Is baptism required before a person can receive communion?

Yes. No one is rightly in the Christian circle, the circle in which Christ is confessed as Lord, unless he has been baptized.

Ques.—Several of our children have confessed faith in Christ as their Saviour, but as yet have not received water baptism. They desire to be with us at the Lord’s table. Does Scripture forbid their being received before being baptized?

Ans.—We do not find in Scripture such a thing as admitting at the Lord’s table first, and baptizing afterward. Baptism, being the initiation ordinance into the kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ, is always the first thing. Mark, we say the kingdom, not the assembly. The two things, though related, are quite distinct from each other. The Lord’s table is for those who, within that kingdom, show a living faith in Christ. The assembly does not receive them because they have been baptized, but because they discover in them such a work of the Holy Spirit as shows them to be truly members of Christ. They should insist, however, that persons being received among them be baptized persons.

40 Ques. Should not a person be baptised to be received at the table?

As to order, he should be baptised first. If any one refused intelligently and deliberately to be baptised, I think he should not be received.

In our consideration of Christian baptism we saw that it had to do with our personal walk, whereas the matter of breaking bread affects our corporate walk. The two things are not directly connected. In no passage of the New Testament are the two acts linked. Consequently we find no direct command that it is imperative for someone who participates in the Breaking of Bread to be baptized.

There is, however, a practical matter that we should consider. How can anyone who, in his responsibility on his personal pathway in following the Lord, is inconsistent as to baptism nevertheless partake of the privileges of the believer at the Lord’s Table? One should be able to expect of those who desire to take part in the Breaking of Bread that they also wish to follow the Lord personally and take a stand on His side. There may be exceptions under certain circumstances, but as a rule anyone who is received by a local assembly will have been baptized. Normally baptism will always precede participation in the Breaking Bread.

Conversely, the Bible knows of no automatic procedure that someone who has been baptized is simultaneously received for the Breaking of Bread. Baptism, on the one hand, and the Breaking of Bread, on the other, are distinct spheres of Christian life. In the normal process of the growth of a believer someone who has been baptized will have the wish to partake of the Breaking of Bread.

1 As water baptism follows believing the Gospel and is more or less connected with the work of evangelization, we have not enlarged upon that subject in these papers on the Church. It is the baptism of the Holy Spirit that puts one into the Church, the Body of Christ. However, the divine pattern in the book of Acts shows us that those who were saved were baptized with water and then received into the local company of Christians. Baptism is an open sign and testimony before men that one believes in Christ and belongs to Him. No one stands on the outward ground of being a Christian who has not been baptized with water to the name of the triune God. Hence no unbaptized persons should be received into communion in an Assembly, for the ordinance of baptism precedes the ordinance of the Lord's Supper. For further study of the subject of baptism the reader is directed to the author's pamphlet, "Baptism, What Is It?" obtainable from Believers Bookshelf.

p418 [F B Wride] MY DEAR BROTHER, - I have no doubt at all, that a person, who never has been baptised, ought to be, before they break bread. If a person be inside without one's being aware of it, or even were dying, or only waiting the possibility of doing it, one might bear and wait, but it is clear that in scripture they came in externally by baptism. I have baptised a great many Quakers' and Baptists' children who never had been and when I found unbaptised persons breaking bread, spoken with them, though then waiting till they saw clear. But it is not order. I look at it as the orderly entrance among Christians - the company God has upon earth. I think from scripture the children of those within have the privilege to be brought in; "Of such is the kingdom of heaven:" and they are holy, not unclean as the children of a Jew who married a Gentile. The being a member of the body is through the baptism of the Holy Ghost. But precepts are given to children, and they are to be brought up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. Having been once thus admitted, they cannot be admitted over again. But I never seek to persuade any one of children's baptism. The only commission to baptise was to the twelve to baptise Gentiles (not Jews), and it went from resurrection not ascension; they were (to) disciple nations and baptise them. This they afterwards left to Paul, who tells us he was not sent to baptise; though clearly it was not abrogated.

