5. Mary, the Saints, and Sacerdotalism
Whereas many important and truthful teachings are found within Roman Catholicism concerning Mary, the saints, and the sacerdotal system, evangelicals find the position of the Roman Catholic Church on Mary’s Immaculate Conception and Perpetual Virginity, the claim that she is the mother of God and that she was bodily assumed into heaven, and that she is a mediator between God and man to be contrary to Scripture.
Further, the sacerdotal system, which involves forgiveness of sins conveyed through the sacraments, is an attack on the fundamental biblical message that the only source of salvation is the final and unrepeatable offering of the Son of God on the cross. Contrary to the Catholic claims that grace is conferred through the sacraments, evangelicals contend that divine justification and eternal salvation is freely given to men and women through the instrumentality of faith alone.
ESSAY 5
MARY, THE SAINTS, AND SACERDOTALISM
S. Lewis Johnson, Jr.
Veritatis Splendor1 (The Splendor of Truth), the tenth encyclical of Pope John Paul II was published in October 1993. This lengthy encyclical of more than 150 pages has already drawn significant responses from the media, who have largely regarded it as an attack on the moral and sexual ethics seemingly championed by the mainstream of our society. The encyclical, however, is more than that. It is, in fact, an attempt to lay a biblical and philosophical foundation for a sound morality.
Veritatis Splendor begins with Scripture and the teaching of our Lord Jesus Christ as the proper ground for discussing “more fully and more deeply the issues regarding the very foundations of moral theology, foundations which are being undermined by certain present-day tendencies,”2 and that is surely the right place to begin. Evangelicals can hardly fault that.
David Burrell and Stanley Hauerwas, teachers at the University of Notre Dame and Duke University respectively, have found the text of the encyclical “inspiring” and fresh: “What makes it new is the method employed: begin with Scripture, show how rational argument contributes to faith seeking understanding, and return to a church life and practice informed by Scripture.”3
There are many truthful and important things said by the pope in the encyclical, and it certainly would be encouraging to evangelicals if they could have confidence in the pope’s desire to seek the truth first and foremost in the Word of God. But near the end of the encyclical the pope says, “Mary is also Mother of Mercy because it is to her that Jesus entrusts his Church and all humanity,” and, “Mary is the radiant sign and inviting model of the moral life. As Saint Ambrose put it, ‘the life of this one person can serve as a model for everyone.’”4 In a moment the encyclical affirms Mary’s compassion for “every kind of weakness,” since she has not known sin.5 The doctrinal and theological questions, therefore, remain.
There is good reason to believe that the great rupture of the sixteenth century, the period of the Reformation, may never be healed. The gospel, as understood by the Reformers—by Luther, Calvin, and others—is not that propounded by the Church of Rome. In the one, there is the atoning Cross and one Mediator, the man Christ Jesus (1 Timothy 2:5); in the other, there is the Cross, but two mediators, the man Christ Jesus and the woman, the Virgin Mary. The glory of the redeeming work of the Son of God cannot be shared by any other merely human being.
It may be that after so many years of conflict the answers to Berkouwer’s questions can only be no. “Is it possible,” he asks,
to see each other in true proportions and then to engage in discussion? Can we penetrate the depth of the experience of the Mass or understand the devotion paid to Mary? And can a Roman Catholic penetrate the deep meaning of the sola fide and the sola gratia, and to the action of the Holy Ghost in the Reformed doctrine of the sacrament?6
The distinguished Dutch theologian is certainly on target in locating the fundamental stance of Protestant evangelical and Reformed men and women on the solidity of Scripture: “The revelation of Jesus Christ calls us back to the simplicity of faith, and is meant to be a lamp unto our feet and light unto our path.”7
The seriousness of the struggle between the Church of Christ and the Church of Rome reaches its most intense level over the unique Son of God and His one saving offering (Hebrews 1:1-4). The Christian believer in Christ insists on His sole divine sonship and His exclusive and singular redemptive offering. The glory of the exalted Son and His priestly sacrifice must never be obscured. And it is Mary herself, the biblical picture of whom has been so distorted, who underlines this in her Magnificat when she exclaims, “My soul glorifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices [lit., has rejoiced] in God my Savior, for he has been mindful of the humble state of his servant. From now on all generations will call me blessed, for the Mighty One has done great things for me—holy is his name” (Luke 1:46-49). The Lord, she says, is her “Savior.” Her state is “humble,” and she will be called “blessed,” for great things have been done “for me.” That she calls God her Savior is an acknowledgement of the fact that she has by birth the same fallen status that all have. She claims no special prerogatives with respect to sin. She is “blessed,” but by virtue of what has been done for her. Berkouwer is correct: “Mary herself is not in the least the prophetess of the Mariology of after times.”8
THE HISTORY AND DOCTRINE OF MARIOLOGY
A. N. S. Lane of London Bible College has maintained, “The Roman Catholic doctrine of Mary is a classic example of the gradual development of doctrine. ”9 It will help to review some of the developments in the Mariology of the church over the centuries.
MARY’S IMMACULATE CONCEPTION
Pope Pius IX on December, 8,1854, in the Bull Ineffabilis, promulgated the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception as revealed by God. The words of the decree were, “The Most Holy Virgin Mary was, in the first moment of her conception, by a unique gift of grace and privilege of Almighty God, in view of the merits of Jesus Christ, the Redeemer of mankind, preserved free from all stain of original sin.”10 The immunity from original sin pertains to her passive conception, not to her active conception at the generative activity of her parents. She was conceived as other human beings, but at the time of God’s creation of her soul and its infusion into the bodily matter from her parents she was preserved from the stain and guilt of original sin. Thus, it is contended that she never knew the physical drive of concupiscence (stimulus concupiscentiae). The efficient cause of the freedom is Almighty God, the meritorious cause of the freedom is the redemption of Jesus Christ, and the final cause is her motherhood of God.
There is no scriptural basis for the doctrine, and the earlier Catholic church fathers differed over the matter. Anselm held that Mary was born with original sin." Bernard of Clairvaux contended that she was conceived with original sin, but purified before birth.12 Thomas Aquinas and the Dominicans held this view, but Duns Scotus popularized the view that Mary was conceived without original sin, and his view eventually prevailed, although Pope Sixtus IV in 1485 and the Council of Trent in 1546 left the issue unresolved.
