite. That is why he has to ask his parent about the meaning. The fact that Rev. Bacon was tempted to add the second-person possessive pronoun to the “eating” in his paraphrase, indicates that he himself is aware that the text, as originally written, does not give him sufficient grounds to argue that the child was not a participant.Exodus 12.43b-44 “This is the ordinance of the Passover; no son of a stranger may eat of it; but every man’s slave purchased with money, after you have circumcised him, then he may eat of it.”
Rev. Bacon asserts that “verse 44 expressly tells us that servants were not to partake of the Passover on the basis of their masters’ inclusion in the covenant. They were not to partake, in fact, until they themselves were confirmed in the covenant by accepting circumcision as adults.”
There is not one word in this passage about “adults.” Slaves were to be circumcised no matter what their age. Rev. Bacon is right, in a sense, to say that his own circumcision, not his master’s was the basis of a servant’s access to Passover; but what was the basis of the servants’ circumcisions, if not “their masters’ inclusion in the covenant”? There is nothing in this text about “accepting” circumcision or anything else.Exodus 12.48 “But if a stranger sojourns with you, and does the Passover to the Lord, let all his males be circumcised, and then let him come near to celebrate it; and he shall be like a native of the land. But no uncircumcised person may eat of it.”
According to Rev. Bacon, “all of [a stranger’s] males must be circumcised, only he (as an adult male covenantal head of the household) draws near and partakes” (pp. 10-11).
Why is “only” inserted into this verse? Rev. Bacon seems once again to be adding to the Word of God. All the verse says is: When a Gentile wishes to partake, he may do so if he circumcises all the males in his household. Nothing is said about forbidding the other males. Quite the contrary, the God-given prohibition is repeated: “No uncircumcised person may eat of it.” Why would any faithful Israelite claim that there is some additional reason to prohibit these circumcised males? Granted, uncleanness will later also prohibit participation, but the fact remains that God is the one who makes such rules. To add a further requirement is simply not permitted, as I’m sure Rev. Bacon will agree. Thus, I think some further explanation is needed, or else the interpretation of this text needs to be altered.
Numbers 9.6-7 “But there were some men who were unclean because of the dead person, so that they could not observe Passover on that day; so they came before Moses and Aaron on that day. And those men said to him, `Though we are unclean because of the dead person, why are we restrained from presenting the offering of the Lord at its appointed time among the sons of Israel?’”
Rev. Bacon comments that “certain men had been present at a funeral, so by reason of ceremonial or Levitical uncleanness they were not permitted to keep the Passover (cf. Numbers 5.2-3). Both men and women contracted ceremonial uncleanness (Numbers 5.3), so we must suppose either (1) no women were at the funeral or (2) that women were not required to keep Passover anyway, so being at the funeral made no difference” (p. 13).
Now, nothing is said about a funeral in this passage, and people did not become unclean simply by attending a funeral. Rather, one becomes unclean from touching a corpse (Numbers 19.11-13, 16), or being in a room where there was a corpse (Numbers 19.14). Unless, Rev. Bacon can show that the Israelites observed indoor funerals (an unlikely custom if people were trying to minimize uncleanness), there is nothing about attending a funeral that would make one unclean. Thus, there is no need whatsoever to assume that no women attended a funeral. One only need assume that they did not handle the body.
2 Chronicles 30.8 “Now do not stiffen your neck like your fathers, but yield to the Lord and enter His sanctuary which He has consecrated forever, and serve the Lord your God, that his burning anger may turn away from you.”
Rev. Bacon asserts that this passage teaches “that it is not merely for ceremonial uncleanness that a person is prohibited from partaking of the sacramental meal. The instruction in verse 8 is “yield yourselves unto the Lord . . . and serve the Lord your God.” This account teaches us that something more than ceremonial uncleanness could keep an ancient Israelite from the feast. An unyielded heart also disqualified the ancient Israelite from partaking in the sacrament of the Passover meal, even though he had been previously circumcised” (p. 14).
