The Sacrifice of the Mass, Hebrews, and the Problem of the One-and-the-Many

Fallibility ^ | September 23, 2013 | Michael Taylor

[RnMomof7]

Ping

[sigzero]

“In the final analysis, what makes the Mass literally unbelievable for fundamentalists is that they cannot conceive of a single act that is perpetuated through time. For them, what happened on Calvary happened there alone and remains in the dead past....”

That whole paragraph is wrong. That isn’t it at all. The Lord’s table is only for us to remember what he did. There is no extra grace bestowed at all. There is no trans-anything that happens.

[SkyDancer]

And in modern day remembrance of the Last Supper .....

[CharlesOConnell]

Jews say of the passover ”why is THIS night different from all others...this is what the LORD has done for ME”, not for my ancestors on some night long ago in history. The Lamb Who IS Slain From Before the Foundation of the World offers Himself in sacrifice both within and outside of time, is able and does so will to permit us to share in that and this one true perpetual sacrifice. Who can tell Him ”you can’t do that”?

[yldstrk]

HOw do you know?

[agere_contra]

At the Mass we are present at the sacrifice of the Lamb. Not a repeat. Not an echo.

Christ's sacrifice is once and for all. At the Mass - faithful to his command - we become engaged with, we become part of His sacrifice, part of His Passion.

Think! The Passion of God is the greatest event in time and in eternity! God is not bound to time and space, and His great act of salvation is not tied up in a corner, hostage to a moment in time. Rather, it fills time like water fills a river. We just need to reach out and touch it.

Christ commands us to eat His Body and drink His Blood. His life, His death and His resurrection - the most important events that ever were or ever could be - are waiting for us at Mass.

Hope this is helpful.

[CynicalBear]

>>The Lamb Who IS Slain From Before the Foundation of the World offers Himself in sacrifice both within and outside of time<<

If you believe the "outside of time" meme then you can not believe in free will either. Scripture says those who are written in the book of life were there before the creation of the world.

[agere_contra]

So the Jews said to Him, "You are not yet fifty years old, and have You seen Abraham?"

Jesus said to them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was born, I am."

God is indeed outside of time and space.

Now, He knows how we will choose - whether we will follow Him or fall away from Him. But unless we make our choices then there is nothing - no act of faith or act of defiance or neglect - for God to see.

We are not predestined to be damned or saved - we have a choice. God does indeed see our choices - but only because we get to make them.

[knarf]

HE said;

Luke 22:19King James Version (KJV)

19 And he took bread, and gave thanks, and brake it, and gave unto them, saying, This is my body which is given for you: this do in remembrance of me.

[terycarl]

A tremendous amount of space trying to discredit 2,000 years of Christian teaching and trying to justify a VERY bad decision.....

[agere_contra]

(bed time, goodnight to all)

[daniel1212]

That whole paragraph is wrong.

But that was from RC apologist Karl Keating, employing one of his handy strawmen he uses in his deception of the simple.

God gives grace to obey Him, and blesses obedience, but the Lord's supper is not that of Catholicism.

[daniel1212]

HOw do you know?

How do you know? Is it on the basis of the weight of Scriptural substantiation or the premise of the ensured magisterial veracity of Rome?

It seems that the RC argument is that an assuredly (if conditionally) infallible magisterium is essential for determination and assurance of Truth (including writings and men being of God) and to fulfill promises of Divine presence, providence of Truth, and preservation of faith, and authority. (Jn. 14:16,26; 15:26; 16:13; Mt. 16:18; Lk. 10:16)

And that being the historical instruments and stewards of Divine revelation (oral and written) means that such is that assuredly infallible magisterium. Thus any who knowingly dissent from the latter must be in rebellion to God. Does this fairly represent what you hold to or in what way does it differ?

[daniel1212]

To save typing, for all those who are going to try to defend the Catholic error, see here by God's grace.

Table of Contents

Preface

1Cor. 10,11

Metaphorical versus literal language

Supper accounts and John 6: Conformity to Scripture, and consequences of the literalistic interpretation.

The uniqueness of the Catholic interpretation

The Lord's Supper is not a sacrifice for sins

Absence of the sacerdotal Eucharistic priesthood

Metaphorical view of Jn. 6 is not new.

Endocannibalism

[daniel1212]

A tremendous amount of space trying to discredit 2,000 years of Christian teaching and trying to justify a VERY bad decision.....

A tremendous amount of space of false teaching and trying to justify an erroneous tradition that was unseen and contrary to what the NT church believed according to Scripture, according to all that we read of the life of the church.

Take a shot at defending it.

[terycarl]

A tremendous amount of space of false teaching and trying to justify an erroneous tradition that was unseen and contrary to what the NT church believed according to Scripture, according to all that we read of the life of the church. Take a shot at defending it.

I don't have to defend the truth which has been taught for 2,015 years....if you want to deny it, it is up to you to prove why it is wrong and try to explain why some of the greatest minds in human history disagree with you....and Luther, and Calvin, and HenryVIII, and Wesley, and Zwingley, and Knox, and Smyth, and Fox, and London, andCampbells, and Baker-eddy and myriad of others ALL of who think that they are right....

[daniel1212]

I don't have to defend the truth which has been taught for 2,015 years....if you want to deny it, it is up to you to prove why it is wrong and try to explain why some of the greatest minds in human history disagree with you.

And some of the greatest minds in human history have been wrong, as they surely are here, disagreeing with the mind of Almighty God in Scripture, and perpetuating error thru traditions of men.

and myriad of others ALL of who think that they are right....

As does Rome, who is her own autocratic authority, while her own basis for that, that of the premise of perpetual ensured magisterial infallibility, is unScriptural, and unseen and unnecessary in the life of the church, as is her separate class of believers distinctively titled "priests," offering up "real" human flesh and blood as a sacrifice for sin, and literally consuming this to obtain spiritual life, around which act all else revolves, and looking to Peter as the first of a line of exalted infallible popes reigning over the church from Rome, and a separate class of believers distinctively titled "saints," and praying to created being in Heaven, and being formally justified by ones own sanctification/holiness, and thus enduring postmortem purifying torments in order to become good enough to enter Heaven, and saying rote prayers to obtain early release from it, and requiring clerical celibacy as the norm. Etc.

[Springfield Reformer]

Jews say of the passover ”why is THIS night different from all others...this is what the LORD has done for ME”, not for my ancestors on some night long ago in history. The Lamb Who IS Slain From Before the Foundation of the World offers Himself in sacrifice both within and outside of time, is able and does so will to permit us to share in that and this one true perpetual sacrifice. Who can tell Him ”you can’t do that”?

Indeed, God can do as He wishes.  That by itself does not tell us what He in fact did.  For that we need the word of God.  And the word of God knows no such thing as this perpetual suffering of the Lamb.  First, consider the quote you have used:

Revelation 13:8  All who dwell on the earth will worship him, whose names have not been written in the Book of Life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.

That is the only occurrence of the exact phrase in the entire Scripture, so this must be the one to which you refer.  Yet the verb is not a present tense "IS"," as you have emphasized.  Rather, the verb is "slain" (ἐσφαγμένου), in the perfect, which is one of a number of ways to express the past tense:

τοῦ ἀρνίου τοῦ ἐσφαγμένου ἀπὸ καταβολῆς κόσμου.

Which translates as:

the lamb the [one] having been slain from [the] foundation of [the] world

The perfect tense in Greek typically points to a completed event in the past.  If the divinely inspired writer had wanted to convey some timeless nexus theory of the atonement, this would have been a great opportunity to simply use "esti(n)," "he is," as you attempted to suggest.  But your suggestion has no basis in the text, because under the direction of the Holy Spirit, our author chose the perfect tense, and as if to remove all doubt of its priority, describes it as an event completed "before the foundation of the world." 

