Heick, Otto William

English

Wilfrid Laurier University

ConsensusVolume 9 | Issue 1 Article 21-1-1983The sacramental and sacrificial nature of theeucharistOtto William HeickFollow this and additional works at: http://scholars.wlu.ca/consensusThis Articles is brought to you for free and open access by Scholars Commons @ Laurier. It has been accepted for inclusion in Consensus by anauthorized editor of Scholars Commons @ Laurier. For more information, please contact scholarscommons@wlu.ca.Recommended CitationHeick, Otto William (1983) "The sacramental and sacrificial nature of the eucharist," Consensus: Vol. 9 : Iss. 1 , Article 2.Available at: http://scholars.wlu.ca/consensus/vol9/iss1/2THE SACRAMENTAL AND SACRIFICIALNATURE OF THE EUCHARISTOtto W. HeickIn the night in which he was betrayed, Jesus prayed that all who would believe inhim through the word of the disciples may be one as he and the Father are one (John17:20 f.) and instituted the Eucharist as a visible sign of the oneness of all believerswith him. All who eat his flesh and drink his blood abide in him and he in them (John6:56). Yet the history of the church presents a different picture. The teaching aboutthe Eucharist and its administration became the most divisive factor among Chris-tians. Catholics deny Protestants altar fellowship. The unity of the Reformationmovement was terminated in the conflict between Luther and the“Sacramentarians”, as Luther called Karlstadt and Zwingli. Altar fellowship is eventoday a thorny issue between the Lutherans themselves on this continent.Linder the influence of the Ecumenical Movement the “ugly ditch” separating thechurches has fortunately been levelled or even filled up. In Europe the churches ofthe Reformation (Lutheran and Reformed) and the pre-Reformation churches(Waldensions and Bohemian Brethren) issued a joint statement, the so-calledLeuenberger Konkordie, 1973, in which they said that in the Eucharist the risen Lordoffers his body and blood under the emblems of bread and wine to all participants, tobelievers for salvation, to unbelievers for judgment. They added that all speculationsof the presence of Christ in the Supper apart from the act of eating and drinkingobscure the meaning of the sacrament.As Lutherans of North America we are especially interested in the Dialogue carriedon between Lutherans and Catholics (1964-1978). In this article we shall examine16The Sacramental and Sacrificial 17Volume III on “The Eucharist as Sacrifice”.^ In addition, an essay by Gunther Wenzon “Die Lehre vom Opfer Christi im Herrenmahl als Problem oekumenischerTheologie” in Ker^gma und Dogma, January/March 1982 will also be considered.The controversy over the Eucharist revolved around the question of the mode ofthe presence of Christ in the sacrament and its sacrificial nature. Concerning theformer, Rome and Wittenberg maintained the Real Presence over against Zurich andGeneva; on the other hand, all Reformers denied the Catholic teaching of theEucharist as a propitiary sacrifice for the living and the dead. In the earlier period ofthe Reformation Luther launched a sharp attack on the Catholic teaching but he soonfound himself engrossed in a fierce conflict with Karlstadt and Zwingli over the RealPresence. Throughout his career Luther emphasized that the sacrament is valid as anordinance of Christ, yet efficacious for salvation only if received in faith. Hence he feltoffended by the Roman teaching that the sacrament is effective ex opere operateapart from faith. “Not the sacrament but the faith in the sacrament justifies.” He alsomaintained that the sacrament is valid independent of the subjective condition of thepriest and the recipient.The sacrificial aspect of the mass became the main target of his criticism in theTreatise on the New Testament (1520).^ He was not opposed to the term “sacrifice”in relation to the mass; his opposition was solely directed against the mass as a propi-tionary sacrifice. The celebration of the mass, he said, should incite us to surrenderourselves as a living sacrifice to God. It cannot be a “work” to appease God. Themass is a receiving not a giving, it is a testament not a sacrifice. Luther continued hiscriticism in On The Babylonian Captivity of the Church. Yet his vocabulary in theformer writing is fluid to admit that in a certain sense the mass could be called asacrifice. In the mass, he says, “I also offer Christ in that I desire and believe that heaccepts me and my prayer and praise, and presents it to God in his person. And inorder to strengthen this faith of mine he gives a token that he will do it. This token isthe sacrament of bread and wine. Thus it becomes clear that it is not the priest alonewho offers the sacrifice of the mass; it is the faith which each one has for himself. Thisis the truly priestly office through which Christ is offered as a sacrifice to God, an of-fice which the priest, with the outward ceremonies of the mass, simply represents.Each and all are therefore equally spiritual priest before God.”^ In faith then we takethe sacrament believing that all sin has been forgiven by Christ’s death on the cross.The word “sacrifice” does not occur in the Latin text of the Augsburg Confession.The criticism of the mass expressed in Articles XXII and XXIV deals simply with theabuses of the mass in the life of the medieval church; withholding the cup from thelaity, private masses for the living and the dead, turning the mass into a sort of fair,etc.