But none of this is remotely credible. The message in verse 8 is aimed at Israelites of the Northern Kingdom as opposed to Judahites of the Southern Kingdom. These people, though circumcised, had refused to enter God’s sanctuary, but had worshipped at unauthorized locations in their nation. The command to “yield” is simply a command to give up their unauthorized shrines and celebrate Passover where God has told them to celebrate it. There is no additional requirement being stated in this verse. Rather, the people are being warned not to refuse the privilege to which they have been entitled (cf. Numbers 9.13).
I Corinthians 10.1-4 “For I do not want you to be unaware, brethren, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea; and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea; and all ate the same spiritual food; and all drank the same spiritual drink, for they were drinking from a spiritual rock that followed them; and the rock was Christ.”
This passage appears nowhere in Rev. Bacon’s tract, but since he asserts that manna “was not a sacrament” (p. 18), how is he not openly contradiction the Apostle Paul?
Surely Rev. Bacon knows paedocommunionists are going to think of this verse, so why not explain how he can make such a categorical statement while still being faithful to Scripture? This would not only be a better strategy, to answer his opponents, but it would show more respect for those he is attempting to persuade. After all, are we simply supposed to believe whatever Rev. Bacon tells us to believe? Or are we supposed to settle this matter by the study of Scripture?
For the record, the Westminster Confession of Faith, declares that manna was a sacrament: “The sacraments of the old testament, in regard of the spiritual things thereby signified and exhibited, were, for substance, the same with those of the new” (27.5). The original prooftext for this assertion is 1 Corinthians 10.1-4. Granted, Rev. Bacon is free to register disagreement with the framers of the Confession on this point. But, for those of us who are advocating paedocommunion due to our allegiance to the Reformed Faith, he owes us some explanation, aside from assertions on nothing more than his own authority in contradiction to the framers of our Standards.
Is Child-Participation in Passover Essential to Paedocommunion?
Paedocommunion does not depend solely on whether or not children participated in the Passover. The Eucharist is the fulfillment of all the Old Testament sacraments. It is manna and the water from the rock (1 Corinthians 10.3-4). It is all the sacrifices that were eaten by the priests and sometimes the lay people both in their individual peace offerings and at the three yearly festivals (1 Corinthians 10.18; Leviticus 7.15-18; Deuteronomy 12.7, 12, 18; 16.1-15). Thus, there is no doubt that weaned children participated in these sacraments. Therefore, there is no reason to think they should now be barred from the sacramental meal of the New Covenant.
Incidentally, only adult males were required to attend these three feasts (Deuteronomy 16.16). Nevertheless, the point is that women and children were not prohibited from them.
Cain & Abel and “The Process of Time”
Admirably, Rev. Bacon goes back to Genesis to begin his case. He argues that the term “the end of days” (p. 5) at which Cain and Abel offered sacrifices to God designates that it was revealed to them that they had to have reached a certain age. He also adds some arguments that Cain and Abel were both of mature years, able to marry and be “rational and discerning.”
I find Rev. Bacon’s argument regarding “the end of days,” rather speculative, but even if it is true it is really irrelevant to his case. He concludes, “There are numerous other sacrifices throughout the book of Genesis (8.20f.; 12.7f.; 13.4f.; etc.). In each case an adult male brought his sacrifices to the Lord, Thus, the principle was established by the time of Exodus that these sacrifices were to be made by those males capable of being heads of households.” A couple of points here, one incidental and one essential:
Incidentally: Women did in fact offer sacrifices under the Mosaic covenant (Leviticus 12.6-8; 15.29). If such counter-examples don’t count, because the Levites in fact did the offering on the altar, then the above considerations don’t count for Passover either. For the Passover Lamb was also slaughtered by the Levitical priest. Granted, this is not the case for the first Passover, but for all we know women were permitted to slaughter the first Passover, if a woman could be the head of a household (I have no idea). After all, when Zipporah displayed the blood of her son’s circumcision by touching the foreskin that she had cut off to his feet, God’s wrath was averted (Exodus 4.124-26). Not only does this correspond rather directly to the original Passover, but the scene occurs right after God tells Moses:
Then you shall say to Pharaoh, “Thus says the Lord, Israel is My son, My firstborn. So I said to you, `Let My son go, that he may serve Me’; but you have refused to let him go. Behold, I will kill your son, your firstborn.”
