The Sacrifice That Does Not Die
Part one
Michael Müller and the Internal Contradictions of the Mass
Michael Müller, C.Ss.R. (1825–1899), is worth studying precisely because he was not trying to discredit the Roman Catholic Mass. He was a priest of the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer, the Redemptorists, writing from within the Roman system and writing in defence of it. The edition examined here identifies him on its title page as a “Priest of the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer,” describes itself as the Fourth Revised Edition, and was published in New York and Cincinnati by Fr. Pustet, “Printer to the Holy Apostolic See,” in 1875. The approval page bears the imprimatur of John, Archbishop of New York, dated December 8, 1873.
The contemporary Catholic reception of the book is equally important. The Catholic World described Müller's theology as “sound and solid” and recommended the work not only to Catholics but also to those outside the Roman Church who were seeking Catholic truth. The Catholic Review noted that the book had been examined by an approved theologian before receiving the Archbishop's imprimatur. Another commendation went so far as to say that “The Imprimatur of the Archbishop of New York is sufficient on all doctrinal points.”
None of that turns every miracle story, apparition or private revelation Müller repeats into a defined Roman dogma. Müller himself eventually places such accounts under a formal qualification, giving them only human authority unless confirmed by the Church. That distinction must be preserved. But it does mean that we are not dealing with the caricature of an opponent. We are dealing with a Roman Catholic priest explaining the Mass because he believes it is glorious, scriptural and true. That is what makes his testimony so valuable. If serious contradictions emerge, they arise while Müller is trying to defend the system, not while somebody else is trying to attack it.
And they do emerge. In fact, the most devastating criticism of Müller's theology is supplied by Müller himself, because he begins by defining what a sacrifice must be and then, as he tries to explain the Mass, gradually describes something that no longer satisfies his own definition.
Müller First Defines Sacrifice in Terms the Mass Cannot Meet
In the chapter The Sacrifice of the New Law, Müller begins with a definition that is remarkably clear. He distinguishes a genuine sacrifice in the strict theological sense from a mere offering. Animals were slain; liquids might be poured out; other offerings were consumed or changed. Then he makes the point upon which everything that follows should logically depend:
“It never happened that the simple oblation of a thing went by the name of sacrifice in the strict theological sense.”
He then explains why:
“The character or essence of sacrifice was always held to consist in the destruction, or change of the thing offered.”
This is Müller's own definition, printed p. 131; PDF p. 147.
That statement gives us a straightforward test. An offering is not automatically a sacrifice. If the thing offered is the victim, something must happen to that victim. It must undergo the destruction or change that constitutes the sacrificial act. Müller strengthens the point a few pages later by arguing that while corn and wine might be offered by an innocent creature, “a bloody sacrifice is the only befitting offering of a sinful creature to his offended God.” He describes the victim as slain and its blood poured out. This is Müller, not an opponent putting words in his mouth. Printed p. 135; PDF p. 151.
Calvary satisfies that definition perfectly. Christ really suffered. His blood was really shed. His body really died. His death was not enacted in symbols, appearances or sacramental forms. Paul says plainly, “Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures” (1 Corinthians 15:3, KJV), while Hebrews speaks of Christ entering the holy place “by his own blood,” having obtained “eternal redemption” for us (Hebrews 9:12).
But Müller's definition immediately creates a problem for the Mass, because Müller insists that Christ Himself is the victim. If Christ is the thing offered, then according to Müller's own rule the relevant question cannot merely be whether bread changes, whether wine changes, whether appearances change, or whether a sacramental presence begins and ends. The question must be: what destruction or change takes place in Christ Himself?
Does Christ die in the Mass? Müller later says no.
Is His blood actually shed? No.
Is His body separated from His blood? Müller explicitly says no.
Is His soul separated from His body? No.
Is His glorified body broken, divided or corrupted? Müller explicitly says no.
Then what has happened to the victim that satisfies the definition Müller himself gave?
That question cannot be evaded by pointing to transubstantiation, because Müller does not claim that bread is the victim of the Mass. He claims that Christ is the victim. If bread changes into Christ, that may be offered as an explanation of how Christ becomes sacramentally present, but it does not explain how Christ is sacrificed. The change of the bread is not a destruction or change in Christ. Likewise, if Christ ceases to be present sacramentally after Communion, the cessation of a sacramental mode is not the death, destruction or change of Christ Himself.
This is the first major internal contradiction. Müller defines strict sacrifice by what happens to the thing offered, but when he reaches the Mass the alleged victim remains unharmed.
Real Sacrifice Becomes a “Representation” of Sacrifice
The problem becomes more obvious when Müller tries to explain where the sacrificial immolation occurs.
Speaking of the separate consecrations, he says that the consecration of the chalice is:
“a lively representation of the effusion of the blood of Jesus Christ upon the cross, and His death or the separation of His soul and body”
and that Christ completes the sacrifice through:
“a kind of mystic death,—the loss of His sacramental life.”
