Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!clyde.concordia.ca!mcgill-vision!snorkelwacker!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: bgsuvax!kutz@cis.ohio-state.edu (Kenneth J. Kutz) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Re: Importance of sacrifice Message-ID: Date: 20 Jul 90 08:01:37 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: Bowling Green State University B.G., Oh. Lines: 138 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu In article , jhpb@granjon.garage.att.com writes: > David Wagner asked: > > What is the purpose of making the Lord's Supper into a sacrifice? > Why is a sacrifice needed or useful? Enquiring minds want to know! > > Well, I suppose the primary reason that the Catholic Church considers > the Mass a true and proper Sacrifice is that that's the universal > Christian tradition handed down from the Apostles. I am unaware of any > serious challenge to the doctrine until the Reformation. > If you want arguments, well, the arguments are, as usual, tradition, > reason, scripture. In the book of Leviticus in the Old Testament God lays out the sacrificial system for Israel and the Levitical Priesthood. These Jewish priests performed sacrifices daily as a reminder of their sins and as an atonement for sin. These sacrifices covered sin but could not *take away* sin. Hebrews 10:4 tells us this. As the Priest entered the Holy Place, he performed his sacrifices with great care, always sacrificing an animal for himself (to atone for his sins), and then for the sins of the others. No chairs were found here because the work was never done. This was the system God set up for the nation Israel. It was never meant to be permanent (Hebrews tells us this will soon pass away - and it did a few years later with the destruction of the temple in 70 AD) but was only a type, a picture pointing to the Real Thing - Christ's sacrifice. The question it seems to me, being addressed here is, does God want this sacrificial system to continue for his Church, the Body of Christ? Should we take this Old Testament sacrificial system laid out for Israel and continue it in some fashion today, in the name of Jesus Christ? To what do we appeal for the answer? My freshman year in college, we learned a lesson in our Communications class here that I will never forget. About 6 people were chosen from the class and all were sent out of the room. Then one was chosen to come into the room and was read several paragraphs of a fictitious account of some event that happened to an individual. After reading the paragraphs to this individual, a second student was chosen from the hallway to come in and the first student was to repeat what she heard to the second student. This was done for each of the students in the hall passing the story on from student to student. As you can imagine the rest of the students got a kick out of it because the facts became more and more exaggerated and changed as the story was passed on from student to student. After the last student finished the original story was read amidst the backdrop of laughter from the rest of the class. This lesson then teaches that the most authoritave source of information is the original source of information. For us as Christians in the 20th century, we could appeal to comments made from "tradition" or we could refer to canonized scripture which predates "early church" tradition and lacks the historical thelogical contradictions we now see from church fathers declaring "this" and then several years later declaring "that" which contradicts "this". Appealing then to the book of Hebrews (i.e. SCRIPTURE), the earliest commentary on the relevance of God's sacrificial systems for the New Testament Church we find: "We have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ ONCE FOR ALL" "Day after day every priest stands and performs his religious duties; again and again he offers the same sacrifices, WHICH CAN NEVER TAKE AWAY SINS. "But when this priest [Jesus Christ] had OFFERED FOR ALL TIME ONE sacrifice for sins, HE SAT DOWN at the right hand of God." (The only "chair" was reserved for the Priest who could offer the once-for-all perfect sacrifice. That chair was in heaven. Jesus is there now interceding on the saints behalf) "Since that time he waits for his enemies to be made his footstool, because by ONE sacrifice HE HAS MADE PERFECT FOREVER those who are being made holy." I'm trying to think if it can be stated any clearer than here in Hebrews 10:18. "And where these [sins] have been forgiven, there is no longer any sacrifice for sin." Now of course the Jew at the time of the writing of the book of Hebrews (before 70 AD) was probably wondering "Aren't there *any* sacrifices God wants of me? The writer of Hebrews answers this question in his final exhortations in Chapter 13: "Through Jesus, therefore, let us continually offer to God a SACRIFICE OF PRAISE-the fruit of lips that confess his name. And do not forget to share with others, for with such sacrifices God is pleased." Given we have this NT commentary on the sacrificial system we would do well to a pay attention to it as an authoritative source of truth. > Probably the strongest of the purely rational considerations is that, > without the Mass, Christianity has no public worship of God. I am concerned (and surprised) that Joe has made this statement. The writer of Hebrews has exhorted us to offer to God a sacrifice of praise through Jesus, confessing his name. This I think, is what the Church of Jesus Christ is to do as we gather collectively or stand individually. Is this not worship? > Scripturally, one of the most cogent arguments is an Old Testament > prophecy, Malachias 1:11: Malachias of course is not widely recognized in the Christian community to be inspired of God. You won't find this book in every Bible. You won't find any evidence from scripture that we are to continue the OT sacrifical system in any form. Why? The NT writers tell us it is unnecessary because we stand solely on the work of the only High Priest who is worthy to sit down after His sacrifice, the sacrifice of Himself. The OT economy is gone. We have a New Covenant. Any mixture of the two ignores Scripture. Any mixture ignores Jesus last words: "It is finished." -- Kenneth J. Kutz Internet kutz@andy.bgsu.edu Systems Programmer BITNET KUTZ@ANDY University Computer Services UUCP ...!osu-cis!bgsuvax!kutz Bowling Green State Univ. US Mail 238 Math Science, BG OH 43403 [Malachias is simply a variant spelling of Malachi. I don't know of any controversy over its inclusion in the canon. The only way I've been able to make sense out of Catholic assertions about the Mass is to assume that they regard it as being *the same* sacrifice as Christ's original one. I.e. it's not a new and separate sacrifice, or in a strict sense even a reenactment. But rather the Mass brings them into contact with Christ's original sacrifice. Joe: does this seem consistent with what you mean? --clh]