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One of the more curious implications of the Roman Catholic sacrifice of the Mass is that Jesus actually did not offer Himself as a sacrifice on the cross. Instead, they say, He offered Himself as a sacrifice at the Last Supper. For example, Roman Catholic apologist Art Sippo at the Catholic Legate, explains:
“The Last Supper was the real sacrificial offering of Christ for sin and it certainly was unbloody. Without the Last Supper I defy you to find any reference to the Body and Blood of Christ being offered as a sacrifice for sin in the entire of the Passion Narratives. Christ did not offer his body and blood to God during the passion.” (Catholic Legate, Q&A on the Sacraments)
As we showed in week 8 of our series, Their Praise was their Sacrifice, this concept of the Last Supper as a sacrifice came late in time, and actually originated in the latter part of the 4th century when Gregory of Nyssa was trying to calculate the three days between Jesus’ death and his resurrection. In his 382 A.D. oration, On the Space of Three Days between the Death and the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, Gregory of Nyssa got creative in his analysis of Matthew 12:40, which says that “the Son of man” must “be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.” By Gregory’s reckoning, he could only account for two.
Perhaps, Gregory thought, Jesus had transcended time and space and not only offered His body and blood to his disciples in figure, but was truly reckoned dead at that time, had truly offered Himself as the Lamb to God on Thursday night, and was already in the ground when He instituted the Lord’s supper:
“For the body of the victim would not be suitable for eating if it were still alive. So when he made his disciples share in eating his body and drinking his blood, already in secret by the power of the one who ordained the mystery his body had been ineffably and invisibly sacrificed and his soul was in those regions [of the earth] in which the authority of the ordainer had stored it… He offered himself for us, Victim and Sacrifice, and Priest as well, and ‘Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.’ When did He do this? When He made His own Body food and His own Blood drink for His disciples.” (Gregory of Nyssa, On the Space of Three Days, Oration I)
Such are the inventive and fanciful origins of the sacrifice of the Mass—Gregory of Nyssa attempting to bend the space-time continuum to get the math to work out. Until the time of Gregory, nobody had ever proposed that Jesus had sacrificed Himself on Thursday night. But since then, Rome has never ceased to insist that everyone—from the apostolic era onward—had always recognized that Thursday night was the night Jesus offered His sacrifice for our sins when He gave bread and wine to his apostles.
It was that fanciful Thursday night “sacrifice” that was the theme of a lecture delivered by Scott Hahn at Franciscan University of Steubenville in 2013, under the title The Bible and the Sacrifice of the Mass (hat tip: to Walt, for bringing the video to our attention). Hahn, a former Protestant turned Roman Catholic apologist, claimed that the whole early Church of the first, second, third and fourth centuries agreed that Christ had sacrificed Himself on Thursday night at the Last Supper. Hahn set up his argument by saying,
“If the Eucharist that Jesus instituted on Holy Thursday was just meal, then his death on Good Friday was just a Roman Execution. But if, on the other hand, and only if, Jesus’ institution of the Holy Eucharist was nothing less than the sacrifice of the New Covenant Passover, then what was instituted on Thursday is precisely what is consummated on Friday.” (The Bible and the Sacrifice of the Mass, 9:00-9:10)
His syllogism is purely gratuitous, but Hahn constructs it in dramatic form as if Rome’s mass sacrifice was a logical necessity. We could just as easily construct a gratuitous syllogism based on the woman’s preparations for Jesus’ burial in Bethany, reasoning that Jesus must have been dead already on Tuesday:
“The body of the victim would not be suitable for anointing if it were still alive. Therefore, if the woman’s anointing of Christ on Tuesday was just an anointing (Matthew 26:7, Mark 14:3), then Jesus’ death was just a Roman execution. But if, and only if, Jesus had already sacrificed himself on Tuesday at Bethany and the woman really was preparing Jesus for His burial as Jesus said, then the woman’s anointing of Jesus shows that Jesus was already dead on Tuesday. The New Covenant sacrifice had already been offered in Bethany, and what was instituted on Tuesday is precisely what is consummated on Friday. After all, Jesus was already dead in Bethany.”
Such an argument is pure folly, but Hahn’s attempt to move Jesus’ sacrifice backward in time differs only in its conclusion. The fallacious form is the same. Such is the invalid rationale for Rome’s novel Mass sacrifice.
This week we are not so interested in Hahn’s illogical conclusion as we are in his source for it. In his lecture in Steubenville, Hahn related his discovery of the Thursday sacrifice in the context of meeting an old friend at an airport between flights. In the time that had elapsed since their last encounter, the two men had switched places spiritually: Hahn is a former Protestant turned Roman Catholic, and his friend at the airport was a former Roman Catholic turned evangelical Protestant. In fact, Hahn had more than once evangelized the man in their previous roles. As Hahn relates, the two men were unable to finish the conversation in the airport and so continued it at a later time when Hahn could more fully explain his view of the Sacrifice of the Mass. It was at that time that Hahn said,
“He [Jesus] didn’t lose his life on Friday if he had already freely given it to us by instituting the Eucharist as the Passover of the New Covenant on Holy Thursday. … He made His life a gift, which He freely laid down before anybody laid their hands upon Him and tried to take it. … If the Eucharist is a meal, then Calvary is an execution. But if the Eucharist is the sacrifice of the new covenant, then and only then do we see that Calvary is more than an execution. That indeed it is the consummation of the sacrifice of the New Covenant passover lamb.” (Hahn, The Bible and the Sacrifice of the Mass, 9:00-10:31)
After explaining it in these terms, Hahn’s evangelical friend responded that he had never thought of it that way before. To this, Hahn responded,
“Neither did I until I read Melito of Sardis and his homily Peri Pascha, … and there I discovered what was commonplace, what all the Christians believed in the first, second, third and fourth centuries.” (Hahn, Scott, The Bible and the Sacrifice of the Mass, 10:30-11:45)
Hahn’s discovery of a Thursday night sacrifice in Melito’s Peri Pascha has to do in part with the Jewish expectation that a sacrifice must be offered within the city walls of Jerusalem. Hahn says,
“For the Jews in the first century a sacrifice had to take place inside the city of Jerusalem within the temple upon an altar, where there would be a priest standing by offering the sacrifice, whereas Jesus died outside the walls far from the temple, where there were no altars or priests offering sac[rifices].” (Hahn, Scott, The Bible and the Sacrifice of the Mass, 3:50 – 4:15)
Notably, Melito had Jesus’ death taking place within the walls of Jerusalem, too:
“This one was murdered. And where was he murdered? In the very center of Jerusalem!” (Melito of Sardis, Peri Pascha,72).
“Bitter to you are your hands which you bloodied, when you killed your Lord in the midst of Jerusalem. … An extraordinary murder has taken place in the center of Jerusalem, in the city devoted to God’s law, in the city of the Hebrews, in the city of the prophets, in the city thought of as just. … it was in the middle of the main street, even in the center of the city, while all were looking on, that the unjust murder of this just person took place. And thus he was lifted up upon the tree, and an inscription was affixed identifying the one who had been murdered.” (Melito of Sardis, Peri Pascha, 93-95)
To Hahn, this can mean only one thing: Melito must have believed that Jesus sacrificed Himself on Thursday night at the Last Supper.
As we know, Jesus was crucified near the city (John 19:20), but nevertheless outside of it (Hebrews 13:12). Clearly Melito was trying, to a fault, to attach extra details to the events of Jesus’ death. He did so to the point that he was willing to recast certain aspects of the New Testament Passover narrative in terms more suited to the specific practices leading up to the Exodus from Egypt and the Jewish observance of the Passover since then.
For example, according to the Old Testament narrative, the Jews were to sacrifice the lamb in the evening, eat the flesh of the lamb at night, and to do all this without breaking any of its bones:
“The congregation of Israel shall kill it in the evening … And they shall eat the flesh in that night … neither shall ye break a bone thereof.” (Exodus 12:6, 8-10, 46)
Melito then takes this information and restates it to the Jews, establishing an evening-night-bones triplet:
“For see to it, he says, that you take a flawless and perfect lamb, and that you sacrifice it in the evening with the sons of Israel, and that you eat it at night, and in haste. You are not to break any of its bones.” (Melito of Sardis, Peri Pascha, 12)
Then, Melito links this to Jesus’ death on the cross and His burial, and applies the evening-night-bones triplet again:
“[Jesus] was killed in the evening, and was buried at night; the one who was not broken while on the tree…” (Melito of Sardis, Peri Pascha, 71)
While Melito had constructed a comely parallel for rhetorical purposes, the inconsistency of his narrative was extreme because the Gospel account explicitly states that Jesus was buried during the daytime in order to complete the burial before the sabbath which was to begin at sunset (John 19:40-42). Jesus most certainly was not buried at night. But Melito was drawing parallels, and sometimes the Early Church fathers were only too happy to sacrifice factual details if an appealing parallel presented itself. As we noted in Eating Ignatius, when Ignatius was given the choice between clarity and metaphorical flourish, he preferred the flourish to the clarity. Melito was apparently cut from the same cloth.
Not noticing his penchant for rhetorical flourish, Hahn takes Melito’s elastic representations of the New Testament Passover narrative at face value—a downtown crucifixion, a nighttime burial—and thinks he has found in Melito early evidence of the sacrifice of the Mass. The problem for Hahn in his use of Melito is that for all of his rhetorical extravagance, Melito does not waiver in his application of the Passover parallels to the crucifixion. Even as Melito strains at the parallels in order to portray the murder taking place “in the midst of Jerusalem,” what cannot be overlooked is that the murder taking place there was the crucifixion “while all were looking on,” and that crucifixion was the Passover sacrifice. What we cannot miss is that when Melito constructs the evening-night-bones parallel even to the point of having Jesus “buried at night,” he connects it not to the Last Supper but to the Cross. Melito relentlessly and stubbornly insists that the Old Testament Passover is fulfilled in the crucifixion. The problem for Hahn, in sum, is that Melito saw the sacrifice taking place the day after the Last Supper.
Melito first laments that the Jews had ignored all the signs Jesus had performed, and in spite of the miracles, rejected Him. In their denial and unbelief they proceeded to prepare the implements of His actual sacrifice:
“Indeed, dismissing these things, you, to your detriment, prepared the following for the sacrifice of the Lord at eventide: sharp nails, and false witnesses, and fetters, and scourges, and vinegar, and gall, and a sword, and affliction, and all as though it were for a blood-stained robber” (Melito of Sardis, Peri Pascha, 78-79).
Only once does Melito even refer to the Last Supper in Peri Pascha, and he does so simply by acknowledging that much time had elapsed since Jesus had eaten His Supper the night before. By the time He was sacrificed on the cross, Jesus was hungry again:
“And you killed your Lord at the time of the great feast. Surely you were filled with gaiety, but he was filled with hunger; you drank wine and ate bread, but he vinegar and gall; you wore a happy smile, but he had a sad countenance; you were full of joy, but he was full of trouble; you sang songs, but he was judged; you issued the command, he was crucified; you danced, he was buried; you lay down on a soft bed, but he in a tomb and coffin.” (Melito of Sardis, Peri Pascha, 79-80).
The reason Jesus was hungry at the Cross is because it had been almost a day since His Last Supper. Of the significance of that meal, Melito says nothing at all, but he has a lot more to say about the sacrifice on the cross. It is in his many descriptions of the sacrifice that Melito undermines Hahn’s argument. Melito states that the sacrifice took place at the cross, and repeatedly has Jesus being led away, and sent away, and dragged away—not from, but to the sacrifice:
“For although he was led to sacrifice as a sheep, yet he was not a sheep” (Melito of Sardis, Peri Pascha, 4)
“Hence, the sacrifice of the sheep, and the sending of the lamb to slaughter, and the writing of the law–each led to and issued in Christ” (Melito of Sardis, Peri Pascha, 6)
“For the one who was born as Son, and led to slaughter as a lamb, and sacrificed as a sheep, and buried as a man, rose up from the dead as God, since he is by nature both God and man.” (Melito of Sardis, Peri Pascha, 8)
“For this one, who was led away as a lamb, and who was sacrificed as a sheep, … and sealed our souls by his own spirit and the members of our bodies by his own blood.” (Melito of Sardis, Peri Pascha, 67)
“His one is the passover of our salvation. This is the one who patiently endured many things in many people: This is the one who was murdered in Abel, and bound as a sacrifice in Isaac, and exiled in Jacob, and sold in Joseph, and exposed in Moses, and sacrificed in the lamb, and hunted down in David, and dishonored in the prophets.” (Melito of Sardis, Peri Pascha, 69)
“This is the one who was taken from the flock, and was dragged to sacrifice, and was killed in the evening, and was buried at night” (Melito of Sardis, Peri Pascha, 67)
What is missing in Peri Pascha is any reference to Jesus actually offering a sacrifice the day before the crucifixion. What is missing from Peri Pascha, in other words, is the very thing Hahn claims to have found there. What is missing is what Hahn claimed was commonplace for the first four centuries. Recall Hahn’s claim:
“Jesus’ institution of the Holy Eucharist was nothing less than the sacrifice of the New Covenant Passover … what was commonplace, what all the Christians believed in the first, second, third and fourth centuries” (Hahn, Scott, The Bible and the Sacrifice of the Mass, 9:00-11:45).
We invite our readers to peruse the Peri Pascha of Melito of Sardis, which dates to about 160 A.D., to see if they can find so much as a hint that Jesus offered Himself as a sacrifice on Thursday night during the Last Supper. We invite our readers to examine it to see if they can find anything about Jesus’ death being ineffectual unless the Mass Sacrifice had already been instituted, or that His death is nothing more than a Roman execution unless we backload the Roman Catholic view of the Mass sacrifice onto the early church’s celebration of the Passover. It simply is not there.
Indeed, this is what we find consistently in the Early Church. Their understanding of the Passover was quite simple: there was a meal on Thursday, and a sacrifice on Friday. Consider for example the testimonies the early writers.
Barnabas (c. 100 A.D.), explains that the sacrifice Jesus offered, was his flesh offered on the cross in “the vessel of the Spirit”:
“Moreover, when fixed to the cross, He had given Him to drink vinegar and gall. … He also Himself was to offer in sacrifice for our sins the vessel of the Spirit, in order that the type established in Isaac when he was offered upon the altar might be fully accomplished. … Wherefore? Because to me, who am to offer my flesh for the sins of my new people, you are to give gall with vinegar to drink:” (Epistle of Barnabas, chapter 7).
As Barnabas explains later, the “vessel” is the body (Epistle of Barnabas, chapter 21). The sacrifice took place on the cross.
Justin Martyr (100 – 165 A.D.) explains that at the Lord’s Supper we have been taught by Christ Himself that we do not offer blood, libations or incense, and that the only sacrifice offered there is “thanks by invocations and hymns”. Justin Martyr instead has the fulfillment of the Passover sacrifice taking place when Jesus was led as a sheep to the sacrifice at the cross:
“[W]orshipping as we do the Maker of this universe, and declaring, as we have been taught, that He has no need of streams of blood and libations and incense; whom we praise to the utmost of our power by the exercise of prayer and thanksgiving for all things wherewith we are supplied, … and with gratitude to Him to offer thanks by invocations and hymns for our creation … . Our teacher of these things is Jesus Christ … ” (Justin Martyr, First Apology, chapter 13)
“For the passover was Christ, who was afterwards sacrificed, as also Isaiah said, ‘He was led as a sheep to the slaughter.’ [Isaiah 53:7] And it is written, that on the day of the passover you seized Him, and that also during the passover you crucified Him. And as the blood of the passover saved those who were in Egypt, so also the blood of Christ will deliver from death those who have believed.” (Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho, chapter 111)
Clement of Alexandria (150 – 215 A.D.), clearly identifies the Cross as the place of Christ’s immolation, the wood the place of His sacrifice;
“[Isaac] was the son of Abraham, as Christ the Son of God, and a sacrifice as the Lord, but he was not immolated as the Lord. Isaac only bore the wood of the sacrifice, as the Lord the wood of the cross. … Jesus rose again after His burial, having suffered no harm, like Isaac released from sacrifice.” (Clement of Alexandria, The Instructor, Book I, chapter 5).
Hippolytus of Rome (170 – 235 A.D.) said that the “real Passover” sacrifice was when the Jews killed Jesus, not when Jesus celebrated the Last Supper:
“They do not, however, attend to this (fact), that the legal enactment was made for Jews, who in times to come should kill the real Passover. And this (paschal sacrifice, in its efficacy,) has spread unto the Gentiles, and is discerned by faith, and not now observed in letter (merely).” (Hippolytus of Rome, Refutation of All Heresies, Book 8, chapter 11)
Tertullian (155 – 240 A.D.), writes that Jesus became the “victim” at the cross, not at the Last Supper, and he was made a sacrifice on Friday, not on Thursday:
“Accordingly, to begin with, Isaac, when led by his father as a victim, and himself bearing his own ‘wood,’ was even at that early period pointing to Christ’s death; conceded, as He was, as a victim by the Father; carrying, as He did, the ‘wood’ of His own passion. ” (Tertullian, An Answer to the Jews, chapter 10).
“This ‘wood,’ again, Isaac the son of Abraham personally carried for his own sacrifice, when God had enjoined that he should be made a victim to Himself. … Christ, on the other hand, in His times, carried His ‘wood’ on His own shoulders, adhering to the horns of the cross, with a thorny crown encircling His head. For Him it behooved to be made a sacrifice on behalf of all Gentiles.” (Tertullian, An Answer to the Jews, chapter 13).
Origen (184 – 253 A.D.) insists that it was at the Cross that Jesus was sacrificed:
“And thus the resurrection of the Saviour from the passion of the cross contains the mystery of the resurrection of the whole body of Christ. But as that material body of Jesus was sacrificed for Christ, and was buried, and was afterwards raised, so the whole body of Christ’s saints is crucified along with Him, and now lives no longer; for each of them, like Paul, glories [Galatians 6:14] in nothing but the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which He is crucified to the world, and the world to Him.” (Origen, Commentary on the Gospel of John, Book 10, chapter 20).
Even Cyprian of Carthage (200 – 258 A.D.), upon whose arguments much of Rome’s mass sacrifice must rely, states explicitly that Jesus’ blood could not have manifested on Thursday night, and in fact did not manifest until Friday. That was the cup of which Christ drank, and if Jesus’ blood did not manifest until Friday, then there could be no sacrifice on Thursday night:
“The treading also, and pressure of the wine-press, is repeatedly dwelt on [in Isaiah]; because just as the drinking of wine cannot be attained to unless the bunch of grapes be first trodden and pressed, so neither could we drink the blood of Christ unless Christ had first been trampled upon and pressed, and had first drunk the cup of which He should also give believers to drink.” (Cyprian of Carthage, Epistle 62, paragraph 7)
Alexander of Lycopolis (c. 301 A.D.) wrote that Jesus’ passion was the sacrifice:
“And of this doctrine the Jewish history has an example, which prepares the son of Abraham as a sacrifice to God. But to subject Christ to His passion merely for the sake of display, betrays great ignorance, for the Word is God’s representative, to teach and inform us of actual verities.” (Alexander of Lycopolis, Of the Manicheans, chapter 24)
Aphrahat the Persian Sage (c. 270 — c. 345 A.D.) explains that the Jews saw the sacrifice taking place on Thursday, but for Christians, “our great day is Friday”:
“[T]he day of the Passover sacrifice, … is the suffering of our Saviour, … our great day is Friday … the day of the crucifixion.” (Aphrahat, Demonstrations, Demonstration 12, paragraph 12)
Notably Aphrahat bases his narrative on the chronologies of Matthew and Mark, in which he says that Jesus had already sacrificed a Lamb “according to the Law of Israel” (Aphrahat, Demonstration 12, paragraph 12). It was while they were already eating (Matthew 26:26, Mark 14:22) that Jesus paused mid-meal and took bread, broke it and gave it to His disciples. Thus, Aphrahat has Jesus offering the Lamb as the sacrifice to God according to the Old Covenant, then has Him offering bread and wine to His disciples as a sign of the New, and then places the true Sacrifice on the following day:
“Our Saviour ate the Passover sacrifice with his disciples during the night watch of the fourteenth. He offered to his disciples the sign of the true Passover sacrifice.” (Aphrahat, Demonstration 12, On the Passover, chapter 6)
Repeatedly the Early Church has “the True Passover” and the “Real Passover,” being offered by Christ on the cross to His Father on Friday, and makes no mention of Jesus offering Himself in the elements of the Lord’s supper on Thursday. As we noted above, the Thursday “sacrifice” was a late 4th century novelty, completely foreign to the Early Church.
At the end of his lecture, Hahn returns to his false syllogism, insisting that it is acceptable to refer to Calvary as the sacrifice as Protestants do, but only if its efficacy is rooted in a Thursday night sacrifice for which he can produce no evidence. Hahn says:
“We agree with our non-Catholic Christian brothers and sisters who describe Calvary as the sacrifice. We would just hasten to clarify the fact that Calvary would only be an execution unless the holy Eucharist is nothing less than the sacrifice of the new covenant passover.” (The Bible and the Sacrifice of the Mass,11:45-12:10)
To this we respond that Melito and the fathers of the first three centuries would have absolutely no idea what Hahn was talking about. Hahn thought to prove that the whole church for the first four centuries recognized that Thursday was the day of the Sacrifice, and he did his level best to backfill that sacrifice into Melito’s Peri Pascha. But Melito stubbornly refused to cooperate, insisting as he did that the sacrifice took place on the cross, a full day after the Last Supper. The rest of the Early Church fathers for the first three hundred years of Christianity joined Melito on that point.
We conclude this post by reminding our readers of what is one of the most deceptive campaigns ever waged by Roman Catholicism: to claim that the Last Supper was universally recognized in the Early Church as the sacrifice Jesus offered to His Father, and to claim that the Lord’s Supper was universally recognized as the Church’s new covenant sacrifice. Neither is true. As we noted above, the Early Church fathers were quite consistent on the fact that Jesus’ sacrifice was at the Cross, not at the Last Supper. And as we showed in our series, Their Praise was their Sacrifice, the Early Church recognized that the New Covenant sacrifice of the Church is the incorporeal praise that we offer to an incorporeal being:
“[T]he victim fit for sacrifice is a good disposition, and a pure mind, and a sincere judgment. … These are our sacrifices, these are our rites of God’s worship; … But certainly the God whom we worship we neither show nor see.” (Minucius Felix (c. 150 – 250 A.D.), Octavius, chapter 32)
” ‘…and in every place a sacrifice is offered unto my name, even a pure offering” [Malachi 1:10-11] — meaning simple prayer from a pure conscience…” (Tertullian (160 – 225 A.D.), Against Marcion, Book IV, chapter 1)
“Let that soul … have further in itself also an immovable altar on which it may offer sacrifices of prayers and victims of mercy to God, on which it may sacrifice pride as a bull with the knife of temperance, on which it may slay wrath as a ram and offer all luxury and lust like he-goats and kids.” (Origen, Homilies on Exodus, Homily IX. 4)
“[T]his is true worship, in which the mind of the worshipper presents itself as an undefiled offering to God.” (Lactantius (250 – 325 A.D.), The Divine Institutes, Book VI, Chapter 2)
“Now let us speak briefly concerning sacrifice itself. … that which is incorporeal must be offered to God, for He accepts this. His offering is innocency of soul; His sacrifice praise and a hymn. … Therefore the chief ceremonial in the worship of God is praise from the mouth … . … For we ought to sacrifice to God in word; … let him make amends, and let him confess that the evil has happened to him on account of his faults;” (Lactantius (250 – 325 A.D.), The Divine Institutes, Book VI, chapter 25)
“And these unembodied and spiritual sacrifices the oracle of the prophet also proclaims, in a certain place: ‘Offer to God the sacrifice of praise, and give the Highest thy vows’ [Psalms 50:14] … And again: ‘The lifting up of my hands is an evening sacrifice.’ [Psalms 141:2] And once more: ‘The sacrifice of God is a contrite spirit.’ [Psalms 51:17]” (Eusebius of Cæsarea, Proof of the Gospel, Book I, Chapter 10)
“Hear concerning the strength of pure prayer, and see how our righteous fathers were renowned for their prayer before God, and how prayer was for them a pure offering. [Malachi 1:11] … Observe, my friend, that sacrifices and offerings have been rejected, and that prayer has been chosen instead.” (Aphrahat (c. 270 — c. 345 A.D.), Demonstration 4:1,19)
We are only too happy to point out that when the Early Church spoke of the sacrifices of the New Covenant, she often spoke of the altar of the heart, where sacrifices of praise were offered (see Origen, Homilies on Exodus, Homily IX. 4). When the Early Church spoke of Jesus’ sacrifice, she spoke of the altar of the cross, where Christ’s sacrifice to His Father was offered (see Epistle of Barnabas, chapter 7). What the Early Church did not say (because she did not believe it) was that the Sacrifice of the New Covenant was Jesus’ body and blood offered on the altar the Lord’s Supper. The author of Hebrews, after all, says that “We have an altar” (Hebrews 13:10), and then proceeds to inform us what we offer upon it:
“By him therefore let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is, the fruit of our lips giving thanks to his name.” (Hebrews 13:15)
As we showed in Their Praise was their Sacrifice, that is how the Early Church understood the sacrifice of the New Covenant. We simply observe therefore that the above statements by the Early Church are wholly inconsistent with Hahn’s belief that the Early Church gathered weekly to conduct the Sacrifice of the Mass, and they are wholly inconsistent with Hahn’s belief that everyone in the first four centuries of the Church was actively engaged in repeating the Thursday night mass sacrifice. The Early Church was clearly unaware of such a practice.
We conclude this week with a citation from Melito’s contemporary, Athenagoras of Athens. If the Eucharist is the sacrifice of the New Covenant, as Hahn insists, then Athenagoras apparently wasted an awful lot of time writing a hopelessly inappropriately titled treatise on “Why the Christians do not offer sacrifices.” Athenagoras, apparently unaware of Hahn’s New Covenant Mass sacrifice, wrote it in 177 A.D., explaining that “the noblest sacrifice to Him is for us to know” Him, and like Minucius Felix, Tertullian, Origen, Lactantius and Aphrahat, he insisted that the “bloodless sacrifice” we offer to Him is our mind:
“And first, as to our not sacrificing: the Framer and Father of this universe does not need blood, nor the odour of burnt-offerings, nor the fragrance of flowers and incense, forasmuch as He is Himself perfect fragrance, needing nothing either within or without; but the noblest sacrifice to Him is for us to know who stretched out and vaulted the heavens, and fixed the earth in its place like a centre, who gathered the water into seas and divided the light from the darkness, who adorned the sky with stars and made the earth to bring forth seed of every kind, who made animals and fashioned man. When, holding God to be this Framer of all things, who preserves them in being and superintends them all by knowledge and administrative skill, we ‘
lift up holy hands’to Him, what need has He further of a hecatomb? … And what have I to do with holocausts, which God does not stand in need of?— though indeed it does behoove us to offer a bloodless sacrifice and ‘the service of our reason.’ [Romans 12:1]” (Athenagoras of Athens, A Plea for Christians, chapter 13 “Why the Christians do not offer sacrifices”).
Rome’s apologists may want to backfill Athenagoras with their 4th century novelty of the “bloodless” Sacrifice of the Mass, but Eusebius will not allow it. As late as the early 4th century, Eusebius was still referring to the “bloodless sacrifice” that is offered during the Lord’s Supper as our praise expressed in “hymns,” “the lifting up of my hands,” “prayer,” “good works,” a “contrite heart,” “thanksgiving,” “sincere thoughts, real intention, and true beliefs” (Proof of the Gospel, Book I, Chapter 6, 10; Book III, Chapter 3; Book V, Chapter 3).
The only option left to them is the option exercised by Gregory of Nyssa: tamper with the space-time continuum. As we showed last week on Rome’s attempts to make the Early Church have Mary as the Ark of the New Covenant, the only “evidence” they can produce is based on creative editing, fraud and time-travel. That is the only evidence available to them on the Thursday night sacrifice, too.
And therein lies the difficulty. Just as Scott Hahn is unable to get Melito of Sardis to move Jesus’ sacrifice back to Thursday night, Rome is unable to move the origin of her false doctrines any further back in time than the late 4th century, try as she might. They are therefore left explaining how the church could go 300 years not knowing that Jesus sacrificed Himself at the Last Supper, and not realizing that her primary duty was to offer the very sacrifices she spent three centuries denying that she was offering.
And “explain” this is precisely what Roman Catholicism has attempted to do. After all, Cardinal Newman’s “Development of Doctrine” essay was written precisely to address the “want of accord between the early and the late aspects of Christianity” (John Henry Cardinal Newman, Essay on the Development of Doctrine, Introduction, paragraph 3). That is why Cardinal Newman insists that we trust the Roman Catholic Church and receive “facts” that “come to us on no authority” at all. And that is also why Scott Hahn expects us to trust him that Melito of Sardis, and all the Early Church with him, believed in a Last Supper sacrifice.
And he is just one time-travel machine away from proving it.
Biblical Prophecy & Postmillennialism #16, Gospel of John Vs. Antichrist & Idolatry
http://www.sermonaudio.com/sermoninfo.asp?SID=62315113112
Tim wrote:
“It was that fanciful Thursday night “sacrifice” that was the theme of a lecture delivered by Scott Hahn at Franciscan University of Steubenville in 2013, under the title The Bible and the Sacrifice of the Mass (hat tip: to Walt, for bringing the video to our attention). Hahn, a former Protestant turned Roman Catholic apologist, claimed that the whole early Church of the first, second, third and fourth centuries agreed that Christ had sacrificed Himself on Thursday night at the Last Supper.”
Nice to see you found Hahn’s theology as disturbing as I did!
Thanks, Walt. It seems that Hahn has adopted the view of Jesus’ coming reign in Eucharistic Form—that is to say, that when Jesus returns, He will return in Eucharistic Form. It is a view that is held by some prominent Roman Catholics.
From Bud Macfarlane’s Pierced by a Sword, which belongs to the genre of Apocalyptic fiction, he describes how Christ might return to earth in Eucharistic form for His earthly reign:
You can read more about a belief in Christ’s millennial reign in Eucharistic form at the Apostolate for Perpetual Eucharistic Adoration:
Another such profession:
Now Hahn in the linked video:
Thanks,
Tim
Tim wrote:
“It seems that Hahn has adopted the view of Jesus’ coming reign in Eucharistic Form—that is to say, that when Jesus returns, He will return in Eucharistic Form. It is a view that is held by some prominent Roman Catholics.”
Scott Hahn said:
“The Eucharist is the resurrected Lord. And if we are the ones who are alive at the end of time when He comes again and reveals His glory, we may be in for a surprise, because we’re going to discover that He won’t have any more glory at the end than he already has now, not only up in Heaven but in His Eucharistic presence. He is the Lord of Lords and the King of Kings. He comes to us under the appearance of bread and wine, but He comes to us as the Resurrected, Ascended, Enthroned, Glorified, Deified and deifying Jesus.” (Hahn, The Bible and the Sacrifice of the Mass, 17:20-18:00)”
Look at how Jim responds to these posts of yours, and then grasp what Scott Hahn teaches about the return of Christ in the bodily appearance of bread and wine.
These people are inflicted with a major cult inside Rome. They are so confused and caught up in everything Romish tradition that when they believe Jesus is returning physically in the appearance as bread and wine, and that we will see him in the form of the Eucharist as King of kings and Lord of lords it is clear there is a mental illness they posses.
Watching Jim posts on this blog his comments is not only incredibly sad, but knowing now what these men teach about Christ’s second coming, it is so very clear how deep Rome has become the synagogue of Satan in the physical.
That’s right Tim,
Jesus tabernacles among His people NOW.
You can read my rebuttal down below. Let me know what you think.
Tim wrote:
“While Melito had constructed a comely parallel for rhetorical purposes, the inconsistency of his narrative was extreme because the Gospel account explicitly states that Jesus was buried during the daytime in order to complete the burial before the sabbath which was to begin at sunset (John 19:40-42). Jesus most certainly was not buried at night. But Melito was drawing parallels, and sometimes the Early Church fathers were only too happy to sacrifice factual details if an appealing parallel presented itself. As we noted in Eating Ignatius, when Ignatius was given the choice between clarity and metaphorical flourish, he preferred the flourish to the clarity. Melito was apparently cut from the same cloth.”
Great point. I wish some in Rome could learn this problem.
Tim wrote:
“What is missing in Peri Pascha is any reference to Jesus actually offering a sacrifice the day before the crucifixion. What is missing from Peri Pascha, in other words, is the very thing Hahn claims to have found there. What is missing is what Hahn claimed was commonplace for the first four centuries. Recall Hahn’s claim:
“Jesus’ institution of the Holy Eucharist was nothing less than the sacrifice of the New Covenant Passover … what was commonplace, what all the Christians believed in the first, second, third and fourth centuries” (Hahn, Scott, The Bible and the Sacrifice of the Mass, 9:00-11:45).
We invite our readers to peruse the Peri Pascha of Melito of Sardis, which dates to about 160 A.D., to see if they can find so much as a hint that Jesus offered Himself as a sacrifice on Thursday night during the Last Supper. We invite our readers to examine it to see if they can find anything about Jesus’ death being ineffectual unless the Mass Sacrifice had already been instituted, or that His death is nothing more than a Roman execution unless we backload the Roman Catholic view of the Mass sacrifice onto the early church’s celebration of the Passover. It simply is not there.
