An Orthodox Priest Addresses Some of Wes Huff's Concerns About the Eucharist

追加: 2026-06-03

[00:00:00]I want to present Father Joseph Lucas on here so you can hear his own words on this because he's a scholar of Saint Cyril of Alexandria and he'll reference him in this question.

[00:00:10]>> I think there's an exaggerated form of this in which some Orthodox have tried to go to the other extreme 20th century and say, "Oh, we don't think of it as a sacrifice at all." That's not true. And we use sacrificial language in the post-communion service before and in the liturgy. You get properly translated the phrase from the scripture which are the words of Jesus that again are repeated by Paul in Corinthians. Jesus said, "Do this as a memorial to towards me."

[00:00:32]Right? That's the language of sacrifice in the Old Testament. You know, some of the sacrifices like the bread offering are memorials to Yahweh. So, that is definitely sacrificial language. The difference I would say what we see in and I think this is where some of the Orthodox scholars of 20th century are trying to make their point was that the offering of Christ is hapax, right?

[00:00:50]Which means once for all. Right? It's a one-time offering.

[00:00:53]And there was in in some scholastic writings it seemed that they would say that every single time the mass was done, the Roman Catholic priest was re-sacrificing Christ, right? That's debated in modern Roman Catholicism whether that's the case or not, whether that's >> Yeah, it's definitely not in the official catechism today and and a lot of times again this gets into the debate of the treasury of merits, the merits of the mass, getting into indulgences and and the transfer of merits. And so, there is this kind of like whole side conversation we could have that gets that gets interesting but what Father Joseph Lucas is zeroing in on is as Orthodox we believe that Christ's sacrifice on the cross was once and for all as the book of Hebrews clearly says.

[00:01:33]Roman Catholic theology also says this today.

[00:01:36]And so, let's go here what Father Joseph Lucas continues to say here.

[00:01:40]>> It's actually what they mean today. We don't believe that. We don't believe that we're re-sacrificing Christ on the cross essentially or anything like that.

[00:01:45]We are participating in the once-for-all offering of Christ, right? And he is present through the the celebrant. Like the celebrant is is is appointed or or placed there by Christ or the bishop or the presbyter on behalf of the bishop is is acting sort of in the person of Christ in that Christ is the high priest return only interceding for us before the Father and the Hebrews and we are the clergy are representing him on behalf of the people in the liturgy to participate in this eternal offering. So really is a sacrifice in that sense. It is the only real sacrifice of the of the new covenant, the only one that Christ has given us to do. We're not doing It is the fulfillment of my like St. Cyril says it's the fulfillment of every sacrifice of the Old Testament all of them together in Christ and then St. Cyril says and now the Eucharist is you know Christ is the antitype or fulfillment of all the Old Testament offerings and Eucharist is a participation in Christ's offering. So that's that's >> There we go. Christ's offering fulfills all offerings in the Old Testament according to St. Cyril of Alexandria.

[00:02:41]The Eucharist participates in that offering.

[00:02:44]>> transition from the old covenant to the new covenant.

[00:02:46]>> Nice to have that short definition from Father Joseph Lucas. This is a very long conversation and people might start hopping on be like, "Well, that's not how how I would say it or it's not how I read it from this person or that person."

[00:02:59]Number one, we're being very broad here.

[00:03:01]If you want to start critiquing certain models or certain things you've read maybe by scholastics or definitions that you've read in the Middle Ages, you're welcome to critique this.

[00:03:11]We're mostly just kind of giving a a very broad picture here that there is an offering that's happening here.

[00:03:19]And that's I mean if you just read the Fathers, it's it's pretty obvious that there's an offering going on.

[00:03:25]But as I said, there can be a critique when it comes to how we talk about the treasury of merits and indulgences and that whole package that you find in the late medieval West and Counter-Reformation Roman Catholicism which I think Orthodoxy rightly critiques. But that gets caught up in these conversations and so people can start jumping into that before we've started talking about the foundational patristic doctrines.

[00:03:46]>> The created host and cup represent the slain lamb through the action of consecration and the production of the body and then separately of the blood by the words of consecration. Luther distinguishes between a sacrament and a sacrifice and I think that's helpful. The sacrament is the means of the grace by which God gives us participation in this event by him saying, "This is my body given to you." And the posture is God to us.

[00:04:15]The mass has the priest offering Christ to the Father. And the directionality of the posture then is not heavenly downward for the church, which I would argue is what is happening in the means of grace that takes place at the Lord's table, but earthly upwards on behalf of the church to God.

[00:04:36]>> We would say it's both.

[00:04:37]Basically, like it's not an either/or.