Thus, I don’t think Rev. Bacon has made all that strong a case.
On a more essential matter, I don’t see how the age or gender or household position of the one who offered sacrifices to God is relevant to determining the age or gender or household position of the one who ate from the sacrifices to God. According to Leviticus, the priest’s family was invited to eat from the sacrifices that the adult male priest offered (10.14; Numbers 18.11). Likewise, any Israelite or alien who offered peace offerings was encouraged to invite his children, along with others, to eat them with him (Deuteronomy 12.7, 12, 18; Leviticus 7.15-18; 22.17-25; Numbers 15.14-16). The question in dispute is not who slaughtered the Passover Lamb, but who was permitted to consume the Passover Lamb.
If only adult males might offer sacrifices, that would prove nothing regarding Passover. If anything, the nature of other sacrifices points to the participation of children in the meal, for then the two cases would be precisely parallel to one another. In both cases there is an adult male who slaughtered the animal, and then his family is permitted to eat the animal.
Women, Uncleanness, & Passover
I’ve already responded to Rev. Bacon’s use of Numbers 9.6-7 above. But he also makes the following case from the rest of the passage: “If women had partaken of the passover, we should expect roughly twenty-five percent of the women of Israel to be approaching Moses with the same kind of question that these men had, for twenty-five percent of the women of Israel in each of the four weeks of every month would have been unqualified to partake (if for no other reason) due to their menstrual period (Leviticus 15:19-30)” (p. 13).
This is an interesting argument, but it proves too much. Except for circumcision, one had to meet the same requirements to attend Passover as one did for the Feast of Weeks and the Feast of Booths. All three yearly feasts required ceremonial cleanliness of participants. Now, it is beyond question that women and children were permitted to attend the other two feasts (Deuteronomy 16.11, 14). Thus, twenty-five percent of the women were barred from these other feasts. Yet we read of no complaints on the part of these women.
If we permit Rev. Bacon’s argument from silence in the case of Passover, then it will prove that women were not allowed to attend the other two feasts as well. Thus, his speculation cannot count as evidence that women were not permitted to take part in Passover.
The reason we don’t find a complaint from women is clear: The women were not required to attend. The men were. Thus, the men found themselves facing two contradictory commands: You must attend, and you may not attend. In Numbers 9, Moses resolved the problem for them.
Furthermore, the fact that cleanness was required of participation in the other feasts, as well as the peace offerings and the priests’ portions, means that such requirements simply cannot be used to prove that children did not have the discernment or maturity to participate in Passover. All such arguments prove that Moses was wrong to allow children to participate in other sacraments requiring cleanliness (Leviticus 7.15-21; cf. Deuteronomy 12.7, 12, 18; Leviticus 10.14; Numbers 18.11).
Conclusion: Whatever Happened to the Regulative Principle of Worship?
I suppose I could respond to other things, the assertion that some sort of “counting” of adult males was involved in Passover, that Jesus only fed five thousand men and no women or children, that Jesus was involved in a catechism at the age of twelve when he spent three days in Jerusalem, etc. All I can say is that Rev. Bacon strings together what seem to me nothing more than speculations as if they made a case.