Indeed, this is what we find consistently in the Early Church. Their understanding of the Passover was quite simple: there was a meal on Thursday, and a sacrifice on Friday. Consider for example the testimonies the early writers.”
How dare you Tim question or challenge Scott Hahn!!! Do you not know this man is the savior of the Roman Catholic church and is idolized by almost all Catholics, including “innocent” children. Bob and Jim adore his “impeccable” study of church history…near flawless arguments as a former Presbyterian gone Romish in bright lights.
You should be ashamed of yourself to even question Scott Hahn and his research. He is among the greatest Scholars according to Rome that exists…in fact on Hahn’s website are pictures he has kissing the Pope and almost falling over in joy just to stand near his presence.
This is the problem with Roman Catholics. They worship men day and night (both living and those who are dead), and they worship the dead virgin Mary desperate to get to heaven.
You corrected Scott Hahn. I hope someone will get this article to him above and force him to retract his errors that are causing millions of Catholics to end up in hell forever. Nobody is to question Scott Hahn research…I’m glad you did finally.
Tim wrote:
“To this we respond that Melito and the fathers of the first three centuries would have absolutely no idea what Hahn was talking about. Hahn thought to prove that the whole church for the first four centuries recognized that Thursday was the day of the Sacrifice, and he did his level best to backfill that sacrifice into Melito’s Peri Pascha. But Melito stubbornly refused to cooperate, insisting as he did that the sacrifice took place on the cross, a full day after the Last Supper. The rest of the Early Church fathers for the first three hundred years of Christianity joined Melito on that point.”
Bingo…as the Catholics say. Excellent summary of the early church fathers above this point. Just incredible work.
Someone (come on Jim) go get Scott Hahn and TEACH HIM SOME HISTORY.
Tim wrote:
“….Rome is unable to move the origin of her false doctrines any further back in time than the late 4th century, try as she might. They are therefore left explaining how the church could go 300 years not knowing that Jesus sacrificed Himself at the Last Supper, and not realizing that her primary duty was to offer the very sacrifices she spent three centuries denying that she was offering.
and:
….That is why Cardinal Newman insists that we trust the Roman Catholic Church and receive “facts” that “come to us on no authority” at all. And that is also why Scott Hahn expects us to trust him that Melito of Sardis, and all the Early Church with him, believed in a Last Supper sacrifice.”
Amen…Bingo again.
That is what I was taught as a Roman Catholic growing up. You do not question the priest, bishop, cardinal or Pope. You are to blinding believe what you are taught, and you are to remain ignorant of the Scriptures. The Scriptures are SOLELY for the Roman Church to teach you, and you are not to question those like Scott Hahn who are instructors.
Fortunately, the internet and YouTube are filled with stories of so many Roman Catholic children and teenagers who were molested and defiled by these same Priests and Bishops that were told not to question them, and to keep quiet, so that nobody has to sit back anymore in silence. They can reject and challenge these Romish men and women in protest. They don’t have to be the first Protestants to speak out…we have incredible men and women who were tortured and murdered by Rome that stood against this growing evil.
I’m so happy Tim took on Scott Hahn…the modern miracle of Rome’s deception. I just hope Jim and Bob learn something from this latest article, but I suspect nothing will be learned, and Jim will come back with a barrage of one liners totally irrelevant to the subject facts at hand about Hahn…a deceiver.
Walt,
“Scott” Hahn? Don’t you wish it was your name?
Scotty walt,
” Roman Catholic children and teenagers who were molested and defiled by these same Priests and Bishops that were told not to question them,”
You have never married, right? Hmmm?
Are you sure you want to traffic in sleazy innuendoes?
Tim,
” Roman Catholic apologist William Most, for example, saw the Crucifixion not as a sacrifice, but as a demonstration “to show the horror of sin, and the immensity of His love” .
Could you please post the actual comment where Fr. Most explicitly says the crucifixion was not a sacrifice?
Tim,
“One of the more curious implications of the Roman Catholic sacrifice of the Mass is that Jesus actually did not offer Himself as a sacrifice on the cross”.
“Implications”? Could you actually supply us with such a statement from a recognized authority?
Tim,
Here is an article by Fr. Most on the Mass as sacrifice. Could you point out the alleged statement for me? The very first sentence seems to say Calvary a sacrifice. Perhaps I am misreading it. Your help would be much appreciated.
Thanks
https://www.ewtn.com/faith/teachings/euchb1.htm
Jim/Tim,
Notice the link says:
“A sacrifice as Catholics understand it (in contrast to some pagan concepts) has two elements: the outward sign and the interior dispositions. The outward sign is there to express and perhaps promote the interior. Without the interior it would be worthless. Hence God once complained through Isaiah 29:13: “This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me.” We need to take care that we too do not descend into mere externalism, thinking it enough to just make the responses and sing etc.”
It is so clear to me that Rome is not contrary to pagan religions, it is the mirror of the pagan religions. Pagan religions always create idols in physical form, and worship them. They bow down to these false idols.
Rome is exactly the same. They have created idols of the bread and wine, especially the Eucharist. They bow to this bread and worship it as a living idol.
If what you are saying Tim is correct, and there is a growing movement by Scott Hahn and others within the RCC that Christ will return as a physical Eucharist, now it makes perfect sense to me.
It is a natural transition in their messed up logic and cult behavior that these men will be looking for a giant Eucharist from the heaven to appear bodily in the sky, and confirm to the world why they have been worshiping the image of Christ in the body of the Eucharist all these years.
Rome has to worship these idols falsely to be consistent.
Jim,
William Most is simply reaffirming Hahn’s position:
Thus, Jesus’ death, says Most, was merely a covenant obligation of the New Covenant sacrifice in which Christ committed himself to obedience unto death the night before. As William Most wrote, the cross was simply a display of how serious Jesus was, and was not necessary at all:
That is why men like Art Sippo say such things as, “The Last Supper was the real sacrificial offering of Christ for sin and it certainly was unbloody.” (Catholic Legate, Q&A on the Sacraments)
When Most goes on and on about how Calvary wasn’t even necessary except as a covenant obligation, and that the Lord’s Supper alone would have sufficed, and that “an incarnation in a palace, without any suffering or death” would have sufficed, it is clear that the Lord’s Supper, not Calvary, is where sins are allegedly paid for. A weekend in the Ritz would do it, so long as He offered Himself in the Lord’s supper the night before.
Thanks,
Tim
Tim,
The Lord’s Supper would have no significance without Calvary. I don’t know how you are misreading Fr. Most.
The Cross was NOT necessary. Do you say it was?
Be careful now. Necessity is not a word we use with God, is it Tim?
I know you might if you believe in Penal Substitution, but that is your problem. We reject it as blasphemy. You need to prove it as true and you cannot.
Tim,
You have a quote from Justin Martyr. Me too;
“”God has therefore announced in advance that all the sacrifices offered in His name, which Jesus Christ offered, that is, in the Eucharist of the Bread and of the Chalice, which are offered by us Christians in every part of the world, are pleasing to Him.”
By the way, I have not seen the Scott Hahn video but are you saying that he actually said Calvary was NOT a sacrifice or, along with the Supper, was not an integral part of the one sacrifice?
Jim wrote:
”God has therefore announced in advance that all the sacrifices offered in His name, which Jesus Christ offered, that is, in the Eucharist of the Bread and of the Chalice, which are offered by us Christians in every part of the world, are pleasing to Him.”
Let’s hope he means that offering the bread and wine in remembrance of his sacrifice on the cross is the basis for the statement. If he means that offering the Eucharist as the sacrifice of Christ every time in every part of the world, than this is pagan heresy. This view that Jesus Christ is offered as a sacrifice in the Eucharist is not only evil and cannibalistic (from the feast of baal), but some now believe Jesus Christ will now return as a Eucharist in his second coming.
This goes beyond crazy…it borders on the certifiably insane.
Jim, you cited Justin Martyr,
That leaves the impression that the bread and chalice are offered. But the “thanksgiving” is what is offered, as you can see as Justin continues in the very same paragraph you cite:
Thus, the only way you can get the Mass Sacrifice out of the citation is to truncate it, cutting it off before Justin can define his terms. As I note in this week’s article, Justin explains (again) that the only sacrifice Jesus taught us on the night He was betrayed was thanksgiving and hymns:
For those interested in a fully exposition of Justin’s position on “the mass,” you can read more about it here:
Thanks,
Tim
Walt,
“This view that Jesus Christ is offered as a sacrifice in the Eucharist is not only evil and cannibalistic…”
Was it evil and cannibalistic to offer Himself at the Last Supper?
Why would Christ use evil and cannibalistic language in John 6?
Tim ( and Walt too ),
Back to the errors of your system;
Your problem with Eucharistic sacrifice stems from your misunderstanding of the term “sacrifice”. This is a spin off from your false view of the atonement.
For you, the crucifixion just formalized what had already been decreed in eternity past when God elected some and reprobated the rest of the human race. They elect were saved before Christ ever died for them. You can deny it, but it is a fact. The elect were never really lost. The cross did not save them as they were already elect. Christ was sent for the previously elected. His death did not elect anyone.
You also err in thinking Christ was punished in the stead of some by the Father. This means your understanding of sacrifice is one of Penal Substitution.
Search high and low in the Bible. Sacrifice is NOT penal substitution.
So, just to balance out the argument, I am going to ask you guys to prove your Penal Substitution theory of sacrifice from the Bible.
In order to do that, you need to demonstrate Limited Atonement since you insist that if Christ was punished in your stead, you have to be saved.
Tim,
Are you sure it was in the post 350 A.D. Church of Gregory of Nyssa that the Mass became a sacrifice?
Philip Schaff said,
“The germs of the Roman doctrine appear in Cyprian about the middle of the third century, in connection with his high-churchly doctrine of the clerical priesthood. Sacerdotium and sacrificium are with him correlative ideas.”
Jim,
Yes, I am. As I explained in Their Praise was their Sacrifice, part 5,
As I also show in that post,
Cyprian believed:
• that the Lord’s Supper was a “sacrifice,” but that he used the term “sacrifice” to mean “commemoration of a sacrifice,” not a propitiatory sacrifice as Rome does.
• that we should “offer” at the Lord’s Supper what Jesus “offered” at the Last Supper, and what Jesus “offered” was not His body and blood, as Rome teaches.
• that the elements of the Lord’s Supper served only as sensible figures that simulate our memories by what they signify, which Rome denies.
Thanks,
Tim
Tim,
“thus when Cyprian insists that we offer in the Lord’s Supper what Jesus offered at the Last Supper, he is not insisting that we offer Christ’s passion at all. Cyprian also used the term “sacrifice” to mean “commemoration,” and believed that the bread and wine were merely figures of what Christ would offer on the cross the following ”
How was it a sacrifice at all?
Don’t all sacrifices, whether commemorative, of praise and thanksgiving or propitiation, require some sort of destruction of a victim? Not as a penal substitute, but to render it henceforth unusable by the man making the offering? A sacrifice is a sacrifice regardless of the motive for offering it, right?
By the way, doesn’t Cyprian elsewhere speak of offerings for the dead? Offerings of praise and thanksgiving for dead people?
Anyway, could you explain how a Protestant sacrifice of of praise could be the clean oblation of Malachias? You are totally depraved, You works are filthy rags, dung. Your hearts are deceitful and desperately wicked. How is your praise a clean oblation? Didn’t Luther stop saying Mass because he scrupled that even his prayers were odious to God?
Thanks, Jim. You asked,
Precisely. It’s when you dig into Cyprian’s sacrificial language that you find that he is not actually “sacrificing” anything.
You continued,
Where you say “don’t all sacrifices, whether commemorative…” that assumes that Cyprian was offering “commemorative sacrifices.” Like I said in Their Praise was their Sacrifice, part 5,
Thus, in Epistle 59, paragraph 4, Cyprian tells the Numidian bishops the names of the people who have provided for their needs, so that “you may present them in your sacrifices and prayers.” Sounds like he is suggesting that the Numidian bishops offer people in their sacrifices. But in the same paragraph, Cyprian refers to them again, “all of whom … you ought to remember in your supplications and prayers.” To Cyprian “presenting” someone in a “sacrifice” was his way of saying “remember” them in your prayers.
Likewise, in Epistle 33, Cyprian says, “We always offer sacrifices for them [the martyrs], as you remember, as often as we celebrate the passions and days of the martyrs in the annual commemoration” (paragraph 3). Keeping in mind that Cyprian believed that Martyrs were already in glory and had no need for sacrifices (Epistle 8, paragraph 1; Epistle 33, paragraph 3; Epistle 76, paragraph 7; Epistle 80, paragraph 1, 3), why would he “offer sacrifices” for martyrs? The answer is in the text itself. To him the sacrifice is actually a commemoration that he calls by the wrong name. The same in Epistle 36, paragraph 2:
But why offer a commemoration, or why offer a “sacrifice” at all if they are already in glory? The answer again is in the text: to remember what they did:
Here Cyprian is not “sacrificing” or even sacrificing the example of the martyr. He is calling attention to what the martyr did. Thus Cyprian also “offers up” other martyrs, who “have afforded an example to other women by their constancy!” (Cyprian of Carthage, Epistle 80, paragraph 3).
In Cyprian you have to be careful about reading into the “sacrifice” that which he does not write into it. In Cyprian, there are actual sacrifices, and then there are commemorations. Because of his youth and lack of knowledge, he called them both by the same name.
The reason this matters is that Cyprian speaks the same way of the Lord’s Supper as he does of the Martyrs above—the “sacrifice” is actually a memorial, not an actual sacrifice:
Rome can only see the Sacrifice of the Mass. But when Cyprian is shown to be so loose in his definitions, Epistle 62 is nothing more than Cyprian insisting that Jesus ought to be remembered the way He said He should be remembered—with wine in the Lord’s supper, instead of water. After all, it is in this very epistle that Cyprian insists that Jesus could not offer blood on Thursday night, because the grapes of wrath had not been trampled and pressed down yet. If Cyprian said Jesus didn’t even offer blood on Thursday night, because that would have been one day early, can you really say Cyprian supported the Sacrifice of the Mass, and insisted that Jesus offered a sacrifice Thursday night? As you have frequently said on this site, Catholics do not sacrifice wine. Precisely. Therefore Cyprian did not believe in the Sacrifice of the Mass.
Now, to your question,
It depends on what you think a sacrifice of praise is. Is there a “victim” when a hymn is sung? Jeremiah 33:11 says the “voice of joy” is a “sacrifice of praise.” Where is the victim?
You continued,
Propitiatory sacrifices are no longer necessary. Jesus has made God propitious toward us. Thus the “sacrifice of praise” instead of a sacrifice of bulls, bread and libations.
That assumes that all sacrifices must be propitiatory.
You continued,
Titus 1:15 says, “Unto the pure all things are pure,” and Hebrews 13:15-16 says,
Hebrews 10:22 says “Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water.”
I know I am a sinful man, but because Christ’s righteousness is imputed to me by faith, I have full assurance, and can boldly approach the throne of grace (Hebrews 4:16) offering a sacrifice of praise to Him Who saved me by the blood of the cross.
Because of His righteousness imputed to me by faith.
Thanks,
Tim
To Cyprian “presenting” someone in a “sacrifice” was his way of saying “remember” them in your prayers.
Tim, the Mass is a prayer.
As for Jesus not offering blood on Thursday, I would think he means the Mass. The Mass is “unbloody”. remember?
“Propitiatory sacrifices are no longer necessary. Jesus has made God propitious toward us. ”
The Mass is not another sacrifice but the application of the One. Just as the Super was not a sacrifice different form the one on Calvary.
“Titus 1:15 says, “Unto the pure all things are pure,” and Hebrews 13:15-16 says”
So, unlike Luther, your prayers are not shot through with self seeking and imperfections?
” Christ’s righteousness is imputed to me…”
Just as your sins were imputed to Christ, yes? Show me in the Bible please.,
Tim and Walt,
Was the scapegoat an example of Penal Substitutionary sacrifice?
Jim,
Let’s focus on your sacrificial system and stay on point. I have no earthly idea of what you are teaching in penal substitution as I’ve never heard the term before…thus let’s please stay on point with your system of doctrine. Let’s not create anything new right now to try to confuse everyone. Let’s just stay focused on your Romish teaching about this crazy idea that Jesus Christ is going to return in the form of a Eucharist to earth. I’ve never heard anything so crazy in all my years of reading and studying Christian doctrines.
When did this crazy idea begin? You are clearly in a massive cult if your followers are teaching Jesus Christ is going to return bodily in the future in the form of the Eucharist.
Again, this is insane teaching.
Walt,
Penal Substitution is the point. It is what you and Tim officially believe about Christ’s sacrifice. It is unbiblical.
Until you distance yourself from PS, you cannot understand the true sacrifice Christ offered.
Jim, I see from Wikipedia that penal substitution is the same as substitutionary atonement or limited atonement. I assumed this penal substitution is a roman catholic term?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penal_substitution
Tim said:
“When Most goes on and on about how Calvary wasn’t even necessary except as a covenant obligation, and that the Lord’s Supper alone would have sufficed, and that “an incarnation in a palace, without any suffering or death” would have sufficed, it is clear that the Lord’s Supper, not Calvary, is where sins are allegedly paid for. A weekend in the Ritz would do it, so long as He offered Himself in the Lord’s supper the night before.”
Tie this in with the idea that Jesus Christ is going to return bodily in the form of a Eucharist and the Romish system is pretty warped. If you had not pointed it out, I would not have caught it in Scott Hahn’s video. I think he worded it in such a way that he and his core adherents sit back knowing that you start promoting this idea inside and outside the Romish church and you are going to get some really weird stares from people.
It would be interesting to know when this second coming view started within Rome and how is the great grand daddy promoter of this heresy. I find it hard to believe it will get much support within the broader Romish community, but if Scott Hahn is teaching it you can bet people are going to fall all over it in love with the concept.
I can just see them showing pictures of Jesus Christ in the form of a Eucharist riding on a white horse to earth to round up all the bad protestants who did not bow and worship this bread weekly or daily in the mass.
I chuckle just thinking of all the pictures of this Eucharist riding in on horse to save the world.
Tim/Walt,
“When Most goes on and on about how Calvary wasn’t even necessary except as a covenant obligation, and that the Lord’s Supper alone would have sufficed, and that “an incarnation in a palace, without any suffering or death”
Where does Fr. Most say the Supper would have sufficed without the Cross?
The cross was not necessary. That is true. But where does he say the Mass would have any significance without the cross?
You have not actually read what he wrote, have you?
That’s because you are hallucinating if that is what you are thinking Walt.
Tim,
Have you covered any historical topics on Penal Substitution?
See these articles:
http://www.tms.edu/m/tmsj20i.pdf
http://www.monergism.com/thethreshold/sdg/dabney/dabney_substitute.html
Could you distill Dabney’s article down for us Walt?
Tim,
At 11 minutes 53 seconds into the video, Hahn says Calvary was a sacrifice.
What you and Walt fail to hear him say is that without Holy Thursday’s Supper/sacrifice/offering, it would have only been a Roman execution.
Scott Hahn’s whole thrust in his 4th Cup theory is that the Supper and Cross are parts of the One Sacrifice.
Let me carry it further than Hahn.
If not for the Supper, Christ could not have died on Calvary.
Why? Because it was at the Supper Christ reduced Himself to the state of theothyte or victim.
Got lots to say on this and am champing at the bit to let it fly.
But first, admit you cannot show from the Bible one example of the OT sacrificial system operating as Penal Substitution.
That theory was not known to the Fathers. Nor to Anselm. Calvin concocted it.
Yes, Jim, at 11 minutes and 53 seconds that is exactly what he says. In fact if you read the article to the conclusion, I actually quote that exact part of his talk.
You wrote,
“Why? Because it was at the Supper Christ reduced Himself to the state of theothyte or victim.”
My point exactly.
Tim
Really Tim?
I thought your point was to say Hahn and Most denied Calvary being a sacrifice. I thought you were saying they said Mass was the sacrifice INSTEAD of the Cross.
I thought you alleged Fr Most believed God could have accepted the Mass instead of Calvary.
If that is not what you said, you really should work on being clear.
Thanks, Jim.
Part of the problem is that Hahn states that a sacrifice has to take place within Jerusalem. Thus, the sacrifice is the one Christ performed on Thursday night, he says. Why? Because,
This, Hahn says, is what he got from Pope Benedict XVI, who explains that Jesus’ words at he Last Supper were Temple-centric, signifying that Jesus’ offering on Thursday night was the sacrifice:
So the Temple is where the sacrifice must be offered, and Jesus offers the sacrifice in Temple-centric language inside the city. But, says Hahn, Jesus’ death on Calvary took place “far from the temple, where there were no altars.” Thus Calvary can’t be the sacrifice. The sacrifice must have taken place somewhere else. Where did it take place? Within the city where there was an altar and a temple. That’s what Hahn says.
The net effect of all of this is that the Lord’s Supper “was nothing less than the sacrifice of the New Covenant Passover.” And then Jesus went outside the walls to show how sincere He was when he performed the new covenant sacrifice the night before. As Hahn says, Jesus laid his life down on Thursday, not on Friday. He did not lose His life on Friday if He had already freely given it to us on Thursday (9:30-10:00). That is straight from Gregory of Nyssa who said that Jesus was already dead, and mysteriously dead, buried and in the ground, on Thursday. That does seem to me to take away from the significance of Him actually dying on Friday.
This is why Art Sippo says things like,
…and why you say things like,
As I noted, Scott says that he is willing to call Calvary a “sacrifice” as long as it’s rooted in the institution of the New Covenant Passover sacrifice the previous night. But that is precisely the problem: the sacrifice has to take place inside the city walls to count, and Jesus’ crucifixion was outside the city walls.
I believe you are right to point out that William Most did see the Crucifixion as a sacrifice, and on a re-reading of the cited article and from other articles you provided, I can see that he did. In that light, there is no value to the citation from William most, and I have removed the reference in the text above. My concern with William Most’s language was that He saw Christ’s sacrifice not as a necessity, but as an extravagant gesture to make a point, but not necessary in order to pay the great price for sin:
To say that the real sacrifice was on Thursday, and that an incarnation in a palace with no suffering or death would have sufficed, does seem to me to have the effect of moving the focus of our faith away from the cross and onto an idolatrous sacrifice that was not introduced to the church until the end of the 4th century.
In any case, the content of the article stands on its own without the reference to Most, since Melito says nothing of a Thursday night sacrifice at the Last Supper, and concentrates all of his sacrificial language on the Crucifixion. As I said, the Mass sacrifice was wholly foreign to the early church.
Thanks,
Tim
Tim,
What both Scott Hahn and Art Sippo are saying is this;
The Supper and Cross form one unified sacrifice. There are two stages of a sacrifice; the immolation or destruction of the gift to render it unusable by man, which could be performed by a Levite, and the specifically priestly act, the oblation or offering. Both are necessary.
Your error about Fr. Most is that you assumed God could have accepted the oblation half of a sacrifice only. Actually, God was free to accept no sacrifice or an entire sacrifice. But it is absurd to think He would take only part of one.
Scott Hahn in his 4th Cup theory links the cross to the Supper as one complete sacrifice by the fact that in the Bible we see Jesus drink from the 3rd cup or what St. Paul calls, the cup of Blessing. We don’t see the 4th or final cup consumed until on the cross.
You keep mentioning Gregory of Nyssa. His contribution was the idea that the priest’s words are a mystic sword that separate Blood for Body just as Christ may have actually done this at the Supper in the double Consecration/Transubstantiation.
Lot’s to say on this interesting concept but suffice it to say, an oblation without an immolation is empty and an immolation without an oblation is just a killing.
.
Walt,
You say you are not familiar with Penal Substitution. Let me tell you about it and let’s see if you want to sign onto it;
PS says Jesus suffered damnation by the Father. ( Do you buy that? You are a Trinitarian, right? )
Calvin said Jesus, in the Garden, feared for His own salvation. Do you buy that?
PS says Jesus suffered our penalty. Our penalty is eternal hellfire. Do you believe Jesus is in hell now? If He isn’t, how did He suffer our penalty?
I’m in Russia at present, and it is late here now. This will be my last comment for the evening as I have to be up early.
Jim wrote:
“PS says Jesus suffered our penalty. Our penalty is eternal hellfire. Do you believe Jesus is in hell now? If He isn’t, how did He suffer our penalty?”
From what I see you write here, I don’t think you understand what atonement means. Here is what Dabney says:
The two ancient communions of the “Roman Catholics” and “Orthodox Greek” Christians are great and imposing for their antiquity, their learning, and their numbers. We believe that their creeds involve numerous great and fatal errors, chiefly the accretions of human traditions and priestcraft before and during the Dark Ages; but the Articles in which they still declare Christ’s vicarious substitution for human guilt are the most respectable and least corrupted parts of their Confessions of Faith which come down to them from the creeds of earlier and purer ages. The force of their testimony is in this: that even these corrupt churches agree exactly with all the Protestant creeds concerning this ancient and vital doctrine. Hear, then, the Roman Church, in the “Dogmatic Degrees of the Council of Trent,” Session sixth, Degree of Justification, Chapter II.: “Him God proposed as a propitiation through faith in his blood for our sins,” etc. And Chapter VII.: “Our Lord Jesus Christ…. merited justification for us by his most holy passion on the wood of the cross, and made satisfaction for us unto God the Father.”
Hear also the witness of the Russo-Greek church, which now contains the vast majority of the so- called “Orthodox Greek Christians.” The Larger Catechism of the Oriental Grecian and Russian Church, Article IV., Question 208; “His voluntary suffering and death on the cross for us, being of infinite value and merit, as the death of one sinless, God and man in one person, is both a perfect satisfaction to the justice of God, which had condemned us for sin to death, and a fund of infinite merit, which has obtained him the right, without prejudice to justice, to give us sinners pardon of our sins, and grace to have victory over sin and death.”
We now pass to the great Protestant confessions, citing, first, the Lutheran Augsburg Confession, Article III.: Christ “truly suffered, was crucified, dead and buried, that he might reconcile the Father unto us, and might be a sacrifice, not only for original guilt, but also for all actual sins of men.” Again, Article IV.: “Their sins forgiven for Christ’s sake, who by his death hath satisfied for our sins.”
The Formula Concordia, the latest and most conclusive confession of the Lutheran body, speaks thus, Article III., Section 1: Christ, “in his sole merit, most absolute obedience which he rendered unto the Father even unto death, as God and man, merited for us the remission of all our sins and eternal life.”
The same is the witness of the great group of the Reformed Protestant churches. The Heidelburg Catechism, Second Part, Question 12, Answer: “God wills that his justice be satisfied; therefore must we make full satisfaction to the same, either by ourselves or by another.” And Question 16: “Why must ‘Christ’ be a true and sinless man?” Answer: “Because the justice of God requires that the same human nature which has sinned should make satisfaction for sin; but no man, being himself a sinner, could satisfy for others.” The Confession of the French Reformed Church, Article XVIII.: “We, therefore, reject all other means of justification before God, and without claiming any virtue or merit, we rest simply on the obedience of Jesus Christ, which is imputed to us as much to bear all our sins as to make us find grace and favor in the sight of God.”
The Belgic Confession (Dort, 1561), Article XX.: “We believe that God, who is perfectly merciful and also perfectly just, sent his Son to assume that nature in which the disobedience was committed, to make satisfaction in the same, and to bear the punishment of sin by his most bitter passion and death.”
First Scotch Presbyterian Confession (1566), Article IX.: Christ “offered himself a voluntary sacrifice unto his Father for us;… he being the innocent Lamb of God was damned in the presence of an earthly judge, that we should be absolved before the tribunal seat of our God.”
The Thirty-nine Articles, the doctrinal confession of all Episcopalians throughout the world in the empires of Britain and the United States. Article II.: Christ “truly suffered, was crucified, dead and buried, to reconcile his Father to us, and to be a sacrifice, not only for original guilt, but also for actual sins of men.”
The Confessions of the Waldenses, A. D. 1655, Section XIV.: God “gave his own Son to save us by his most perfect obedience (especially that obedience which he manifested in suffering the cursed death of the cross), and also by his victory over the devil, sin, and death.” Section XV.:… Christ “made a full expiation for our sins by his most perfect sacrifice.”
The Westminster Confession (1647) gives us the present creed of all the Presbyterian churches in the English speaking world, Scotch and Scotch-Irish, colonial, Canadian, and American. It is also the doctrinal creed of these great bodies, the Evangelical Baptist, and orthodox Congregationalists in Britain and America, being expressly adopted by some of them and closely copied by others, as the “Saybrook Platform” of New England. In this great creed, Chapter VIII., Section V., is this witness: “The Lord Jesus, by his perfect obedience and sacrifice of himself, which he through the eternal Spirit once offered up unto God, hath fully satisfied the justice of his Father, and purchased not only reconciliation, but an everlasting inheritance in the kingdom of heaven, for all those whom the Father hath given unto him.”
“Methodist Articles of Religion” (1784) are the responsible creed of the vast Wesleyan bodies of Britain and America. Many of these propositions are adopted verbatim from the “Thirty-nine Articles.” This is true of Article II. which contains an identical assertion, in the same words, of the doctrine of Christ’s penal substitution.
The Catechism of the “Evangelical Union” teaches these doctrinal views, in which all the churches concur which are represented in the “Evangelical Alliance.” This document omits the peculiar, distinctive doctrines in which these churches differ from each other. It was the work of Dr. Philip Schaff, D.D., LL. D., 1862, Lesson XXVIII., Question 4: “What did he (Christ) suffer there? ” “He suffered unutterable pains in body and soul, and bore the guilt of the whole world.”
Such is the tremendous array of the most responsible and deliberate testimonies of all the churches of Christendom, save one little exception, the Socinian, in support of our doctrine concerning the penal substitution of Christ. This testimony was not formulated in the gloom of the ninth or tenth century: but between the sixteenth and nineteenth, after the great renaissance, after the splendid tide of Greek and Hebrew scholarship had reached its flood in large part, after the full development of the scholastic and modern philosophies, synchronously with or after the Augustan age of theological science and exegetical learning, just during the epoch of the grandest and most beneficial development of human culture which the world has hitherto witnessed, concurrently with the splendid birth and growth of those physical sciences which have created anew our civilization. In this our boast we have not claimed the guidance of that Holy Spirit which Christ promised to bestow continuously upon his visible church, and which its pastors sought in prayer and supposed they were enjoying in these their most solemn witnessings for their Master. As our opponents usually repudiate this spiritual guidance for themselves, and prefer that of human philosophy, they will, of course, pay no respect to this higher claim. We only ask our readers to judge betwixt us, what is the modesty of that pretension which affects to thrust aside all these conclusions of the best ages as silly, antiquated, and self-evident rubbish. Is the irony of Job too caustic for this case? “Surely ye are the people, and wisdom will die with you.”
Please don’t lay this tome on me Walt, If you can’t process it and distill it down, don’t dump it on me and expect me to plod through it.
You admitted you aren’t even familiar with the term ‘Penal Substitution”.
Please take the time to understand it before diving in and defending it.
I do know what the term means and would be happy to teach it to you. Let me some it up by saying it cannot be defended scripturally.
If you want to really understand it, go to Nick’s Catholic blog.
Walt,
Penal Substitution is part of the Protestant theory of imputation.
Our sins imputed (and punished ) in Christ.
His taking our lumps imputed to us.
This is what you call “The Great Exchange”.
But as this would only have made the sinner ( those few for whom Christ died ) not eligible for punishment as that would be double jeopardy, it still did not make the sinner worthy of heaven. It just put him in a neutral state.
To address this problem, subsequent generations of Protestants after Calvin developed the theory that a second imputation was involved. This was the imputation of Christ keeping the Law perfectly to the accounts of those for whom He died.
Of course, this is just a form of works righteousness, of Law keeping.
Want to defend it? From the Bible? Go for it.
Sacrifice is NOT penal substitution. That is the great misunderstanding of your system.
Tim,
Is this doctrine still held by Rome, or are guys like Jim, Scott Hahn and others totally removing it from Trent? Antichrist is rising with new doctrines on justification?
——–
Hear, then, the Roman Church, in the “Dogmatic Degrees of the Council of Trent,” Session sixth, Degree of Justification, Chapter II.: “Him God proposed as a propitiation through faith in his blood for our sins,” etc. And Chapter VII.: “Our Lord Jesus Christ…. merited justification for us by his most holy passion on the wood of the cross, and made satisfaction for us unto God the Father.”
———
Walt,
You are crazy if you think Catholics deny the cross. We believe Christ redeemed us, satisfied for us, merited for us sacrificed for us.
None of those 4 terms means Penal Substitution.
Walt, you asked, referring to the canons on Justification from the council of trent:
Don’t let the language of Trent fool you. When Rome says Jesus “merited justification for us by his most holy passion on the wood of the cross,” it means that Jesus, by His sufferings and death accumulated sufficient merit to fill the church’s “treasury of merit,” which is then dispensed by the Church through the sacraments. His death, in Rome’s arrangement, did not actually save anyone. It is only as the church dispenses the merits accumulated by Christ in the Church’s “treasury” that anyone is saved.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church explains this:
Thus, the Roman Catholic Church, “as the minister of redemption, dispenses and applies with authority the treasury of the satisfactions of Christ and the saints” (CCC, 1471).
