Transcript

And I would like to finish by saying that the 4th century fathers had a very high sacramentology.

That doesn't mean that the propitiation was something that you could go to over and over and over again, and that that was part of how you received grace.

When he calls it a propitiatory sacrifice for the living and the dead, does he mean it's a propitiatory sacrifice of the living and the dead in your esprit as well?

He means that the sacrifice of Christ is, and that represents what the sacrifice of Christ is, yes.

You know, there's a lot of people who believe that Christ is truly present-

Mm-hmm.

...

with His people in the supper.

We would call it a propitiatory sacrifice, meaning that it is, in a true way, the one sacrifice of Christ.

Not repeated, but re-presented.

We are actually receiving the benefits of Christ's body and blood.

You are receiving the forgiveness of sins.

So it is a sacrifice, but it's not an offering?

Or it is an offering?

Well, the adversaries are wrong for anyone hearing this.

And Brayden already knows, and I know you know, but for everyone listening, I'm just saying how it is.

The adversaries perversely all say the same sentence.

"Yeah, the Mass is...

the devil's getting away with the Mass," and dah, dah, dah.

So it is kinda weird when they sort of throw out, like, obviously not in the Catholic way, but here's a long list of people the Catholics also think teach Catholic theology.

Well, of course, they're teaching Catholic theology.

That's why we're here.

And Catholic means Lutheran.

Right.

Yeah.

Catholic means Lutheran.

I forgot about that.

No, Augustine actually has a great line on that.

When you go into a town- ...

ask where the Catholic Church is, because otherwise heretics will say they're the Catholic Church.

Yes, yes.

Uh-oh, uh-oh.

Hey, Peyton, tell me again, can you quote to me the LCMS rendering of the Creed?

One holy-

Yeah.

...

Christian-

Y- y- it-

Do you really do that?

You changed, you changed Catholic to Christian?

Yeah, you- yeah.

It says Christian, and it says, below it says, "originally." The word Catholic is stupid.

I don't know why they said it.

But when we say the, when we say the Athanasian Creed on Holy Trinity, how many Roman Catholics do that?

So, anyways.

Hey, everyone.

This is Brayden from The Catechuman, and welcome back to another Protestant-Catholic dialogue on the channel.

This time, we have a different Catholic representing the Catholic position, so I'm gonna shut up, because we've got a professional Catholic anthropologist, Joe Heschmeyer, in the studio today.

Author of a number of books, including Pope Peter: The Eucharist is Really Jesus and the Early Church Was The Catholic Church.

He had a recent debate with James White on Is the Mass a Propitiatory Sacrifice, which is what brings us all here together in Christian fraternity.

Peyton Howland, we have returning star, returning guest, seminarian in the LCMS Lutheran tradition.

If you haven't seen our previous dialogues about the Sacrament of Confession, Justification, American Evangelicalism in the Middle of a Coffee Shop, and then That One Sermon Review That We Don't Talk About, about how Lutherans are not saved, go watch all those videos, because those were awesome.

So, how are you guys doing today?

Thanks for joining me.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I'm doing great.

I'm happy to be here.

I'm excited to kind of get this dialogue going, and kind of look at this from a different perspective than, you know, Catholic Baptist.

Yes, for sure.

Peyton, how you doing?

I'm doing great.

Thank you.

Glad to be here as well.

Of course I- I've, I'm no scholar as well, so...

...

As is made clear, no big debate, but I'm glad that I'm very blessed to be able to dialogue, especially with someone that's so knowledgeable with stuff like this.

And I'm a lowly seminarian still.

I was very recently one of those, but, well...

I say recently, but that's 'cause I'm old and don't want to realize how old I was.

I was one of those seven years ago.

Nevermind.

That's recent.

Yeah, that's recent.

But I figured it'd be good to get on here and discuss this 'cause-

Yeah.

...

I've read some of your articles as well, Joe, about some of the stuff with the Eucharist and I've watched many videos and things like that.

And I see, and it was mentioned before, but yeah, a lot of the dialogue you see is going to be on the Roman Catholic side, and then a very Baptist or-

Right.

...

Non-denominational take on memorialism, right?

When it comes to the Eucharist.

Yeah, I think on questions of presence and sacrifice too-

Mm-hmm.

...

It's much more of a black and white kind of distinction between what a non-denominational Christian or a Baptist is gonna have vis-à-vis a Catholic.

Whereas the Lutheran position, you have to understand a lot more nuance.

I remember doing OCIA and one of the young women who came was coming from a Lutheran background, and she was just inquiring.

It was people who were kind of curious about Catholicism.

And she was trying to understand, you know, what the Catholic view was compared to the Lutheran view.

You know, Christ being in, with and under, compared to the transubstantiation view of change.

And it was a good reminder of, like, oh yeah, like, I think she and I are the only two people even in this room.

We've been under...

You know, there are a lot of other Protestants in this room.

None of them are kind of coming from that background.

And so her particular concerns were specific enough to Lutheranism that me explaining to Baptists that it's really Jesus was not gonna necessarily answer her questions, or vice versa.

You know-

Right.

...

explaining some of the difficulties, perhaps, with the Lutheran view, that's not gonna make sense to, you know, the people coming from a Baptist background.

So I think it is absolutely worth doing it as a, I think, a completely separate conversation, to honor the fact people are coming from different places.

Yeah.

So I think it...

that is one of the big reasons is because a lot of these discussions do happen between the Catholic and the more Reformed or Low Church kinda minded Protestants.

Which is fine, you know, but, like, a lot of Protestants will say, "Hey, why do you Catholics treat all Protestants as if they're, like, Low Church Evangelical or Calvinists?" You know?

There are other...

you know, there's other Protestants that you could be talking to or talking about, right?

And, you know, I...

I remember talking to Peyton about the only church was the Catholic Church, you know, the evidence for baptism of our generation, and the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist and things of that nature, and he's like, "Yeah.

That's awesome." You know?

And, I think there's a lot more common ground than a lot of people would think that there is.

You know?

Mm-hmm.

I guess from my former Protestant tradition.

So-

Oh, yeah.

I mean, well, like, just maybe put some meat on the bones there.

On Tuesday, I was at Kansans for Life Banquet, and it was funny because Archbishop was the opening prayer.

And you know, he didn't begin with the sign of the cross because he wanted to respect that not everyone was going to be comfortable with that.

But then the closing prayer was from an LCMS Lutheran who does begin at the sign of the cross.

And my wife was like, "What is going on?" Like this was not how I expected this to go...

between a Catholic and the Protestant prayer.

And he's got the full Roman collar and everything else so, you...

It was enough for someone who wasn't familiar with Lutheranism to take note-

Mm-hmm.

...

and think, "That's not the kind of Protestantism I was exposed to," or you know-

Yeah, right.

...

?

Right.

Well, no, especially in America or Kansas or Oklahoma, you know?

Especially in Oklahoma, I mean-

Yeah.

Yeah.

...

you know, you see someone with a collar and it's like, "Oh, look at that Catholic over there," you know?

Right.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, and I get enough of it too.

I...

what I just said-

To some people, it's like, you know, "So what you're saying is you're just a Catholic."

Yeah.

We're all going to the same place to me, so...

Yeah, like, "You're welcome into purgatory."

Yeah.

So yes, in light of this recent debate between Joe Heschmeyer and James White on the mass as a propitiatory sacrifice sparked some conversations in this kind of Catholic-Protestant apologetics world about to what extent classical Protestant traditions can accept or reject the mass as a sacrifice.

And so, I'll let you guys parse it out.

Maybe Joe, would you give like a brief explanation of what Catholics mean when we affirm the mass as a propitiatory sacrifice?

And then Peyton, you could kind of contrast that with, you know, generally the Lutheran position.

Okay, yeah, I think I can do that.

We would call it a propitiatory sacrifice, meaning that, you know, anyone can make a sacrifice of praise if you've been baptized, you can offer up sacrifices of praise.

And the mass is that, but it's not only that.

We would say that it is in a true way, the one sacrifice of Christ, not repeated but represented.

The Catechism has a good fairly succinct definition of this in 1367, Catechism of the Catholic Church where it says, "The sacrifice of Christ and the sacrifice of the Eucharist are one single sacrifice.

The victim is one and the same.

The same now offers through the ministry of priests who then offered himself on the cross, only the manner of offering is different.

And since in this divine sacrifice which is celebrated in the mass the same Christ who offered himself once in a bloody manner on the altar of the cross is contained and is offered in an unbloody manner, this sacrifice is truly propitiatory." So the idea is this, that within sacrifice if you have a proper sacrificial framework for a propitiatory sacrifice it was not enough for certain categories of sacrifice including the totem sacrifice, including for, in special way the Passover sacrifice which I think is going to be the most directly applicable, you would kill the lamb and then you would become a partner in the sacrifice by another act which was eating the lamb.

And so the killing of the lamb is very clearly a prefigurement of Good Friday, and the eating of the lamb we would say is a very clear prefigurement of the Last Supper in every mass since.

And so because it is still Christ's one sacrifice we are still consuming it.

Like if we...

When you...

If you were in the Old Testament and you were eating the Passover meal, you're not re-sacrificing the lamb, you are participating in that one sacrifice that has already happened the day before.

But it is still part of the sacrifice.

And so on 1 Corinthians 10 when St. Paul wants to explain how it is we can become partners in Christ, he uses this as one of the examples.

And then the other example he gives is becoming a partner in a demonic sacrifice which is actually even more shocking.

But it's that, that basic framework.

So we would say the reason it's a propitiatory sacrifice is because it's a sharing in the one sacrifice of Christ.

Mm-hmm.

So Peyton, you completely disagree then, right?

Well, to start off, I'll be reading a little bit here.

I'll be looking down and glancing at a few things to reference, to point in the Apology of the Augsburg Confession Article 24 on the mass.

