From Jesuit to Jesus

I began my Catholic journey in a little country town in northern California in the U.S.A. The town was so small that we did not have Mass every Sunday, but a priest used to come once a month if he possibly could to hold Mass in a big public hall.

I have both an older and a younger brother. My father had been trained at the University of Santa Clara. As a result, my parents thought it would be a good idea for us to attend a Catholic boarding school. The Jesuits ran the school and I was a student there for four years. Academically it was a very good school, but the only type of religion to which we were exposed was Catholic theology and tradition with no emphasis on the Bible.

Desire to Serve God and Mankind As graduation approached I considered what I should do with my life. I thought that becoming a Jesuit priest could be a good way to honor and serve God and help mankind; that was all I knew. At that time, even when I left high school, I had a longing and a hunger in my heart to meet God and to know Him. In fact, once when I was a senior (fourth and final year) in high school, I remember going out to the football field and just kneeling there in the dark with my arms up to the sky. I cried out saying, ”God, God, where are You?” I really had a hunger for God.

Jesuit Seminary I entered the Jesuit Order in 1953 after graduation from high school. When I entered the Order, the first thing that happened was that I was told I had to keep all the rules and regulations, that to do so would be pleasing to God, and that is what He wanted for me. We were taught the motto, ”Keep the rule and the rule will keep you.”

We read a lot about the lives of the saints, and right from the beginning I was trained to look at them as models to follow, not realizing that they had become saints because they had served the Catholic Church. I did seminary studies for a total of 13 years, taking course after course and studying one thing after another. It finally ended in a study of theology culminating in ordination in 1966.

Hunger for God But No Peace I still had a hunger in my heart for God. I hadn't met the Lord yet and still didn't have peace. In fact, at that time I used to smoke and I was very nervous. I would pace back and forth in my room puffing one cigarette after another because of my inner unrest. I entered a post graduate program in Rome thinking I would be on top of the mountain, but the hunger in my heart persisted. I even spoke to a priest who was in charge of missionaries to Africa, since I wanted to go there as a missionary. I was aware that if I went to Africa, however, the only thing I could do was to tell people about what I had learned about the Catholic doctrines and what the Catholic Church had to offer, even though it had not satisfied me. I did not see how it could satisfy them either.

I studied during the years of Vatican Council II (1962-1965) and was ordained a year after it ended. The documents from Vatican Council II were coming out from Rome and I thought everything would change. It was a time of discovery. I thought I would get to the rock bottom truth, and this would change the world. This idea was the force that drove me. But I was not aware of any changes, as the same Catholic doctrines from the Council of Trent were still in place. So I did not go to Africa but returned to California, where God had a surprise in store for me.

Leading a Prayer Group While at a retreat house where I said Mass, a lady asked me if I would lead a home prayer group in her home. I had never led a prayer meeting in my life and did not know how it worked, but I thought that as I had been trained for all those years, I should be qualified to do it and assented. It was held every Thursday from 10 a.m. until noon. A group of people would gather and read only the Bible, sing praises to the Lord, and pray for one another's needs. I was still smoking at that time. Early on the morning when the prayer meeting was due to take place, I paced back and forth and thought, ”Oh, why did I say I was going to go there?” I had not been at all enthusiastic about going, but when noon came, I did not want to leave. The power of the Biblical Word was beginning to touch my heart and life.

Surprised by God's Grace The great surprise that the Lord had in store for me happened in this way. One night we went to a retreat house with a group of people from the home prayer meeting. The speaker asked at the end of his address, ”Now if there is anyone here who is hungry for God and has not been touched by God and wants God to touch his life, then come forward and we will pray for you.” It happened that a lady called Sonia came up to me and asked, ”Would you please ask my husband Joe to go forward and get prayed for?” I told her, ”Sonia, I can't do that. That wouldn't really be honest because I haven't been prayed for myself, so how can I ask him to go forward?” Now I am about six feet four inches tall and she was a very short lady. I will never forget it; she looked me in the face and put her finger up to me and said, ”I think you need to get prayed for yourself.” I laughed and said, ”Yes, I do.” What she did not realize was that there was great hunger in my heart. After all the years of studying I had not met God. I read my Bible at the prayer meetings, but I still did not know the sovereign God of the Bible or myself as a lost sinner before Him.

This was the moment I prayed that God would change me, so I went forward and they laid hands on me and prayed over me. It was not because of any works that either they or I did, but it was truly by God's grace that I was born again. Jesus became real, the Bible became real. I just became a fire in the love of God. He changed my life. To those who read this, He is real and life changing. JESUS CHANGED MY LIFE. ”Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost” (Titus 3:5).

We Try to be Bible Based It was August 1970 when God's grace truly touched me. I began working in the charismatic movement, which was a fresh movement in the Catholic Church. While there were all kinds of decrees and dogmas coming out of Rome, the movement at the beginning tried to have just one manual - the Bible.

We started a prayer group in a high school and it grew so large we had to move to a gymnasium. Before long we had 800 to 1,000 people coming every Friday night. We were stressing praise and worshiping and glorifying God. Based in the gymna sium where there were no statues or any other such thing, we tried to stay in the Bible.

I had a lot to learn. It took me many years to realize that I was compromising by staying in the Roman Catholic Church. Throughout all of those years I continued to stress that salvation is only in the finished work of Jesus Christ on the cross and not in infant baptism; that there is only one source of authority which is the Bible, the Word of God; and that there is no purgatory but rather that when we die we either go to heaven or hell, etc.

Here is where the conflict came. Seeing people depend upon such false and deceiving beliefs for their salvation was heart wrenching to me. I felt that maybe God could use me to change things in the Catholic Church. I even had prayer sessions with people who felt the same way. We prayed that God would change the Roman Catholic Church so that we could remain Catholics. But to remain Catholic, I now see, is to be living a compromised life.

Conviction By the Holy Spirit I finally realized after much conviction of the Holy Spirit that not giving myself totally to Him, one hundred percent, was grieving my Lord, as I was sinning a sin of compromise. I also came to realize that the Roman Catholic Church cannot change. If it did change, there would be no Pope, no rosary, no purgatory, no priests, no mass, etc. After 17 years of brainwashing, I got my brain washed and cleansed by the Holy Spirit. In a word, what was happening to me over this period is explained in Romans 12:1-2. ”I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God” (Romans 12:1-2)

Research In India By this time I had met another priest who has since left the Church of Rome. He was preaching the same kind of thing, spending half of the year in India and half in the United States. Victor Affonso was also a Jesuit, and I told him I thought it would be wonderful to go to India and to do some missionary work there. We could research the dogma and doctrines of the Catholic Church.

I went to India in 1986 and spent six months there doing missionary work. We were also able to spend a month with a group of people researching Catholic dogma in the light of the Scriptures. We were determined to follow what the Bible said; if Catholic doctrines contradicted that, we would reject them. We saw that Jesus said, ”Come unto Me,” and that in the Gospels we are told to pray to our Father in Jesus' name, never to a saint or to Mary. The disciples did not pray to Stephen, who died very early in the Acts of the Apostles, or to James, who was killed very early. Why would they do that when they had the resurrected Jesus with them? He said, ”For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.” (Matthew 18:20) They prayed to Jesus; they prayed to the Father; they had the guidance of the Holy Spirit and obeyed the commandments of God.

In India we discovered that the Catholic catechism had changed the Ten Commandments from the way they were in the Bible. In the Roman Catholic catechism, the first commandment is as it is in Scripture. The second commandment in the catechism is, ”You shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.” This is a complete change from the Bible. The third commandment of the Bible has been moved up to the second. The original second commandment as is found in Scripture has been dropped. Virtually all of the catechisms drop the second commandment of the Bible. For example, the New Baltimore Catechism, Question 195, answers, ”The commandme nts of God are these ten: (1) I am the Lord thy God, thou shalt not have strange gods before; (2) Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain,” etc.

In the Bible, the second commandment declares, ”Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me; And shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandment.” (Exodus 20:4-6). God forbids us to bow down before these or to serve them, yet there are pictures of the Pope bowing down and kissing the statues.

We were bothered that this commandment had been dropped out of the catechism. So now we might well ask, ”How do we get ten commandments? What the catechisms do is divide the last commandment (formerly the tenth, now split into the ninth and tenth). ”Do not covet thy neighbor's wife” is listed as a separate commandment from that of not coveting his goods. This is quite a distortion of the Bible. I was discovering dogmas and doctrines that directly contradicted the Scriptures.

Mary and the Mass We also investigated the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception. This is defined as ”the doctrine that Mary was conceived without sin; at the first moment of conception there was no sin there.” This contradicts Romans 3:23 which says, ”For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.” Here we had a doctrine, a tradition that is passed down and solemnly defined as infallibly true, and it contradicts what is in the Bible.

Then we came to one of the biggest areas of conflict. It had to do with the sacrifice of the Mass. The official Catholic position on the sacrifice of the Mass is that it is a continuation of the sacrifice of Calvary. The Council of Trent actually defined it this way: ”And since in this divine sacrifice, which is celebrated in the Mass, that same Christ is contained and immolated in an unbloody manner, who on the altar of the cross 'once offered Himself' in a bloody manner (Hebrews 9:27), the holy Synod teaches that this is truly propitiatory... For it is one and the same victim, the same one now offering by the ministry of the priests as He who then offered Himself on the Cross, the manner of offering alone being different...” (Denzinger 940).

Some people might say the Council of Trent is not valid any more and that things have changed. But Cardinal Ratzinger, head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (which is the old Holy Office), in a book called The Ratzinger Report, said, ”It is likewise impossible to decide in favor of Trent and Vatican I, but against Vatican II. Whoever denies Vatican II denies the authority that upholds the other two councils and thereby detaches them from their foundation.” Catechisms say the same thing, that the Mass is the same sacrifice as that of the cross. For example, the New Baltimore Catechism says, ”The Mass is the same sacrifice as the sacrifice of the cross because in the Mass the victim is the same, and the principal priest is the same, Jesus Christ.” Yet in Hebrews 10:18 it says that, ”Now where remission of these is, there is no more offering for sin.” So Scripture makes it very clear. In fact, eight times in four chapters, beginning in chapter seven of the letter to the Hebrews, it says ”once for all” and there was one offering for sin, once for all!!!

Finished Sacrifice Anyone who has attended Mass in the Catholic Church will remember the prayer said by the priest, ”Pray brethren, that our sacrifice may be acceptable to God, the Almighty Father.” This is a very serious prayer. The people respond saying the same thing, asking that the sacrifice may be acceptable to God. But this is contrary to the Word of God because the sacrifice has already been accepted. When Jesus was on the cross, He said ”It is finished” (John 19:30) and we know that it was completed because Jesus was accepted by the Father and rose from the dead and is now at the right hand of the Father. The Good News that we preach is that Jesus has risen from the dead, that His sacrifice is completed, and that He has paid for all sin. When by God's grace we accept it as the finished sacrifice for our sins, we are saved and have everlasting life. A memorial is a remembrance of something that someone has done for us. Jesus said, ”This do in remembrance of Me.” So anyone who is reading this, or any priest who is saying Mass, must seriously consider the error of the prayer ”Let us pray, my brothers and sisters, that our sacrifice may be acceptable...” The sacrifice has been accepted and it is done. What we are supposed to do when we have the communion service is to do it in memory of what Jesus has done. We see that the sacrifice that Jesus offered on the cross was sufficient and final. It cannot be added to or re-enacted.

Can the Mass Atone for Sin? The Catholic Church says that the Mass is a propitiatory sacrifice effective to take away the sins of those on earth and those who have died. That is why, to this very day, even though some people will say that the church in some places does not believe in purgatory, still virtually every Mass that is said is for someone who has died. It is believed that the Mass will shorten their time in purgatory. That is why it is said for dead people. When a person dies, judgment immediately follows, ”And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment.” (Hebrews 9:27) If they are saved, they go directly to heaven; if they remain in their sins, they go to hell. There is nothing to change one from hell to heaven. Yet the Catholic Church believes that the Mass, being a propitiatory sacrifice, will decrease the time in purgatory. But all the suffering and all the atonement that was ever made for sins was accomplished by Jesus on the cross, and we need to accept this truth. We need to receive everlasting life and to be born again while we are still alive. There is no Biblical evidence to support the idea that after death we can experience any kind of change.

To be Right Before God We then began to study what the Catholic Church teaches on salvation. It is a doctrine of the Catholic Church that we can be saved by being baptized as infants. Present day canon law says, ”Baptism, the gate to the sacraments, necessary for salvation, in fact, or at least in intention, by which men and women are freed from their sins, reborn as children of God, configured to Christ...” (Canon 849) What that means is that the Catholic Church says that when a little baby is baptized, it is saved and has everlasting life by virtue of baptism. But that is not true. Jesus never said anything like that, neither is there a word in the Bible about anything like that happening. There is no limbo! Jesus said, ”Suffer the little children to come unto me...” The Bible always says we are saved when we accept that Christ Jesus totally paid the price of our sin so that His right standing with God becomes ours. ”For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him” (II Corinthians 5:21).

Christ Work or Works? The Catholic Church then goes on to say that in order to be saved you must keep its laws, rules and regulations. And if these laws are violated (for example, birth control or fasting or attendance at Mass every Sunday), then you have committed a sin. The Catholic Church says in canon law of the present day that if you commit a serious sin, that sin must be forgiven by confessing that sin to a priest; ”Individual and integral confession and absolution constitute the only ordinary way by which the faithful person who is aware of serious sin can be reconciled with God, and with the Church...” (Canon 9609) The Catholic Church says that this is the way sins are forgiven, the ordinary way that sins are forgiven. The Bible says that if we repent in our heart and believe on His finished sacrifice that we are saved. We are saved by grace, not by our works. The Catholic Church adds works, in that you have to do these specific things in order to be saved, whereas the Bible says in Ephesians 2:8-9 that it is by grace that we are saved, not by works. The Bible makes it very clear that we are saved by grace. It is a free gift given by God, not because of any works we do. ”For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God; not of works, lest any man should boast” (Ephesians 2:8-9). ”And if by grace then it is no more of works; otherwise grace is no more grace. But if it be of works, then is it no more grace; otherwise work is no more work” (Romans 11:6).

I Leave India and More . . . We examined these and many other doctrines while we were in India, and as I left, I knew that I could not represent the Catholic Church any longer. I began to see that Roman Catholic dogmas which contradict Scripture are so rooted that they cannot be changed.

The Catholic charismatic movement today has gone back to these fundamental dogmas and doctrines of Rome. It maintains and holds onto these, and so that whole movement has been totally undermined. The Catholic charismatic movement is not a fresh breath of air blowing through the church, changing everything by moving it back to the Bible. Everything cannot get back to the Bible because the Catholic Church will not let it go back that far. The Catholic Church is not going to let go of the Mass and let it be a memorial as Jesus said. It will always insist that the Mass is an ongoing continuation of the sacrifice of Jesus. The Catholic Church will not let go of the dogma that little babies are reborn and receive eternal life at baptism, even though infant baptism was not practised in the early church. It did not begin until the third century, and it was not universally practised until the fifth century. The Catholic Church is not going to let go of or of all the other requirements that are put upon their people.

Now I sincerely do love Catholics and want to help them. I want to help them find the freedom of salvation and the life and blessing that comes from following the Scriptures. And I have nothing against any Catholic or any priest; it is the dogmas and doctrines that keep them bound. God Himself wants to loose them. In Chapter Seven of Mark, Jesus said, ”For laying aside the commandments of God, ye hold the tradition of men....” That is the problem we are facing right here. These traditions destroy the very Word of God because they contradict its truths. When I left India and came home, I knew that I was facing the biggest change of my life. It was a time of great distress for me because I had really totally believed in the Roman Catholic Church and had served it for so much of my life. I knew when I came back I was going to have to leave the Church of Rome.

I am a free man because His truth has set me free. I no longer walk with one foot in the Bible and one in tradition. I walk based on the absolute authority of His written Word. I follow the Scripture as the sole source of authority for revealed truth. Jesus said, ”Sanctify them through Thy truth: Thy word is truth” (John 17:17).

My Parents and Providence At that time, I was experiencing a great deal of suffering. I came home to my parents, both of whom were over eighty, and one night we had a serious conversation. I told them what I was going to do; I told them that I was saved by God's grace and I was going to leave the Catholic Church for doctrinal reasons. There was a big pause and my father said, speaking very slowly, ”Bob, you know, both your mother and I have been thinking the same thing.” They went to one more Mass and came home and said, ”Do you know that is an altar in front of the church? An altar is a place of sacrifice.” And he said, ”I see clearly now there is no more sacrifice.” Both my mother and father began reading the Bible and following it. In 1989 my mother died reading the Word of God and with the peace and assurance that she had everlasting life and was going to go to be with the Lord forever. On June 6, 1992, God gave me the greatest gift God can give a person besides salvation, my beautiful wife, Joan. My dad passed away in 1993 with a prayer on his lips for those he left behind. He had written his own testimony to the grace of God, and while quite old had witnessed to others even in the retirement home.

The Bible -- The Authority of Truth In 1987 I left the Catholic Church formally by writing a letter of resignation and then corresponding back and forth with my former superiors because I wanted to witness to all of them. I ended up writing to Rome before I left. I did it in that manner because I wanted to witness to all of them and give them reasons why I was leaving. I wanted to follow the Bible. The Pope, who is held up as a leader in Christendom, holds onto things that contradict the Bible. It is very important to everyone to know that in the Code of Canon Law Canon 333 says, ”There is neither appeal or recourse against a decision or decree of the Roman Pontiff.” That means that the Pope has absolute power and absolute authority. It is summarized in Canon 749, ”The Supreme Pontiff, in virtue of his office, possesses infallible teaching authority whe n as supreme pastor and teacher of all the faithful...he proclaims with a definitive act that a doctrine of faith or morals is to be held as such.” Unfortunately, the Pope is standing for things that contradict the Bible and is now speaking very strongly against the evangelicals of South America as if they were enemies of the Bible. He complains about them and he says they are undermining the church, but the reason he is opposed to them is that they are standing for the ultimate authority of the Scriptures and they do not want to be under his authority.

The whole position of the Pope basically comes from a misunderstanding of Scripture itself in the book of Matthew. Jesus said, ”That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church.” We need to look carefully at this. What rock is He talking about? Just before that, Jesus had asked His disciples, ”Whom do men say that I the Son of man am?” And Peter spoke up and said, ”Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.” And Jesus said, ”Flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but My Father which is in heaven.” And then He said these words, ”...thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church.” The church of Jesus Christ is built upon the Rock Who is Jesus Christ. Peter had received that revelation from God, and every true believer who is born again receives a revelation of who Jesus Christ is. His shed blood on the cross took away our sins, and when we repent and trust in Him alone, we have everlasting life in Him and will live and reign with Jesus forever and ever: Christ is the foundation, the cornerstone, the Rock. The Rock is not the first Peter whom Jesus chose as His disciple with all his failings and so forth, nor is it the Pope of today. The Rock is Jesus Christ. As Peter himself said, ”...Behold, I lay in Zion a chief corner stone, elect, precious: and he that believeth on Him shall not be confounded” (I Peter 2:6). By His grace God has revealed that to me and I stand and build my whole faith on that rock, Jesus, tha t He died to take away my sin and to give me everlasting life.

Present Day I am now an ordained minister, in fellowship with others of the Biblical faith. Do not follow the crowd; seek rather to enter by the narrow way. Do not be offended by the procla mation of the Gospel of God's grace. There is no other way to be saved. Without God's grace each one of us is lost and without hope. Of ourselves we have nothing to offer God. As one hymn says, ”In my hand no price I bring, simply to Thy cross I cling.” Repent of trying to do anything to merit heaven. Trust on Christ's shed blood and that alone. Grace is God's favor that gives us what we do not deserve. As God justifies you with Christ's justification, praise Him, and do all things ”To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved” (Ephesians 1:6).

The Good News This is the Good News I want to share with every reader. When you repent and accept that Jesus died for your sin personally on the cross, His life is yours by faith. ”...to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness” (Romans 4:5). Before God, pray that you do not compromise. Ask the Lord to sanctify you in truth. His Biblical word is truth. Pray that you would stand boldly for His written Word and that alone, that you can proclaim as did the psalmist ”Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path” (Psalms 119:105). In an age of compromise pray like the Lord Jesus Himself and the apostles that your final authority would be the written Word of God. Withstand all temptation to compromise, as did the Lord Himself, with three powerful words: ”IT IS WRITTEN.”

Bob Bush Immediately upon leaving the priesthood and the Catholic Church, he began working as an evangelist in the U.S.A. as well as South and Central America. In 1992 he suffered severe paralysis after a back operation. His joyful bearing of this great handicap has been in itself a testimony to the grace of God. Now as a pastor, evangelist and Christian Radio talk show host he continues to give the word of the Gospel. (209) 847-7123

In her effort to conform NT pastors to her erroneous understanding of the Lord's Supper (“Eucharist”), Catholicism came to render presbuteros” as “priests” (which the RC Douay Rheims Bible inconsistently does: Acts 20:17; Titus 1:5), and sometimes “episkopos,” in order to support a distinctive NT sacerdotal priesthood in the church, but which the Holy Spirit never does. For the word which the Holy Spirit distinctively uses for priests*, is “hiereus” or “archiereus.” (Heb. 4:15; 10:11) and which is never used for NT pastors, nor does the words presbuteros (senior/elder) or episkopos (superintendent/overseer) which He does use for NT pastors mean "priest." Presbuteros or episkopos do not denote a unique sacrificial function, and hiereus (as archiereus=chief priests) is used in distinction to elders in such places as Lk. 22:66; Acts 22:5.

You misunderstood the meaning of my post. You correctly point out the difference between presbuteros and heireus. This distinction is kept in Latin with presbyter and sacerdos. English, however, has failed to maintain two separate words. The English word "priest" can refer to either the sacrificial office of hiereus or the New Testament office of presbuteros. This is why in these discussions I like to stay with the Greek terms. I was not claiming that the Catholic priesthood was the same as the Temple office of heireus. But there was in the New Testament the offices of epsicopos, presbuteros and deaconos. This second office continues today and in English is call "priest", a word which is indeed derived from the original Greek term for the office. It is because of the lack of an unique English term for heireus that the English word for the office of presbuteros has been applied to it. BTW, Latin texts upon which Catholic theology is based still make a distinction between the terms presbyter and sacerdos.

Catholic writer Greg Dues in "Catholic Customs & Traditions, a popular guide," states, "Priesthood as we know it in the Catholic church was unheard of during the first generation of Christianity, because at that time priesthood was still associated with animal sacrifices in both the Jewish and pagan religions." "When the Eucharist came to be regarded as a sacrifice [after Rome's theology], the role of the bishop took on a priestly dimension. By the third century bishops were considered priests. Presbyters or elders sometimes substituted for the bishop at the Eucharist. By the end of the third century people all over were using the title 'priest' (hierus in Greek and sacerdos in Latin) for whoever presided at the Eucharist."

Dues is speaking here of the use of the term heireus/sacerdos not the English term "priest" thus it does not apply to the use of the word in English for the office of presbuteros. As for his claim that the Eucharist came to be regarded as a sacrifice only later in the 3rd century he is just wrong:

The Didache
"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]).

Pope Clement I
"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]).

Ignatius of Antioch
"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]).

Justin Martyr
"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]).

Irenaeus
"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]).

English, however, has failed to maintain two separate words

That simply is not the case. If one uses a dictioary approach to discovering modern English usage, the distinction in English initiated by Tyndale to reflect the distinction in Greek has now run for half a millennium and is still going strong. From Merriam-Webster Online:

Priest: one authorized to perform the sacred rites of a religion especially as a mediatory agent between humans and God; specifically : an Anglican, Eastern Orthodox, or Roman Catholic clergyman ranking below a bishop and above a deacon

Elder:
1: one living in an earlier period
2
    a : one who is older : senior <a child trying to please her elders>
    b : an aged person
3: one having authority by virtue of age and experience <the village elders>
4: any of various officers of religious groups: as
    a : presbyter
    b : a permanent officer elected by a Presbyterian congregation and ordained to serve on the session and assist the pastor at communion
    c : minister
d : a leader of the Shakers
e : a Mormon ordained to the Melchizedek priesthood

A case can be made that there can be overlapping uses of the two terms, such as when a Roman Catholic priest is described in terms of his non-sacerdotal duties, i.e., those that would be identical to any Presbyterian or Baptist elder or minister. But when, as you concede, the Vulgate itself maintains the Greek's distinction between presbyter and sacerdos, why is it at all wrong for Tyndale and his progeny to provide a means of recognizing that distinction in English? Particularly when that distinction has been spectacularly successful in disentangling the Christian minister's duties of governance and spiritual oversight from the outmoded sacerdotal duties of the OT priesthood, rendered entirely obsolete by the only remaining arch-hiereus (high priest), Jesus Christ? Only Jesus retains the sacerdotal aspect of the priestly office in fulfillment of the OT typology of priest and temple. Overseers and elders are caretakers of the Ecclesia, undershepherds of the one sheep-fold, but not mediators offering sacrifices on behalf of an invented underclass of believers.

As for whether the early believers viewed the Eucharist as a sacrifice in the sense presented by transubstantiation, it is egregiously anachronistic to read back into those early texts a meaning that clearly took centuries to evolve. For example, you cite to the Didache, but nothing in the text of that document suggests a sacrifice in the nature of an offering for sin. Indeed, the name "eucharist" itself is an expression of thanksgiving. The entire meal is viewed here, not in terms of propitiation, but in terms of thanksgiving. This is reinforced by Scripture:

Hebrews 13:15-16 By him therefore let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is, the fruit of our lips giving thanks to his name. (16) But to do good and to communicate forget not: for with such sacrifices God is well pleased.

This is particularly significant coming from the writer of Hebrews because he has just spent the preceding 12 chapters disabusing his readers of the false idea that any further sacrifices of propitiation, i.e., for the removal of sin, are needed, in that Jesus accomplished the entire work of propitiation, once for all, past tense, obsoleting the entire OT sacerdotal system. Therefore we can be absolutely certain that sacrifice (thusia) as used here, while it has an etymological connection to animal sacrifice, is NOT being used as an additive to the one-time sacrifice of Christ for sins, but is describing instead a natural response of the believing heart, the desire to offer our praise to God in thanksgiving for all He has done for us.

And such praise is a true sacrifice as against our fallen nature, because in our sin and pride we have ourselves as the centers of our universe, and tend to think we deserve the good things that come to us, and this discourages a spirit of thanksgiving and praise. Very often, in our darkest moments, we are bitterly tempted to turn entirely inward, and even the thought of praise in those moments, because of our sin, can seem awkward and unnatural, insincere. But it remains our duty, because no matter what we may be feeling due to our weakness of faith, His matchless glory is undiminished, He is still the mighty Savior, Who has rescued us and delivered us from the hand of the oppressor, and as such He is still worthy to be praised and thanked, most of all for the darkness and sorrow He Himself was willing to endure on our behalf, to give us life through His death. And so our praise is offered to Him, in good times and bad, for better, for worse, always, and under all circumstances, we offer to him from ourselves a willing witness and testimony to His goodness and love to us. If this is our small sacrifice, it does not absolve us of sin, as His sacrifice for us does, but it is still a sacrifice, and still and always the right response of a believing heart.

Romans 12:1 I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.

Peace,

SR

You misunderstood the meaning of my post. You correctly point out the difference between presbuteros and heireus. This distinction is kept in Latin with presbyter and sacerdos. English, however, has failed to maintain two separate words. The English word "priest" can refer to either the sacrificial office of hiereus or the New Testament office of presbuteros. This is why in these discussions I like to stay with the Greek terms.

Then stay with the Greek, rather than defining presbuteros by what is morphed into! In reality, RCs do not want to stay with the Greek, but want to define it by what it came to denote due to imposed equivalence, not what it originally meant, which made distinction btwn hiereus and presbuteros. .

. But there was in the New Testament the offices of epsicopos, presbuteros and deaconos. This second office continues today and in English is call "priest", a word which is indeed derived from the original Greek term for the office.

It indeed was derived, via Latin, yet even a Catholic forum will tell you that “the Latin word presbyter has no lingual or morphological relationship with the Latin word sacerdos, but only an inherited semantical relationship.” - http://catholicforum.fisheaters.com/index.php?topic=744379.0;wap2z

Instead presbuteros became priest under the premise that the primary function of NT pastors was that of engaging in the "sacrifice" of the mass, an imposed functional equivalence that the Holy Spirit did not make by ever titling presbuteros/epsicopos (one office: Titus 1:5-7) hiereus,

And having presumed to help the Holy Spirit (again), RCs defend it by or and in a un etymological fallacy "that holds, erroneously, that the present-day meaning of a word or phrase should necessarily be similar to its historical meaning. This is a linguistic misconception.."

Dues is speaking here of the use of the term heireus/sacerdos not the English term "priest" thus it does not apply to the use of the word in English for the office of presbuteros.

Of course it applies, as the presumed primary sacrificial function denotes priests is behind a distinctive class of clergy being titled that. Yet for NT pastors it is prayer and preaching the word, (Acts 6:3) which they are abundantly shown doing and instructed to do, and never even shown officiating a the Lord's supper in bread making and dispensing. All the believers were to told to to share food, showing the Lord's death by that communal meal, as described here .

. As for his claim that the Eucharist came to be regarded as a sacrifice only later in the 3rd century he is just wrong: ]

He did not even say claim that the Eucharist came to be regarded as a sacrifice only later in the 3rd century, but that "Priesthood as we know it in the Catholic church was unheard of during the first generation of Christianity," and " When the Eucharist came to be regarded as a sacrifice [after Rome's theology], the role of the bishop took on a priestly dimension."By the third century bishops were considered priests."

Thus he says by the 200 AD+ period, and as , even praise is a sacrifice ,Dues may be referring to a more widespread understanding of the Eucharist as an atonement for sin, offered by priests, as per Hebrews 5:1 regarding OT priestly duty, , "that he [the HP] may offer both gifts and sacrifices for sins.' (Hebrews 5:1) In any case, that the Lord's supper is an sacrifice for sin, versus declaring it, is not what it is manifest to be in the NT., which is the unchanging standard regardless of the varied and changeable misunderstandings of pious men.

Irenaeus

Came across this but have not read it all , and though you might want to: http://www.whitehorseblog.com/2014/07/27/eating-ignatius/

That simply is not the case. If one uses a dictioary approach to discovering modern English usage, the distinction in English initiated by Tyndale to reflect the distinction in Greek has now run for half a millennium and is still going strong. From Merriam-Webster Online:
Priest: one authorized to perform the sacred rites of a religion especially as a mediatory agent between humans and God; specifically : an Anglican, Eastern Orthodox, or Roman Catholic clergyman ranking below a bishop and above a deacon
You should have included from Merriam-Webster:

Origin of PRIEST
Middle English preist, from Old English prēost, ultimately from Late Latin presbyter — more at presbyter
First Known Use: before 12th century

What we are discussing is not what other Christian denominations use to describe their clergy but the English usage for the present office of presbuteros which is an historical continuation of of the ancient office described in the Bible. This office only exists today in the Catholic and Orthodox churches and the term that they use is "priest". This is even acknowledged in the Merriam-Webster definition that you quoted (albeit including the Anglicans) when it states: "specifically : an Anglican, Eastern Orthodox, or Roman Catholic clergyman ranking below a bishop and above a deacon." That some non-Catholic churches chose to translate presbuteros as "elder" for their newly created clergy has no bearing in what the English term is for the continuing office of presbuteros that exists in the Catholic and Orthodox churches.

As for whether the early believers viewed the Eucharist as a sacrifice in the sense presented by transubstantiation, it is egregiously anachronistic to read back into those early texts a meaning that clearly took centuries to evolve. For example, you cite to the Didache, but nothing in the text of that document suggests a sacrifice in the nature of an offering for sin.

While you might be able to make an argument that the Didache and perhaps Pope Clement are speaking metaphorically, you cannot do so for the other authors I cited:

Ignatius of Antioch
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…
Justin Martyr
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.
Irenaeus
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…

As for the sense presented by transubstantiation, we have the words of Justin Martyr:

And this food is called among us Εὐχαριστία [the Eucharist], of which no one is allowed to partake but the man who believes that the things which we teach are true, and who has been washed with the washing that is for the remission of sins, and unto regeneration, and who is so living as Christ has enjoined. For not as common bread and common drink do we receive these; but in like manner as Jesus Christ our Saviour, having been made flesh by the Word of God, had both flesh and blood for our salvation, so likewise have we been taught that the food which is blessed by the prayer of His word, and from which our blood and flesh by transmutation are nourished, is the flesh and blood of that Jesus who was made flesh. For the apostles, in the memoirs composed by them, which are called Gospels, have thus delivered unto us what was enjoined upon them; that Jesus took bread, and when He had given thanks, said, "This do in remembrance of Me, this is My body"; and that, after the same manner, having taken the cup and given thanks, He said, "This is My blood"; and gave it to them alone.

You are either misunderstanding or misrepresenting the Catholic teaching on the Mass as a sacrifice. The Mass is not a further sacrifice nor is it an additive to the one-time sacrifice of Christ, it is that one-time sacrifice of Jesus on the Cross made present to us. The Catholic Church has repeated this so often for the last 500 years that it is hard to believe that a Protestant in good faith can still make the false claim that Catholics believe that we are repeating the sacrifice of Jesus Christ or making a new sacrifice.

>>Since it is only discipline no one said that it was God’s will.>>

God’s will should be the one and only measure for everything.

>>On the other hand, it cannot be shown that it is against God’s will either.>>

Scripture gives qualifications for leadership, and it doesn’t disqualify those who marry. So what exactly was the reasoning for rejecting the ways established by Jesus and those He chose to walk with Him, and to see Him after His Resurrection, and to fundamentally change the Church in so many ways? In fact, to establish a hard-and-fast rule that married men couldn’t have received a call from God to the highest offices of the Church, although in the Church as Jesus established it, they did.

>>Jesus gave Peter the power to bind and loose, thus the Church possesses the authority to regulate its internal life.>>

Yes, to Peter, who was a disciple of His AND, even more so, saw Him resurrected, an experience that transformed the apostles. “Rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft.” The power to “bind and loose” is never one not under the headship of Christ, meaning whatever is done must be done in the spirit of submitting fully to God’s will.

>>For this to be operative there must be a recognized and visible leadership in the Church with the authority to do so. This only exists in the Catholic and Orthodox churches. >

Sometimes I wonder what Catholics of today would have made of Jesus when He walked the earth, and specifically if they would have accepted Him, since He angered the Jewish authorities by healing on the Sabbath and allowing His disciples to eat from the fields on the Sabbath as well, saying the Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath.

“After a first and second warning, break off contact with a heretic, 11 realizing that such a person is perverted and sinful and stands self-condemned.” Titus 3:10-11, Catholic Bible

Vote on paragraph approving of gay unions: 118-62.
http://rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/2014/10/over-half-bishops-in-synod-have-already.html?m=1

Nearly two-thirds of the Catholic leaders at this synod voted to approve homosexuality! Each that did is a heretic, and not just in the Church, but in the highest reaches of leadership! As each of them doesn’t look at homosexual behavior as a sin to repent of, how can they actually be said to believe the Gospel? They don’t, and in their job of overseeing their flocks, they bring their heresy to everything they do. Again, each one of these high Catholic leaders is a proven heretic. Titus 3:10-11 is talking about any heretic, any place in the Church, because wherever they are, they do damage. But out of the billion or so Catholics, IIRC, these are highest LEADERS, and open and unrepentant heretics which the Catholic Church does nothing about. Unbelievable! And how did things get to that point? Do you think radically altering the Church from what Jesus established might have had something to do with it?

What we are discussing is not what other Christian denominations use to describe their clergy but the English usage for the present office of presbuteros which is an historical continuation of of the ancient office described in the Bible. This office only exists today in the Catholic and Orthodox churches and the term that they use is "priest". This is even acknowledged in the Merriam-Webster definition that you quoted (albeit including the Anglicans) when it states: "specifically : an Anglican, Eastern Orthodox, or Roman Catholic clergyman ranking below a bishop and above a deacon." That some non-Catholic churches chose to translate presbuteros as "elder" for their newly created clergy has no bearing in what the English term is for the continuing office of presbuteros that exists in the Catholic and Orthodox churches.

But that is begging the question, assuming the answer you favor in the framing of the discussion. We do not assume that "priest" conveys in English the office described in the New Testament under the term presbuteros. As Daniel has twice now pointed out, you are apparently relying on simply the raw etymology to sustain your theory of semantic continuity. That is not good lexicography. Semantically, the English "priest," thought it may represent a contracted, Latinized version of what started out in Greek as presbuteros (though I have seen arguments for other possible "genetic" histories of the term), in semantic usage presbuteros is far more accurately represented by the English "elder," as an ecclesiastical office, than by "priest," which in English carries with it all the sacerdotal baggage of the Roman evolution.

While you might be able to make an argument that the Didache and perhaps Pope Clement are speaking metaphorically ...

My argument is not that in the early Eucharistic practice we are talking about metaphorical sacrifice versus real sacrifice. I do not reject the idea of metaphor. I simply wasn't using it here. Instead, I am saying the kind of sacrifice envisioned by transubstantiation was not at all in view in those early writings. Rather, the sacrifice of praise is in view. It is no less real, but the one is not a metaphor for the other. They are of two different kinds altogether. One involves a time-honored and entirely spiritual form of offering to God, not done in exchange for forgiveness, but simply to give oneself to God in love. The other involves a bizarre use of Aritstotelian categories to achieve a kind of realism for the paschal meal not contemplated in Scripture or the earliest Christian writers.

Similarly, the realism appealed to in Ignatius and the others is not the realism of transubstantiation. It is not the ontological identity of Christ and the elements. Much of that language in the early Christian writers is directed at the docetists and others that disparaged the physicality of Jesus, the aim being not to demonstrate that the bread is the very substance of Christ, but that Jesus was Himself a real, corporeal being, not a mere apparition, as some supposed, and that therefore the Eucharistic elements had that underlying reality, not in Aquinas' substance versus accidence sense, but closer to Augustine's sense, that the thing the sign pointed to, though not the sign itself, was nonetheless quite real.

For example, in the case of Justin Martyr, he specifically denies consuming human flesh and blood:

For I myself, too, when I was delighting in the doctrines of Plato, and heard the Christians slandered, and saw them fearless of death, and of all other-things which are counted fearful, perceived that it was impossible that they could be living in wickedness and pleasure. For what sensual or intemperate man, or who that counts it good to feast on human flesh, could welcome death that he might be deprived of his enjoyments, and would not rather continue always the present life, and attempt to escape the observation of the rulers; and much less would he denounce himself when the consequence would be death? This also the wicked demons have now caused to be done by evil men. For having put some to death on account of the accusations falsely brought against us, they also dragged to the torture our domestics, either children or weak women, and by dreadful torments forced them to admit those fabulous actions which they themselves openly perpetrate; about which we are the less concerned, because none of these actions are really ours, and we have the unbegotten and ineffable God as witness both of our thoughts and deeds.

Available here: http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0127.htm

Again, Justin Martyr cannot be discussing transubstantiation, because Radbertus (9th Century) had not yet invented it, nor Aquinas perfected it, nor Trent anathematized the rejection of it. If you reread him very carefully in the quote you gave, and set aside the artificial categories created for you by these later innovators, you will notice there is no affirmation of swapped substances, with only accidents remaining. But rather his words are compatible with his assessment above, that the accusation of eating human flesh is false. The later hyper-realism represented by transubstantiation is obviously unknown to him, or he would not have been able to make such an unqualified denial of eating human flesh, unless he were to deny the flesh of Jesus was human, which is of course absurd.

The fact that this comment rests at ease in the same mind with the other comment should suggest to us he is using some other model than transubstantiation to understand what it means for the bread and wine mixed with water to be the body and blood of Jesus. And other such models exist that would be fully compatible with both the directness of the imagery and the uncomplicated rejection of eating human flesh. One such model might be called an immersive metaphor, a way of seeing the elements as such a clear window to the underlying reality, that the mind barely notices the lens of the metaphor, but looks right through the lens to only see what the metaphor is pointing to. Yet push come to shove, and accusations of cannibalism being given, he is easily able to cast off those charges as totally untrue. That is, untrue in any corporeal sense. Because for Justin Martyr, as truly as the bread and wine are in some sense the body and blood of Jesus, it is equally true that no corporeal human flesh is consumed in the Eucharist.

You are either misunderstanding or misrepresenting the Catholic teaching on the Mass as a sacrifice. The Mass is not a further sacrifice nor is it an additive to the one-time sacrifice of Christ, it is that one-time sacrifice of Jesus on the Cross made present to us. The Catholic Church has repeated this so often for the last 500 years that it is hard to believe that a Protestant in good faith can still make the false claim that Catholics believe that we are repeating the sacrifice of Jesus Christ or making a new sacrifice.

I assure you it is not my intent to either misrepresent or misconstrue the Roman theory of the mass, and I welcome your offered refinements to my understanding. However, I reject as invalid the time travel escape hatch so commonly used to avoid the charge of repeating the sacrifice of Christ in the mass. Each time the once-for-all sacrifice is offered, it purports to have new propitiary effect, as if it's first effect was not enough. It is functioning as a new sacrifice each time it is offered. If we do something over and over again, it doesn't matter if we can imagine the source of the repeated event as frozen somewhere in eternal timelessness (a dubious theory in its own right). Repetition is about what we do within our own temporal framework, and in that framework, it is either done or it is not done, we are forgiven entirely when we believe or else forgiven incompletely, on the installment plan. And if, to make up for our lack of feeling forgiven, we make the body and blood of Jesus "present" over and over again as a true sacrifice, each time with new propitiary effect to us, we really are repeating it in practice, though I understand that will be denied in the formal teaching.

But we are not told by the Holy Spirit in Scripture to consider His death continuously present via time travel, nor to consider Christ a perpetual victim. We are enjoined to consider the atonement done and over, the sin debt canceled, the sacrifice that accomplished it to be remembered in the paschal meal, but not to be literally revisited time and time again. God has given us this temporal frame of reference in which we live. We cannot and should not attempt to circumvent it. We only end up fooling ourselves with our fallen imaginations if we try. In reality, this time travel theory is nothing but an inventive way to avoid a blazing obvious contradiction. Temporally speaking, Christ, in His human nature, is not on the cross right now, but in the presence of the Father, interceding for us, preparing to come again for us. In remembering his death for us, we are being told to access, by memory, the past, the time when He was here. We are not being told to access, by a miracle with no footprint in reality, an eternal present in which Christ is endlessly dying. God has the authority to set the rules on how He is worshiped. If He has told us specifically to look to the past regarding Jesus' death, that is what we must do.

Peace,

SR

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