Under this rubric, the Last Supper was the “sacrifice of the New Covenant,” and the cross was the fulfillment of Christ’s new covenant obligations, to which He had obligated Himself the night before, and in the process accumulated infinite merits that the Church now dispenses “as the minister of redemption.” This is why Roman Catholics go out of their way to state that Christ actually did not offer Himself on the cross. He offered Himself the night before, and then filled up the treasury the next day:
By this arrangement, Roman Catholicism interposes herself between sinners and the Savior, hindering those who would otherwise enter (Luke 11:52).
Thanks,
Tim
Thx for the article and clarifying this point. It is very helpful in understanding the subtlety of Rome’s false doctrine.
I hope you will find what I have found in my studies, that the greatest enemy of the truth of the gospel and scripture ever throughout history has been Roman Catholicism. It is a false Christianity, a front for the kingdom of Satan. And those who trust in that system are not Christian’s but the mission field in need of the truth.
Thx Kevin.
Your comments and Tim’s essays/audio’s and comments have certainly opened my eyes to the many errors of Roman Catholic teaching that I had not seen before. E.g. I thought I understood justification by belief alone, but coming to this site and seeing the arguments against it and how they were all answered – it sharpened my understanding.
And learning the history – well, this has been invaluable.
Tim,
You had better do some damage control.
Walt is learning that neither he nor you understand the atonement properly.
You should never have opened this line of inquiry.
Walt,
Don’t bother appealing to Tim for help. He is out of his element. This is seen by his ridiculous reading of Fr. Most.
Here is what Fr. Most said;
Because God was both the judge and the offended party, he would have done no injustice as a human judge would by merely forgiving mankind.
But He opted to do something better. He could have accepted any reparation He chose to, A designated member of the human race could have asked for forgiveness of the part of man.
But God again,opted to do something better. He sent his Son a divine Person of infinite worth to make satisfaction. He could have come in a palace and lived a life of luxury. But God chose something better.
He could have shed one tear or drop of blood such as at the Circumcision, and that would have more than been enough to redeem a million worlds as it would have been the action of an infinite Person.
But God chose something better. Jesus was born in a stable and suffered all His life to finally shed all of His blood. That was beyond infinite.
And then Fr. Most throws in the not infinite but unfathomable merits of Mary and added them to what was already infinite.
Tim foolishly thinks Fr. Most thinks God could have accepted the Mass without Calvary. Ha!
While He could have accepted reparation price He wanted, He would not have asked for the Mass as the Mass is meaningless without Calvary as it is relative to it.
Now, why did God do this? Fr Most explains Calvary did not move the Father to forgive us. Rather, God wanted to forgive us already. That is why He sent His Son.
Read Fr, Most. Don’t go by Tim’s butchering of the man’s words.
God wants all men saved. His Son merited enough grace to save a myriad of worlds. No tit for tat, eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth, Penal Substitution that says just enough was paid for the elect and the elect only.
Tim.
You really should avoid commenting on Scott Hahn, Fr. Most, St. Cyprian, whoever, as you seem to totally misunderstand them and end up putting words in their mouths they never actually said.
Now, for the idea of a Host riding a white horse you or Walt mentioned; of course the image is far fetched.
But tell me, do you think when Jesus returns He will be in His quantitative, glorified physical Body, riding a horse through the sky?
Will we be able to see Him? In China and France and California, all at the same time?
Jim, you wrote,
Does this mean you’re finally going to tell me which Pope said that Ordinatio Sacerdotalis was infallible? Just by way of reminder,
Thanks,
Tim
No. I am not going to tell you just because you’ve already said his name. ( pssssst! He was Polish ).
Thanks, Jim, of course you are not going to tell me. Because no pope has ever said Ordinatio Sacerdotalis was infallible. Here is a brief history of the proclamation:
May 22, 1994: Ordinatio Sacerdotalis is published
June 2, 1994: EWTN’s article proclaiming that Ordinatio Sacerdotalis passes the Vatican I test for an ex cathedra statement, a clear exercise of the extraordinary magisterium because the pope had clearly promulgated a dogmatic definition.
November 8, 1995: Cardinal Ratzinger publishes the responsum ad dubium declaring that Ordinatio Sacerdotalis was a declaration of the ordinary magisterium, indicating that John Paul II approved Cardinal Ratzinger’s responsum.
The Next Year: Cardinal Ratzinger follows up with a reflection on Ordinatio Sacerdotalis acknowledging that as an act of the ordinary papal magisterium, Ordinatio Sacerdotalis was not in itself infallible.
Immediately following: Fr. Peter Pilsner corrects Cardinal Ratzinger, explaining to him that Ordinatio Sacerdotlis meets the criteria of an exercise of the extraordinary magisterium: “With all due respect to Cardinal Ratzinger, if it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck…
May 26, 2005: James Akin explains that John Paul II did not “define the doctrine concerning women’s ordination in OS,” because he said “I declare” instead of “I declare and define,” and only the latter could pass the test of Vatican I ex cathedra criteria, and Ordinatio Sacerdotalis did not. Notably in this article, James says Ordinatio Sacerdotalis was not infallible, because Benedict XVI, as Cardinal Ratzinger, said it wasn’t.
July 2008: Robert Sungenis complains that, if Ordinatio Sacerdotalis was intended to be infallible, he wishes that it had been done “plainly and clearly, as Canon 749.3 requires.”
June 25, 2015: Jim says Ordinatio Sacerdotalis fits all the criteria for an infallible statement of the extraordinary magisterium.
June 26, 2015: Jim says Ordinatio Sacerdotalis was an exercise of the ordinary magisterium.
So what I am still unclear on, Jim, is that you said John Paul II said Ordinatio Sacerdotalis was infallible based, I presume, upon the fact that Ratzinger’s responsum was published with John Paul II’s approval, but Ratzinger himself says in his reflections on Ordinatio Sacerdotlis, that it was not an infallible proclamation. But Fr. Pilsner said it is an ex cathedra statement based on the formula of the words that were chosen, but James Akin says it wasn’t based on the formula of words that were chosen, but you say it was based on the formula of words that were chosen, because John Paul II said it was infallible, but Benedict XVI, as Cardinal Ratzinger said it wasn’t.
This gets me back to EWTN’s original assessment. The author of that article thought Ordinatio Sacerdotalis absolutely met the criteria for an infallible statement, and further thought it was positively ridiculous to ask for additional certification:
But as Akin pointed out, Ordinatio Sacerdotalis appeared to meet the criteria based on Vatican I, but fell short on the formula that was used to promulgate it. One commenter at Akin’s blog, Pontificator by name, suggested based on this, that John Paul II had broken new ground in the manner in which he proclaimed it:
I think another one of the participants at James Akin’s blog said it best when he complained that for James “to point out how Pope John Paul II intentionally made all 4 points of papal infallibility and then quibble over the word “define” or “declare” as if they have substantial differences apart from the 4 points … [is] parsing the doctrine of infallibility so finely that it loses any real meaning.”
And that is the problem with papal infallibility Jim. You think you can tell when the pope is promulgating something infallibly, but you can’t. That’s why James Akin had to jump in and clarify his clarifications—his clarifications on the non-infallibility were so confusing that the argument erupted over what he meant by his clarification, and he stepped in to re-clarify his reclarifications:
This is why I believe, as I explained in my post, If the light that is in thee be Darkness, that Pius XII’s November 1, 1950 proclamation on the Assumption of Mary, Munificentissimus Deus, was the Fifth Bowl—because it plunged Rome into utter darkness. It is the only proclamation in the history of the papacy that formally met the criteria for an infallible statement in accordance with Vatican I’s definition. But because of it, everyone is now constantly debating which other statements are infallible, unable to know what is true and what is not, what they have to believe, and what they do not. Thus, as the Scripture says, “And the fifth angel poured out his vial upon the seat of the beast; and his kingdom was full of darkness; and they gnawed their tongues for pain” (Revelation 16:10).
That’s why I wanted to understand from you which pope said it was infallible. There is no record of a pope actually saying so. There is just Ratzinger publishing a responsum with John Paul II’s approval, and Ratzinger himself as Cardinal acknowledging that Ordinatio Sacerdotalis was not itself infallible.
Thanks,
Tim
Nice try Tim but I ain’t going for the okey-doke.
You initiated an attack on the Mass without doing your homework on sacrifice in the Bible and worse, your own theory of the atonement.
Walt weighed in only to make things stickier for you by admitting he didn’t have a clue about just how horrendous your system is and turning to you for direction. You like to smear and attack Catholicism but are not Protestant enough to defend your own position.
Walt isn’t posting at the moment but he is coming back shortly and is expecting to see you carry the day on the Mass. Trouble is, you have shown yourself unable to even articulate the Catholic doctrine you malign as blasphemous.
You had better be able to salvage the Calvinist understanding of election, sacrifice as Penal Substitution, and the unbiblical doctrine of Limited Atonement or you might lose him.
Walt has sold his soul to Calvinism ( and Scotland ) but even he is going to be shocked by how weak your arguments are. He may leave your system altogether.
You were in trouble on the previous thread so you switched to this one. You are really on thin ice now so you want to engage me on OS.
I’ve got you in my cross hairs Tim. Why would I engage in your smokescreen? You don’t have a dog in the in-house Catholic fight on ordination. You are just trying to buffalo your way out of your present predicament.
Let’s stay on this topic for a while, okay?
Jim,
My question was related to your statement about putting words in people’s mouths. You have put words in the mouth of John Paul II. But he never said Ordinatio Sacerdotalis was infallible, did he? If so, when?
In any case, you have basically acknowledged that Sippo and Hahn were saying the same thing, and Sippo said “Christ did not offer his body and blood to God during the passion.” (Catholic Legate, Q&A on the Sacraments).
Thanks, as always,
Tim
Walt,
In your and Tim’s system, the atonement works like this;
God elects men to heaven or hell. Or sure, you may hold the infralapsarian view that election is post fall, but that doesn’t square with the Bible which says God locked up all men in trespass so He could have mercy on them all. Infralapsarianism, says God moved all men into the Massa Damnata so He could, like the potter with wicked clay. make vessels of wrath and it would be the vessels fault.
Anyway, Calvin and RC Sproul Jr. and Tim say God is the author of everything, including sin and evil.
Then God justly punishes most men for the sin they were born into.
Now, normal people hold other people accountable only for things they were free to do or not do. Nobody punishes another person for accidents or things done beyond their control. For example, a father does not order his three year old son to wash and wax the car and then punish him for failing the task.
The god of Calvinism is not like most men. He punishes men for committing the sins they were compelled to do.
But He also rescues some like you and Tim and Kevin. The rest of us He passes over. Jesus condemned the priest and Levite for passing over the beaten man on the Samaritan road but Calvinism’s God does it all the time.
Tim,
We need to talk about the Book of Hebrews and the sacrifice. Is Christ both High priest and Victim now?
We have to talk about this if we are going to teach you how the Mass is a sacrifice.
We also need you to explain the Great Exchange. You know, the one that says Jesus was reckoned a sinner by God so you can be reckoned righteous. ( By the way, you said your oblation of praise is pure. If that is so, why do you need an alien righteousness imputed to you? )
I am aware of the Fathers, borrowing from Galatians, saying God became man so that man can become God. But I need you to demonstrate how Christ was made a sinner or sin for us so you can be imputed righteous. We both know the classic texts used by Calvinists but I need you to lay them out. ( You know, St. Peter’s referencing the Suffering Servant, Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree, etc. etc. )
This is so Walt can be properly tutored as he has conceded he know zero about this topic. He also needs to see you completely routed so his silly hero worship of you can be laid to rest once and for all.
Shall we start today or shall we wait for Walt to get back from Russia. We don’t want him to miss a single installment.
Walter Scot,
I don’t know when you are going to get back from your sojourn in Russia but you can being you conversion back to Rome by clicking onto Nick’s Catholic Blog. For starters, read this alarming article on just what you profess to as a Calvinist.
http://catholicnick.blogspot.pt/2009/04/was-jesus-damned-in-your-place.html
OOPS! you can “begin” your journey home…
Also, be sure to read
http://catholicnick.blogspot.pt/2010/05/eternally-forgiven-more-problems-with.html
Tim,
here is one for you. It should get you thinking about that Great Exchange you are going to explain for Walt and me.
http://catholicnick.blogspot.pt/2013/03/the-biblical-teaching-on-bearing-sin.html
Tim,
Back to Fr. Most.
Remember how he said it was not Christ’s death that merited our salvage but rather, His obedience unto death. This is what Sippo, Hahn, Aquinas, etc. etc., in short, everybody says.
PS says death is what counts. Somebody has to die to suffer the penalty of the Law. Punishment is what propitiates the Father.
The Bible says otherwise. Propitiation is made by restoring a broken relationship in the Bible. Do a word search and see how many times God is propitiated without punishment being transferred onto an innocent third party.
There are a couple of instances where God’s wrath is turned aside by the burning of incense ( it was considered to be a form of sacrifice in which no victim died ).
Also, remember the various sacrifices that were not propitiatory but involved the destruction of a victim none the less.
This shows how the Calvinist and Lutheran understanding of the OT sacrificial system as being one of PS is dead wring.
it’s also dead wrong.
Tim,
Just priming the pump for the upcoming melee.
I see the term “imputed/counted/reckoned to an account” only in the case of the Good Sam and in Paul’s letter to Philemon. In neither case are Christ’s merits reckoned to an account. The concept is not a biblical one.
Imputation is central to your understanding of the atoning sacrifice. It is wrong. But since you want to come after my system of sacrifice, you had better be able to present and defend your own.
Tim,
Neither Sippo nor Hahn deny Christ offered Himself on the cross. He did not retract the dispositions He had when He offered Himself in the first Mass/Last Supper.
He died with those dispositions. They are His now and forever. That is why He is a victim now. This is central to the Mass being a sacrifice.
Jim, you wrote,
Sippo wrote,
You complain that I put words in people’s mouths. Here you take them out. How do you explain the difference between what you are saying Sippo said, and what Sippo said? It seems to me that Sippo very much denies that Christ offered himself on the cross. In fact, he insists that Jesus did not.
Shawn McElhinney explains it in precisely those terms:
Shawn says, “the offering of Our Lord of Himself for sin occurred not at Calvary” and He got this from Art Sippo, using the same Temple language that Benedict referred to in his book, and that Hahn used in his video.
In any case, you wrote,
That requires that I accept that the Last Supper was the offering, not the Cross. You have not proven that. Even Hahn agrees that Jesus did not “lose his life” on Friday. That’s because Gregory of Nyssa says Jesus already laid it down Thursday night. Dead. Buried. In the ground. Before Judas ever betrayed Him in the Garden.
But if Jesus said, “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13), when, exactly, did He do that? Remember, Hahn said He DIDN’T do that at the Cross. When did He do that? Isn’t this just a lot of “time-warp,” “space-time continuum” talk in order to get the sacrifice back to Thursday night? Yes, it certainly is. Indeed, that is how McElhinney explains it, using the “eternal now”:
But to apply this to Christ in His incarnate form is a material rejection of the incarnation itself. For if it is true, then Jesus is also eternally not incarnate, and eternally on the cross, and eternally not on the cross, and eternally in the tomb. But we do not have the prerogative of interpreting the Passover narrative out of time, because, as Hebrews explains: “But now we see not yet all things put under him” (Hebrews 2:8). If the Mass and Calvary transcend the space-time continuum to become a single simultaneous event, we should also “see all things put under Him” right now at this very moment. But we do not.
You continued,
Yes He did. Because He had those dispositions at the Cross. What you haven’t proven is that He “offered” Himself on Thursday night.
You continued,
No they are not. Jesus said “My soul is exceeding sorrowful unto death” (Matthew 26:38, Mark 14:34). It was. Then He died. Then He rose again victoriously. Jesus’ soul was not “exceeding sorrowful unto death” on the day He arose from the dead, and it is not “exceeding sorrowful unto death” in eternity. Jesus’ disposition is not perpetually to lay His life down for eternity. He laid it down. Then He took it up three days later. Done:
Then He took His seat at the right hand of the power, having purged our sins (Hebrews 1:3, 10:12). Your doctrine has Jesus perpetually laying His life down, now and forever, for eternity—but the necessary implication of such thinking is that Jesus is perpetually taking it back up again, now and forever, for eternity. And perpetually and exceedingly sorrowful unto death for eternity. I cannot buy into that. He is not permanently in a state of being sacrificed.
You continued,
No, He certainly is not. He is the risen Lord.
It certainly is.
What I find interesting is how Sippo insists that Thursday is the Sacrifice, Thursday is when Jesus became the victim, Thursday is when Jesus laid His life down. Only if I accept that, and only if I accept that, can Calvary be considered a sacrifice:
No prescribed rituals for killing the victim?
In any case, just so I understand: I am only allowed to call Calvary a sacrifice if I first accept that Calvary is not where Jesus laid His life down, and that Calvary is not where Jesus offered Himself to the Father for my sins, and that Calvary is not where Jesus “reduced Himself to the state of victim.” But aside from that, Calvary was “the sacrifice.” Wink, wink.
I hope you can understand from my perspective that the apologetic is wearisome and it merely pays lip service to Calvary, while actually denying what Calvary does. It is no different than the rest of Rome’s errors:
• Aside from 300 years of the church rejecting Roman primacy, Rome has always had primacy. Wink, wink.
• Aside from 300 years of Malachi 1:11 being fulfilled in sacrifices of praise, the church has always understood Malachi 1:11 to refer to the Mass. Wink, wink.
• Aside from 300 years of the church recognizing that Mary was sinful, the church has always understood that Mary was sinless. Wink, wink.
• Aside from 300 years of rejecting the veneration of relics, the church has always venerated relics. Wink, wink.
• Aside from Calvary having none of the attributes of a sacrifice, then yes, Calvary is “the sacrifice.” Wink, wink.
Sorry, I can’t agree with you on that.
Tim
Three hundred years of a Protestant church suddenly morphed into a catholic one, eh Tim?
HA! Just like your PCA church could turn Catholic this week, huh? And without anybody seeing it happen.
Tim,
It is not an either/ or issue. Either the Supper or the Cross. It is both and as both are necessary parts of the one sacrifice/offering.
What the Catholic apologists you focus on are saying is that the Supper is where Christ offered the Passion of the cross and instituted the continuation of that offering by saying, ‘ Do this…”. Blood poured out for the remission of sin, and anamnesis.
All through the Septuagint, when the Bible means “drink, it says drink. When it means “eat” it says eat. But 76 times, when it means “sacrifice”, it says “DO”.
When and where did Christ act as a priest according to the order of Melchizedek if not when He offered His death under the form of bread and wine?
” this concept of the Last Supper as a sacrifice came late in time, and actually originated in the latter part of the 4th century when Gregory of Nyssa …”
And he pulled it off without anybody being the wiser, eh Tim?
A million nice Bible Only folk who liked to gather for some bread and grape juice and recall what had been done for them, sing a few songs and listen to a sermon once a week were fast asleep when agents of Satan slipped under the radar with idol worship, mitre wearing monarchical bishops, centralized power in Rome, goddess worship, prayers for the dead and to the dead and a bizarre ritual borrowed from the pagans they previously would rather have died than mix with, using bread and wine and pretending they were re-killing Christ.
And these villains pulled of the hoax from one end of the Empire to the other in a couple of decades without having access modern means of communication like the internet, telephone or even two cans connected to a string.
Then they systematically quashed all dissent or even record of the original Bible only folks until the 16th century. That is why you have no evidence but you consider the lack of evidence to be, in fact, evidence.
This is so typical of your crackpot theory.
Jim, you wrote,
Paul wrote,
Thanks,
Tim
The liar he was talking about couldn’t be you, could it Tim?
“Your doctrine has Jesus perpetually laying His life down,” ( Killed Tim? )
Did you hear that when you were a Catholic?
( No. You made it up to scare Walt ).
to scare the kilts off Walt, that is.
Tim,
So Jesus is not a Victim now?
Does He still bear the wounds in His hands feet and side? Or have they healed over the past 2,000 years?
Is He a High Priest in the heavenly sanctuary? Every High Priest must have something to offer, yes?
What would that be Tim?
Look to Revelation to see the Lamb standing as slain.
Christ sat down to rest when He entered heaven? Who says sitting is a position of rest? Don’t judges sit when they exercise power?
Besides, St. Steven saw Christ standing in heaven.
In Mass. the same Priest and Victim are present with the same dispositions frozen at death.
Nobody changes their dispositions after death. That is why the souls in hell never repent.
Now. you are the one who says Christ is a suffering Victim. Have I said that?
No. I maintain He is in glory. A glorified Victim. That is why He dies no more.
Back to Gregory. He said the Priests words at Mass separate blood and body. Only because Christ cannot die again do the words not hurt him.
But remember, until Christ gave the word, nobody could hurt Him despite attempts to throw Him off a cliff, seize Him or stone Him. Even Herod could not harm Him as a baby.
No man took Christ’s life from Him. He said so. He laid it down.
Immediately after the words of Consecration and committing Himself to Friday’s cross, he skipped the 4th cup of wine and went to the Garden where His heart melted like wax and He was poured out. He was so weakened He would have died had an angel not strengthened Him.
Calvin blasphemously said this state was caused by Christ suddenly realizing what was going to befall Him on Friday and being overtaken by fear, even fear of damnation.
Imagine that. All His life, Christ knew His mission. He longed to eat the Supper with those He loved. At the moment of Mary’s Fiat, Christ uttered, “Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not, But a body didst thou prepare for me”.
On the cross, after drinking the 4th cup, He said, “It ( the sacrifice ) is finished” and gave up His spirit.
The virgins and martyrs in heaven are still virgins and martyrs, aren’t they Tim. According to the Book of revelation.
And the sacrifice of incense is still being offered there too.
Christ is our victim, now and forever. Amen
“For if it is true, then Jesus is also eternally not incarnate, and eternally on the cross, and eternally not on the cross, and eternally in the tomb. But we do not have the prerogative of ”
Those rantings are yours Tim. Don’t try putting them in my mouth.
You are drawing your own conclusions and accusing us of them.
Won’t work. Like your nutty accusations of bread worship despite repeated assurances that we Catholics actually know the difference between a slice of sourdough and the God of the Universe.
By the way, just so we give your system equal billing with mine, tell us how that death on Calvary was only for some despite the Bible clearly saying it was for ALL.
Tim,
It’s 8:25 p.m. here and I have to get to church for my Monday night Holy Hour of Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament at 9.
Busy yourself with something constructive. Watch this video.
Tim,
“Until the time of Gregory, nobody had ever proposed that Jesus had sacrificed Himself on Thursday night. ”
Pure question begging.
Every Jew saw sacrificial language used at the Supper. It was the establishment of a New Covenant, was it not? Covenants were sealed with sacrifice and sacrificial meal.
You say,
“Until the time of Gregory, nobody had ever proposed…”
I say,
“Until the time of Luther, nobody had ever denied the Mass as sacrifice”
or
“Until the time of Calvin, nobody had ever proposed Christ had not died for all men”.
Gregory was an innovator? And you Tim? Are your crackpot theories traditional?
So, it’s a toss up between St. Gregory of Nyssa and some disgruntled nobody on the internet named Tim.
Hmmmmm? That’s not a difficult choice Tim. I’m gonna go with the Church Father.
Thanks anyway.
Tim,
Here is what Scott Hahn really said;
At 11:40 he says, “We agree with our non Catholic Christian brothers and sisters who describe Calvary as the sacrifice…”.
He in no says what you charge him with saying.
He goes on to say at 11:54 that Calvary would only be an execution if not for the Eucharist. This repeats what he said at 10:18, if the Eucharist is a meal, then Calvary is an execution.
He said exactly the same at 9:22. if Thursday was just a meal, Friday was just a Roman execution.
He says that nobody took Christ’s life from Him on Friday as He had laid it down on Thursday.
This all corresponds to what I said about oblation and immolation being two necessary parts of one sacrifice.
Hahn appeals to Paul’s 1 Cor 5:7 ” For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed.”
and continues with 1 Cor 5:8 ” lets us therefore keep the feast…of unleavened bread…”.
This calls to mind the Passover Lamb was sacrificed once as it could die only once but the feast was extended for 8 days using bread. This clearly points to the Mass.
Rather than denying Friday to be a sacrifice, Hahn actually says Calvary was the consummation of Thursday.
At 15:00 Hahn says the Eucharist is what transforms Calvary from being an execution into being a sacrifice.
Over and over, Hahn links Supper to Cross. Never does he deny the cross as being necessary. Never does he deny it as sacrifice.
What he doesn’t do is what you do. He doesn’t say there were two sacrifices, one at the Supper and one on Calvary. For Hahn, the Supper, the Cross and now the Mass are ONE.
I don’t know which is more pathetic. Your misunderstanding of Fr. Most or that of Scott Hahn’s video.
Jim, you wrote,
What he does is say that he is willing to call Calvary a “sacrifice” only on the condition that we accept that it is actually the consummation of the real sacrifice on Thursday. Thus, I am only allowed to call Calvary the sacrifice if I first acknowledge that He did not lay His life down on Friday (He did that on Thursday), that He did not offer Himself to the Father on Friday (He did that on Thursday) and that He did not become the sacrificial victim on Friday (He did that on Thursday). But aside from that, Hahn is ok with Friday being the “sacrifice.” As you note,
Of course he does. The implication, of course, is that Thursday is the Sacrifice, not Friday. Friday took place outside the city, away from the temple and altar where sacrifices are supposed to take place. That’s the whole point of Hahn’s reference to Melito. The real sacrifice is Thursday, not Friday. That is why Sippo and McElhinney can say:
Why? Because …
When did Jesus offer Himself to God? On Thursday or Friday? Sippo says Thursday. Hahn says Thursday. McElhinney says Thursday.
If the sacrifice is the offering, not the killing, then Thursday was the sacrifice, not Friday. If sacrifice is laying down one’s life, then Thursday was the sacrifice, not Friday. If becoming a sacrificial victim is the mode of sacrifice, then the sacrifice took place on Thursday, not Friday. Everyone clear on that? Great. Now you are allowed to pretend that Friday was the sacrifice.
That’s a lot of doublespeak that pays lip service to, while at the same time denying, the Sacrifice on Calvary at which Christ laid down His life and offered it to His Father, accepting His wrath in my place for my sins as the sacrificial victim of an actual offerings. And that lip service calls Friday the sacrifice (wink, wink) but says that Thursday is when He really did it.
Thanks,
Tim
Hahn is still alive so you could shoot him an email and ask him to clear things up for you.
I personally would like to see that exchange between Tim and Scott Hahn. How about it, Tim?
BOB,
I would like to see that exchange, too.
Tim
CK,
I have a feeling Scott already knows where to find me.
Thanks,
Tim
Figgers.
The implication, of course, is that Thursday is the Sacrifice, not Friday…If the sacrifice is the offering, not the killing,…That’s a lot of doublespeak…wink,wink,…”.
Tim,
No doublespeak. No winking. You are not paying attention.
Thursday is not a sacrifice without Calvary. Calvary is not a sacrifice without Thursday. Together they form one sacrifice.
On Thursday Christ, under the separate consecration showing blood separated from Body, pledged Himself to Friday. If, in the Garden, Christ changed His mind, it would have rendered Thursday a meaningless ritual with bread and wine nothing more.
Without Thursday, Friday would have been an execution. The only religious significance it would have had would have been as the death of a martyr. It would have been an inspiring example, that’s all.
” Christ laid down His life and offered it to His Father, accepting His wrath in my place for my sins ”
Christ underwent no wrath from the Father. The Jewish sacrificial system was not one of the poor dumb animal, sack of flour or incense being punished or undergoing wrath of any kind.
While Christ addressed the punishment you ( and all men ) deserve, he did not do by undergoing the Father’s wrath in your stead. He did it by propitiation or turning away or diffusing wrath altogether.
Ever read Anselm? Christ made satisfaction for sin by offering the Father something greater than the insult sinful man had given by disobedience. That “something” was Christ’s obedience and love.
Sacrificial offerings were gifts. Not substitutionary punishment transferred to a third party ( the victim ). The victim died only because that was the natural result of draining its blood. The blood or life ( not the death ) was then offered in sacrifice by the priest on behalf of the people or person.
Now, God did not need the blood of goats or doves. He did not need sacks of flour or incense. What He wanted was the interior disposition of the person offering the gift. That is why if a person could not afford a lamb, he could offer doves. If he could not afford two doves, a sack of flour would do just so long as the disposition was there.
However, the disposition needed to be made actual. It had to actually cost something. ( Remember the case of David when he was offered free oxen to sacrifice? )
JIM–
I never thought of it that way–it’s not the gift but the thought that counts! Good analogy.
Bob,
Indeed.
But remember, God did establish the sacrificial system. Otherwise prayer would have been enough. God wants the interior disposition made incarnate in action (if possible.
A misreading of Paul’s anti-Law rhetoric has caused Protestants to have a manichean dislike for the Sacraments.
TIM–
You said: “That’s a lot of doublespeak that pays lip service to, while at the same time denying, the Sacrifice on Calvary…”
No, it doesn’t. Why do you always see the “either/or” instead of the “both/and”? The perpetual nature of Christ’s sacrifice works on multi-dimensions. Your problem, Tim, is that your thinking is bound by time and sequence where Christ’s is not (Is 55:8). The Eucharist is the prime example of how God’s greatest miracle spanned history from the beginning to the end. Christ’s crucifixion opened the doors to Heaven so that sins may be forgiven–from the very first sin to the very last. (Mar 15:38) It didn’t forgive sins, it made it so that sins could be forgiven. Each sin is forgiven when we apply His Blood by faithfully humbling ourselves in penitence and sacrament and obedience.(Rom 12-15)
Tim,
I guess you are not going to fire back with a defense of Penal Substitution as sacrifice. No marshaling of Is. 53, 2 Cor 5:21 or Gal 3:13 ” Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree”.
I guess I can take a victory lap.
Oh, one more thing. I think Justin Martyr saw the Eucharist as sacrifice long before Gregory of Nyssa.
How so?
He ( and others ) spoke of the change that happens to the bread by a prayer being said. This is the prayer of the Double Consecration that makes Christ the Victim present through a change ( Metaballo a.k.a. Transubstantiation ). Transubstantiation=sacrifice. We can develop that line of thought but I think I have put enough on your plate over the last few days that you will never get around to addressing half of it.
You will probably just change the subject with a new article.
Tim,
Christ had a human nature, therefore a human mind and will.
As for His divine will, it was the same as the Father’s.
Without falling into Nestorianism, explain this business about the Father pouring out His wrath on the Son.
And maybe throw in some Bibley talk in doing it.
Tim,
Building on Bob’s statement about the cross not actually forgiving sins, at least not until it’s application, let me follow up by saying the offense done to God is not perfectly wiped out by our punishment in hell. It is wiped out when we repent and are restored to grace.
A few days ago I listed the 4 aspects of Christ’s salvific work for us.
1. He ransomed or redeemed us from the unjust thralldom to sin and the devil.
2. He made satisfaction
3. He merited grace for us as He could not merit an increase of grace for Himself.
4. He atoned or restored the broken family relationship Adam had enjoyed prior to the Fall. He did this by offering gifts of sacrifice.
Let’s talk about #2 and 3.
Sin is preferring one’s own will over God’s. Satisfaction for sin is made by accepting what is contrary to our will in a loving spirit of reparation.
Our sin doesn’t actually hurt God. It hurts us. Satisfaction is a type of punishment that corrects the sinner. It doesn’t really restore anything to God as he is not lessened by our sin in the first place. When punishment is embraced by the sinner out of love and obedience, the pain is lessened. As a matter of fact, the punishment is lessened to the degree of contrition had by the sinner and can be dismissed altogether if that contrition is perfect. If resisted, punishment becomes more painful. If no contrition ( love ) at all is had by the sinner, the punishment is hell.
All this is to say that what is at the heart of Christ making satisfaction on our behalf ( notice I did not say “in our stead” ) is His love. That is what Fr. Most was getting at when he said Calvary was not strictly necessary. Christ’s infinite love and obedience* for the Father was more than sufficient to render any act, no matter how slight, sufficient to satisfy for all sins and merit the graces of conversion needed for a million worlds.
Fr. Most meant that Christ went beyond infinity by doing 100% on Calvary when 1% ( being born in a palace ) would have been infinite already.
Now, Calvary is the meritorious cause of our salvation. That means Calvary is where Christ merited grace for us.
But, as Bob, says, Calvary saves nobody unless applied. The formal cause of our justification is our being restored to a stste of sanctifying grace. The efficient cause would be Baptism or it’s desire (at least implicitly ). Faith formed by love includes an implicit if not an explicit desire for the Sacrament.
* obedience =Love for God. “If you love me, you will keep my Commandments”. Now is not the time to change topics and ask how we get that Love needed for justification. Suffice it to say that Penal Substitution is not part of our system. It is your error. This error causes you to misunderstand the sacrifice of the Mass to be a weird re-punishing of Christ in the stead of the elect.
Until you dump PS, you will be blinded into making more outrageous accusations of the Mass being a blasphemous re-killing of Christ. That is why in my explanation of the Mass I need to dismantle PS as being an erroneous understanding of both sacrifice and the atonement.
If Tim’s Penal Substitution theory were correct, the theory that says Calvary applies itself, all men would automatically have to be saved as Christ tasted death for all men on Calvary.