But really to start off with the whole sacrificial framework thing, well, the thing we can agree on which is, which doesn't really come up at all, like, in the debate with James White, right, nor any debates that occur with Reform or stuff like that, is, yes, as Lutherans we believe that Christ's real body and blood is also present, in, with, and under the bread and the wine.

So the bread and the wine are there, but also Christ's body and blood are there.

So you mentioned the whole sacrifice of praise, right, sacrifice of thanksgiving or a Eucharistic sacrifice.

That is really...

There's a lot of pages that are written in here and a lot of them are about like that distinguishment of a propitiatory sacrifice, the sacrifice of Christ on the cross, of course, that occurs, that occurred, and then the Eucharistic sacrifice, right?

And so we would say that, the whole, the mass, the entire order of the mass itself, we retain.

It even says, "At the outset, we must again make this preliminary statement: We do not abolish the mass, but religiously keep and defend it." So, you don't really see that with any other, if you were dealing with any other Protestants or stuff like that.

They're going to say, "Get rid of the whole thing," right?

.

But, we're like, "No, no, no, we keep it," but, you know, of course, you disagree with some of the definitions and stuff.

But yeah, the...

we would say the Mass is a sacrifice, but of course, we would describe it as that Eucharistic sacrifice, in the way that we are actually receiving the benefits of Christ's body and blood, you know?

Those that have faith.

Of course, if you don't have faith, it's, you're eating and drinking damnation upon yourself and all that.

It wouldn't be like the Reformed idea that you're not even taking in some spiritual way Christ's body and blood, whatever, right?

We'd say, "No, you're actually receiving Christ's body and blood," and that is Christ's Body and Blood that's in, with, and under the bread and wine that was on the cross.

Mm-hmm.

You're receiving those very benefits, all of that, right, and that's where the nuance comes, but we would...

we disagree on the idea that, that one moment right there, the words of consecration and then the whole kind of vertical understanding of the offering up and all that kind of stuff, the propitiatory sacrifice and the ex opera operato kind of language with it.

That's where that disagreement hits.

The sacrificial language still remains in terms of that Eucharistic sacrifice like you gave, and Christ's body and blood, the benefits of that, like the forgiveness of sins?

We say yes, when you receive Christ's body and blood right there, it's really His body and blood, and you are receiving the forgiveness of sins.

So, can I actually ask a couple questions on this 'cause I'm certainly less versed in Lutheran theology.

I mean, partly I grew up in a very Evangelical world, so, I mean.

Right.

...

I've known some Lutherans, but I don't claim any kind of expertise.

The, a couple things that pop out just as questions.

It might be very ignorant.

Number one, if it is an offering, right?

It is a sacrificial offering, sounds like we agree on that, and it is the body and blood of Christ, what would...

it sounds like you're saying it is the true offering of Christ's body and blood to the Father, but not the way He offered it on the cross or not part of the one time He offered it on the cross?

That actually seems more like a re-sacrifice of Christ.

So, when I said that whole, the offering up to the Father, that kind of thing, I was mentioning, with Roman Catholic kind of, with an understanding in that.

Okay, so it is a sacrifice, but it's not an offering or it is an offering?

Well, so no, so the bread and the wine, what's used is like the typically, and some people might shy away from it, and it even mentions it in some places, like shying away from some of the verbiage and stuff because of misunderstandings, right?

But one could say that like the bread and the wine, right, being brought there onto the altar is that sacrifice in that way, right?

But then, that, and that kind of goes with the whole, the prayers and the thanksgivings, like the reception of the God's grace and these means of grace is part of that sacrifice.

But what we see with it, like the sacramentology, like the understanding of receiving Christ's body and blood is going to be that the...

when the minister is there, when the priest is there, pastor, however they say this, at the altar, and the consecration occurs, Christ's words of institution are said, it's the Father bringing down the Son, the body and blood to that altar.

Then as now, it is a gift, that free gift that is given to the faithful Christians.

So that's how the priest works, is that almost like the middle man right there, and I hate to use that word, but you have the, from the Father down to the altar, given to the people, not necessarily a raising up of Christ or something like that.

Interesting.

So it sounds like half of the historic Mass has been contained in that sense.

I mean, to give you an example, and the ancient Roman canon might be slightly different than this.

The way the words are in the existing, like Eucharistic Prayer 1, which is, I think a pretty faithful preservation of the historic Roman canon, has the kind of two sets of sacrificial language.

You know, as you say, when the bread and wine are brought forth, that is a sacrificial offering from the people.

Right.

So the priest, during, I mean, we even call it the offertory-

Mm-hmm.

...

and then the priest prays that God will accept and bless these gifts, these offerings, these holy and unblemished sacrifices and it's sacrifices plural.

And it's talking about what we're offering to God.

Okay.

And then, we offer a sacrifice of praise after that.

But then, after the consecration, we refer to the Holy Bread of eternal life and the chalice of everlasting salvation, be pleased to look upon these offerings with this serene and kindly countenance as once you were pleased to accept the gifts of your servant, Abel the just, the sacrifice of Abraham, our father in faith, and the offering of your high priest Melchizedek, a holy sacrifice of spotless victim.

And so now we're talking about Christ, not about the bread and wine.

And so there's that shift in the language, and that is, I think, the ancient structure of the prayer.

So it seems like the sort of notion that we are both making an offering of the work of human hands, you know, the bread and wine to God, but then after the consecration are offering Jesus.

And it sounds like, if I'm understanding you correctly, you're saying you retain that first part-

Mm-hmm.

...

we are offering bread and wine, and you retain that somehow Christ becomes bodily present, even if we, you know, disagree on the, maybe the mode of it.

Mm-hmm.

But there's no longer a sense of then we're offering to the Father, you know, His own Son.

Right, that part- that part-

Is that...

is that right?

Yeah, you would have that correct.

Yeah, and so like in our...

I'll just read, so whenever we conduct, it's typically like in a, in...

when it's written right here, it's the divine service....

is the title, but M- Mass as well d- is also used, right?

Right before the- the words of consecration, you have this prayer.

It's called a Prayer of Thanksgiving.

And we have, like, five different settings that can be used for the Mass of different stuff.

But this Prayer of Thanksgiving kind of echoes similarly, you know, the- the- like, the Eucharistic prayers that are said right before and everything.

Yeah.

It says...

If you wouldn't mind me reading this, it says, "Blessed are you, Lord of heaven and earth, for you have had mercy on those whom you created and sent your only begotten Son into our flesh to bear our sin and be our savior.

With repentant joy, we receive the salvation accomplished for us by the all availing sacrifice of His body and His blood on the cross.

Gathered in the name and the remembrance of Jesus, we beg you, O Lord, to forgive, renew and strengthen us with your word and spirit.

Grant us faithfully to eat His body and drink His blood as He bids us do in His own testament.

Gather us together, we pray, from the ends of the earth to celebrate with all the faithful the marriage feast of the Lamb and His kingdom, which has no end.

Graciously receive our prayers, deliver and preserve us." Did you guys-

Nice.

Yeah, it does seem like the first two thirds are were close.

You know, like, we have kind of a common understanding.

Some kind of sacrifice or praise, a bringing up of, you know, like there's a reason we do the collection during the offertory part.

Right.

Like, we are giving the first fruits of our life to God.

Mm-hmm.

And then in some way, He is going to transform that, so that our limited sacrifice, we would say, would be connected with the perfect sacrifice of His Son.

Yeah, I guess I understand.

I would be curious as to how you make sense of that.

Is there a way that our sacrifices then become united with the sacrifice of Christ?

I want to give, like, a good answer, and I don't know if I have a good answer for that-

Sure.

No, that's, that's-

...

at this exact moment.

I don't wanna, like, talk and say something that I know is probably...

I don't wanna lie, you know?

He's gonna get a call from the seminary here pretty soon.

Yeah, or somebody's gonna comment and say, "Mornful."

Yeah.

Just get this door just busted in and...

Get outta here.

Some- there's gonna be some Lutherans getting comments and go, "Wow." Like, "That was- that was wrong.

And by the way, you're reported," or something.

No, that's not gonna happen.

But I know I'd prefer to get on a call with Pentecostals who are just-

No, no.

I don't mean to beat on this drum or anything.

...

right and- and not say something incorrect.

Right.

Um, it...

So there's...

I'm sorry, what?

So clarifying question, sorry.

For the Lutheran position, is it, you know, after the consecration of the elements, is it like Christ Himself being offered to God, to God the Father for the forgiveness of sins?

Or is it some sort...

Like, what is being offered in the sacrifice, I suppose?

So it's not that for...

It's not like that Christ there on the altar is being offered up to the Father in that way at all.

And that's not how we view it in that sense.

Whenever I mention the whole, the Father having the Son there in the, you know, down to the altar with body and blood there, and then that gift that is now in the sacrament of the altar, the Eucharist, that the faithful partake in.

At that point, that's where, like, the sacrifice still continues, but it's still that Eucharistic sacrifice.

'Cause even like, yeah, you're receiving orally Christ's body and blood for the forgiveness of sins, for the strengthening of faith.

Your receiving, like all that, that still is there, right?

This whole...

But the whole idea of it's this...

it's like a representation of Calvary and that it's another- that's something propitiatory, that aspect is not recognized.

That part is not recognized.

I wonder if it'd be worth talking about this from the perspective of the Jewish sacrifice of thanksgiving, the totah sacrifice.

I don't know if this is something you've done any work on or are familiar with.

Mm-hmm.

But this is one of the models we would look to for making sense of why this would be both a sacrifice of praise and propitiatory.

Yeah.

That the totah sacrifice connected with, you know, the Passover in this case, connected with the Last Supper, of course, gives kind of a structure in a Jewish framework.

But I don't wanna go too far down that road if this is something where...

I don't wanna kind of catch you off guard and take you in a direction you're not...

I have, I have...

So in the Apology, it spends, spends a couple pages, so I tried to highlight stuff so I wasn't just reading a couple pages.

It's kind of hard when it's just comprehensive.

Mm-hmm.