Catholics admit that the doctrine is not explicitly revealed in Scripture, although three passages—Genesis 3:15, and Luke 1:28 and 1:41—have been offered in support. In Genesis 3:15 it is contended that the seed of the woman is ultimately Mary, although the generally accepted sense is that the seed of the woman intended is Christ, the Messiah. The Bull Ineffabilis takes the seed of the woman, following an early interpretation from Irenaeus and Epiphanius and a few others, to be the Redeemer; therefore, Mary, His mother, stands with Him in His victorious enmity toward Satan, triumphing over Satan with Christ, crushing the head of the serpent “with her immaculate foot.” The Roman Catholic theologian Ott’s words reveal his own unwillingness to follow the Catholic interpretation: “The Bull does not give any authentic explanation of the passage. It must also be observed that the infallibility of the Papal doctrinal decision extends only to the dogma as such and not to the reasons given as leading up to the dogma.”13
Luke 1:28 is no real support for an immaculate conception. The text concerns the visit of Gabriel to Mary to reveal the coming birth of our Lord. To her Gabriel said, “Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you.” The verse is rendered in the Roman Catholic English version as, “Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with you.” The words “full of grace” are emphasized by Roman theologians, who argue that she would have lacked such grace if she had not been exempted from sin by an immaculate conception. The Greek word rendered by “full of grace,” a perfect passive participle, is more accurately rendered by the NIV as “highly favored,” and its tense and voice clearly indicate in the context that the favor that has been bestowed on Mary is the privilege of bearing a child, a son who “will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High” (v. 32).
The doctrine, it is clear, has no biblical basis and, in fact, was proclaimed, Lane contends, “on the basis of the unanimity of the contemporary church” and, perhaps, as a “trial run” for the doctrine of papal infallibility defined sixteen years later.14
MARY’S PERPETUAL VIRGINITY
According to Catholic teaching Mary was a virgin before, during, and after the birth (ante, in, et post partum) of our Lord. The perpetual virginity was stressed by the Lateran Synod of a.d. 649 under Pope Martin I. Evangelical believers, in the light of such passages as Isaiah 7:14, Matthew 1:18-25, and Luke 1:26-27, 34-35 have no questions regarding Mary’s virginity before and during the birth of the Lord. But with reference to her virginity after the birth (post partum) there are. The questions arise primarily from the statement of Matthew concerning JosepII’s relations with Mary after the angelic announcement to him: “But he had no union with her until she gave birth to a son. And he gave him the name Jesus” (Matthew 1:25).
The tense of the verb “had no union” (lit., was not knowing her) takes the reader to the moment of the “until she gave birth.” Beyond that point Scripture is of no certain help. Brothers of our Lord are mentioned (Matthew 13:55), but it cannot be determined that they were sons of Mary. Luther, with Origen, Ambrose, Jerome, Augustine, and others, affirmed the perpetual virginity. Calvin says that beyond the birth of Jesus Scripture is silent and that “none but a contentious trouble-maker will press it all the way.”13
MOTHER OF GOD
The term is designed to indicate that “Mary is truly the Mother of God.”16 The title was given Mary at the Council of Ephesus in a.d. 431 after the repudiation of the objections of Nestorius, who insisted that she was the Mother of Christ (Christokos) but not Theotokos, which means “Godbearing.” The declaration of the Council was, “If any one does not confess that the Emmanuel (Christ) in truth is God and that on this account the Holy Virgin is the Mother of God (Theotokos)—since according to the flesh she brought forth the Word of God made flesh—let him be anathema.” Initially the dogma was designed to support the deity of the Son. It has taught that Mary was truly a mother of Christ’s human nature and that she was truly the mother of God in that she conceived and bore the Second Person, not indeed according to His divine nature but according to His assumed human nature. The origin of the description Theotokos is unknown, but it was used many times by Athanasius, who was, as Giovanni Miegge says, “the great promoter of the Nicene orthodoxy.”17
“In what sense,” Miegge asks, “can it be said that God was crucified or that God was born of the Virgin Mary? Here is the problem that wearied the minds of the fifth century, and the heat of the passion that accompanies the fluctuations of the doctrine makes it clear that the problem was not just an arbitrary theological abstraction but was vital to faith.”18 The answer to the question can be found only in the Definition of Chalcedon (a.d. 451), which contains the vital words on the point at issue:
... of one substance [homoousios] with the Father as regards his Godhead, and at the same time of one substance with us as regards his manhood; like us in all respects, apart from sin; as regards his Godhead, begotten of the Father before the ages, but yet as regards his manhood begotten, for us men and for our salvation, of Mary the Virgin, the God-bearer [Theotokos]; one and the same Christ, Son, Lord, Only-begotten, recognized in two natures, without confusion, without change, without division, without separation; the distinction of natures being in no way annulled by the union, but rather the characteristics of each nature being preserved and coming together to form one person and subsistence [Ah-postasis], not as parted or separated into two persons, but one and the same Son and Only-begotten God the Word, Lord Jesus Christ.19
“None of the foregoing words can be left out,” Miegge warns,
without the sense of Theotokos being falsified. Mary is mother of Christ “according to the flesh,” because Christ “according to the spirit” is son of God and conceived by the Holy Spirit. She is mother not by divinity in herself—a blasphemous idea—but by the hypostasis of the Logos; but not by the Logos in itself, which has no mother, but the Logos incarnated. And she is the mother of the incarnate Logos by its aspect of humanity because the properties of the two natures must be respected and what is said of Christ as God is not to be said of Christ as man. This notwithstanding, in virtue of the hypostatic union, since there is only one Christ, one can say, with all the reservations and explanations above, that the Mother of Christ is the Mother of God and that such is the paradox of the faith.20
THE ASSUMPTION
After an official poll of all the churcII’s bishops concerning the possibility and desirability of the promulgation of a decree that Mary’s body and soul had been assumed into heaven and having received a favorable reply, Pope Pius ΧII, on May 1, 1950, issued by the Apostolic Constitution “Munifi-centissimus Deus” as dogma revealed by God: “Mary, the immaculate perpetually Virgin Mother of God, after the completion of her earthly life, was assumed body and soul into the glory of Heaven.” Miegge contends that “it marks a new and accentuated departure from the accustomed traditionalism of Catholic theology.”21 The dogma is based neither on the Word of God nor on tradition but simply, it seems, on the consensus of contemporary church opinion and theological “suitability.”22
The time and circumstances of Mary’s death are unknown, although the fact of her death is generally accepted by the Fathers;23 however, some have contended that it was not the result of punishment for sin, since she was free from original sin and from personal sin. The simplest explanation of the lack of information concerning Mary’s death is that she died before there arose the practice of venerating the martyrs and eminent saints, so her death passed with no unusual notice. “She departed life humbly and modestly as she had lived it,” Miegge says, “and none remembered the {dace of her burial, even if a tradition toward the mid-fifth century gave her a sepulchre near Jerusalem in the garden of Gethsemane.”24
Catholic theology in the establishment of belief as doctrine generally relies on evidence from Scripture, the consensus of tradition—especially the earliest tradition—and what might be called theological value, or speculative grounds. After consideration of the evidence compiled by Martin Ju-gie,25 Miegge’s conclusion is,
That Mary has indeed shared the lot of mortality with the universality of men is the only certainty that can be drawn from the silence of the Christian tradition and from its evidences. That she was brought back to life and raised to heaven with her body glorified as the first of created beings, who wants to think this is free to do so, but it must be said that there is not a shadow of proof for it.26
But, if it may be granted that the tradition offers no support for the assumption of Mary’s body and soul into heaven—and the absence of any support for it from Thomas Aquinas, who says nothing about the Assumption, is certainly of note—what can be said for the scriptural support? It appears to be just as bleak.
