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To: Mrs. Don-o; boatbums; Syncro; CynicalBear
What is needed is a perfect Priest offering a perfect Sacrifice in a manner that can be perpetuated among the gentile nations from the rising to the setting of the sun.

Well, we have our perfect Priest in Jesus, but the offering of His sacrifice was, according to Hebrews, a one time event that accomplished the intended purpose.  His ongoing function as our High Priest is to act as our advocate.  But the propitiatory (sin-cleansing) offering is a concluded activity.  I'm sure you know the passage well, but I recite it for completeness and for the benefit of others:
God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds; Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high;
(Hebrews 1:1-3)
But what of the "perfect" sacrifice, you say?  Is this even mentioned in Malachi?  Not in the sense in which you are using "perfect."  Consider the words again:
For from the rising of the sun even unto the going down of the same my name shall be great among the Gentiles; and in every place incense shall be offered unto my name, and a pure offering: for my name shall be great among the heathen, saith the LORD of hosts.
(Malachi 1:11)
The Hebrew for "pure" here is "tahor," which means clean, in the sense of ceremonially acceptable.  As we note from Romans 12:1, the sacrifice of praise we as believers offer to God IS acceptable.  Therefore it is pure in the exact same sense as used in this passage, even though it is offered by us in our imperfections.  This is because God does not see our imperfections, judicially speaking.  Having been justified by faith, we come before Him with Jesus as our advocate, dressed in His righteousness.  Our praise and blessing as it reaches Him is as pure as if Jesus Himself had offered it. This also is why we have no need of lesser intermediaries.  Just Jesus.

Therefore, as nothing in the passage requires the sacrifice to be propitiary, and as it is well met by the non-propitiary but nevertheless acceptable sacrifices of Gentile believers all over the earth, there is simply no reason to read back into this passage a doctrine of Aristotelian substances that had no definite expression until the 9th Century monk Radbertus.

As to the "perpetual" nature of the OT sacrifice, the Hebrew word for "forever" in the passages you cite is "olam."  It does not carry the westernized sense of an absolute eternity of time.  It is more the sense of a period of time that will run, from a human perspective, into the unforeseeable future. See for example the entry in the Brown-Driver-Briggs lexicon:
עוֹלָם n.m. long duration, antiquity, futurity
Some Hebrew scholars also use the concept of "age" or "world," for certain context specific renderings. In any event, building on these "olam" passages to push past the boundary of the New Covenant simply doesn't work. These services of priestly sacrifice are specifically set aside by the coming of Messiah.  Hebrews is unambiguous on that point.  We are in the New Covenant, under the lawgiver of the New Covenant, and His law is to remember his death by the paschal meal till He comes back for us, which remembrance presumes a deed done and finished ("It is finished"), which deed can then be remembered with much love.

Peace,

SR
4,096 posted on 12/30/2014 12:21:33 PM PST by Springfield Reformer (Winston Churchill: No Peace Till Victory!)
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To: Springfield Reformer

Interesting post...thank you:)


4,102 posted on 12/30/2014 12:30:04 PM PST by caww
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To: Springfield Reformer
Thank you for your explanation of the way you understand the prophecy of Malachi. I am note sure you have covered quite everything which this prophecy entails, though, because you seemingly overlook the sacrificial nature of Christ's command,which is usually translated as "Do this in remembrance of me."

"Touto poieite tan eman anamnasin" (Luke 22:19) (1 Cor. 11:24–25) is more exactly rendered, "Offer this as my memorial offering."

The Protestant Oxford historian J. N. D. Kelly (a scholarly expert on the development of the early Christian Creeds and doctrines, his Early Christian Creeds and Early Christian Doctrines are standard seminary textbooks) writes that in the early Church.

"the Eucharist was regarded as the distinctively Christian sacrifice. . . . Malachi’s prediction (1:10–11) that the Lord would reject Jewish sacrifices and instead would have "a pure offering" made to him by the Gentiles in every place was seized upon by Christians as a prophecy of the Eucharist. The Didache indeed actually applies the term thusia, or sacrifice, to the Eucharist...

"It was natural for early Christians to think of the Eucharist as a sacrifice. The fulfillment of prophecy demanded a solemn Christian offering, and the rite itself was wrapped in the sacrificial atmosphere with which our Lord invested the Last Supper. The words of institution, ‘Do this’ (touto poieite), must have been charged with sacrificial overtones for second-century ears; Justin at any rate understood them to mean, ‘Offer this.’ . . . The bread and wine, moreover, are offered ‘for a memorial (eis anamnasin) of the passion,’ a phrase which in view of his identification of them with the Lord’s body and blood implies much more than an act of purely spiritual recollection" (J. N. D. Kelly, Early Christian Doctrines 196–7).

This is, of course, Jesus' finished work on the Cross. Although it has its temporal limits (He died on a particular day) it is also an eternal and timeless sacrific, since He is the Lamb "Who was slain before the foundation of the world" --- a Biblical way to saytht this happens in eternity, -- outside of time and space. Thus it is something which can be eternally "present" -- as the Church is given the power to enter into His eternal (timeless) finished work.

This is what happens at the Mass. It is not so fanciful as some might think, since it is the understanding which the Church explicitly maintained from the first century (Didache) until now.

"Assemble on the Lord’s day, and break bread and offer the Eucharist; but first make confession of your faults, so that your sacrifice may be a pure one. Anyone who has a difference with his fellow is not to take part with you until he has been reconciled, so as to avoid any profanation of your sacrifice [Matt. 5:23–24]. For this is the offering of which the Lord has said, ‘Everywhere and always bring me a sacrifice that is undefiled, for I am a great king, says the Lord, and my name is the wonder of nations’ [Mal. 1:11, 14]" (Didache 14 [A.D. 70]).


4,142 posted on 12/30/2014 1:47:46 PM PST by Mrs. Don-o (Point of clarification.)
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