Do Protestants view Christ as a non-sacrificing priest?

[raumzeitmc2]

Philip Schaff points out that,

“A literal priesthood requires a literal sacrifice.”

Philip Schaff, History of the Christian Church, ch. 8. ccel.org/ccel/schaff/hcc7.ii.vii.i.html

And Christ certainly holds a “literal priesthood” - forever!

So I’m wondering, how do Protestants reconcile the fact of the “one sacrifice” of Christ in Hebrews 10:12,

But when this priest had offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God,

with Christ’s:

a. Eternal High-Priesthood?

(Scripture calls Him an eternal priest or a “priest forever.” Heb. 5:6, 6:20, 7:3, 7:17…). books.google.com/books?hl=en&as_q=&as_epq=eternal+High-Priest+&as_oq=&as_eq=&num=10&lr=&as_filetype=&ft=i&as_sitesearch=&as_qdr=all&as_rights=&as_occt=any&cr=&as_nlo=&as_nhi=&safe=images&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wp&q=%22eternal%20High-Priest%20%22

b.Eternal Victim-hood?

(Christ is, not was, the Lamb of Revelation, and he is referred to as such 27 times there). And a lamb in Scripture is a sacrificial victim.
biblestudytools.net/Lexicons/Greek/grk.cgi?number=721&version=kjv

books.google.com/books?lr=&um=1&q=%22eternal+Victim%22++jesus&btnG=Search+Books

books.google.com/books?lr=&um=1&q=%22eternal+Victim%22+christ&btnG=Search+Books

Or do Protestants actually believe that Christ is, now and forever, a non-sacrificing High-Priest??

---

First of all, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you, because your faith is proclaimed throughout the whole world. Romans1:8

What is the “faith” of the Church of Rome? It must be what the Roman Church believes and teaches as God’s revealed truths. Thus it is what the Church of Rome believes, and thus teaches, which is known and proclaimed throughout the whole world.

The Roman Catholic Church: A Divine Institution or a Human Invention? 2006, Adam S. Miller, Tower of David Publications, p. 8.

geocities.com/adam_todm/B-1.htm

lulu.com/content/335642

 

[Jonathan_Cid]

With all due respect to better informed Protestants, and those whose fault it isn’t that their spiritual leaders have never gone this deep into religion (I don’t intend to put anyone down here), I think this is way over the heads of most Protestants.

 

[raumzeitmc2]

With all due respect to better informed Protestants, and those whose fault it isn’t that their spiritual leaders have never gone this deep into religion (I don’t intend to put anyone down here), I think this is way over the heads of most Protestants.

Oh, I hope things aren’t that bad!

---

So then, as we celebrate with our festive gatherings the birthday of this great man, the Lord’s forerunner, the blessed John, let us ask for the help of his prayers. Because he is the friend of the bridegroom, you see, he can also obtain for us that we can belong to the bridegroom, that we may be thought worthy to obtain his grace. But if we wish to obtain his grace, let us not offer an insult to his birthday. {16}

St. Augustine, Against superstitious midsummer rituals, Sermon 293B:5:1, On the Birthday of Saint John the Baptist. Date, 401.

Editors note 16, p. 167:

“So does ‘his grace’ mean John’s grace? Clearly not in the ordinary understanding of such a phrase, as though John were the source of the grace. But in the sense that John’s grace is the grace of being the friend of the bridegroom, and that that is the grace we are asking him to obtain for us too, yes, it does mean John’s grace.”

Sermons on the Saints, Sermons 273-305 (Works of Saint Augustine), John E. Rotelle (Author), Edmund Hill (Translator), p. 165. ISBN 1565480600
amazon.com/Sermons-273-305-Works-Saint-Augustine/dp/1565480600

 

[Contarini]

Philip Schaff points out that,

“A literal priesthood requires a literal sacrifice.”

