A 08 - Priesthood and Sacrifice

Ryder PLHV: 08 Priesthood and Sacrifice VIII PRIESTHOOD AND SACRIFICE But I write the more boldly unto you in some measure, as putting you again in remembrance, because of the grace that was given me of God, that I should be a minister of Christ Jesus unto the Gentiles, ministering the gospel of God, that the offering up of the Gentiles might be made acceptable, being sanctified by the Holy Ghost. Romans 15:15-17. THE word "sacerdotalism" is a word which generally describes the view of the priestly character of the ministry. The late Bishop Lightfoot has asserted of the Kingdom of Christ, "Above all, it has no sacerdotal system." Canon Moberly, in his Ministerial Priesthood, has as his central argument an analysis and discussion of the idea of priesthood.

Canon Moberly’s book is a masterpiece of special pleading. The sense in which Bishop Lightfoot uses the word "sacerdotalism" is well understood and clearly denned. Canon Moberly in effect says that there is in the Kingdom of Christ sacerdotalism in another sense. In this way he desires to turn the point of Bishop Lightfoot’s statement.

Dr. Lightfoot says of the Kingdom of Christ: "It interposes no sacrificial tribe or class between God and man, by whose intervention alone God is reconciled and sin forgiven."

Surely this is clear. Canon Moberly’s subtle mind passes by this sentence, and gives the following statement of priesthood: " The inwardness, then, of priesthood is the spirit of sacrifice, and the spirit of sacrifice is the spirit of love in a world of sin and pain, whose expression in the inner soul is priestly intercession and whose utterance in the outward life is devotion of ministry for others for others from the Christ-like point of view, as for those for whom Christ died."

We observe that it cannot be considered unnatural that Bishop Lightfoot should go to the Old Testament institution of sacrifice. The Old Testament was the book with which the writers of the New Testament were conversant, and the Old Testament presents us with a typical example of a priesthood the leading function of which was the offering of sacrifice. To apply this standard to the Christian function is natural, intelligible, and directly on a level with the instincts of plain men. This conclusion is self-evident the Christian ministry is not a sacrificing priesthood in the Old Testament sense of sacrifice.

Canon Moberly discusses quite a different question. Can we not conceive a spirit of sacrifice purified of all grosser forms? Can we not consider the sacrifice of Christ apart from His death? The offering of Himself to His Father by our Lord Jesus Christ was an act of sacrifice. His death was an unavoidable element, but not the greatest part of it. It had this in common with the Mosaic sacrifice, that without shedding of blood it would have been incomplete. "Without shedding of blood there is no remission." Christ, therefore, died, and through death made good His sacrifice. Now comes an ambiguous statement by Canon Moberly. "What Christ does, that the Church, which is the Body of Christ, also does. What the Church does, so also does the ministry, its executive organ." It follows from this, according to Canon Moberly, that the New Testament has its sacrificial system as well as the Old. In reply to such statements it may be said: if the spirit of priesthood is a spirit of sacrifice in a world of sin and pain, it may be predicated of many other things as well as priesthood. This is by no means the sense in which those who hold a sacerdotal view of the Christian ministry interpret the idea of the term "sacerdotal." The Christian does not die to sin in order to live exactly in the full and transcendent sense in which Christ died. His death and rising again were unique. The benefit to others from the death of Christ and from the dying to sin of a Christian are not on the same plane. The Christian must die to sin and put off the old man in the power of Christ. But surely we are speaking of a different thing when we say that Christ died for our sins and rose again for our justification. When St. Paul says, "The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not a communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not a communion of the body of Christ?: he means that it is the appointed ceremonial means of realising to ourselves the death of Christ.

It is usually said that the minister pleads in the sacrament, or presents the sacrifice of Christ, and in virtue of pleading or presenting of a sacrifice he is himself described as sacrificing. But it has been well pointed out that to plead or present a sacrifice ceremonially is really a distinct thing from sacrificing. The position cannot be challenged that in the strict use of terms those who do but plead or present the sacrifice of another are not entitled to speak or be spoken of as though the act of sacrifice were their own. It is true Dr. Moberly admits this in the following passage:

“The words pleading or presenting in this connection must not be understood as de scribing anything corresponding to specific acts done or words spoken by Christ in His glory. His glorified presence is an eternal presentation: He pleads by what He is." The Church of Rome, however, states that the Eucharist is a " verum ac proprium sacrificium et vere propitiatorium." In Dr. Moberly’s conception the element of sacrifice is twofold. First, there is the ceremonial act of sacrifice, which is of this derived character, and has behind it the true sacrifice of Christ. Secondly, there is the appropriation of the spirit of Christ’s sacrifice that which gave to it its value, the spirit of self-devotion and love. He says the ministerial life ought to be a constant expression of this spirit taking the form of pastoral care. He says the Christian minister should be no mere performer of an opus operatum: he should live for his people and let himself spend and be spent in their service. It may be replied that these things are undoubted truths, but have nothing to do with the matter in hand. The title of the book is Ministerial Priesthood., not Ministerial Pastorate. The question now discussed is the position of the Sacerdos in Ecclesia and not Pastor in Ecclesia. The real question at issue is not what expressions have been used with regard to the celebrant at the Eucharist from the second century to the Reformation, but whether these expressions and ideas have any sanction in the New Testament. In the sense in which we are speaking now there is no trace of sanction. The only sacrifice we read of as being performed by any of the apostles is in Acts 21:26: "Then Paul took the men, and the next day purifying himself with them went into the temple, declaring the fulfilment of the days of purification, until the offering was offered for every one of them." On the word "offering" (prosfora) Dean Alford says (see Numbers 6:13-17): "There is described a Mosaic offering in connection with the vow of the Nazarite, consisting of a he lamb, a ewe lamb, a ram, and a basket of unleavened bread. This is sufficiently far removed from the Christian Eucharist. The only sacrificial phrase which describes an apostle as a sacrificing priest is equally removed from the Eucharist. The sacrificial terminology is far more marked in the original than it can be in a translation." "I write," says St. Paul, "because of the grace of God, that I should be a minister of Christ Jesus unto the Gentiles (leitourgon Cristou Ihsou eij ta eqnh)." The word leitourgon is exactly the word that would be used of the discharge of the priest’s office in the temple. Further, he writes "ministering the gospel of God." The R.V. notes in the margin that the Greek is "ministering in sacrifice." The word is ierourgounta, the technical term for the function of sacrifice. "That the offering up of the Gentiles (h prosfora twn eqnwn) [i.e. not the offering which the Gentiles make, but which the Gentiles are] might be made acceptable, being sanctified by the Holy Ghost."