That is Müller's own explanation in The Sacrifice of the New Law, printed p. 139; PDF p. 155.
On the next page he again calls the Eucharistic sacrifice a “true representation” of the sacrifice of the Cross and says it is consummated when Christ undergoes “a kind of mystic death” by losing His sacramental life.
Notice what has happened to the argument. Müller began with a strict definition: mere oblation is not enough; the thing offered must actually be destroyed or changed. But when the victim becomes Christ, actual bloodshedding becomes a representation of bloodshedding, actual bodily death becomes a representation of death, and the destruction of the victim becomes the disappearance of something Müller calls “sacramental life.”
Yet Christ has not lost His life. He has not suffered. He has not bled. He has not been destroyed. He has not been changed from living to dead. What has ceased is a sacramental manner of presence.
How can the ending of a manner of presence be the death of the person who was present?
If a living victim remained completely alive and untouched while a ritual around that victim represented its slaughter, would Müller have accepted that as the destruction of the victim required for sacrifice? His own definition says no.
Why, then, does a represented death become sufficient only when he reaches the Mass?
The language has shifted because it has to. Calvary needs no such qualification. Nobody has to call the crucifixion a “kind of death,” because Christ actually died. Nobody has to call the shedding of His blood a “lively representation” of bloodshed, because His blood was actually shed. The Mass requires the vocabulary of representation precisely because the realities that make Calvary sacrificial are absent.
Representation may commemorate a sacrifice. It may proclaim a sacrifice. It may even, depending upon one's theology, sacramentally signify a sacrifice. But representation is not identical to the sacrificial act represented. A picture of a death is not a death; a ritual representation of bloodshed is not bloodshed; a symbol of separation is not actual separation. Yet Müller's entire case depends upon sliding from one category into the other.
Müller Then Says Explicitly That Christ Does Not Die
Any possibility that “mystical death” might mean a real but invisible death disappears when Müller later explains himself.
In the chapter Mass Applies to Us the Merits of Christ, he writes:
“On the Cross our Saviour died a painful and bloody death; but in the Holy Mass He dies only in appearance, or, as it is called, a mystical death.”
Then he immediately insists:
“the Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ are not dead”
but are the living Body, the living Blood and the living rational soul of Jesus united to His divinity. Printed p. 161; PDF p. 177.
Müller then quotes the Council of Trent to the effect that the same Christ who offered Himself once in a bloody manner is “immolated in an unbloody manner” in the Mass, after which Müller draws this conclusion:
“The Sacrifice of the Mass, then, is the very same in all essentials as the Sacrifice of the Cross.”
But how can that be logically maintained after the statements Müller has just made?
On the Cross Christ really dies; in the Mass He “dies only in appearance.” On the Cross His blood is actually shed; in the Mass His Blood remains living. On the Cross His soul actually departs from His body; in the Mass His living rational soul remains united to Him. The Cross contains exactly the destruction or change Müller had said sacrifice requires; the Mass contains none of it.
If the Mass differs from Calvary in precisely the element Müller earlier defined as the essence of sacrifice, then how can it be “the very same in all essentials”?
Either destruction or change of the victim is essential to strict sacrifice, in which case the Mass fails Müller's own definition, or destruction and change are not essential, in which case his definition on printed p. 131 was wrong. He cannot consistently maintain both propositions.
Calling the absence of death a “mystical death” does not remove this problem. It merely describes a death in which nobody dies.
Concomitance Makes the Contradiction Unavoidable
Müller's own explanation of Eucharistic concomitance makes the alleged immolation still more difficult to defend. He explains that Christ's Body is not separated from His Blood, nor His Blood from His Body, because the risen Christ is living and whole. Indeed, he says that “all and the whole living Christ is entirely contained under each species.”
Later, in discussing the Eucharist after Christ's resurrection, he says Christ is present “glorious, impassible, immortal,” and is “whole and entire in each host,” “whole and entire in the chalice,” and “whole and entire in each particle.” When the host is broken, Müller insists that Christ Himself is not broken. He approvingly cites the language that Christ remains “whole and entire without any division, without any corruption.”
Now place those statements beside the sacrificial explanation.
The separate consecrations are supposed to represent the separation of Christ's Body and Blood, yet Müller says the living Christ's Body and Blood are not separated.
The host is broken, yet Christ is not broken.
The sacramental species are divided, yet Christ is not divided.
The species may cease, yet Christ remains immortal and incorruptible.
So what exactly is being immolated? If the “separation” exists only in the signs while the alleged victim remains whole, then the immolation exists in representation, not in the victim. Müller has effectively admitted this when he calls the consecratory separation “a lively representation.”
