1 Corinthians 10:1-6 and It's Implications for Paedocommunion

10:1 For I do not want you to be unaware, brothers, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, 2 and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, 3 and all ate the same spiritual food, 4 and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual Rock that followed them, and the Rock was Christ. 5 Nevertheless, with most of them God was not pleased, for they were overthrown in the wilderness. 6 Now these things took place as examples for us, that we might not desire evil as they did.

It's clear that Paul wanted to teach here that going through the sea and eating the manna and drinking the water from the rock in the wilderness are the exodus' prefiguration of baptism and communion. 

Chrysostom noted, 

Just as the gifts are symbolic, so are the punishments symbolic. Baptism and holy Communion were prefigured in prophecy. In the same way the certainty of punishment for those who are unworthy of this gift was proclaimed beforehand for our sake, so that we might learn from these examples how we must watch our step (Homilies on the Epistles of Paul to the Corinthians 23.4).

Likewise, Ambrosiaster commented, "The manna and the water which flowed from the rock are called spiritual because they were formed not according to the law of nature but by the power of God working independently of the natural elements. They were created for a time as figures of what we now eat and drink in remembrance of Christ the Lord (COMMENTARY ON PAUL’S EPISTLES).

Origen argued that "These things were written as examples for us, so that when we read about their sins we shall know to avoid them (COMMENTARY ON 1 CORINTHIANS 4.46).

There are two major questions to answer here. The first is who partook in baptism and communion in the exodus according to this text? And the second is, How can one avoid the punishments of those who partook of these things in the wilderness?

The answer to the first is undoubtedly, "Everyone." All the men, all the women, and all the children went through the sea. All the men, all the women, and all the children ate of the manna and drank the water in one way or another. They were all partakers in it. 

This leads to the the answer of the second question. Paul says that the rebellion of the Israelites, not the partaking of the sacraments, caused God to bring wrath upon them in the wilderness and kill them. The answer was not that God's wrath was upon them because they partook of what was holy. They were supposed to do that. All of them. The problem is that they partook of what was holy and then rebelled.

Now, who rebelled? The children? One of the groups mentioned in 1 Corinthians 10 is the group that grumbled and were destroyed by the Destroyer, i.e., Satan. 

One of the groups that grumbled and rejected Moses' authority was the group of which Korah was the federal head. In fact, he was the one who led the rebellion. The text says that he and all of his household went down alive into the pit, his wife, his children, his cattle, his tent, and his infants. Yes, his infants. Why did his infants go down? Because they partook in communion? Nope. They would have survived on into the Promised Land had Korah not rebelled. So it was Korah's rebellion that landed his infants in that pit under the wrath of God. 

This then tells us that the answer is not to withdraw our households from the sacraments and what is holy but rather to be fully aware as federal heads that if we partake in what is holy and continue in sin, we place our households in grave danger. 

To withdraw from holy things in case we might sin is evil. We are commanded to partake in them. Hence, whether we have our children partake or not, they are partaking of what is holy through us either way and the remedy is not to act like they aren't partaking in them but rather to make sure that we, as the federal heads of our households, are not partaking in what is holy while indulging in the rebellion of the world at the same time. 

Don't save your children, therefore, by acting like they have no place at Christ's Table, but rather by following God through the wilderness rather than the devil, for if you are a Christian that is the only way to save them now, i.e., going all in rather than half in.