According to the Landmark view only Baptist churches are the real church.[1] Which means that only Landmark Baptist churches can baptize and give the elements of the Lord’s Supper. “Only a true church can set the Lord’s table, said the Landmarkers, and only church members can validly approach that table.”[2] This, of course, “resulted in ‘closed communion’ by which non-Baptist were not eligible to partake of the Lord’s Supper in Baptist churches, nor Baptist in non-Baptist churches.”[3] Out of this mentality one could easily see that the churches would probably have the tendency of becoming very elitist and very exclusive.
This doctrine and thought came out of a reaction against the liberal movement.[4] The idea was to have a pure visible church and out of trying to achieve that came the Landmark movement. While it is good to react against liberalism one must always insure that one is still remaining Biblical. Here the Landmark movement failed to stay within the standard of the Bible and rather put their own philosophy to develop an ecclesiology. The passage that will be looked at to see if there should be closed communion or not will be the 1 Corinthians 11 passage.
For some, context is important to notice. The letter is addressed to the church in Corinth, however this address does not necessitate it being solely to the church at Corinth but also the universal church.[5] Moo and Carson agree that this epistle is an “occasional” letter,[6] which means that Paul was writing because questions had been asked of him but also because he had heard of things that were going on in the church and he wanted to correct them. One of those areas that needed correction was that they were misusing the Lord’s Supper.
There seems to be a statement that would disqualify individuals from taking the elements, which would mean that possibly the Landmark view, does hold water. The statement says, “Wherefore whosoever shall eat this bread, and drink this cup of the Lord, unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord” (1Cor. 11:27). However, two things are very noticeable just from the context. First, it is not the church who is going to single an individual out. While Paul is writing to a church he is also writing to the individuals in that church. He is telling them that the next time that they take of the elements they need make sure that they are right with God. The church does not do that. The Church does intervene in the life of its members (read 1 Cor. 5 how the church was to disciple one of its members) but this context does not indicate that the church is to be judging the life of its members, and furthermore nothing in the context would say that believers from Philippi could not partake of the elements.
The other point that would disqualify closed communion is that Paul tells the believers in verse 28 “let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of that bread, and drink of that cup.” Paul puts the responsibility on each individual. Furthermore, Paul gives a warning in verse 29 that those individuals that did eat and drink in an unworthy manner ate and drank damnation unto them. Clearly, Paul is talking specifically to individuals to judge themselves. Because the one who would know best if they can partake of the Lord’s Supper would be each individual.
The Landmark view on closed communion is not what the Bible advocates. One should be saved and preferably baptized before taking the elements. But the notion of having to be baptized and a member of a Landmark church before you can partake is unbiblical, one cannot find that in the Bible.
[1] H. Leon McBeth, The Baptist Heritage (Nashville: Broadman Press, 1987), 450.
[2] Ibid. 452.
[3] Ibid.
[4] W. Morgan Patterson, “The Influence of Landmarkism Among Baptist” Baptist History and Heritage 10 no 1 Ja 1975 [journal on-line]; available from http://search.atlaonline.com/pls/eli/ashow?aid=ATLA0001537100; Internet; accessed 13 April 2007.
[5] F. W. Grosheide, Commentary on the First Epistle to the Corinthians (Grand Rapids: WM. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1953), 22. Landmarkism does not believe in the universal church but only in the local visible church.
[6] D. A. Carson and Douglas J. Moo, An Introduction to the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2005), 415.