This is not a technical quibble. Death is itself a separation. James says that “the body without the spirit is dead” (James 2:26). At Calvary Christ's death was real because the life of His body actually ceased. In Müller's Mass the risen Christ remains living, whole, indivisible, impassible and immortal. Therefore the sacrificial death is not taking place in Christ at all.
One may call that a sacramental representation of Calvary, but Müller needs more than representation. He needs a true propitiatory sacrifice. His own account never bridges the gap.
Hebrews Explicitly Refuses to Separate Repeated Offering from Repeated Suffering
At this point a Catholic defence normally insists that Christ is not crucified again. The Mass is not supposed to be another historical Calvary; it is said to make the one sacrifice sacramentally present.
But Hebrews presents a serious problem for that distinction because it connects repeated offering with repeated suffering.
Hebrews says that Christ did not enter heaven:
“that he should offer himself often, as the high priest entereth into the holy place every year with blood of others”—Hebrews 9:25, KJV.
Then comes the inspired explanation:
“For then must he often have suffered since the foundation of the world: but now once in the end of the world hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.”—Hebrews 9:26, KJV.
The logic could hardly be clearer. If Christ were repeatedly offered, repeated suffering would follow. Therefore He is not offered often; He appeared once to put away sin by His sacrifice.
Müller's system tries to create exactly the distinction Hebrews refuses to make: Christ can supposedly be truly offered again and again while not truly suffering again and again. But the writer of Hebrews reasons the other way. “Offer himself often” would mean “often have suffered”; therefore Christ was offered once.
What scriptural authority allows the two ideas to be severed after Hebrews has joined them?
Müller's “unbloody immolation” is designed to preserve repeated offering while excluding repeated suffering, yet Hebrews makes the absence of repeated suffering evidence for the absence of repeated offering.
That is not merely a missing proof-text. It is a collision with the inspired argument.
Müller Reverses Hebrews on the Eternal Priesthood
The contradiction becomes even sharper when Müller argues from Christ's eternal priesthood. On printed p. 159 he writes:
“The Royal Prophet says that Jesus Christ is a priest forever. Therefore He must offer up sacrifice forever.”
He acknowledges that:
“our Saviour offered Himself but once as a sacrifice on the Cross”
but immediately adds that because Christ's priesthood lasts forever:
“He must offer sacrifice forever.”
Müller then argues that Judaism possessed daily sacrifice and therefore Christianity must possess daily sacrifice also, otherwise Christianity would be inferior. Printed pp. 159–160; PDF pp. 175–176.
But Hebrews uses Christ's eternal priesthood to reach precisely the opposite conclusion.
“But this man, because he continueth ever, hath an unchangeable priesthood.”—Hebrews 7:24, KJV.
Why does His priesthood continue? Because He continues, because death no longer removes Him from office. And what continuing priestly work does Scripture assign to Him?
“Wherefore he is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them.”—Hebrews 7:25, KJV.
Then, immediately:
“Who needeth not daily, as those high priests, to offer up sacrifice… for this he did once, when he offered up himself.”—Hebrews 7:27, KJV.
Müller says eternal priesthood means Christ must offer sacrifice forever.
Hebrews says the eternal priest needeth not daily to offer sacrifice, because He offered Himself once.
It is difficult to imagine a more direct reversal.
Müller's further argument that Christianity must retain daily sacrifice because Judaism had daily sacrifice reverses Hebrews in another way. Hebrews does not regard endless repetition as a mark of superiority. It regards it as evidence that the old sacrifices could never finish the work:
“And every priest standeth daily ministering and offering oftentimes the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins.”—Hebrews 10:11, KJV.
Then comes the contrast:
“But this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down on the right hand of God.”—Hebrews 10:12, KJV.
The old priest stands daily because the work continues. Christ sits because His offering is accomplished. Hebrews concludes:
“For by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified.”—Hebrews 10:14, KJV.
And finally:
“Now where remission of these is, there is no more offering for sin.”—Hebrews 10:18, KJV.
Müller takes the defining weakness of the old sacrificial order—its constant repetition—and turns it into something Christianity supposedly must possess in order to be superior. Hebrews makes Christianity superior precisely because Christ's sacrifice is not endlessly repeated.
Which argument should govern Christian doctrine: Müller's inference that an eternal priest “must offer sacrifice forever,” or the apostolic statement that He “needeth not daily” to offer because He “did once” offer Himself?
Müller Says Christ “Perpetually Repeats” What Hebrews Says Was Finished
Müller does not stop with a continuing priesthood. In Mass Applies to Us the Merits of Christ he says Christ works through the Church's ministers and through them:
“perpetually repeats and uninterruptedly continues His atoning and redeeming acts.”
Printed p. 163; PDF p. 179.
