18 E. Kilmartin, The Eucharist in the West: History and Theology, ed. R. J. Daly (Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical Press, 1998), 381 2; italics ours.
(2) Whatever Christ did by way of external sacrifice symbolized and expressed his interior self-giving to the Father. Far from being centred on himself, Christ related in love and obedience to God the Father and was ready for painful self-renunciation; he had come to do God’s will (Heb. 10: 7, 9). The interior dispositions of Christ made all the difference. (3) His whole life was a continual free gift of himself (or sacrifice) to God and others. The compassionate service of others described by the Gospels filled out the obedient self-giving through which the Letter to the Hebrews sums up the human life of Jesus (Heb. 2: 17–18; 5: 1–3). A spirit of sacrifice characterized the entire human existence of the Son of God, from his incarnation through to completing his work of ‘purification for sins’ and sitting at the right hand of God (Heb. 1: 1–3). It would be a mistake to limit Christ’s sacrificial performance to his death and exaltation. The self-giving of his life moved seamlessly into his self-giving at death. (4) This self-sacrifice should not be understood as if Jesus were a penal substitute, who was punished in the place of sinners and so appeased an angry God. We saw how Aquinas opened the door for others to develop this interpretation of sacrifice by calling it ‘something which is done to render God due honour with a view to placating him’ (STh. 3a. 48. 3 resp.; italics ours). Luther, Calvin, Catholic preachers such as J. B. Bossuet, and other Christians took to an extreme this view of Christ being punished for sinners and even as a sinner—a morally repulsive view that Hebrews and other New Testament witnesses do not support.19
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