The protevangelium of Genesis 3:15, the first announcement of the victory of the woman’s seed, whom revelation reveals to be the Messianic Son of God, over the serpent has been offered as biblical support of the dogma on the basis of the claim that Christ is inseparable from Mary. Thus, the promise is also a promise of Mary’s victory over death.27 The claim cannot be substantiated exegetically.
A second piece of biblical evidence has been offered. In the salutation of the angel to Mary (Luke 1:28) she is hailed as one “full of grace” according to the Catholic translation. We have already pointed out in the discussion of the Immaculate Conception that there is no ground for the use often made of this text.28
The final passage offered in support of the Assumption is Revelation 12 and its reference to the “woman clothed with the sun” (v. 1). None of the interpreters before the fourth century saw the woman as Mary. Rather, they saw the woman as the church. Ticonius, the fourth-century Donatist, who was probably the instrument of Augustine’s move away from premillennia-lism, is the first to refer the woman to Mary. There is nothing in the context, other than motherhood, to support the reference to Mary. The context and the figures used clearly suggest that the woman is a reference to Israel, from whom our Lord did spring.
What, then, may be seen in the dogma? Probably the straightest answer is that one sees further dogmatic development apart from Scripture in the cult of Mary. “In short,” Miegge concludes, “the new dogma has as its sole foundation the infallibility of the Roman Catholic Church.”29
THE CO-REDEMPTRIX
It had been hoped at Vatican II that Mary would be proclaimed “Co-Re-demptrix,” but that did not happen. However, although the term was not, and is not, used, the concept is evident, for Mary plays a subsidiary role in the redemptive work of Christ.30 She plays that role by participating and cooperating in His work. For example, “The incarnation could not occur without Mary’s permission or ‘fiat’ (Lk. 1:38).”31
What, then, is the sense of the term co-redemptrix (= co-redemptress)? It signifies that the Virgin Mary “actively participated in and cooperated with Christ’s work of redemption and its merits on behalf of all mankind.”32 It should be noted, however, that Mary’s mediation is of a secondary character. Ott puts it this way: “Although Christ is the sole Mediator between God and man (1 Tim. 2, 5), since He alone, by His death on the Cross, fully reconciled mankind with God, this does not exclude a secondary mediator-ship, subordinated to Christ.”33 Christ is the perfect mediator, but others “by preparing or serving . . . co-operate in uniting men to God.”34 Bernard of Clairvaux in an extravagant paean of praise calls Mary “the inventress of grace, the mediatrix of salvation, the restorer of the ages.”35
In the opinion of some, this has become the theme of the Mariology of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. From Pope Pius IX to Pius ΧII (1846-1954) papal declarations strengthened the theme of Marian mediation.
On what grounds biblically may it be argued that Mary is the co-redemptrix with Christ? We may dispense with the supposed parallel between the disobedience of Eve and the obedience of Mary in the Fall of man and redemption.36 For those who wish to argue Mary’s co-redemption the “two culminating moments” are the moment when Mary responded to the angel Gabriel’s annunciation with, “Behold, the bondslave of the Lord; be it done to me according to your word” (Luke 1:38 nasb), and the other is the very presence of Mary at the Cross and then of our Lord’s words to her and to John: “He said to His mother, ‘Woman, behold your son!’ Then He said to the disciple, ‘Behold, your mother!’ ” (John 19:26-27 nasb), as if He were committing the church to its spiritual mother, Mary. It is remarkable, if this is our Lord’s intent, that her name only appears once in the remainder of the New Testament, and then in no significant sense (Acts 1:14).
Catholics, however, make much of the two events, the Annunciation and the Cross. In the one, it is Mary’s free choice between what Roschini calls, “a mission full of ineffable sorrows and the perdition of mankind.”37 Ott contends, “The Incarnation of the Son of God, and the Redemption of mankind by the vicarious atonement of Christ were dependent on her assent. In this significant moment in the histoiy of Salvation Mary represented humanity.”38 But there is here no collaboration of human liberty and divine grace in Mary’s response. The announcement made to her is of a sovereign divine decision to which she simply submits. She does not thereby participate and collaborate with Christ in the work of redemption.
At the Cross a similar misunderstanding appears in Catholic exegesis. There it is said that Mary is offering her Son as a meritorious gift. She stands like a priest offering a sacrifice to God for humanity. “To represent Mary in that atmosphere as a sort of Abraham sacrificing on Mount Moriah,” Miegge contends, “is to substitute a quite conventional and even somewhat melodramatic vision for the dark and very human reality.”39 Berkouwer has a similar comment: “The Reformers did not object to the exalted position of Mary, her unique motherhood as the blessed one among women, but they looked upon the idea of ‘cooperation’ that played such an important part in the Roman view as the obfuscation of salvation and a devaluation of the divine grace in Jesus Christ.”40 Thus, the Reformers and Protestants cannot follow Vatican II in affirming that Mary “was united with [Christ] in suffering as he died on the cross” and cooperated “in the Saviour’s work of restoring supernatural life to souls.”41
MEDIATRIX
Since the practice of praying to the saints increased during the Middle Ages, it is not surprising that Mary became especially popular. Jesus came to stand for the stern, forbidding and unapproachable judge. The faithful were pointed to Mary, the compassionate mother who would act as mediator for them. The period of time from Trent to the French Revolution was preeminently the time of the defining of the compassionate mediation of Mary, principally in reaction against the Reformation, Jansenism, and eighteenth-century rationalism. A leader in the development of the sense of Mary as the compassionate mediatrix was Alphonsus Liguori, a leading Italian moral theologian, who wrote many devotional and mystical works in praise of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and of Mary as “semi-divine mediatrix.”42 In his work on the glories of Mary he said, “God wants all graces to come to us by the hand of Mary. ”43
Leo ΧΙII in an encyclical in 1891 strongly affirmed Mary’s mediation: “Nothing is bestowed on us except through Mary, as God himself wills. Therefore as no one can draw near to the supreme Father except through the Son, so also one can scarcely draw near to the Son except through his mother.” Vatican II reaffirmed Mary’s role as mediatrix, although warning against in any way limiting the dignity and efficacy of Christ as the one mediator.44
Popular piety, however, often exceeds the counsel of the more mature. For Liguori she is NoaII’s Ark in which sinners are saved, the city of refuge, the city of God, the treasurer of all graces. And as for her compassionate concern, “A sigh of the Blessed Virgin is more powerful than the prayers of all the saints together.”45 The extremes of this kind of piety are obvious.
MOTHER OF THE CHURCH
In Vatican II the Virgin Mary is seen as the mother of the church, a title not found in the document but used by Paul VI in the promulgation of the document in 1964.
