Truth Unites - Is the Eucharist a Sacrifice?

Episode Date: September 21, 2022

A Protestant take on whether the Eucharist, or the Lord's Supper, is a  sacrifice. Thanks to Brett and Austin for a fantastic dialogue! See the  full dialogue here: https://youtu.be/UgW8DFomt20 Truth Unites is a mixture of apologetics and theology, with an irenic focus. Gavin Ortlund (PhD, Fuller Theological Seminary) serves as senior pastor of First Baptist Church of Ojai. SUPPORT: Become a patron: https://www.patreon.com/truthunites One time donation: https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/truthunites FOLLOW: Twitter: https://twitter.com/gavinortlund Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TruthUnitesPage/ Website: https://gavinortlund.com/

And I think maybe that's a lead in to sacrifice, because I think on sacrifice, that actually happens a lot. So anyway, I hope that was helpful. You've done my job for me, Dr. Salko. I don't even have to make the transition. Let's talk about the Eucharist as a sacrifice. Dr. Oratland will start with you. And rather than breaking these into kind of two questions, as I did in the outline, I think we can address them conjointly. Is the Eucharist a sacrifice?

Is the Eucharist a sacrifice, and if so, in what way? Yes, it's probably good to address these questions together, because if I were to just do the first and be very brief, and everything hangs upon the second part, in what sense? And I think that many people may not be aware of this, but historically, Luther and Kranmer and major Protestant theologians and confessions and so forth, up through B.B. Warfield and others do call the Eucharist a sacrifice.

And this is one of many areas. areas where I want to try to acknowledge where contemporary Protestant practice has often just maybe fallen away so far in the other extreme that we've really, we really can be enriched by listening with humility to the other side, even where we don't agree. We see, oh, wow, we've actually gone too far in this other direction, and we've actually lost touch with our own heritage in some respects. So my answer is yes, we can speak of the Ukraine. as a sacrifice. Everything hinges upon what is meant by that. Martin Kempnitz, the Lutheran theologian, identified six different senses in which we can refer to the Eucharist as a sacrifice, and he

identified seven different senses in which the church fathers spoke of the Eucharist as a sacrificed. And as Brett points out in his book, in the current ecumenical conversations, this point actually generally comes out into an agreement. You don't have too much resistance. You don't have too much resistance still on just the basic point if we can call it a sacrifice. Now, what does that mean? Well, I would say first of all, I want to defend the reformers. I think that in their context, the meaning of what it means for it to be a sacrifice had gotten warped into something that was deeply problematic. And I think that, well, I think in the minds of many laity, and even you can hear people argue for it at times, that there was a conception of Christ being sort of re-sacrificed.

And I think that that doesn't represent the Catholic view officially, but I think they're seeing this and they're also seeing some abuses in the exercise of private masses and masses for the dead and the financial associations with that. They're seeing real problems. Okay, so I want to defend them. But I also want to acknowledge I think the trajectory of Protestantism has been such that I think for many particular Protestant churches, we've kind of, we need to kind of, come back and talk more and get in touch with our own roots, first of all, and then talk across to the other side as well. So if I were to say, so if we were saying, okay, so where do we agree that it's a sacrifice, where do we disagree?

If I were to try to be as generous as possible to both sides, I think I'd say something like this, that we're both trying to say that real presence is not generic. It's Christ being present in his saving activity. So this is why we say it's his body and blood. and not just Christ generally. It's in his sacrificial death that Christ is present in some sense. And so there's this once-for-all sacrifice on the cross that we all want to protect the finality and sufficiency of that.

And the Protestant concern is at times the Catholic views have punctured the finality and sufficiency of that. But maybe there's ways we can come together on that now. But that once-for-all event is somehow applied or extended into the recipient in the actual moment of reception. Different people have cashed this out differently. Warfield uses the language of application. So there's an – the sacrifice of Christ is applied to the receiver of the Eucharist. Thomas Torrance talks about it as a participation. Somehow we are – and I just read an article by Stephen Holmes arguing for something like this.

He uses this word where we're somehow participating in the sacrifice. So it's really tricky, okay? It's really tricky because we don't want to go too far and puncture the finality and sufficiency. of Christ's death on the cross as a sacrifice, but there is something going on where it's kind of applied or whatever verb we want to use. So let me read how Chemnitz puts it, if I might. He says, I think this is helpful. He uses the language of application and sealing. He says, quote, the fathers, he's summarizing the fathers and Cyprian and others, and he says, this is the Lutheran theologian. He says, the fathers called the body and blood of the Lord, which are present in the supper, a saving

sacrifice because that sacrifice which was once offered on the cross, the body and blood of the Lord, is present, dispensed, offered, and taken in the Lord's Supper so that the power and efficacy of this offering, once made on the cross, is applied and sealed individually to all who receive it in faith. Now, this is what my basic approach for ecumenical dialogue is when in doubt, quote, Martin Kedness, because I find him to be. be a very pointed thinker, and he's very helpful. So his language of application and sealing, I find helpful. Now, what I basically say is, when I listen to my Catholic friends as carefully as I can today, they're saying something like that. So I want to be as open-hearted as possible to see

where do we come together. The two worries are, number one, masses for the dead. That's just one, that's one of those sticking points, where I just don't see how we can come together on that. And that's, again, with an anathema there at the Council of Trent, as I mentioned. And then also with this language, the way it's understood at times, I want to keep thinking about it and keep understanding, but at this point, there's still this worry when the adjective propitiatory is used, particularly with reference to those already deceased. It's one thing if it's done in a commemoration of the deceased, but as a propitiatory sacrifice for dead Christians, I can't agree to that. That seems to me to be wrong. And so that would be, you know, even at the language of Trent, there is language about in the mass Christ is contained and bloodlessly immolated or that older translations will say bloodlessly sacrificed.

So there's this sense of it seems like as I'm listening to the Catholic, my dilemma is, gosh, I want to see where we agree and I'm hearing language. That sounds like we really agree as I'm listening to the ecumenical dialogue. But then there's also language at times that seems to veer off to where it's saying something more than just an application or a ceiling or participation in the sacrifice of Christ. It seems to say it so with the adjective propitiatory, I don't think I can get on board with that. I just don't know how to make peace with it, but I'll keep listening. So we agree on some some big picture stuff, but there's these sticking points. And those are two of the ones that I worry about and wouldn't know how to bridge.