Philip Schaff, History of the Christian Church, ch. 8. ccel.org/ccel/schaff/hcc7.ii.vii.i.html

And Christ certainly holds a “literal priesthood” - forever!

So I’m wondering, how do Protestants reconcile the fact of the “one sacrifice” of Christ in Hebrews 10:12,

But when this priest had offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God,

with Christ’s:

a. Eternal High-Priesthood?

(Scripture calls Him an eternal priest or a “priest forever.” Heb. 5:6, 6:20, 7:3, 7:17…). books.google.com/books?hl=en&as_q=&as_epq=eternal+High-Priest+&as_oq=&as_eq=&num=10&lr=&as_filetype=&ft=i&as_sitesearch=&as_qdr=all&as_rights=&as_occt=any&cr=&as_nlo=&as_nhi=&safe=images&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wp&q=%22eternal%20High-Priest%20%22

b.Eternal Victim-hood?

(Christ is, not was, the Lamb of Revelation, and he is referred to as such 27 times there). And a lamb in Scripture is a sacrificial victim.
biblestudytools.net/Lexicons/Greek/grk.cgi?number=721&version=kjv

books.google.com/books?lr=&um=1&q=%22eternal+Victim%22++jesus&btnG=Search+Books

books.google.com/books?lr=&um=1&q=%22eternal+Victim%22+christ&btnG=Search+Books

Or do Protestants actually believe that Christ is, now and forever, a non-sacrificing High-Priest??

---

First of all, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you, because your faith is proclaimed throughout the whole world. Romans1:8

The Roman Catholic Church: A Divine Institution or a Human Invention? 2006, Adam S. Miller, Tower of David Publications, p. 8.

geocities.com/adam_todm/B-1.htm

lulu.com/content/335642

Protestants would traditionally say that Christ “pleads” His one sacrifice eternally before the Father. John and Charles Wesley linked this “pleading” to the Eucharist and thus came fairly close to the Catholic view.

Here’s Charles Wesley’s “Arise, My Soul, Arise” (I’m sufficiently influenced by both liberal and Eastern Orthodox criticisms of traditional Protestant Atonement theology that I’m a bit uncomfortable with this hymn, since it makes it almost sound as if God the Father doesn’t want to forgive us):

Arise, my soul, arise; shake off thy guilty fears;
The bleeding sacrifice in my behalf appears:
Before the throne my surety stands,
Before the throne my surety stands,
My name is written on His hands.

He ever lives above, for me to intercede;
His all redeeming love, His precious blood, to plead:
His blood atoned for all our race,
His blood atoned for all our race,
And sprinkles now the throne of grace.

Five bleeding wounds He bears; received on Calvary;
They pour effectual prayers; they strongly plead for me:
‘Forgive him, O forgive,’ they cry,
‘Forgive him, O forgive,’ they cry,
‘Nor let that ransomed sinner die!’

The Father hears Him pray, His dear anointed One;
He cannot turn away the presence of His Son;
His Spirit answers to the blood,
His Spirit answers to the blood,
And tells me I am born of God.

My God is reconciled; His pardoning voice I hear;
He owns me for His child; I can no longer fear:
With confidence I now draw nigh,
With confidence I now draw nigh,
And ‘Father, Abba, Father,’ cry.

And for the Eucharistic connections, here is “Victim Divine”:

Victim Divine, thy grace we claim,
while thus thy precious death we show;
once offered up, a spotless Lamb,
in thy great temple here below,
thou didst for all our kind atone,
and standest now before the throne.

1. Thou standest in the holiest place,
   as now for guilty sinners slain;
   thy blood of sprinkling speaks, and prays,
   all prevalent for helpless man;
   thy blood is still our ransom found,
   and spreads salvation all around.

1. The smoke of thy atonement here
   darkened the sun and rent the veil,
   made the new way to heaven appear,
   and showed the great Invisible;
   well pleased in thee our God looked down,
   and called his rebels to a crown.