It is hard to see how this, in spite of the protestations of many Roman Catholic theologians, does not in effect rob our Lord and the Father of the glory of their loving redeeming ministry to the church. It is the Father who is celebrated in the Scriptures for His tender compassions, and it is the Son who has loved and continues to love the church with the infinite love and tenderness of one who delivered Himself over to death for her (Galatians 2:20).
The incident recorded in Luke 11 is penetratingly clear. As our Lord was expounding the worthlessness of self-reformation, a certain woman of the crowd about Him raised her voice and said to Him, “Blessed is the mother who gave you birth and nursed you.” “Blessed rather,” our Lord replied, “are those who hear the word of God and obey it” (vv. 27-28). His words express no disapproval of His mother, but they do make the point that true blessedness is found in submission to Him and to the Scriptures. That, too, is the message of Mary’s final spoken New Testament word. When the Son, her Son, is about to begin His ministry of Word and sign as the promised Messiah and Lord, it is she who turns away all attention and interest from herself to Him: “Do whatever he tells you” (John 2:5). It is her final word!
THE CHURCH AND THE SAINTS
The Apostles’ Creed contains the expression, “the communion of saints.”46 Both the Catholics and the Reformers adopted the words as expressive of their beliefs. Was their understanding of them the same? No. For the Reformers, the communion of the saints included each and all of the believing members of the church, contending that they all partook of our Lord and “all His treasures and gifts.”47 Rome’s view of the communion of saints was different. The term saints referred to those who were holy in a special sense, such as the martyrs and others in heaven who had lived and served in notable ways and had been canonized. The intercession of the saints is not halted by death, and the invocation of the saints is valid. Direct requests to a saint in heaven for his or her intercession or for other benefits is the reference of the expression, “the invocation of the saints.” The saints can hear requests and know how to answer them.48
Further, the church maintains a “treasury” of merit earned by the saints for deeds going beyond God’s normal requirements. The merits may be distributed to those in need of remission by the bishops of the Christian communion through their “power of the keys” (cf. Matthew 16:19).49 These indulgences were remissions of the debt of temporal punishment after guilt had been forgiven and were granted to poor saints for money. They deeply disturbed Luther in 1515 and stirred him on in his reformatory zeal. The Reformers saw the treasury of merit, consisting of rewards for meritorious deeds of the saints, which might be conveyed to individuals as means of forgiveness of sins through indulgences paid for by money, as a denial of the sole saviorhood of the Son of God. In effect, the individuals benefited by the indulgences received remission of sins by virtue of the work of Christ and the good deeds of the martyrs, the merits of which were sold to them. Thus, their salvation came from the blood of Christ and the blood of the martyrs, the martyrs becoming partners with Christ in their salvation. The “no other name” of Peter in Acts 4:12 must be modified, and the names of the saints whose good deeds are in the treasury of merit must be added to our Lord’s as the source of salvation. The martyrs have become our redeemers!50
Thus, the church that Luther faced was a church related to and connected with both the heavenly church and the church suffering in purgatory, a church immersed in the ideas of merit before God and in the veneration of saints.51 In 1515-1516 Luther lectured on Romans, and one can see from his comments on Romans 12:13 that his concept of the church had moved away from the Catholic concept of the saints with their indulgences, veneration, and the meritoriousness of good works. In his comments on the words, “communicating to the necessities of the saints,” he writes, “Today we understand the ‘saints’ to be the blessed ones who have been glorified; the apostle, however, and, indeed, the whole Scripture, call ‘saints’ all who believe in Christ. This is perhaps the reason why nowadays one does not readily communicate to the saints; one believes that there are no longer any.”52 In the medieval church the sharing was materialistic, consisting in the administering of the merits of Christ and the distinguished saints to the few who received indulgences from the churcII’s treasury of merit. For Luther the saints had no “merits.” In the fifty-eighth of his Ninety-five Theses he contended, “No saint has adequately fulfilled God’s commandments in this life.” One can see how the idea of grace, free grace indeed, has been lodged by the Spirit of God in his heart.
Althaus expresses it well: “Luther’s understanding of God and of justification shattered the medieval catholic conception of the saints. Since our salvation depends only on God’s free mercy, the transfer of merits in the heavenly bank from one account to another has lost all meaning. Merit is replaced by serving one another. No one can, in the strict sense of the word, help another in God’s judgment—either through substitutionary achievement or through meritorious intercession.”53
Thus, the creed’s expression, “the communion of saints,” is not exclusive but inclusive. It refers to all the believers, not simply the outstanding, and they each in possessing all of Christ possess every spiritual blessing in Him (Ephesians 1:3). A satisfaction sufficient for all sin has been made, freely conveyed to those who in grace through the Spirit believe. The Protestant Reformers rejected the invocations of the saints as the dishonoring of the sole mediator between God and men, Jesus Christ (1 Timothy 2:5), and also as dishonoring the angels and saints themselves, for they all have refused such intercession and adoration (cf. Acts 10:26; 14:15; Revelation 19:10; 22:8-9).54
THE SACERDOTALISM OF ROME AND THE SCRIPTURES
ASPECTS OF SACERDOTALISM IN THE CHURCH OF ROME
If sacerdotalism may be defined as “religious belief emphasizing the powers of priests as essential mediators between God and mankind,”55 Roman Catholicism is essentially sacerdotal. The entire system revolves around the claims of mediatorial priestly authority and the sacramental system.
The sacraments of the Roman church, instituted by Christ it is claimed, are efficacious signs of grace. Contrary to the Reformers who contend that there are only two sacraments, or ordinances—baptism and the Lord’s Supper—the Catholic Church celebrates seven—Baptism, Confirmation, Eucharist, Penance, Extreme Unction, Holy Order, and Matrimony. Catholic theologians acknowledge that the seven sacraments have been regarded as a truth of faith only since the middle of the twelfth century.56
There is a decisive difference between evangelical ordinances, or sacraments, and Catholic ordinances. In the view of Reformed and evangelical believers the ordinances of baptism and the Lord’s Supper do not remove sins. The one, baptism, is the representation and confession of one’s entrance into the church through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ’s atoning work. The other, the Lord’s Supper, is by its continual celebration a representation of one’s continuation in the church.
In the case of the sacraments of Rome the situation is entirely different. The sacraments remove sins. For example, Ludwig Ott, a distinguished Catholic theologian, whom we have cited frequently, states that “supernatural life is generated by Baptism; brought to growth by Confirmation; nourished by the Eucharist; cured from the diseases of sins and from the weakness arising from these by Penance and Extreme Unction.”57 These sacraments generally (baptism and Matrimony are excepted) require a special priestly or episcopal power, conferred by Holy Orders, for valid ministration. The sacraments work ex opere operate, that is, by the power of the completed act, and their validity does not depend on the orthodoxy of the minister or his state of grace.
