Scripture contains two fundamental principles when it comes to the eating of sacred meals. The first principle concerns what we eat, and the second principle concerns with whom we eat. The answers to these questions for Christians are, respectively, bread and wine, and with all who call upon the name of the true God. Excluded are non believers and false believers.
Nonbelievers do not present a problem usually, because they eat from their own table. They do not want to share with us here. But false brothers are a different matter. They creep in to spy out our liberty.
We can welcome them to the true Table of the Lord only to the extent that they are willing to drop their false standards of exclusion. But dropping those false standards is the same thing as repentance. The message of unity that Paul insists on in Galatians does not permit a barrier at this Table between men and women, or Jews and Gentiles, slave or free, and so forth. But it necessitates a barrier between the gospel and the anti-gospel. Paul says that in Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek . . . he does not say that in Christ there is neither brother nor false brother.
This means that if one of the central meanings of this meal is that of inclusion, it must be a principled inclusion—meaning that it must exclude all those who would preach another gospel. This is no contradiction except of those who contradict the message of grace. So come, and welcome.
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