The mystical body of Christ is not a metaphor but a heavenly reality. So the images of Christ in heaven who is head of the body should not be separated from the body on earth and in heaven. You must spiritually connect these images to even understand the true image of Yom Kippur where our high priest spiritually takes His body to heaven.
Christ as head of the body of the chosen people, the holy nation, the Royal Priesthood is the true nature of the high priest Melchizedek who offers to the Father an oblation of bread and wine. This bread and wine becomes through the Holy Spirit and through Gods words, the glorified body and blood of Christ that does not conform to time and space but transcends them as God does.
Why? Because this is what God established through the cross for the general redemption of the world.
God who established the Passover as a type for the Holy Mass, 1300 years later, came to us and said, I have not come to abolish the law but to fulfill the law.
Came to us and said, I strongly desire to celebrate this Passover with you.
He has done so since the beginning of Christianity.
Instead of a Passover Lamb ( the Israelites had to eat the Lamb in order for the angel of death to Passover) He presented himself as the true Passover Lamb through the Seder when He said, this is my body, do this in memory of me.
The next day, John saw Jesus coming to him, and he saith: Behold the Lamb of God, behold him who taketh away the sin of the world.
Jn 1:29
The word memory in English does not do the Greek justice.
“Anamnesis ("remembrance") has sacrificial overtones. It occurs only eight times in the NT and the Greek OT. All but once (Wisdom 16:6) it is in a sacrificial context (Hebrews 10:3, Leviticus 24:7, Numbers 10:10 and Psalm 38 [39] and 70 [70]). In these cases the term anamnesis can be translated as "memorial portion," "memorial offering," or "memorial sacrifice." Thus in the remaining two occurrences of anamnesis (Luke 22:19; 1 Corinthians 11:24), Christ’s words "Do this inremembrance of Me," can be translated as "Offer this for my memorial sacrifice."
The types in the Old Testament show us the spiritual realities Christ established in the new.
The entire Torah is the law.
"I have not come to abolish the law but to fulfill the law"?
And thou shalt put upon them the dearest frankincense, that the bread may be for a memorial of the oblation of the Lord.
Leviticus 24:7
If at any time you shall have a banquet, end on your festival days, and on the first days of your months, you shall sound the trumpets over the holocausts, and the sacrifices of peace offerings, that they may be to you for a remembrance of your God. I am the Lord your God.
Numbers 10:10
The oblation is a sacrificial memorial in the heavenly reality the presentation of the second part of the cross by the body of Christ because Christ is head and mediator of the body to the Father in the true Passover for the general redemption of the world.
Paul who was a priest in the body of Christ in the office of the ordained, participated in the divine meditation through “ Anamnesis “
That I should be the minister of Christ Jesus among the Gentiles; sanctifying the gospel of God, that the oblation of the Gentiles may be made acceptable and sanctified in the Holy Ghost.
Rm 15:16
LET a man so account of us as of the ministers of Christ, and the dispensers of the mysteries of God.
1 Cor 4:1
Irenaeus said, " all of the apostles were priests."
From mystery we get mysterion, sacramentum, sacrament.
Consider us priests as dispensers of the sacraments of Christ.
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And thou shalt put upon them the dearest frankincense, that the bread may be for a memorial of the oblation of the Lord.
Leviticus 24:7
In this Eucharist is the primary mediation to the Father for our high priest Melchizedek.
1I desire therefore, first of all, that supplications, prayers, intercessions and thanksgivings ( Eucharistasis) be made for all men: 2For kings and for all that are in high station: that we may lead a quiet and a peaceable life in all piety and chastity. 3For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour, 4Who will have all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. 5For there is one God: and one mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus:
1 Tim 2
We know this is what Paul was referring to because a few verses later he tells us about how woman should behave in the church. The church where we offer prayer, supplication, intercession, and thanksgiving ( Eucharistasis) for all men.
9In like manner, women also in decent apparel: adorning themselves with modesty and sobriety, not with plaited hair, or gold, or pearls, or costly attire: 10But, as it becometh women professing godliness, with good works. 11Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection. 12But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to use authority over the man: but to be in silence.
1 Tim 2
Let women keep silence in the churches: for it is not permitted them to speak, but to be subject, as also the law saith
1 Cor 14:34
Another type fulfilled in the Eucharist is the thank offering of Leviticus 7. The Eucharist is the true Thank offering. The Old Testament are types to open the soul to the image of the spiritual realities.