The bottom line is that the Bible presents no barrier between initiation in the covenant and participation in the covenant meal. Rev. Bacon needs a text that gives us an age limit or developmental standard for participation in the sacramental food and drink. He has not given us one. His strong assertions of the “specialness” of the Lord’s Supper all beg the question. No one is denying that it is special in that it is a sacrament. We are simply denying that it is too special for children. He has given us no reason to think otherwise. Indeed, since we are to become like little children in our faith in order to enter the Kingdom, it would seem that the specialness of the communion meal is precisely for children and those who become like them!
The Bible says that one cannot participate in Passover unless one is circumcised. Also, one cannot participate in Passover if one is ceremonially unclean. Rev. Bacon asserts, that there is an additional rule involving a level of discernment. But he has not given us any Scriptural support for such an assertion, and it is hardly Reformed to simply make one up.
At one point in the confrontation between the Lord and Pharaoh, the Egyptian king seemed to give in. He was ready the let them go worship the Lord as long as they left their children behind. Moses had a different idea, “We shall go with our young and our old; with our sons and our daughters, with our flocks and our herds we will go, for we must hold a feast to the Lord” (Exodus 10.9). The flocks and herds were for sacrifices (10.25-26), but why were the children needed at a feast to the Lord. Rev. Bacon may insist that it was catechizing if he wishes, but I’m looking for a Biblical answer (Deuteronomy 16.11, 14).
A Response to Rev. Bacon’s Argument that Manna was not a Sacrament
The preceding response to Rev. Richard Bacon’s tract, “What Mean Ye by This Service,” was made to the published version, a copy of which I borrowed from the library at Covenant Theological Seminary. I recently discovered that a new appendix has been added to the version available on the Blue Banner’s web page. This new appendix is entitled “Manna & Manducation.” Here, Rev. Bacon, addresses one of the flaws (at least, I think it was a flaw) in the body of his tract his bald statement that manna was not a sacrament.
Rev. Bacon makes it quite clear he believes not only that manna was not a sacrament, but that paedocommunionists are desperately grasping at straws to claim that manna was a sacrament. He says, “the paedocommunionist has an uphill battle to prove that eating manna and drinking water (not wine) points to the New Testament sacrament of the Lord’s Supper. . . .” Indeed, he asks rhetorically of manna and water from the Rock: “Why then do paedocommunionists want to bring it into the debate?” Furthermore, he claims the argument from manna is evidence of paedocommunionist desperation: “The fact that the argument has shifted from a sacramental meal to a non-sacramental meal gives the impression that it is the practice of the paedocommunion that is being defended rather than a covenantal hermeneutic.”
That last claim is made near the end of the essay and I repeat it because I want readers to remember it as they read my response: “The fact that the argument has shifted from a sacramental meal to a non-sacramental meal gives the impression that it is the practice of the paedocommunion that is being defended rather than a covenantal hermeneutic.”
Rev. Bacon claims that 1 Corinthians 10.1-4 does not correspond to Baptism or the Lord’s Supper. He claims that the baptism in this passage and in 1 Corinthians 12.13 corresponds to Pentecost. Furthermore, he asserts that John 6.49, 54 prove that manna was not a sacrament. My plan is simply to show that Rev. Bacon is making up things that are at odds with the entire history of Reformed Theology, while pretending that paedocommunionists are the ones breaking with the tradition.
John Calvin, in book 2 of the Institutes of the Christian Religion devotes a chapter (10) to the similarity of the Old and New Testaments. He sees a need to discuss this “because writers often argue at length about the difference between the Old and the New Testament, thus arousing some misgiving in the simple readers mind” (2.10.1; Ford Lewis Battles, tr.).
Indeed, that wonderful rascal Servetus and certain madmen of the Anabaptist sect, who regard the Israelites as nothing but a herd of swine, make necessary what would in any case have been very profitable for us. For they babble of the Israelites as fattened by the Lord on this earth without hope of heavenly immortality (ibid.).
