Sacrifice of the Mass
Magesterial Quotes
Catechism of the Catholic Church
600 To God, all moments of time are present in their immediacy. When therefore he establishes his eternal plan of "predestination", he includes in it each person's free response to his grace: "In this city, in fact, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place." (see note 395) For the sake of accomplishing his plan of salvation, God permitted the acts that flowed from their blindness. (see note 396)Read More
"He died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures"Read More
603 Jesus did not experience reprobation as if he himself had sinned. (see note 405) But in the redeeming love that always united him to the Father, he assumed us in the state of our waywardness of sin, to the point that he could say in our name from the cross: "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" (see note 406) Having thus established him in solidarity with us sinners, God "did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all", so that we might be "reconciled to God by the death of his Son". (see note 407)Read
God takes the initiative of universal redeeming loveRead More
605 At the end of the parable of the lost sheep Jesus recalled that God's love excludes no one: "So it is not the will of your Father who is in heaven that one of these little ones should perish." (see note 410) He affirms that he came "to give his life as a ransom for many"; this last term is not restrictive, but contrasts the whole of humanity with the unique person of the redeemer who hands himself over to save us. (see note 411) The Church, following the apostles, teaches that Christ died for all men without exception: "There is not, never has been, and never will be a single human being for whom Christ did not suffer." (see note 412)Read More
Supporting Bible Passages
Psalms Chapter 110
4: The LORD has sworn and will not change his mind, "You are a priest for ever after the order of Melchiz'edek."Read More
Zechariah Chapter 14
1: Behold, a day of the LORD is coming, when the spoil taken from you will be divided in the midst of you. 2: For I will gather all the nations against Jerusalem to battle, and the city shall be taken and the houses plundered and the women ravished; half of the city shall go into exile, but the rest of the people shall not be cut off from the city. 3: Then the LORD will go forth and fight against those nations as when he fights on a day of battle. 4: On that day his feet shall stand on the Mount of Olives which lies before Jerusalem on the east; and the Mount of Olives shall be split in two from east to west by a very wide valley; so that one half of the Mount shall withdraw northward, and the other half southward. 5: And the valley of my mountains shall be stopped up, for the valley of the mountains shall touch the side of it; and you shall flee as you fled from the earthquake in the days of Uzzi'ah king of Judah. Then the LORD your God will come, and all the holy ones with him. 6: On that day there shall be neither cold nor frost. 7: And there shall be continuous day (it is known to the LORD), not day and not night, for at evening time there shall be light. 8: On that day living waters shall flow out from Jerusalem, half of them to the eastern sea and half of them to the western sea; it shall continue in summer as in winter. 9: And the LORD will become king over all the earth; on that day the LORD will be one and his name one. 10: The whole land shall be turned into a plain from Geba to Rimmon south of Jerusalem. But Jerusalem shall remain aloft upon its site from the Gate of Benjamin to the place of the former gate, to the Corner Gate, and from the Tower of Han'anel to the king's wine presses. 11: And it shall be inhabited, for there shall be no more curse; Jerusalem shall dwell in security. 12: And this shall be the plague with which the LORD will smite all the peoples that wage war against Jerusalem: their flesh shall rot while they are still on their feet, their eyes shall rot in their sockets, and their tongues shall rot in their mouths. 13: And on that day a great panic from the LORD shall fall on them, so that each will lay hold on the hand of his fellow, and the hand of the one will be raised against the hand of the other; 14: even Judah will fight against Jerusalem. And the wealth of all the nations round about shall be collected, gold, silver, and garments in great abundance. 15: And a plague like this plague shall fall on the horses, the mules, the camels, the asses, and whatever beasts may be in those camps. 