Transcript

ANNOUNCER: How old should a child be before allowing them to participate in communion? Or maybe also before they should be baptized? Do we have to let children prove by their actions that they’re really saved before we let them participate? Well, thank you for joining us today here on Grace in Focus. This is a ministry of the Grace Evangelical Society. Find us at faithalone.org. And we also have a YouTube channel, YouTube, Grace Evangelical Society, where we release short videos with free grace content. So we want you to subscribe and like them. And once again, you can find them at YouTube, Grace Evangelical Society. One more time on our website, faithalone.org.

And now with today’s question and answer discussion, here are Bob Wilkin and Ken Yates. 

KEN: Bob, we have a question sent in from Julia. She says that she has a nine-year-old son and she says he believes in Jesus for eternal life. She was wondering, what about him taking communion? She mentions that he has been baptized. But what do you think about these two different things? 

BOB: So Julia is asking basically about children partaking of communion? 

KEN: Yeah, and I guess even though it doesn’t say in the question, also should, in this case, a nine-year-old who says, hey, I understand, I believe in Jesus for eternal life, should they be baptized? 

BOB: Okay. Well, I have a couple of anecdotes that you might find interesting. Number one is back in around 2001, I think it was, I went to Southern California to what’s called the Shepherds Conference, which was at Grace Community Church. John MacArthur was one of the keynote speakers and I heard various plenary sessions where there were about, I think, 1,500 people, it was a big conference. 

And then I heard breakout sessions. And in one of the breakout sessions, I was with one of the youth pastors at Grace Community Church, and there were maybe 50 of us in this breakout. And he was talking about children and what they did at Grace Community Church. And one of the things he said was, we don’t baptize children at Grace Community Church, because we don’t believe that children have manifested enough good works to indicate that they’re born again, besides they haven’t gone through puberty yet. 

Then he used his own daughter and son as examples. He said, I have a 16-year-old daughter and she’s very godly and you can see in her behavior that she’s probably born again. So we’ve baptized her. But he said, I have a 14-year-old son and I don’t see the evidence. He said, maybe he’s born again, maybe he’s not, but we haven’t baptized him yet. He’d like to be baptized, but we aren’t willing to baptize him because there’s insufficient evidence. And I thought, wow, wouldn’t it be weird if this boy ends up hearing that his dad is saying, I don’t see the evidence, wouldn’t that be a bit frustrating? 

KEN: Well, I’m sure that they told him, you know, when the boy says I want to be baptized, and so I’m assuming the parent said, well, you’re a knucklehead, you know.

BOB: You’re probably right. And by the way, he didn’t bring up communion, but I assume the same would be true, right? If you won’t let him be baptized, I assume they tell him don’t take communion too, right, wouldn’t you think? 

KEN: Yeah, I remember when I, the army sent me to Southern Seminary, and I mean, there was a discussion there over this issue, and I remember at least some of the guys there saying, I’m talking about some of the profs, taking the view that even older people, that someone who comes, I’m talking like a 20 year old who says, hey, I believe, and specifically they were talking about what if they’re a homosexual, and they believe? You can’t baptize them until they’ve been, quote unquote, in the faith long enough to see if they’re going to reject that lifestyle. Same idea. 

It’s just older, but they were talking about that particular sin, which I found kind of interesting because, okay, so someone comes and says, listen, I’m a homosexual, but I believed in Jesus for eternal life. If I say to them, well, I’m not sure. We’re going to give you a year to see if you have left these homosexual lusts and tendencies behind. Well, what about the 20 year old who’s looking at porn? So let’s say a 20 year old comes to the church and says, hey, I believe, and they go, well, you listen, you’re a 20 year old guy, you’ve been an unbeliever for all these years, you’re probably got temptations with this lust. So we’re going to wait for a year to see how you do. 

BOB: Well, do we quiz them and say, sure, are you sexually active? And you know, this is a good question. If someone comes to your church and they come to faith and they say, pastor, I’ve come to faith, I’d like to be baptized. Do we now quiz them about their lifestyle? And I say the answer is no. 

KEN: And that was my point. 

BOB: We baptize them. And by the way, if you have a person to church, whether they’re heterosexual or homosexuall, if they’re sexually active and they’re in your church, don’t we have to give them at least some time to grow before we exercise church discipline? I mean, it seems to me, if you had a heterosexual or homosexual that was in your church and they came to faith, you would give them a certain amount of time. You wouldn’t say instantly, okay, you’re sleeping with a girl that’s not your spouse. So, guy, you got to get out of the church, you’re excommunicated until you turn from that. 

KEN: Right, we’re not going to baptize you until you pass this test. 

BOB: And not only we’re not going to baptize you, you can’t even come to church. You can’t even take a communion. You can’t do it. We wouldn’t do that, right? And we shouldn’t do that with that almost sexually either. But let’s say the person comes into the church and they’re sleeping around, some guy that’s heterosexual, he’s sleeping around and you teach him that that’s wrong and he continues to do it. Eventually, aren’t you going to, and by eventually I would say you would first meet with them individually and then bring them before the elder board and then you would say, okay, you’re no longer welcome in this church until you repent. 

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BOB: Wouldn’t that happen at some point? 