1. He still respects thy sacrifice,
   its savor sweet doth always please;
   the offering smokes through earth and skies,
   diffusing life, and joy, and peace;
   to these thy lower courts it comes,
   and fills them with divine perfumes.

1. We need not go up to heaven,
   to bring the long sought Savior down;
   thou art to all already given,
   thou dost e’en now thy banquet crown;
   To every faithful soul appear,
   and show thy real presence here!

Edwin

 

[Chris258]

Are you attempting to show some disconnect between the Protestant definition of Christ’s priestly “once-for-all” sacrifice of himself and these verses which support an eternally-sacrificed high priest?

 

[cath2lic4ever]

With all due respect to better informed Protestants, and those whose fault it isn’t that their spiritual leaders have never gone this deep into religion (I don’t intend to put anyone down here), I think this is way over the heads of most Protestants.

agreed. GOD bless & prayers to all!

 

[raumzeitmc2]

Protestants would traditionally say that Christ “pleads” His one sacrifice eternally before the Father. John and Charles Wesley linked this “pleading” to the Eucharist and thus came fairly close to the Catholic view.

Thanks for the Wesley info - very interesting.

But leaving aside for the moment the fact that pleading and sacrificing are not synonymous, I’d like to pose a related question, which is this:

Why should it be that Christ “pleads” for us to the Father *for all eternity *to begin with? I mean, how does such “pleading” (from a Protestant perspective) square with His Consummatum est (IT IS FINISHED!) Jn 19:30.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exempli_gratia#exempli_gratia

Put another way, after the Last Judgment, when the the good and the bad, the sheep and the goats, have been finally, completely and eternally separated, what need then will the saints in heaven have of an Eternal Mediator? For a mediator, after all, is only needed as long as parties are at odds. But once reconciled (in this instance, when the saints are fully perfected), the mediator’s function is no longer required.

For where then will be the estrangement?

books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&as_qdr=all&q=%22eternal%20mediator%22%20christ&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wp

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And so it happens that many men in practicing intercourse in marriage as the law permits, are totally undisciplined in granting the marriage right, nor do they use moderation in sleeping with their wives, since they are uninterested in bearing children, but are urged to satisfy their innate pleasure. I would certainly not call such men husbands but rather seducers, not spouses but rather illicit lovers. They place no time limits on their profligate use of coitus, and what is disgusting to say, do not even refrain from their wives during pregnancy, and never blush in violating the rule of chastity that even dumb animals observe when their mates are pregnant.

Observe, O man, and see whether the dog goes after the b**** after she has conceived. Look at the cow or certainly at the mare, and notice whether the bulls or stallions bother them after they are with young. Obviously, they forego the pleasure of intercourse when they sense that they are unable to produce offspring. Therefore, since bulls and dogs and other kinds of animal show such regard for their young, it is men alone, whose teacher was born of the Virgin, who have no fear of destroying and killing their little ones, made in the image of God, just so that they can satisfy their lust.

This is the reason why many women practice abortion before their term is complete, or certainly why they discover means of mutilating or damaging the tiny and still fragile limbs of these little ones. And thus, as they are impelled by their incentives to lust, they are first murderers before they become parents. {50}

Editors note, 50:

“Here we have one of the few references, perhaps the only explicit one, in Damian’s letters, to the practices of abortion. And to the horror of post-modern feminists he puts the blame on ‘the many women who practice abortion,’ charging them ‘with being murderers before they became parents.’ This discussion and its context are important evidence from the Central Middle Ages, reflecting the constant opposition of the Church to abortion from the Council of Elvira (ca. 302) to the present.”

St. Peter Damian , letter 96.

Peter Damian: Letters 91-122 (Fathers of the Church Medieval Continuation, 5), ISBN 0813208165. pp. 62-63.
amazon.com/Peter-Damian-Letters-Mediaeval-Continuation/dp/0813208165

 

[mattheus09]

What do protestants mean by “pleading his sacrifice” and do Catholics accept this?