Leviticus 7
11And this is the law of the sacrifice of peace offerings, which he shall offer unto the LORD. 12If he offer it for a thanksgiving, ( Eucharistasis) then he shall offer with the sacrifice of thanksgiving ( Eucharistasis) unleavened cakes mingled with oil, and unleavened wafers anointed with oil, and cakes mingled with oil, of fine flour, fried. 13Besides the cakes, he shall offer for his offering leavened bread with the sacrifice of thanksgiving ( Eucharistasis) of his peace offerings. 14And of it he shall offer one out of the whole oblation for an heave ( Raised into the air before the Father) offering unto the LORD, and it shall be the priest's that sprinkleth the blood of the peace offerings.
23For I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you, that the Lord Jesus, the same night in which he was betrayed, took bread. 24And giving thanks, ( Eucharistasis) broke, and said: Take ye, and eat: this is my body, which shall be delivered for you: this do for the commemoration of me. 25In like manner also the chalice, after he had supped, saying: This chalice is the new testament in my blood: this do ye, as often as you shall drink, for the commemoration of me. 26For as often as you shall eat this bread, and drink the chalice, you shall shew the death of the Lord, until he come.
27Therefore whosoever shall eat this bread, or drink the chalice of the Lord unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and of the blood of the Lord.
There are two main parts to a Jewish sacrifice, the slaying of the victim and the offering up of the fruit of the sacrifice to the Father. The priests then ate of the altar.
Behold Israel according to the flesh: are not they, that eat of the sacrifices, partakers of the altar ?
1 Cor 10:18
We have an altar, whereof they have no power to eat who serve the tabernacle.
Hb 13:10
No power to eat or, those who were not baptized into the chosen people, the Royal Priesthood whose original sin was destroyed, could not receive the graces of the Eucharist.
And he saith to him: Friend, how camest thou in hither not having a wedding garment? But he was silent.
Then the king said to the waiters: Bind his hands and feet, and cast him into the exterior darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
My 22:13
It was God who said, Do not give what is holy to the dogs. It was the apostles who explained what He meant.
Didache 70 AD
Chapter 9. The Thanksgiving (Eucharist)
Now concerning the Thanksgiving (Eucharist), thus give thanks. First, concerning the cup: We thank you, our Father, for the holy vine of David Your servant, which You made known to us through Jesus Your Servant; to You be the glory for ever. And concerning the broken bread: We thank You, our Father, for the life and knowledge which You made known to us through Jesus Your Servant; to You be the glory for ever. Even as this broken bread was scattered over the hills, and was gathered together and became one, so let Your Church be gathered together from the ends of the earth into Your kingdom; for Yours is the glory and the power through Jesus Christ for ever. But let no one eat or drink of your Thanksgiving (Eucharist), but they who have been baptized into the name of the Lord; for concerning this also the Lord has said, Give not that which is holy to the dogs. Matthew 7:6
In the Seder The matzah is broken into three pieces and the third piece is hidden until the end. This is most likely what was presented with the third cup of Seder, the thanksgiving cup ( Eucharistasis)
The hidden piece of Matzah is known as the Afikomen. Or in the Greek translation, the coming one.
Therefore in the true Passover is the promise of Christs final coming.
For as often as you shall eat this bread and drink this cup you will show the death of the Lord ( until he comes again)
It was God who said, “ I strongly desire to celebrate this Passover with you.” It was God through Paul who said:
Christ our pasch is sacrificed, let us keep the feast.
1 Cor 5:7
What is the feast?
Are not those that eat of the sacrifice partakers of the altar?
It is participating in the true Passover for the general redemption of the world with the hosts of heaven.
2But you are come to mount Sion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to the company of many thousands of angels, 23And to the church of the firstborn who are written in the heavens, and to God the judge of all, and to the spirits of the just made perfect, 24And to Jesus the mediator of the new testament, and to the sprinkling of blood which speaketh better than that of Abel.
25See that you refuse him not that speaketh. For if they escaped not who refused him that spoke upon earth, much more shall not we that turn away from him that speaketh to us from heaven. 26Whose voice then moved the earth; but now he promiseth, saying: Yet once more: and I will move, not only the earth, but heaven also. 27And in that he saith: Yet once more, he signifieth the translation of the moveable things as made, that those things may remain which are immoveable. 28Therefore, receiving an immoveable kingdom, we have grace: whereby let us serve, pleasing God, with fear and reverence. 29For our God is a consuming fire.
Hb 12:22-29
There is no personal salvation without the general redemption and Satan has done everything in his power to keep people from this truth.
Every Celebration [of the Eucharist] is a celebration of Marriage; the Church’s nuptials are celebrated. The King’s Son is about to marry a wife, and the Kings Son [is] himself the King; and the guests frequenting the marriage are themselves the bride…for all the Church is Christ’s Bride, of which the beginning and first fruits is the Flesh of Christ, because there was a Bride joined to the Bridegroom in the flesh.
(Augustine, Homilies on 1 John 2:12-17)
The only reason why Paul would constantly express this sacrificial nature in his letters is if the Eucharist were true.
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