According to Calvin one of the many similarities between the covenants, is that the Old Testament was given similar signs and seals to those we have been given. The reformer appeals to 1 Corinthians 10.1ff. to prove his point:
Indeed, the apostle makes the Israelites equal to us not only in the grace of the covenant but also in the signification of the sacraments. In recounting examples of the punishments which, according to Scripture, the Israelites were chastised of old, his purpose was to deter the Corinthians from falling into similar misdeeds. So he begins with this premise: there is no reason why we should claim any privilege for ourselves, to deliver us from the vengeance of God, which they underwent, since the Lord not only provided them with the same benefits but also manifested his grace among them by the same symbols. It is as if he said: “Suppose you trust that you are out of danger because both Baptism, with which you have been sealed, and the Supper, of which you partake daily, possess excellent promises, but at the same time you hold God’s goodness in contempt and play the wanton. Know that the Jews did not lack such symbols, and yet the Lord carried out his harsh judgments against them. They were baptized in crossing the sea and in the cloud that protected them from the sun’s heat.” Our opponents call that crossing a carnal baptism, which corresponds in a certain measure to our spiritual baptism. But if that were accepted as true, the apostle’s argument would not be effective. For Paul here means to disabuse Christians of thinking they are superior to the Jews through the privilege of baptism. Nor is what immediately follows subject to this cavil: “They ate the same spiritual food and drank the same spiritual drink.” This he interprets as referring to Christ (2.10.5).
Elsewhere he reiterates his point, appealing to the same passage, against the Roman Catholic schoolmen:
But we must utterly reject that scholastic dogma (to touch on it also in passing) which notes such a great difference between the sacraments of the old and new law, as if the former only foreshadowed God’s grace, but the latter give it as a present reality. Indeed the apostle speaks just as clearly concerning the former as the latter when he teaches that the fathers ate the same spiritual food as we, and explains that food as Christ. Who dared treat as an empty sign that which revealed the true communion of Christ to the Jews? (4.14.23)
Calvin quotes Augustine to substantiate his point from the same passage in 1 Corinthians:
In different signs there is the same faith; it is the same with different signs as it is with different words; for words change their sounds from time to time; and words are nothing but signs. The fathers drank the same spiritual drink, but not the same physical one, as ours. See therefore, how faith remains while signs change. With them Christ was the Rock; for us Christ is that which is put on the altar. They drank, as a great sacrament, water flowing from the rock; believers know what we drink. If you look at the visible appearance, they drank something different; if you look at the inner signification, they drank the same spiritual drink.
Thus, Calvin relies on 1 Corinthians 10.1ff. to formulate doctrines regarding the sacraments:
These things which we have said both of mortification and of washing were foreshadowed in the people of Israel, who were on this account said by the Apostle to have been “baptized in the cloud and in the sea.” Mortification was symbolized when the Lord, rescuing the people from the domination and cruel bondage of Pharaoh, made a way for them through the Red Sea and drowned both Pharaoh himself and the Egyptian army, who were in hot pursuit and almost at their backs. For in the same way he also promises us in baptism and shows us by a sign given that by his power we have been led out and delivered from bondage in Egypt, that is, from the bondage of sin; that our Pharaoh, that is, the devil, has been drowned. . . . In the cloud there was a symbol of cleansing. For as the Lord covered them with a cloud and gave them coolness, that they might not weaken and pine away in the merciless heat of the sun, so do we recognize that in baptism we are covered and protected by Christ’s blood, that God’s severity, which is truly an unbearable flame, should not assail us (4.15.9).
Calvin knows, however, that some of the anabaptists and followers of Servetus will attempt to disprove that manna was a true sacrament by appealing to John 6.49, 54. He replies that Jesus “passed over the principal feature of manna and noted only its lowest use” (2.10.6). He thus returns to 1 Corinthians 10.1-5:
Paul knew that when the Lord rained down manna from heaven he did not do so merely to feed their bellies, but also bestowed it as a spiritual mystery, to foreshadow the spiritual quickening we have in Christ. Therefore he did not neglect this aspect, the one principally worth considering. From this we can conclude with full certainty that the Lord not only communicated to the Jews the same promises of eternal and heavenly life as he now deigns to give us, but also sealed them with truly spiritual sacraments. Augustine debates this matter at length in his work Against Faustus the Manichee (ibid.).
