"The Problem of Blood"

Submitted by matt on Tue, 2005-03-22 08:21.

Catholicism claims Jesus' sacrifice is "re-presented" (CCC #1366) in an "unbloody" manner (CCC #1367 & #1369) through the Mass. These words "re-presented" and "unbloody" are key to understanding the Catholic view of the Eucharist, as they are an attempt to skirt the clear Biblical teaching of Jesus' "once for all" sacrifice.

The Bible says The Cross was a one-time event and is complete and sufficient for all time (John 19:30, Hebrews 10, Hebrews 7:22,27, Hebrews 9:11-15, Hebrews 9:24-26, 1 Peter 3:18). Conversely, the Roman Church says Jesus' sacrifice was not enough to completely forgive sins. Instead, they claim the Mass as a necessary and ongoing propitiation. In order to get around the "problem" of the Bible's "once for all" teaching, the concept of "re-presenting" is employed. Note the dash -- they do not say the Mass merely "represents" The Cross, rather, in a real sense it IS the sacrifice, and is "RE-presented" to God as payment for (some) sin.

On these points, Christians naturally cry foul. The thought of nailing Christ back up to the cross again and again is offensive (Paul thought so, too: Heb 6:6). To make this doctrine more palatable and in an attempt to reconcile it with scripture, the Catholic appeals to semantics and says the sacrifice is not repeated, it is "re-presented", and furthermore, the "re-presenting" is "unbloody".

Two points:

  1. The "re-presentation" dogma is further "supported" by the idea that God is not bound by time and therefore is able, through what can only be described as some kind of a time warp, to allow Jesus' sacrifice to be "re-presented", yet not repeated (since really repeating it would violate scripture). So, although Catholics believe they are witnessing the actual crucifixion of Jesus at each Mass, and although it is performed thousands of times each day around the world, in thousands of different churches, scripture is not trampled, because of the time warp phenomenon.

    While we will agree God is not bound by time, it should be noted that God created time for our benefit and seems to abide by it for the most part. Of course we see prophecy in the Bible, which transcends time, but there is no Biblical support for this strange Catholic doctrine of time warping. Since there is no evidence to the contrary, we can only assume that when the Bible says Jesus died once and for all for sin and that there is NO continuing sacrifice (Heb 10), we can believe it.

  2. The most damning argument, though, against this false view of the Eucharist revolves around the "unbloody" claim. According to the Bible, an unbloody sacrifice is not a sacrifice at all, inasmuch as it has power to forgive sins. Consider Hebrews 9:22:
    "...without shedding of blood there is no forgiveness."
    and Leviticus 17:11:
    "For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you on the altar to make atonement for your souls; for it is the blood by reason of the life that makes atonement."

    The Blood of Jesus is of utmost importance and cannot be separated from His sacrifice. Indeed the blood WAS the sacrifice (Mt 26:28, Mr 14:24, Lu 22:20, Ac 20:28, Ro 3:25, Ro 5:9, Eph 1:7, Eph 2:13, Col 1:20, etc)! He shed His blood for us. He had to, because sins may only be paid for through blood.

To claim that an "unbloody" sacrifice has power over sin is to directly contradict the Bible. Thus, even if we are to commit intellectual suicide and believe the time warp theory, the RCC is still left with the problem of blood!

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