16: Then every one that survives of all the nations that have come against Jerusalem shall go up year after year to worship the King, the LORD of hosts, and to keep the feast of booths. 17: And if any of the families of the earth do not go up to Jerusalem to worship the King, the LORD of hosts, there will be no rain upon them. 18: And if the family of Egypt do not go up and present themselves, then upon them shall come the plague with which the LORD afflicts the nations that do not go up to keep the feast of booths. 19: This shall be the punishment to Egypt and the punishment to all the nations that do not go up to keep the feast of booths. 20: And on that day there shall be inscribed on the bells of the horses, "Holy to the LORD." And the pots in the house of the LORD shall be as the bowls before the altar; 21: and every pot in Jerusalem and Judah shall be sacred to the LORD of hosts, so that all who sacrifice may come and take of them and boil the flesh of the sacrifice in them. And there shall no longer be a trader in the house of the LORD of hosts on that day.Read More
Malachi Chapter 1
11: For from the rising of the sun to its setting my name is great among the nations, and in every place incense is offered to my name, and a pure offering; for my name is great among the nations, says the LORD of hosts.Read More
1 Corinthians Chapter 5
7: Cleanse out the old leaven that you may be a new lump, as you really are unleavened. For Christ, our paschal lamb, has been sacrificed. 8: Let us, therefore, celebrate the festival, not with the old leaven, the leaven of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.Read More
1 Corinthians Chapter 11
24: and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, "This is my body which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me."Read More
Hebrews Chapter 8
1: Now the point in what we are saying is this: we have such a high priest, one who is seated at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in heaven, 2: a minister in the sanctuary and the true tent which is set up not by man but by the Lord. 3: For every high priest is appointed to offer gifts and sacrifices; hence it is necessary for this priest also to have something to offer.Read More
1 John Chapter 2
1: My little children, I am writing this to you so that you may not sin; but if any one does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous; 2: and he is the expiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world.Read More
Revelation Chapter 5
6: And between the throne and the four living creatures and among the elders, I saw a Lamb standing, as though it had been slain, with seven horns and with seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent out into all the earth;Read More
Early Church Fathers
Clement I, Pope [27-97 AD] First Epistle "Our sin will not be small if we eject from the episcopate those who blamelessly and holily have offered its sacrifices. Blessed are those presbyters who have already finished their course, and who have obtained a fruitful and perfect release" (Letter to the Corinthians 44:4–5 [A.D. 80]).Read More
Ignatius of Antioch [50-117 AD] The Martyrdom of Ignatius "Make certain, therefore, that you all observe one common Eucharist; for there is but one Body of our Lord Jesus Christ, and but one cup of union with his Blood, and one single altar of sacrifice-even as there is also but one bishop, with his clergy and my own fellow servitors, the deacons. This will ensure that all your doings are in full accord with the will of God" (Letter to the Philadelphians 4 [A.D. 110]).Read More
Justin Martyr [100-165 AD] Dialogue with Trypho (Chapters 9-47)
"God speaks by the mouth of Malachi, one of the twelve [minor prophets], as I said before, about the sacrifices at that time presented by you: ‘I have no pleasure in you, says the Lord, and I will not accept your sacrifices at your hands; for from the rising of the sun to the going down of the same, my name has been glorified among the Gentiles, and in every place incense is offered to my name, and a pure offering, for my name is great among the Gentiles . . . [Mal. 1:10–11]. He then speaks of those Gentiles, namely us [Christians] who in every place offer sacrifices to him, that is, the bread of the Eucharist and also the cup of the Eucharist" (Dialogue with Trypho the Jew 41 [A.D. 155]).Read More
Irenaeus of Lyons [120-180 AD] Adversus Haereses (Book IV, Chapter 17)
"He took from among creation that which is bread, and gave thanks, saying, ‘This is my body.’ The cup likewise, which is from among the creation to which we belong, he confessed to be his blood. He taught the new sacrifice of the new covenant, of which Malachi, one of the twelve [minor] prophets, had signified beforehand: ‘You do not do my will, says the Lord Almighty, and I will not accept a sacrifice at your hands. For from the rising of the sun to its setting my name is glorified among the Gentiles, and in every place incense is offered to my name, and a pure sacrifice; for great is my name among the Gentiles, says the Lord Almighty’ [Mal. 1:10–11]. By these words he makes it plain that the former people will cease to make offerings to God; but that in every place sacrifice will be offered to him, and indeed, a pure one, for his name is glorified among the Gentiles" (Against Heresies 4:17:5 [A.D. 189]).Read More
Cyprian of Carthage [200-270 AD] Epistle 62 "If Christ Jesus, our Lord and God, is himself the high priest of God the Father; and if he offered himself as a sacrifice to the Father; and if he commanded that this be done in commemoration of himself, then certainly the priest, who imitates that which Christ did, truly functions in place of Christ" (Letters 63:14 [A.D. 253]).Read More Cyril of Jerusalem, St [315-386 AD] Catechetical Lecture 23 "Then, having sanctified ourselves by these spiritual hymns, we beseech the merciful God to send forth his Holy Spirit upon the gifts lying before him, that he may make the bread the Body of Christ and the wine the Blood of Christ, for whatsoever the Holy Spirit has touched is surely sanctified and changed. Then, upon the completion of the spiritual sacrifice, the bloodless worship, over that propitiatory victim we call upon God for the common peace of the churches, for the welfare of the world, for kings, for soldiers and allies, for the sick, for the afflicted; and in summary, we all pray and offer this sacrifice for all who are in need" (Catechetical Lectures 23:7–8 [A.D. 350]).Read More
Gregory Nazianzen, St [325-389 AD] Letters (Division III) "Cease not to pray and plead for me when you draw down the Word by your word, when in an unbloody cutting you cut the Body and Blood of the Lord, using your voice for a sword" (Letter to Amphilochius 171 [A.D. 383]).Read More Ambrose of Milan, St [340-397 AD] Letter 18 "We saw the prince of priests coming to us, we saw and heard him offering his blood for us. We follow, inasmuch as we are able, being priests, and we offer the sacrifice on behalf of the people. Even if we are of but little merit, still, in the sacrifice, we are honorable. Even if Christ is not now seen as the one who offers the sacrifice, nevertheless it is he himself that is offered in sacrifice here on Earth when the body of Christ is offered. Indeed, to offer himself he is made visible in us, he whose word makes holy the sacrifice that is offered" (Commentaries on Twelve Psalms of David 38:25 [A.D. 389]).Read More John Chrysostom, St [347-407 AD] Homily 8 on Romans "Reverence, therefore, reverence this table, of which we are all communicants! Christ, slain for us, the sacrificial victim who is placed thereon!" (Homilies on Romans 8:8 [A.D. 391]).Read More
John Chrysostom, St [347-407 AD] Homily 24 on First Corinthians
"‘The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not communion of the blood of Christ?’ Very trustworthy and awesomely does he [Paul] say it. For what he is saying is this: What is in the cup is that which flowed from his side, and we partake of it. He called it a cup of blessing because when we hold it in our hands that is how we praise him in song, wondering and astonished at his indescribable gift, blessing him because of his having poured out this very gift so that we might not remain in error; and not only for his having poured it out, but also for his sharing it with all of us. ‘If therefore you desire blood,’ he [the Lord] says, ‘do not redden the platform of idols with the slaughter of dumb beasts, but my altar of sacrifice with my blood.’ What is more awesome than this? What, pray tell, more tenderly loving?" (Homilies on First Corinthians 24:1(3) [A.D. 392]).Read More
John Chrysostom, St [347-407 AD] Homily 41 on First Corinthians
"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).Read More
John Chrysostom, St [347-407 AD] Homily 17 on Hebrews "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" (Homilies on Hebrews 17:3(6) [A.D. 403]).Read More
John Chrysostom, St [347-407 AD] On the Priesthood (Book III)
"When you see the Lord immolated and lying upon the altar, and the priest bent over that sacrifice praying, and all the people empurpled by that precious blood, can you think that you are still among men and on earth? Or are you not lifted up to heaven?" (The Priesthood 3:4:177 [A.D. 387]).Read More
Miscellaneous [Unknown] Canons of the Thirteen Holy Fathers (various dates)
"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]).Read More
Augustine of Hippo, St [354-430 AD] The City of God (Book XVII)
"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" (The City of God 17:20 [A.D. 419]).Read More
Augustine of Hippo, St [354-430 AD] Tractate 40 (John 8:28-32)
"In the sacrament he is immolated for the people not only on every Easter Solemnity but on every day; and a man would not be lying if, when asked, he were to reply that Christ is being immolated. For if sacraments had not a likeness to those things of which they are sacraments, they would not be sacraments at all; and they generally take the names of those same things by reason of this likeness" (Letters 98:9 [A.D. 412]).Read More
The propitiatory nature of the eucharist is the official teaching of the Roman Catholic Church and it claims that its interpretation and practice is a fulfilment of the prophecy of Malachi 1:11 that a pure and bloodless sacrifice would be offered throughout the world which was acceptable to God. Once again, however, we find this interpretation disputed by the vast majority of Fathers in the early Church. The Roman Catholic Church would lead us to believe that its particular teaching of the eucharistic sacrifice has been the view universally held in the Church from the very beginning. But, as with the teaching on the Real Presence, there is a parallel situation historically with the concept of the eucharist as a sacrifice. Some of the Fathers approach the Roman Catholic interpretation, but the majority do not. Their writings reveal that they viewed the Lord’s Supper as a memorial of thanksgiving and praise in commemoration or remembrance of Christ’s once-for-all atoning sacrifice, and not as a propitiatory sacrifice for sin. They referred to the prophecy of Malachi and taught that the eucharist was indeed a partial fulfilment of that prophecy, and even referred to it as a sacrifice, but they did not interpret this in the same way as the Church of Rome has done. As with the term ‘tradition’, the Roman Church has given the word ‘sacrifice’ a certain content and meaning and has read that back into the use of the word by the early Church. Because the Fathers use the term sacrifice to refer to the eucharist it does not mean that they accepted the meaning the Roman Church gives to the word, as a brief survey of the writings of the Fathers reveals.
The Didache seems to refer to the eucharist as the believer’s sacrifice, reflecting the idea of self-giving to the Lord through an offering of praise and thanksgiving for the finished work of Jesus Christ. There is no mention of its being a propitiatory sacrifice. Roman apologists have often appealed to Clement of Rome as a support for their sacrificial interpretation of the eucharist but this is done as a result of a mistranslation. Keating, for example, gives a translation of 1 Clement 44 where Clement mentions those ‘from the episcopate who blamelessly and holily have offered its Sacrifices’.22 The problem with this translation is that Clement does not use the word ‘sacrifices’ in his original letter but the word ‘gifts’. So the appeal to Clement of Rome is an empty one.
Justin Martyr believed the eucharist was a spiritual sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving which commemorated the death of Christ by a Church which now counted Gentiles among its members.23 Irenaeus also referred to Malachi’s prophecy and characterized the eucharist as a thank-offering to God. He maintained that the real sacrifice intended within it was the prayers of true believers, which came from pure hearts wholly yielded to God and undefiled by sin.24 Similarly, Tertullian argued that the true sacrifices offered to God were not of a carnal, physical kind, but the spiritual sacrifice of a broken and a contrite heart before God.25 Origen and Clement of Alexandria stressed this same theme: that the real meaning of the eucharistic sacrifice was as a memorial or commemoration of the sacrifice of Christ which demanded the self-surrender of the soul to God. It was a sacrifice because it involved the prayers and praise of God’s people; the self-surrender of themselves to God from broken and contrite hearts; and the giving of material offerings to the poor. There is absolutely no mention of the eucharist as the literal and renewed sacrifice of Christ as a propitiatory sin-offering.
Eusebius also explicitly states that the fulfilment of the prophecy of Malachi of a pure and bloodless sacrifice was to be found in the prayers and thanksgiving of true Christians throughout the world from contrite hearts.26
But the most influential advocate for this point of view was, once again, Augustine.27 He was unequivocal in his belief that the Lord’s Supper was a sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving, a commemoration of Christ’s passion. The eucharist is simply a sacramental way of remembering Christ’s once-for-all sacrifice. The sacrament is called a sacrifice only because it is identified with Calvary as a memorial or commemoration of that unique sacrifice.28 It was not Christ who was offered in this memorial but the Church, who offered herself to God through Christ as a living sacrifice from a broken and a contrite heart. He, too, saw this as the fulfilment of the prophecy of Malachi.29
Though the early Church generally viewed the eucharist in spiritual terms, the concept began to emerge of a literal sacrifice in the eucharist. Nearly all historians agree that this change had it beginnings with the third century North African bishop and martyr, Cyprian. The Church at this time was drifting from reliance on God’s grace in Jesus Christ to a theology which included the concept of human works to gain merit before God and to atone for sin through penance, asceticism and good works. Thus, the eucharist as a sacrifice began also to be looked upon, by some, as a means of propitiating God for sins committed after baptism. Men began to view the priest and Christian ministry as being parallel to the priesthood and ministry of the Old Testament. And though this analogy had been set forth by earlier Fathers, they always emphasized that the carnal sacrifices of Judaism had been displaced with the spiritual sacrifices of the Church on the basis of the completed sacrifice of Christ. There were no more sacrifices for sin. But the analogy began to lose its strictly spiritual character. Along with a materialistic view of the elements in the eucharist there began to develop through Cyprian, with his view of the sacerdotal nature of the priesthood, the concept of the eucharist as a literal sacrifice. He laid down the axiom:
If Jesus Christ, our Lord and God, is Himself the great High Priest of God the Father, and first offered Himself a Sacrifice to the Father, and commanded this to be done in remembrance of Himself, surely that Priest truly acts in Christ’s stead, who imitates that which Christ did; and he then offers a true and full Sacrifice in the Church to God the Father, when he begins to offer it according as he sees Christ Himself offered it.30
In this way Cyprian extended the traditional interpretation of the eucharist to include the concept of a sacramental re-enactment of the original sacrifice of Christ. In his mind, the eucharist was a sacrifice in the sense that it set forth as a memorial the original sacrifice. But given the materializing influences within the Church, it did not take long before the view of the eucharist as a sacramental re-enactment of Christ’s sacrifice, in commemoration of him, was extended to the idea that Christ was truly and literally immolated on the altar. Chrysostom, for example, teaches that Christ physically suffers in the eucharistic sacrifice:
The bread which we break, is it not a communion of the Body of Christ?. . . But why adds he also, ‘which we break’? For although in the Eucharist one may see this done, yet on the cross not so, but the very contrary, For, ‘A bone of Him,’ saith one, ‘shall not be broken.’ But that which He suffered not on the cross, this He suffers in the oblation for thy sake, and submits to be broken, that He may fill all men.31
The drama of such a ‘real’ sacrifice fostered increasingly bizarre ‘visions’ throughout the Church which were used in turn as proof for the truth of the doctrine. A vivid example of this phenomenon was the defence of the materialist view of the eucharist by Radbertus, the ninth century theologian, by recourse to a succession of ‘marvellous stories of the visible appearances of the body and blood of Christ for the removal of doubts or the satisfaction of the pious desire of the saints. The bread on the altar, he reported, was often seen in the shape of a lamb or a little child, and when the priest stretched out his hand to break the bread, an angel descended from heaven with a knife, slaughtered the lamb or the child, and let his blood run into a cup.’32
Yet even when the Church was leaning more and more towards the concept of the literal sacrifice of Christ in the eucharist, the old view of the memorial of Christ’s sacrifice articulated by Augustine and the early Church Fathers was still widely held. For the first 1200 years of the Church’s life there was no unanimity on the nature of the eucharist.
The starting point for both interpretations (material and spiritual) of the eucharist was Scripture. Only in a detailed analysis of what Scripture has to say about the nature of Christ’s sacrifice, and how believers are to commemorate this sacrifice, can we come to a definitive understanding.
There is an important Greek word which is used to describe both the death and the sacrifice of Christ: ephapax, which means ‘once-for-all’. In Romans 6:9-10, Paul clearly states that Christ can never die again because his death was ‘once-for-all’. The author of Hebrews insists that Christ cannot be sacrificed daily, that his body is offered ‘once-for-all’ and that because this once-for-all sacrifice has brought complete forgiveness of sin there is no longer any requirement for an offering or sacrifice for sin.33 All that the animal sacrifices and human priesthood signified in the Old Testament, Christ has fulfilled. Consequently, God has abolished the priesthood and all sacrifices.
This presents the Roman Catholic Church with a dilemma. Scripture teaches that Christ’s body and his sacrifice were offered once. Rome teaches that his body and sacrifice are offered over and over again in transubstantiation and the repetition of each mass. The Church attempts to get around this problem by claiming that the sacrifice of the mass is not a different sacrifice from that of Calvary but the same sacrifice perpetuated through time. Because God is beyond time the sacrifice of the cross is always present with him, and therefore the sacrifice of the mass is the same sacrifice as that of Calvary. This logic is a semantic smoke-screen: the sacrifice of the cross was an historic space-time event which occurred once and can never be repeated. The application of the Lord’s sacrifice goes on through time in terms of the Holy Spirit bringing men to receive the benefits of his finished work, and the commemoration of his sacrifice goes on through time, but the sacrifice itself cannot be perpetuated. Indeed, the principal theme of the book of Hebrews is that there are no more sacrifices for sin of any kind whatsoever.
Scripture teaches that the Lord Jesus Christ has not only made a once-for-all-time atonement, but that his historical death on the cross is a complete atonement. He has completely satisfied God’s justice: the debt due to man’s sin has been fully paid and therefore all those who come to God through Jesus Christ are wholly free from condemnation. No further expiation for sin can ever be needed. The biblical view is that cleansing and forgiveness for sin are found in the blood of Jesus Christ alone, and never in the works or sufferings of man, for the law demands death as a penalty for sin. The significance of the reference to blood with respect to the work of Christ is that it signifies his life has been given over in death on our behalf and as a payment for our sin. It is because a full atonement has been made that a full forgiveness can be offered:
The blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin (1 John 1:7).
In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace (Eph. 1:7).
Scripture nowhere teaches that men must suffer temporal punishment for their own sins to render satisfaction to God, either in this life or in the life to come. All punishment for sin was borne by Christ. This is why the Word of God declares that ‘There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus’ (Rom. 8:1). God certainly disciplines believers for sin, but this has nothing to do with making atonement or expiation. In the discipline of his children God’s action is remedial, not punitive; it flows from love, not wrath (see Heb. 12:4-13).
Scripture does speak of a eucharistic sacrifice. The word ‘eucharist’ literally means ‘thanksgiving’ and the New Testament frequently enjoins believers to offer this kind of sacrifice of praise: ‘Through Him then, let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of the lips that give thanks to His name’ (Heb. 13:15). This is the true eucharistic sacrifice. Scripture also speaks of other sacrifices the believer is to offer to God — our goods to meet the needs of others, and ourselves in total surrender to God (Heb. 13:16; Rom. 12:1). These are all true sacrifices in the New Testament but they have nothing to do with the expiation of sin.
If, as we have seen, there is no more sacrifice for sin — what is the meaning of the Lord’s Supper? The Supper was established by the Lord Jesus as a memorial of thanksgiving and praise for his atoning sacrifice by which believers were to commune with him spiritually and also to proclaim his death until he comes again. The bread and wine, as Augustine points out, were given as figures or visible symbols of his body and blood and therefore are figurative expressions of his self-sacrifice. They are visible reminders to his people of what he has done on their behalf. When the Lord says, ‘This is my body’, he is speaking figuratively and not literally. In fact, in Matthew 26:29, Mark 14:25 and Luke 22:16,18, Christ refers to the wine after consecration as the ‘fruit of the vine’, indicating that it was still wine. Twice, in 1 Corinthians 11:23-27, Paul refers to the consecrated bread as ‘bread’.
When Jesus refers to himself as the bread of life and says that men must eat his flesh and drink his blood, he makes it clear that his words were to be interpreted spiritually and figuratively: ‘The flesh profits nothing; the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and are life’ (John 6:63). This discourse could not refer to the Lord’s Supper for Christ had not instituted that ordinance at the time he gave this teaching. He is not speaking here of the eucharist, but of his sacrifice on Calvary. The whole discourse of John 6 is a presentation of Jesus as the atoning sacrifice for the sin of the world in the giving of his flesh and blood, and how men are to appropriate the benefits of that sacrifice. It is those who believe who experience the benefits of his work, and so when he likens faith to eating his flesh and drinking his blood he is explaining the nature of saving faith as the appropriation of his person into the believer’s heart. The Son of God would have us understand that saving faith is much more than mere intellectual assent to truth. As John Calvin pointed out:
We are quickened by the true partaking of him; and he has therefore designated this partaking by the words ‘eating’ and ‘drinking’, in order that no one should think that the life that we receive from him is received by mere knowledge. As it is not the seeing but the eating of bread that suffices to feed the body, so the soul must truly and deeply become partaker of Christ that it may be quickened to spiritual life by his power . . . In this way, the Lord intended, by calling himself ‘the bread of life’ (John 6:51), to teach not only that salvation for us rests on faith in his death and resurrection, but also that, by true partaking of him, his life passes into us and is made ours — just as bread when taken as food imparts vigour to the body.34
Christ often used very vivid language to impress spiritual truth upon men’s minds. When speaking with Nicodemus he tells him that he must be ‘born again’. He refers to himself as a ‘vine’ and believers as ‘branches’. These references are obviously not to be taken in a literal sense. Again, in Matthew 5:29-30 Jesus says:
And if your right eye makes you stumble, tear it out, and throw it from you; for it is better for you that one of the parts of your body perish, than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. And if your right hand makes you stumble, cut it off, and throw it from you; for it is better for you that one of the parts of your body perish, than for your whole body to go into hell.
Christ is obviously using starkly realistic language to convey an important spiritual truth: the necessity for radical repentance from sin. He speaks in physical terms but we are not meant to take his words in a literal, physical sense. Precisely the same is true with his teaching in John 6 and his words at the institution of the Lord’s Supper. To interpret all his words in those passages literally would adopt an interpretation which directly contradicts the teaching of Scripture.
Jesus himself teaches us that the Church is to observe the Supper ‘in remembrance of me’. The word remembrance is the Greek word which literally means a memorial. The Supper is no altar of sacrifice, but a table of remembrance, a place of spiritual communion with the Saviour by his Spirit. To teach that Christ has instituted a means whereby his sacrifice can be perpetuated through time is to contradict the plain teaching of Scripture.
This becomes yet clearer from the identification of the Lord’s Supper with the Passover memorial of the Old Testament. The Lord’s Supper was first celebrated at the time of the Jewish Passover and Jesus specifically identifies it as an equivalent when he says: ‘I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer’ (Luke 22:15). What exactly was the Passover? It was an annual feast established by God in which the Jews would remember the night in which the angel of death ‘passed over’ those families which had applied the blood of the lamb to their door-posts (Exod. 12:1-13). ‘Now this day will be a memorial to you, and you shall celebrate it as a feast to the Lord; throughout your generations you are to celebrate it as a permanent ordinance’ (Exod. 12:14). This was a ‘memorial’ to a specific act of God in redeeming his people from bondage and death. The ‘memorial’ served to bring to remembrance an important event. It did not repeat the event but kept it vivid in the memory through a physical representation.
Just as God instituted a memorial of remembrance of redemption in the Old Testament, he has done the same in the New Testament. 1 Corinthians 5:7 states, ‘For Christ our Passover also has been sacrificed.’ His death is an accomplished fact. Now we are called, not to a sacrifice, but to a feast: ‘Let us therefore celebrate the feast . . . with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth’ (1 Cor. 5:8). When Christ states that the bread is to be eaten and the wine drunk in remembrance of him, he is employing the same language as that of the Old Testament memorial in reference to the Passover. The Lord’s Supper is not a sacrifice, it is the commemoration of a sacrifice.
The Roman Catholic teaching of the eucharist contradicts Scripture and it cannot be validated by the unanimous consent of the Fathers. To teach men to put trust in the eucharist as a sacrificial event is to undermine the gospel of Jesus Christ. It is to deny the sufficiency of his once-for-all sacrifice on the cross of Calvary. To suggest in any way that men must rely upon anything but Christ and his cross as God’s means for dealing with sin is to lead men to a false trust and a false gospel.(http://www.the-highway.com/eucharist_Webster.html)