Christ, Once Sacrificed

Patrick Beard

    Is communion an unbloody sacrifice?   Are we sacrificing Jesus on a weekly basis?
HEBREWS 9:23-10:10
   This passage reminds us of a fundamental difference between Roman Catholic traditional dogma and reformed Biblical interpretation. Put quite simply the Roman Catholic view, that is based on tradition, defines the Eucharist as an “unbloody sacrifice” that participates in the Crucifixion of Christ by changing the elements of bread and wine into the actual body and blood of Christ - transubstantiation.  This sacrifice is for the forgiveness of sins and must be repeated regularly for the salvation of mankind.
   The Protestant view, in general, views Communion not as a sacrifice in any way, but rather a memorial or remembrance of Christ’s Crucifixion. We proclaim His death until He comes.  Higher Church Protestants emphasize the spiritual presence of Christ in Communion, while fundamentalists tend to deny any presence of Christ in the elements or the service.  In both the emphasis is on the faith of the participant rather than the power of the elements of the meal.
   Throughout the history of the Church there has been an extensive amount of writing on the subject of the sacrifice of Christ.

John Chrysostom
   "In ancient times, because men were very imperfect, God did not scorn to receive the blood which they were offering . . . to draw them away from those idols; and this very thing again was because of his indescribable, tender affection. But now he has transferred the priestly action to what is most awesome and magnificent. He has changed the sacrifice itself, and instead of the butchering of dumb beasts, he commands the offering up of himself" (ibid., 24:2). 
   "What then? Do we not offer daily? Yes, we offer, but making remembrance of his death; and this remembrance is one and not many. How is it one and not many? Because this sacrifice is offered once, like that in the Holy of Holies. This sacrifice is a type of that, and this remembrance a type of that. We offer always the same, not one sheep now and another tomorrow, but the same thing always. Thus there is one sacrifice. By this reasoning, since the sacrifice is offered everywhere, are there, then, a multiplicity of Christs? By no means! Christ is one everywhere. He is complete here, complete there, one body. And just as he is one body and not many though offered everywhere, so too is there one sacrifice"
   Clearly Chrysostom’s view is not that we are offering anew a sacrifice of the Body of Christ, but we are mystically participating in the one sacrifice of Christ – the offering up on Himself – as we remember His death until He comes.

Augustine
   "For when he says in another book, which is called Ecclesiastes, ‘There is no good for a man except that he should eat and drink’ [Eccles. 2:24], what can he be more credibly understood to say [prophetically] than what belongs to the participation of this table which the Mediator of the New Testament himself, the priest after the order of Melchizedek, furnishes with his own body and blood? For that sacrifice has succeeded all the sacrifices of the Old Testament, which were slain as a shadow of what was to come. . . . Because, instead of all these sacrifices and oblations, his body is offered and is served up to the partakers of it"
   I love Augustine’s reference to Melchizedek – the bread and wine priest before the Crucifixion.  Christ is not crucified anew, but our “sacrifice” is one given by faith in the completed work of Christ.  As Melchizedek pointed to the sacrifice to come, we point to the sacrifice that was made.  By faith we become partakers of that one sacrifice.

An explanation of the Lutheran view
   “we do not believe that the Mass is a perpetual sacrifice. Christ's crucifixion is a perfect sacrifice, once and for all. The Sacrament, in this way, is much like Baptism: it is not a re-sacrifice of Christ, rather it reconnects us with the Christ who has already been sacrificed, once and for all. Just as Christ joins the Christian to Himself on the cross in Holy Baptism, so too in the Holy Meal, He joins the believer to His crucifixion through His Body and Blood given and shed, that are administered through the bread and wine of the Supper. As such, the Sacrament is not something we are doing for Him, but something He is doing for us - feeding us Himself for the nourishment of our faith.”

John Calvin
   “…The first error is this—While the Lord gave us the Supper that it might be distributed amongst us to testify to us that in communicating in his body we have part in the sacrifice which he offered on the cross to God his Father, for the expiation and satisfaction of our sins--men have out of their own head invented, on the contrary, that it is a sacrifice *by* which we obtain the forgiveness of our sins before God. This is a blasphemy which it is impossible to bear. For if we do not recognise the death of the Lord Jesus, and regard it as our only sacrifice by which he has reconciled us to the Father, effacing all the faults for which we were accountable to his justice, we destroy its virtue. …”

   One of the the problems I would have with the Catholic view of the “unbloody sacrifice” is the doctrine of transubstantiation and the “real presence” was dogmatized and the practice of the Mass was viewed as a sacrifice that is salvific.  As Calvin said, “a sacrifice by which we obtain forgiveness.”  Rather than faith in the completed work of Christ on the cross Jesus was being continually crucified as it were.  The modern take on the “unbloody sacrifice, according to “Catholic Answers” is, “…quite simple, really. The Mass is called an unbloody sacrifice to clarify the fact that we do not behold the Lord's bloody body as it was seen on Calvary. Instead we behold His body and blood under the appearance of bread and wine. But it is the same sacrifice we behold AND the same body and blood.”
   This is why, at Christ Community Church, when we use terms such as “sacrament”, “Eucharist”, and “catholic” that we explain exactly what we mean. 
  Sacrament is a communication of God’s grace, not a means of salvation.
  Eucharist is thanksgiving for the one sacrifice, not a new sacrifice for salvation.
  Catholic meaning universal or worldwide, not the organization seated in Rome. Our holy city is Christ Himself, the new Jerusalem. 
   At Christ Community Church we proclaim the presence of Christ with us - in worship as two or more gather and also in Communion as we make thanks for His sacrifice for us.  Unlike the Middle Ages dogma of the metaphysics of just exactly how He is present we leave it to the worshiper to discern His presence – His Spirit with us.
   Our worship is not of elemental things – bread and wine, but of the one who gave Himself once and for all for the salvation of many. We worship the One who dwells in the Body that was given, crucified, died, was buried, and was raised from the dead!
   As we celebrate again the sacrifice of Jesus, may we discern rightly what it is that we are doing as we remember His death until He comes!