There are non Calvinist Protestants who adhere to a system of PS yet deny Limited Atonement. Luther and Arminius for example. Lutherans, being monergists, have an especially hard time answering the question why all are not saved.
Calvinists are more consistent than other Protestants in saying Penal Substitution demands Limited Atonement.
The problem is, the Bible is clear that Christ died for all.
That alone should undo Tim’s commitment to Calvinism.
If he wants to learn a little more about those 4 aspects of salvation I mentioned, he can read that book by Fr. Dominic he has on St. Joseph.
If he wants to really go into great detail on it, Bryan Cross has a couple of huge articles with hundreds of blogger comments on Ransom, Satisfaction, Merit and Sacrifice on C2C.
JIM–
“A misreading of Paul’s anti-Law rhetoric has caused Protestants to have a manichean dislike for the Sacraments.”
Wow. Big word–Manichean. That is a complicated dislike. Can you break that down into simpler terms so that I may better understand what you mean? Remember, I am Methodist.
Bob,
Also known as the Catholics.
A gnostic sect that hated the flesh and prized only the spiritual.
There are degrees of it, Quakers being at one extreme,
The mindset says stuff is bad and God would never stoop tp using anything so base a material things to convey grace.
St. Dominic defeated them with the Rosary.
The Joyful mysteries celebrate the Incarnation say flesh is good ( the Cathars/Albigensians hated the child in the womb because it was a spirit imprisoned in matter. All forms of sexual activity were encouraged, in or out of marriage, just so long as a baby was not conceived. They also celebrated suicide as a noble act that allowed a spirit to escape matter. )
The Sorrowful mysteries are about Christ actually suffering in the flesh and saving us by so doing.
The Glorious mysteries are about how our flesh is destined for glory.
Tim’s hatred for the Rosary as being from the devil shows how he believes the devil casts out the devil.
TIM–
You present the mindset of Scott Hahn in your blog as tampering with the space-time continuum. You, of all people, a self proclaimed expert on Catholic doctrine, should be able to understand that mindset, and it makes perfect sense–Eucharistically.
The Catechism says this:
1362 The Eucharist is the memorial of Christ’s Passover, the making present and the sacramental offering of his unique sacrifice, in the liturgy of the Church which is his Body. In all the Eucharistic Prayers we find after the words of institution a prayer called the anamnesis or memorial.
1363 In the sense of Sacred Scripture the memorial is not merely the recollection of past events but the proclamation of the mighty works wrought by God for men. In the liturgical celebration of these events, they become in a certain way present and real. This is how Israel understands its liberation from Egypt: every time Passover is celebrated, the Exodus events are made present to the memory of believers so that they may conform their lives to them.
1364 In the New Testament, the memorial takes on new meaning. When the Church celebrates the Eucharist, she commemorates Christ’s Passover, and it is made present the sacrifice Christ offered once for all on the cross remains ever present. “As often as the sacrifice of the Cross by which ‘Christ our Pasch has been sacrificed’ is celebrated on the altar, the work of our redemption is carried out.”
1365 Because it is the memorial of Christ’s Passover, the Eucharist is also a sacrifice. The sacrificial character of the Eucharist is manifested in the very words of institution: “This is my body which is given for you” and “This cup which is poured out for you is the New Covenant in my blood.” In the Eucharist Christ gives us the very body which he gave up for us on the cross, the very blood which he “poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.”
1366 The Eucharist is thus a sacrifice because it re-presents (makes present) the sacrifice of the cross, because it is its memorial and because IT APPLIES ITS FRUIT:
[Christ], our Lord and God, was once and for all to offer himself to God the Father by his death on the altar of the cross, to accomplish there an everlasting redemption. But because his priesthood was not to end with his death, at the Last Supper “on the night when he was betrayed,” [he wanted] to leave to his beloved spouse the Church a visible sacrifice (as the nature of man demands) by which the bloody sacrifice which he was to accomplish once for all on the cross would be re-presented, its memory perpetuated until the end of the world, and its salutary power be applied to the forgiveness of the sins we daily commit.
1367 The sacrifice of Christ and the sacrifice of the Eucharist are ONE SINGLE SACRIFICE: “The victim is one and the same: the same now offers through the ministry of priests, who then offered himself on the cross; only the manner of offering is different.” “And since in this divine sacrifice which is celebrated in the Mass, the same Christ who offered himself once in a bloody manner on the altar of the cross is contained and is offered in an unbloody manner. . . this sacrifice is truly propitiatory.”
Tim, you will agree that Christ is a priest forever unto the order of Melchizedek, yes? That makes Him not only the victim in the Eucharist, but He is also the priest who offers the sacrifices of the Church to the Father through Himself. That is what makes it perfect and pleasing to God. And that is why I believe the Eucharist is the greatest of God’s miracles. Christ’s presence in such a multi-dimensional manifestation is absolutely mind-blowing. What an awesome God!
If there is anyone who is “tampering” with the space-time continuum, it’s Jesus Christ Himself.
Bob, you wrote,
Is it your position that because I understand it (and I do), therefore I ought not disagree with it? Am I forbidden to disagree with that which I understand?
You continued,
The position of Rome is that the “eternal now” joins Calvary to the Upper Room. The problem is that the
“eternal now” joins everything—the tomb, the cross, the incarnation, the fall, the expulsion from the garden and Jesus’ Return, and His eternal reign when all things are under His feet. Is it your position that Jesus is currently in the tomb? That’s what the “eternal now” does.
My objection to Rome’s selective use of the eternal now to make Thursday the sacrifice joined with Calvary is a) Hahn made his point from Melito, who says nothing of this, and b) Hebrews reminds us that it is not our prerogative to tamper with the continuum: “But now we see not yet all things put under him.” (Hebrews 2:8) If we do not yet see all things under him, His apostles did not yet see Calvary on Thursday night.
Thanks,
Tim
Tim,
Fibber, You do not understand. Our exchange over the past week and your comments on Scott Hahn’s video belie your saying you do.
Not only do you fail Catholicism 101, but you get an F on Calvinism too.
I was thinking of how you guys latch onto Is 53 and the Suffering Servant to prove Penal Substitution.
PS says Christ suffered *IN OUR STEAD*
The correct doctrine says he suffered *AS OUR HEAD*.
PS( and all of monergism ) say man has no part in his salvation, that Christ did it all for him, in his stead, as his substitute.
In fact,every single man has to suffer and die. These are penalties of sin. Christ did not save us from that. Rather, he went on as our point man to show us how to do it. He did it to elevate our suffering and incorporate it into our own salvation.
Back to Is 53. St. Peter quotes this passage in his first epistle. He says we should see that Christ gives us an example of how to suffer persecution and hardship.
Is 53, as interpreted by Peter, not only does not support PS, it undoes it altogether.
Thanks, Jim,
You wrote,
Did you think Substitutionary Atonement denied this?
That is true.
Did you think that Substitutionary Atonement teaches that the elect—past, present and future—are transported immediately to heaven to live with Christ eternally upon His crucifixion? Can you show me where proponents of Substitutionary Atonement teach that?
Well, that is what Roman Catholicism teaches, you are correct about that: Jesus showed us how to earn our salvation.
You continued,
Yes, he does. In fact, he says that the Elect for whom Jesus died, those who are predestined to eternal salvation (1 Peter 1:2), and for whom He prayed in the Garden (John 17:9,20), have an incorruptible inheritance awaiting them in heaven (1 Peter 1:3-4).
And since Jesus intentionally did not ask for us to be removed from the world, but that we would be preserved in the world, sending us into the world as the Father sent Him (John 17:15-18), and He encouraged us that the reason the world would hate us is because we are not of this world, but in fact had been elected by Him:
And then Peter, teaches us that because this is Christ’s plan for His elect ones, that we should endure this world, just as he did, therefore we should “take it patiently” just as Christ did (1 Peter 2:20), “Who, when he was reviled, reviled not again;” (1 Peter 2:23-24),
I guess what I’m missing from your comments is where Peter’s citation of Isaiah 53 undoes Substitutionary Atonement. Did you think that Substitutionary Atonement denied that we are to continue in this world, walking as He walked, awaiting our salvation that waits for us uncorrupted in Heaven, even as we persevered on earth, “kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last time” (1 Peter 1:5). Where in that are we earning our salvation?
Yes, he does.
Not sure where you’re seeing that in a passage that has everything to do with the perseverance of the saints, His election of them, and their inheritance that awaits them in heaven.
Thanks,
Tim
Tim,
Why do you call it “substitution”?
Do you say, as we Catholics do, that Jesus suffered on our behalf? Or do you say, “in our stead”?
Does not PS say that Jesus suffered the penalties for sin in the place of/in the stead of/ the elect?
As a matter of fact, do you folks not say Jesus suffered what the damned suffer? ( Click on the link I gave Walt for an answer in the affirmative ).
This punishment endured in your stead and applied to your account is what you mean by “Justification”, yes or no?
This accounts for your security, knowing you cannot be punished for a crime already punished in the person of your proxy, yes or no?
What if Jesus died for all men? Would all men be saved?
I don’t want to put words in your mouth so I will let you put your foot in it instead.
Tim,
I hope by “perseverance of the saints” you don’t mean the “preservation of the saints”. There are too may conditionals, warnings and exhortations in 1st Peter for that.
You asked me, ” Did you think that Substitutionary Atonement denied that we are to continue in this world, walking as He walked, awaiting our salvation that waits for us uncorrupted in Heaven….”
Of course not. Not if you want to arrive at that uncorrupted salvation awaiting you on condition that you…
You go on to say, “kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation …”
( provided, of course Tim, you don’t let yourself be devoured by that roaring lion Peter mentions in the 5th chapter of that same epistle )
You ask,”Where in that are we earning our salvation?”
Oh my Tim! Did you honesty think Catholics “earn” salvation? Heavens to Betsy, NO! After being freely put in a state of grace/justification/salvation/ we go on to “merit” final salvation, not earn it.
Hasn’t anybody ever told you hirelings “earn” a wage. Sons merit to grow in the grace of sonship. It’s ( as Trent says ) both a gift and a reward, not a wage ( the only wages I am aware of is in Romans 6:23 )
Cheers!
TIM–
You said: “The position of Rome is that the “eternal now” joins Calvary to the Upper Room. The problem is that the
“eternal now” joins everything—the tomb, the cross, the incarnation, the fall, the expulsion from the garden and Jesus’ Return, and His eternal reign when all things are under His feet. Is it your position that Jesus is currently in the tomb? That’s what the “eternal now” does.”
What do you think seeing the end from the beginning means? Time is of no consequence to the eternal realm. But we who are living in the temporal are bound by it. To understand the eternal we must connect the dots abstractly. It is my position that you are thinking only in three dimensions. God has revealed His eternal Word(multi-dimensional) to us (three dimensional) in Scripture (two dimensional). What you must grasp is that Jesus, as Melchizedek, began His Sacrifice with the ceremonial rite in the Upper Room and consummated it on the Cross as the Lamb. It’s like getting married. It begins with the ceremonial rite and is consummated with the two as one in the marital chamber. To be right in the eyes of God, the ceremonial rite must be done for the consummation to be pure. Without the consummation, the ceremonial right is of no consequence and can be annulled.
You asked is it my position that Jesus is in the tomb? When I read about it in the Bible, at that moment He is. When I think about Good Friday and the Saturday after until Sunday morning, He is in the tomb. When I read about Him ministering to the ones in Hell, I picture that in my mind. But all the time I think about these things I know that, at the same time, He is Risen. How can He be in the tomb and risen at the same time? Jesus is not bound by time, that’s how!
Thanks Bob,
It’s all there for Tim.
Bob,
Neither Tim nor Walt understand.
About 5 days ago, super Calvinist and wild eyed anti-Catholic Walt openly admitted he had never even heard the term “Penal Substitution” and cried out to help from Tim to explain it. Tim has not come charging in oh his white horse to save Walt and isn’t going to.
Walt then posted some quotes from Trent saying Catholics do in fact believe Christ merited our salvation on the cross. He did this to show off to Tim how Scott Hahn and I now deny Trent as Trent says Christ did suffer for us.
Bob, no Catholic denies Christ suffered for us. What we deny is that that suffering was as a Penal Substitute, imputed with our guilt and loathed by the Father as the Calvinist claims.
Although Walt spends his time blogging on how faulty the Catholic Church is on the atonement and the Mass, he revealed a pathetic ignorance of both Catholicism and his own Calvinism.
Although Walt pleaded with Tim to explain things for him, Tim dummied up and has not sallied forth to advance PS against the Catholic view of the atonement.
Tim is good at making things up and tarring Catholicism with his false charges. What Tim cannot do is defend or explain his own position as a Protestant, not even to save Walt.
Tim is a Catholic hater first and a Protestant second.
Bob,
Would anyone seriously think Dan Brown knows Catholic theology?
The Da Vinci Code is full of dates, facts, figures, names, and events that actually existed or took place.
Tim’s crackpot theories of the early Church, his elevating himself over the fathers, and fanciful ravings read like the Da Vinci Code and are just as dangerous to ignorant people who gamble with their souls by reading it.
Neither Tim nor Dan Brown know the Faith. Same goes for Walt. They hate what they don’t know.
Tim and Walt embrace Calvinism because they think it gives them a solid ground from which to legitimize that hate.Trouble is, neither of them know Calvinism enough to defend it.
Tim,
Do you “offer it up” like I assume your mom used to tell you when you were a Catholic kid? You know, when you skinned your knee or bumped your head.
No? ( Of course you don’t. That’s Catholic stuff ).
Then Peter’s rendering of Is 53 proves my side, not yours.
Tim,
Please forward to 1:50 where Hahn says non Catholics say Calvary is the sacrifice. He asks, ” would we disagree?”
What does he say immediately afterwards at 1:53?
“Of course not.”
Then notice what Mr Han says at 1:56, ” Calvary not only is a sacrifice but the supreme sacrifice of all time”.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQ3goNXz8Jg
Now, do you still maintain Scott Hahn says the Supper is the sacrifice in lieu of Calvary?
Okay, so you now imply it is I who misunderstand Penal Substitution.
Tim, after misunderstanding the clear words of Scott Hahn so egregiously, do you really want a spitting contest to see who the king of misunderstandings?
HA! I wouldn’t think so!
Jim,
I’ve already answered your question.
Thanks,
Tim
Tim,
Where does he say Calvary was NOT a sacrifice?
I just showed you where he said it was.
This, from the guy who thought that Adam and Eve had sex in the garden, and thought that John Paul II’s Ordinatio Sacerdotalis met all the criteria for an ex cathedra pronouncement.
😉
Tim
Adam and Eve did not have sex in the Garden? Exactly how long were they there? Does the Bible tell us? Could they have had relations but not conceived?
I don’t honestly know Tim.
But you do?
Jim,
On August 2, 2014, after going through this same conversation, I provided you with this citation from Lumen Gentium,
To which you responded,
Now here we are 11 months later, and you say,
But you did 11 months ago.
Thanks,
Tim
Oh, okay. Good point. Adam and Eve had not come together at the time of the Fall. Excellent deduction on your part Tim.
Happy?
( What does it have to do with the price of tea in China? )
Jim,
I said ex cathedra, Jim. As in you thought “Ordinatio Sacerdotalis met all the criteria for an ex cathedra pronouncement.”
Ratzinger said (of Ordinatio), “In this case, an act of the ordinary Papal Magisterium, in itself not infallible, witnesses to the infallibility of the teaching of a doctrine already possessed by the Church.”
Acts of the ordinary Papal Magisterium are not ex cathedra, which is why Ratzinger said Ordinatio is “in itself not infallible.”
Sure, it conveys an infallible teaching of the ordinary magisterium, but simple restatements of the teachings of the ordinary magisterium are not “ex cathedra.”
Or are they?
Thanks,
Tim
Tim,
All I’m gonna say is I was there when all this women’s ordination nonsense was coming down and I remember the pope’s statement. ( I was actually present at Candlestick Park when the bad guys had a woman play Jesus for the Stations of the cross and a feminist nun tried putting JPII on the spot ). I also remember a few of the hags and other liberals questioning the status OS and I aslo remember reading an interview or something with JPII where he was asked if he had intended to put an end on all further discussion when he promulgated OS. He said did intend to give the final word and end all further haggling.
Lot’s of ink was spilled as whether a pope could bind a future pope and shut down future dialogue on a subject.
Suffice it to say Tim, OS is infallible. Is it ex cathedra to boot like Humane Vitae was? Google it and find out.
I don’t know why I am discussing this with you. You must have been reading my exchange with Ken Temple a couple of weeks ago. He tried embroiling me in this sort of stuff too. I can’t remember if it was OS or not. I know he tried caging me into a fight about Latin being mandatory for validity of the Sacraments. ( He actually had thought that even though Mass is said in the vernacular, he thought the formula had to be, ” Hoc est enim Corpus Meum”. Just another example of an “expert” anti-Catholic who doesn’t know enough to be picking a fight. Both you guys have egg on your faces but neither of you will retire from the battlefield. You should both die from embarrassment but won’t.
Tim,
Hit 18:33 on this one.
ttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wk1lrcyo65Q
Tim,
I’m gonna bite and ask why OS is NOT infallible since you are so keen on discussing a Catholic in-house subject that does not affect you one way or the other.
Damn you Tim!
I was told not to waste time blogging and to get the grass mowed before a guest arrives.
I cut almost all of the lawn except for 5 minutes more of the assigned chore. I took a break to come in and throw you a few barbs. I have been trying to pin you down and make you admit you don’t up from down on the Catholic and Protestant views of the atonement or sacrifice and that you haven’t a clue on what Scott Hahn’s position it on the Supper/Calvary. I got side tracked for just a few minutes by your obfuscating on Is 53 and your silly obsession with OS.
When I got up to finish the chore and give you time to answer by last post, I see that it has started to rain. My mower is electric so you have caused me to have to lie and tell my wife when she gets home and say I was almost finished cutting the grass when it started to pour.
Now, the least you could do would be confess you botched the Hahn stuff and don’t understand his video at all. Have some humility, sir.
Tim,
Merry Christmas.
https://www.ewtn.com/library/ISSUES/ORDIN.TXT
Read it for yourself. I am taking me a nap.
Jim,
I have read it. That was from the week after the proclamation. That author believed OS was ex cathedra, a formal declartion by the extraordinary magisterium, based on his analysis of Vatican I.
Then on October 28, 1995, Ratzinger said OS was not an infallible document.
Then on November 8, 1995, Ratzinger said that OS was not ex cathedra.
Then on November 24, 1995, John Paul II acknowledged that OS represented “the unanimous teaching of the Pastors,” even if it did not contain a “solemn judgment or definitive act,” meaning even John Paul did not think it was ex cathedra.
Then on July 15, 1998, Ratzinger acknowledged that the church had not formally even pronounced that the contents of Ordinatio were even divinely revealed, but that some day, “the Church might progress to the point where this teaching could be defined as a doctrine to be believed as divinely revealed.”
There are just as many opinions about it not being infallible.
Can you help me understand which ones are ex cathedra, divinely revealed, part of the deposit of faith and infallible—and which are not? What’s your secret? Do I trust your link, or do I trust John Paul II and Cardinal Ratzinger? Or is this something I can figure out on my own?
Thanks,
Tim
Tim,.
Why not just go by the constant teaching of the Church? Has there she ever ordained women?
Since you want to discuss this non-issue so badly, I will give my own infallible opinion.
Priestesses are seen in pantheistic religions that stress immanence rather than God’s transcendence.
God/Jesus=male
Creation/Church =female
I have attended Anglican and other liturgies and they seem so lesbian.
Do you have an any Anglican friends? Why not engage them?
JIM and TIM–
Ok. I must be confused. When did ex cathedra and the doctrine of papal infallibility become one and the same thing? Are the terms used interchangeably?
Bob,
Ex Cathedra statements are infallible and formal. The Pope usually uses a formula saying, ” Now listen up, this is infallible” ( sort of )
There are lots of infallible teachings never formally defined from the Chair of Peter. The Church’s teaching on contraception was an example. From Apostolic times the Church condemned it. Humane Vitae took an already infallible and constant teaching and made it official just to shut up any dissenters.
People who sit around parsing the Church’s teachings as Tim is doing here are usually dissenters looking for loopholes.
It is not unusual to find an Anglican who knows Church history better than most ( not all ) Catholics and can argue why he is an “Anglo-Catholic” . Rather than just swimming the Tiber, they stay outside and smugly show off their erudition.
Pius X types can be like this too. Liberals usually know very little history or doctrine but like to play this parsing game too.
.
Bob, to answer your question, ex cathedra and the doctrine of infallibility are not the same thing, and the terms should not be used interchangeably. On several occasions I have asked a Roman Catholic if Ordinatio Sacerdotalis was ex cathedra, and he responds, of course Ordinatio Sacerdotalis was infallible! Benedict said so! There are several misconceptions involved here, especially since Benedict has actually denied that OS was ex cathedra. To get to two of them:
1) the document (OS) is often confused for its contents (priesthood reserved for males)
2) the extraordinary and ordinary infallibility of the teaching ministry of the Roman Catholic church are confused as well
Regarding item 1, John Paul II and Benedict have both on different occasions acknowledged that while OS was not promulgated ex cathedra, it nonetheless contains a teaching that is considered infallible. That is why Ratzinger said that OS was “in itself not infallible.” The distinction may be likened to Pope Francis writing on the back of a napkin, “Munificentissimus Deus was true.” Munificentissimus Deus, which proclaimed the doctrine of Mary’s assumption, is held to be infallible, so we could say that Francis’ napkin simply restated something “true,” but was not “in itself not infallible.” It simply restated an “infallible” truth.
Regarding item 2, John Paul II and Ratzinger have both on different occasions acknowledged that the publication of OS was not an exercise of the extraordinary magisterium, but was a restatement of an infallible teaching of the ordinary magisterium. It is the difference between, on the one hand, canons of an Ecumenical Council (extraordinary infallibility) and ex cathedra papal statements (extraordinary infallibility), and on the other hand, a teaching that has been held to be true by the pope in union with the bishops of the world (ordinary infallibility), although never formally pronounced by a council or a pope. The issue of reserving ordination to men falls into this category. So when Jim said, “Why not just go by the constant teaching of the Church? Has she ever ordained women?” he is appealing to ordinary infallibility, not extraordinary infallibility.
That said, there is a tremendous amount of confusion about whether OS was ex cathedra or merely an exercise of the ordinary Papal magisterium, and therefore not in itself infallible. Even after Ratzinger’s protestations of ordinary infallibility, some have attempted to correct him and show that OS was not an act of the ordinary Papal Magisterium, but in reality was an act of the extraordinary Papal Magisterium, and therefore infallible in itself.
The problem with appealing to “ordinary infallibility” on the ground that something has been constantly held by the popes in union with the bishops of the world, is that not all doctrines held by the pope in union with all the bishops of the world are considered to be infallible. Therefore, appealing to the ordinary infallibility of the church to be absolutely sure that something is contained within the deposit of faith and is divinely revealed is not as simple as it sounds. That is why, even after explaining that the teaching contained in Ordinatio Sacerdotalis is infallible and part of the deposit of faith, Ratzinger left open the option that someday it might even be determined to be “divinely revealed”:
In any case, ex cathedra and “infallible” should not be used interchangeably, but they often are. A recent example of this is when Jim said OS met all the criteria of an infallible pronouncement (appealing to extraordinary infallibility), and then backed off and said Ordinatio Sacerdotalis was an exercise of the ordinary infallibility of the church, and then after that provided a link showing that Ordinatio Sacerdotalis was an exercise of the extraordinary papal magisterium, even after Ratzinger said it was not an exercise of the extraordinary papal magisterium.
Since not all teachings held by the popes in union with all the bishops of the world are necessarily infallible, and since Ratzinger’s assurance of the infallibility of the contents of Ordinatio Sacerdotalis was not an infallible assurance, the faithful were looking for a definitive pronouncement from the extraordinary papal magisterium to remove all doubt. But when John Paul II “removed all doubt,” he did not do it ex cathedra, and thus, not all doubt has been removed at all. In fact, there is no certainty that it is even “divinely revealed.”
A bit of a conundrum.
Thanks,
Tim
Bob,
Tim did a good job except for,
“not all doctrines held by the pope in union with all the bishops of the world are considered to be infallible. ”
He needs to explain himself. Maybe he could give an example of a doctrine that is held by the entire Church that is negotiable or up for grabs at this present time.
Where Tim really gets wild eyed is in his innuendo that all over the world, faithful Catholics and not lesbian nuns and other wackos, are losing sleep and agonizing over just how certain we can be there will be no nuns ordained to the priesthood by this or a future pope. Rest assured, the issue is dead.
I will spend next month in Portland, Or. I will stay just a walk away from St. Andrew’s Parish, the unofficial “world headquarters” for women’s ordination. ( I say unofficial because they have been told to knock it off by the Bishop but disobediently sneak around and continue promoting what ain’t gonna happen, women priests.
Click on an notice the photo.http://ncronline.org/news/oregon-ohio-swell-support-catholic-sisters
Notice the average age of the typical feminist nun is between 105 and 110 years of age. In a decade, they will have gone the way of the dinosaur.
As for the Anglicans, they are going to merge with the Muslims and the Muslims will make them stop ordaining women or die.
Only Tim sees a story here.
Jim,
Please see Russell Shaw’s, Understanding the Infallibility Teaching:
Thanks,
Tim
Could you give me another example other than women’s ordination?
Bob,
As for the question of eternity you and Tim are discussing, I am reminded of folks who have a devotion to the baby Jesus.
Anyway, what is Tim’s alternative? To lock God in time? I think Calvinism does that with its eternal decrees.
But they want to have their cake and eat it too. Think about how all their future sins are forgiven when they get saved.
Bob,
This women’s ordination stuff is just a smokescreen. Tim is trying to muddy the waters with an issue of no importance to Calvinist/Catholic debate rather than answer my questions about his belief system on the issues of atonement and sacrifice.
He could just google it but, I suspect, is building up a case of the “tu quoque” argument so popular with internet Protestants lately. ( That is the argument that says, “see, you Catholics scoff at Sola Scriptura but you guys have no way of knowing what Papal decree really say so you are just as lost as we are”. )
Tim is going to say Catholics have to go by private judgement just as they do. ( James White tried this with, I think, Bob Sungenis ).
I have him on the ropes now and am not about to let him slip out with this new topic. I have said enough on OS.
I wanna talk about Penal Substitution vs OT sacrifices. Tim doesn’t.
One more thing;
I am sure if I were to actually take the time to read the statements of Benedict and JPII, I would see he has butchered them as badly as he did Fr. Most and Scott Hahn.
I can’t tell if Tim does this intentionally or really is dumb. But he does it with the Fathers too. That’s why I seldom actually pay attention to his (mis) quotes.
Innuendo, hint, implications. These are Tim’s stock in trade.
Tim,
Let’s pretend, just for fun, Scott Hahn’s video is infallible.
Then let’s take up the issue of Scott saying Calvary was or was not a a sacrifice. You heard him say it was not but rather,Thursday was instead the sacrifice.
I insist Hahn in no way denied Calvary being a sacrifice in saying Thursday is where Jesus offered His death in the form of bread and wine.
We can mail each other back and forth his video to one another directing the other guy to click on at such and such point of the talk until the cows come home and never agree as what Scott Hahn actually meant.
Are we doomed to never know the truth?
I think we have a solution to the conundrum. Scott Hahn is ALIVE. He is therefore a sort of “living magisterium”.
So, we do have a way of discovering what OS really says, don’t we.
Can we say the same for the Bible? Yes we can if we are both Catholics.
But if we are both Protestants, we are lost in a never never land of opinion.
Walt,
Tim said,
” This is why Roman Catholics go out of their way to state that Christ actually did not offer Himself on the cross.”
Tim then quotes two well known Catholics who seem to say as much. But they really don’t.
Tim is missing something major.
Of course Christ offered himself on the cross! The two Catholics he quotes do not mean to say Christ retracted the offering he made at the Supper when He got to Calvary.
Christ did not formally, liturgically or according to the order of Melchizedek offer Himself on the cross. He did that at the Supper. But of course He offered Himself on the cross. Further, He does so now and forever.
As Tim if Christ did or did not offer Himself at the Supper. We all, including Sippo, Hahn, McInearney, etc. agree he offered Himself on Calvary. But what exactly did He do at the Supper? Just eat dinner?
Jim, you wrote,
Here they are again for good measure:
So, after they both insist on how wrong Protestants are to say that Christ offered Himself on the cross, sacrificed Himself on the cross, laid down His life on the cross, you say,
All of which presumes that He offered Himself on Thursday in the first place, which I deny. Where is the proof for it?
The Scripture makes no mention of an offering on Thursday. The Early Church Fathers make no mention of him offering His blood on Thurdsay, and Melito certainly makes no mention of it. All that is left is Rome’s novelty of a Mass Sacrifice being superimposed on the Last Supper in order to lay a claim to the ante-Nicene antiquity of the practice, in order to prove the ante-Nicene antiquity of the practice—for which they cannot produce any evidence.
Since Roman Catholic apologists insist on assuming Roman Catholic antiquity in order to prove Roman Catholic antiquity, and in fact they insist that Protestants accept that presumption as a condition of discussing this, their argument for Thursday Sacrifice is no more than a statement that “if Protestants would simply accept the false premise of an ante-Nicene Roman Catholicism, then ante-Nicene Roman Catholicism would all make perfect sense!” Of course it would.
But the claim of ante-Nicene Roman Catholicism is denied. Just ask Melito. He was completely unaware of what Hahn was talking about.
Thanks,
Tim
Christ did not( LITURGICALLY ) offer his body and blood to God during the passion.” (Art Sippo, Catholic Legate, Q&A on the Sacraments)
A sacrifice requires a priest performing a ceremony. As Scott Hahn said, nobody would have seen a “sacrifice” going on at Calvary.
“The Scripture makes no mention of an offering on Thursday”
Have you ever read the synoptic Gospels? Paul’s letter to the Corinthians?
“a Mass Sacrifice being superimposed on the Last Supper”
Was the Pascal Sacrifice superimposed on the Passover Sacrifice?
Tim,
So, it appears you think that when a Catholic goes to Mass and receives Communion, or get’s Baptized, receives grace indirectly through the Treasury of merits and not directly from God. Is that true?
In your post to Walt, to quotes some stuff from Trent and the CCC. Trouble is, they were all around 1477. Those statements have to do with purgatory and indulgences, NOT SACRAMENTS.
You are doing it again Tim. You already have a lot of egg on your kisser over your Hahn/Fr. Most misreadings. Do you want to retract or continue down this line of error? I’m gonna gitcha’ if you do.
Jim, I may be missing a subtle distinction in your argument. You said those statements have to do with purgatory and indulgences, not sacraments. But they were discussed under the section on sacraments:
PART TWO: THE CELEBRATION OF THE CHRISTIAN MYSTERY
SECTION TWO THE SEVEN SACRAMENTS OF THE CHURCH
CHAPTER TWO THE SACRAMENTS OF HEALING
Article 4 THE SACRAMENT OF PENANCE AND RECONCILIATION
X. Indulgences
Here is the first paragraph in that section, indicating why Indulgences are discussed under the heading of the sacraments:
In any case, here is what is said about sacraments from Catholic sources, including the fact that the sacraments are the means by which we access the “vast treasure purchased by His merits and sufferings”:
So yes, Rome is interposing herself between the sinner and the savior.
Thanks,
Tim
No Tim. The Treasury of Merit is NOT interposed between the Eucharist and the recipient.
As for the Sacrament of Penance, absolution given is direct.
The priest does not give an indulgence in the Confessional.
Forgiveness is of eternal punishment, first and foremost. Indulgences have to do with temporal punishment. That is how they are linked to the Sacrament of Penance and that Sacrament only.
All sins and both eternal and temporal punishment is washed away in Baptism, but not by an indulgence calling on the Treasury of merit.
An indulgence, calling on the treasury of merit can be given for a particular prayer or good work.
The Treasury of merit has to do with *satisfaction* for venial sins and the temporal punishment ONLY of mortal sins, not eternal punishment.
The 7 Sacraments, good works, prayers also give sanctifying grace merited by Christ. The Treasury of Merit is all about satisfaction.
Go back and read your first post on this subject. Notice the T.o. M. is made up of the satisfactions of not only Christ but those of Mary and the saints. Notice it does not say their merits are applied to us.
Tim, once again, you have put your cloven hoof in your mouth.
Jim, can you remind me of where I ever alleged that “The Treasury of Merit is interposed between the Eucharist and the recipient”?
Thanks,
Tim
Tim,
In your initial post on this when you talked about how the Church wedges herself between Christ and the person and then quotes from the CCC on indulgences and the Treasury of Merit.
I know. But when did I ever say “The Treasury of Merit is interposed between the Eucharist and the recipient”?
Thanks,
Tim
Jim,
I’ll need you to be a little more specific. You wrote,
But Roman Catholicism teaches that the ability of any righteous man to merit anything comes from the merit of Christ, and all the merit of the saints is merited by Christ, and is a participation in the merit of Christ. And so in the sacrifice of the Eucharist, as an offering of the church, there is included the “treasury of merits” of the saints and Mary and so in the Eucharist we are alleged to share their merits and hers.