^ But because the Roman Confutation^ defended the practice of the day, Mel-anchthon felt obligated to speak at considerable length on the subject in the Apology1. Published jointly by representatives of the U.S.A. National Committee of the Lutheran WorldFederation and the Bishops’ Committee for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs. 1968.2. American Edition, Vol. 35, pp. 75-111.3. Ibid., p. 100.4. T.G. Tappert, editor, The Book of Concord (Philadelphia: Muhlenberg Press, 1959).5. H.E. Jacobs, The Book of Concord, Vol. 2 (Philadelphia: G.W. Frederick, 1883), pp. 209-241.18 Consensusof the Augsburg Confession.^ In brief he maintained that the ex opere operato work-mass concept of Rome is contrary to Scripture. The ceremony of the mass is a pictureor seal showing forth the promise of the word “given for you”.^The authors of the Confutation maintained that no Catholic had ever taught thatChrist by his passion made satisfaction for original sin and that he instituted the massfor actual sin. For the mass is not a means to abolish sins which are destroyed byrepentance; it is a rite to abolish the punishment due to sin, supplying satisfaction andan increase of grace.® However, the Council of Trent (Twenty-Second Session,Sept. 17, 1562) seemed to uphold just that what the Confutation rejected, sayingthat what Christ accomplished on the cross may be represented in the mass and ap-plied in the mass for “those sins we daily commit”.® “In the mass Christ is containedand immolated in an unbloody manner” and “this sacrifice is truly propitiatory.” Byits oblation the Lord is “appeased” . . . “the victim is one and the same, the samenow offering by the ministry of priests, who then offered himself on the cross, themanner alone of offering being different.”^®The situation remained frozen for centuries. The opinions of both churches werefixed. The Roman teaching of the mass and the doctrine of papal infallibility seemedto be the greatest stumbling block for mutual recognition. The revival of interestamong Lutherans in our times can most likely be traced to Yngve Brilioth’s seminalwork, Eucharistic Faith and Practice, Evangelical and Catholic, 1926.“ He tried torestore the communal character of the Eucharist in favor of a strident individualism.The movement gained momentum at the Faith and Order Conference at Edinburgh,1937. The trigger was the book The Fullness of Sacrifice by the Anglican bishop ofGibraltar, F.C.N. Hicks.“ In the incarnation Christ made himself one with us, Hickssays, we crucify him. He then takes his blood, i.e. his life, which by identification withthe incarnation is our life, brings it to God and atones for us. He is also the risen andexalted Lord. The sacrifice is thus a name for the whole action from the incarnation tothe exaltation. He is the head of the church which is his body. In the Heavenly Sanc-tuary we offer ourselves together with him as a sacrifice to God. This sort of argumentcomes close to what Luther is saying in The Treatise on the New Testament as out-lined above.The article on the Mass in the New Catholic Encyclopedia contains the followingstatements: Christ temporizes in the mass what is forever actual in heaven. The massre-enacts sacramentally what it communicates. The mass is numerically the same actas that of Calvary. Man presents God with an object that stands for himself, it is an actof self-surrender to God. It is the family meal of God’s children. It is the most publicand social function of the church, God speaking and man answering.“In the joint statement on the Eucharist as Sacrifice we read: “Lutherans and6. Tappert, pp. 249-268.7. Ibid., p. 262.8. Ibid., p. 230.9. Philip Schaff, The Creeds of Christendom, Vol. II (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1919), p. 177.10. Ibid., p. 179.11. Yngve Brilioth, Eucharistic Faith and Practice, Evangelical and Catholic, translated by A.G. Hebert(London: S.P.C.K., 1930).12. F.C.N. Hicks, The Fullness of Sacrifice (London: S.P.C.K., 1953).13. New Catholic Enci^clopedia, Vol. 19, pp. 414-426.The Sacramental and Sacrificial 19Catholics alike acknowledge the one-for-all sacrifice of Christ on the cross. Bothtraditions agree that the celebration of the Eucharist is the church’s sacrifice of praiseand self-offering or oblation. Though Trent affirmed the unrepeatable character ofthe cross, Lutheran doubts about the Catholic position were not resolved. Today,however, they find no reason for such doubt. What God did in the life, death andresurrection of Jesus he does not do again. These ‘events are unique; they cannot berepeated, or extended or continued’. Yet in the Eucharist God makes them presentthrough the Holy Spirit, thus making us participants in Christ.” (I Cor. 1:9).