Eucharistic Sacrifice

Eucharistic Sacrifice January 25, 2016

Leonard Vander Zee (Christ, Baptism, and the Lord’s Supper) shows some chutzpah in addressing the question of Eucharistic sacrifice, and in suggesting that there are senses in which the Eucharist is properly said to be sacrificial. He offers a few quotations to show the Reformation pedigree of this perspective. The first from Calvin:

“The Lord’s Supper cannot be without a sacrifice of [praise], in which, while we proclaim his death [1 Cor 11:26] and give thanks, we do nothing but offer a sacrifice of praise. From this office of sacrificing, all Christians are called a royal priesthood [1 Pet 2:9], because through Christ we offer that sacrifice of praise to God of which the apostle speaks [Heb 13:15]. And we do not appear with our gifts before God without an intercessor. The Mediator interceding for us is Christ, by whom we offer ourselves and what is ours to the Father. He is our Pontiff, who has entered the heavenly sanctuary [Heb 9:24] and opens a way for us to enter [cf. Heb 10:20]. He is the altar [Heb 13:10] upon which we lay our gifts, that whatever we venture to do, we may undertake in him. He it is, I say, that has made us a kingdom and priests unto the Father.”

Another from Luther: “We do not offer Christ as a sacrifice, but . . . Christ offers us. And in this way it is permissible, yes profitable, to call the mass a sacrifice; not on its own account, but because we offer ourselves as a sacrifice along with Christ. That is, we lay ourselves on Christ by a firm faith in his testament and do not otherwise appear before God with our praise, prayer, and sacrifice except through Christ and His mediation. Nor do we doubt that Christ is our priest or minister in heaven before God. Such faith truly brings it to pass that Christ takes up our cause, presents us and our prayers and praise, and also offers himself for us in heaven.”

As Vander Zee says, that last sentence is the kicker: At the same time that we offer ourselves to the Father in praise and prayer, Jesus, the Crucified and Risen One, the One Crucified once-for-all, offers Himself, along with His body, to the Father, for His body. Eucharistic sacrifice in this sense is quite consistent with Luther’s insistence elsewhere that the Catholic Mass turns the Eucharist doubly on its head – from God’s gift to a human work. For Luther, the mass is sacrifice, and in it Christ offers Himself; but this is precisely the point: Christ offers Himself. He is not manipulated by a priest, but gives Himself to the Father even as He gives Himself to us in bread and wine.


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