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The fencing of the Lord’s Table occurs when a lawfully ordained minister, according to Scripture, provides instruction, warnings, and exhortations to a congregation before the administration of the Lord’s Supper. The precommunion address heralds the astonishing gospel of grace, and it clarifies who is, and who is not, in a spiritual condition to partake. It serves as a verbal fence, constructed around the table, to guard it from being profaned by the faithless and unrepentant. Therefore, the fencing is an earnest invitation to approach the Lord’s Table on God’s terms and a solemn admonition to refrain if one does not.
Many Christians today are unfamiliar with the fencing of the table. It’s as foreign to them as church discipline (Matt. 16:18–19; 18:15–18). This is partly because mainline and broad evangelical ministers stopped fencing the table a long time ago. Consequently, some Christians are deeply offended by the practice. What some fail to understand, however, is that admission to the Lord’s Table is a profound spiritual privilege and not an individual right. Sentimental, therapeutic, and superstitious views of the supper insist that everyone be given a seat at the table. But God’s inspired and authoritative Word reveals requirements for participation (1 Cor. 11:17–34). The church has recognized this from its earliest days.
The Didache, a first-century church order, states that the unbaptized are prohibited from receiving the Lord’s Supper. Early church fathers Augustine (354–430) and John Chrysostom (347–407) formally dismissed noncommunicants from services before the administration of the supper. Informed by this ancient practice, leaders of the sixteenth-century Protestant Reformation implemented liturgical forms that clearly distinguish between communicants and noncommunicants. While the phrase fencing the table was not in use until the late seventeenth century, this is precisely what the Reformers were doing in their parishes.
The liturgical form for communion in John Calvin’s Geneva states that “strangers—in other words, those who are not of the company of the faithful—ought not to be admitted.” In the same vein, Calvin declares:
We must preserve the order of the Lord’s Supper, that it may not be profaned by being administered indiscriminately. For it is very true that he to whom its distribution has been committed, if he knowingly and willingly admits an unworthy person whom he could rightfully turn away, is sacrilege.
On September 3, 1553, at St. Pierre’s Cathedral, Calvin’s resolve was severely tested on this point. A group of troublemakers called the Libertines were in attendance for public worship. When the time came for communion, Calvin made his way down from the high pulpit to the Lord’s Table. The Libertines were conspicuously seated near the front of the sanctuary, intending to partake. But because of to their unfitness for communion, Calvin and his consistory (the body of church elders) would not permit them to do so. In his precommunion exhortation, the Genevan pastor boldly declared that he would “die sooner than his hand shall stretch forth the sacred things of the Lord to those who have been judged despisers.”
A brief survey of church history shows that the Reformers’ blood-earnest conviction on these matters was also found in their spiritual descendants. The fencing of the table has been a staple of Protestant worship throughout the ages. The following, then, are two reasons that churches must return to the historical practice of fencing the table.
1. The fencing of the Lord’s Table is taught in Scripture and in the Reformed confessions. The Holy Spirit, through the Apostle Paul, gives sober instruction to the church on how to administer and receive the Lord’s Supper (1 Cor. 11:17–34). There were some in the church at Corinth who were violating the table through divisions, selfishness, drunkenness, and idolatry (1 Cor. 10:21; 11:10, 21). Holy Communion was being desecrated. To guard the Lord’s Table from future corruption, Paul presented instructions, exhortations, and warnings to the church. Ministers today, without embarrassment or timidity, are called to do the same. Where sound instruction before communion is lacking, ignorance, superstition, and divine judgment abound (11:29–32). These principles are copiously delineated in the Westminster Standards and the Three Forms of Unity.
2. The fencing of the Lord’s Table reinforces the relationship between the Lord’s Supper and the visible church. Committed membership in a local church should be compulsory for those who partake of the Lord’s Supper. The New Testament everywhere assumes that baptized believers will be devoted members of a local church and under the shepherding care of ordained elders (Acts 2:41–42; Heb. 13:17; 1 Peter 5:1–4). Therefore, refusal to identify with a congregation through formal church membership ordinarily disqualifies a person from coming to the Lord’s Table.
The Lord’s Supper is a covenant meal, administered in the context of ecclesial nurture and accountability. While baptism, faith in Christ, self-examination, and repentance are requirements for participating (1 Cor. 11:27–29), the Lord’s Supper is more than a personal religious experience (10:17). It’s corporate in nature, a sacred meal with God and His people. Nothing is more fundamental to the administration of the Lord’s Supper. A sound fencing of the table brings church membership and its spiritual benefits into focus. Even better, it punctuates the glorious fact that at one time we were His enemies, but now, by His sovereign grace, we are guests at His table.