^^ Accor-ding to the Catholic theologian Odo Casel, the mass is a symbolic-real representationof Christ. It is symbolic because Christ did not give the disciples to eat pieces of hisflesh nor drops of his blood to drink; rather he offered them these gifts under theemblems of bread and wine. In Biblical thought (Exodus 25:40, 28:30, Hebr. 8:5,9:23) the Urbild (the original) is objectively and really contained in the Abbild(image) . ^ ® Concerning the Catholic affirmation that the church “offers Christ” in thesacrament which in the eyes of the Lutherans turned the mass into a human work,the statement practically repeats what Luther and Hicks had been saying on the unityof the church with Christ. Through this union “the Eucharistic assembly ‘offers Christ’by consenting in the power of the Holy Spirit to be offered by him to the Father.”Both agree that the propitiary sacrifice of the cross is unique hence Lutherans rejectwhat they think Trent said about propitiary masses for “the living and the dead” eventhough the Apologia of the Augsburg Confession concedes with respect to prayers forthe dead that we “do not forbid them”.^® They likewise realize that there is significantconvergence in the actual practice of eucharistic worship. The Second Vatican Coun-cil in its Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy declared that the nature of the mass issuch that communal celebration is to be preferred to individual and quasi-privatecelebration. It is to be celebrated in the vernacular with active participation of the lai-ty. In some cases Rome now permits the laity to receive both elements.The question of eucharistic sacrifice is closely related to other issues, the Dialogueconcludes. Foremost is the problem of the “real presence.” Both confess a manifoldpresence of Christ. He is present in his body the church, the people of God, in theproclamation of the Gospel and in the Lord’s Supper. The Lutheran Confessions af-firm that Jesus Christ is “really”, “truly” and “substantially” present in the sacrament.They hold that his presence does not come about through the faith of the believers asZwingli and, with some modification, Calvin maintained. Yet his presence is notspatial or natural but “sacramental”, “supernatural” and “spiritual”. The mode ofChrist’s presence is not mentioned. Lutherans have followed Luther’s teaching of themajestic genus “by which the Son of God truly and really communicates the proper-ties of his divine nature to his human nature.” Christ is omnipresent in both natures.But the communication of properties from nature to nature, has been acceptedneither by Catholic nor Reformed theologians. But if after the manner of a body the14. Dialogue III, pp. 187-191.15. Odo Casel, The Mastery of Christian Worship, translated by B. Neunheuser (Westminster,Maryland: The Newman Press, 1962). The biography of Casel on p. 210 shows his otherwritings on the subject.16. Tappert, p. 267.17. Formula of Concord, Articles on VII and VIII. Tappert, pp. 481-492 and 568-610.20 Consensusbody of Christ is spatially contained in heaven, how can it be present upon thenumerous altars on earth?*®The Scholastics of the Middle Ages referred to the analogy of light. While the sunoccupies a definite place in the firmament, the light radiating from the sun is presenteverywhere in the universe. A beam of light is not a multiplication of the sun; insteadit is a manifestation of one luminary body. Thus the eucharistic body is a manifesta-tion of the glorified body of Christ. A rationalistic attempt to explain the mystery ofChrist’s presence in the Eucharist is to be rejected. A definite commitment to eitherframework is thought to be untenable, the document concludes.*® The Catholicteaching of transubstantiation is not to explain how Christ becomes present in thesacrament. If thus explained Lutherans find that teaching “is a legitimate way of at-tempting to express the mystery” though they believe that the concept associatedwith “transubstantiation” is misleading and therefore prefer to avoid it.*°In conclusion, the unity we seek is not uniformity in theology which does not evenexist in the New Testament, for faith and theology are two different categories. Faithis primary, theology as interpretation is secondary. The one partner may not alwaysbe comfortable with the theological terminology of the other. Lutherans, as stated,prefer not to speak of transubstantiation in the sacrament though they share withCatholic believers the faith in the Lord of the sacrament.18. Cf. the writer’s article “Consubstantiation in Luther's Theology," Canadian Journal ofTheology, Vol. XII (1966), No. 1, pp. 3-8.19. The Lutheran teaching is rejected in the New Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. 14, p. 361. ThePresbyterian scholar, Charles Hodge, presents a distorted picture of Lutheran teaching whenhe says that they teach a "communio idiomatum" and a "communicatio naturar urn.”Systematic Theology, Vol. II (New York: Scribner, Armstrong, and Co., 1874), p. 407. Accordingto Luther the union of the two natures in Christ is so intimate that he is always andeverywhere present as the God-Man. His body, too, is ubiquitous. Yet the problem is un-soluble. Bonhoeffer remarks we should be satisfied WHO Jesus is, the HOW is beyond thereach of human reason. Christ the Centre, English by John Bowden (New York: Harper & Row,1966),p. 59.20. Dialogue III, p. 198.

The sacramental and sacrificial nature of the eucharist

Scholars Commons

https://scholars.wlu.ca/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2187&amp;context=consensus

The sacramental and sacrificial nature of the eucharist

Abstract

Similar works

Full text

Available Versions

Wilfrid Laurier University

Scholars Commons