Let us examine how far this word "offering" (prosfora) gives sanction to the Eucharist being a sacrifice. On the one occasion the word is used it does not refer to the Eucharist at all. "The apostle," says Dr. Sanday, "conceives himself as standing by the altar: and the offering he lays on the altar is the Gentile Church so far as it is of his founding or comes within his special province. An offering ought to be without blemish; it ought to be purified before it is offered. And it is the apostle’s earnest prayer to God that these converts of his, these Gentile churches for which he is responsible, may be so sanctified by the outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon them that they may be an offering really acceptable a sacrifice of a sweet-smelling savour, for the purpose for which they were destined."

It is said that the language of St. Paul is a metaphor; it may be retorted that the priesthood predicated by the ministry is a metaphor, but a metaphor which has been crudely and perilously mistaken for a fact. The use of the word "offering" by St. Paul refers to Christian missions; the use of the word "offering" by Dr. Moberly and his friends refers to the Eucharist. There is no mistaking the apostle’s metaphor. "We seem to see the battered and shattered apostle, in bodily presence weak, but uplifted by the strength of deeply felt emotion, pouring out his whole soul to God as he lays this offering of his upon the altar, wrestling in prayer for precious souls which he has won from destruction, and commending them to the most effectual working of God’s grace that they may fulfil the true end of their being, the glory of God who made and redeemed them." In Dr. Moberly’s definition of sacrifice it is this fervour which is the essential thing. This is why he lays stress on the pastoral side of the priesthood.

There is no one who wishes to quarrel with such a presentation of ministerial office. But is not this evading the point? When Dr. Lightfoot said the Kingdom of Christ had no sacerdotal system, he denned his meaning. It is no answer to give another definition, however true and beautiful, and think that the issue is joined. Dr. Lightfoot would welcome such a view of the ministerial office, but such a view is not what is in common parlance known as sacerdotalism. The Son of God went forth and trod the winepress alone in a world of sorrow and sin. His love caused the sacrifice to be made. The Christian priesthood, if it deserves the name of self-sacrificing, does so by virtue of the distant gleam which it reflects of the divine self-sacrifice. The Christian ministry must enter into the sphere of the divine purpose of which it forms part if it is to discharge its functions at all. I submit that there is on the part of Dr. Moberly a deliberate fallacy by which the sacerdotal idea of offering the sacrifice of the Blessed Body and Blood of Christ is confused with another part of ministerial work namely the self-sacrifice of a devoted life. It is idle to say that both may be joined in a good minister; the question is, Is it not a subterfuge to escape from discussing how far the Eucharist is a "verum ac proprium sacrificium et vere propitiatorium." Dr. Sanday says: "What Dr. Lightfoot combated, and what the strenuous opponents of sacerdotalism still combat, is, I believe, a very different thing. It is that spirit of clerical arrogance and assumption, utterly alien to the real leaders of the movement, and to all who really understand their own meaning, of which the doctrines called sacerdotal are the excuse and not the cause. It is difficult to see how a book like Ministerial Priesthood, so carefully guarded, so critical and severe in its idea of ministerial duty, could furnish even a pretext for such perversion."

“All," says Dr. Sanday, "who are engaged in this controversy are Christians. All with whom I am at present concerned agree in celebrating the Eucharistic feast. The great majority also agree in entrusting the lead in that celebration to ministers specially set apart for that purpose. Nearly all, again, would agree in describing the death of the Lord Jesus Christ upon Calvary as a sacrifice. Nearly all would regard the Eucharist as in intimate relation to that death, which they allow to be sacrificial.

“The heart of the controversy lies in the one question, What relation and what share in the relation is borne by the ministers as distinct from the people?

“I am still not shaken in my belief that if both sides in the controversy would only set out in full and exact terms their answer to these two questions, they would find that with their will or against they approach more nearly to each other’s position than while they looked at it from the distance they imagined. We may be sure that the great Head of the Church does not mean His children to remain for ever in a dead lock; and the first step towards extricating themselves from it does not lie in disguising their meaning, but in determining with the utmost precision what they mean." The conception of office originally was that of order; by virtue of their appointment the officers of Christian communities were entitled to perform functions which in themselves were functions of the whole Church. The idea that ecclesiastical office in itself gave exceptional powers had the following main causes:

1. The wide extension of the limits of Church membership, which was caused by the prevalence of infant baptism. That which had been the ideal standard of qualifications for baptism became the ideal standard of qualifications for ordination.

2. The intensity of the sentiment of order under the Roman Empire. The same Apostolical Constitutions which give as a reason why a layman may not celebrate the Eucharist, that he has not the necessary dignity, call the officer who has that dignity " a god upon earth."

3. The growth of an analogy between the Christian and Mosaic dispensations. The existence of such an analogy in the earliest times was precluded by the vividness of the belief in the Second Advent.

PROFESSOR HATCH, The Organisation of the Early Christian Churches.