But it spends time talking about, Malachi speaking about sacrifices.

Yeah.

It spends some time speaking about, Daniel 8 and 12 with the daily sacrifice.

It says, "We readily allow the Mass to be understood as a daily sacrifice as long as that includes the entire Mass.

The ceremony with the preaching of the gospel, faith, invocation and thanksgiving.

Joined together, these are a daily sacrifice of the New Testament because the ceremony of the Mass or the Lord's Supper was set up because of these things.

The Mass is not to be separated from them.

But it cannot be shown from this Levitical type, we'll get into that, that a ceremony justifying by the outward work is necessary or should be applied on behalf of others, that it may merit the forgiveness of sins for them.

Okay.

I think that gives us a pretty good avenue to go.

Okay.

Daniel 8, the reference there, I assume is to Daniel 8:11?

Yep.

Daniel 8:11 and then Daniel 12:11.

Okay.

So this was the view, and I know you'll find Catholics who take this today, that there are these foretellings of the daily sacrifice being taken away.

Mm-hmm.

So Daniel 12:11 says, "And from the time that the continual burnt offering is taken away and the abomination that makes desolate is set up, there shall be 1,290 days." Now, I'll caveat this heavily by saying this kind of eschatological apocalyptic imagery is open to a lot of interpretations.

But one of the common ways it was understood was, we as Christians offer daily offering to God.

Mm-hmm.

And, you know, the Antichrist is going to put a stop to this with the abomination of desolation and all of that.

So it's a view of, like, stopping the daily sacrifice of the Mass. That...

I think that background makes sense of the Daniel 8 and Daniel 12 references.

Mm-hmm.

And the question that immediately popped into my mind, and again, this is a genuine question of ignorance.

If one takes the view...

Well, okay, how do I...

Okay, I'll just say this now, you tell me where I'm wrong.

It seems like even on the Lutheran account, one would have to say from some point in history forward, every daily mass around the world, or you know, around the known world, was done with this propitiatory understanding, was done with this understanding that doesn't sit with Lutheran theology, that certainly the private masses, Luther had very strong things to say about how these were damnable and all this.

If we take Daniel 8 and Daniel 12 to be talking about stopping the daily sacrifice, it would seem that one of two things would seemingly have to be true.

Either Lutherans are right and at some point the early Christians stopped offering the true daily sacrifice and started offering some damnable sham, or what Lutherans were trying to do was to stop the daily sacrifice in lieu of something else.

But either way, they...

it would seem like it raises the stakes to an almost apocalyptic level if that's...

Like if the Apology of the Augsburg Confession is right in tying Daniel 8 and 12 to the daily liturgical sacrifice of Christians.

Yeah, that's an interesting thing to consider, right?

And, you know, I'm Lutheran so I'm gonna have to say it's the first one.

And there'll be a lot of Lutherans that will say, like, "Whoa, whoa, whoa.

Hold on.

Like, we gotta be a little more ecumenical here about that." Or like...

But that would definitely be...

I mean, without me looking into it a little bit more, that would be where it stands quite frankly on the matter of Daniel 8.

And I know Daniel 8 and Daniel 12 and Exodus 29 are mentioned in this citing also the daily sacrifices.

It...

What I read is what it said, that's all it really said on the matter, and then it moved to Numbers 28 talking about three parts of the daily sacrifice.

Okay.

And then it, of course talks about Malachi 1 and then Malachi 3.

And then it moves into some different areas.

It does...

it kinda jumps around to some of those things about sacrifice and the Old Testament picture of sacrifice and then...

Actually, it also talks about what the early church fathers, a few of them said about that as well.

Yeah, which would...

I guess...

Okay.

Well, maybe to cap off the apocalyptic part, then we can turn to the church fathers?

Yeah.

That, that sound good?

Yeah.

I think the...

I'm not offended by you saying, like, "You guys got rid of true worship." But I do think it's worth recognizing how extreme the claim is-

Right.

...

in that, in the context of Daniel this is the thing that triggers the apocalypse and the end of the world.

Mm-hmm.

Again, if the Augsburg reading of it is correct, and you'll find some Patristic reading that also says, yes, the mass has stopped, this kind of triggers the apocalypse.

It's now been 500 years and the apocalypse hasn't happened, and it's been I don't know how many centuries since a Lutheran would say that proper sacrifice stopped.

Like, if you say the earliest Christians had a Lutheran understanding of the mass, at some point everybody's got to concede that that is clearly not the understanding of the mass at the dawn of The Reformation and doesn't seem like it was the understanding of the mass for a long, long time before that.

Like, it...

And I mean, and I guess that'll segue us nicely into the church fathers.

Mm-hmm.

That we have so many just clear references to them talking about it as propitiatory that if one says the abomination of desolation and the ending of the daily sacrifice happened in, I don't know, 350 or something, is...

I'm curious as to how one makes sense of that eschatology in light of it not then immediately turning into the return of Christ.

Well, and we wouldn't even...

And of course...

I know 350's just like a rand-...

It's just like a random chapter-

Sure, I'm literally just throwing out a number for history.

Yeah, yeah.

I wouldn't say like- Especially 325, Constantine, right?

Yeah, well, yeah, Constantine created the Catholic Church- ...

so, you know.

And all you Protestants that are gonna return to mama, you know, like Stephen Henderson said.

But, yeah.

I'm looking forward to the people who don't understand that was a joke in the comments.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

It's gonna be, yeah.

So, hopefully they watch- The comment section's gonna be very entertaining on this video, I think.

Yeah, and I apologize for jumping around a little bit.

I just, I tried to do as much research as I could without just staying-

Sure.

...

saying stuff, and it's just been...

Y- my week's been a little-

No, look-

...

wrenching, so-

...

I was very much in your shoes when I was getting ready for the debate thinking, "What are all of the possible ways this conversation could go?"

Right, yeah.

And I had the advantage in this conversation that I'd already done a lot of that, that kind of background stuff, so-

Right, I was gonna say-

...

I feel your pain there.

Yeah, no, and I want to present it...

You know, I don't wanna...

I wanna present it in a way that's...

I don't wanna be dishonest and say, "Oh, yeah, this is what we're saying," and all of a sudden I'm wrong and then I'm telling you wrong and everyone else is seeing wrong.

I just wanna present it...

So there's gonna be some stuff I'll say like, "Hey, I'm sorry.

I don't have the best answer for it," and I just wanna be honest.

Sure, sure, sure.

I don't wanna just talk, 'cause I know a lot of times it's easy to just say, "Well, I don't...

I know I don't know, but I'm gonna talk and talk and talk" "...

and sound like I know," right?

But, before we jump into the church fathers, do you mind if we talk a little bit about Malachi a bit?

Please, yeah.

I think that's great.

Okay, so I'm gonna read a little bit of what Melanchthon wrote in here with The Apology if that's all right, just to make sure it's clear it's not my words, it's not my church-

Sure.

...

confessions.

So no one, let the record show-

Prophesy Melanchthon.

Yes.

Yes, Saint Melanchthon is making this clear, yes.

He's in our calendar of saints, excessive.

Oh man, oh no.

Malachi speaks about these sacrifices and you know the verse, you know the chapter verse.

It's Malachi 1, verse 11 is this first part.

"For from the rising of the sun to its setting, my name will be great among the nations and in every place, incense will be offered to my name and a pure offering." The adversaries...

I'm just...

The adversaries are wrong- ...

for anyone hearing this, and Brayden already knows, and I know you know that.

But for everyone listening, I'm just saying how it is.

"The adversaries perversely apply this passage to the Mass and quote the authority of the fathers.

A reply, however, is easy.

Even if this passage spoke most particularly about the Mass, it would not make sense the Mass justifies by the outward act, or that when applied to others, it merits the forgiveness of sins.

The prophet says nothing about those things that the monks and philosophers rudely make up." "Besides, the very word the prophets express has meaning.

First, his words say this.

'The name of the Lord will be great.'" Okay, we agree.

"This is accomplished by the preaching of the gospel.

Through this preaching, Christ's name is made known and the Father's mercy, promised in Christ, is recognized.

The preaching of the gospel produces faith in those who receive the gospel." You know, Romans chapter 10.

"They call upon God, give thanks to God, bear troubles for their confession, and produce good works for Christ's glory.

So the name of the Lord becomes great among the Gentiles.

Therefore, incense and a pure offering means not a ceremony by the outward act, but all those sacrifices through which the name of the Lord becomes great, i.e.

faith, invocation, the preaching of the gospel, right confession and so on.

If anyone would have this term include the ceremony of the Mass, we readily concede it, provided he neither understands the ceremony alone nor teaches that the ceremony benefits by the outward act.

We include the preaching of the word among the sacrifices of praise, that is among the praises of God, so the reception itself of the Lord's supper can be praise or thanksgiving, but it does not justify by the outward act.

Neither is it to be applied to others to merit the forgiveness of sins for them.

Malachi speaks about all the services of the New Testament, and not only about the Lord's supper.

Likewise, since he does not favor the pharisaic opinion of the outward act, he is not against us, but rather helps us." That's it on Malachi chapter one.

That's interesting, 'cause he seems to really downplay the connection to the Mass, and then says, "Well, I mean, maybe it could be the Mass, as long as you don't understand it in a very Catholic way." Is that a fair...

And I will...

That is fair.

And I will...

And that's something I wanted to bring up, too, just to be honest with this as well.

You'll read, and I know that in...

You probably saw, and I know in the video that you made right after that debate with James White about the-

Yeah.

...

centrality of the Eucharist, the Mass and all that kind of stuff, and Protestant, or, you know, Luther and things he said, right, about the Mass.

Mm-hmm.

Although I actually got a miscitation in there.

I don't know if I mentioned that or not.

Oh, really?

I said, Babylonian captivity.

No.

What did I...

I get these two confused-

Free love, Chris.

...

constantly.

No, it was...

Oh, shoot.

Okay, I'm even gonna screw it up again.