The sacrament of baptism is the means of the remission of the guilt of original sin. Anathema, so the Council of Trent contended, attaches to the denier of the doctrine. In the case of adults, baptism also is the means of the eradication of all personal, mortal, or venial sins. Even when unworthily received, baptism imprints on the soul an indelible spiritual mark, the Baptismal Character, and cannot be repeated.58
In the sacrament of Confirmation by the imposition of hands, unction, and prayer, a baptized person is filled with the Holy Spirit for the inner strengthening of the supernatural life and for courageous outward testimony. By this sacrament baptismal grace is perfected.
The Eucharist (the Greek word means “thanksgiving”) is an early name for the Lord’s Supper, or Holy Communion. The sacramental actions of eating bread and drinking wine are interpreted by our Lord as symbolic actions. The relation of the symbols to the reality became controversial as indicated by the diverging views of transubstantiation, consubstantiation, and Calvin’s mediating view. The Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation, first propounded probably by Paschasius Radbertus (ca. 785-ca. 860), was defined as dogma by the Fourth Lateran Council (1215).
The second significant controversy concerning the Eucharist concerns the sacrifice of the Mass,59 or the eucharistic sacrifice. Is the Eucharist an offering of Christ’s body and blood? The Reformers were united in contending that the Eucharist was not an offering of His body and Mood, but the institution of a sacrament, or ordinance, concerning His body and Mood, which were to be offered on the coming cross, just as the Lord and the apostles in the Passover Feast fed on a lamb that had already been offered in the Temple court.
The eucharistic sacrifice was first defined as dogma by the Council of Trent in 1562. The Council stated that the “Same Christ” is sacrificed in an “unbloody manner, who once offered himself in a bloody manner chi the altar of the cross.”
That claim raises the question, “What are the effects of the Eucharist?” Among the effects are unification with Christ and the preservation and increase of supernatural life, and it is a pledge of heavenly bliss and future resurrection. As a sacrament Christ is partaken as nourishment for the soul. As a sacrifice He is offered as a sacrificial gift to God. It “makes present” Christ’s sacrifice. In fact, Ott speaks of “the presenting again of the Sacrifice of the Cross.”60 But, most significantly, he goes on to say, “The purpose of the Sacrifice is the same in the Sacrifice of the Mass as in the Sacrifice of the Cross; primarily the glorification of God, secondarily atonement, thanksgiving, and appeal.”61 There we have it; the Eucharist is atoning. It is a sacrifice of “expiation and impetration,” effecting the remission of sins and the punishment for sin. It is a “sacrifice of propitiation” and can be offered “not only for the living, but also for the poor souls in Purgatory.”62 It works ex opere operato, its effectiveness not depending on the spiritual worthiness of the sacrificing priest, nor of the co-sacrificing church member.
It will be useful to mention briefly the sacrament of Extreme Unction, although Catholics admit that evidences for this sacrament among the chinch Fathers are not numerous. “As Extreme Unction is a Sacrament of the Living,” Ott says, “it presupposes in general the remission of grievous sins. But if a person in mortal sin is seriously ill and can no longer receive the Sacrament of Penance, or if he erroneously believes that he is free from grievous sin, Extreme Unction eradicates the grievous sins per accidens, but still by reason of Christ’s Institution.”63 Only bishops and priests can administer the sacrament.
ASPECTS OF SACERDOTALISM IN THE SCRIPTURES
Does the New Testament support a form of sacerdotalism? It is not easy to answer the question affirmatively without introducing a measure of confusion, for the sacerdotalism of the Bible is largely confined to the Old Testament and the priestly code of the Law of Moses. The New Testament teaching of our Lord, the apostles, and that of the epistle to the Hebrews make clear that the Mosaic system has been done away with (see, for example, Romans 3:21-8:39; 2 Corinthians 3:1-18; Galatians 2:1-5:26; Hebrews 1:1-10:18). If one is thinking of a priestly class, plural in number, who act as essential mediators between God and mankind, as Webster defined sacerdotalism, then there is no sacerdotalism in that part of the New Testament that unfolds the fact and significance of the accomplished atonement of Jesus Christ and the establishment of the new covenant assembly of the people of God.
In a lengthy passage on the Christian ministry, Bishop Lightfoot pointed out that the apostolic church had “no sacerdotal system” and that in the New Testament teaching on ministry there is “an entire silence about priestly functions.”64
It is well known that the sacerdotalism of the Roman church was unknown in the apostolic church and grew through the early centuries of the Christian era. It is Cyprian (a.d. 200-258) who is the key figure in the transference of the Old Testament concepts of priest and priesthood to the Christian ministry, although Clement of Rome makes a statement in his epistle65 that suggests a parallel between officials of Christian congregations and the priests of the Old Testament. Eventually there arose the stage in Roman sacerdotalism in which the priests offered the sacrifices of the body and blood of Christ for sin. This encroachment of the Mosaic Law’s Levitical system upon the churcII’s ministry reaches its culmination in Cyprian. In Cyprian’s view all the passages that refer to the privileges and duties of the Aaronic priesthood refer to the officers of the Christian church.66
I am reminded of an experience that Kenneth Pike had in his translation of the Scriptures into the language of a Mexican Indian tribe many years ago. Pike, regarded by many as one of the world’s premier linguists, said that after finishing his translation of the epistle to the Hebrews he was reading it to an Indian congregation for their reaction with no confidence that it was a good one and also afraid that it would aid the large Catholic priestly class in view of Hebrews’ heavy reference to priests and priesthood. He was living at the time in a heavily priest-ridden area. While he was reading the text, an old Indian leaned back and said, “I see it now! They’re just trying to prolong their destiny!” Pike said he apologized to God in his heart that, although he felt that the epistle had been rather poorly translated into the language of the tribe, he had had so little confidence in the power of God’s Word to illumine hearts, even uneducated and untaught hearts.67
Something very similar has happened in the bringing of the Old Testament priesthood’s practices into the Christian church. The old Indian was on to something, for it appears that Rome is doing just what he said: seeking to prolong the destiny of a sacerdotalism that cannot be harmonized with the New Testament.
If, however, one thinks simply of the Lord Jesus Christ as the High Priest after the order of Melchizedek, who has offered a fully sufficient sacrifice for sinners and is now engaged in the intercession that accompanies His offering at the right hand of God the Father, then there is a unique sacerdotal system in the New Testament. There is a one-of-a-kind priest. The writer of Hebrews calls Him a High Priest (2:17; 3:1; 4:15; 5:1, 5, 10; 6:20; 7:26; 8:1; 9:11), a great Priest (10:21, Gk.), and a great High Priest (4:14). Further, the whole of the mystical body of His company—the church, the true believers—constitutes a holy priesthood, the royal priesthood (1 Peter 2:9; Revelation 1:6) of Scripture. To Him belongs the sacerdotium, the priestly work or priestly office, and to them in Him.68 His priestly office consists of two works, the work of sacrifice and the work of intercession.
