Christ's fulfilment of the Law
Introduction
Referring to a quote by Edmund Bishop from 1899 [2, p45 note *]:
"Because the Didache was rediscovered after so many centuries, it immediately became from the 1890s, the field of liturgical studies experienced a flurry of activity in gathering editing and publication of primary documents. From an increasing recognition of all importance of the documents results that almost crazy activity in search of what has been hitherto unknown; that inquisitiveness as to inedited which chararacterizes our time, and not infrequently is the cause of amusement or disdain according to disposition of the onlooker".
Apparently, many liturgists became so enthusiastic after the discovery of the Didache that they lost sight of reality. This led them to the most remarkable conclusions. Through their enthusiasm for the archaeological discoveries, they had lost the insight that the Faith and Doctrine can only develop to a deeper understanding in unity with the teachings of the Church Fathers through "organic growth" through the refutation of heresies. Moreover, this archaeological approach of searching for the pure source in order to reconstruct the origin of our Faith and the Holy Mass, respectively, intrinsically entails great risks. Namely that (aspects of) old heresies that had already been refuted and overcome in the past are now being reintroduced, because these "original sources" by definition potentially contain all these heresies from before their disappearance through the maturation process of "organic growth".
The "Liturgical Movement" in the 20th century like Fr. Adrian Fortescue (1917) [01], Fr. Anton Baumstark (1921) [02], Fr. Pio Parsch (1937) [03] and Fr. Joseph Jungmann, S.J. (1948) [04] generally described the H. Mass as a "Ordinary Synaxis of the (Christianized) Synagogue [01, p6, p70; 02, p43; 03, p44; 04, p392] / Last Supper, with the nucleus of the Eucharist proper [01, p54; 03, p18; 04, p11, p179; 05, p21] of which the origine form would have been a meal. This latter is mostly argued by their interpretation of the Didache. Herewith they did not refer to the essential links to the Old Testament Temple Cult. These discussions are more about (alleged) historical developments as founded on liturgical archeology searching for the origin as being the purest source of the Holy Mass. Especially this latter had led to a misunderstanding of the true distinction between the natural and supernatural orders, by which they went so far as to judge the correctness of the development guided by the Holy Spirit through the historical "Organic Growth". Indeed, all this critisism is then based on an amateurish archeology, in which they set aside the actual deepening of the Faith and the associated Devotional Practices, which have been preserved by the Holy Spirit throughout the ages by0 the refutation of heresies and the adoration of Christ in all aspects of how He has fulfilled the Law. It is this pride that resulted in their blindness to see the essence that "Christ was born to fulfill the Law and Prophets", and how that is connected to the fulfillment of the Temple cult of the Old Testament. Namely that Christ fulfilled the Law that regulates the Jewish Temple cult in its entirety, which also means that the Holy Mass is the fulfillment of the Old Testamentic Temple cult: the "Eucharist is a Sacrifice".
The fulfilment of the Law
Without claiming to be complete an overview of the fulfilment is given here in its main points concerning the last week of Passion.
The fulfillment of the Law did not start with Christ hanging on the cross, Christ standing before the Sanhedrin, or Christ instituting the Eucharist at the Last Supper or something like that. Apparently, Christ's fulfillment of the Law refers to His entire earthly life, from conception to His death on the cross. Notice that Christ, the "Innocent Lamb of God", was born in the "Stable of David". This was the stable from which the lambs came to be sacrificed in the Temple. So, the "Innocent Lamb of God", was born in the "Stable of David" to be sacrificed in the Temple during Passover. However, Christ, the “Innocent Lamb of God” was then appointed by the “Children of Israel” as the “Scapegoat” to bear our sins, as at the associated Temple Feast of “Yom Kippur.” He was then led out of the city of Jerusalem as the “Scapegoat,” where He offered Himself on the cross for our sins and then rose from the dead because He was without sin. Thus, with the fulfillment of the two associated Temple Feasts of “Passover” and “Yom Kippur,” Christ, Priest in the order of Melchizedek, ultimately fulfilled the entire Law with the sacrifice of His Body for our sins on Golgotha (Lk 24:44-49) as the ultimate culmination. The Holy Mass can therefore only be associated with this ultimate culmination.
This fulfillment is therefore connected to the books of the Old Testament which proclaimed the Law. It therefore follows Exodus and Leviticus among others in its context of the "Exodus from Egypt, the land of slavery", which had a paradigm shift by its fulfillment to the "Exodus from the land of the slavery of sin".