I said bondage of the will, and I meant Babylonian captivity.

Okay.

The captivity, bondage thing, I got it-

Right.

Yeah.

...

backwards in my head.

Yeah, he was like spitting some of those out.

And it's like, I get it.

Yeah.

That's right.

So I wanna say-

Yeah.

...

if you go to the Small Called Articles in the Aug- in M-

Mm-hmm.

In the Book of Concord, Small Called Articles are the separate set of articles that are in the confessions, it's one of those things where, you know when you're reading through, like, the Bible and it goes, like, "Herod," and then it says, "Herod" in Acts, like, 10 verses later?

But when you, when you actually know it's two different Herods.

Yeah.

Right?

But you're like, "Oh, I didn't..." It's like this contextual thing that exists, and it's also kind of troubling because this was both in Latin and in German, and then now the English.

So there was, there was language and there were context and stuff like that.

And you're right.

He...

It's like in the Small Called Articles or some of the quotes from Luther, they will use the word, they'll use the same word, i.e.

Mass, when saying something about how they believe that Rome has perverted something and Rome's doing something wrong, and they won't say, like, they won't say, like, "wrong Mass for that" or "right Mass for that."

Right.

Right.

They'll just say, they'll say the same sentence.

Yeah.

"Yeah, the Mass is, the Mass is like...

The devil's getting away with the Mass and duh-duh-duh.

But the Mass is really good and great." But then, they'll say that and then you're like, "What the heck is going on here?" And then you contextually, they're just as- I think it's just this assumption of the reader at the time, or and it, the audience-

Yeah.

...

is understanding, okay, he's obviously saying this and this about two different things.

They just end up using the same exact word-

Mm-hmm.

...

with no descriptor.

Yeah, no, I know what you mean very well there.

I've had that trouble in trying to make sense of thing- especially as a non-Lutheran, trying to give a fair read to things Luther has said in particular, where sometimes he'll be saying something and it'll be...

You know, he'll have very long clauses where you're like, "I don't know if he's like-" "attacking a Catholic position or..." You know, like, it'll just be a little bit confusing like that.

So yeah.

And he's so polemic, he's so polemic and just like-

Right.

Yeah.

And this isn't even Luther right here as well-

Right, right.

...

by the way.

For...

I, I'm just, and I'm not necessarily saying that to you as much as to the viewer.

Sure.

The majority of the Book of Concord's not even from Luther.

It's gonna be other people.

He oversaw stuff, but these are the words of Philip Melanchthon, which Philip Melanchthon was very comfortable with using sacrificial language in that sense-

Right.

Yeah.

...

as well.

So actually, and I should've used, I could've found a quote and I heard it.

I was listening to some stuff from Jordan Cooper, Dr. Jordan Cooper, who definitely would be able to say things a lot better than I am saying it right now, but I'm, I'm, you know, I'm no scholar and there's no other Lutherans that decide to talk about this, so.

You don't give yourself enough credit, Peyton.

Come on, now.

Okay.

You're an honorary scholar.

Well...

Either way, I know there's many, many others that know more than I do and could definitely put this out here better than I.

But I figured, someone's gotta start putting it out there, or no one's gonna know our position.

Yeah.

No, and I think it's a good idea.

I think one takeaway I certainly want any Catholic watching to have is, for Protestants, you can't assume everybody's a memorialist, you know?

Mm-hmm.

Like-

Yeah.

...

depending on where you are in the...

I've noticed this just traveling around giving talks, that even if I say, "Oh, yeah, you may have heard this objection," the ones that people have heard in the Midwest, in the lower Midwest I should say, down here in what's largely kind of Baptist country-

Mm-hmm.

...

are gonna be very different than the upper Midwest where it's all Lutheran.

And you know, you go to other pla- and actually the weirdest ones are when I talk about Catholic objections people have heard in Utah, and it's all coming from, like, a Mormon perspective.

It's like-

Hm.

...

totally different from-

Yeah.

...

even Protestantism, where it's like, oh, yeah.

This is...

So, I think there's a danger, particularly for cradle Catholics, to imagine that Protestantism is largely unified as a belief system-

Mm-hmm.

...

in a way that I think it just kind of is.

Like, I don't know that the word Protestant does a whole lot, as either a sociological or a theological descriptor, because it— nobody seems to agree on what the core doctrines of Protestantism as such are, or like what one has to believe in order to be a Protestant that isn't just, like, basically Christian stuff.

Yeah, and it's good that you point that out, 'cause I know this is off-topic a little bit, but I will just say quickly that, yeah.

Especially more nowadays with, like the new perspective on Paul approach that you see a lot of people taking, which of course is, from the words of Braden, you mean the actual perspective of Paul.

And I say, "Wait a minute.

Stop." But-

He's not called N.T.

Wrong, is all I'm saying.

Oh, yeah.

N.T.

Right.

Oh, okay.

Yeah.

You got it right.

Yeah.

Because-

All right.

You gotta accept it now.

Yup.

Yeah.

No, for sure.

But he-

Sorry.

Go ahead.

I was just gonna say that there are a rising trend that a lot of these other groups that typically are called Protestant, well, they're rejecting that Protestant label, but they're rejecting the Protestant label in that way of like, well, Lutheranism and, you know, kind of like historical reform and stuff like that.

That stuff's dated and wrong, and they're not necessarily saying, "Well, we wanna go— we wanna become, you know, Catholics or Orthodox," or anything like that.

It's more like, "Well, they're both— those guys are both bad." And it's almost like this weird restorationism kind of thing.

And so, you've kinda seen that uptick where it's like a lot of people I talk to are like, "Oh, gosh.

I'm not— I'm not Protestant.

No, I don't like the...

They're just as bad as Catholics," you know?

Yeah.

It's always like the hierarchy is— is Catholic really bad?

And then-

Protestant is good.

Yeah.

...

uh-oh.

You're like a— you're like one of those old Protestants.

Well, at this point, thanks for some of the help, but you're pretty bad.

Also.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So-

Yeah, it does seem like every successive generation gets more Protestant and less Catholic, but also becomes less recognizably, historically Christian.

And Lutheran being-

They're the last historic.

They've been-

...

first— first generation Protestant is, you know

I mean, I ...

I would like to answer-

You both can answer.

Go ahead.

Go ahead.

Okay.

So in terms of...

So you're asking particularly about receiving benefits even if you didn't directly participate in the Mass?

Yeah, so,

Okay.

...

one of the Lutheran objections, Requiem Masses-

Mm-hmm.

...

you,

The, the Lutherans say you receive the benefits of the atonement.

It's applied to you for the forgiveness of sins when you receive the Eucharist.

Whereas-

Hm.

...

you know, Requ- Requiem Masses, at the very least, would seem to indicate that the sacrifice can be applied to you, offering it to God the Father on your behalf, and then you receive some sort of forgiveness of sins.

Yeah.

So certainly, we know that the way the early Christians understood it is...

Well, number one, our incorporation into Christ isn't just for our good, but it's for the good of those around us.

So think about St. Paul's instruction to the believing and the unbelieving spouse, and he suggests that it may be that the believing spouse is in some way the conduit of salvation for the unbelieving one, and for the purification of their children.

And so we don't want to understand salvation in purely individualist terms, right?

Like even if you are saved, you're never saved alone.

And so no one gets to Heaven kind of by themselves, either as a recipient or as a conduit of divine grace, that it is always you are the beneficiary of Christians around you, and you are to be a beneficiary for others.

And the person who refuses to act that way, is really cutting themselves off from, if you want to call it, the chain of salvation.

So with that kind of background, we can say that the early Christians...

So to just look to Cateche- Catechetical Lecture 23 with St. Cyril, he talks very explicitly, and this is 340 to 350, so we went through the 350 out there kind of arbitrarily earlier.

But we do have very explicit testimony from this period of him talking about it as propitiation being offered, for those who have fallen asleep before us, patriarchs, prophets, apostles, martyrs and so on, that this is for their purification.

So we see Masses being offered for the living and the dead in the 300s.

St. Thomas Aquinas much later will talk about this in the 12th century now, but he'll...

Or the 13th century, and he'll look to the Canon of the Mass as one of the things that we kind of know to support this.

So when we're talking about, you know, what does the Canon of the Mass say, he says, "But to others who do not receive it, it," the Mass, "is beneficial by way of sacrifice inasmuch as it is offered for their salvation.

Hence it is said in the Canon of the Mass, 'Be mindful of, O Lord, of Thy servants, men and women, for whom we offer or who offer up to Thee this sacrifice of praise for themselves and for all their own, for the redemption of their souls, for the hope of their safety and salvation.'" And then he quotes Jesus talking about the offering being made, and I'll just...

You know what?

Instead of quoting...

Aquinas quoting Jesus, let me just pull up- ...

the-

Mm-hmm.

...

Biblical text.

Matthew 26.

Mm-hmm.

When he says, "Drink of it, all of you, for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins," he views this as a recognition of the propitiatory nature of that.

And then in Luke 22:20, "This cup which is poured out for you is a new covenant in my blood." So the, the outpouring refers to the being shed for the remission of sins.

You know, and it's interesting because yeah, like, the actual sac- Christ's actual sacrifice at Calvary, no one...

Well, I'd say no one's gonna say it's not-

Yeah.

...

propitiatory, but there's people out there that, you know- ...

they would, really, they don't read into it, and you'd be surprised, right?

But what we'd agree on is that was propitiatory.

Yup.

Yup.

And we...

And we would say that during the Mass, when we receive Christ's body, true body and blood, we're receiving those benefits, that same body and that same blood that was there, that was sacrificed.

We wouldn't say that the actual...

Again, it goes back to that whole the actual representation of it is occurring in that way, where it's, where it is in and of itself right there a propitiatory act again, or -

No, I'm actually...

I'm curious about that in light of your high Eucharistic theology.

Like I would understand that if you said this is just a symbol of his body, but if you think this actually is Christ being made bodily present, why ...

Maybe this is a dumb...