The Catholic Encyclopedia says,
I’m trying to figure out your objection. Is it that the treasury of merit cannot be drawn upon for justification except in baptism? Or is it that the eternal punishment if sin is remitted in baptism by the merit of Christ’s passions, but not drawn from the treasury? Or are you saying that the merits of the Passion of Christ for justification are not applied in the sacraments at all?
I’m not sure how any of what you have said changes my initial statement that the Church interposes her self between the sinner and the Savior. She very much does exactly that.
Thanks
Tim
Tim,
I am used to you boys saying the Church interposes herself between Christ and the sinner. ( Actually, it was Christ who did it, not the Church ).
What I found bizarre in your comment is that you appealed to texts that refer to a very specific application of Christ’s work, namely, indulgences.
Ok, sorry. I’ll be sure to use texts that refer to a more general application of Christ’s work in the future.
Thank you,
Tim
Tim,
Since we are discussing OS/women’s ordination, you need to give me an example of something other than OS/women’s ordination that meets these four criteria that is not infallible
1. That the bishops be in communion with one another and with the pope.
2. That they teach authoritatively on a matter of faith or morals.
3. That they agree in one judgment.
4. That they propose this as something to be held definitively by the faithful.
The quote you supplied uses the adverb “infallibly”. There are infallible teachings ( adjective ) that may not have been formally ( infallibly ) promulgated.
Jim, I think you are misunderstanding Russell Shaw’s “Understanding the Infallibility Teaching.”
The four criteria you cited are the four criteria he cites for determining that a teaching of the ordinary magisterium is indeed infallible. It would be logically impossible that a teaching of the ordinary magisterium, that met the criteria for infallibilty, was not infallible.
Shaw’s point was that a teaching could meet 1, 2 and 3, but not 4; or it could meet 1, 3 and 4 but not 2; or it could meet 1, 2 and 4, but not 3. In other words, he was saying that a teaching that met only the first criteria could still be fallible. In those situations, a teaching of the bishops in communion with one another and with the pope would not be infallible because a teaching that does not meet the criteria of infallibility is not considered an infallible teaching.
By asking me to name an infallible teaching that is not infallible, you have demonstrated that you have not understood the doctrine of infallibility, and you have not understood “Understanding the Infallibility Teaching.
The problem for Roman Catholics is determining what the criteria are and when a teaching meets those criteria. There is no infallible way of determining that, and therefore no infallible way of knowing what is infallibly taught. I’ve heard there are two criteria. I’ve heard there are three. I’ve heard there are four. I’ve heard there are five. A teaching may meet two, and be infallible by one set of criteria, but fallible by another. A teaching may meet three, but not four. A teaching may meet four, but not five. I’ve seen examples of all of these.
But what I have not seen is a teaching authority in Rome that can sort this out.
Thanks,
Tim
No Tim,
I think you are the one doing the misunderstanding.
Thanks
Tim,
Let’s say I want to exercise my generosity.
On Thursday I promise to give you a hundred dollars.
On Friday I deliver the promised money into your hands.
When did I exercise my largess? On Thursday or Friday or both?
Tim,
You denied the sufficiency of the cross. Don’t try to weasel out of it.
A couple of days ago you said you were saved by Faith.
On a previous occasion you said you were saved by the cross.
You subsequently denied the prior statement when you said your were saved by faith. Although you never said, ” I am saved by Faith and am not saved by the cross”, you might as well have. It can’t be both/and. It must be either/or. The cross OR faith Tim, not both.
Now, I am going to give you a chance to state your position. Were you saved by the cross? Or by Faith?
Remember, an affirmation of one implies an explicit denial of the other.
( Two can play this little game, eh Tim? )
By the way, you can save your ante-post Nicene Church silliness for Kelvin. I don’t by your crackpot theory of the Holy Spirit abandoning the Church when you say He did.
Speaking of kelvin, this is great. Without his barrage of spam, I get to hold your feet to the fire and hold you accountable for your pathetic readings of and false charges against Catholic authors.
“The Early Church Fathers make no mention of him offering His blood on Thurdsay, and Melito certainly makes no mention of it. All that is left is Rome’s novelty of …”.
The Early Church Fathers make no mention of Him offering His Blood on Friday for the elect ONLY and Melito makes no mention of it. All that is left is Geneva’s novelty of…”.
( How do ya’ like it Tim? Ha! I can play the same game as you! )
Tim,
Somewhere in this mess of comments I believe you ask which ante-Nicene Father talked about Christ offering His Blood on Thursday.
Because the Fathers believed the Mass was a continuation that Thursday Passover sacrifice/Supper in which Christ said, “Do this in memory of me”, when Justin said, “But of those sacrifices which are offered by us gentiles in every place, that is, of the bread of the Eucharist and the *CHALICE*…” ( I will let you fill in the rest ) he considered the chalice Christ had to be the same chalice he and his fellow Christians had. If his was a libation, so was Christ’s.
I will add Hyppolytus to this by his saying, ” When the Antichrist shall come, the Host and LIBATION offered in every nation shall be taken away”,by “Libation” he too meant the same one as at the Supper.
I am not required to subscribe to your theory that the first Fathers thought the sacrifice of Malachias was to be only prayers,some singing, a sermon and some nice thoughts, am I?
As for Melito of Sardis, I don’t want to send you off onto another topic, nut I got me a quote that sure says he included Mary ( yes, I said MARY ) in the sacrifice of Christ. Remember Tim, the sacrifice really started long before Thursday even. It started at the Incarnation.
But I am going to be coy and keep it to myself for a while longer.
“Or are you saying that the merits of the Passion of Christ for justification are not applied in the sacraments at all?”
Seriously?
Tim,
Hope you don’t mind but I think I will post my comments at the end of the line from now on. Your system is a bit difficult for me to navigate.
The Catholic Encylopedia states that:
“Since the satisfaction of Christ is infinite, it constitutes an inexhaustible fund which is more than sufficient to cover the indebtedness contracted by sin, Besides, there are the satisfactory works of the Blessed Virgin Mary undiminished by any penalty due to sin, and the virtues, penances, and sufferings of the saints vastly exceeding any temporal punishment which these servants of God might have incurred.” On Indulgences.
The merits of Mary and the saints are not part of the Treasury of Merit you appealed to. If you find someone who says they are, that is only because they are not making the distinction between merit and satisfaction.
As you can read, the ToM includes the saints. However, in the Sacraments we do not draw on their merits nor their satisfactions.
The *satisfactory* value of the saints’ good works are included in the ToM though.
Merit proper is not transferable. Merit is about sanctifying grace. It is not passed from one soul to another.
Please google Merit/Satisfaction to learn what the distinction is.
Jim, can you help me remember where I said anything about merit being transferable in this discussion? I understand that called to communion says “Merit cannot be transferred.” But what is the relevance to this discussion?
Thanks,
Tim
Tim,
I was trying to communicate to you the distinction between merit and satisfaction. This was because the quotes from CCC you pointed to were about satisfaction and indulgences. ( Yes, indulgences are often addressed under the heading of the Sacrament of Penance, but they are an altogether different matter. Indulgences are not given in the Sacrament. Sacraments are not indulgenced. That is not to say one of the usual conditions to gain a plenary indulgence is that one go to Confession with a week of doing the indulgenced work ).
Since I have your attention, this reminds me of your confusion about the offering Christ made, was it on Thursday or Friday?
A few days ago a posted a commented on the distinction between the oblation, commonly called the offering and the immolation or destruction of the sacrificial gift.
Notice; the oblation is called the offering. Now, you will find authors who call the immolation the offering too. But that is not to deny there oblation being the ceremonial offering.
Stay with me, we will get back to merit.
Now, the immolation of any sacrifice can take place but once.
The oblation is another matter. And it can be done either before or after the immolation according to the Bible.
It is at this point a Protestant like yourself should be shouting that the book of Hebrews says “By one offering/oblation…”. Notice the passage in 9:25 says Christ does not offer Himself again and again. Yet Catholics offer the once immolated Christ repeatedly in the Mass.
Before you start claiming a victory, please read Hebrews 9:26 which says, “otherwise He would have to SUFFER again”.
Suffering refers to the cross, not the Supper. But the word “offering” is used for the immolation as well as oblation.
Aquinas follows this pattern.
My point is, you need to learn that not every document or statement fine tunes the distinctions between oblation/immolation and merit/satisfaction as I am doing for you here. Your trying to hold my feet to the fire by pointing to the term “Treasury of Merit” as being about merit instead of satisfaction is a mistake.
Because I was anticipating you demanding an accounting for the word “merit” , I just thought I would nip it in the bud.
So, you need not ask where you said such and such.
What you need to do is stop listening to or reading Catholic material trying to find ammo in what appears to be contradictions. With a little effort, you will see there is no contradiction at all in what Art Sippo, Scott Hahn, Fr. Most, the Church Fathers or I say.
I did it for you.
http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2011/01/indulgences-the-treasury-of-merit-and-the-communion-of-saints/
I just did a quick perusal of the article and saw,
” Merit cannot be transferred, but meritorious acts can make satisfaction for another…”
The passages from the CCC you quoted have to do with SATISFACTION and indulgences. Period. You applied them to the whole Sacramental system.
While every meritorious action has some satisfactory value ( but the contrary is not true in purgatory ), the Sacraments and Indulgences are different topics. We don’t merit for ourselves and certainly not for others with an indulgence.
( By merit, I mean an increase in grace ).
Now, it is my turn.
For the third time in as many days, show me where the Bible teaches Christ died for some rather than all.
For the umpteenth time, show where the OT sacrificial victim was ever punished in the stead of somebody ( how do you punish a sack of flour by the way ? )
I have patiently obliged you. Now it is your turn to answer me.
Your turn?
Yes, your turn.
We are having a two way conversation, right? You know, I say something, you say something. Like ping pong.
You pretend to sincerely want to know something, I answer it. ( I say pretend because I think you are insincere, constantly looking for loopholes and contradictions in order to get ammunition only. This either/or Thursday/Friday offering is a perfect example ).
Then I ask you something and you answer.
It’s fun. Let’s do it.
So, since you aren’t going to explain Limted Atonement, I will ask you a different question.
Okay, you said you were first an Arminian but the Bible made you Calvinist. Could you elaborate?
Also, since it wasn’t the “Doctrines of Grace” that brought you out of Catholicism, just what was the clincher that did? You were already attending an Armininiam church when you heard the good news right? As an Arminian, yes?
Your personal testimony makes it seem like you were a knowledgeable and zealous Catholic but there is something fishy about it.
How does a devout Catholic skip Mass and go to a Protestant church instead?
The Bible made you Protestant, right? Did it bring you out of Romanism before it brought you to Protestantism or was it the other way around?
I have a theory but would like you have you explain things.
By the way Tim,
here is a link to that Treasury of merit stuff.
http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/_P4G.HTM
Notice 1471 to 1479 all deal with a very narrow issue, indulgences. You mistakenly applied this page from the Catechism to all of the Church’s doctrines.
Notice also
“1471 The doctrine and practice of indulgences in the Church are closely linked to the effects of the sacrament of Penance.”
“closely inked to the effects of the sacrament of Penance”.
“closely linked”. “Linked”. “To the effects”. To the effects , not the essence. Linked to just one of the sacraments and then to that sacrament’s effects only.
You gave this page a very broad application. Notice, Marriage, the Eucharist, Confirmation, etc. are not even mentioned.
The Church teaches there is a difference between mortal and venial sins and between the eternal and temporal punishments due to sin. But she teaches a lot more than that. You made it seem that this page applies to everything.
The Power of the Keys has to do with giving indulgences. It has nothing to do with sanctifying grace being given in the Sacraments, including Penance.
Anyway, tell me what snapped you out of Arminianism and into the TULIP?
May I beat a dead horse?
Here is a perfect example of what I mean about people not fine tuning their terms.
http://www.enotes.com/homework-help/what-was-treasury-merits-how-did-serve-foundation-465427
Notice this sentence,
“But many people do so many good things that they have extra merit built up. They have much more merit than they actually need to get into Heaven. ”
Actually, no. Nobody has extra merit. Even if they did, merit pertains to sanctifying grace which cannot be transferred to another.
Technically, the author means “satisfaction”. We can satisfy for one another.
Mary had and has more grace than everybody combined ( excepting her Son of course ). But that is not transferred from her soul to another. Mary was sinless so the satisfactory value of her good works cannot be applied to herself. It is added to the Treasury of Merit.
One person cannot merit( condignly ) for another but he can make satisfaction.
Why not call it Treasury of Satisfaction? Probably because satisfaction and merit go together.
Tim,
I clicked before finishing the article.
“Because there was all of this excess merit built up, the Church was able to help people who lacked merit of their own. ”
Not exactly. Most people have not made enough satisfaction for their sins. The Church helps out by reaching into the Treasury of Merit and giving them an indulgence in order to make satisfaction ( not merit ).
Think of how early Christians would get a “Libellus” from a soon to be martyr and take it back to their bishop in order to have their temporal punishment reduced.
Tim,
All this brings us full circle back to your original problem with when the sacrifice was offered.
It was offered when Christ assumed our nature in the womb of His mother. It was offered from the foundation of the world.
It is offered now as Christ sits in the heavenly sanctuary exercising His office of High Priest making intercession for us.
“Sitting” is not a position of rest. After searching for Him for three days, Mary and Joseph found Jesus sitting amid the doctors asking then questions.
All through the Bible, God is seen sitting on His throne. Is He passive?
When the twelve Apostles are seen seated on twelve thrones, are they resting?
Christ told the high-priest he would see the Son of man coming on the clouds of heaven sitting at the right hand of the power of God.
Christ is a minister in the heavenly Holy of Holies. A seated minister. Every high priest is appointed to offer sacrifices (plural ).
Christ is also seen standing in heaven. The Lamb is standing as slain. As slain. Not being slain.
This is the eternal victim. Not a suffering victim but a triumphal one. A glorified victim that lives forever to make intercession for us. Christ offers Himself now and forever.
What Sippo and Hahn mean is offered liturgically according to the order of Melchizedek using bread and wine.
This is the Mass.
Okay Tim,
You lose a turn for failing to respond within the designated deadline. My turn.
You say,
“My passion is to warn Christ’s sheep of the danger of Roman Catholicism, and to equip them to defend the faith and refute Rome’s many errors.”
Well, you do spend a lot of energy attacking Catholicism. But your passion for defending Calvinism has run cold. Ever consider going back to Arminianism?
This article was written by a priest ( who turned 100 a few months ago ) from my parish in Portland.
http://www.rosary-center.org/ll42n3.htm
Notice how many times he says Calvary was a sacrifice.
Call No Woman Father
Tim Staples
July 1, 2015 | 10 comments
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The Catholic Church has spoken definitively on the question of whether women could ever be ordained to the ministerial priesthood. On October 15, 1976, the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith presented the Church’s teaching succinctly and authoritatively in Inter Insigniores. And Pope St. John Paul II reiterated that teaching exercising his Magisterial authority in his Apostolic Letter, Ordinatio Sacerdotalis,of May 22, 1994. And the answer to the question in both of these documents was a definitive no.
The Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, with the approval of Pope St. John Paul II, noted, in both its “Responsum Ad Dubium Concerning the Teaching Contained in Ordinatio Sacerdotalis,” and in its “Letter Concerning the CDF Reply Regarding Ordinatio Sacerdotalis,” that this teaching is infallible (in both documents) and that the source of its infallibility is not to be found in the Apostolic Letter, Ordinatio Sacerdotalis, itself; rather, it is rooted in the fact that this teaching is a matter taught by the Ordinary and Universal Magisterium of the Church, i.e., all the bishops of the world in union with the Pope have taught this definitively as a matter that must be believed with divine faith by all of God’s faithful.
Below are seven reasons the Church has given us for the veracity of this dogma.
1. The Church has Definitively Declared it; Thus, Women Cannot be Ordained to the Ministerial Priesthood.
This seems simple. And it is. But if we understand that the Church is God’s voice on this earth in matters of faith and morals, then this first point is the most important of all. Jesus said of his Church, “If they hear you they hear me; if they reject you they reject me” in Luke 10:16 (see also Matt. 18:15-18, Acts 15:24-28, Matt. 16:13-18, I John 4:6, etc.).
In simple terms: when God speaks infallibly through his Church, the matter at hand is settled. And in this case, God has so spoken. This is the Faith of our Fathers. Yet, as St. Anselm said, the foundation of our journey as Catholic Christians is always “fides quarens intellectum” (faith seeking understanding). We have the assurance as Catholics that the Church will never and can never lead us astray in her formal and definitive teachings because Jesus guarantees it in Matt. 16:18-19. Thus, we can know that the Catholic Faith is not dependent upon our understanding of it in order for it to be true. Thanks be to God!
Yet, as Catholics we must ever seek to understand more deeply our Faith understanding we will never understand it comprehensively. This leads us to point two.
2. The Church’s Constant Tradition for 2,000 Years Cannot Err
The Church has always reserved ordination to the ministerial priesthood to men. There have been a few heretical sects, such as the Gnostics and the Collyridians, of the first 400 years of the Christian era who allowed women to be “ordained,” but they were quickly and vociferously opposed by the Fathers and Christian writers of the Church such as St. Irenaeus of Lyons (AD 180), Tertullian (AD 200), Firmilian of Caesarea (AD 250), Origen (AD 230), St. Epiphanius (AD 350), and more.
After the issue was dealt with in the early centuries, the Church universally accepted this dogma with very little controversy until the 20th century. Hence, the Magisterium of the Church was never compelled to make a formal pronouncement on the matter until recent times. However, the constant teaching and practice of the Church, guided by the Holy Spirit is proof of the divine origin of the doctrine, as I said at the outset of this post.
It is important to remember that all of the teachings of the Faith were given to us as a Church by Christ and the apostles (and apostolic men) via Scripture and Sacred Tradition. We call this “the deposit of Faith.” The Church does not invent new teachings; she defines what she was given 2,000 years ago by God. The bottom line here is this: 2,000 years of constant, universal, and definitive teaching on this matter make the conclusion undeniable: God himself willed for there to be a male-only priesthood for his Church. Thus, the Church has no power to change and to begin ordaining women today.
3. The Attitude of Christ
For Christians, the teaching and practice of Jesus Christ is most essential. It is an historical fact that Jesus Christ did not call any woman to be part of the twelve that he ordained. Jesus Christ is “the Word” of God. He is the visible manifestation of the will of God on this earth. Jesus, therefore, is the revelation of the will of God for the Church and for us. So when
Jim, what you have done here is a great demonstration of the problem for Roman Catholics. You first said Ordinatio Sacerdotalis was infallible because the pope said it was. It turns out no actual pope has said that. Then you said it was infallible because it met the criteria for extraordinary infallibility (ex cathedra). Then you said of the two kinds of infallibility (extraordinary vs. ordinary), Ordinatio Sacerdotalis was the latter, ordinary. Then you posted a link from someone else saying that Ordinatio Sacerdotalis definitely met the criteria for extraordinary (Vatican I) infallibility. Now you’re posting this from Tim Staples saying that its infallibility is the “ordinary” kind, not the kind that your other link insisted, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that it was.
The problem is two fold: you don’t know what kind it is, and other Catholics have evaluated OS based on Canon Law 749.3 and determined that John Paul II had not made it manifestly evident that it was infallible. Canon law experts and scholars say that. The problem is, if you personally did not believe that OS was infallible, you could make a really good case that it wasn’t. But there is no lock tight case on this, as your repeated shifting demonstrates. You really don’t know whether it was infallible.
Thanks,
Tim
Tim,
You crazy mixed up kid, you!
I said, if memory served, JPII had been asked about his document, if he had intended to make a binding statement or not and that he answered in the affirmative.
Who cares? Women can’t be priest. Why are you pursuing this? Is it just that you have picked this issue in order to demonstrate Catholics are as divided as Protestants?
It won’t work, Tim. Not until certain bishops start ordaining women by the droves and the faithful go along with it. Even then, as in the case of Arius/Athanasius. all the Pope would have to do is excommunicate them.
But I am enjoying you flailing about in the air.
Jim,
I appreciate your opinion. Every Roman Catholic has one. I can produce just as many opinions about how John Paul II’s document did not make it “manifestly evident,” as required by canon law. Even if he claims to the ends of the earth that he was simply restating a teaching of the ordinary magisterium, Russell Shaw reminds us that not every teaching of the ordinary magisterium is infallible. In fact, as Ludwig Ott says in Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma, “Only those are infallible which emanate from General Councils representing the whole episcopate and the Papal Decisions Ex Cathedra. The ordinary and usual form of the Papal teaching activity is not infallible.”
John Paul II may have “intended” to make it binding, but his “intent” has to be manifestly evident. You say it was. Others say it was not. For example, Francis Sullivan, who was dean of the faculty of Theology at Pontifical Gregorian University at Rome for 6 years, and who taught there for 36 years, said that John Paul II had not made his intents “manifestly evident” in Ordinatio Sacerdotalis.
Why should I trust you over Fr. Sullivan? That’s what I am not understanding. You ask “Who cares?” I have read a lot of Roman Catholics who desperately want to know, and cannot figure this out. That’s who cares. It has nothing to do with Protestants. It has to do with whether Rome can truly teach that which has been “revealed.” Even Benedict acknowledged that the Church may yet in the future identify this as a “divinely revealed truth.”
Why would they need to do so if John Paul II had already made it “de fide definita”?
Thanks,
Tim
I will have no more of your obfuscation, Tim!
( Does the PCA ordain women? If not why not? )
By the way, I was perusing the WCF to find some ammo against you on the issue of sacrifice and atonement and was mildly surprised to see the document condones divorce and remarriage.
And Walt drools over that scrap of nonsense as if it were divinely inspired. wow.
This guy has an agenda and/or doesn’t know what he’s talking about. He’s purposely trying to bend his understanding and the reader’s to discredit Roman Catholic theology, but he’s obviously wrong. It seems he’s saying the Mass (Eucharist) is not a sacrifice because the real sacrifice was the Cross not the last supper. First, the last supper/Passover is a sacrifice as God commanded the Jews through Moses that they had to kill a perfect one year old lamb for Passover and put the blood on their doorposts. John the Baptist, of course, linked Jesus to that same lamb of Passover by saying, “Behold the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” thereby connecting Jesus to the Passover sacrifice of the lamb. Also Jesus begins to claim that the Passover lamb sacrifice they are eating is about his body and blood there at the table, again linked with the Passover lamb.
I actually have already hear Scott Hahn’s teaching on this called The Fourth Cup. He states that Jews drink from four cups during the passover meal, but at the last supper they only drank from three and then he finished the meal at the last moment of the Cross when he drank the fourth cup (wine offered him) and said, “It is finished” before he died. Scott Hahn’s was claiming that the Passover sacrifice linked the Passover meal on Thursday to the Cross on Friday as one long event of Jesus sacrifice.
This author also purposely leaves stuff out from the Early Church Fathers. For instance when quoting Justin Martyr he quotes:
“[W]orshipping as we do the Maker of this universe, and declaring, as we have been taught, that He has no need of streams of blood and libations and incense; whom we praise to the utmost of our power by the exercise of prayer and thanksgiving for all things wherewith we are supplied, … and with gratitude to Him to offer thanks by invocations and hymns for our creation … . Our teacher of these things is Jesus Christ … ” (Justin Martyr, First Apology, chapter 13)
No mention of the last supper being a sacrifice there…
But he leaves out this passage from another writing:
He then speaks of those Gentiles, namely us [Christians] who in every place offer sacrifices to him, that is, the bread of the Eucharist and also the cup of the Eucharist” (Dialogue with Trypho the Jew 41 [A.D. 155]).
If he would have read more of Justin Martyr and honestly shared what he says:
“This food we call the Eucharist, of which no one is allowed to partake except one who believes that the things we teach are true, and has received the washing for forgiveness of sins and for rebirth, and who lives as Christ handed down to us. For we do not receive these things as common bread or common drink; but as Jesus Christ our Savior being incarnate by God’s Word took flesh and blood for our salvation, so also we have been taught that the food consecrated by the Word of prayer which comes from him, from which our flesh and blood are nourished by transformation, is the flesh and blood of that incarnate Jesus.”
“First Apology”, Ch. 66, inter A.D. 148-155.
“God has therefore announced in advance that all the sacrifices offered in His name, which Jesus Christ offered, that is, in the Eucharist of the Bread and of the Chalice, which are offered by us Christians in every part of the world, are pleasing to Him.”
“Dialogue with Trypho”, Ch. 117, circa 130-160 A.D.
Moreover, as I said before, concerning the sacrifices which you at that time offered, God speaks through Malachias, one of the twelve, as follows: ‘I have no pleasure in you, says the Lord; and I will not accept your sacrifices from your hands; for from the rising of the sun until its setting, my name has been glorified among the gentiles; and in every place incense is offered to my name, and a clean offering: for great is my name among the gentiles, says the Lord; but you profane it.’ It is of the sacrifices offered to Him in every place by us, the gentiles, that is, of the Bread of the Eucharist and likewise of the cup of the Eucharist, that He speaks at that time; and He says that we glorify His name, while you profane it.”
-“Dialogue with Trypho”, [41: 8-10]
Besides all this, his very premise is wrong. He states Roman Catholics claim that the Last Supper was the Sacrifice. Wrong! The Catholic Church teaches that the Paschal sacrifice was his death on the Cross, the Mass just mystically Re-Presents or makes present the one eternal sacrifice of the Cross. These next paragraphs are straight from the Catechism of the Catholic Church.
613 Christ’s death is both the Paschal sacrifice that accomplishes the definitive redemption of men, through “the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world”, and the sacrifice of the New Covenant, which restores man to communion with God by reconciling him to God through the “blood of the covenant, which was poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins”.
614 This sacrifice of Christ is unique; it completes and surpasses all other sacrifices. First, it is a gift from God the Father himself, for the Father handed his Son over to sinners in order to reconcile us with himself. At the same time it is the offering of the Son of God made man, who in freedom and love offered his life to his Father through the Holy Spirit in reparation for our disobedience.
And the Last Supper was “the memorial of his sacrifice”:
About the Last Supper:
611 The Eucharist that Christ institutes at that moment will be the memorial of his sacrifice. Jesus includes the apostles in his own offering and bids them perpetuate it. By doing so, the Lord institutes his apostles as priests of the New Covenant: “For their sakes I sanctify myself, so that they also may be sanctified in truth.”
I don’t know if this guy is purposefully trying to deceive people by lying about the Early Church Fathers and misrepresenting Catholicism or if he really just doesn’t know the Catholic faith.
He may want to consider going back to the Catholic Church to get better catechesis.
For more quotes from the Early Church Fathers that show that Scott Hahn was correct, go to:
Was the Mass a Sacrifice:
http://www.catholic.com/tracts/the-sacrifice-of-the-mass
Transubstantiation (The Real Presence):
http://www.catholic.com/tracts/the-real-presence
Thank you, Enrique,
You wrote,
Well, we shall see. You continued,
Actually, I agree that Rome says the Mass is a Sacrifice. I also agree that Rome is wrong to say this, because the real sacrifice was at the Cross, not at the Last Supper. You continued,
Yes, there is no doubt that Jesus was celebrating the Passover and that Jesus is the Lamb of God. There is no dispute here. You continued,
I have read it, too. You are correct. Hahn said, “The sacrifice begins in the upper room with the institution of the Eucharist and it ends at Calvary. Calvary begins with the Eucharist.” You may even note that I cite from Hahn’s video acknowledging the very thing.
Hahn claims to have found the Thursday night sacrifice in Melito. As I noted, “This week we are not so interested in Hahn’s illogical conclusion as we are in his source for it.” His source is Melito’s Peri Pascha. So when you read Melito’s Peri Pascha, do you find a sacrifice in the Upper Room or at Calvary? The article is not about whether Hahn saw the Eucharistic Sacrifice culminated on Calvary. It is about whether he has found a Thursday night sacrifice in Melito. Do you think Melito’s Peri Pascha speaks of Jesus offering Himself at the Last Supper? If so, where? I could not find it there. You claim to have rebutted the article, but you did not show where Melito referred to the Thursday night Sacrifice Hahn claimed to have found there.
You continued,
I do not provide the details here because I addressed Justin Martyr in full in my series Their Praise was their Sacrifice. For obvious reasons, I’m sure you’d agree, I cannot add an 8-week series to every article I write in order to avoid “purposefully leaving things out.” That’s why I simply refer to it and provide the hyperlink.
But let’s take a look at your analysis of Justin. You wrote,
But don’t move on from chapter 13 of his First Apology so quickly. I encourage you to take it in, in its fullness:
“What sober-minded man, then, will not acknowledge that we are not atheists, worshipping as we do the Maker of this universe, and declaring, as we have been taught, that He has no need of streams of blood and libations and incense; whom we praise to the utmost of our power by the exercise of prayer and thanksgiving for all things wherewith we are supplied, as we have been taught that the only honour that is worthy of Him is not to consume by fire what He has brought into being for our sustenance, but to use it for ourselves and those who need, and with gratitude to Him to offer thanks by invocations and hymns for our creation, and for all the means of health, and for the various qualities of the different kinds of things, and for the changes of the seasons; and to present before Him petitions for our existing again in incorruption through faith in Him. Our teacher of these things is Jesus Christ, who also was born for this purpose, and was crucified under Pontius Pilate, procurator of Judæa, in the times of Tiberius Cæsar; and that we reasonably worship Him, having learned that He is the Son of the true God Himself, and holding Him in the second place, and the prophetic Spirit in the third, we will prove. For they proclaim our madness to consist in this, that we give to a crucified man a place second to the unchangeable and eternal God, the Creator of all; for they do not discern the mystery that is herein, to which, as we make it plain to you, we pray you to give heed.”
It’s not just that there is “No mention of the last supper being a sacrifice.” What is there is an explicit denial that the Last Supper is a sacrifice of the elements of the Lord’s Supper. That is an important distinction, because Justin is describing the way the Early Church celebrated the Lord’s Supper, as they learned it from Jesus Christ Himself. In the early church they gathered together to break bread and drink wine as Jesus instructed, and also to collect and distribute food for those in need. In the process, Justin Martyr says that proper praise is not to offer him sacrifices of blood, libations and incense, but “to offer thanks by invocations and hymns … to present before Him petitions.” In the early Church, their praise was their sacrifice, not the Roman Eucharistic elements. So here is Justin, saying that when we gather together to worship Him, we do not offer sacrifices of blood, drink or incense—the very thing he ought to have said if the Mass was the fulfillment of Malachi 1:11—and he says we offer hymns instead. The only time Jesus offered a hymn to His Father was at the Last Supper. You can read it in the Matthew and Mark accounts. Just think of the implications—at the Last Supper, Jesus taught us not to offer sacrifices of blood and libations, but a sacrifice of praise. Which is why Justin says, “Our teacher of these things is Jesus Christ…”. That’s right: the One who taught us that we do not offer the sacrifice the New Covenant in the elements of the Lord’s supper is Jesus Christ Himself. Now, let’s continue with Justin.
I would encourage you to read the whole Dialogue, and not just the excerpts that are typically extracted to support Rome’s mass sacrifice. You do not seem to realize that you have cut and pasted the same section from Chapter 41 of his Dialogue twice, but from two different translations, as if you had produced two pieces of evidence from Justin, when in fact you have only produced one. That suggests to me that you have not read Justin, but only commentaries about the mass sacrifice. Take a closer look and you find that when it comes down to brass tacks, as they say, Justin says in Chapter 117,
“Now, that prayers and giving of thanks, when offered by worthy men, are the only perfect and well-pleasing sacrifices to God, I also admit.”
That part of Chapter 117 is rarely included in the commentaries on the Mass Sacrifice, and for good reason: it contextualizes Justin. If in Chapter 117 he says that prayers and the giving of thanks “are the only perfect and well-pleasing sacrifices,” what do you suppose he meant at the beginning of Chapter 117, indeed only two sentences earlier, when he said:
“Accordingly, God, anticipating all the sacrifices which we offer through this name, and which Jesus the Christ enjoined us to offer, i.e., in the Eucharist of the bread and the cup, and which are presented by Christians in all places throughout the world, bears witness that they are well-pleasing to Him.”
Recall that in Chapter 13 of his First Apology, he said that it was Jesus who taught us that the only sacrifice we offer is thanks, hymns and petitions, not blood, libations and incense. Now in Chapter 117 of the Dialogue he is saying that the only well pleasing sacrifices are prayers and thanks. That we offer thanks to God in the celebration of the Lord’s Supper, no one denies. The question is, what was Justin saying that “Jesus the Christ enjoined us to offer”? The thanks or the elements? Eucharist (ευχαριστια) means “thanksgiving,” and Justin says it right there. The sacrifices Jesus enjoined us to offer were the sacrifices in the thanksgiving. The thanksgiving of the bread and the cup is precisely what Jesus taught us at the Last Supper, and it is that thanksgiving that Christians today still offer. But the elements are not what is offered. And that gets us back to Chapter 41 of the Dialogue. Justin writes,
“And the offering of fine flour, sirs, which was prescribed to be presented on behalf of those purified from leprosy, was a type of the bread of the Eucharist, the celebration of which our Lord Jesus Christ prescribed, in remembrance of the suffering which He endured on behalf of those who are purified in soul from all iniquity, in order that we may at the same time thank God for having created the world, with all things therein, for the sake of man, and for delivering us from the evil in which we were, and for utterly overthrowing principalities and powers by Him who suffered according to His will.”
Justin is talking about two things: bread and thanksgiving. The “celebration” “which our Lord Jesus prescribed,” is one in which bread is used “in remembrance of the suffering” and thanksgiving happens during the same meal, “in order that we may at the same time thank God.” Just so in Chapter 117:
“Now, that prayers and giving of thanks, when offered by worthy men, are the only perfect and well-pleasing sacrifices to God, I also admit. For such alone Christians have undertaken to offer, and in the remembrance effected by their solid and liquid food, whereby the suffering of the Son of God which He endured is brought to mind,”
Here Justin explicitly says that what “Christians have undertaken to offer” is “prayers and giving of thanks” and we do so “in the remembrance effected by their solid and liquid food, whereby the suffering of the Son of God which He endured is brought to mind.” I know of no Christian that denies that we offer thanks to God at the Lord’s Supper. What we do not offer is the bread and wine. We offer thanks, indeed, and that thanks is accentuated by the remembrance effected by the bread and wine, but the bread and wine are not the sacrifice. Just read his conclusion from chapter 117:
“For there is not one single race of men, whether barbarians, or Greeks, or whatever they may be called, nomads, or vagrants, or herdsmen living in tents, among whom prayers and giving of thanks are not offered through the name of the crucified Jesus.” (Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho, chapter 117)”
In any case, regarding your citation of Chapter 66 of the First Apology, I would encourage you to read Chapters 65-67 together. What you find is what was typical in the early church. Prayer was offered to God, then the bread is consecrated, and then the consecrated bread is offered to men. Consecrated bread is not offered to God. As Irenæus shows in Fragment 37, the oblation of the new covenant is thanks, and it is only after the sacrifice of the new covenant (thanks) has been offered that the Holy Spirit is invoked to “exhibit” Christ’s body and blood to men. If the invocation of the Holy Spirit is the point at which the bread and wine are “transmuted” into Christ’s Body and Blood, then the early Church was wrong to place the invocation after the sacrifice, instead of before it. You can read more about that in the series I mentioned above.
You continued,
Actually, you will find that is precisely what Scott Hahn, Art Sippo and Shawn McElhinney are saying:
Scott Hahn: “Jesus’ institution of the Holy Eucharist was nothing less than the sacrifice of the New Covenant Passover”
Sippo: “The Last Supper was the real sacrificial offering of Christ for sin and it certainly was unbloody.”
McElhinney: “What they do not realize is that the offering of Our Lord of Himself for sin occurred not at Calvary but instead it was at the Last Supper. … Sacrifice is not the act of killing the victim but of offering it to God.”
Why do you suppose Rome’s apologists get this so wrong if the Last Supper was not the Sacrifice?
You concluded,
“Lying about the early church fathers” is quite a charge. You may want to investigate the claims of the Douay Catechism that says all the early church fathers agreed that the Roman Mass Sacrifice was the fulfillment of Malachi 1:11. That claim is demonstrably false. You continued,
Will Scott, Shawn and Art be in the “new members” class with me?
You continued,
Are you saying Scott was right to say the Last Supper was the sacrifice? That is the very thing you said was wrong, and yet it is precisely what Hahn said the Last Supper was.
The propensity for Roman Catholic apologists to go back and forth on that—the Lord’s Supper was the Sacrifice and Calvary was not the sacrifice; Calvary was the sacrifice, but the Lord’s supper was the real sacrifice, although Calvary is the supreme sacrifice, but the Last Supper is where He really offered Himself, and the sacrifice is not in the killing but the offering, and He offered Himself Thursday night, and it was Thursday that He became the victim and it was Thursday when he laid His life down, etc…, etc…—is why I maintain that all of what Hahn says about Calvary is just lip service. As Art and Shawn know very well, for all of the claims about Calvary, they insist that Calvary is not the actual sacrifice, the Last Supper was (but Calvary was, only if you agree that the last supper was, in the “eternal now,” etc…). That is a lot of doublespeak.
I would encourage you to study the Early Church Fathers for yourself and in their full context rather than simply cut and paste from Roman Catholic web sites that claim apostolic antiquity. You will find that they “purposefully leave a lot out.”
The first actual reference to Jesus offering himself as a sacrifice on Thursday night dates to the late 4th century, which is the period to which Roman Catholicism’s origins can actually be traced.
Thanks,
Tim
You did not address the Official stance of the Catholic Church in the Catechism. I find Protestantism has an either/or mentality where Catholicism has a both/and approach. There is a profound and mystical connection between the Lord’s Supper and Calvary. I don’t know what your point is to focus on technicalities and splitting hairs when the Catechism is clear on the issue. Individual laymen, even apologists, don’t make Catholic doctrine. I’m not saying I disagree with Hahn’s assessment, but your only took tiny excerpt of his teachings possibly out of context. Just read the Catechism. Besides, if you break with Churches historic teachings, you make yourself the Pope and open yourselves up infighting with all the little denominations that can’t agree on hardly anything. It all become personal interpretation not the Church founded on Peter’s leadership.
Thank you, Enrique,
After explaining to me the meaning of Hahn’s “Four Cups,” you want me to “just read the Catechism”? I think you may have missed the point of my article. I did not write it to prove that the Catechism teaches that Calvary is not a sacrifice. I wrote it to show that a “curious implication” of the teaching on the Lord’s Supper is that Calvary is not the actual sacrifice. And I provided the words of Roman Catholic apologists who expressed that very implication. Then I showed from Hahn that he based his belief on the Thursday sacrifice on Melito’s Peri Pascha, which says nothing of a sacrifice at the Last Supper. Did you find the Thursday night sacrifice in the Peri Pascha?
In your attempt to rebut my article, you cited the Catechism. How does the Catechism show that Art Sippo did not say what he said? How does the Catechism show that Hahn’s reading of Melito is correct? You explicitly stated that I was “wrong!” to state that “Roman Catholics claim that the Last Supper was the Sacrifice,” but I provided statements from Roman Catholics stating exactly that. And now you say that I took Scott Hahn “possibly out of context”? In what way? What did Scott Hahn, Art Sippo and Shawn McElhinney say when you told them to “Just read the Catechsim” to find out that the Last Supper was not a sacrifice?
In any case, you also said I had “purposefully” left out what Justin Martyr said. I think it can be shown that it is Rome who purposefully leaves out what Justin Martyr said.
You wrote,
That is true. But I think we can agree that they say things sometimes. I believe it is ok to criticize what they say.
Why did you cite Hahn’s “Four Cups” then? Am I to understand that Catholics may read the Catechism and Roman Catholic apologists, but Protestants are to read only the Catechism? My point was to interact with Hahn and Sippo. Surely I am free to do that. Do you disagree?
You concluded,
Tell me this, then: is Ordinatio Sacerdotalis a divinely revealed dogma? Surely, you know.
Thank you,
Tim
http://www.catholic.com/blog/tim-staples/call-no-woman-father
As Paul Harvey would say, “That’s the rest of the story.”
Just posting to get follow-ups.
Enrique,
Greetings.
You wrote,
“I don’t know if this guy is purposefully trying to deceive people by lying about the Early Church Fathers and misrepresenting Catholicism or if he really just doesn’t know the Catholic faith.”
I think it is the first. Tim does it on purpose.
Tim
“I know of no Christian that denies that we offer thanks to God at the Lord’s Supper. What we do not offer is the bread and wine”
We Catholics don’t offer bread and wine either. Bread does not save us. Neither does wine.
We offer Christ under the appearances of bread and wine.
You demanded to know,
“Are you saying Scott was right to say the Last Supper was the sacrifice?”
Scott also said the Supper is what made Calvary a sacrifice ( rather than just an execution ). Let me say it again,”…made Calvary a SACRIFICE”.
You quote Art Sippo,
“Sippo: “The Last Supper was the real sacrificial offering of Christ for sin and it certainly was unbloody.”
Notice Sippo said, “sacrificial offering”. Offering according to the rite of Melkizedek, Tim. Do you mean to say Calvary was a liturgy?
As for Justin Martyr, You say,
” Prayer was offered to God, then the bread is consecrated, and then the consecrated bread is offered to men. Consecrated bread is not offered to God…”
Let’s look at what the saint actually said;
“There is then brought to the president of the brethren bread and a cup of wine mixed with water; ( EXPLAIN THIS )and he taking them, gives praise and glory to the Father of the universe, through the name of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, and offers thanks at considerable length ( THE CANON OR EUCHARISTIC PRAYER ? )for our being counted worthy to receive these things at His hands.
And when he has concluded the prayers and thanksgivings, all the people present express their assent by saying Amen.
And when the president has given thanks, and all the people have expressed their assent, those who are called by us deacons give to each of those present to partake of the bread and ***wine mixed with water*** ( WHAT IS THIS ALL ABOUT, TIM? ) over which the*** thanksgiving was pronounced,*** ( THIS PAYER TRANSFORMED OR EUCHARISTIZED THE BREAD ) and to ***those who are absent they carry away a portion.*** ( DO PROTESTANTS DO THIS? )
“And this food is called among us Eucharistia [the Eucharist], of which no one is allowed to partake but the man who believes that the things which we teach( ABOUT THE EUCHARIST 1 Cor 11:27 ) are true, and who has been washed with the washing that is for the remission of sins, and unto regeneration, and who is so living as Christ has enjoined.( WHY IS THIS IMPORTANT IF IT IS ONLY A SYMBOL? )
***For[ not as common bread and common drink ] do we receive these; but in like manner as Jesus Christ our Saviour***, having been made flesh by the Word of God, had both flesh and blood for our salvation, so likewise have we been taught that*** the food which is blessed by the prayer of His word***, and from which our blood and flesh by transmutation are nourished, ***is the flesh and blood of that Jesus who was made flesh.”*** –
As for the Last Supper, you assert,
“at the Last Supper, Jesus taught us not to offer sacrifices of blood and libations, but a sacrifice of praise.”
I missed that in the Synoptics, Tim. Could you give me chapter and verse? I thought He said, ” This is my Body…This is My Blood”.
Finally,
” Do you think Melito’s Peri Pascha speaks of Jesus offering Himself at the Last Supper? If so, where? I could not find it there.”
It sure does. Hahn is right. Mellito makes Christ to be the Passover Lamb. Hahn talks about how Jesus not only fulfilled the feast but transformed the Passover meal into the New Covenant.
Tim,
Melito refers to Jesus, the Lamb, being taken from a “ewe lamb”.
Ewe lambs were used in sacrifice. The fact that Mary is a lamb and not just a ewe stresses her virginity. Her virginity means her consecration or being set aside for God.
Tim, the purpose of OT sacrifice was not Penal Substitution. It was setting aside or consecrating a gift to God. It was giving something of value to the Creator.
Virginity is that setting aside, that making a gift of on’es sexuality to the Lord.
IOW, Tim, Mary was part of the gift, the offering to God according to Melito.
Jim,
Melito said, “This is the one who was born of Mary, that beautiful ewe-lamb” (Peri Pascha, 71). That’s his only reference to Mary. From that you get “Mary was part of the gift, the offering to God according to Melito”? I don’t understand how you drew that conclusion from what Melito said. Mary was a “beautiful ewe-lamb,” and that moves Melito’s sacrifice back to Thursday night? That makes Mary a part of the sacrifice Melito was talking about?
Thanks,
Tim
Tim,
How is that you, Timothy F. Kauffman, son of Joe and Mabel l Kauffman of Downer’s Grove. Ill. are the first one to ever discover that Rome denies Calvary to have been the sacrifice?
As with your other crackpot theories, you scooped Luther, Calvin, Sturgeon, Sproul and even Walt and Kelvin! HA!
Seriously Tim, do a couple offer themselves to one another on the day he proposes and she accepts? Or at the wedding? Or on honeymoon night?
When do they do it in a religious ceremony? When do they consummate their mutual offering made at the ceremony? Do they ratify their offering everyday of the lives after that?
What would the ceremony be if the couple never intended to live together, sleep together, start a family, be faithful until death, etc.?
It would be an empty ceremony.
What would it be if a couple opted to bypass the ceremony and just sleep together? Would you say the ceremony is an important part of their mutual self offering or not? Does it actually define the coming together, you know, does it determine if the coming together is holy relations or fornication?
So, like Scott Hahn said, without Thursday, Friday is just a Roman execution.
Tim,
Thank you for putting us through this song and dance.
You have totally discredited yourself.
I hope readers now see the way you went after this issue is how you pursue all others.
And you wonder why I am not interested in getting into women’s ordination with you? Ha!
This reminds me of an exchange I had with Ken Temple recently. In the middle of a two week argument over the Eucharist ( in which he was losing ), out of the blue, he brings up the issue of bishops’ miters. He had found a copy of the oldest image of Athanasius and the saint was not wearing a miter. He therefore concluded that the idea of monarchical bishops to therefore be a medieval invention along with the wearing of miters.
Like you, he is a graduate of the Bill Webster school of apologetical research.
Isn’t it interesting, Jim, that when Enrique was unable to rebut my statements about Scott Hahn, he simply resorted to an unsubstantiated accusation that I had taken Hahn “possibly out of context,” and then resorted to Rome’s standard argument that unless I submit to Rome’s teaching authority, it all comes down to my personal interpretation.
“Not interested in getting into women’s ordination”? All you have done is get into it, and with the muddy clarity that was predictable. “Ordinatio Sacerdotalis was infallible.” “The pope said so.” “It meets the criteria of infallibility.” “It was ex cathedra.” “It wasn’t ex cathedra.” “It was.” “It wasn’t.” “Who cares?”
Yes, it is clear to me why you are “not interested in getting into women’s ordination” with me.
Thanks,
Tim
Enrique wrote:
“You did not address the Official stance of the Catholic Church in the Catechism. I find Protestantism has an either/or mentality where Catholicism has a both/and approach. There is a profound and mystical connection between the Lord’s Supper and Calvary. I don’t know what your point is to focus on technicalities and splitting hairs when the Catechism is clear on the issue. ”
You made a multitude of points in your first rebuttal to the article wrote by Tim explaining (in summary) that Tim does not understand the Roman Catholic teaching. Of course, you cited the Catechism as one of those teachings, but you also cited Scott Hahn (who you said got it right) and you cited Justin Martyr.
Please let’s try to be honest here Enrique and accept your own ignorance on these matters taught and proclaimed by Rome. Do you really know what Rome teaches, or like most Roman Catholics, just blinded to the money, power, glamour, tradition and the rest of the foolish behavior of that religion?
Be honest. You lost on every single point Tim responded to in your initial rebuttal. Please humble yourself to your errors and misunderstanding.
Enrique wrote:
“Besides, if you break with Churches historic teachings, you make yourself the Pope and open yourselves up infighting with all the little denominations that can’t agree on hardly anything.”
What is so silly to me as a former Roman Catholic is that within the RCC itself is dozens of varied opinions and very little unity. I know of RCC members who are totally against Vatican II and reject all its teachings. I know others who are so liberal they believe in abortion, gay marriage and homosexual priests but they are Roman Catholic church goers.
You can be certain, within our true and faithful Presbyterian congregation, you would not be allowed to attend Lord’s Supper if you believed these things above, and once it was discovered you would be immediately brought to private instruction that these things are at odds with biblical teaching, the historical true reformed Presbyterian/Protestant teaching, and you would be excommunicated if you did not repent and reject these teachings. Now that is unity.
What you see in the RCC is not even close to unity…but rather it is the largest satanic cult in the world taking hundreds of millions of souls to hell…and this is really sad.
Jim said:
“We Catholics don’t offer bread and wine either. Bread does not save us. Neither does wine.
We offer Christ under the appearances of bread and wine.”
Now this is satanic in its origin. To suggest that Christ appears in the bread and wine is satanic as Tim has shown in one of his early articles where people actually see him in the Eucharist as alive. It is a wicked system that RCC members need to escape.
Tim wrote:
“Isn’t it interesting, Jim, that when Enrique was unable to rebut my statements about Scott Hahn, he simply resorted to an unsubstantiated accusation that I had taken Hahn “possibly out of context,” and then resorted to Rome’s standard argument that unless I submit to Rome’s teaching authority, it all comes down to my personal interpretation.”
Exactly. This is the always typical Roman Catholic response who come here time and time again. They start out with all sorts of detailed accusations, then they get taught the facts, and then they disappear to go live in sin, hatred and evil following the religion of Roman Catholicism. Watch the Pope recently and see his growing one world toleration religion. He tolerates every form of evil, wickedness and sin that exists in hopes to become more and more popular and globally important. As a Jesuit, he knows of the Satanic operations ongoing in the Vatican, and he tolerates this evil.
http://www.vatileaks.com/_blog/Vati_Leaks/post/Satanism_in_the_Vatican/
Then Enrique claims that Protestants have no actual unity and are filled with denominations. Well, be certain, that outside of the true reformed Presbyterian churches in history, you can trace nearly every single division to doctrinal differences that Protestant churches adopted from Rome. You think Rome is united in the truth….think again Enrique. Repent brother!
Walt,
“Now this is satanic in its origin. To suggest that Christ appears in the bread and wine is satanic as Tim has shown in one of his early articles where people actually see him in the Eucharist as alive.”
I have never had such a vision. Is it satanic in origin for me too? Or only for the mystics who see Christ in His physical Body?
In either case, why would it be satanic.
Do you ever think before putting your mouth in gear?
Jim wrote:
“I have never had such a vision. Is it satanic in origin for me too? Or only for the mystics who see Christ in His physical Body?
In either case, why would it be satanic.”
No, both of you who do not see the vision and those who have the vision. Both are satanic in origin. Some are more satanically possessed who have these visions, and those like you who do not have the vision are less infested with Satan.
It is Satanic because it is a doctrine from the pits of hell (so to speak) that have caused hundreds of millions to end up in hell because they are not saved. They look not to Christ alone and his sacrifice on the cross as the finished work, but they blindly believe he is sacrificed daily in the Eucharist. Their entire mind is set upon a satanic path toward hell rather than Godly path toward heaven believing such things.
Tim has proved this over and over again here making it clear that what you believe is taught by the Early Church Fathers is all a Roman Catholic lie, and what your Pope teaches further is an furthering of this lie. What the Romish apologists are teaching are actually more and more toward hellish doctrine than even what your catechism is teaching….when it is going to stop Jim? When are you going to convince your church to stop spreading these lies about Christ…they are all antichrist!
Walt,
Tim got saved as an Arminian, before he even knew the Gospel and the Doctrines of Grace. ( Do you believe him? He was trusting in his own ability to decide for Christ. Sounds satanic to me, )
Walt,
“but they blindly believe he is sacrificed daily in the Eucharist.”
What does this mean? Can you explain exactly how Catholics think Christ is sacrificed daily? You have the benefit of having once been a Catholic and now knowing the true Deformed doctrine both so you should be able to articulate what it means.
( But we all know you haven’t a clue. You can’t explain Catholic doctrine and , by your admittance that you don’t even know the term”penal Substitution”. you don’t know what Calvinists believe on the atonement, sacrifice or satisfaction .)
Walt,
Please tell us what The Church means by this (not what you “think” she means).
The Mass is believed to be a true and singular sacrifice in which Christ is truly immolated in order to apply the virtue of His death to the sins that people commit daily. Christ’s sacrifice on Thursday and Christ’s sacrifice on Friday are so unique in the realm of revealed truth that one cannot truly be said to complete the other. In the great sacrifice of the Eucharist Roman Catholics are re-enacting Christ’s death sacramentally. They say.
Thanks,
Tim
Tim,
“Christ’s sacrifice on Thursday and Christ’s sacrifice on Friday are so unique in the realm of revealed truth that one cannot truly be said to complete the other.”
Are so unique? Do you mean separate or unrelated? By “complete” do you mean they are not interconnected?
You seemed to think Fr. Most believed God could have dispensed with Calvary but could have accepted the Mass alone as the price of our redemption.
Do you still maintain this opinion?
No, not unrelated. They represent each other. That’s what’s so unique about the Lord’s Supper and Calvary in the mind of the Roman Catholic: they stand related to each other in a way that is unique—so that one represents the other, but does not complete the other.
Tim
Tim,
As “it’s the Mass that matters”, let’s stay on that topic a bit longer.
http://www.buriedtreasure.us/files/A%20KEY%20TO%20THE%20DOCTRINE%20OF%20THE%20EUCHARIST.pdf
Here is a link to Dave Anders’ favorite book on the Mass.
Please go to the chapter on man’s share in the sacrifice. Notice that every paragraph has the phrase “sacrifice of the cross” or sacrifice of Calvary”.
Now, tell Walt you were wrong to say Catholics deny the sacrifice of the cross.
Jim, I may be missing something, but is your point that Dave Anders’ favorite book makes Art Sippo and Shawn McElhinney unsay what they said?
I wrote in Melito’s Sacrifice that “One of the more curious implications of the Roman Catholic sacrifice of the Mass is that Jesus actually did not offer Himself as a sacrifice on the cross. Instead, they say, He offered Himself as a sacrifice at the Last Supper.” It would seem to me that Sippo and McElhinney have both stumbled upon that exact implication.
How does Dave Anders disprove that Art and Shawn said what they said?
Thanks,
Tim
TIM–
You say: “One of the more curious implications of the Roman Catholic sacrifice of the Mass is that Jesus actually did not offer Himself as a sacrifice on the cross. Instead, they say, He offered Himself as a sacrifice at the Last Supper.”
So you say that this is just implied by some and not officially taught by the church as true doctrine, is that correct?
I would actually say that it is inferred by some, and that the inference is valid based on the actual origins of the Sacrifice of the Mass in the late 4th century. Gregory of Nyssa provides rather explicit language on the “fact” that Christ offered and sacrificed Himself on Thursday night:
The implication is that the Sacrifice, the offering, was on Thursday at the Last Supper, not on Friday. Just look at Gregory’s question: “When did He do this?” Sippo’s and McElhinney’s inference is a valid one, for Rome’s mass sacrifice is based on Gregory’s innovation.
Is Rome’s official teaching that there was no sacrifice on Friday? To the degree that Rome’s “official” teaching can be known, no. I also don’t recall saying that Rome’s official teaching is that Calvary was not a sacrifice. But the implication remains, and Sippo and McElhinney are right on in their deductive reasoning. And it is a very curious implication indeed. Just like the worship of Mary. Rome’s official teaching is that they do not worship Mary. But study the doctrine in any depth and you find that because there is no actual way to distinguish between hyperdulia and latria, the implication is that hyperdulia is simply latria by another name.
Roman Catholicism’s official position is also that Papal Rome is not the Antichrist. But that does not mean Papal Rome is not the Antichrist.
Thanks,
Tim
TIM–
So, I must conclude by your words above that you base your position on implications and not the official Roman teaching, is this correct?
Bob,
You may conclude that my comments about Art are based on comments that Art made. You may conclude that my comments about Scott are based on comments that Scott made. You may also conclude that my comments about Melito are based on what Melito said.
Thanks,
Tim
TIM–
You said: “Just like the worship of Mary. Rome’s official teaching is that they do not worship Mary. But study the doctrine in any depth and you find that because there is no actual way to distinguish between hyperdulia and latria, the implication is that hyperdulia is simply latria by another name.”
So, like I asked you before, I must conclude by your words above that you base your position on implications and not the official Roman teaching, is this correct?
Bob,
If you read my two posts on Mary worship you will find that I actually base my position on Rome’s official position on Latria.
Is it true that Jesus condemned the Pharisees not based on their official position—their official position was that Abraham was their Father—but on the implications of their own words? Then yes, you may, indeed must, conclude that I analyze Roman Catholicism the way Jesus analyzed the Pharisees: by assessing the logical implications of their “official position” and showing its inherent error and contradiction.
Thanks,
Tim
Is it true that Jesus condemned the Pharisees not based on their official position—their official position was that Abraham was their Father—but on the implications of their own words? Then yes, you may, indeed must, conclude that I analyze Roman Catholicism the way Jesus analyzed the Pharisees: by assessing the logical implications of their “official position” and showing its inherent error and contradiction.
You must mean when Jesus said this:
Mat 23:1ff Then Jesus spoke to the crowds and to His disciples,
“The scribes and the Pharisees have seated themselves in the chair of Moses; therefore all that they tell you, do and observe, but do not do according to their deeds; for they say things and do not do them.”
Then yes, I may, indeed must, conclude that you analyze Roman Catholicism the way Jesus analyzed the Pharisees: by observing and obeying their “official teaching” while showing the implication of error in their personal actions, is this correct?
Since some things they said were true, Jesus had no problems with what they said. But some things they said were false, as in, “Whosoever shall swear by the temple, it is nothing; but whosoever shall swear by the gold of the temple, he is a debtor!” (Matthew 23:16). “But in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men” (Matthew 15:9). Jesus had problems with those teachings, and did not instruct us to obey them. So no, Jesus did not observe and obey their official positions. Nor did He instruct his audience to observe and obey their official positions. The verse you cited ends with “for they say things and do not do them” (Matthew 23:3), which is a reference to Ezekiel 33:30-32:
In its context, it is a complaint against the Jews—that they claim to desire the Word from the Lord (in this case, the prophet Ezekiel), but instead they go on serving their own desires. For they “hear” “the word that cometh forth from the LORD” but do not do it. In Matthew 23:1-3, it is the Words of Moses that Jesus has in mind—to the degree that they teach what is in the Scripture, do it. But do not follow their example. It is not a command to interior assent to everything they taught “ex cathedra.” It had to also have the added attribute of actually being true.
Sometimes what they said was the exact opposite of the truth, and Jesus did not instruct us to obey those teachings. Even though they disagreed fervently with Jesus’ assessment of their position, Jesus nonetheless pressed them with the logical implications of their view, as in when they said “Abraham is our father” (John 8:39). That was their official position. Jesus replied, “No, he isn’t” (John 8:44). He did this by examining their profession and finding it wanting.
I do the same. Rome says “We don’t worship Mary,” and “We don’t worship bread.”
They most certainly do.
Thanks,
Tim
TIM–
You said: ” it is the Words of Moses that Jesus has in mind—to the degree that they teach what is in the Scripture, do it. But do not follow their example. It is not a command to interior assent to everything they taught “ex cathedra.”
It certainly reads that way to me. The scribes and Pharisees had the rightful authority of the Chair of Moses, so respect that authority. But don’t do as they do because they don’t even heed their own teaching. Instead they are hypocrites. I know exactly what that passage in the bible says, I don’t need you to re-interpret it for me with your “implications” on it.
You also said: “It had to also have the added attribute of actually being true. I do the same. Rome says “We don’t worship Mary,” and “We don’t worship bread.”They most certainly do.”
You testified earlier that you based your position not on what the Church teaches but on the implications otherwise–more than once. So, by your own words, I am correct in assuming that your position is that of strawman implications and not based on what Rome teaches from the Chair of Peter.
I figured as much but I had to hear it from your own mouth. And so has everyone else that reads these responses. Good luck trying to “unsay” it.
Bob,
Not all implications are strawmen. An implication is a conclusion that can be drawn from something, although it is not explicitly stated. Jesus argued against the implications of the Pharisees more than once, in spite of their protestations to the contrary. I think you may be assuming that all implications are invalid. That is not true.
Thanks,
Tim
Tim,
Dave Anders did not write the book. Dom Anscar Vonier did.
Okay, you posted Art Sippo’s remark as if it undoes Vonier’s. Please clarify what you are saying. H
Here is part of your Sippo quote;
” Christ did not offer his body and blood to God during the passion.” (Art Sippo, Catholic Legate, Q&A )
Okay, so Vonier says the cross was a sacrifice. Does he say the Supper was not ( I posted the link to the entire PDF book ).
Art Sippo says Christ offered Himself at the Supper, not the cross. Yes?
As I keep telling you, Sippo means “liturgically” or as a priest according to Melchizedek.
Just as Hahn said when he said that a Jew present would not have recognized Calvary as priestly sacrifice As it was outside the walls of Jerusalem.
Walt,
Was Jesus abandoned by the Father? Did He suffer the torments of hell?
Did Christ suffer the punishment due sinners, in their stead? Did He suffer for all sinners or just the elect?
Was Christ’s death an execution ? Was He executed in the stead of the elect? Or was His death a sacrifice?
What is a sacrifice? Is it a punishment in the stead of someone else? If yes, could you support it with scripture?
The covenant made with Moses was sealed with a sacrifice. Was the animal sacrificed punished in anyway?
The New Covenant was sealed with a sacrifice too. was it not? When? Where was Jesus when He announced He was establishing a new covenant in His Blood?
C’mon Walt. You are shooting your mouth off about satanic this and satanic that. Do you even have a clue as to what you are blathering?
Tim has had several days to answer my questions. His answer is to switch to another topic. Since he cannot defend your Deformed position, it falls on your narrow shoulders to do so. And without the help of Kevin’s barrage of spam.
So, instead of just spouting inane remarks about Satan, put forth a positive articulation of you (un) biblical position.
You have the floor Walt, go for it.
This seems fair as we ask for the same treatment. Tells us your belief and definitions, rather than letting us define it for you. Then, using your definition we can discuss why we think it doesn’t match up with scripture.
Unlike what Protestants do on this site (except BOB). They tell us what we believe (strawman) and then proudly knock said strawman down.
CK,
I’m not sure to which specific point you refer when you say “They tell us what we believe (strawman) and then proudly knock said strawman down.” I said that Art Sippo thinks the sacrifice was on Thursday, not Friday. If you think his inference is illogical you may take that up with Art. I said Scott Hahn also believes in a Thursday sacrifice. I said Scott Hahn thinks Melito of Sardis supports the view of a Thursday sacrifice. I don’t know how any of those count as “straw men,” but I also don’t know if those are the “straw men” you were talking about.
Can you elaborate?
Thanks,
Tim
Melito shows that the Passover Sacrifice was transformed my Christ. That event happened on Thursday.
By the way,Tim, I saw the article by Art Sippo on OS and infallibility written in response to your mentor Bill Webster.
OOPS. by Christ
I’m referring to you general approach to all things Catholic. You tend to do it just a little different than most by providing out of context quotes or partial quotes leaving out the quotes that directly contradict what you are trying to prove. At the end end of the day you are worse than Walt because at times you have to know true Catholic teaching in order to know what quotes to leave out/ignore.
Tim is worse than Walt because he refuses to wear a manly kilt like Walt does.
Here is a video Walt ( who identifies with all things Scottish ) posted on utube
Tim,
Here are Sippo’s actual words,
“In like fashion, the Holy Eucharist is a synchronic celebration of the sacrifice of Christ started at the Last Supper, and ongoing through Jesus’ death and resurrection, culminating in his Ascension into Heaven as an eternal Ascension Offering. ”
Just as I have been bending over backwards trying to tell you. The Supper and death of the cross are but parts of the one sacrifice.
As for “offering”, just as I told you ( and Sippo concurs ) started at the Incarnation and is ongoing.
Jim, please correct me if I’m wrong. You said:
“but they blindly believe he is sacrificed daily in the Eucharist.”
What does this mean? Can you explain exactly how Catholics think Christ is sacrificed daily? You have the benefit of having once been a Catholic and now knowing the true Deformed doctrine both so you should be able to articulate what it means.”
What I was taught in Catholic school and as an alter boy that my duty was to ring the bells every morning when the Priest raised the wine in the challis over his head, and when he raised the bread over his head. The ringing of the bells was to alert everyone in the mass that the literal blood and bread were being transformed into the literal blood and body of Jesus Christ, and we were going to soon be eating His blood and His body. It was my job to then secure all the other hosts and more blood sufficient for the entire mass. Some mornings were not many people so I would not have to supply much, but other holidays and weekends I would have to secure far more.
I assumed Christ was sacrificed on the alter in the mass, and we were suppose to drink his blood and eat his body daily at mass during this sacrifice. This was a literal event.
The Protestants I later learned considered the body and blood as only a remembrance and sign, and they did not have daily Lord’s Supper or communion. Some Angelicans and Baptists would have communion every Sunday, but not every day like what I had to do in Catholic School.
So, help me understand. So if you are saying Christ is not sacrificed n the Mass daily, then what is the purpose of transubstantiation? Why do you eat his real body and drink his real blood? Catholic answers says it IS A TRUE SACRIFICE.
“The Eucharist is a true sacrifice, not just a commemorative meal, as “Bible Christians” insist. The first Christians knew that it was a sacrifice and proclaimed this in their writings. They recognized the sacrificial character of Jesus’ instruction, “Do this in remembrance of me” (Touto poieite tan eman anamnasin; Luke 22:19, 1 Cor. 11:24–25) which is better translated “Offer this as my memorial offering.”
Please help…I’m confused.
Tim is worse than Walt because he refuses to wear a manly kilt like Walt does.
Here is a video Walt ( who identifies with all things Scottish ) posted on utube
Walt, you are correct. The Roman Catholic position is that Jesus is sacrificed daily in the Eucharist. In the elements, Jesus is Christ is allegedly contained, and those elements are sacrificed. A sacrifice is the offering of a victim by a priest to God, and the “hostia” is the victim, and the “hostia” is Jesus, and so Jesus is sacrificed daily. It is truly (they say) a propitiatory sacrifice by which we obtain mercy, and find grace because the Lord is appeased by the oblation that takes place in offering Jesus’ sufferings to the Father, and He ostenisbly forgives grave crimes and sins when the Mass sacrifice is offered. Part of the problem in the perception is that this is all “mystical,” so that in reality each time the Mass is offered, the shedding of blood is repeated invisibly. Jesus’ hands are wounded, His feet are transfixed, His side is pierced, His Blood is made to flow, but—and here’s the mystical part—in a manner of which is beyond our senses. Space-time continuum, etc…
Thanks,
Tim
Jesus is contained in the elements ( accidents of bread and wine ) and we sacrifice those elements?
