Intinction

Posted by Pastor Beatty (user1) on Oct 20 2007 at 4:37 PM

Perhaps it's just me, or perhaps it's this region of the country, but it appears that for some reason the practice of intinction is becoming increasingly popular in Reformed churches.  In short, intinction refers to dipping the bread (or more often wafer) of the Lord's Supper into the cup holding the wine (or more often grape juice).  I find this practice troubling for several reasons.

First of all, though tradition is certainly not authoritative and we must always judge our traditions in light of Scripture, the fact that intinction has never been the practice of Protestant churches should at least give us pause concerning the rite.  Naturally, if an exegetical case can be made to show that our traditional practice has been in error, then we should by all means bring our practices into conformity with the scriptural pattern.  I fear, however, that this is not what is motivating those who have started practicing intinction.  From what I can gather from the discussions I've had (which are by no means exhaustive), it appears that pragmatic reasons (the speed and simplicity of serving the elements by having the church come forward single file) are the primary driving force for the practice. 

I find this to be very unfortunate, given the fact that not only has intinction been historically condemend by the church, but more importantly because it destroys the inherent sacrificial symbolism of separating the body from the blood.  What I mean is simply that in the sacrificial system the blood of the sacrifice was always poured out and kept separate from the body.  As James Jordan puts it, "The rituals of Leviticus are most specific:  The blood was never offered with the flesh.  The blood was sprinkled on or before the various altars, or daubed on the horns of the altar, or poured out at the base."  (Rite Reasons No. 1, "Do This!").  For this reason, churches historically understood that the reason why every account of the Lord's Supper given in Scripture notes two separate actions, a prayer of thanksgiving for the bread followed by its consumption, and then another prayer of thanksgiving for the wine followed by its consumption.  Moreover, all of this was done in unison with the entire congregation seated.  Given all this, the scriptural emphasis on "breaking" bread clearly communicates the sacrificial nature of the rite, just as the partaking of the bread and wine, the body and blood, into two separate actions does as well.

That this is to be the practice of Reformed churches can be seen from the fact that The Westminster Directory for the Public Worship of God goes into great detail to describe the proper manner in which the Supper is to be administered and observed.  While the Directory for Worship does not have constitutional authority in the PCA, and as we said above we must consider our traditions in light of Scripture, I would still hope that those who have departed from the Reformed tradition would begin to make their case to the rest of us who are struggling with this practice of their reasons for departure from the Reformed practice of celebrating Communion with two spearate actions.  I say this because I truly want to commune with my brothers in Christ, but I fear that I am violating conscience when I am expected to practice a rite which I believe to be clearly contrary to Scripture.  Lest anyone think that this is being overly scrupulous, I simply respond by noting that the manner in which the Lord's Supper is to be observed prompted one of the longest debates of the Westminster Assembly.  Though in our time we put much less emphasis on matters of worship, I fear that this is one place where our forefathers had a much more bibilcial emphasis than ourselves.                 

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