Chapter 09: The Sacrifice of Christ
Chapter 09: The Sacrifice of Christ The Son of God came down to earth in order to die. The cross is His masterpiece. Not everyone can appreciate the glory of the cross; many consider it a scandal or even foolishness, but Christians never cease to boast in the cross of the Redeemer, Jesus Christ. To better understand the significance of Christ’s death it is worthwhile having a closer look at the ceremonies performed during the Old Testament. Through Moses, God gave instructions to His people in Israel concerning the tabernacle, the priesthood and various sacrifices. The tabernacle consisted in two sections: the holy place and the Holy of Holies. The glory of God’s presence shone in the Holy of Holies. Nobody was allowed entrance into this sacred place except the high priest. A veil separated the two sections from each other, signifying, among other things, that sin debars us from the presence of the thrice-holy God. From among the Jewish nation certain men were appointed by God to serve as priests, whose ministry was to represent the people before Him. Thus God teaches us that we cannot approach Him by ourselves. The priests used to offer different animal sacrifices on the altar every day. Once a year the high priest used to kill the animal, take some of its blood in a container and enter beyond the veil in the Holy of Holies. God is righteous and His justice demands due punishment for every transgression of the law. The death of countless animals reminds us what the punishment is for our disobedience. The wages of sin is death, as God had forewarned man from the beginning.
Old Testament sacrifices also show us the way we can get rid of our sin’s punishment. The Lord instructed His people: “For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you upon the altar to make atonement for your souls; for it is the blood that makes atonement for the soul.” 140 The blood makes “atonement” or “covers” the sin. Elsewhere the Scripture declares that “without shedding of blood is no remission.”141
See how marvellous God’s grace is. His justice requires the full punishment for sin: death, but in order to deliver the sinner from the necessary punishment, God has provided for him a substitute to die in his place. The blood of the animal is shed on the altar; its life is taken so that the sinner would not have to die. The Old Testament rites were only a picture of Christ and His work as Redeemer. Scripture calls these things a “copy and shadow,” and “shadow of the good things to come.” “For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and goats could take away sins.”142 Christ is the true Lamb of God who bears upon Himself and takes away the sin of the world.
Christ, The Priest and Sacrifice
Sin separates us from the holy God, and arouses His anger and wrath, but God, who is rich in mercy, was pleased to deliver His people from their sins. The Father appointed the Son as High Priest to intercede for them. The eternal Son of God became a human being so that He could represent us before the Father.
Christ is both the priest and the sacrifice. Jesus, as priest, offered Himself as a sacrifice for sin. “The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.”143 Do take time, then, to meditate upon the significance of the cross. The apostle Peter explains to believers: “Who Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness--by whose stripes you were healed... For Christ also suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God.” 144 Jesus died on the cross instead of His people, that they would not suffer eternal death in hell. He suffered the punishment that was properly and rightly theirs, therefore they are no longer liable to hell’s punishment. The apostle Paul reminds us of the misery and peril because of sin. “Cursed is everyone who does not continue in all things which are written in the book of the law, to do them.” The Law convicts us of sin, condemns us, but has no power to deliver us. There is only one way that effectively delivers us from God’s wrath. “Christ has redeemed (freed) us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us; for it is written, "Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree."”145 Believers are free because the curse on their heads was transferred to Christ, their Redeemer. With good reason Christ feared and was sorrowful in the garden of Gethsemane! He who knew no sin was willing to drink the cup of divine wrath so that His people would be saved and enjoy fellowship with God. His cry during that hour of darkness is as meaningful as could be, “Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?” that is, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?”146 On the cross, Christ endured and experienced the punishment of hell instead of those whom the Father had given! How blessed are they who are able to praise Christ from their heart: “By your cross and your death you have redeemed us.”
I Am the Bread of Life
Christ is the Saviour of the world, but it cannot be implied that every human being will be saved. Many will hear their terrible condemnation on the great and awesome Day of the Lord: “Depart from Me, you cursed, into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels.”147 They were never delivered from their curse. Who then has the right the say to the Lord Jesus: “You were slain, and have redeemed us to God by Your blood out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation”?148 Who is actually saved? In John’s gospel we have a satisfactory explanation. Jesus compares Himself with bread: “I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever; and the bread that I shall give is My flesh, which I shall give for the life of the world.”149 Jesus offered His sacred body and shed His precious blood as a sacrifice for sin. Now how can a sinner actually benefit from His sacrifice? Quite obviously bread will neither nourish nor satisfy if it is not eaten and digested. Even so the body of Christ, given on the cross, and His shed blood will be unprofitable if we do not actually participate in His infinite merits. Jesus explains: “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.”150
Such a step is absolutely necessary to obtain eternal life, but how can we eat this divine bread? How can we drink Christ’s blood? His audience murmured greatly when they heard this the first time, and protested, “How can this Man give us His flesh to eat?”151 Their carnal misunderstanding of Jesus’ words was merely a cloak for their unbelief. He had already explained, but they were hard- hearted and refused to listen. Those who wilfully persist in unbelief will find their hearts even more callous and insensitive to divine truth. When Christ said, “I am the living bread,” He was using a metaphor to explain profound spiritual truths as He was accustomed to do. In the same gospel, Jesus uttered similar expressions:
“I am the light of the world” - His disciples follow Him.
“I am the door” - whoever desires to be saved must enter through Him.