KEN: Sure. I think that we’re making a comparison here with a 20 year old and a child, let’s say a 10 year old. In this case, Julia is talking about a nine year old. It seems to me, I don’t know if you agree with this or not, but it seems to me that the difference in a kid, at least is my experience. I’ve been involved in churches for a long time, is do they understand? That’s the difference. You know, when you talk about a nine year old, now Julia says he understands. Okay. So if you believe he understands, I have eternal life in Christ, I would say he can be baptized. He can take communion. But I think the more common thing that you hear from parents is I’m not really sure they understand. Maybe they, maybe they want to be baptized because their brother was baptized. 

BOB: Okay, here’s the issue to me is not understanding. The issue is believing. So as you know, the notitia, assensus, fiducia. Notitia is understanding. Assensus is basically believing or assenting and then fiducia is just repetitive. It’s another name for believing. So who wrote Faith and Saving Faith? That was Gordon Clark. 

And he says in there that once you understand and accept something, you believe it. And that the fiducia is just repetitive. And he said, that’s adding on a layer that shouldn’t be there. And I think he’s absolutely right. 

So my point would be with a nine year old, my problem is not whether they understand. It’s whether they believe. Let’s, I’ve heard two year olds that can say, Jesus died on the cross for my sins and he rose bodily from the dead, and I believe in him and I know I’m going to have him when I die. Well, does that two year old believe that? Or is this like the two year old saying, and I believe the tooth fairy is going to leave me a dollar. And I believe that Santa Claus is going to bring some gifts. 

What happens is, and this is what the Child Evangelism Fellowship people tell me, a child shifts between believing that fantasies are true and recognizing fantasies aren’t true. And once they get to that point, they’re now able to believe in Jesus for everlasting life. 

KEN: I’m kind of curious. Do they say that that age is different for different kids? Or do they say for for most kids, it’s like an age what seven? 

BOB: They say it’s for most kids, it’s around five. But, it can be anywhere from some would say five to 10. Some would say as young as two or three to 10. But whatever it is, if the person says, yeah, I believe in Jesus, I know I’m going to heaven, but they also believe in Santa Claus and everything else, they’ve not yet probably believed because they’re just parroting back what they’ve heard. And so, but let’s say that the nine-year-old believes, and yeah, baptize them, let them take communion. 

Let me give a couple other quick illustrations. I was talking to Dr. Mark Bailey one time before he was the president of Dallas Seminary. And he said he talked to John MacArthur one time and says, does my six-year-old boy need to make Jesus Lord of his toys to be saved? And he said, no. And so he said, I think John was saying, you know, it’s just by faith. But then MacArthur was also in Kansas City one time and he made this statement, salvation is an adult decision. And of course, if you believe that salvation is a decision, I need to decide to turn from my sins—

KEN: Make Jesus Lord of my life. 

BOB: Make Jesus Lord of life, follow Him right, the subtitle of The Gospel According to Jesus to some of the editions is “What did Jesus mean when he said, follow me”. So if you say following Jesus is the condition, well then you’re going to say that’s an adult decision. 

And I remember being in Paris, Texas, I preached at Paris Bible Church back in 85. I was with a couple in the afternoon and they were five-point Calvinists and they had boys that were like 12 and 11. And they said, we don’t know if our boys—in front of the boys—they said, we don’t know if these boys are born again or not. We don’t see enough fruit yet. But we’re going to watch them and when they go off on their own, then we’ll be able to look and we’ll be more confident that they’re born again. And I’m thinking, man, people who grow up under that, that’s really a mess. 

So in answer to Julia’s question, I would say, look, if we’re not willing to baptize children, there’s a disconnect here. If we’re not willing to let children partake of communion, there’s a disconnect here. We’re ultimately saying we doubt they’re born again. Is there anything in Scripture that says, a born again person can’t take the Lord’s Supper until they’re 21? 

KEN: Until we’ve seen enough fruit? 

BOB: No, there’s not. So I would be absolutely appalled by restricting communion or baptism to people who are over certain age. 

KEN: Right. Yeah. The bottom line is if someone believes that they have eternal life—

BOB: By faith, apart from works.

KEN: Whether he’s nine in this case or 10 or whatever the case may be, no, you can’t prohibit them from taking, or you shouldn’t prohibit them from taking communion. 

BOB: And the same thing with baptism. Now, you can, this a whole other subject, but in my opinion, elders can’t be female,number one, and elders can’t be under the age that is an elder. So I would never make a 20 or 25 or 30 year old man an elder. Because he’s not an elder yet. Timothy is called a neaniskos in Paul’s epistles. That’s a young man. And most people say he was around 35 there. He was not yet a presbyteros. He was not yet an elder. So it’s one thing to say children can be baptized. They can take communion. It’s another thing to say children can be elders. No, they can’t. 

KEN: You can’t make a whippersnapper an elder. 

BOB: No, you cannot. You ought to make someone who’s got children and their obedient, etc. But that’s a whole other subject. So I’m sorry for going off of the tangent.

KEN: Well, thanks for the question, Julia. We hope that helped. If your nine-year-old believes in Jesus Christ for eternal life, let him take communion. That’s it. And remember, keep grace in focus. 

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On our next episode: how many chances do you get to believe for eternal salvation? Come back and join us and until then, let’s keep grace in focus.