Christ and the Law
Therefore, this process of fulfillment follows the Law as given in the Temple cult of the Old Testament. A rough outline of this fulfillment is given here with reference to the main points in the last week, the week of Passion, as follows:
Ex. 12:3
According to Exodus 12:3 the "Children of Israel" had to choose an unblemished lamb for the Passover Sacrifice on the 10th day of the 1st month (Nissan), so 4 days before the actual slaughter would take place. Indeed, that day the "Children of Israel" shouted (Matt. 21:9), "Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!" (Hosanna means, "Please save us!"). In doing so, the messianic prophecy was fulfilled as given by Psalm 118, one of the Hallel Psalms (Psalms of Praise) recited during Passover meal "Save us, pray I! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Blessed is the Kingdom to come! Our father David! Save us from the highest. Save us son of David! Blessed is the King who comes in the Name of the Lord, yea, the King of Israel!" So, by mass acclaim, Jesus is designated the Messiah. Unconsciously, the "Children of Israel" choose their Passover Lamb on the day the lambs were to be chosen.Ex. 12:15
Exodus 12:15 instructs the Jews to clean their houses from any crumb of leavened bread: "Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread. On the first day you shall remove leaven out of your houses, for if anyone eats what is leavened, from the first day until the seventh day, that person shall be cut off from Israel... For seven days no leaven is to be found in your houses". While symbolically the unleavened bread stands for Unblemished, the leavened bread stands on the contrary for sin. This is truly a prophetic climax that Christ cleansed the House of His Father by cleansing the Temple from sin (Mt 21:12-15; Mk 11:15-18; Lk 19:45- 48; Jn 2:13-16).
Ex. 12:5
Exodus 12:5 instructs that the Lamb must be checked for blemishes. Only a perfect, spotless and unblemished Lamb would suffice for the Passover.
- Now, while Christ is teaching in the Temple, he was approached by Pharisees, Sadducees, Herodian and other teachers of the Torah. Each group poses questions, trying to trap Him in his words. They were looking for any blemish, which might disqualify Him as Messiah. The narrative of these tests are preserved in Matthew 22. They could not find any fault with Him, the [Eternal] Passover Lamb indeed was without blemish.
- And after Last Supper, on the same evening before His Crucifixion, the Sanhedrin continued this search of blemish by themselves and could not find any blemish too and finally they condemned Him to death for His claim to be the Son of God.
- Then, Pilate and Herod respectively, representing the worldly Government, could not find any blemish either,
Lev. 16:8-10
Then Pilate let the "Children of Israel" choose between Jesus and Barabbas. So, the "Children of Israel", who had acclaimed Christ being the innocent Passover Lamb without sin, now like at the associated Feast of "Yom Kippur" they designated Him as Scapegoat who bore the sins of the "Children of Israel" (Lev. 16:8-10).
Num. 29:11
As Scapegoat He was then taken outside the City of Jerusalem, where He as Eternal High Priest, in the order of Melchisedech, sacrificed Himself. The innocent Passover Lamb as Scapegoat sacrificed for our sins on the Cross at Calvary at the appointed time for the Passover Lamb to be slaughtered, i.e. the 9th hour of the 14th day of the 1st month (Exodus 12).
Herewith Christ perfectly fulfilled the Old Testament Law concerning the associated Temple Feasts of "Passover" and "Yom Kippur" (Num. 29:11).
Ex. 13:1
The Resurrection of Christ on the third day, took place on the Old Testament Temple Feast of the "First Fruits" (Exodus 13:1) that caused a paradigm shift by which Jesus Christ as the "Firstborn" is the "First Fruit" (Hebr. 1:6).
Lev. 23:15-16
And the Old Testament Temple Feast of Pentecost (Lev. 23:15-16), concerning the remembrance of the gift of the Law of God, has been transformed now into the commemoration of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit and the gift of God's Law spiritually into our hearts and our consciences (II Cor. 1:12; II Cor. 3:7). Then, while God had said of the Israelites "and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation" (Exodus 19:6) it was after the outpouring of the Holy Spirit that Peter said similarly "But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's own people" (I Peter 2:9).
The Remembrance of Christ
Thus a "Holy Priesthood" who "offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ" (I Peter 2:5) during which the ordained priests "in Person of the High Priest, Christ" offers the Passover Lamb and then "in Person of the High Priest, Christ" eats and drink the Body and Blood of Christ,the Passover Lamb, as Sacrificial Meal, after which the faithful are invited as the "Holy Priesthood" to join the Sacrifice by eating the Body of Christ, the "Lamb of God". This is the one, true and eternal Sacrifice of the Eternal Passover Lamb, who is unblemished and appointed to be a "Scapegoat" and who is bearing our sins. In this way Christ used the context of the Passover as a Memory of the "Exodus from Egypt, the land of slavery" through the associated Feast of "Yom Kippur" for a paradigm shift into a remembrance of Christ as a memory of the "Exodus from the land of slavery to sin" of which He is the door to Heaven.
The Eucharist
While the institution of the Eucharist by Christ at the Last Supper was on the Thursday evening. This Last Supper could therefore neither be a Sabbath meal, as suggested by the new Offertory prayers of the 1969 Reform, nor the Sacrificial Passover Meal of Pesach itself. While the Old Testament day is from sunset to sunset Thursday evening was one day too early for it. Rather, it was the first meal of the 14th day of the first month when the 7-day Feast of the Unleavened Bread began. Whereas the Unleavened Bread signifies being unblemished (I Cor. 5:7, I John 3:5, Hebr. 7:26) in contrast to the leaven bread that stands as the common symbol for Sin (Amos 4:5, Hosea 7:4, Lk 12:1, Matt. 16:6-12, Gal. 5:9, I Cor. 5:6-8). So, the Last Supper was the first Passover Meal at which the symbolic Unleavened Bread was eaten in the evening before the Sacrificial Passover Meal. It was from this meal that Christ used the symbolic Unleavened Bread and Wine for a paradigm shift into His innocent and unblemished Body and Blood. That is why Christ had to institute the Eucharist at the Last Supper by commanding the apostles, "Do this in remembrance of me".