The phrase deserves careful attention because it is difficult to reconcile with Hebrews without emptying one side of its ordinary meaning. Hebrews does not say that Christ's atoning act is perpetually repeated. It says Christ “once” put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself; that He was “once offered to bear the sins of many” (Hebrews 9:28); that He sanctifies through “the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all” (Hebrews 10:10); and that after one sacrifice He sat down.
If an atoning act is “perpetually repeated,” in what meaningful sense is it once?
Müller later tries to qualify his language by insisting that the Mass is not a new payment of redemption. He says that Catholics through the Mass “only participate in” the sacrifice of the Cross and that the Mass brings its effects near to them. That qualification is important; it would be unfair to say Müller thinks each Mass purchases redemption afresh.
But the qualification creates another internal tension. If the Mass is simply participation in the one completed sacrifice, then participation is enough. Why does Müller also need Christ to be immolated, offered propitiatorily, mystically slain and continually presented as victim?
The language moves back and forth between two fundamentally different models. In one model Calvary is finished and the Mass applies its benefits. In the other Christ is continually offered to God as victim. Müller invokes the first model whenever the sufficiency of Calvary must be protected and the second whenever the sacrificial character of the Mass must be asserted.
That is not resolution. It is oscillation.
The New Testament Already Explains How Calvary Is Applied to the Believer
This is where Müller's argument about the “application” of Christ's merits becomes particularly weak. He admits that Christ's Cross fully atoned for sin and that nothing can be added to its value, but then asks how those merits are to be applied to the soul. He compares redemption to a reservoir whose water must be conveyed through appointed channels and identifies the sacraments and especially the Mass as those channels. He then says Christ “perpetually repeats” His redeeming acts through those means.
But Scripture does not leave the application of Christ's death unexplained. It tells us how the sinner comes into the benefits of Christ with extraordinary clarity.
“Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.”—Romans 5:1, KJV.
Paul does not say that after faith has justified the believer, Christ must continue to be propitiatorily offered by another mediator so that Calvary may be applied more effectively. He says the believer has peace with God through Christ.
He goes further in Galatians:
“I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me.”—Galatians 2:20, KJV.
The believer's relation to Calvary is not distant. Paul does not describe Christ on the Cross as, to use Müller's remarkable phrase, “an object strange to us” until a priestly sacrifice brings Him near. The apostle says the believer is crucified with Christ.
Romans 6 makes the union equally explicit:
“Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death?”—Romans 6:3, KJV.
And:
“Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him…”—Romans 6:6, KJV.
Then Ephesians tells us what happens when the gospel is heard and believed:
“In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation: in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise.”—Ephesians 1:13, KJV.
This creates a question Müller's system never adequately answers. If the believer has heard the gospel, believed in Christ, been justified by faith, united with Christ in His death, described as crucified with Him, and sealed by the Holy Spirit of promise, what deficiency remains in the application of Calvary that requires Christ still to be propitiatorily offered by a priest?
What has the Holy Spirit failed to seal?
What has faith failed to receive?
What has union with Christ failed to unite?
What has “crucified with Christ” failed to apply?
Paul even challenges the Galatians on precisely the question of how the Spirit is received:
“Received ye the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?”—Galatians 3:2, KJV.
The apostolic mechanism is not obscure. Christ dies once; the gospel announces Him; the sinner hears and believes; God justifies; the believer is united with Christ and sealed by the Spirit. The New Testament does not insert between the believer and the completed Cross a continuing series of propitiatory immolations by a separate sacerdotal caste.
Therefore Müller's “application” argument does not solve the problem of repeated sacrifice. Scripture already explains application without another sacrificial offering.
“Do This in Remembrance of Me” Has to Be Expanded Before It Can Become the Mass
When Müller reaches Christ's command at the Last Supper, the same problem appears in another form. He quotes:
“Do this for a commemoration of me.”
Then he writes, “Our Saviour meant to be thus understood,” and begins supplying a much longer first-person explanation in which Christ is effectively made to describe the sacrificial mechanism Müller needs.
But those additional words are not in Luke.
Christ says:
“This is my body which is given for you: this do in remembrance of me.”—Luke 22:19, KJV.
Paul repeats the command in 1 Corinthians 11:24–25, and then explains what occurs when believers obey it:
“For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do shew the Lord's death till he come.”—1 Corinthians 11:26, KJV.
The inspired verbs are strikingly ordinary: eat, drink, remember, proclaim.
Where is “immolate”?
Where is “offer Christ propitiatorily”?
Where is the command that only an ordained sacrificial priest may perform the essential act?
Where is the explanation that separate consecrations produce a mystical separation of Body and Blood?
Where is the declaration that Christ undergoes a mystical death by losing His sacramental life?
Müller has to place an elaborate theological explanation after Christ's simple words because Christ's recorded words do not contain the system.
The Greek word often invoked here, anamnesis, cannot bear this burden by itself. Luke 22:19 and 1 Corinthians 11 use it for remembrance of Christ, but Hebrews uses the same noun when it says:
“But in those sacrifices there is a remembrance again made of sins every year.”—Hebrews 10:3, KJV.
If anamnesis inherently meant making its object ontologically or sacramentally present, then Hebrews would have the sins themselves being sacramentally made present every year.
It plainly does not.
The word means remembrance or memorial. It may exist within a sacrificial context, but the word itself does not turn remembrance into a new sacrificial immolation. The Mass cannot be extracted from anamnesis merely by loading the later theology into the word.
Communion in a Sacrifice Is Not the Sacrifice Itself
Paul provides another distinction that makes the Lord's Supper intelligible without requiring another sacrifice.
“The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ?”—1 Corinthians 10:16, KJV.
He then explains what participation in an altar means:
“Behold Israel after the flesh: are not they which eat of the sacrifices partakers of the altar?”—1 Corinthians 10:18, KJV.
Those who ate from Israel's sacrifices participated in the altar. Yet their eating did not kill the victim again. Their meal did not become another performance of the sacrifice. The sacrifice preceded the fellowship meal and made participation possible.
That distinction fits Christ perfectly. The Cross is the sacrifice; the Supper is communion in the sacrifice.
Müller himself eventually says Catholics “only participate in” the sacrifice of the Cross. But if participation is genuinely what is happening, Paul's analogy already explains it. There is no need to transform participation into renewed immolation.
To partake of the sacrifice is not to perform the sacrifice.
To eat from an altar is not to sacrifice the victim.
To proclaim Christ's death is not to kill Christ again.
And to remember the one sacrifice is not to turn remembrance into another propitiatory offering.
“We Have an Altar”—But Hebrews Sends Us Outside the Gate
Müller calls Hebrews 13:10 “a most solid argument” for the Catholic altar:
“We have an altar whereof they … may not eat, who serve the tabernacle.”
He immediately reasons that an altar implies a sacrifice. Printed p. 149; PDF p. 165.
But Hebrews itself continues the thought, and the context is disastrous for Müller's interpretation.
“For the bodies of those beasts, whose blood is brought into the sanctuary by the high priest for sin, are burned without the camp.”—Hebrews 13:11, KJV.
Then:
“Wherefore Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people with his own blood, suffered without the gate.”—Hebrews 13:12, KJV.
And therefore:
“Let us go forth therefore unto him without the camp, bearing his reproach.”—Hebrews 13:13, KJV.
The background is the sin offering whose blood entered the holy place. Leviticus gives an especially important detail:
“And no sin offering, whereof any of the blood is brought into the tabernacle of the congregation to reconcile withal in the holy place, shall be eaten: it shall be burnt in the fire.”—Leviticus 6:30, KJV.
So Müller cites “We have an altar” and stops before the writer identifies the sacrificial pattern: Christ's real suffering outside the gate.
If Hebrews 13 were establishing a Eucharistic altar from which the sacrificial Christ must be eaten, why does the author immediately invoke a class of sin offering that was specifically not eaten, and then direct believers to the Christ who suffered outside the camp?
The text points to the once-suffering Christ, not to another material altar upon which His body is continually offered.
Melchizedek Is Made to Perform a Sacrifice Genesis Never Records
Müller's handling of Melchizedek reveals the same tendency to supply what the biblical text does not say. He writes on printed p. 159:
“Melchisedech offered up bread and wine.”
But Genesis 14:18 says:
“And Melchizedek king of Salem brought forth bread and wine: and he was the priest of the most high God.”
The text says brought forth. It does not say offered in sacrifice.
That difference becomes even more significant in Hebrews 7, because there the inspired writer devotes an extended argument to Melchizedek. He discusses his kingship, his priesthood, his blessing of Abraham, Abraham's tithes, the meaning of his name, and the theological significance of the Genesis silence concerning his genealogy.
Yet Hebrews 7 never mentions the bread and wine at all.
If Melchizedek's bread and wine were the defining sacrificial action that establishes the Eucharistic form of Christ's eternal priesthood, why does the inspired exposition of Melchizedek omit the argument completely?
Müller changes an ordinary biblical verb—“brought forth”—into the sacrificial verb his theology requires, and then builds upon the substituted action.
That is not exegesis from the text. It is doctrine being read into the text.
A Propitiation That Is “Complete” Yet Must Continue Appeasing God
One of Müller's most severe contradictions occurs when he turns specifically to propitiation.
He describes Calvary in triumphant terms, calling it the “grand act of atonement” and “the stupendous sacrifice of propitiation complete,” declaring that God's justice is “fully satisfied.” Then almost immediately he writes:
“But Jesus Christ was not content to offer Himself once a sacrifice for our sins upon the Cross”
and says Christ wished to remain so that He might be offered every day until the end of the world as a sacrifice capable of appeasing the Father. Printed pp. 284–285; PDF pp. 300–301.
If the sacrifice of propitiation is complete, what remains to be propitiated? If God's justice is fully satisfied, what remains unsatisfied that requires a daily sacrificial presentation? If Christ's payment exceeds the debt, as Müller elsewhere insists, why must Christ continue to be offered to appease the same Father whose justice has already been completely satisfied?
Müller later says the Cross is not merely sufficient but “superabundant,” capable of satisfying for “a million of worlds.” Yet he immediately says the propitiatory sacrifice is offered daily and hourly, that Christ is offered through Catholic priests, and even repeats the claim that by this means “the hands of God are bound.” He then summarizes the purpose with the blunt statement that the property of the Mass “is to appease God.”
Müller does qualify the doctrine by saying that Mass does not directly remit mortal sins in the same manner as penance. That distinction should not be concealed. His argument is that Mass appeases God's wrath and obtains graces disposing the sinner toward repentance.
But the fundamental question remains untouched: why does a God whose justice Müller says has been fully satisfied by the completed propitiation of the Cross still require the sacrificial presentation of Christ in order to be appeased?
Romans says:
“Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.”—Romans 5:1, KJV.
Colossians says Christ:
“made peace through the blood of his cross.”—Colossians 1:20, KJV.
Peace is made through the blood of His Cross, not continually renegotiated through repeated priestly offerings.
Müller Goes So Far as to Say Christ Returns to Calvary
The language becomes even harder to reconcile with the claim that nothing is repeated when Müller writes on printed p. 298 that:
“each time Mass is said, Jesus goes to Mount Calvary at the price of His blood”
in order to renew peace between heaven and earth. Printed p. 298; PDF p. 314.
What can “goes to Mount Calvary at the price of His blood” mean if Calvary is not in some sense being sacrificially renewed?
Müller wants simultaneously to say that the Cross is finished, its payment is infinite, its propitiation is complete and nothing can be added to it, while also saying that Christ must be offered continually, perpetually repeats His atoning acts, goes to Calvary whenever Mass is said, and is presented to appease God.
Those claims do not naturally reinforce one another. They pull in opposite directions.
One says: the sacrifice is complete and must only be received.
The other says: the sacrifice must continue to be offered.
The New Testament consistently uses the first logic. Müller's Mass requires both.
The System Then Requires a Priest Who Scripture Never Describes
Once the Cross has been transformed into a continually offered sacramental sacrifice, a separate sacrificing priesthood becomes necessary.
Müller could hardly describe that priesthood more explicitly. In discussing why Mass is celebrated in Latin, he says the ordained Catholic priest possesses power “to consecrate and offer sacrifice.” Then he writes:
“When the Catholic priest stands at the altar, he stands there as a mediator between God and the people”
and says the priest has:
“a sacrifice to offer, which is an act that passes between God and himself alone”
in which the people have no necessary part as assistants or coadjutors. He says the priest's power to offer sacrifice is his “exclusive right.” Printed p. 501; PDF p. 517.
That language must be placed beside:
“For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.”—1 Timothy 2:5, KJV.
It will be answered that the priest's mediatorship is subordinate to Christ rather than competitive with Christ. But before discussing subordinate mediation, a more elementary question has to be answered: where does the New Testament create this sacrificial mediator at all?
Where does Christ appoint a distinct Christian caste whose essential function is to offer Him to God?
Where do the apostles say the priest performs an act between himself and God from which the congregation is essentially excluded?
Where is the exclusive right to immolate Christ given to ordained men?
Peter instead addresses believers generally:
“Ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ.”—1 Peter 2:5, KJV.
And:
“ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood.”—1 Peter 2:9, KJV.
Hebrews tells us what the continuing sacrifices of this priesthood look like:
“By him therefore let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually.”—Hebrews 13:15, KJV.
Then:
“But to do good and to communicate forget not: for with such sacrifices God is well pleased.”—Hebrews 13:16, KJV.
There is ministry in the New Testament. There are elders, teachers, overseers and evangelists. The question is not whether the Church has ordered ministry. The question is where Scripture institutes Müller's sacerdotal priesthood, distinguished essentially from the laity by the exclusive power to offer Christ as victim.
The text does not.
From “Do This” to a Priest Whom Christ Must Obey
The distance between the Last Supper and Müller's sacramental priesthood becomes startling when Müller describes what priestly words supposedly accomplish.
In his chapter concerning the Incarnation, he writes:
“Five words of her humility brought the Eternal Word into her sacred womb. Five words of the power of the priest brings the same Eternal Word on our altar.”
Then he says that the priest's action is:
“the efficient cause of Transubstantiation”
and calls the event:
“the New Incarnation”
before declaring that “what Mary did but once the priest does every day.” Printed p. 177; PDF p. 193.
Elsewhere Müller says that although Christ now reigns in heaven, He is still ready to obey man and renders—a staggering inversion of the apostolic order, as though the risen Lord who sits at the right hand of God were somehow placed at the ritual disposal of an earthly priest—“immediate, universal obedience to every priest who pronounces the words of consecration” without reference to the priest's personal virtue. Printed p. 257; PDF p. 273.
Müller then makes the sacramental mechanism even clearer when he says that the effects of the sacrament do not arise from the people's prayers but from:
“the actions rightly performed and the words properly pronounced by the priest.”
Printed p. 502; PDF p. 518.
Where is any of this in Scripture?
Where does Christ say that five priestly words will act as the efficient cause of a “New Incarnation”?
Where does He promise to render “universal obedience” to every ordained priest who utters them?
Where do the apostles teach that a rite's efficacy depends upon actions rightly performed and words properly pronounced by a sacrificial priest whose moral state does not alter the act?
Where does “This do in remembrance of me” contain any of this?
These are not small clarifications of an obvious apostolic doctrine. They are the theological machinery necessary to make a later sacerdotal system operate.
And the more explicitly Müller explains that machinery, the harder it becomes to pretend that the whole thing lies naturally inside the simple apostolic texts.
Purgatory Shows What the Sacrificial System Becomes in Practice
Müller's sections on the dead show the practical consequences of the same theology. Here accuracy is especially important. Müller does not "openly" say that grace is sold, and he specifically rejects simony. When discussing the Mass “honorary,” he says people should not ask how much a Mass “costs” and insists that the money is not "technically" payment.
But that formal denial must be placed beside the actual system Müller describes.
When speaking in the imagined voice of souls in purgatory, he urges Christians to assist them through:
“frequently offering the honoraries”
for priests to offer Masses on their behalf. Printed p. 372; PDF p. 388.
Two pages later Müller recounts a devotional apparition in which a dead religious cries:
“blood, blood is necessary”
and:
“Masses, Masses, these are what I need.”
Printed p. 374; PDF p. 390.
Again, this apparition is not itself defined Catholic dogma. But Müller uses it to teach and reinforce the sacrificial efficacy of Masses for the dead. He even asserts in the surrounding discussion that a single Mass gives more aid than the application of all good works performed since the beginning of the world.
Then comes one of the most revealing episodes in the book. Müller reports the Curé d'Ars telling of a priest who, holding the consecrated host, addresses God:
“let us make an exchange. Thou hast the soul of my friend who is in purgatory, and I have the body of Thy Son who is in my hands.”
Printed p. 376; PDF p. 392.
The next page is even more important, because Müller does not leave the incident as a colourful anecdote. He instructs his reader:
“Let us do the same after consecration”
and tells them to offer the Son and the merits of His Passion to obtain relief for souls.
This exposes the practical conception of sacrifice behind the system. The priest is understood to possess the sacrificial Christ in his hands and to present that Christ before God for a specified soul.
Müller's chapter on honoraries then makes the practical relationship even clearer. Although he formally denies that the offering is payment, he compares the priest to a professional advocate:
“The priest is the spiritual advocate; he pleads men's cases with God, and obtains mercy and pardon.”
Printed p. 509; PDF p. 525.
It would therefore be inaccurate to say simply that Müller teaches the sale of grace. He does not use that language and explicitly denies it. The stronger criticism is the precise one: Müller describes a system in which souls allegedly suffer terrible post-mortem punishment, Masses are represented as extraordinarily powerful in obtaining relief, relatives are urged to provide repeated honoraries connected with those Mass intentions, and the priest is described as an advocate who offers Christ and obtains mercy.
The refusal to call the money a payment does not make the practical structure disappear.
The Strongest Catholic Defence Still Does Not Resolve Müller's Contradictions
The strongest answer available to Müller's difficulties is that the Mass is not a new sacrifice beside Calvary. The same Christ is present, the same sacrifice is sacramentally represented, and its merits are applied rather than purchased again. Christ does not die another physical death. Catholics participate in the one sacrifice.
Müller himself sometimes speaks exactly this way. He says the Cross is fully sufficient, that no new payment is made, and that Catholics “only participate in” the sacrifice already accomplished. Those qualifications should be granted in full.
But once they are granted, an even simpler question remains: why call the Mass another propitiatory immolation at all?
If it remembers Calvary, Scripture says remembrance.
If it proclaims Calvary, Scripture says proclamation.
If it gives communion in Christ, Scripture says communion.
If believers participate in the sacrifice, Scripture says participation.
If Christ intercedes forever, Scripture says intercession.
If believers are joined to His death, Scripture says they are crucified with Christ.
If the gospel brings them into salvation, Scripture says they believe.
If God marks them as His own, Scripture says they are sealed with the Holy Spirit.
Every necessary category is already present.
Why then is another category introduced—Christ being sacrificially offered again and again through priests—when that is precisely the category Hebrews repeatedly closes off with “once,” “one offering,” “one sacrifice,” “needeth not daily,” and “no more offering for sin”?
And once that extra category is introduced, all Müller's contradictions return. If sacrifice requires destruction or change of the victim, what happens to Christ? If Body and Blood are not really separated, where is the death? If Christ remains living and incorruptible, where is the immolation? If He dies only “in appearance,” how is the Mass the same in all essentials as a death that was brutally real? If He “needeth not daily” to offer, why does Müller say eternal priesthood means He “must offer sacrifice forever”? If God's justice is fully satisfied, why must Christ be continually offered to appease Him? If believers are already justified by faith, crucified with Christ and sealed with the Holy Spirit, what defect in their union with Christ is repaired by another propitiatory offering?
Müller never gives a scriptural answer to these questions because the New Testament does not construct the sacrificial system he is trying to defend.
The Simpler Apostolic Picture
The New Testament picture does not require this theological maze. Christ really offered Himself. He really suffered. He really shed His blood. He really died outside the gate. He really rose. He really entered heaven. He really sat down. Because He lives forever, His priesthood never passes to another; because His sacrifice was perfect, He does not need to offer Himself daily; because His blood has made peace, the believer who comes through Him has access to God; because the gospel is believed, the believer is justified; because the believer belongs to Christ, he is described as crucified with Him; because he has believed the word of truth, he is sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise.
The Lord's Supper does not weaken any of that. It fits it perfectly. The believer remembers Christ, proclaims His death, communes in His Body and Blood and participates in the benefits of the sacrifice already accomplished. The fellowship meal does not become the sacrificial death any more than an Israelite became the sacrificer merely by eating from the altar.
That is why Müller's own book ultimately supplies such powerful evidence against the system he is trying to defend. He begins with a definition of sacrifice the Mass cannot meet. He therefore converts actual destruction into sacramental representation, actual death into a “death in appearance,” actual bloodshedding into the symbolic separation of species, and the destruction of the victim into the loss of “sacramental life.” Then his own doctrine of concomitance tells us that Christ is not actually separated, broken, divided, corrupted or dead. He nevertheless insists that this sacrifice without the victim's death is “the very same in all essentials” as Calvary.
He acknowledges that Christ offered Himself once, then argues that because Christ is priest forever He “must offer sacrifice forever,” although Hebrews says exactly the opposite: Christ “needeth not daily” to offer because He “did once” offer Himself. Müller says Christianity would be inferior without daily sacrifice, while Hebrews presents daily repetition as the characteristic of the old order whose sacrifices could never perfect the worshipper. Müller says Christ “perpetually repeats” His atoning acts, while Hebrews says He was “once offered.” Müller calls the propitiation complete and God's justice fully satisfied, then says Christ must continue to be offered to appease God. He says the Mass does not make a new payment, but elsewhere says that every Mass takes Christ to Calvary “at the price of His blood.” He says Catholics merely participate in Calvary, yet builds an entire sacrificing priesthood whose essential act is to offer Christ between God and priest alone.
The contradiction is not created by hostile language. It is already in Müller's own pages.
And Scripture offers no reason to accept it.
Calvary contains the real victim, the real bloodshedding, the real suffering and the real death outside the gate. The Lord's Supper contains remembrance, proclamation, communion and covenant fellowship in that finished sacrifice. The believer does not need Christ to be brought back into sacrificial offering in order to become joined to Him, because Scripture says that through faith he is already justified, that he is crucified with Christ, and that after believing the gospel he is sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise.
Participation in the sacrifice does not become the sacrifice.
The meal does not become another immolation.
The remembrance does not become another propitiation.
The priesthood of Christ does not require another sacrificing priesthood, because the living Christ Himself “ever liveth to make intercession.”
And the once-for-all offering does not need to be made present by becoming another offering, because Scripture has already told us what Christ's one sacrifice achieved:
“For by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified.”—Hebrews 10:14, KJV.
That is the point at which Müller's whole construction finally fails. If Christ remains alive, whole, glorified, immortal, indivisible and incorruptible; if His Body and Blood are not actually separated; if His death in the Mass exists only “in appearance”; if the Cross has already fully satisfied divine justice; if the believer has already been crucified with Christ through faith and sealed with the Holy Spirit; and if Hebrews expressly says Christ needeth not daily to offer because He offered Himself once, then what scriptural necessity, and indeed what logical possibility, remains for Christ to be sacrificed again at all?
The answer supplied by the apostles is far simpler than the system Müller labours to defend.
The sacrifice is finished. The table remains.
“Let no man deceive you with vain words…”
— Ephesians 5:6, KJV
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