This isn’t even “mystical”. It is downright heretical. We don’t sacrifice bread and wine. We don’t sacrifice their appearances.
Once again, you fail Catholicism 101. ( But you continue to write about it as if you were an expert ! )
Jim,
The Catechism of the Council of Trent said Jesus is contained in the elements. I didn’t say anything about “accidents” and I didn’t say anything about bread and wine. You had to add that in to try to prove me wrong. A straw man, as it were.
Here is what the Catechism of Trent says:
“frequently also the body and blood itself of our Lord, which is contained in the Eucharist, used to be called a Sacrament” (In What Respect The Eucharist Is A Sacrament)
As your own Vonier said, “on the altar, at a given moment, there is offered up the perfect sacrifice whose elements are absolutely divine, being, in fact the Body and Blood of Christ.”
As he also said, “The sacrifice which is a sacrament belongs to an order of things which could never be known to us except through faith. It is commonly called the mystical sacrifice, or the unbloody sacrifice.”
I merely quoted your own sources back to you.
Thanks,
Tim
Tim,
You said the elements are sacrificed. Does Trent say that? Here are your words to Walt.
” In the elements, Jesus is Christ is allegedly contained, ***and those elements are sacrificed***.”
Yes Tim, Jesus is contained in the elements. I did not dispute that.
No, you did not say “accidents”. I added that for clarity because the elements of bread and wine exist only in appearance ( accidents ).
We do not sacrifice the elements of bread and wine.
The appearances or accidents are a container if you will. We do not sacrifice a container. We sacrifice what is Contained therein.
TIM said to JIM–
“frequently also the body and blood itself of our Lord, which is contained in the Eucharist, used to be called a Sacrament” (In What Respect The Eucharist Is A Sacrament) As your own Vonier said, “on the altar, at a given moment, there is offered up the perfect sacrifice whose elements are absolutely divine, being, in fact the Body and Blood of Christ.”
As he also said, “The sacrifice which is a sacrament belongs to an order of things which could never be known to us except through faith. It is commonly called the mystical sacrifice, or the unbloody sacrifice.”
I merely quoted your own sources back to you.”
C’mon, Tim. I know you know the difference. You come across as the authority on Catholic teaching.
You know the difference between accidents and substance. You know the difference between un-consecrated and consecrated elements. You know that the Catholics teach that the substance of bread and wine does not exist in the consecrated elements.
I know you know the difference as a self-proclaimed expert on Catholic doctrine. Even I know the difference and I’m just a Methodist.
I thought that Jim was just ragging on you all this time, but I am starting to believe him when he says it’s intentional:
“Notice how Tim has butchered the intentions… Even after I clarified things for him…Tim pretends otherwise, preferring to keep accusing them of an absurdity of his own making. He is doing a masterful job of attacking the straw man he has erected…he reads Catholic stuff only to find loopholes and what appears to be contradictions.”
Bob,
You have me at a loss here. As I read through your comment, I honestly could not tell what it was that I wrote to Walt that you (or Jim) could possibly object to. Here it is line by line, starting with Walt’s statement and Jim’s objection:
Walt: “they blindly believe he is sacrificed daily in the Eucharist.”
Jim: “What does this mean? Can you explain exactly how Catholics think Christ is sacrificed daily?”
Tim: “Walt, you are correct. The Roman Catholic position is that Jesus is sacrificed daily in the Eucharist.”
note: Mass is celebrated daily. I trust we can all accept this without documentation.
note: According the council of Trent, “in this divine sacrifice which is celebrated in the mass, that same Christ is contained and immolated” (Council of Trent, 22nd Session, Doctrine on the Sacrifice of the Mass chapter 2)
note: According to the Catechism of Trent, “frequently also the body and blood itself of our Lord, which is contained in the Eucharist, used to be called a Sacrament”.
So far, I don’t know what the objection is. I haven’t made any observation about whether Transubstantiation is True or False. I am simply restating Catholic teaching as if it were true.
to continue,
Tim: “In the elements, Jesus Christ is allegedly contained, and those elements are sacrificed.”
note: the “contained” part is from Trent, as noted above. That the elements are sacrificed is from Vonier, chapters 10 and 16, as Jim provided:
“first, that on the altar, at a given moment, there is offered up the perfect sacrifice whose elements are absolutely divine, being, in fact the Body and Blood of Christ.” (ch 10).
“The priest represents Christ; the Eucharistic elements represent Christ’s Body and Blood.” (ch 16).
So far, I’m at a loss as to where I am misstating Catholic doctrine.
to continue,
Tim: A sacrifice is the offering of a victim by a priest to God, and the “hostia” is the victim, and the “hostia” is Jesus, and so Jesus is sacrificed daily.
note: This, too, is Catholic teaching: “In as much as the sacrificing priest (offerens) and the sacrificial victim (hostia) in both sacrifices are Christ Himself, their same amounts even to a numerical identity.” Catholic Encycopedia, Sacrifice of the Mass)
to continue,
Tim: It is truly (they say) a propitiatory sacrifice by which we obtain mercy, and find grace because the Lord is appeased by the oblation that takes place in offering Jesus’ sufferings to the Father, and He ostenisbly forgives grave crimes and sins when the Mass sacrifice is offered.
I trust this, too, is given, since it is essentially a quote from Trent. I added “ostensibly” to make clear that this is not my opinion, but Trent’s.
So far, nothing has been said about sacrificing bread, sacrificing, immolating or offering unconsecrated elements, offering accidens, offering bread and wine as a propitiatory offering, sacrificing bread, sacrificing wine, sacrificing elements prior to consecration, or anything that is not actually taught by the Catholic Church. I honestly don’t know what the objection is here.
to continue,
Tim: “each time the Mass is offered, the shedding of blood is repeated invisibly. Jesus’ hands are wounded, His feet are transfixed, His side is pierced, His Blood is made to flow, but—and here’s the mystical part—in a manner of which is beyond our senses.
note: this is what Cochem said in his Explanation of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass (p. 138) citing Chrysostom, and what Vonier echoed:
“This shedding of blood is, however, repeated daily in an invisible manner: His hands are wounded, His feet are transfixed, His side is pierced, His blood is made to flow, but in a manner of which our senses cannot take cognizance.” (Cochem, 138)
“The sacrifice which is a sacrament belongs to an order of things which could never be known to us except through faith. It is commonly called the mystical sacrifice, or the unbloody sacrifice.” (Vonier, ch 10).
Again, I don’t know what I’ve said so far that could elicit such ire. I am merely restating Roman Catholic teaching.
Then Jim interjects, objecting to something I did not say: “Jesus is contained in the elements ( accidents of bread and wine ) and we sacrifice those elements?”
note: where did I say that? To Jim I respond by explaining that I have simply restated his own church’s teachings back to him, and he responds again:
Jim: You said the elements are sacrificed. Does Trent say that?
Maybe it does. Maybe it doesn’t. I attributed the comment to Vonier, which Jim himself provided to me, and Vonier said that.
Then Bob interjects, swallowing Jim’s comment whole:
Bob: “C’mon, Tim. I know you know the difference. You come across as the authority on Catholic teaching.
You know the difference between accidents and substance.”
But where did I say anything about sacrificing accidens, or bread, or wine?
Jim knows so little about his own church that even when it is spoon fed to him in his own words, he rejects it as heresy.
The funny thing is, the inspiration for my response was CK’s challenge to Walt, in which he said, “Please tell us what The Church means by this (not what you “think” she means).”
Done. I did as CK asked, and Jim responds as if Roman Catholic teaching is heresy, and Bob responds as if I had intentionally misrepresented Roman Catholicism by reciting actual Roman Catholic teaching. And yet there is nothing so easy to prove as that Roman Catholics “believe [Jesus] is sacrificed daily in the Eucharist,” just as Walt said.
Have a great day,
Tim
TIM–
You said, “You have me at a loss here. As I read through your comment, I honestly could not tell what it was that I wrote to Walt that you (or Jim) could possibly object to.”
And
“But where did I say anything about sacrificing accidens, or bread, or wine?”
Oh. My bad. I thought that you maintained that Catholics are bread worshippers and idolaters. I didn’t realize you had changed your position. So now you don’t believe that Catholics sacrifice bread and wine, but now you maintain what the Catholics have said all along, that Christ is sacrificed daily. That is what Kevin maintains, that Catholics keep Christ on the alter and won’t let him down from the cross.
Seems kind of silly to me. Accusing the Catholics of bread worshiping and idolatry and then maintaining that they sacrifice Christ over and over again in a daily fashion. I’m getting mixed signals here. Which is it?Are they actually offering bread and wine as a sacrifice to God the Melchizedekian way, or is Jesus Christ, as a priest according to the order of Melchizedek, offering His own Body and Blood under the appearances of bread and wine over and over and over and over again on a daily basis until the end of the age perpetually staying on the Cross and the altar?
Bob, you wrote,
I do. But re-read the comment to which Jim objected, and to which you are now objecting, and you’ll find that it starts with a very clear statement, “The Roman Catholic position is…” and then it proceeds to unfold the Roman Catholic position.
I think the Roman Catholic position is wrong. That I can state it clearly should not be taken to mean that I do not disagree with it.
Thanks,
Tim
Walt,
You said as a Catholic,
“I assumed Christ was sacrificed on the alter in the mass”
You “assumed” or were taught by the priest Christ was killed on the altar in the Mass? Which is it?
Either way, it was wrong. Surely you know better now, right?
Walt,
Let’s work on that confusion you have been suffering from.
You said,
” So if you are saying Christ is not sacrificed n the Mass daily, then what is the purpose of transubstantiation? ”
Christ is indeed sacrificed. But He is not killed.
Have you been researching Penal Substitution like I asked you to? This is the source of your confusion on the nature of sacrifice.
Anyway, you wrote that as a nipper you were an altar boy and…
” It was my job to then secure all the other hosts and more blood sufficient for the entire mass.”
Now I am the one who is confused. Are you sure you were a Catholic altar boy? This sounds pretty weird. Maybe you are fabricating this bizarre story. Maybe you are telling the truth or at least, think you are. I know of no instance where altar boys “secure blood”. If this is what you thought you were doing at the time, you were not catechized properly and should not have been permitted to be an altar boy.
If this is what you believe today, several years on, you owe it to yourself to get the facts. And in fairness, you owe it to Catholics to not erect some weird Strawman (as Ck writes about ) and attack it in place of the true Catholic teaching.
Tim,
” there is no actual way to distinguish between hyperdulia and latria,”
That’s absurd.
Can we distinguish between Creator and creature? Between necessary Being and contingent being?
Maybe you can’t but normal people can.
We offer sacrifice to the Creator, never to a creature ( the Church condemned the Collyridians for offering sacrifice to Mary ).
Walt, ignore Tim. He will tell you sacrifice means Penal Substitution.
JIM–
You said: “We offer sacrifice to the Creator, never to a creature ( the Church condemned the Collyridians for offering sacrifice to Mary ).”
What happens when the Creator becomes the Created (born of woman)? Consubstantial. God offers Himself as sacrifice. Blows my mind.
Mine too.
Walt.
Let me say this; in the offeratory part of the Mass ( as an ex altar boy you must remember that part of the Mass you now denounce as satanic ) we laity bring forth bread and wine representing ourselves. From many grains of wheat we have one loaf. From many grapes…
So, in a way, it could be said we offer bread and wine at this point of the Mass.
However, the central part of the Mass is the Consecration, not the offeratory.
Bread and wine did not become Incarnate, Bread and wine did not hang on the cross for 3 hours. And bread and wine were not raised up by the Father for our justification.
WE OFFER CHRIST. Not bread and wine. Bread and wine did not save us!
We offer Christ under the appearances, under the appearances, Under The Appearances,***UNDER THE APPEARANCES***, of bread and wine.
If we offered mere bread and wine, Melchizedek would not be a type as our sacrifice would be no greater than his. Plus, the OT type of manna would be greater than its fulfillment in the New.
A blog like this is not the place to go into fine detail on all of this, especially as you and Tim are not open. I am not about to cast pearls before swine.
Notice how Tim has butchered the intentions of Fr. Most, Art Sippo and Scott Hahn. Even after I clarified things for him, including giving him quotes where those same men say loud and clear Calvary was a sacrifice, Tim pretends otherwise, preferring to keep accusing them of an absurdity of his own making. He is doing a masterful job of attacking the straw man he has erected. Trouble is, it is far from the mark.
Tim does not understand the Catholic doctrine he rails against. Tim also does not try to. Instead, he reads Catholic stuff only to find loopholes and what appears to be contradictions. He has zero interest in the truth.
WOW TIM!
It sure looks like you got me, eh? I sure have to eat some crow, huh?
I said, “looks like”.
Before addressing the two quotes from Vonier, let me mentions I got out my copy of the Catechism of C. of Trent and turned to the part on the Eucharist. A quick scan revealed 4 uses of the word “elements”. Every usage was about the bread and wine.
Now, let’s look at your Vonier quote from chapter 10.
“there is offered up the perfect sacrifice whose elements are absolutely divine, being in fact the body and blood of Christ.”
Did you get that, Tim? The Body and Blood of Christ are offered up. NOT BREAD AND WINE.
At no time does he say the bread and wine are divine nor does he say they are what is offered up.
As for the other quote, “the Eucharistic elements ( bread and wine ) represent Chrit’s Body and Blood”,
so what? How does that make your point?
Now look on pge 163 of that chapter, “…Christ’s death on the cross is a perfect and complete sacrifice…”.
The first paragraph on pg 164 starts off with ” Christ’s death on the cross was a ritual act”. So Christ did offer Himself on the cross, eh Tim. The Catholic Church does not say otherwise.
Paragrapg 2 begins,
“My purpose in this chapter is not so much to establish the sacrificial nature of the crucifixion-how can any Catholic doubt it after a tradition of two thousand years…”. A few lines down he uses the term, “sacrifice of the cross” again.
Tim, do you still maintain Catholcs deny the cross to be a sacrifice?
Do you, along with Walt and Kevin, still maintain Catholics offer bread and wine or worship bread and wine? Or do you admit Catholic doctrine says we offer and worship Christ under the appearances of, accidents of or in the elements of bread and wine?
How clear does it have to be Tim?
Tim,
Let us revisit Fr. Most since you won’t concede defeat on this.
You said Fr. Most said God could have dispensed with the cross. That He could have accepted something else ( or nothing at all ).
You are correct. Fr. Most is on record, along with every Catholic theologian from Aquinas on down, as saying this.
Here is what Fr. Most did NOT say but you so ridiculously seem to think he did.
You seem to think God could have been satisfied with the Mass IN LIEU OF CALVARY, as the price of our redemption.
( You as much as say so in your attack on him and Scott Hahn ).
Tim, without Calvary, the Mass could not exist.
You are so hell bent on finding contradictions in Catholic doctrine that you draw such laughable conclusions.
Jim,
Yes, I cited Most saying that God could dispense with the cross. I also claimed that Most did not think Christ’s death on the cross was a sacrifice, but upon rereading him, I realized I had that wrong and I withdrew the comment. I note elsewhere that Most says even the Mass is not strictly necessary (“It is evident, then, that the Mass is a real sacrifice—not needed, yet the Holiness of the Father is pleased to provide it.” (Most, Why Saints? Mary?)
And yes, Fr. Most said God could have dispensed with the Cross and accepted an uneventful incarnation in a palace with no suffering or death would have sufficed. (Most, Eschatology; see also, Most, Why Saints? Mary?). Most’s summary on the Cross appears to focus very much on the fact that it was not even necessary, but was done to show the awfulness of sin:
My concern about Most’s thinking here is that he seems to have Jesus’ death on the cross a matter of covenant obligation, and not, strictly speaking, the actual sacrifice. Here is what he says,
I have objected and continue to object to the Roman Catholic characterization of the Cross as an accumulation of Merit, a demonstration of the awfulness of sin, a covenant obligation to which He obliged Himself on Thursday night by liturgical sacrifice.
I personally believe this is a lot of doublespeak that minimizes the Cross and maximizes the Eucharist.
In another line of questioning, you asked,
As I have repeated several times now, I hold that Sippo and McElhinney deny that the cross is a sacrifice, for the simple fact that they actually deny the cross to be the sacrifice:
So yes, I maintain that Sippo and McElhinney say what they said. Remarkably, you say, “Neither Sippo nor Hahn deny Christ offered Himself on the cross.” And yet Sippo says, “Christ did not offer his body and blood to God during the passion.”
In any case, I don’t recall saying that Catholics deny the cross to be a sacrifice. What I do say is that their language about Christ’s sacrifice on the Cross is so fraught with caveats and conditions as to remove all meaning from it, leading to the implication as stated by Sippo and McElhinney. As I have said and continue to say:
For more such lip service, I commend to you the writings of Maurice De La Taille, S. J., The Mystery of Faith
Regarding The Most August Sacrament And Sacrifice Of The Body And Blood Of Christ. He writes,
Yes, he says, Calvary was a sacrifice, but because it was not sufficiently specified as a sacrifice, which in order to be a sacrifice must be in itself plainly evident as a sacrifice, we must look for the sacrifice “elsewhere”. And that elsewhere is Thursday night.
I think De La Taille very clearly elucidates the Roman Catholic position, and in the process pays lip service to the Cross and moves the “real sacrifice” all back to Thursday night. Just like Hahn does.
Have a nice day,
Tim
Tim,
“Covenant obligation”? Are those Fr .Most’s words or yours?
Once Christ had committed Himself to the cross on Thursday night. was he “obliged” to go through with it? Is that what you are saying? “Obliged”?
Elsewhere in his writings, Fr. Most explains that obedience=love. “If you love me, keep my Commandments.”
Love is behind merit.
What gave Calvary its value was not the death of Christ ( Penal Substitution ) but the obedience ( love ) unto death.
That is why you don’t understand merit. Love saved us Tim. Not death.
As for Maurice de La Taille,
he says what I have been saying all along, that the Supper and the cross are parts of one sacrifice. You keep making it either the Supper OR the cross.
By the way, I said Vonier’s book is Dave Anders’ favorite. It’s not mine. I prefer De La Taille. The two men disagreed on the Mass . You see Tim, the Church teaches the Mass is a sacrifice. She also allows her theologians to use human reason to figure out just how it is. That is why your obsession with Scott Hahn is silly. Nobody is obliged to accept his 4th cup theory as he is not the Pope.
Tim,
Did you pick up on Vonier saying the offering on the cross was a ritual act?
I said it wasn’t. I said, in my defense of Sippo and Hahn, that the supper was the ritual offering and the cross was its consummation.
Want to argue about that now?
Remember I said the Supper was where Christ, as a priest in the order of Melchizedek, offered Himself IN bread and wine, in a ceremony.
Remember that I also said Christ offered Himself at the Incarnation? And that he does now in heaven?
“A sacrifice is the offering of a victim by a priest to God, and the “hostia” is the victim, and the “hostia” is Jesus, and so Jesus is sacrificed daily.”
Which is it Tim? Jesus or the bread? Are the elements of bread and wine what saved us? Or Jesus? ( according to what we Catholics say, not what you say we say ).
You go after Fr. Most with,
“have objected and continue to object to the Roman Catholic characterization of the Cross as an accumulation of Merit, a demonstration of the awfulness of sin, a covenant obligation to which He obliged Himself on Thursday night by liturgical sacrifice.”
Anytime you want to give us the Calvinist explanation of what really happened on the cross, we are all ears. Just don’t leave out the part about the Father pouring out His wrath on the Son and that Son suffering hell in our stead.
You continue with your crazy attack on Fr, Most
“I personally believe this is a lot of doublespeak that minimizes the Cross and maximizes the Eucharist.”
Tim, which is more valuable, your children or a photograph of them. I know this analogy limps as all analogies do, but without their being some actual children, their representation in celluloid is meaningless, isn’t it?
How can anyone who was once a Catholic say such rubbish? In your home, did your mother have a crucifix? Did you ever do the stations of the cross? Ever see any religious art? Ever make the sign of the cross?
“In any case, I don’t recall saying that Catholics deny the cross to be a sacrifice.”
Didn’t you accuse Scott Hahn of such? And Sippo?
Jim, you wrote, responding to me:
That was my point, Jim. According to what you Catholics say, a sacrifice is the offering of a victim by a priest to God, and the “hostia” is the victim, and the “hostia” is Jesus, and so Jesus is sacrificed daily.
That is what is so ironic about your objection. CK asked Walt to provide an explanation of what the Roman Catholic Church means by “Jesus is sacrificed daily in the Eucharist.” And I provided the Roman Catholic meaning of the belief that Jesus Christ is sacrificed daily in the Eucharist.
And you respond with, “Which is it Tim? … according to what we Catholics say, not what you say we say”
But the words to which you are objecting are from the Roman Catholic encyclopedia, according to what you Catholics say.
That said, I believe that transubstantiation is a false doctrine, and therefore Roman Catholics are just sacrificing bread and worshiping bread. According to their own beliefs, they really think they are sacrificing Jesus and worshiping Jesus. I just don’t happen to agree with their beliefs.
For some reason, when dealing with Roman Catholics, they take great offense when you clearly articulate their own beliefs to them, and then proceed to disagree with those beliefs. They think that to disagree with Rome is to somehow misrepresent her, which of course is illogical.
Roman Catholics think they are worshiping Jesus. But the allegedly transubstantiated host is just bread. And therefore they are just worshiping bread, thinking that they are worshiping Jesus. It’s idolatry. They obviously don’t think it’s idolatry, but it is.
And you’re shocked that I believe this?
I guess the most ironic part of all this is that the two men most heavily invested in characterizing my arguments as strawman arguments—Bob and Jim—had to do so by constructing strawman arguments.
Jim asked, in response to me, “Jesus is contained in the elements ( accidents of bread and wine ) and we sacrifice those elements?”
I didn’t say the Roman Catholic position is that they sacrifice accidents of bread and wine. You had to insert that to make it seem like I said the Roman Catholic position is to sacrifice the accidents of bread and wine. In other words, your objection to me is based on a strawman.
Bob wrote, “You testified earlier that you based your position not on what the Church teaches but on the implications otherwise–more than once.” But in reality I said I based my position both on what the Church Teaches and on the logical implications of their teachings. From this, Bob says he has it from my own mouth that my “position is that of strawman implications,” which is itself, a strawman.
Now you are continuing the charade by asking in response to my statement, “In any case, I don’t recall saying that Catholics deny the cross to be a sacrifice.”:
I said that Sippo denies that the cross was a sacrifice based on the simple fact that he actually denies that the cross was a sacrifice: “The Last Supper was the real sacrificial offering of Christ for sin and it certainly was unbloody. … Christ did not offer his body and blood to God during the passion.” (Art Sippo, Catholic Legate, Q&A on the Sacraments)
Of Hahn, I said that he moves the Sacrifice to Thursday night based on Melito of Sardis. Read my post and you’ll see that’s what I said.
At no point have I said, “Catholics deny the cross to be a sacrifice.” I said Sippo and McElhinney did.
I also said that they had carried the logical implications of Roman Catholic teachings to their logical end. I think that is a very curious implication of Roman Catholic teaching, and it is.
Thanks,
Tim
Tim,
“That said, I believe that transubstantiation is a false doctrine, and therefore Roman Catholics are just sacrificing bread and worshiping bread. ”
Tim, we are not talking about what you believe are we? What you happen to opine is irrelevant. Your personal opinions have zero to do with reality.
“According to their own beliefs, they really think they are sacrificing Jesus and worshiping Jesus. I just don’t happen to agree with their beliefs.”
Fine. Don’t agree with us. But don’t tell us what we are doing or think we are doing, Okay?
“For some reason, when dealing with Roman Catholics, they take great offense when you clearly articulate their own beliefs to them, and then proceed to disagree with those beliefs.”
Really? Give me an example of this egregious behavior. You haven’t articulated anything but blind assertions about me and your own mother worshiping bread for years now.
“Roman Catholics think they are worshiping Jesus.”
If I think I am, I AM.
” But the allegedly transubstantiated host is just bread”
Is that a proof? Or an opinion?
“And therefore they are just worshiping bread, thinking that they are worshiping Jesus.”
Tim, you really worship a little blue caterpillar. You deny it of course, but I say you are. I need not prove it. Like you, I can just assert it and that makes it so.
“At no point have I said, “Catholics deny the cross to be a sacrifice.” I said Sippo and McElhinney did.”
Really? Did Walt post the following or did you?
“One of the more curious implications of the Roman Catholic sacrifice of the Mass is that Jesus actually did not offer Himself as a sacrifice on the cross. Instead, they say, He offered Himself as a sacrifice at the Last Supper.”
Thank you
Jim, you asked,
I did. Here it is in context;
“One of the more curious implications of the Roman Catholic sacrifice of the Mass is that Jesus actually did not offer Himself as a sacrifice on the cross. Instead, they say, He offered Himself as a sacrifice at the Last Supper. For example, Roman Catholic apologist Art Sippo at the Catholic Legate, explains:
In any case, as I proceed through the article I acknowledge that Scott Hahn allows “that it is acceptable to refer to Calvary as the sacrifice as Protestants do, but only if its efficacy is rooted in a Thursday night sacrifice for which he can produce no evidence.”
As an interesting aside, I thought this point from Art Sippo was quite telling. He is interacting with a fan who wants to understand the unbloody sacrifice of the Mass a little better, and in the process agrees that when taken to their logical conclusion, the various theories can seem to fall apart:
Question: “There seems to be one dimension where you join the Cross and the Last Supper, and another where you disjoin them. I realize we all have to do this to some extent, but the trick is finding the right balance.”
Answer: “This is what has caused so many problems for theologians over the centuries. We are confronting a Mystery almost as deep as the Trinity. Our pitiful attempts at understanding the redemption of Mankind from sin are all “just so” stories. We should not be too surprised if — taken to their logical conclusion — these scenarios begin to fray at the edges. It is the montage of the whole of Christ’s life taken in context which helps give us the true perspective on what He did for us.”
Like I have repeated over and over, the propensity for seeing Thursday as the point at which He offered himself leads to some very interesting logical implications. The person writing to Sippo clearly is beginning to appreciate the significance of that, as Sippo does too. That was my point in citing him.
A very interesting implication indeed.
Best regards,
Tim
Tim,
I don’t know all there is to know on Catholicism. I continue to mine the Church for her gold every day and will never get it all.
But I am light years ahead of you because I approach the Church’s doctrines through the eyes of Faith. You approach them as a rationalist. ( It looks like, bread, walks like bread, quacks like bread, ergo it must be bread ).
Your system is dumb simple; the Father needed to vent his rage as someone. Jesus took my lumps. I am scot free.
You wasted the kids’ trip to Disneyland money on publishing your “Graven Bread” book which nobody buys.
In it you say we worship bread, On this blog you say we sacrifice bread (elements ). And you make up stuff about Catholic writers. Your following consists of Walt.
Your theories are crackpot.
Did you say you work as NASA? You aren’t around any buttons , are you? I hope you just eat donuts all day. You know, like Homer who works at the nuclear plant.
Tim,
I am yearning, yearning, even burning, for you to elucidate us on what exactly happened on Calvary since Christ id not merit the restoration of the grace lost in Adam for us.
Earlier I said you guys believe the Father needed to vent and Christ took our lumps. I retract that last sentence. It should read, “Christ took the lumps for SOME”.
So, should you ever decide to equip the shee…er…saints ( Walt ) as is your passion, do not neglect to include Limited Atonement in your explanation of the sacrifice of Calvary.
And do include a word or two about sacrifice=Penal Substitution. And try to use a Bible quote or two in your dissertation.
Thanks
This is why I roll my eyes when they say Christ’s death was enough. In their theology it was only good enough for some unlike Catholic theology where Christ’s death on the cross was good enough for ALL.
CK,
Have you been following the insane dialogue? Tim keeps asserting that Catholics deny that Christ death on Calvary to have been a sacrifice. He maintains we believe that the Lat Supper was a sacrifice ***totally Independent*** of Calvary.
I have been telling him til I am blue in the face that without the cross, the Last Supper offering would have been meaningless, that the Supper and the Mass are relative to Calvary.
He won’t have it. He is schooling me in what I believe just like he likes to tell me I worship bread. He must be some sort of mind reader, eh? I tell him I know the difference between a slice of pumpernickel and the Lord of the Universe but Tim insists that I don’t.
The guy is hopeless.
Jim, perhaps you could be so kind as to let CK know where I keep “asserting that Catholics deny that Christ’s death on Calvary to have been a sacrifice.” I know I said Art Sippo denies it. I know I said Shawn McElhinney denies it. I have provided their actual words to that effect multiple times. I also said that their belief is the logical implication of the whole Roman Catholic mass sacrifice, and that I think they are correct to take the Mass sacrifice to its logical end.
You said,
I don’t believe I have said that. Can you show me where? I believe that is the logical implication of your belief, but I never said that was your belief.
You continued,
You do worship bread, but I have never attempted to convince you that you believe you are worshiping bread. And there’s your gross misrepresentation.
Jim, I know that you believe that you worship Jesus in the Eucharist, and you believe that Jesus is sacrificed in the Eucharist. I don’t think I have ever told you that you believe otherwise, and I don’t believe I have ever attempted to school you in the fact that you don’t really believe what you believe. I know you believe it. I believe you believe it. I believe you know I believe you believe it. I have never attempted to convince you that you do not believe this.
Now, I think you also know that I do not believe in transubstantiation. I also know that the whole Eucharistic Sacrifice and all of Eucharistic Adoration falls apart if transubstantiation is not true.
Since I do not believe in transubstantiation, it is clear to me that what is sacrificed at the Roman Catholic Mass is just bread, and what is worshiped on the Roman Catholic altar is just bread. It’s no more complicated than that. You believe you are worshiping Jesus. I believe you are worshiping bread. You believe the priest sacrifices Jesus. I believe the priest sacrifices bread. For some reason it offends you for me to so much as have an opinion on what you believe.
For some reason, for me to express what I believe to be true is considered by you to be a misrepresentation of your beliefs. That is illogical. I have never told you what you believe. I have told you the logical implications of what you are doing if Transubstantiation is not true. And Transubstantiation is not true. Do what you will with that information.
Thanks,
Tim
Tim,
“Eucharistic Sacrifice and all of Eucharistic Adoration falls apart if transubstantiation is not true.”
Gosh Tim, then it should be duck soup for you to prove Transubsubstantiation is all a hoax.
Why not do it rather than just boring us to death with your non stop assertions that it is not true. You own a Bible. Prove your assertions.
By the way, are you EVER going to get around to giving us the real scoop about the Atonement? John Piper says Jesus was damned in our place on the cross.
Does that square with you?
Calvin said Christ feared for His own salvation in the Garden. As a Calvinist, you must be on board with that little blasphemous tid bit.
And for the umpteenth time, I am dying for you to show me where the Bible you claim to love says Christ suffered only for some.
Since you say our explanation is erroneous, you owe it to us to give us the truth, don’t you?
Jim, repasting for your benefit since you missed this from the article on the Ark of the Covenant….
You have observed,
“You merely allege Jesus did not die for all.”
Jesus said, “I pray for them: I pray not for the world, but for them which thou hast given me; for they are thine.” (John 17:9)
In other words, Jesus came to procure those whom the Father had given Him in advance. And those alone.
Paul wrote, “Who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works.” (Titus 2:14)
Paul wrote, “What if God, willing to shew his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction: And that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy, which he had afore prepared unto glory, Even us, whom he hath called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles?” (Romans 9:22-25)
Jesus died for His people. Since the Word cannot return to the Father without accomplishing the purpose for which He sent Him (Isaiah 55:11), then we may safely conclude that Jesus came to save whom He was commanded to save—not one more, not one less.
“So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.” (Isaiah 55:11)
Thanks,
Tim
Tim,
In your defense of the Calvinist view of the cross, could you explain why you say it wasn’t enough to save?
You do say that the active righteousness of Christ, His life of Law keeping, must be imputed to the elect because the imputation of His passive righteousness ( death on the cross ) didn’t quite do the trick.
Tim,
“You do worship bread”
And you say you don’t tell me what I believe?
Jim, have I ever said that you believe you worship bread?
Thanks,
Tim
Tim,
You tell me I worship bread. I tell you I don’t . You tell me I do. I tell you I don’t. You tell me I do. I tell you I don’t. You…
“As we have elsewhere noted, the Roman Catholic religion teaches that the bread… must be worshiped. The worship of the bread,… is the highest form of worship a man may offer to God. …Everything else in the religion is merely prologue to the act of adoring the bread.”
LURKERS OUT THERE! I DON”T WORSHIP BREAD! I DON’T CARE WHAT THIS GUY SAYS!
And here is my actual statement in its unedited context:
Jim, I don’t believe that you believe that you worship bread. I believe that you worship bread. At no point have I “told you what you believe.” I have simply told you what I believe you are doing—worshiping bread, thinking that it is Jesus.
Thanks,
Tim
“I don’t believe that you believe that you worship bread. I believe that you worship bread”
So it is your word against mine, and since you know more about what is going on between my ears than I do, I guess you win.
Brilliant!
