As we know, Christ is interceding before the Father, resulting in, among
other things, the application of the atonement, His being the (present tense [1
John 2:1-2; Heb 2:17]) ιλασμος/propitiation for our sins. For a fuller
discussion, see:
In Catholic theology, this is intimately tied to the Mass being a
propitiatory sacrifice. This has led some (note, so I will not be accused of a
straw-man: this is not Catholic dogma, it is "going beyond the mark," so to speak, of the relationship between the Mass, Cross, and Jesus' heavenly intercession)
to argue, based on texts such as Heb 9:23 (with the use of the plural
θυσίαις "sacrifices") and Rev 5:6 that Jesus is engaged in sacrifice at the
moment, not the presentation of his atoning sacrifice merely.
In response to such, Catholic priest and theologian Alfred G. Mortimer
wrote:
In the Book of
Revelation we read: "I saw in the midst of the throne, and of the four
living beings, and in the midst of the elders, a Lamb standing, as though
slaughtered" (ὡς ἐσφαγμένον) (Rev. v. 6)
Upon this text the
followers of the Modern school rely to a great extent for proof of the
existence of a celestial sacrifice. They are, however, divided here into two
distinct groups, the more moderate of which claims that the title by which our
LORD is described, "a Lamb as though slaughtered," represents Him
distinctly as still a Sacrifice. And in this claim they are undoubtedly
justified, since He is in heaven what He is in the Eucharist, what He was on
the Cross, what He was by God's predestination from the first moment of His
Incarnation--the Victim. First he was the Victim destined for Sacrifice,
"for Him hath GOD the FATHER sealed" (S. John vi. 27);
"wherefore, when He entereth into the world, He saith, Sacrifice and
offering Thou wouldest not, but a Body didst Thou prepare for Me" (Heb. x.
5). Then, after the Sacrifice had been consummated upon the Cross, He became
the Victim slaughtered, raised from the dead, yet still the Lamb of GOD, though
standing in the midst of the throne. But here we must most distinctly observe
that our LORD is the Sacrifice only in the passive sense of the word. He stands
in the midst of the throne with the marks of slaughter, the wounds still
showing in His glorified Body; as the ancient Easter-hymn has it,
"The wounds, the
riven wounds, He shows,
In that His Flesh,
with light that glows."
Yet here is no
sacrificial action. As Bishop Forbes points out, He is the Victim, the
Sacrifice, in a passive sense; but the action of Sacrifice in a passive sense;
but the action of Sacrifice took place upon the Cross.
Indeed, it would seem
impossible to understand the words ὡς ἐσφαγμένον in any other sense. The latter
would is a perfect participle, and indicates an action which has taken place in
pat time, the effects of which are still enduring. It implies that the Lamb had
been slaughtered at some time in the past, and still remains in the condition
in which that act had placed Him, i.e., a Victim, a Sacrifice. We have a
similar instance of the use of the perfect participle in the first verse of the
fourth chapter: "Behold, a door set upon in Heaven" (ἰδοὺ θύρα ἠνεῳγμένη
ἐν τῷ οὐρανῷ). Here ἠνεῳγμένη signifies that the act of opening the door had
taken place at some past time, as we say in the Te Deum, "When Thou hadst overcome the sharpness of death, Thou didst open
the Kingdom of Heaven to all believers;” but that in his vision S. John beheld
the door still open. In a word, the perfect participle asserts the effects of a
past act and nothing else; but the
effects of a thing cannot be the thing itself. The effects of our LORD’s
Sacrifice, its fruits, or, as we say, His merits, are pleaded in his great
Intercession (“He, when he had offered one Sacrifice for sins, for ever [εἰς τὸ
διηνεκὲς], sat down.”—Heb. x. 12), but the pleading of His merits is not,
strictly speaking, the offering of a Sacrifice. (Alfred G. Mortimer, The Eucharistic Sacrifice: An Historical and
Theological Investigation of the Sacrificial Conception of the Holy Eucharist
in the Christian Church [London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1901], 140-42)
On Heb 9:23,
mentioned above, and other texts, see my articles responding to Catholic
theology on the Mass:
