This is sort
of an unintended follow-up to last month’s article on the Catholic Eucharist,
which can be found here:
The Catholic
Church makes much of the Eucharistic Mass by insisting that not only is the
Eucharist an offering to God for the forgiveness of sins (CCC #1350, #1354, #1366, #1369), but when it is offered in the
Mass, it is the very same sacrifice that
Jesus offered on Calvary (CCC #1366, #1367).
But is it really a re-presenting
of Calvary, as they claim? Is the work
of Jesus on the cross even something that mortal man is able to offer to God at all?
The answer to both of these questions is no.
Consider
this analogy:
Let’s
suppose you have committed a very serious crime and you are fined and you owe
the court one million dollars. And there
is no way that you could possibly pay your fine in your lifetime. But a rich and merciful stranger pays the
debt in full. Imagine your relief at the
kindness of this stranger! You are now
free of your impossible debt!
But a little
later, you decide that you want to go back to court and present, not the money,
but the memory of the stranger’s
payment, and you “offer” that memory to
the court as payment. And you insist
that by doing this, you are actually “making that past event present,” in
effect, paying the debt. But the judge
is not amused and says:
“But that
paid-off debt is a past transaction that need never be brought up again. And even if we could accept payment for a closed account, offering the mere memory of a past payment is absurd. Furthermore, the million dollars that was
offered in the past was never yours
to offer. Remember, you were unable to
pay the debt. It was the rich stranger’s
offering, not yours. To try and somehow
now offer to the court, as payment, the mere memory of someone else’s past payment of your
debt is a joke.” The judge continues, “If
you want to say thanks for my accepting your rich stranger’s offer, that’s
fine. But you can’t ‘offer’ anything for
this closed account, much less the memory
of it. And furthermore, the memory of a
past event does not magically “make it present.” Again, attempting to offer the memory of an event
as some kind of valid payment to the court is an insult to both the court and
the rich stranger.”
And an
insult it is. Now, compare the spiritual
application of the story above to what the Catholic Church claims for the Eucharist:
In much the
same way, you have sinned against Almighty God and you have a debt of sin that
you could never pay. But a merciful and perfectly
sinless Person (Jesus Christ) is willing to pay for your sins with His life,
and He pays for it once and for all
on the cross of Calvary (Hebrews 10:10-12, 14, 18). It is a singular and very unique offering, “the
just for the unjust” (1 Peter 3:18; Romans 5:8).
But you (the
Catholic or the priest) decide that you want to take the memory of His payment
for sin and somehow “offer” it once again to the Father as a payment for your
sin through the ritual of the Catholic Mass.
And the Father tells you, “But the payment for your sin is a past transaction and it cannot be ‘re-offered’
to Me (Hebrews 10:14). It can
never be your offering, since My Son
is the One Who offered it (Hebrews 10:10, 12). It is forever HIS offering, and no one
else’s. No priest, individual, or church
can ever offer, present, or ‘RE-present’ it to Me. It could only be offered by the Perfect
God-man, and it was offered ONCE FOR ALL at Calvary (Hebrews 10:10-18). Anyone else attempting to ‘offer’ what Jesus
did is committing a vain and blasphemous mockery.” The Father continues, “If you want to thank
Me for accepting His perfect payment, that’s fine. But no one can ever go back and re-offer what
My Son did, lest it be a ridiculous pretense and an insult to both Me and My
Son.”
So, once
again, no one can “present Calvary” as an offering, no matter how
well-intentioned the “offer” is. The
only way that MAN can offer Calvary is by sharing its truth with others, by
spreading the gospel. The Bible never suggests any other way for man to
“offer” Jesus. The work of offering a
sacrifice for man’s sin has already been done perfectly by the one spotless
Person, and as stated earlier, it was done by Him once for all (Hebrews 10:10-12, 14, 18). Jesus said that it is finished (John
19:30), the penalty for sin is paid.
The Catholic
Church claims that Jesus is continually offering His sacrifice - through the
priest - daily in the Eucharist. But the
Bible tells us that while every
priest STANDS to present offerings (Hebrews 10:11), Jesus is now SEATED
at the right hand of God (Hebrews 10:12) in Heaven, signifying
that His work of redemption is finished! He is not continually
offering because He is finished offering. There were no chairs in the Jewish temple or
tabernacle, so no offering for sin was ever done sitting down. The sin
offering is finished, so there is no need whatsoever for Him to “RE-present” His
offering to God. By the way, using this
term is just a word game that the Catholic Church plays to try to downplay the
“once for all” aspect of His work, so they’ll say: “No, we’re not offering Jesus again; we’re
just ‘re-presenting’ His once-for-all offering.” You can make up all the fancy terms you want,
but “RE-presenting” is simply re-offering, no matter how you slice it. And you can’t offer a sacrifice for sin that
has already been offered, anyway.
If Jesus’
work on the cross ever needed to be offered again to God, for man’s sin, that would
mean that it was ineffective the
first time. All “repeat” offerings or
“RE-presented” offerings for sin are imperfect ones (Hebrews 10:1-2,
11).
Once again, Jesus’
work on the cross does not need to be
re-offered or RE-presented. It was
perfect, final, and fully sufficient (Hebrews 10:10, 12, 14). But it will not, it cannot, ever be offered to God again for sin. Not even by Jesus Christ. Unless the inspired author of Hebrews lied
when he said:
By this will we have
been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for
all. (Hebrews 10:10)
But He, having offered
one sacrifice for sins for all time, sat down at the right hand of God.
(Hebrews 10:12)
For by one offering
He has perfected for all time those who are sanctified. (Hebrews 10:14)
Now where there is
forgiveness of these things, there is no longer any offering for sin.
(Hebrews 10:18)
The offering
of the Eucharist and the event of Calvary are NOT one and the same. It is blasphemous to equate ANY human work,
ritual, or accomplishments with Calvary.
Jesus’ offering of Himself on the cross is a priceless one-time offering
– it cannot be “RE-offered,” “RE-presented,” or “RE-used” as an offering to God.
It is not ours to offer.