TIM–
You are sure using your nit-picking abilities today. Maybe we are misunderstanding your details. So let’s look, shall we?
You said: “And here is my actual statement in its unedited context: ‘As we have elsewhere noted, the Roman Catholic religion teaches that the bread of the Lord’s Supper literally becomes the body, blood, soul and divinity of Jesus Christ, and therefore must be worshiped.'”
That is a true statement.
The very next sentence you said:
“The worship of the bread, the Eucharist, is the highest form of worship a man may offer to God.”
That is a false statement. The Catholic Church never teaches the worship of bread–period! Good luck trying to unsay it, nit-picker.
Bob,
I may well be a nit-picker and a fool. In fact I may be grossly incompetent and all the things Jim calls me. But your objection nevertheless is lost on me because the Roman Catholic Church actually refers to the celebration of the Eucharist as the breaking of bread that has already been transubstantiated. Here is what the Catechism says:
Here are the verses to support the catechism:
1 Corinthians 11:26-27 “For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do shew the Lord’s death till he come. Wherefore whosoever shall eat this bread, and drink this cup of the Lord, unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord.”
Luke 24:35 “And they told what things were done in the way, and how he was known of them in breaking of bread.”
Acts 2:42-46 “And they continued stedfastly in the apostles’ doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in prayers…. And they, continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, did eat their meat with gladness and singleness of heart”
Acts 20:11 “When he therefore was come up again, and had broken bread, and eaten, and talked a long while, even till break of day, so he departed.”
1 Cor 10:16 “The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ?”
All these references to bread are references to consecrated (ostensibly transubstantiated) bread.
The point I think you are missing is that Roman Catholicism thinks that these references to bread are references to consecrated bread, and therefore, it is ok to refer to the transubstantiated element as bread, and the breaking of the transubstantiated element as “the breaking of bread.” That’s what Roman Catholicism teaches. As you can see from the context of my article where you quoted me, my only point at that point in the article was simply that Roman Catholics worship, and are instructed to worship, the bread of the Eucharist, believing it to have been transubstantiated. How that can be construed as a misrepresentation is beyond me. Here is my opening paragraph:
Based on the catechism, that whole paragraph is accurate. Since the apostles themselves did not object to referring to it as bread, it can hardly be objectionable that I refer to the worship of consecrated bread — Eucharistic adoration is, after all, worship of the transubstantiated bread.
Roman Catholics say the transubstantiated bread is no longer bread but Christ, so they say they are not actually worshiping bread, but Christ under the appearance of bread. I say Transubstantiation is false, and therefore the object of their worship remains just bread, and therefore I say that they are worshiping bread and not Christ.
The first and second sentence of the preceding paragraph are two accurate statements about two opposing beliefs. Neither one is a misrepresentation or falsehood, and neither one is inherently offensive, for it simply states the opposing beliefs of two disputing parties.
In other words, the extent of my offense is that I disagree with the Roman Catholic belief in Transubstantiation.
If you’re going to camp on “The Catholic Church never teaches the worship of bread–period!” why not go the whole way and say “The Catholic Church never teaches the breaking of bread–period!” for if they really believe it is transubstantiated, then they are not really breaking bread, are they? And while we’re at it, let’s correct Luke 24:35, because they couldn’t possibly know Him in breaking of bread, because it wasn’t bread!!
Don’t miss my point, of course. I think Roman Catholics are breadworshipers. I’m not playing that down. In fact I think that the bread they worship is the very image of the beast that was prophesied (Revelation 13:13. But every reference to the worship of the bread of the Eucharist is not the unholy sacrilege Jim wants to make it out to be, either.
Jim’s imagined offense is that he thinks I have said “It is official Roman Catholic teaching to worship the substance of bread, and further, Jim really believes he is worshiping bread when he kneels before the Eucharist.”
I have never said any such thing.
But he is a breadworshiper. Can’t get around that.
Thanks,
Tim
Can you point me to official teaching that we are to worship the “bread of the Eucharist”?
CCC 1378: Worship of the Eucharist. In the liturgy of the Mass we express our faith in the real presence of Christ under the species of bread and wine by, among other ways, genuflecting or bowing deeply as a sign of adoration of the Lord. “The Catholic Church has always offered and still offers to the sacrament of the Eucharist the cult of adoration, not only during Mass, but also outside of it, reserving the consecrated hosts with the utmost care, exposing them to the solemn veneration of the faithful, and carrying them in procession.
Surely you don’t deny genuflecting to the species do you? The species of bread? The species of bread in which the Eucharistic Christ is contained? According to the Council of Trent?
Keep in mind when I say that, I’m not even challenging the doctrine of transubstantiation yet. I am merely establishing the fact that you bow to something that looks like bread, in fact something that scripture repeatedly referred to as “bread.”
Surely you don’t deny that Roman Catholics bow to the species of bread out of adoration for the presence of the Eucharistic Christ that is there in contained? Do you?
My only objection is that I do not believe in transubstantiation, and if transubstantiation is not true, then you are in fact worshipping but a crust of bread. But it is absolutely certain and clear from the Roman Catholic perspective that you are bowing to what you believe is Christ under the species of bread.
As the catechism says in 1329, “by doing so they signified that all who eat the one broken bread, Christ, enter into communion with him and form but one body in him.”
Are you dickering over whether not you really bow to “the broken bread, Christ,” in the Eucharist? When the catechism itself actually refers to the transubstantiated element as “bread”.
I am not using the catechism to prove that you worship untransubstantiated bread. The catechism says no such thing! I am merely using it to show that according to your own beliefs the transubstantiated bread is actually referred to as bread, and therefore it is no misrepresentation say that according to the catechism Roman Catholics worship the bread of the Eucharist believing it to be transubstantiated. It’s a certifiable fact.
Thanks,
Tim
Tim,
“Roman Catholics are taught to show reverence for the bread by not calling it bread, and by bowing to it prior to eating it.”
I was never taught to show reverence to bread, PERIOD. I was never taught to bow to it. Genuflect maybe but bow, no.
“We will continue to call it bread, for that is what it is,”
WOW! What a strong proof!
“The latria that Rome offers to the host is the same that God reserves for Himself. ”
Well, DUH! Maybe that is because the Host is worthy of latria being what and Who it is?
” we are told, that the bread is transubstantiated into the body, blood, soul and divinity of Christ—”
Once again Tim, you show you know absolutely NOTHING of Catholic doctrine. The bread is NOT changed into the Body, Blood, soul and divinity of Christ.
The bread is changed into the Body of Christ. The wine is changed into the Blood.
Nothing is changed into Divinity.
( Please check out the term Concomitance in Vonier’s book ).
Jim,
You wrote,
Well, then, I stand corrected. That is what the Roman Catholic Church teaches:
Instead of saying,
I should have said,
A distinction without a difference, if you ask me, since no actual change takes place at all. But a distinction nonetheless.
Thanks,
Tim
Tim,
It is not a distinction without a difference. Your cavalier attitude about being precise about what happens at the words of Consecration is behind your ignorance of the Catholic doctrines of both the Real Presence and the Eucharistic sacrifice.
This is why CK said you erect and then knock down straw men of your own making rather than what we really believe. ( I know, I know, you don’t care what we believe or think we believe as you know what we SHOULD believe, right Tim? )
By the way I checked. Jn 17:9 is about the 11 loyal Apostles. It isn’t until verse 20 that Jesus mentions those who will believe due to the preaching of those 11. So you applied a totally irrelevant passage to prove your erroneous doctrine of Limited Atonement.
Tim, does it ever occur to you you should at least try to get things right?
This is very interesting to me, Jim. You said (or at least you seem to agree with CK who says) that I “erect and then knock down straw men of your own making rather than what we really believe.” Can you give me an example of when I have done this?
Thanks,
Tim
I don’t believe that you believe that you worship bread. I believe that you worship bread
Tim,
Is this your proof for Limited Atonement?
“I pray for them: I pray not for the world, but for them which thou hast given me; for they are thine.” (John 17:9)”
This isn’t even a prayer for all of the elect. It is a prayer for the Apostles only.
Besides, in this passage, Jesus is praying for, not dying for a select group.
TIM–
“I think the Roman Catholic position is wrong. That I can state it clearly should not be taken to mean that I do not disagree with it.”
So which do you state clearly, that the Catholics worship bread, or sacrifice Christ over and over again on a daily basis never letting him off the altar or cross? It can’t be both. If it is only bread, then Christ is not on the altar. If the bread and wine have changed to the Body and Blood of Christ as the Bible and the Fathers have said many times, then they really are bowing to Christ and not worshipping bread.
Which is it, Tim?
Bob,
I may not be understanding your point. What I stated clearly, in the context of this discussion, was that Roman Catholics believe Jesus is sacrificed daily in the Mass. Do you believe that is a misrepresentation of Roman Catholic belief? That is, have I misrepresented Roman Catholic teachings to say that they believe that what is done on the altar is a sacrifice called the Eucharistic sacrifice, and further that Jesus is substantially contained under the species that are offered in that sacrifice?
Do you think that is a misrepresentation?
Thanks,
Tim
TIM–
Let me repeat my response here:
“TIM–
You are sure using your nit-picking abilities today. Maybe we are misunderstanding your details. So let’s look, shall we?
You said: “And here is my actual statement in its unedited context: ‘As we have elsewhere noted, the Roman Catholic religion teaches that the bread of the Lord’s Supper literally becomes the body, blood, soul and divinity of Jesus Christ, and therefore must be worshiped.’”
That is a true statement.
The very next sentence you said:
“The worship of the bread, the Eucharist, is the highest form of worship a man may offer to God.”
That is a false statement. The Catholic Church never teaches the worship of bread–period! Good luck trying to unsay it, nit-picker.”
Now let me ask you “Do you think that is a misrepresentation?”
Tim,
Have you ever read the article over on C2C about the difference between Catholic and Calvinist views of the atonement?
In our system, sacrifice goes up to the Father.
In your system, wrath comes down From the Father onto the Son.
In our system, the need for punishment is diffused by the sacrificial gift.
In yours, punishment is redirected onto an innocent third party.
In our system, grace is merited for us on the cross. This grace sanctifies us.
In your system, the cross has nothing to do with sanctification. It justifies. But it doesn’t sanctify. Sanctification is a different work altogether.
For us the cross is sufficient.
For you, the death on the cross needs Jesus’ life of perfect law keeping added to it.
Of course you don’t understand the Mass. For you, sacrifice=punishment directed onto an innocent 3rd party.
If that is what you think the Mass is all about, then it is no wonder you are confused.
Tim wrote:
“Walt, you are correct. The Roman Catholic position is that Jesus is sacrificed daily in the Eucharist. In the elements, Jesus is Christ is allegedly contained, and those elements are sacrificed. A sacrifice is the offering of a victim by a priest to God, and the “hostia” is the victim, and the “hostia” is Jesus, and so Jesus is sacrificed daily. It is truly (they say) a propitiatory sacrifice by which we obtain mercy, and find grace because the Lord is appeased by the oblation that takes place in offering Jesus’ sufferings to the Father, and He ostenisbly forgives grave crimes and sins when the Mass sacrifice is offered. Part of the problem in the perception is that this is all “mystical,” so that in reality each time the Mass is offered, the shedding of blood is repeated invisibly. Jesus’ hands are wounded, His feet are transfixed, His side is pierced, His Blood is made to flow, but—and here’s the mystical part—in a manner of which is beyond our senses. Space-time continuum, etc…”
Yes, this is what I naturally assumed that makes perfect logical sense in the type of worship Roman Catholics perform. My memory is so vivid being a alter boy and really the man one in our school where the local Priest made it clear to me the importance of ringing the bells during this transubstantiation event. My focus as an alter boy was to take care of the hosts and wine before and after mass, and before it was not really an issue, but after we had to treat it like even the flakes and any bits and pieces were treated like real flesh of Jesus.
Your explanation above really summarizes what I was taught as a boy but never really understood the details like I do now.
The Romish system is so evil, corrupted and wicked that I now can really see why it is considered antichrist in history. If you study its history, and this growing trend to worship Mary and to love/adore/worship the Eucharist, it really is making sense. So many believe that Satan is not only active inside the Vatican, but more and more evidence is surfacing that this Jesuit Pope will really usher in Satan himself full-time. I would not be surprised if they give him his own wing of the Vatican just to worship Satan and demonic powers in the near future.
Gentlemen–
If you will notice what Tim just did in the justification of his words, he basically gave a Catholic apology for the Eucharist and quoted Scriptural proof texts to boot. Basically, he just proved the Catholic position even from the apostles and then turned right around and denied it in practically the same breath.
Walt, you must forgive Tim, for he knew not what he just did.
Tim, you have just shown everyone here the true degree of your unbelief.
Thanks so much for sharing that.
One must choose to see. Tim chooses not to. Free will can really be a pain at times…
But CK, dontcha’ know,
Tim doesn’t believe in free will. Not anymore. He used to believe he had free will, when he got saved as an Arminian.
But that was before he knew the Gospel.
Now that Tim is a Calviner, he believes God made men as meat puppets, all of them programmed only for sin. But the Potter opted to save him and maybe his wife and kids ( or some of them ) but not his Catholic mom.
I would give my eye teeth to be there when Tim sits his kiddies down and tells them the good news, that God may love them and that Jesus might have died for one or two of them.
Oh joy! Calvinism is good news, isn’t it? Where do I sign up?
Don’t try to figure it out. Maybe Walt can unravel it for us.
Bob,
I remember how Kevin, whenever he would hit his automatic response button, would end his rant with an exhortation for Catholics to “let Jesus off the cross! Let Jesus off your altars!”
Yet he insisted we had a “dough god”.
This is what one calls,” having your cake and eating it too.”
Tim,
“Surely you don’t deny genuflecting to the species do you? The species of bread? The species of bread in which the Eucharistic Christ is contained? According to the Council of Trent?”
Maybe you should say we genuflect BEFORE rather than “to” the species of bread.
” I am merely establishing the fact that you bow to something that looks like bread, in fact something that scripture repeatedly referred to as “bread.”
Thank you for pointing out the fact Paul uses the word “bread” although knows it is much more than mere bread.
“Surely you don’t deny that Roman Catholics bow to the species of bread out of adoration for the presence of the Eucharistic Christ that is there in contained? Do you?”
Yes, indeed, We genuflect BEFORE the Blessed Sacrament because as you finally concede, Christ is behind the sacramental veil and can be discerned by the eyes of Faith.
Walt,
“The Romish system is so evil, corrupted and wicked that I now can really see why it is considered antichrist in history. If you study its history, and this growing trend to worship Mary and to love/adore/worship the Eucharist, it really is making sense. So many believe that Satan is not only active inside the Vatican, but more and more evidence is surfacing that this Jesuit Pope will really usher in Satan himself full-time. I would not be surprised if they give him his own wing of the Vatican just to worship Satan and demonic powers in the near future.”
Gosh! Who needs Kevin when we have you to make asinine remarks.
High five, Jim!
Bob,
Kevin tried pulling a take over on Ken Temple’s blog but Ken had enough sense to contain the troll.
Unlike Tim, Ken, a hater of the Church as much as Tim or Kev, had enough decency to void out Kev’s death wafer sleaze. ( Tim used to egg the guy on ).
Tim,
I would not include your honest faux pas on Jn 17:9 to be, like Walt’s braying, an asinine remark. However, it is amazing to me that you would light on that passage to prove Limited Atonement.
In that passage Jesus is praying only for 11 men, not for all of the elect. It isn’t until verse 20 that Jesus then prays for all who will hear their words.
How many people would actually hear the 11 Apostles’ words? In the thousands, maybe the tens of thousands. But surely, the elect number more than just those contemporaries of the 11 Apostles.
Was Mathias prayed for in the High Priestly prayer? Were his hearers prayed for?
Surely Tim, you are elect. Maybe Walt too. But neither of you have ever heard the Apostles speak.
I have heard the successors to the Apostles speak and I figure I am elect.* Is that what you mean?
Tim, how do you get the Calvinist doctrine of Limited Atonement out of Jn 17:9?
* As a fellow reader of Fr, Most, you surely must have read his article on the scapular.
Tim,
Let’s talk a bit about what you call, “a distinction without a difference”.
You have quoted from de la Taille, one of my favorites, and Dom Anscar Vonier. You didn’t seem to see the two men are radically opposed to one another, one of them being a “dualist” and the other a “unicist”. Scott Hahn and, with his emphasis on Melito of Sardis and the Passover sacrifice and meal is another theory altogether. There are many theories explaining just how the Mass is a sacrifice.
I like aspects of the following one. It goes back to Patristic times.
Theologians like to say Christ’s Transfiguration in glory on Mt. Tabor was a miracle. Actually, the miracle is that Christ was not always in glory. By an act of will, Christ’s natural glory was held back but allowed to shine forth only at Tabor. Count how many references there are to glory in the Gospels.
Count up how many attempts were made on Jesus’ life. His enemies tried to seize him, stone him and push him off a cliff. Herod had tried to kill him as a baby. But Jesus said more than once that no man will take his life from him, that he lays it down and he takes it up. Even in the Garden Jesus could have asked the Father to send legions of angels to save him.
Now, Christ came into the world to die. He always had the cross foremost in his mind from the moment of his incarnation. Count how many references there are to Christ knowing his mission throughout his life in the Gospels.
Christ did not suddenly become aware of what was going to happen to him while praying in the Garden of Olives. ( Calvin thinks he did ). He was not taken by surprise. He had already said he had ***longed*** to celebrate ( and transform ) the Passover with his disciples.
While at the Supper, taking bread into his hands, he said “This is my Body which will be given for you”. Remember, this is the Christ who said, ” Be healed”, or “Get up and walk” and it happened.
Then Christ said over the chalice, ” This is the cup of my Blood which will be poured out for the forgiveness of sins”.
His words were as a sword, separating Blood from Body.
At the Supper, Jesus “victimized” himself. Had he not done so, he could not have been taken prisoner or died on the cross .
Immediately his Body and Blood were unfitted to remain together. A change came over his heart and it began to “melteth as wax”. His sweat became as great drops of blood. He would never had lived to make it to the cross had not an angel been sent to support him.
Upon hearing Jesus had died after only 3 hours, Pilate marveled. The Roman soldier realized Jesus was divine when his saw Jesus was dead. People usually lived for days on the cross. Jesus had decided when and where to render up his spirit to the Father.
Jesus is now in glory and can never die. Yet he remains with his glorious wounds in his side, hands and feet. He is a glorious victim, an unsuffering victim.
According to some of the fathers, the priests words in the Mass are that same mystic sword and would separate Jesus blood and body if he were not in glory.
Refute it.
Then I will proffer another of my favorites, that of Scheeben.
Jim, you wrote,
Yes, that is true. As I have noted elsewhere, it is novelty that was started in the late 4th century.
Do you have anything earlier than that referring to the priest in the Mass referring to the sword?
Regarding Melchizidek, if you read the account in Genesis 14:18-20, you will see that the only thing offered to God is praise, not bread and wine. The Early Church understood Jesus’ actions at the Last Supper in the same way—praise was offered to God, bread was offered to men.
Thanks,
Tim
Tim,
“Do you have anything earlier than that referring to the priest in the Mass referring to the sword?”
Not off the top. But then I don’t see the radical disjunction between the pre and past 350 A.D. Fathers that you do. ( Probably because I take Christ at His word that the Church would prevail over the gates of hell ).
You further opined,
“Regarding Melchizidek, if you read the account in Genesis 14:18-20, you will see that the only thing offered to God is praise, not bread and wine. ”
Actually Tim, I see a priest ( and not a lunch server ) bring forth bread and wine. Then I see a tithe taken up and a blessing given by that same priest ( just like at Mass ).
Thanx
Tim,
More on the “distinction w/o a difference”.
What would have happened had the Apostles tried to say Mass, to “Do this in memory of me” while Jesus was in the tomb on Friday night or Saturday?
They would have ended up with dead flesh and dead blood, not the glorified Christ. At that time blood was separated from body and both were separated from the soul ( but not the divinity ).
The Eucharist Presence is Christ AS HE IS. Right now he is in heaven, in glory, at the right hand of the Father. His blood is not separated from his body or soul. By concomitance all of Christ is received in the “bread” or Host and all of Christ is received in the chalice, but by concomitance. St. Paul says so when he says if you eat ***OR*** drink unworthily, you are guilty of the body ***AND*** blood of the Lord.
Moving right along with your instruction Tim,
The Mass is the sacrifice of the whole Christ. Christ bequeathed to His Body, the Church, His sacrifice. And not just to the Church as a collective but to each member individually.
Man is wired to offer sacrifice to the Creator. Protestantism has no sacrifice.
Once again, your doctrine of Penal Substitution hamstrings you from understanding. You must jettison it before you can understand the true nature of sacrifice.
JIM–
You said: “Man is wired to offer sacrifice to the Creator. Protestantism has no sacrifice.”
Maybe you meant Calvinism. Methodists are considered Protestant.
Bob,
I don’t know. I know some Anglicans believe in the idea of Eucharistic sacrifice but have no priesthood to make it happen.
What is the Methodist position? Low Church Anglican, right?
JIM–
“What is the Methodist position? Low Church Anglican, right?”
We are generally low church except on Communion Sunday, then we are high church. That is the first Sunday of each month. The sacrament requires an ordained minister as the celebrant. Our ordained ministers are traced through the apostolic succession of the Anglicans, yes. We claim the laying on of hands to be unbroken.
Bob,
Very interesting.
I have also read that while many Arminians/Methodists believe in what is known as the governmental view of the atonement, many other Arminians, including Arminius himself, held to Penal Substitution. We often associate PS exclusively with Calvinism’s Limited Atonement but actually, many folks adhere to this theory while believing what the Bible says about Christ tasting death for all men.
Trouble is, if one sees Christ’s work on Calvary as one of Christ being the recipient of the Father’s wrath coming downward, how does that square with the biblical concept of sacrifice which is the idea of a gift going upward?
This would certainly render any re-enactment of the one sacrifice ( punishment of Christ ) as blasphemous.
If the Calvinist is right on PS ( and he isn’t ), it would certainly be once for all and rule out any subsequent celebration or repeated offering of it.
Tim,
“But Melchisedech the king of Salem, bringing forth bread and wine, for he was the priest of the most high God, ”
Melchisedek brought forth bread and wine ***for*** (a.k.a. “because” ) he was a priest.
What is the one specific act proper to a priest and only a priest?
Offer sacrifice. ( And second, to absolve from sins ).
I could give you a nice quote from Chrysostom but you would discount it as being after your apostasy. Still, you will concede M. was a type of Christ as a priest.
When and where did Christ act as a priest in a manner similar to Melchisedek, with bread and wine?
Christ is still a priest in the heavenly sanctuary, yes? Every priest must have something to offer. What does he offer? What did he offer? Himself, right? He is still a lamb standing as slain now, in heaven.
Christ told his Apostles to “DO” something at the Last Supper. 76 times in the Septuagint “Do” means sacrifice. When Christ mean to eat, he said “eat”. When he meant to drink, he said “drink”. When he meant to offer sacrifice, he said “DO”.
Tim,
The Bible tells us in both testaments that the burning of incense is an act proper only to priests. It was a sacrifice. How so? Certainly not by Penal Substitution.
The burning of incense was the taking of an earthly element and like victims of the holocaust, transformed by fire it into something higher. The gift’s consumation by fire showed that the offering had been accepted.
Fire represents the Holy Spirit.
The flesh of Mary, the ewe lamb Melito of Sardis speaks about, was transformed by the fire of the Holy Ghost into that of the God Man.
St. Gregory of Nyssa ( whom you don’t like ) compared the Eucharistic change to the change that took place when Christ ate bread while on earth and it was transformed by the natural warmth and energy of his body into his flesh.
That same flesh, lying for three days in the tomb, was transformed into the glorious resurrected Flesh of Christ by the fire of the same Holy Spirit.
Other fathers compared the Incarnation to the change of the bread into the flesh of Christ. Both were wrought by the power of the Holy Ghost.
In the Mass we the people bring forth bread and wine, fruit of the field and work of human hands. These elements represent us. Out of our midst, Christ our sacrifice, will be transformed out from the gifts of bread and wine just as he was once born out of our midst by the power of God in the womb of Mary.
Let me hasten to say that at no time do we say bread and wine are the sacrifice. They are not immolated or even destroyed. They are changed, transformed into something infinitely higher, the real victim and offering, Christ Himself.
Just as God ratified the offering of the cross by raising up the glorious Christ from the grave, our offering is accepted by God in Transubstantiation where Christ the accepted offering becomes Present in our midst and offered to the Father.
In Holy Communion, we eat what only appears to be bread. But rather than metabolizing Christ, we are, by the fire of the Holy Spirit, metabolized into his Body the Church just as St. Paul says. ( Do recall that the word used by the fathers to describe the change that took place in the bread “by a prayer” was “metaballo” ).
In the Eucharistic sacrifice we immolate or die to ourselves. As Christ’s members we enter into his sacrifice and make it ours. We offer up ourselves in him, though him, and with him in the unity of the Holy Spirit.
While we do have a ministerial priesthood, every Christian is a priest in virtue of being Baptized into Christ’s priestly act, his death. While the Mass is the sacrifice of the Church it is not just for the Church but for all men. It is in the Mass, we the nation of royal priests, offer ourselves in Christ and pray for the world as God wants all men saved.
Until you and Walt drop the Calvinist contortion known as Penal Substitution, where Christ was punished by the wrathful Father in the stead of a few elect, this will be meaningless to you. I write for the lurkers.
Tim,
If Calvinism’s Penal Substitution is correct, why isn’t Christ still in hell?
The penalty for sin is eternal separation from God ( hell ).
Not three hours of suffering.
Tim,
In your hatred for Christ in the Blessed sacrament you wrote,
““Eating” His flesh and “drinking” His blood (John 6:53) are metaphors for “coming” to Him and “believing” in Him (John 6:35).
Have you ever considered how the book of Daniel uses that phrase? The Chaldeans ate the flesh of the Jews. Does that mean they came to believe in them?
Jesus used the most vile abomination a Jew could imagine, that of drinking human blood, as a metaphor for something good, something we should do?
He might as well have said, ” unless you kill your children and eat their hearts and commit sodomy and/or bestiality, ( code names for coming to and believing in ), you will have no life in you”.
I ain’t going for the okey doke! Go tell it to Walt.
““Eating” His flesh and “drinking” His blood (John 6:53) are metaphors for “coming” to Him and “believing” in Him (John 6:35).
It all so clear now!!!! I guess that’s why so many that believed Him left Him. He dared to as his disciples to believe in Him. Heck, even the Apostles thought His request was outrageous!
Thanks Tim, John 6 finally makes sense!
CK,
This “Eat my flesh”=”Believe my words” business is almost as laughable as the “born of water”=”born naturally through amniotic fluid” nonsense.
These people will grab at any absurdity to void out the clear teachings of Jesus.
CK–
You said: “Thanks Tim, John 6 finally makes sense!”
I have heard but cannot confirm that “eat my flesh and drink my blood” is an old common Jewish figure of speech that was supposed to mean “Believe me when I say it and do as I do because it is true.” It’s kind of like saying “Amen Amen I say to you…” or “Verily Verily I say to you….” This would mean something like “coming” to Him and “believing” in Him as Tim would say.
It’s amazing to me that so many of Jesus followers, who witnessed the many miracles and healings and even raisings from the dead, left him because of a common figure of speech. That figure of speech must have been a really hard saying indeed.
Bob,
About 25 years ago I heard Chuck Swindoll give a talk on the Book of Danial. He explained that Dn 3: 8 and 6;24, where the Chaldeans malign the Jews, in the original language says, “ate the flesh of”. I was spellbound and wondered if he had any idea of the implications this had for Jn 6.
Subsequent to that, I heard Fr. Mitch Pacwa, who speaks the languages and knows the cultures of the Near East explain that even today, in that part of the world, the expression to “eat someone’s flesh” means to lie about and backbite them.
There is no way the Deformers would have twisted Jn 6 the way they did if they had had any real experience with the people of the Near East.
JIM–
You said: “…even today, in that part of the world, the expression to “eat someone’s flesh” means to lie about and backbite them.”
You mean slander?
Yeah. Crazy huh?
In the inspired book of Maccabees, we see that pious Jews would undergo unspeakable tortures, even give their own children over to torture, rather than disobey the commandment not to eat the flesh of a pig.
The Jews were not to eat blood in any form. Even in the new Covenant era, James said that the prohibition against eating or drinking blood was to be carried over from the old testament era, at least for a while.
Yet we are to believe Jesus Christ, God, who stood behind the Law, told people to drink human blood. Either he rally meant it, as he seems to have, or he was guilty of messing with their minds.
TIM–
You said: “Regarding Melchizidek, if you read the account in Genesis 14:18-20, you will see that the only thing offered to God is praise, not bread and wine. The Early Church understood Jesus’ actions at the Last Supper in the same way—praise was offered to God, bread was offered to men.”
Nowhere in the bible does it ever speak of God eating or drinking the sacrifice. God instructs us to eat it–all of it–or burn up the rest so that nothing is left over (Melchizedekian bread and wine, manna in the desert, the Passover Lamb). God provides it–fruit of the earth. We harvest it–work of human hands. We offer it. God sanctifies what we offer so that we commune with him when we consume it. We do this with thanks and praise. This is basic Sacrifice 101.
And it is not only when we worship him in church, but every time(or we are supposed to anyway) we sit down to eat:
Bless us, O Lord, and these Thy gifts which we are about to receive from Thy bounty, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Bob,
Do Methodists say Grace just like Catholics?
JIM–
We say grace in all different ways. There is no set prayer.
Here is another one:
“Heavenly Father, kind and good,
We thank Thee for our food.
Bless this food to the nourishment of our bodies,
And bless our bodies to Thy service.
Through Christ our Lord, Amen”
Most of the time, people just ad lib praying about those who are present and any current pressing needs of the family, the rain, world peace, etc,etc. along with the food making it a long and drawn out ordeal.
Personally, I prefer the short and sweet “Bless us O Lord…”
Tim,
As you are holding all Catholics’ feet to the fire because of what Scott Hahn or Art Sippo have said, I guess it’s only fair game for me to call you on the carpet for what your king pin ( and Kevin’s mentor ), John MacArthur said here;
” In this lies the true meaning of the cross. Here’s what was happening on the cross: God was punishing His own Son as if He had committed every wicked deed done by every sinner who would ever believe. ”
Really? Tim, could you buttress Kevin’s old mentors’ incredible statement up with some scripture quotes?
There are some wild utube videos by R.C. Sproul the Dad. Do you have time to watch them? I can copy and paste them for you to explain. He says pretty much what Mac says.
R.C. the Lesser said this,
“There is a third serious problem with the notion that Jesus died for all sins of all people. Hell. If Jesus atoned for all sins, just for what are the sinners in hell suffering? Those who seek to “protect” God’s integrity by arguing He must treat us all the same end up, accidentally, affirming that God punishes the same sins twice, once on Calvary and again in hell.”
Doesn’t this jive with my question about why Jesus is not still in hell?
Just like this quote from another of your champions;
“Here we come to the very essence of the gospel. We, as children of Adam, deserve his wrath for all eternity. But God, out of his unfathomably love, sent his own Son to substitute himself and take the wrath that was ours.”
But Jesus only suffered for 3 hours. My sins deserve an eternity of suffering.
Since you reject the Catholic explanation of satisfaction and merit, you must therefore stand behind the views of your fellow Calvinists, right?
Bob,
Yeah, slander.
I have tried to find a recording of that talk of Chuck Swindoll’s. I really liked his ability to tell a story and I enjoyed his voice.
Bob,
Like I told CK, this business of eating someone’s flesh and drinking their blood, worse than eating pork and drinking a pig’s blood, would not, could not and should not have been used by Jesus to mean simply believe in his teachings. This is black and white, he either meant what he said or he didn’t. No gray area, no using a mind boggling phrase like that to describe something like coming to believe.
Like I said, it is right up there with saying water=amniotic fluid.
To this list of absurdities I have heard a million times is that after being visited by an angel, conceiving as a virgin, having as the term of her maternity the same Person God the Father had as the term of His Paternity, being visited by the Magi, having Simeon pronounce a messianic prophecy over her and her child, Mary (1 ) went on to “enjoy a normal and healthy sex life with Joseph and later, (2) forgot her son was God and, along with his kinsmen, started wondering if Jesus was crazy.
The dumbest, lowest, crudest, sleaziest, most backward, beaten down, degraded street trollop. hooked on crack, crystal meth and heroin combined, would have felt consecrated, set aside by the Lord for a holy purpose, and would have led a life of holy retirement from the world if she had been visited by that angel and experience what Mary did. And her husband, a just man, would have known he was on holy ground just to be in her presence. He would have no more touched her and lived than Uzzah would have.
Calling no man Father should be added to the list too. ( John Wesley was called Father Wesley at a time in America Catholic priests went by “Mr.” )
EVERYBODY!
Over on “It’s Extremely Complex”, Tim Kauffman just came clean and admitted he is a fool.
Time to shut the blog down. A fool is at the helm. Why argue with a foo? A stone foo.
Tim–
I was drawn here by Hahn’s citation of Melito’s homily. Does he actually believe that no one will track down such quotes? Kerux has it in English, so one doesn’t even need to translate the Greek. Nothing burns me half so much as an academic who takes advantage of others by playing fast and loose with texts and contexts.