“I am the good shepherd” - His sheep listen to and obey His voice.
“I am the true vine” - Christians are vitally united to Him as branches are to the vine.152
Nobody would dare suggest that Christ is literally light, or a door, or a shepherd, or a vine. Neither are His followers sheep or branches. They do not follow Him by walking literally after Him; neither do they enter through Him literally. In the same manner, we would be in serious error if we take His speech about eating His body in a literal way.
How then are we meant to eat His body and drink His blood in order to obtain eternal life? Several times the Lord Jesus gives us a direct and uncomplicated answer in His same speech. “I am the bread of life. He who comes to Me shall never hunger, and he who believes in Me shall never thirst.” “And this is the will of Him who sent Me, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in Him may have everlasting life; and I will raise him up at the last day” “Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in Me has everlasting life.”153 Jesus’ answer cannot be missed: He grants eternal life to all who believe in Him. Eating and drinking is believing in Christ. The Jews desired eternal life. They rested in the law. They trusted in their own good works, in circumcision, in Moses and in their genealogical line going back to the patriarchs. But this was not God’s requirement. God simply wanted them to believe on the One whom He had sent. He who believes in Christ has eternal life. Think this crucial issue through: on whom are you depending to have eternal life? In your obedience to God’s commandments, in your own holiness and good performance, in baptism or in Mary and the saints? Christ leaves us in no doubt as to God’s requirement: “This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He sent.”154
Once for All Was the sacrifice of Christ on Calvary sufficient to save all those who trust in Him? Was that offering for sin enough to obtain eternal redemption? Was the death of Christ enough to actually and really cancel out sin? Was His sacrifice effective so that by it He sanctifies His people and makes them perfect? How many times did Christ have to do it? The following quotations from the letter to the Hebrews give us a plain answer:
With His own blood He entered the Most Holy Place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption.
Now, once at the end of the ages, He has appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself.
By that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.
For by one offering He has perfected forever those who are being sanctified.155
Christ’s sacrifice is an accomplished historical fact. It need not be repeated because His purpose was fulfilled. He gained His people’s redemption, the cancellation of their sin, their holiness and their perfection in glory. It was a thoroughly perfect sacrifice: He has no need to go through it again. The Catholic Church affirms that Jesus offered one sacrifice once for all. We cannot but be disappointed to discover that Rome’s doctrine of the Mass contradicts this blessed truth. You may retort: “Why do you say this? The Mass is the remembrance of the Lord and a proclamation of His death.” If it were so, we would find no difficulty whatsoever, but the official teaching of the Catholic Church goes far beyond this. The Catechism teaches: “As sacrifice, the Eucharist is also offered in reparation for the sins of the living and the dead.”156 Not only so, but the Catholic Church insists that the Mass is the same sacrifice of Christ on the cross: “The sacrifice of Christ and the sacrifice of the Eucharist are one single sacrifice... In this divine sacrifice which is celebrated in the Mass, the same Christ who offered Himself once in a bloody manner on the altar of the cross is contained and is offered in an unbloody manner.”157
How can today’s Mass be the same sacrifice that occurred two millennia ago? If they are the same, where are the cross, the crown of thorns, the nails, the suffering, the shedding of blood and the death of Christ? We all know that is impossible for Christ to die again: “I am He who lives, and was dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore.”158 Now since He cannot shed His blood or die once more, what is the value of such an “unbloody” sacrifice in the light of Scripture’s affirmation that “without shedding of blood there is no remission”?159
Yet the Catholic Church insists that “the Eucharist is thus a sacrifice because it re-presents (makes present) the sacrifice of the cross” and that Christ instituted the Eucharistic sacrifice “in order to perpetuate the sacrifice of the cross throughout the ages until he should come again.”160
Since they could not take away sins, the sacrifices of the Old Testament were offered repeatedly year after year and even day after day. Not so in the New Testament. “Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many.”161 For as long as the Catholic Church insists on the necessity of renewing and perpetuating the sacrifice of Christ, she is doing nothing less than bringing Christ’s offering of Himself to the level of animal sacrifices of the Old Testament.
Continuing or Finished?
What is the truth? Is Jesus still offering the same sacrifice daily on the Catholic altars? Scripture answers: “Every priest (in the Old Testament) stands ministering daily and offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. But this Man, after He had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down at the right hand of God.” 162 Christ’s uniqueness consists in not having to continue offering the same sacrifice. He completed His mission successfully because His sacrifice is effective in every way. Neither is He a victim on earthly altars, but is exalted and glorified in heaven. He “sat down” because His sacrificial work is complete and finished. The Holy Spirit also affirms Christ’s perfect sacrifice. Referring to the partakers of New Covenant blessings, He says, “Their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more.” The author’s reasonable conclusion is pointedly powerful: “Now where there is remission of these, there is no longer an offering for sin.”163 Since all believers’ sins are wiped away, what need remains for the sacrifice of the Mass?
Christ Himself commented on His own redeeming work. Should it continue to be offered throughout time? While still hanging on the cross, Christ uttered a triumphal cry: “It is finished!” The debt is settled; redemption accomplished; forgiveness is obtained. One offering, effective for all time and eternity! To enter before God’s holy presence, you need a bloody sacrifice to cleanse you from sin. What will be your choice? Will it be the unbloody sacrifice of the Mass? Or will it be the perfect sacrifice offered on Calvary once for all?