Thus, we see that not only does John Calvin hold to what Rev. Bacon claims is a view unique to paedocommunionists, but he actually rejects his counter-argument from John 6.
I don’t know if Calvin ever considered Rev. Bacon’s novel idea that 1 Corinthians 12.13 refers to Pentecost. I would guess that he didn’t consider Pentecost a possibility for the rather common-sensical reason that the Holy Spirit did not fall on the Corinthians at Pentecost. Thus, to appeal to the Pentecost as something that happened to the Corinthians would be a useless appeal. Calvin uses the passage to explain of the rite of Baptism:
But as far as it is a symbol of our confession, we ought by it to testify that our confidence is in God’s mercy, and our purity in forgiveness of sins, which has been procured for us through Jesus Christ; and that we enter God’s church in order to live harmoniously with all believers in complete agreement of faith and love. This last point was what Paul meant when he said, “We have all been baptized in one Spirit that we may be one body” (4.15.14)
According to Charles Hodge, Calvin, along with Luther and Beza, believed that being made to drink one spirit was a reference to the cup in the Lord’s Supper. (A Commentary on 1 & 2 Corinthians [Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1974], p. 255. Hodge disagrees with them.)
Next, we consider the Westminster Divines. I have already mentioned in my initial response to Rev. Bacon how the framers of the Confession of Faith used 1 Corinthians 10.1-4 to prove that the sacraments of the Old Testament are the same in substance with those of the New Testament (27.5). There is an additional citation in the Larger Catechism. Question 174 asks “What is required of them that receive the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper in the time of the administration of it?” The answer includes a direction to “stir up themselves to a vigorous exercise of their graces.” The prooftexts include 1 Corinthians 10.3-5. The Divines also considered manna and the water from the rock to be sacramental.
Furthermore, the Westminster Standards appeal to 1 Corinthian 12.13 to prove that baptism admits the baptized into the institutional Church (28.1), “the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ, the house and family of God, out of which there is no ordinary possibility of salvation” (25.2). Likewise, the answer to question 165 of the Larger Catechism uses the text to prove that baptism is the sacrament “whereby the parties baptized are solemnly admitted into the visible Church.”
Let us now consider Charles Hodge. Hodge comments on 1 Corinthians 10.3, “As they had their baptism, so they had their eucharist; and they all had it” (ibid., p. 172).
On 12.13, Hodge departs from the Westminster Standards because he had a rather lower view of the visible Church and her relation to water baptism, as his numerous essays bear out. He states that the sacrament of baptism is not in view here, but rather regeneration. (Ibid., p. 254. To his credit, Hodge does not hesitate to claim that “the baptism of the Spirit often attends the baptism of water.” This is a bolder admission than I commonly hear today in Presbyterian circles.) Hodge uses Pentecost as an example of the use of the term “baptize” which does not involve water. But it never seems to enter Hodge’s mind that the event of Pentecost is here being referred to by Paul. Again, it would be nonsense for Paul to refer to the outpouring of Pentecost because the Corinthians weren’t there at the time. They were made partakers in that outpouring through their own baptisms, just as were the first converts on the day of Pentecost (Acts 2.38; 1 Corinthians 1.10-17). Just as Gentile proselytes who were circumcised could then celebrate their deliverance from Egypt, despite their physical ancestry, so those of us who are baptized into Christ’s body, the Church, are made participants in the Holy Spirit Who moved into the Church on the Day of Pentecost.
I have not the energy to type up quotations from Louis Berkhof’s Systematic Theology. I simply invite you to investigate the Scriptural index at your leisure.
The conclusion of all this, is that Rev. Bacon’s appendix is even more insulting to paedocommunionists than the body of his tract. He acts as if we were all a bunch of bizzarities simply because we have taken our own tradition seriously. All we have done by mentioning manna and water from the Rock is reproduce the Reformed consensus of the past four and a half centuries! Yet Rev. Bacon shamelessly “opines”: “The fact that the argument has shifted from a sacramental meal to a non-sacramental meal gives the impression that it is the practice of the paedocommunion that is being defended rather than a covenantal hermeneutic.”
The fact that Rev. Bacon is willing to simply re-write the Reformation Tradition in sacramental hermeneutics, without admitting it to his readers, gives the impression that he is more interested in winning an argument with the ignorant in favor of an unbiblical human tradition than dealing honestly and openly with the issues involved.
Since we’re supposed to be “always being reformed,” I suppose I should explain why I am not addressing Rev. Bacon’s actual arguments for denying the sacramental nature of manna and the water from the Rock. The main reason is I find them entirely implausible. Had Rev. Bacon admitted that he was dealing with errors he had found in Reformed notables from Bucer to Berkhof, then perhaps I would feel a need to let him know why I am not persuaded by his exegesis. But, as it is, I am content with an expos� of his revisionism. What reason do I have to think he is truly interested in whether or not paedocommunion is the covenantal position? (On Bucer, see Common Places of Martin Bucer. The Courtenay Library of Reformation Classics 4, D.F. Wright, trans. [Appleford, Abingdon, Berkshire, England: Sutton Courtenay Press, 1972], p. 287.)
A second reason is that Dr. Ken Gentry, in his sermon series “Paedocommunion: Faith or Fad?” gives some excellent reasons for closely associating manna with Passover. Though strenuously (and fallaciously, in my opinion) opposing paedocommunion, Dr. Gentry points out that the directions are identical for both choosing the Passover lamb and gathering manna (“according to the mouth of eating”). Furthermore, the Israelites were forbidden in the case of both the Passover lamb and the manna to save any for the next day. If Rev. Bacon has a reply for Dr. Gentry, I would like to hear it. (You can order Dr. Gentry’s 4 cassettes from Covenant Media Foundation for $18. Call 1 (800) 553-3938; or see their website at cmnfnow.com. My critique of Dr. Gentry, “God’s Uncovered Pit: Kenneth Gentry on Paedocommunion,” is available for $2.50 from Biblical Horizons , P.O. Box 1096, Niceville, FL 32588.)
As it stands, Rev. Bacon is the innovator; and thus he reveals that paedocommunionists are the conservatives who are simply trying to be consistent with Reformational hermeneutics. The fact is that, according to Rev. Bacon, John Calvin, the Westminster Divines, and Charles Hodge all ought to have been paedocommunionists. They all believed that manna and water from the rock were sacraments. In the final analysis, then, Rev. Bacon is actually arguing that paedocommunion is the more truly Reformed practice. I’m glad to be able to conclude that we agree on something!
[There is one other alternative, which I would consider too ridiculous to mention except that Rev. Bacon mentions it as if he realizes he might need to resort to it: He claims that we are not “forced to conclude that children, much less infants, must have been partakers of manna. I would be unable to prove that exegetically (the paedocommunionists are equally unable to prove it, but I am willing to concede the point).” First of all, paedocommunionism is concerned with partially weaned children, not suckling infants. Secondly, to claim that such weaned children might not have eaten the manna, or that such a thing cannot be proven (or even needs to be proven) exegetically, is simply a ludicrous claim which merits no counter-argument. That Rev. Bacon would attempt to raise a shadow of a doubt on this point is rather amazing.]
This article was originally published at Biblical Horizons in two parts.
Rite Reasons, Studies in Worship, No. 51
Rite Reasons, Studies in Worship, No. 52