Why not offer that to the Father?

Like if you have Jesus, why not say, "Look.

Here is the one perfect sacrifice of Christ on the cross, and we offer this in union with our own prayers"?

Well, 'cause in our...

How we would see it, and how it's defined many times, and how the confessions and the scriptures, what we point towards is that that sacrifi-...

And this also goes back a little bit to I know there is some sacrificial disagreements and terminology and stuff between us as well at Calvary, which is kind of some deeper stuff that might come up, but maybe not.

I'll just say that.

But we'd say that that whole...

You mentioned offering.

Why not offer it up to the Father in that way, right?

And well...

And I hope I say this right, but on the cross, that right there is Christ's body offered up, you know, satisfaction and all of that kind of stuff, so therefore during the Mass, it doesn't need to be offered up.

There's no offering up because Christ's body has already...

You know, he's already smitten, stricken, and afflicted.

He's already...

He's died for our sins, and we're receiving the benefit of his death, that forgiveness of sins, that strengthening of faith.

So that's being given out to us during the service of the Mass.

So, we certainly agree that Christ is not going to be stricken again.

Right?

Like, there's not going to be a re-sacrifice of Christ.

So, you know, again, using the Passover kind of image-

Mm-hmm.

...

if the Passover lamb is killed on Preparation Day and then is eaten on Pass- you know, the first day of Unleavened Bread, that's not a re-presentation day.

It's not a re-killing.

But there is a sense in which the lamb is being presented, and you become united with him by eating his flesh, from the sacrificial altar.

And then you're brought into the sacrifice.

And that seems to be the exact way that Saint Paul characterizes what's happening in the Eucharist.

So is, I guess, I think where it sounds like we agree is, it is absolutely Christ and it is a sacrifice.

Where it sounds like we disagree is, is it the sacrifice of Christ-

No.

...

or is it our sacrifice being, you know-

Yeah, that's, that's, that's the disagreement, yeah.

Okay, okay.

Because you're right.

Like, if it is the sacrifice of Christ, then it is definitionally propitiatory and seemingly, definitionally meritorious for those present or not present.

Because the sacrifice of Christ is meritorious not just for those who happened to be at the cross.

Right, so in by that propitiatory definition, I can see where that comes out, right?

Yes.

And that's spoken about a little bit because there's a section on the Mass for the dead.

Yeah.

Mainly that section is about stuff like that because that would consequently, if the Roman Catholic view is correct, well, then that would make sense, right?

Okay.

Well, no, I mean, it sounds like maybe we've honed in at least on the exact point of disagreement that whether this is kind of a man-made sacrifice or the sacrifice of Christ.

Maybe that's not the best way of...

but something like that seems to be,

It's where-

...

part of it.

Yeah, there, that's, it's kind of like you said, it's very, it's a very nuanced kind of...

that's where it gets confusing.

That's why I think a lot of people don't talk about it because ...

Sure, right.

...

it's not as easy.

It's easy, and that's why, like, it's hard whenever I watch the debate, like the James White stuff and all that because, well, Christ's body and blood's not even...

there's no forgiveness of sins pre- there's no presentation of his body and blood in that theology and there's gonna be Reformers that are gonna come after me on this, but I don't care.

There's, and we even call him out heavily in here, so, sorry.

But from the Lutheran point of view, from any point of view that has actual real bodily presence of Christ there, well, if you're already disagreeing that he's present and there's this actual, you're partaking of Christ and you're getting that forgiveness of sins and that strengthening of the faith, well, if you don't even have that, well, then you can't even get into anything deeper.

You know, like, like the whole propitiatory sacrifice thing doesn't even, you can't even discuss it because you don't even have the framework.

You don't even have the common ground.

...

to get to that point.

Right.

And that's why this, at least, we can discuss the nature of sacrifice because there's actually something there to discuss the nature, rather than there being an absence of the topic of sacrifice.

That's why I want to...

Yeah.

No, I think that's a good, it's a helpful distinction.

And it's probably worth saying just explicitly, I don't know that there's anything affirmed on the sacrificial level by Lutherans that a Catholic would disagree with, meaning we do think that the Eucharist is, amongst other things, a sacrifice of praise.

So-

Yeah.

...

it's not like, oh, you're adding this weird sacrificial theology we don't have.

It's like, no, no, we know the offertory has a sacrificial dimension to it.

We know the sacrifice of praise.

We know that, you know, even the Psalms and everything are going to have...

Mm-hmm.

...

kind of sacraments, sacrificial, excuse me, kind of merit.

But it's that particular question, and I do feel like we've hopefully kind of highlighted that, that bigger, or maybe more clearly, like, where we disagree.

Okay.

How-

Right.

...

how would one go about, on a Lutheran perspective, applying the sacrifice of Christ in the, like, what is the equivalent to eating the lamb of the altar?

Like, how?

Sorry, with the way you phrased the question.

How- It, but it sounds like, it sounds like both Catholics and Protestants agree that there is a partaking of the benefits of the atonement when there is the eating of the elements, right?

Okay, yeah, that's-

Would that, would that be a-

So, okay, I thought that, but I just wanted to make sure.

Right.

'Cause, and like, you know, going through First Corinthians, and I know I've mentioned it a few times, when Saint Paul asks, "The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ?"

Mm-hmm.

"The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ?" He gives the example of eating the sacrifices and becoming a partner in the altar-

Mm-hmm, right.

...

in First Corinthians 10:18.

Mm-hmm.

And it sounds like, I don't want to put words in your mouth.

It sounds like we both agree that when we're receiving communion, this is what he is pretty clearly talking about-

Yes.

...

like the cup of blessing and all of this.

This is all Eucharistic language.

Well, the First Corinthians 10:18 is referring to a propitiatory sacrifice being eaten, not just a sacrifice of praise.

And you're actually participating in the Passover sacrifice when you do that.

So, you know, the family who just refused to eat the...

Like, let's say they, for whatever reason, they sacrificed the lamb.

They praised God for the lamb, dying for them.

Mm-hmm.

But then they just decided not to eat the lamb.

They would not be covered by the sacrifice.

Uh, but on the other hand, if they did eat the lamb, they would be partakers of the sacrifice.

I mean, literally Verse 18 of, of First Corinthians 10 says-...

are not those who eat the sacrifices partners in the altar?

Like, the way you become a partner in the altar is by eating the sacrifice.

So if that's true on a Lutheran read, then it sounds like a propitiatory sacrifice.

You know, and I know there is something about it too, that went into greater detail, and I'm sorry I didn't pull it up.

But to, to me-

Uh-

...

it kind of sounds like there's not much there that Lutherans would disagree with, except for the fact that, I guess, it's like a re- uh, re-presentation of the offering to God, the Father, that is propitiatory in nature.

So like, I, maybe I'm not articulating this very well.

Like, they will, they will look to, uh, forgive me if I'm wrong, Pay- or correct me if I'm wrong, Peyton.

The Passover sacrifice as, yes, they slaughtered the lamb, yes, we partake of the sacrifice, and we're participating in that way, and we're receiving the benefits of participating in that sacrifice by eating of the sacrifice.

But then, it sounds like you would ask, "Okay, so what's the analog of offering..." I don't know if that's the right term to use.

What's the analog in the Old Testament, of offering the sacrifice on behalf of others such that they would partake of the benefits of the sacrifice without eating of it?

Hence, the Requiem Mass is and hence-

Oh, sure.

Sure, sure, sure.

I think I...

They...

I am understanding that.

Is that a good description, Peyton?

I mean, before I jump in there as well.

Yeah, I was trying to process it all and make sure.

Okay.

Yeah, yeah.

Well, yeah, and like, and to add a little bit, I guess, to say is like, is, is...

In that sacrificial language, and we've already gone over it a few times.

But, yeah, that whole, like the Passover stuff and all you see typifying Christ absolutely, you know?

Leaning towards this, that sacrifice of Christ on the cross.

And so, during the mass, in that way, the Father is...

I, if I could use a language of re-presenting a sacrifice in any way, if I would concede that kind of like, utilization of language, it's the Father-

Mm-hmm.

...

bringing the Son's body and blood down to that altar for the faithful of the church to commune with.

We would say the Holy Spirit, through the Epiklesis, makes the Son present, but that He is the true priest of the sacrifice.

Like, I guess, well, I, maybe...

I don't know if this is gonna help or hurt to add Hebrews in that dimension, but this, I know this is one of the things that came up in the debate with White.

Mm-hmm.

That oftentimes, with the once-for-all language in Hebrews.

Mm-hmm.

What I think gets mentioned, what gets omitted or overlooked is once for all there is not just talking...

I mean, in one sense, it is certainly talking about Good Friday, but it's equally clear from Hebrews that the sacrifice of Christ isn't done on Good Friday, and this becomes really clear when you look at the way Yom Kippur is contrasted and paralleled with Christ's sacrifice and the going into the holy place in Hebrews 9.

Prefiguring Christ going into the holy place of heaven with the ascension.

Mm-hmm.

You know, the ascension, we're talking 43 days later.

Right.

So there is clearly some application, kind of dimension to Christ's sacrifice.

But I think if one has a view of Christ offering himself to be slain on the cross and then to be eaten at the mass, and these are, you know, he is both the priest and the victim of the sacrifice.

Mm-hmm.

Then the human priest is simply a mediator of the true priest who is Christ.

I think that is pretty faithful to the Patristic read and to certainly what Catholic theology would say about...

So, so yeah.

Like, God re-presenting the sacrifice rather than the priest would be perfectly fine language, I think, from a Catholic perspective.

That was kind of a long way to end up-

Right.

...

in an yes, but...

Yeah.

And I don't know how expansive that link, that phrase of what I even said really is, in terms of like Lutheran...

Of like all the different documents, because I know that, I know that right now, and I didn't get a chance to read it.

I meant to.

I just got busy with some stuff.

But there was a...

There's a pretty expansive dialogue, I don't know if you've seen, between Australian Lutherans and Roman Catholic representatives and there's some videos on it, on YouTube as well.