With "Do this ..." He did not command them to repeat the Last Supper, but to repeat His Acts in union with and in remembrance of His Sacrifice on the cross as the ultimate climax of the fulfilment of the Law: "He took the Bread and blessed it", "He took the Cup and blessed it" (= Offertory: taking Bread and Wine from profane use to prepare them by offering it to our Lord for sacred use), then "He consecrated both, Bread and Wine" (= Consecration) with "the Remembrance" (= Anamnesis), after which "He broke the consecrated bread" (= Fraction) and finally "he gave to eat the consecrated bread and wine, his flesh and blood" (= Communion as the Sacrificial/Spiritual Meal). This all means that ". . . in remembrance of me" can only be the remembrance of Christ's fulfillment of the law in all its facets, how He has redeemed us. Herewith the Structure and Meaning of the Eucharist are fixed by Christ.
And as for the supposed connection with Synagogue services: apparently the apostles did not go to any of the many synagogues in Jerusalem. This raises the obvious question of how one can ever assume that synagogue service is more important than Temple Worship. Only when the apostles were outside Jerusalem did they first go to the Synagogues as the places where the Jews usually gathered. They prayed the prayers of the hours with the Jews and preached the gospel to convert them to Christ, as they did in the temple, "day by day" as they "were continually in the temple blessing God." It was precisely this effort to convert the Jews that led to their banishment from the Temple and the Synagogues (Acts 2:46; Acts 3:1; Acts 5:20,42; Acts 13:14-52; Acts 17:1-5; Acts 19:8-10; Luke 24:52-53). So, if their preaching in the Temple and the Synagogue was intended to convert the Jews, why should it be added to the Eucharist where the faithful were already converted? It is more likely, therefore, that the prayers at the beginning of the Holy Mass, the liturgical readings from the Gospel and the Epistles, as well as the preaching, should be considered as a preparation for the Sacrifice, which was developed under the guidance of the Holy Spirit.
Please note that the Synagogal services were rather new in the Jewish history. They were established after the return of the second Babylonian Exile and has therefore no direct reference to the Jewish Law and its fulfilment by Christ. It was Ezra, who after returning in Jerusalem from the Babylonian Exile, experienced that the Jews left in Israel had no or insufficient knowledge of the Torah and the Prophets and arranged studies by reading and preaching the Torah and Prophets outside the Temple (Neh. 8:5). From this example of Ezra these Synagogues were study houses for studying the Torah and the Prophets outside the Temple (Neh. 8:5), without any liturgical reading of the Torah and Prophets.
Conclusion
The institution of the Eucharist, therefore, does not refer to the Last Supper or the Synagogue Service, but as the fulfilment of the Old Testament Temple Cult the H. Mass is in its entirity the New Testament Temple Cult focussed on the Sacrifice of our Lord as the innocent Lamb of God bearing as Scapegoat our sins. As such, the Eucharist is the same true and eternal Sacrifice for our sins in which Christ ultimately fulfilled the entire Old Testament Temple Cult. Mystically, the Eucharist at the Last Supper, preceding the Crucifixion, as well as all those taking place since then at each H. Mass by Christ in His "Mystical Body" is one and the same as the physical Sacrifice at Golgotha, It is Christ, the Eternal High Priest, who offers and sacrifices Himself on the cross for our sins, a Sacrifice that still continues in our temporary conditions.
References
- "The Mass: a study of the Roman Liturgy", Adrian Fortescue, second edition of 1913 and printed 1917 [public domain on the internet (print of 1914): https://archive.org/details/massstudyofroman00fort];
- "On the Historical Development of the Liturgy, Anton Baumstark (1921), reprint by Order of Saint Benedict, Collegeville, Minesota (2011), ISBN 978-0-8146-6096-6, [an internet link to the pdf version can be found here: [https://litpress.org/Products/GetSample/6096/9780814660966];
- "Het Heilig Misoffer, het middelpunt van onze eredienst", Pio Parsch (Dutch translation from 1937), Wed, J.R. van Rossum, The Neterlands;
- "The Mass of the Roman Rite: its origins and development" (Missarum Sollemnia, Volumes 1 and 2), Rev. Joseph A. Jungmann, S.J., 1951, ISBN-13 978-0-87061-274-9 [an internet link to the pdf version can be found here: https://www.ccwatershed.org/2014/01/25/josef-Fr. Jungmannstudy-roman-rite-mass-pdf/];
- "Liturgie Übermorgen, Gedanken zur Geschichte und Zukunft des Gottesdienstes, Klaus Gamber (1966), Herder Verlag, Germany;