But how then do we reconcile this event completed before the world was made with the fact that Jesus died at a later point in human history?  This can be easily understood as a typical feature of Hebraic thought, where events that were certain to occur because they were in God's plan are spoken of as having been completed even before they occurred in time.  A classic example of that is Jude 14:

Jude 1:14-15  And Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these, saying, Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousands of his saints,  (15)  To execute judgment upon all, and to convince all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed, and of all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against him.

When he says, "the Lord cometh," the Greek form is "ἦλθεν, past tense, "he came" (using the aorist in this case), even though it points to the future event of the second coming.  The translators here used the present tense, really just to avoid confusing the typical English reader. But the fact remains that in Hebrew thought, the "prophetic perfect," as it is sometimes called, is a perfectly legitimate way to refer to events with two different time references, one the actual historical point in time, the other as an established event of the past, to indicate the certainty of the event in the divine plan.

But if any doubt remains, the writer of Hebrews here demolishes that residue of doubt:

Hebrews 10:9-13  then He said, "BEHOLD, I HAVE COME TO DO YOUR WILL, O GOD." He takes away the first that He may establish the second.  (10)  By that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.  (11)  And every priest stands ministering daily and offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins.  (12)  But this Man, after He had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down at the right hand of God,  (13)  from that time waiting till His enemies are made His footstool.

Again, the sanctification of the believer, their setting apart for the divine purpose, is spoken of here as an accomplished, past tense event.  The word translated "once for all" is the adverb "ἐφάπαξ" "ephapax."  It is also used here, and also in connection with Christ's death.  Note the emphasis on the past tense nature of the event:

Romans 6:9-10  Knowing that Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more; death hath no more dominion over him.  (10)  For in that he died, he died unto sin once : but in that he liveth, he liveth unto God.

Note the holy author is not saying He is dying once.  He says "died once."  It is a concluded event.  So too in Hebrews, which the author there confirms in the following verses.  If we were sanctified, past tense, by the offering of Christ's body on our behalf, the sanctification could not be complete unless the offering was complete, and that is the whole thrust of our author, that the sacrifices under Moses could not accomplish a complete expiation of sin, but the death of Jesus does, and has, past tense, accomplished that for us.

Also observe the deliberate contrast. His death for us is past tense, a concluded event.  But what is His present state?  He lives!  These choices of tense are not trivial, or accidental, but divinely inspired.  This is how God actively wants us to think about these things.  If we think of Christ's death as a completed historical event, it is because God Himself has encouraged us to think of it that way.

Note again verse 12 from Hebrews 10.  The contrast is not the episodic suffering of the sacrificed animals with the perpetual suffering of Christ.  It is the effectiveness of the sacrifice.  The animals sacrificed did not and could not take away sin.  But Jesus, in one offering, expiated our sin forever, precluding the possibility or necessity of any future offerings. So the value of the offering, not the experience of it, is what goes on forever. There can be no further offering, not even of Christ, because after the event of His once for all offering, Jesus attains a new status, such that He lives, and is now is sitting at the right hand of God, waiting for the historical demise of all His enemies.  The offering is past, the waiting is now, the coming is future.

Now, I realize this will not satisfy those determined to certify to themselves that transubstantiation is real, even though it cannot be supported from Scripture. I would only offer to those so determined that it is generally unwise to invent whole systems of theoretical support, such as the time differential theory of eucharistic participation in the sacrifice of Christ, when the Scriptural account provides it's own, much simpler, more direct, and more meaningful account.  If you have faith in Christ, your sins are hid in Him, by virtue of His death for you.  When you partake of the Lord's table, you do it for the purpose He stated, and not one invented out of someone's pious imagination.  That purpose, the only imperative Christ ever gave concerning the observance of the Lord's Supper, is to remember Him.  If that  does not seem like enough for you, then I would contend you have too low a view of what it means to remember Him.  Nothing in my experience of the Christian faith could be richer or more full of His blessed presence than to recall in my innermost being the amazing love He showed to worthless sinner me on that dark day two millenia ago, when He gave His life, to give me life.

Peace,

SR

[CynicalBear]

Romans 9:15 For he says to Moses, "I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion." 16 So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy.