[Mrs. Don-o]

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]).

[Springfield Reformer]

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

From the  Louw-Nida semantic range lexicon:

90.45 ποιέωa: a marker of an agent relation with a numerable event—‘to do, to perform, to practice, to make.’ διδάσκων καὶ πορείαν ποιούμενος εἰς Ιεροσόλυμα ‘teaching as he made a journey to Jerusalem’ Lk 13:22; οἱ μαθηταὶ Ἰωάννου νηστεύουσιν πυκνὰ καὶ δεήσεις ποιοῦνται ‘John’s disciples often fast and pray’ Lk 5:33; τῷ σῷ ὀνόματι δυνάμεις πολλὰς ἐποιήσαμεν ‘in your name we did many miracles’ Mt 7:22; πίστει πεποίηκεν τὸ πάσχα ‘by faith he performed the Passover’ He 11:28.

So I have found no basis for the translation you have offered.  ποιεῖτε is just "do," not "offer." Your translation is even errant with respect to the double use of "offer."  Here's the Greek from Luke 22:19 (same phrase as used in 1 Corinthians 11:24-25):

τοῦτο ποιεῖτε εἰς τὴν ἐμὴν ἀνάμνησιν

Which renders out like this:

τοῦτο [this] ποιεῖτε [do] εἰς [for the purpose of] τὴν [the] ἐμὴν [of me] ἀνάμνησιν [a reminder]

There is no repeating word, even in root form, anywhere in that phrase. I strongly recommend you check out the source of your translation.  Without being able to see how they derived it, I am forced to conclude it was, shall we say, a highly eclectic approach to a rather ordinary directive (imperative) to do, make, or continue something, and the purpose for doing it is to have the meal serve as a reminder.  This is pretty open and shut.  But if you have a site, I would be fascinated how they came to this despite all the excellent lexicons and translations having an entirely different outcome.

As for the Didache, it certainly is an interesting document, but it's date and authorship are less certain than you may have been led to believe.  Certainly neither of us regards it as canonical. Nevertheless, even if we were to accept the most optimistic date and authorship theories, the early use of "Eucharist," even here in the Didache, revolved around its root sense, which is simply "thanksgiving," and we already know there can be a sacrifice of thanksgiving without implying any sort of propitiatory effect. In other words, the sort of sacrifice described in the Didache matches well with the category of thanksgiving as sacrifice.  This has no bearing on Aritotelian notions of substance versus accidence.  The early believers would be stunned to hear such things read into their expression of thankfulness, which thankfulness is a wholesome response to the memory of what Jesus has done for us.

As for the time travel theory of that hypothetically protects the "finished" nature of the event with it's perpetuity in practice, it is a completely specious invention that has no grounding in Scripture.  We do not know that God relates to time as some sort of Eternal Present.  That notion comes to us by suspect passage from eastern concepts of Nirvana et al.  It is not the Hebraic notion of God's relationship to time.  We say as a Hebraism that the Lamb was slain from the foundation of the world because Hebrew prophecy can state the present or the future as the "prophetic past tense," and that's because it represents an event so certain in the purposes of God it can be spoken of as having already happened, or happened long ago, because it was always in the plan.  It provides no evidence whatsoever that God is in some Nirvana-like timeless state.  Rather, in the passage in question, it asserts the certainty of God's purpose with respect to the elect:

And it was given unto him to make war with the saints, and to overcome them: and power was given him over all kindreds, and tongues, and nations. And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.
(Revelation 13:7-8)

So how are we supposed to think about the sacrifice of Christ and time? It's spelled out here:

Nor yet that he should offer himself often, as the high priest entereth into the holy place every year with blood of others; For then must he often have suffered since the foundation of the world: but now once in the end of the world hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. (Hebrews 9:25-26)

Here we have the author of Hebrews speaking clearly within the temporal frame of reference.  This is how God, by divine inspiration, wants us to think about the time element of Jesus' sacrifice.  He does not offer himself often, in our time reference, as the priests did offer their sacrifices.  Yet that would be a necessary way of speaking if the priests too were time traveling forward to the cross. Because although it may have only one occurrence in "Nirvana time," we would observe it as multiple occurrences in human time. 

But the writer of Hebrews does not say that.  He says the opposite, as if to prevent the very idea you are espousing, that somehow in our frame of reference Christ has suffered from the foundation of the world.  This is flatly denied. And in it's place, what do we find?  From our perspective, we are to understand he appeared once as a sacrifice, and in one act put away sin. Past tense. If you were not there when it happened some 2000 years ago, the only means of access still available is faith, and that is enough to wash the sinner clean. This renders the time travel theory a novelty with, if you will pardon the expression, no future.

Peace,

SR