There's some documents online you can find, but it...

There's a big discussion about sacrificial language.

Yeah.

And there were a lot of paths made forward that even got closer than what things have been for a while.

There were just like one or two fundamental things, and I intended to read it because I- ...

that was one of those I heard.

I had heard...

I watched a video that said, "This is...

They went over this, this, and this, but go read it to find out." And I was driving like, "Oh man, I'm gonna go read that-"

I gotta go read this.

"...

part as well." And then at the end-

This discussion's way too nuanced for me, guys.

I'm a former Baptist.

I'm trying to understand the difference.

Well, and the thing is, is yeah.

I'm trying and if I read that I would have been able to say, "Oh, well look.

These guys, those two representatives came together and this is-"

Yeah.

"...

this is where they got." Because at this point, before reading that, I should have, I don't know-

No, no.

That's what I'm s-

...

the modern way, how close in some of these modern dialogues things have gotten.

Because I'm not disagreeing with what's in the Apology, but there may be some different uses of language-

Sure.

...

that have been agreed upon as of recent years that I haven't actually seen.

You know what I mean?

So-

Yeah.

I think it's probably also fair to say 16th century Europeans don't always have the deepest understanding of Jewish and Pagan sacrificial theology.

And so some of the areas that looked like-...

maybe insurmountable differences were based on, you know, I mean, just to give...

And I don't think this is true in the Lutheran example, but many times when people object to the Catholic vision of the sacrificial theology, it's 'cause they think we're saying Christ is being killed again, which we clearly are not saying that.

Mm-hmm.

But if one thing's sacrifice just means killing, then it sounds like that.

Right.

And so we can kind of be talking past each other.

Yeah.

And it's like, well, we wouldn't actually deny anything that people who are, you know, objecting us would say.

We should...

You know, Christ dies once for all on the cross.

Absolutely.

But if we have the more nuanced sacrificial theology they had in the first century, then I think it gives us a deeper understanding of how one enters into a sacrifice.

Mm-hmm.

The way you put it, I...

What was that, Brayden?

Oh, I didn't even say anything.

I was wondering, I...

So I don't know if this is a helpful pivot or not, but I know one area where we have some common ground and some difference is on the notion of presence.

Now, that is pretty thematically distinct from the sacrificial notion-

Mm-hmm.

...

so if you think that's not a good time to go there, I'm happy to just leave it alone.

Well, I can...

I'm willing to discuss, yeah.

Okay, great.

Because this is a question I've had as an outsider looking into Lutheran theology.

So I understand that the term consubstantial is not clear.

Like you don't want to be calling it consubstantiation, right?

No, we do not use that term.

We could say Christ is in, with, and under.

Yeah.

Is there a better term for this?

There's a term.

Our term we use is called the sacramental union.

Okay.

How is that different than consubstantial?

Than consubstantiation?

Because I think the...

I...

From what I've seen, and that's the thing, is the consubstantiation language from, and this is from what I've read 'cause there's even Lutheran people who like made statements and they've used the word consubstantiation.

Okay.

Which then other Lutherans are like, "Don't use the word consubstantiation." You know?

And so consubstantiation-

I've seen this as well.

I've seen Lutherans use consubstantiation- ...

and then get mad at non-Lutherans for using it, but-

I don't know.

How about-

...

it's your word.

Yeah, come on, man.

Yeah.

Yeah, it's your problem, Bayton.

Come on.

It's never used in the confession.

Sacramental union's used.

I think the main objection, and somebody will correct me if I'm wrong in the comments, of course, that I remember is that the consubstantiation language is using Christ's body in a being present in like a local-

It's kind of using Christ's body in a being present in like a local-

I feel like, okay, yep.

...

locally local sense.

That makes sense.

And the sacrament...

Yeah, if you see what I'm saying there?

Right.

Okay.

That, that's the consubstantiation language.

The sacramental union language is not referring to it in a local sense.

Yeah, I guess one of the...

Well, maybe this is just part of the mystery of sacrament in general, but it does seem like consubstantiation at the least would lead to impanation.

You know, that...

In other words, if the union of Christ's body and soul, you have the...

Or excuse me, humanity and divinity, you have the hypostatic union.

If you have something like that with bread and wine, that would be abominable.

I don't mean that as a slight, I mean that just to say from a christological perspective-

Right.

...

it is God becoming bread-

Yeah.

...

and being actually bread.

You know, like- ...

we can say he is fully God and fully man, but to say he's fully man and fully bread would be like a centaur, because-

Well, flat.

That's correct, yeah.

Right, right, right, right.

Exactly.

So, but I think your distinction with the local presence might avoid that charge because-

And I can...

And this is, and it's really not that long.

It's pretty short.

The Augsburg Apology...

So the Augsburg Confession, when it says the Holy Supper, it's like that long.

Mm-hmm.

It's just- ...

Christ, Christ is truly and substantially present-

Yeah.

...

in, with, and under the bread and wine.

And anyone that says Christ isn't there is wrong.

That's really- ...

that's really what it says.

And then the Confutation's interesting because it's very short too, and at the time, the writers of the Confutation actually said that they approved, they approved of it and didn't want to go any deeper on it.

So they-

And sorry-

So they-

...

remind me.

The Confutation, that's-

Yeah.

...

the Catholic kind of representatives-

Respond.

...

responding?

Okay.

So the Con- so, so yeah, for everyone watching, the Augsburg Confession presented to Charles V, a Holy Roman emperor, articles of the Lutheran faith.

And then, representatives from Rome were there, and they made a confutation.

They wrote a confutation, whether they approved the articles or halfway approved them or just flat out disagreed with them.

And then the apology of the Augsburg Confession is then a response to the confutation.

That helps a lot.

Just to clarify.

Thank you.

Yeah.

This is what it says, if you don't mind.

It's Article 10.

No, not at all.

The Apology, the Holy Supper.

It says, "Article 10 has been approved in which we confess the following.

We believe that in the Lord's Supper, Christ's body and blood are truly and substantially present and are truly administered with those things that are seen, bread and wine, to those who receive the sacrament.

We constantly defend this belief as the subject has been carefully examined and considered since Saint Paul says, 'The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ?'" What you just read from 1 Corinthians 10.

"It would follow that if the Lord's body were not truly present, the bread is not a communion of the body, but only of Christ's spirit.

We have determined that not only the Roman Church affirms Christ's bodily presence.

The Greek Church also now believes and formally believed the same.

Their canon of the mass testifies to this.

In the canon, the priest clearly prays that the bread may be changed to become Christ's very body." Vulgarius, who does not seem to be an unimportant writer to us, says clearly that, quote, "Bread is not a mere figure, but is truly changed into flesh." There is a longer commentary by Cyril on John 15, in which he teaches that Christ is bodily offered to us in the supper, for he says: Nevertheless, we do not deny that we are joined spiritually to Christ by true faith and sincere love.

But that we have no way of connection with him, according to the flesh.

This, indeed, we entirely deny.

We say this idea is completely foreign to the Divine Scriptures.

For who has doubted that Christ is in this manner a vine, and we, the branches, deriving life for ourselves from this?

Hear Paul saying, "For you are all one in Christ Jesus." So we, though many, are one body in Christ, for we all partake of the one bread.

Does he perhaps think that the virtue of the mystical benediction is unknown to us?

Since this is in us, does it not also, by the communication of Christ's flesh, cause Christ to dwell in us bodily?

And a little after, Therefore we must consider that Christ is in us not only according to the habit, which we call love, but also by natural participation.

It says, We have cited these testimonies not to undertake a discussion here about the subject, for the emperor doesn't disapprove of this article, but we cite them so that all who read them may more clearly discern that we defend the doctrine received in the entire Church.

In the Lord's Supper, Christ's body and blood are truly and actually present.

They are truly administered with those things that are seen, bread and wine, and we speak of the presence of the living Christ, for we know that death no longer has dominion over him.

And that's the end of the article.

That's fascinating.

I am actually struck by the reference to Vulgarius.

It's interesting.

Where he says distinctly that, "Bread is not a mere figure, but it's truly changed into flesh." So it seems like there is a notion of a substantial change.

Like, not just that...

Like, the bread is actually changed.

Is that right?

It seems from a reading right over that, that there would be some sort of idea of, like, whether, you know...

Okay, the transubstantiation language that's going to come into effect, right?

The talk on that.

The disagreement that comes into that is just, I think it's on, really, the idea that, you know, the whole accidents language and this, you know, it's to our senses we see, like, the...

And I might be saying this in a very vulgar way, that you might not say, but correct me if I'm wrong.

It's like, to our senses, you're seeing the bread and the wine.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's the...

And, and you use the term accidents, leftover.

Well-

Right?

Accidents, you'll find much more in kind of modern explanations of transubstantiation.

Okay.

Species is actually some of the older language.

Okay.

But the stuff that's actually defined is that the substance of bread and wine changes, ceases to be bread and wine, and becomes the blood-

Right.

...

and blood of Christ.

So-

Right.

But obviously, however you want to describe it, the appearances, or accidents, or species, there is obviously...

It continues to look like bread and wine.

And you find the early Church fathers talking about this as well.

Gregory of Nyssa talks about this, Ambrose talks about this.

I think Cyril talks about this.

Often, if you read the kinda catechetical homilies they write for Neophytes-

Mm-hmm.

...

they'll bring up this point.

Like, "Yeah, this looks like bread and wine.

We don't think it is bread and wine." And so, transubstantiation is just a long word for that basic idea.

Right.

I see.

Okay.

And we would...

And, of course, the very true and often-cited quotation from Saint Irenaeus, I believe, in Against Heresies, you know, we defend that.

I believe that's where it is, the quote on the union between like the heavenly and the natural, or the earthly and the heavenly things in communion.

Yeah.

It has the two realities, heavenly...

Yeah.

Yeah.

I know the-

And-

I think I know the one you're referring to.

Yeah.

I have it somewhere in here.

I could...

But I...

Essentially, that's like the

As the bread which is produced from the earth, when it receives the invocation of God, is no longer common bread, but the Eucharist consisting-

Yeah.

...

of two realities, earthly and heavenly.

Right.

Yeah.

So I think a lot of what we're doing, then, is just defining what is earthly that remains, and what is heavenly.

What-

Right.

And we would defend that, in the way that bread and wine in their substance is still present, but it's not merely bread and wine, because there's a union that has now occurred of Christ's body and blood.

But if the bread and wine remain bread and wine, in what way do we say with Vulgarius that it is truly changed into flesh?

Because it doesn't seem like that would be an accurate description.

I mean, if I've got...

Maybe this is...

I already regret using this analogy.

With a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, the jelly is maybe in, within, under the peanut butter, but the two are unmixed even though they're united in some, you know, globular way.

So you go, "I already regret using this analogy." This might come up in another area.

I'd have to flip and see, 'cause it talks more about the Sacrament.

But it talks about it, it talks about Christ's body and blood...

Sorry.

Supernatural presence and-

Yeah.

...

its supernatural presence there with the elements of bread and wine.

That's why it says like, "Bread is not a mere figure." Well, of course it's not a mere figure.

And then the, "But it's truly changed into flesh." Well, that whole substance language, I guess, is taken...

You know, it could be thrown out like many do, where it's like, "Oh, it doesn't matter." You know?

There's no, there's nothing going on there.

And then the transubstantiation thing where it's like, well, no, it...

That whole substance is changed completely into Christ's flesh....

or I guess the real approach that we take on that is Christ's supernatural body and blood being present there.

Does change the bread.

It's no longer common bread in the sense of what you would know as normally bread and wine, but it still is naturally an element of bread and wine.

But if I could just...

I'm specifically wondering about the phrase, "Is truly changed into flesh," 'cause it doesn't seem like it is truly changed into flesh on a Lutheran view.

But it seems like flesh is also present.

But you know like when two or three are gathered in Christ's name, he is spiritually present, somehow.

But we wouldn't say they've changed into Christ.

Right.

And so if something like that is what's happening, and maybe it's something more than that, I don't know.

It just seems like...

I'm having trouble with, in kind of the Lutheran framework of making sense of how one can affirm both a mere sacramental union presence, and that there is a true change in the flesh of the bread, not just that the flesh becomes present alongside the bread.

Well, and a lot...

And this is like the thing that everyone hates whenever...

Especially like Reform when they're talking with us, so sorry to throw this one in there.

But the change that occurs in, when we talk about like that supernatural presence of the sacramental union, or the mystery, and the sacrament, is like...

I'm sorry, I'm throwing it out there.

My dad hates this when I do this too.

It's a change not well philosophically defined.

That seems true.

And so because of that-

Burn.

No.

Yeah.

No, and because of that, those definitions in that way tend to be not really...

Not really discussed too much.

I know there's a book that I should have read, and I haven't, that the Lutheran view of Christ's bodily presence in the elements, with the elements, and it's called...

I can't remember.

It's called like the adorable true and holy body of Christ, so, you know, in the Eucharist and all that.

And it's massive, and it has a bunch of stuff and I know it probably...

It definitely probably goes into it, quite a bit.

And I know like Martin Chemnitz and other,

Mm-hmm.

...

post-Reformation writers talk extensively on stuff like this, especially in, in Martin Chemnitz's response to the Council of Trent.

He has a thing about...

'Cause about the clause on transubstantiation, and, and I can actually pull something up on this.

Sorry, I- I- I don't r- can you still see me?

This is where we land on a lot of things.

I knew I was going a little bit off topic.

But it was- it was honestly a place of just, kinda curiosity.

Right.

But then when you brought up article 10, from the Apology, I hadn't heard that language, and then was just kinda struck by how much more Catholic Ludarius sounded than Lutheran, and yet he's being used to support the Lutheran view.

And so I feel like I must be missing something or- or it just isn't very well defined, perhaps.

No, we- we gotta start talking about ubiquitarianism, so.

Ubiquitarian.

Is that- is that something...

Is that something that's like within Lutheran the- like U- uh, ubiquity, the doctrine of u- ubiquity, or...

I act-...

I actually...

I know of its ex- I know of like the existence of that, but you're gonna have to re- remind me what that is again.

So if I recall correctly, and I'm gonna...

Oh, the commenters are gonna fact-check us all.

So ubiquity is where Christ's human nature participates in and partakes of the divine attributes of omniscience from his divine nature and that's how he can be made present in the Eucharistic elements in Lutheranism.

I don't know if that was like a- an early Lutheran kind of like Osiander controversy kind of thing, or if that was like actually a part of Lutheranism proper, but I'm not sure.

'Cause I- I thought we had talked about this before, where-

No, you did bring it up at one point, and I probably said, "I'm gonna go look at that," and what have I done.

I don't remember what it was.

'Cause I- I- I remember we had talked about the- the- the presence of Christ and the Eucharist being comparable to, the- the- the post-resurrection appearances of Christ as he, let's say, as he- he's- he's phasing through this door.

Like as he's walking through the door, Christ's physical body is occupying the same, physical space as this physical door, such that both could be present in the same place at once, and he does that by virtue of his divine nature and that's how-

Oh.

...

Christ was present in all these different ways.

Yeah, and it's a whole, and-

I believe it is Heidelberg Confession, Lord's Day 18, question 48.

Well, there we go.

And that was, it...

So, it, yeah, so it was the Heidelberg one.

Okay.

Um, it's, this is not in the Book of Concord, but Heidelberg, um, Confession's interesting.

About that, Brighton, just really briefly.

A lot of that debate kind of came up as well, the idea of...

That- that's the communicatio.

I don't even know if this even comes up, came up in- in- in any Roman Catholic spheres, but the communicatio idiomata.

Idiomata, yeah.

The communication of properties.

Mm-hmm.

And of that dis- the real- the real fight that occurred was the commun- the- the communication of properties argument between how the Reform would define Christ's relation from his human self to his divine self, and then how they would say, they w- essentially, long story short, we would look at the Reformed and say they're like Nestorians.

And they would look at us and say we're like Miaphysite.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, it does seem like it- it might blend the-...

natures, to say that he takes on divine nature in his human nature.

If that is...

like they, it does seem like the, the ubiquity does seem to run into some Miaphysite or Monophysite problem.

It's explained really well.

Okay.

And honestly, I am not prepared to discuss it in a good way at the moment.

Hey, that's fine, because the Reform during this story and anyways, 'cause they reject iconography using this story and argumentation, so it's cool.

Well, and most of the Reform, besides like your very traditional Presbyterian probably also reject Mary as Mother of God, so-

We're running low on our allotted time.

I know, I'm sorry.

I'm sorry.

I didn't mean to segue, I'm sorry.

Oh no, you're fine, we're jumping all around.

Okay, so I guess towards the end here.

I...

S- sorry, real quick, can I-

Yeah.

...

just ask Peyton if there's anything he wanted to make sure got covered he didn't think was well covered-

Oh, my bad.

I didn't re- are you still looking at the...

Yeah, I'm in the Solid Declaration right now.

Okay.

Which I was trying to make sure I...

Sorry, I was...

because the Solid, I was just comparing the two really quick because Epitome's like quick.

As it is.

and then the Solid Declaration's like, "Hey, let's talk for 5,000 pages about this."

Y- dude, you need to get-

Yeah.

You need to-

So-

Get the Book of Concord on Verbum, I mean Logos.

probably the best.

Look, I love Logos, but it is available online.

It is, but-

Great.

Did you know, did you know...

sorry, segue.

You're able to download freely available PDFs online and convert them to personal books and put them into Verbum so that way you can have a personal book of Verbum?

No.

Yeah, I-

This is a great little...

this was not an intended ad, but it worked really well.

It's amazing.

It's amazing.

I'm writing a piece for Verbum, so -

Oh, hey, there we go.

...

they'll be happy to know we just plugged them.

Yes.

No, the Verbum's great.

Ever since...

and so Peyton actually has his seminary, they...

Don't you get like a particular package through Logos because of your seminary?

Is that what it is?

Yeah, the lifetime-

Yes.

...

package.

So insane, yeah.

That's what I use for my Greek and Hebrew stuff when I'm going over that.

Yeah, for sure.

Very helpful.

But in...

I'm at the Epitome right now.

Some of...

there's...

it has affirmative statements in the Epitome, so what we confess, and it has negative statements, so what we condemn.

The vast majority of the stuff is against the, quote, "Sacramentarians," so very significant in Reform.

Yeah.

What'd you say, sorry?

It's el- very confusingly named.

It'd be like if you named-

Because-

...

a group that believes at least in baptism Baptists.

Well, and it...

Yeah, I know.

Well, what's funny is now somebody that you'd refer to as Sacramentarian is someone who has a high view of the sacraments.

Right, because I'm saying it's a total 180.

Like if people are reading Sacramentarian, they're like, "Oh, yeah." Well-

Yeah.

"...

you, you're not a Sacramentarian.

I guess you don't believe in the sacrament.

Yeah.

Nope.

Sacramentarians really downplay the sacraments.

Right.

So I'll just read really quickly just something on here.

This is the affirmative statements.

You know, "We believe, teach and confess that in the Holy Supper, Christ's body and blood are truly and essentially present, that they are truly distributed and received with the bread and wine." We've already gone over that.

Yeah.

"We believe, teach and confess that the words of Christ's testament are not to be understood in any other way than the way they read according to the letter.

So the bread does not signify Christ's absent body and the wine, his absent blood.

But because of the sacramental union, the bread and wine are truly Christ's body and blood.

Three, now about the consecration.

We believe, teach and confess that no work of man or recitation of the minister produces this presence of Christ's body and blood in the Holy Supper.

Instead, this presence is to be credited only and alone to the almighty power of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Four, at the same time, we also believe, teach and confess unanimously that in the use of the Holy Supper, the words of Christ's institution should in no way be left out.

Instead, they should be publicly recited as it is written in 1 Corinthians 10:16, the cup of blessing that we bless and so forth.

This blessing occurs through the reciting of Christ's words.

In this matter, the ground on which we stand against the Sacramentarians is what Dr. Luther has laid down in his confession concerning Christ's supper.

The first point is this article of our Christian faith, Jesus Christ is true, essential, natural, perfect God and man in one person, undivided and inseparable. So then it gets into christology and stuff like that.

Then skip ahead.

We believe, teach and confess that Christ's body and blood are received with the bread and wine not only spiritually through faith, but also orally.

Yet not in a Capernaic way, but in a supernatural heavenly way because of the sacramental union.

Christ's words clearly show this when Christ gives direction to take, eat and drink as was also done by the apostles, for it is written in Mark 14:23, 'And they all drank of it.' St. Paul likewise says, 'The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ?' That is to say he who eats this bread eats Christ's body, which also the chief ancient teachers of the church, Chrysostom, Cyprian, Leo I, Gregory, Ambrose, and Augustine unanimously testify.

It's very strange to read a paragraph where people argue against transubstantiation, that's the Capernaic view, the view that Capernaum is about the Eucharist.

Right.

And then cite to Pope Leo I, who...

I would say is arguably a Catholic.

Actually, I think all of those people...

I would be happy to affirm the Eucharistic theology of Chrysostom, Cyprian, Leo, Gregory, Ambrose, and Augustine.

So it is kinda weird when they sort of throw out like, 'Obviously not in the Catholic way,' but here's a long list of people that Catholics also think teach Catholic theology.

Well, of course they're teaching Catholic theology, that's why we're here.

Catholic means Lutheran, right?

Right.

Yeah.

Catholic means Lutheran.

I forgot about that.

No, Augustine actually has a great line on that.

Where if you go into any town...

Do they?

Oh, it's Saint Augustine.

He says, 'When you go into a town...'

ask where the Catholic Church is, because otherwise heretics will tell you they're the Catholic Church.

Yes.

Yes.

Okay.

Uh-oh.

Uh-oh.

That reminds me.

My paragraph included Augustine.

I thought he'd be a fair judge of the dispute.

Peyton can you quote to me the LCMS rendering of the creed?

One holy-

Yeah.

...

Christian, apostolic.

Do you really do that?

You changed...

You changed Catholic to Christian?

Yeah, you...

Yeah.

It says Christian and it says...

Below it, it says originally the word Catholic, which is stupid.

I don't know why they did that.

I mean, we'll...

Point of agreement if you can change the words to mean whatever you want them to mean.

The re-...

The whole...

You know, so here's the thing is while the Christian and Catholic word are not...

They're inseparable in that way, in a true Christian, true Catholic sense, and you'd agree but you'd define some stuff differently.

The real thing is because that's translated directly from the German text and so when you're t- when you're...

When you go, "Oh, yeah, we're translating it directly from this," well, then, that word Christian directly from the German text into English is what it is.

So, well, when we say the...

When we say the Affination Creed on Holy Trinity, how many Roman Catholics do that, so...

That's true.

When we see the Affination Creed on the Feast of the Holy Trinity, we say Catholic in there.

Uh, when...

And Father Feeney...

I don't know if you know that whole story.

Father Feeney was excommunicated for claiming that every non-Catholic was going to hell.

Uh-

Yeah, Feeneyism.

Well, that's what the Leiman brothers believe, right?

Yeah, that's right.

And well, when Feeney was restored to the church, he had to make a confession of one of these confessions and he chose the Athanasian Creed...

which has that great "outside the Church there is no salvation" kind of language.

And it's just like, he doesn't seem that repentant.

Yeah.

Yeah, right.

He goes, "This is a good part.

This is a good part."

Yeah.

Right, right.

But, yeah, thanks for bringing that up, Braden.

That was-

Yeah, no prob.

Yeah.

So, okay, summ-...

I'm gonna try and summarize this very briefly.

So it sounds like, at least in Eucharistic theology, the difference, the fundamental difference between the Catholic and the Lutheran perspective, or the Catholic and the Catholic perspective is, the...

Is that Catholics believe that the substance of the bread and the wine are changed, substantially changed into the substance of the body and blood, soul and divinity of our Lord.

Whereas the Lutheran perspective believes that the change consists in an addition of the substance of body, blood, soul and divinity of our Lord, such that there's still a true presence in either case, but the bread and the wine are retained in the latter, whereas in the former, they aren't truly there.

Besides, the accidents or whatever the other term that was used.

Is that a fair presentation of the differences here as far as Eucharistic presence goes?

I think overall it's a pretty fair representation, yeah.

Christ is in, with and under or He is.

Yeah.

That's essentially-

Right.

...

the...

In a basic way, yeah.

Yeah.

Right.

And so moving over to the Eucharistic sacrifice, because Christ is truly present, it is a sacrifice in some sense and we part...

By participating in the sacrifice through eating of the elements, we partake of the benefits of the atonement in both Lutheran and Catholic theology.

Whereas the Lutheran understanding of it is it's the forgiveness of sins is specifically received in, and only in the reception of His body and blood.

Yeah.

In the-

And then the-

...

eating and drinking, yes.

Yeah.

And you can't offer a Co-...

You can't offer Christ back up to the Father for the forgiveness or for the application, to, you know, the dead, those in purgatory-

Right.

...

and things of that nature.

Right.

Whereas the Catholic perspective would confess those things.

Is that kind of what we've come to the conclusion of in this?

Yeah.

And, and, and I'd say also we would...

We speak of the, the...

Because we're using that Eucharistic sacrifice language, the whole...

That whole...

The service, the whole mass itself, right?

But not only, not only the service of the sacrament, but the word, the consecration, everything, with a sacrificial language.

All of the...

All of it's encompassing that Eucharistic sacrifice, is how we would...

how we would phrase it.

Yeah.

Could I add to...

Yeah.

...

that maybe?

Yeah.

I think this will be a point of agreement but maybe it'll...

maybe it won't be, so...

I think dividing the mass up, I know you just said the opposite of dividing it up, but like- ...

dividing it up might just, might show the areas of agreement and disagreement.

Like on the sacrifice of praise element, on the way we offer up even prayer and songs of praise and all of this, you know, for instance in the liturgy of the word, I think we're gonna have a very similar theology.

I think it would be shades of meaning.

The offertory dimension to the sacrifice, I think we're all on the same page.

In the Christ becoming present through the calling down of the Holy Spirit, we're gonna have some differences on the mode of presence, but that somehow Christ becomes present, where bread and wine...

where bread and wine had been before.

I think we would agree on that.

It's just that it...

what happens to the bread and wine maybe would be the difference.

Mm-hmm.

And then it seems like where we're going to part company is whether we're able to offer with Christ this one sacrifice of Christ to the Father.

Is that...

Is that a fair kind of summation of...

Yeah, from what we discussed and gotten on, yeah, that's a pretty fair summation of it.

Okay.

Then I certainly feel like I have a better understanding of how to make sense of the Lutheran sacrificial theology here.

.

Well, I'm glad because I...

I wanted to make sure I did it honorably and well.

And I...

Like I said, I'm not qualified, so...

As compared to many others.

No, you speak on behalf of the LCMS.

You don't give yourself enough credit.

There.

Thank you so much for coming on and discussing this with me.

I think it's very important and pertinent to, you know...

Obviously we had this...

we just had this debate about the propitiatory...

I always get that word wrong.

nature of the sacrifice of the mass, and I think that this was, we all love the word nuance.

It was a good nuance take of the different perspectives within classical Protestant traditions.

So thank you both very much for agreeing to come on and talk theology, kind of geek out, and I hope that this was very helpful to all the viewers.

Maybe both of you give some concluding remarks.

What can...

Where can we find you?

You know, all your publications?

Peyton, you know we published 20 books, right?

And...

Yes.

...

Joe Heschmeyer, your...

Yes.

Go ahead and plug your stuff.

Whoever wants to go first.

Peyton, why don't you go first?

You want me to go first?

Yeah.

Oh.

I don't have hardly anything out there.

But I'll be on Braden's channel some more.

And I interact with the comments so I can interact with everybody on there.

I'm not publishing any books at the moment, but...

my sermons that I preach, I'm preaching a midweek sermon series that's gonna be posted online for Lent, and they're about the five wounds of Christ.

Nice.

So if anyone was interested in that, a lot of sacramental theology in there too.

So that's the only thing of substance.

I have no books.

I have nothing else I'm working on.

Yes.

Yeah.

No, you forgot to mention the painting or the picture on your wall in the back.

I can't even tell what that is.

My wife.

Is that a toucan?

My wife, for Halloween, colored this.

Let's go.

"I love you more than the stars that shine."

Aw.

There we go.

That's sweet.

There we go.

And then I have a nice crucifix, too, that she got.

So.

That's the two greatest expressions of love.

Yes.

There we go.

Yes.

True.

Joe?

All right, you can find me at my podcast and YouTube channel.

And I always say podcast because I'm an old man now.

Shameless Popery, P-O-P-E-R-Y, not P-O-T-P-U-R-R-I.

And then I write for Catholic Answers and do a lot of stuff with them.

I do talks and all that.

You can get all that stuff at Catholic.com.

And then I'm usually on the air on Wednesdays, and it's 5:00 to 7:00 here in Central Time, 3:00 to 5:00 on the West Coast, on Catholic Answers Live.

So if you have a local Catholic radio station, there's a decent chance I'll be on doing Q&A, call in, so.

Awesome.

Well, thank you.

Thank you so much for having us, Braden.

It was great.

Yeah.

Thank you.

This was awesome.

Yeah, this was great.

I hope that this was helpful to our viewers, and we hope that by our learning of the faith, your faith will be strengthened as well.

You have an amazing day, and we'll see you guys in the next one.

Peace.