[00:04:40]When you look at the scriptures, for example, we are actually talked about being in heavenly places. You read Ephesians chapter 2, it says, "We as Christians are seated in heavenly places with Christ." Okay? So, we can talk about ascent and descent, offering and gift, all those things, but we never want to be too hard about those categories sometimes because we are also spoken about being in the heavenly realm. When we go to the divine liturgy, we are entering into the assembly, the heavenly assembly with Christ. Again, Christ being the offerer and offering. And he's part of who we are, right? So, Christ is in heaven, he's also part of humanity, he's the head of the church, right?

[00:05:21]So, the reason why we can talk about these in both ways is because Christ is bound in both ways. He is united heaven and earth in himself. When we look at Hebrews 12 and 13, us going to Mount Zion, to the assembly of angels. There's heavenly worship going on there. This is talking about the church now.

[00:05:39]It's not just talking about the church later. So, when we gather together in the divine liturgy, we experience the Eucharist, we experience worship together. Of course, the Holy Spirit is coming down upon the gifts, right? The simple gifts of bread and wine, but they become Christ's body and blood.

[00:05:57]And because the Eucharist participates in Christ's once-and-for-all offering, he as high priest as both offerer and offering is offering it up to the Father as first fruits, and the Father is well pleased. So, you kind of have to get out some of that later reform thinking. The Father turned his face from the Son. The Father couldn't be around the unholiness of the Son. As R.C. Sproul said all these things about, you know, the Father deeded the Son. There's a lot of negative language in reformed thought. When you go back to St. John Chrysostom, again, what does he say?

[00:06:34]He says, "The Son offered the first fruits of our human nature as a wonderful offering to the Father, and the Father is well pleased." There's a beautiful thing going on here, a sweet-smelling aroma. There's love going on, and so we are caught up in communion and in love in the Holy Trinity.

[00:06:51]And so, you don't really want to go either/or with this, because you can when you read the Fathers, they're talking about a communion of heaven and earth.

[00:06:59]So, it's not just one way or another.

[00:07:01]First Christian hymnal. Dr. Shoemaker dates most of these hymns at 350 to 400s. Not just like a little bit of hymns that are praising the saints, but I mean like robust, complex hymns. Yeah.

[00:07:15]They're not just in Jerusalem. Like, they're showing up universally. I'll be doing a mini series, probably five or six classes by theme that show up in this. It's going to be a lot of fun. So, you subscribe to Barrel Aged Faith and you can get that. The Wise Phone too, which I currently use as my phone. It's an amazing phone that helps you not doom scroll or be addicted to social media and other vices, because it doesn't have a web browser, but it does function like a phone. You can call, you can text, you can take pictures, you can do videos. It even has apps like Uber and Lyft. You can order food, maps to get around town, all the things that you kind of need in this modern life. But at the same time, being able to have a boundary between you and work [music] or you and distractions. So, you can be more present with your family, with your kids, with your spouse, whomever. This has been [music] a very freeing experience for me to have the Wise Phone 2. Again, you can get $40 off with my discount [music] code King today.

[00:08:01]>> In the beginning of Ephesians, we read of the recapitulation of heaven and earth in the person of Jesus Christ. He unites [music] all things in him. And then near the end of Ephesians, we read about male and female reconciled, harmonized, and put in right order through the work of Jesus Christ [music] and through the imaging of the divine bridegroom in the life of the particular human bridegroom.

[00:08:25]>> This first episode is going to be free [music] to all of you, and the rest will be for paid subscribers. Seraphim, thank you for preparing this uh Bible study through Ephesians.

[00:08:38]Hey guys, I just want to share a few books with you that have left a big impact on my life. One of them is Bearing God, The Life and [music] Works of Saint Ignatius of Antioch, The God-Bearer by Father Andrew Stephen Damick. Many people have a paradigm shift when they begin reading the letters of Saint Ignatius of Antioch.

[00:08:51]Well, this little book by Father Andrew is so helpful in navigating his letters and summarizing the key themes. So, I think you'll enjoy this book. Another book that's very popular that left a big impact on my life is The Religion of the Apostles by Father Stephen De Young.

[00:09:05]This is quickly becoming a classic. It's helped people sort of understand how the Old Testament and [music] New Testament have a continuity with the early church, the church fathers. I've also had Father Joseph Lucas on the show. I think this is going to be a classic. It just came out last year, How to Read the Holy Fathers, A Guide for Orthodox Christians. And it takes you through the different genres, different styles of [music] writing by the church fathers because you're going to read poetry and hymns differently than you're going to read advances to heresy. So, check out these books and more. Many of them are by Ancient Faith Publishing. All right, guys. We'll see you next time.