I do not add any argument against baptist views. Its being obedience is given up by all who have really looked into scripture. The Lord's supper is the sign of the unity of the body, and that is the bond we own; but it is quite clear from scripture, that when people become Christians they were admitted by baptism amongst the rest: but it has nothing to do with the unity of the body, but admission by a form which expresses Christ's death as their way in. When thus admitted, they are in once for all, and cannot be admitted again. Hence, even Baptists, if they found a person, baptised by them, unconverted, who afterwards believed, they would not baptise them again; and they are right in my judgment. If a person breaking bread was found never to have been baptised at all, I should merely rectify an irregularity as quietly as possible. It is as men speak, the cart before the horse. We have a case here of a young person just brought to the Lord, and it is quite understood she was to be baptised first.

p343 [C Crain] DEAR BROTHER, - I thought probably baptism was on the mind of -; with him it would be taking on the responsibility of a Christian, and till he fully knows grace this would be a difficulty when a man is conscientious, so one would wait, only putting the grace clearly before him. But in his case it should surely come first: it is the just order, and for the above reason not without its moral bearing. But at any rate it would be the just order. We must come into the house, naturally, before we sit down to the table in the house, though the Lord's supper is the expression of the unity of the body, and by one Spirit we are baptised into one body, and with that baptism has nothing directly to do. Only as I said, it is the natural order, and his own soul's state has to be considered in connection with it, not to slip in easy, though I do not think he is inclined to that.

Rather unexpectedly in view of their great diversity, there is one doctrine and practice which is held by all Open Brethren assemblies - except perhaps by one or two of exclusive origin - which is that baptism must be only for believers of a responsible a e on confession of faith. Most meetings refuse to allow a person to break bread unless he has been baptised as a believer, and if he was baptised as an infant it does not count in their eyes. The doctrine of household baptism is rigidly rejected and no teaching of it would be allowed. Some meetings might tolerate an individual who held such a view, but he would have to keep quiet on the subject.

It is not denied that baptism was the outward sign or manifestation of a confessor of Christ. Only it is important to remember that a believer was not baptised as a member of any particular assembly. Recognised by baptism as a confessor of Christ, one naturally sought communion where one happened to be, if there was an assembly there; and the Lord's supper was the constantly-recurring outward pledge and symbol of union and communion. "For we, being many, are one bread, one body, for we are all partakers of that one bread " (1 Cor. 10:17). It may be added here, that those who preached in no way regarded baptism or the Lord's supper as rites to be administered necessarily by them. Thus Peter commanded Cornelius and his friends to be baptised in the name of the Lord (Acts 10:48); and Paul writes, "Christ sent me, not to baptise, but to preach the gospel" (1 Cor. 1:17). He says this markedly as to the Corinthians, and many of them, we know, believed and were baptised (Acts 18:8); so that other brethren must have acted in this service. As to the Lord's supper, the same thing is as plain, if not more so. In fact the idea of an authorised person to break the bread does not occur, nor anything that I know which gives a colour to it, in the New Testament. See Acts 20:7, also 1 Cor. 11, where if under any circumstances, there might have seemed the need of some restraint; for the Corinthians had turned the table to fleshly licence. But while the Spirit reproves the evil, and presses the holy and solemn character of the feast, He leaves the manner of its celebration as unrestricted as ever. It is the saints as a body who are in His view, and not a privileged class who claim the administration as their right. Circumstances apart, as for the example in the case of a novice, any brother was competent to baptise or to break the bread.

This leads me to another point - what baptism is to the being members of Christ's body. This is another unscriptural fallacy. Baptism has, even as a sign, nothing to do with the unity of the body. "By one Spirit are we all baptised into one body" - not by water. The baptism of the Spirit is the seal of faith, as scripture repeatedly declares. "In whom after that ye believed ye were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise." And if this was given, as in the case of Cornelius, they were baptised afterwards to be received amongst Christians. Baptism as a sign does not go beyond death and resurrection, and hence is individual. The church does not die - has nothing to do with it: it is taken out of death in Christ, and united to a Head in heaven by the Holy Ghost; but for this Christ must be ascended there. He sends down the Holy Ghost and forms the church. (See the end of Eph. 1.) Of this unity the Lord's supper is the sign, not Baptism. We are all one body, "for we are all partakers of that one loaf." But here again it is not a sign that we have eaten His flesh and drunk His blood. We do so in figure, as we are one body inasmuch as we partake.