The work of sacrifice. The writer of Hebrews is the New Testament author who most fully expounds the priestly ministry of our Lord. He cogently and conclusively makes the point that there is only one sacrifice for sins and that Christ has offered the sacrifice, finishing the work connected with it. In the sonorous and impressive sentence opening the discourse, he states that the Son has “provided purification for sins.”69 The achievement is one impossible to any other person and stresses His unique qualifications for priestly ministry. The final clause, signifying that He has “sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven,” indicates that the Son’s priestly sacrifice, in contrast to the Old Testament Levitical priests and, I might say, to the continually laboring priests of the Church of Rome, stands finished. The ground of the purification of God’s elect people has been completed. To be a seated priest at God’s right hand, as Psalm 110:1 indicates, is the destiny of the High Priest according to the order of Melchizedek. The reference to the priest at the right hand of God in the glory of a finished work is the principal theme of the letter, and other passages fill in the details.
In the fifth chapter the author sets out the qualifications for high priestly ministry. The priest must not only be human, but humane, able to deal gently with those who go astray. And, further and most important, he must be appointed by God to the office. He points out, in indicating the Son’s eminent qualifications for the work, that “God said to him, ‘You are my Son; today I have become your Father.’ And he says in another place, ‘You are a priest forever, in the order of Melchizedek’ ” (Hebrews 5:5-6). The two texts are used to show that the Son is God’s appointed priest. It is very much to the point to emphasize this, because the words of the text clearly indicate that no mere human priests now, since the end of the Levitical system, stand in office by divine authority. The Roman priests have no divine right to their pretended office.70
A series of texts follow in the epistle stressing that the priestly sacrifice has been offered and that it cannot be followed by another with authority and cleansing power: “Unlike the other high priests, he does not need to offer sacrifices day after day, first for his own sins, and then for the sins of the people. He sacrificed for their sins once for all when he offered himself” (7:27). Again, “He did not enter by means of the blood of goats and calves; but he entered the Most Holy Place once for all by his own blood, having obtained eternal redemption” (9:12). An eternal redemption makes it unnecessary that one have any other than that, and believing men and women have that.
“Nor did he enter heaven to offer himself again and again, the way the high priest enters the Most Holy Place every year with blood that is not his own. Then Christ would have had to suffer many times since the creation of the world. But now he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to do away with sin by the sacrifice of himself” (9:25-26).
Once more the note of a one-time and final sacrifice is sounded in the words, “and by that will, we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all” (10:10). The note, now a rising crescendo, is heard again: “because by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy” (10:14). And this is followed in the text that is probably the final note of the author’s major doctrinal argument of the one sacrifice of Christ for sins: “Then he adds: ‘Their sins and lawless acts I will remember no more.’ And where these have been forgiven, there is no longer any sacrifice for sin” (10:17-18). These texts indicate that there is no need and no place for claims that ordinances without biblical authentication are divinely ordained means for the forgiveness of sins. There is no longer any sacrifice for sin, the author says.
In chapter 13 the author makes the statement, “We have an altar from which those who minister at the tabernacle have no right to eat” (v. 10). “The word ‘altar,’ ” F. F. Bruce points out, “is used by metonymy for ‘sacrifice’—as when, e.g., we say that a man keeps a good table, meaning thereby good food.” Our sacrifice is that made at Calvary by the Son of God, and it is in that sacrifice that believers have redemption (cf. 8:1).
What connection is there between this passage and the Eucharist? No direct connection at all. It is remarkable how our author avoids mentioning the Eucharist when he has every opportunity to do so; for example, it would have been easy for him to derive some eucharistic significance from the bread and wine that Melchizedek brought to Abraham when he met him “returning from the slaughter of the kings” (7:1);71 but he does not even mention the bread and wine.
. . . His failure to mention them, let alone discern some Christian meaning in them, can scarcely be accidental.72
The work of intercession. The intercession of the priest is not prominent in the Old Testament, but it is there (cf. Leviticus 16:13; Numbers 16:1-50). They made intercession for the same persons for whom they offered sacrifices. In fact, atonement and intercession included each other, the atonement being prolonged without suffering into the work of intercession. The two functions are coextensive. In the case of our Lord’s intercession it has been called “the perpetual presentation of the ‘continual burnt offering’ of Calvary.”73
Passages attribute the whole of our salvation to His sacrifice and to His intercession (Hebrews 10:14; 7:25). The same priest who ministered at the bronze altar and at the mercy seat also ministered at the golden altar of incense, and for the same people. As Martin says, “But at both altars Aaron was the type of Christ; and as an offerer both in sacrifice and intercession, Christ is the antitype of Aaron.”74 “The entire work of the priest,” Hodge points out, “was one work. They sacrificed for, they interceded for, they blessed precisely the same persons and no others. Num. vi. 22-27.”75
The antitypical reference is obvious. It is our Lord who has offered the one and only sacrifice, and it is He alone who intercedes in the Holiest in the presence of the Father for His covenant members on the ground of the value of His offering. There is no place nor need for human intercessors. One sufficient heavenly intercessor is enough. Lightfoot, referring to Hebrews, sounds the same note: “Now this Apostolic writer teaches that all sacrifices had been consummated in the one Sacrifice, all priesthoods absorbed in the one Priest. The offering had been made once for all: and, as there were no more victims, there could be no more priests.”76
Does not the epistle, however, use sacerdotal language, speaking of sacrifices and altar (13:15, 16, 10)? Yes, it does. But the sacrifices are of praise, thanksgiving, and sharing, metaphorical uses of the terms, and the altar is used by metonymy for the cross of Christ. No reference whatever is made to an officiating minister, a priest, who performs sacerdotal acts, offering sacrifices for others. The Catholic concept of the Eucharist and Mass is unknown to the Scriptures.
Conclusion. We, thus, conclude that the one offering of Jesus Christ is sui generis, a single, unique, lone rock of redemption by which He took possession of the divine sanctuary, the heavenly Holy of Holies, and there reigns as Savior and Lord. And we conclude that the sacraments of the Roman church with their claims that they are necessary for the forgiveness of sins tragically and fatally compromise the principle of grace in human salvation. The sacrifice of the Son of God is unrepeatable and final, the last and only valid offering for sin with heaven’s blessing.
The writer of Hebrews concludes the principal doctrinal section of his epistle with a citation from JeremiaII’s prophecy of the new covenant and an observation upon its promises. By citing the beginning of the prophecy from Jeremiah and then omitting much of its central content and concluding with its final lines, he makes it evident that the final words are the important ones for him here. They are, “Their sins and lawless acts I will remember no more.” The finality of them is obvious, and the author’s comment upon them is, “and where these have been forgiven, there is no longer any sacrifice for sin” (10:17-18). Appropriately Westcott adds, “This is the last— the decisive—word of the argument.”77 It says it all very well. Decisively, there is no longer offering for sin with heaven’s imprimatur. It is the supreme and only treasury of merit. Its benefits are available to faith alone, apart from works of any kind. The author makes that plain by his citation of Habakkuk 2:4: “But my righteous one will live by faith” (Hebrews 10:38).
