“The question is, does the priest/elder offer the sacrifice that once happened at the hill of Golgotha? The scripture says, “do it” and Christ commanded it,”
Umm, you are mixing apples and oranges. When the scripture says ‘do it’, it means partake in the Eucharist. It does not and never says or implies that it is a sacrifice of Jesus, and specifically states that the sacrifice of Jesus was a once for all event in the past.
There is not a single verse anywhere in scripture that says we are to regularly offer Jesus in sacrifice, and no where in the NT are any believers designated priests, save in the universal sense offering a sacrifice of praise or good deeds. Furthermore, the scripture specifically teaches that no sacrifice remains, which is why we need no priests:
“And every [Jewish] priest stands daily at his service, offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God, waiting from that time until his enemies should be made a footstool for his feet. For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified.
And the Holy Spirit also bears witness to us; for after saying, “This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my laws on their hearts, and write them on their minds,” then he adds, “I will remember their sins and their lawless deeds no more.”
Where there is forgiveness of these, there is no longer any offering for sin.” - Hebrews 10
Short of using a crayon, I don’t know how it could be made any clearer: “there is no longer any offering for sin”.
annalex, you write, “St. Paul in 1 Cor. 11 says “For as often as you shall eat this bread, and drink the chalice, you shall shew the death of the Lord, until he come”.
Correct. Let’s look at the passage in its context:
“For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus in the night in which He was betrayed took bread; and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, “This is My body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of Me.”
“In the same way He took the cup also after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in My blood; do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me.”
“For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes. Therefore whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner, shall be guilty of the body and the blood of the Lord.”
There is no hint here of offering Jesus in sacrifice. “in remembrance of Me...in remembrance of Me...” You “proclaim” his death. If you do this “in an unworthy manner, [you] shall be guilty of the body and the blood of the Lord.”
Of course! It would be spitting on Jesus, to use more modern terms. None of this suggests we have or need priests - sacrifice offering priests - who offer Jesus.
The article by Philip Schaff discusses how the Eucharist moved from a sacrifice of thanksgiving and praise for what God had done into a sacrifice for sins. It took roughly 1000 years to develop that idea.
I cannot stop anyone from believing it, but it simply isn’t true that it is taught in the New Testament and practiced by all the early church.
This is why Protestants don’t accept sacred tradition. All churches have tradition, but it isn’t sacred. It is tradition, and the best way to avoid 2000 years of creeping error is to go back to the source documents. Now, k50 & I don’t see eye to eye on how pure those source documents - how well we can figure out what the originals had in them - but it seems obvious that written documents evolve slower than traditions based on what various men have taught and preached for the last 2000 years.
Also: kosta50, we’ve often disagreed, but I want to publicly thank you for your posts here. I’ve seen much of the same material spread through a variety of books, but I thought your summary quite powerful. In fact, I’ve bookmarked it for future reference...who ever woulda thunk it?
“The article by Philip Schaff discusses how the Eucharist moved from a sacrifice of thanksgiving and praise for what God had done into a sacrifice for sins. It took roughly 1000 years to develop that idea.”
Not in the East, Mr. R. There are indeed prayers about the Eucharist being celebrated and consumed for the forgiveness of sins, but there is even more regarding thanksgiving and praise. For example:
“It is proper and right to sing to You, bless You, praise You, thank You and worship You in all places of Your dominion; for You are God ineffable, beyond comprehension, invisible, beyond understanding, existing forever and always the same; You and Your only begotten Son and Your Holy Spirit. You brought us into being out of nothing, and when we fell, You raised us up again. You did not cease doing everything until You led us to heaven and granted us Your kingdom to come. For all these things we thank You and Your only begotten Son and Your Holy Spirit; for all things that we know and do not know, for blessings seen and unseen that have been bestowed upon us. We also thank You for this liturgy which You are pleased to accept from our hands, even though You are surrounded by thousands of Archangels and tens of thousands of Angels, by the Cherubim and Seraphim, six-winged, many-eyed, soaring with their wings,...”
The Divine Liturgy is far, far more a liturgy of praise and thanksgiving and supplication than of propitiation and blood sacrifice. Of course, our Divine Liturgies are at the latest from the late 4th, very early 5th centuries so the change to the Anselmian blood atonement sacrifice focus of the West from about 1000 years ago simply isn’t a focus we ever adopted.
BTW, you want to read the Protestant version of the Ante Nicene, Nicene and Post Nicene Fathers with a grain of salt. The commentary is spun, just as the Roman Catholic version is. Its best just to read what The Fathers say and skip the commentary in the series.
This is a very bizarre spin. At the time of the Last Supper the sacrifice -- the giving of the body -- is still in the future. So how can a command to do something in commemoration refer to the present, when the time of commemorating lies in the future?
Further, this is not how the Holy Apostles understood Him, because from history and from 1 Corinthians 11 we know that they offered the Eucharist, just as their heirs do today.
There is not a single verse anywhere in scripture that says we are to regularly offer Jesus in sacrifice
The words of the institution in all synoptic gospels "this is my body given up for you" plainly mean that the Eucharist at the Last Supper was offer of sacrifice, and since the Apostles took that command seriously, they did the same, -- see 1 Cor 11 again.
no where in the NT are any believers designated priests
We discussed it earlier. Use Greek, search for "presbyter" and keep in mind that "episcopos", bishop, is also a priest.
there is no longer any offering for sin
Indeed. The Mass is offering for sin, but that is not a new offering, just like Hebrews 10 explains. That, too, was discussed earlier on this thread.
is no hint here of offering Jesus in sacrifice
If the body of Christ is really present in the Eucharist then it is the sacrifice of Golgotha that is happening, and St. Paul plainly teaches that it is present.