Hebrews 8:1-13 NKJV
8 Now this is the main point of the things we are saying: We have such a High Priest, who is seated at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens, 2 a Minister of the sanctuary and of the true tabernacle which the Lord erected, and not man.
3 For every high priest is appointed to offer both gifts and sacrifices. Therefore it is necessary that this One also have something to offer. 4 For if He were on earth, He would not be a priest, since there are priests who offer the gifts according to the law; 5 who serve the copy and shadow of the heavenly things, as Moses was divinely instructed when he was about to make the tabernacle. For He said, “See that you make all things according to the pattern shown you on the mountain.” 6 But now He has obtained a more excellent ministry, inasmuch as He is also Mediator of a better covenant, which was established on better promises.
7 For if that first covenant had been faultless, then no place would have been sought for a second. 8 Because finding fault with them, He says: “Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah— 9 not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt; because they did not continue in My covenant, and I disregarded them, says the Lord. 10 For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put My laws in their mind and write them on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. 11 None of them shall teach his neighbor, and none his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them. 12 For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more.”
13 In that He says, “A new covenant,” He has made the first obsolete. Now what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away.
There is a false teaching of God’s Holy Scripture within the Roman Catholic Church that professes that they are re-sacrificing Christ when they conduct the Eucharist (aka: The Lord’s Supper). Their Roman Catholic Catechism teaches this from all the way back to 1365: “the Eucharist is also a sacrifice”; the1367 version notes that the priests offer the sacrifice and “an unbloody sacrifice”; and in 1382 it says, “the sacrifice of the cross is perpetuated”. When combining all their Catechism teachings it becomes clear that the Roman Catholic Church teaches that the priest re-sacrifices Christ over and over again and that the sacrament is a very real sacrifice.
This false teaching denies the plain text of scripture that Christ was crucified once. They deny what Christ truly accomplished and are not trusting in what Christ finished, but in what they can do and the “mass” that they observe. They have recreated the Old Testament priesthood with a new set of laws and observances to follow.
Confessional Lutherans, however, hold to the following from the Apology to the Augsburg Confession:
“We teach that the sacrifice of Christ dying on the cross has been enough for the sins of the whole world. There is no need for other sacrifices, as though Christ’s sacrifice were not enough for our sins. So people are justified not because of any other sacrifices, but because of this one sacrifice of Christ, if they believe that they have been redeemed by this sacrifice. So they [Lutheran pastors] are called priests, not in order to make any sacrifices for the people as in the Law, that by these they may merit forgiveness of sins for the people. Rather, they are called to teach the Gospel and administer the Sacraments to the people. Nor do we have another priesthood like the Levitical, as the Epistle to the Hebrews teaches well enough (Hebrews 8).” (Apology AC, Art. XIII, 8-10)
Let us pray: Gracious Father, we give thanks that through Your beloved Word and Sacraments You open our eyes of faith to believe in Christ’s merits as the one sacrifice needed. Amen.