As readers of Hebrews know, there are two words that frequently dot the pages of the letter. They are the words “better” and “eternal.” It speaks of a better hope, a better covenant, better promises, a better country, better and lasting possessions, and a better resurrection. One might, however, reason from the word “better” that things still “better” might come along, thus clouding the finality of the promises. Of course, something better than these promises would have to be marvelous, indeed, so the faithful have no reason to faint. The author, however, has another favorite word. He speaks of an eternal redemption, an eternal inheritance, and an eternal covenant. It is significant that the covenant containing the promise of the forgiveness of sins is said to be better and also eternal. Thus, for the author the better things appear also to be final things. In other words, the promises that emerge from the one final and unrepeatable sacrifice are incomparable and unsurpassable. We understand why Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is God’s last word to men and why He and His atoning sacrifice are man’s sole, total, and eminently satisfying hope.
I mentioned in the introduction that Veritatis Splendor began with Scripture. It is unfortunate, however, that its well-reasoned argument has not stayed with Scripture but concludes on a note out of harmony with Scripture, on a note centering more emphatically upon Mary than upon Jesus Christ and His unparalleled redeeming sacrifice. We still await that better note from Rome.
Notes
1. Pope John Paul II, The Splendor of Truth: Veritatis Splendor (Boston: St. Paul Books & Media, 1993). The English translation is the Vatican’s.
2. Ibid., 14.
3. See Richard John Neuhaus, “The Splendor of Truth: A Symposium,” First Things, no. 39 (January 1994): 21. Burrell and Hauerwas are contributors to the symposium. A puzzling sentence occurs near the end of their contribution, puzzling particularly since Hauerwas is a Methodist, in which they refer to the Pope calling “us” away to “Mary-like truth matters” (p. 23).
4. Neuhaus, “The Splendor of Truth,” 143. It must be acknowledged that near the final words there is an explicit statement that “only the Cross and the gloiy of the Risen Christ can grant peace to his (that is, man’s) conscience and salvation to his life” (p. 144). That, however, is followed by a prayer to Mary as Mother of Mercy that she not allow the cross of Christ to “be emptied of its power.” Thus the confusion.
5. Ibid., 144.
6. Gerrit C. Berkouwer, The Conflict with Rome, trans. under the supervision of David H. Freeman (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1958), 10.
7. Ibid.
8. Ibid., 169.
9. A. N. S. Lane, “Mary,” in New Dictionary of Theology, 415.
10. Ludwig Ott, Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma, trans. Patrick Lynch and ed. James Canon BastiWe (1952; reprint, Rockford: Tan, 1974), 199.
11. Anselm, Cur Deus Homo, 2.16.
12. Anselm, Epistle 174.
13. Ott, Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma, 200.
14. Lane, “Maiy,” 416.
15. John Calvin, A Harmony of the Gospels: Matthew, Mark and Luke (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1972), 1:70.
16. Ott, Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma, 196. The titles Theotokos, dei para, and dei genetrix are similar in meaning, each referring to the Virgin Mary as the mother of God.
17. Giovanni Miegge, The Virgin Mary: The Roman Catholic Marian Doctrine, trans. Waldo Smith (1950; reprint, Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1955), 53.
18. Ibid., 54.
19. Hemy Bettenson, ed., Documents of the Christian Church (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 1963), 51-52.
20. Miegge, The Virgin Mary, 65-66. Perhaps the titles Mother of Christ and Mother of God really, if carefully guarded, say the same thing. She did bear by humanity a person having both humanity and divinity. ElizabetII’s expression, “the mother of my Lord,” points as well to the dignity of both Maiy and her son (Luke 1:43).
21. Miegge, The Virgin Mary, 103-4.
22. Ibid., 104.
23. Ott, Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma, 207.
24. Miegge, The Virgin Mary, 85.
25. Martin Jugie, A. A., La mort et VAssomption de la Sainte Vierge. Etude historico doctrinale (Vatican City, 1944). I have not seen this work.
26. Miegge, The Virgin Mary, 103
27. Listen to the Catholic Ott’s explanation in Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma: Modern theology usually cites Gn. 3,15 in support of the doctrine. Since by the seed of the woman it understands Christ, and by the woman, Mary, it is argued that as Mary had an intimate share in Christ’s battle against Satan and in His victory over Satan and sin, she must also have participated intimately in His victory over death. It is true that the literal reference of the text is to Eve and not Maiy, but already since the end of the second century (St. Justin) Tradition has seen in Mary the new Eve. (p. 209)
Even Ott admits that Genesis 3:15 has to do with Eve, not Mary; further, I miss the “intimate share” of Mary with our Lord at the biblical accounts of His temptation and Golgotha suffering!
28. Incidentally the use made of text in the Catholic prayer, “Ave Maria,” is incorrect. The angel is saluting Mary, not offering a prayer to her.
29. Miegge, The Virgin Mary, 106.
30. Lane, “Maiy,” 416.
31. Ibid.
32. Mario Colacci, The Doctrinal Conflict between Roman Catholic and Protestant Christianity (Minneapolis: T. S. Denison, 1965), 183.
33. Ott, Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma, 211.
34. Ibid.
35. Miegge, The Virgin Mary, 115; citing Bernard’s Epistula 174 (172) ad Canones Lugdunenses.
36. Justin and Irenaeus are responsible for the parallel, the latter writing, “as by her disobedience the virgin Eve was the cause of death for herself and for the human race, so the obedient virgin became a cause of salvation (causa facta est salutis) for herself and the human race” (Adversus Haereses, V.19, 1). Irenaeus overlooked the sense of Genesis 3:6-7. A careful examination of the text indicates that, when Eve ate of the fruit, nothing happened. When she gave to Adam and he ate, we read in verse 7, “Then [Heb., waw] the eyes of both of them were opened.” The author regards Adam as a covenantal head of the race, and it is his action that is determinative. That is why the New Testament accurately picks up on this and speaks, not of a balancing of Eve and Mary as the causes of death and salvation, but of Adam and Christ (Romans 5:12-21; 1 Corinthians 15:22).
37. Miegge, The Virgin Mary, 158.
38. Ott, Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma, 212.
39. Ibid., 161. It is difficult to be absolutely fair to Rome, for their theologians, while citing statements that imply Mary’s offering of Christ, go on to deny that she cooperated in any manner other than an indirect, remote cooperation. They affirm that Christ alone offered the atoning sacrifice on the cross and that Mary merely gave Him moral support (Ott, Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma, 213). They deny her the title priest, and yet speak of her offering, of entering into the sacrifice of the Son for men. In spite of their protests, it is Pius ΧII who says in the encyclical Mystici Corporis (1943) that she “offered Him on Golgotha to the Eternal Father together with the holocaust of her maternal rights and motherly love like a new Eve for all children of Adam” (ibid.). How shall we respond to this?
40. Berkouwer, The Conflict with Rome, 164.
41. Vatican II, Dogmatic Constitution of the Church, VHI.61.
42. Howard Sainsbury, “Liguori, Alphonsus (1696-1787),” in New International Dictionary of Theology of the Christian Church, 597.
43. Miegge, The Virgin Mary, 133; citing S. Alfonso Maria De’ Liguori, Le Glorie di Maria (Rome: Instit. Miss. Pia Societa di S. Paolo, 1947), 1:8.
44. Lane, “Mary,” 415.
45. Miegge (The Virgin Mary) has cited many of these extravagant claims made by this moral theologian (pp. 146-50).
46. Lat., sanctorum communionem.
47. Berkouwer, The Conflict with Rome, 180.
48. R. T. Beckwith, “Saint,” in New Dictionary of Theology, 609.
49. Ott, Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma, 441.
50. John Calvin speaks of the treasury of merit “as that counterfeit treasury.” Cf. John Calvin, The First Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Corinthians, trans. John W. Fraser and ed. David W. Torrance and Thomas F. Torrance (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1960), 29.
51. Paul Althaus, The Theology of Martin Luther, trans. Robert C. Schultz (1963; reprint, Philadelphia: Fortress, 1966), 297. Luther called all of this “workism” (Werkerei).
52. Martin Luther, Lectures on Romans, vol. XV of The Library of Christian Classics, trans. and ed. Wilhelm Pauck (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1961), 350
53. Althaus, The Theology of Martin Luther, 300.
54. The Belgic Confession has a remarkable article on Christ’s Intercession, which makes the same points beautifully (see Art. XXVI).
55. Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary (10th ed.), 1028.
56. Ott, Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma, 338.
57. Ibid., 339.
58. Ibid., 355.
59. The word Mass, derived from the Latin missio, meaning “dismissal,” or “release,” referring to the dismissal of catechumens before the Eucharist was celebrated. Ambrose is the first to use it of the Eucharist. The Catholic Mass still concludes with, “Ite, missa est.”
60. Ott, Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma, 407.
61. Ibid., 408.
62. Ibid., 412-13. Ott’s proof of the propitiatoiy character of the Sacrifice for the Mass is Matthew 26:28: “This is my blood of the covenent, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.” He suggests that the present tenses in the verbs, dido-menon (Luke 22:19-20) and ekchunnomenon (Matthew 26:28; Maik 14:24; Luke 22:20) indicate that the sacrifice is consummated in the present time, although a reference to the proximate future is not excluded! The presents indicate duration not consummation. Our Lord at the time of the Last Supper is simply indicating that the work at that time is simply in process of completion, for He has not yet carried out that which is being suggested in symbol. The remainder of the New Testament, written after the completion of the work always refers to it as having been completed, as does the apostle John in John 19:30.
63. Ibid., 448.
64. J. B. Lightfoot, Saint Paul's Epistle to the Philippians (London: Macmillan, 1898), 181, 186. To Cyprian in the third century we are indebted for the fact that the Christian ministry came to be widely understood in terms of the Old Testament levitical priesthood. He takes the Old Testament passages referring to the duties, privileges, and sanctions of the levitical priests as applying to the officers of the Christian Church. His opponents are “profane and sacrilegious; they have passed the sentence of death on themselves by disobeying the command of the Lord in Deuteronomy to ‘hear the priest’ ” (Deuteronomy 17:12; Lightfoot, 258).
65. 1 Clement is usually dated ca. a.d. 96.
66. Ibid., 258.
67. Pike was giving the Griffith Thomas Lectures of 1956 at Dallas Theological Seminary when he related the incident.
68. Nathaniel Dimock, a British Anglican scholar around the turn of the century, wrote a number of works bearing on the question of the claims of Rome for the Mass, namely, that her priests do have the authority to offer sacrifices in the Eucharist in the Sacrifice of the Mass (cf. Hebrews 8:3; 9:7, critical texts in support of the position). Dimock, in careful textual and historical exegesis, has demonstrated convincingly that our Lord has offered one full and final propitiatory offering for sin on the Cross. Among Dimock’s works are these: Our One Priest on High (New York, Bombay, and Calcutta: Longmans, Green, & Co., 1910); The Sacerdotium of Christ (New York, Bombay, and Calcutta: Longmans, Green, & Co., 1910); The Doctrine of the Death of Christ: in Relation to the Sin of Man, the Condemnation of the Law, and the Dominion of Satan (London: Elliot Stock, 1903).
69. The KJV has “by himself purged our sins,” underlining the personal interest in the accomplishment. The prepositional phrase is found in a very early manuscript, as well as in later ones, and may be genuine. The middle voice of the participle might express the idea found in the prepositional phrase. If the phrase is genuine, the “by himself” stresses that the work of purification is the Son’s alone. In fact, one might say that this is the only Purgatory in Scripture! Cf. F. F . Bruce, The Epistle to the Hebrews, rev. ed. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1990), 44-45. A fuller treatment is found in G. Zuntz, The Text of the Epistles: A Disquisition upon the Corpus Pau-linum (London: Geoffrey Cumberlege, O. U. P, 1953), 43-45.
70. Pointed are the remarks of Robert L. Dabney (Lectures in Systematic Theology [1878; reprint, Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1972]) concerning the necessity of deity in the work of intercession for sin:
None but a properly divine being could undertake Christ’s priestly work. Had he been the noblest creature in heaven, his life and powers would have been the property of God, our offended Judge; and our Advocate could not have claimed, as He does, John x: 18, that He had . . . to lay down His life and take it again. Then: unless above law, He could have no imputable, active obedience. Third: unless sustained by omnipotence, unless sustained by inward omnipotence, He could never have endured the wrath of the Almighty for the sins of the world; it would have sunk Him into perdition. Fourth: had there not been a divine nature to reflect an infinite dignity upon His person, His suffering the curse of sin for a few years, would not have been a satisfaction sufficient to propitiate God for the sins of the world. After a sacrifice comes intercession. His petitioners and their wants are so numerous, that unless He were endowed with sleepless attention, and omnipresence which can never tire, an infinite understanding, omnipresence, and exhaustless kindness, He could not wisely and graciously attend to so many and multifarious calls, (pp. 200-201)
How useless are human intercessors, such as the Virgin Mary and Roman priests, for deliverance from sin!
71. Ott (Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma) does attempt to connect the Eucharist with the bread and wine of Melchizedek, contending that Melchizedek’s “sacrifice” is the archetype of the sacrifice of the Mass (p. 403). The attempt is unconvincing.
72. Bruce, The Epistle to the Hebrews, 379-80.
73. Hugh Martin, The Atonement in its Relations to the Covenant, the Priesthood, the Intercession of our Lord (1870; reprint, Cherry Hill: Mack, n.d.), 59.
74. Ibid., 60.d
75. A. A. Hodge, The Atonement (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1953), 155-56.
76. Lightfoot, Saint Paul's Epistle to the Philippians, 265.
77. Brooke Foss Westcott, The Epistle to the Hebrews: The Greek Text with Notes and Essays (London: Macmillan, 1892), 317.