Edward Paperhands

I used to be a Protestant and think all I needed was my Bible. But… then I started asking the question no one wanted to answer: Who actually has the authority to interpret Scripture? That question came from my study of the theological heresy of dispensationalism. What I found shocked me. I learned, it isn’t ancient Christianity. It didn’t come from the Apostles. It didn’t come from the Church Fathers. It began in the 1800s with John Nelson Darby. A brand new theological system; a heresy which has created confusion among Christian’s. It divided Israel and the Church into two separate peoples of God. It created two covenants. It pushed fulfillment into the future. It taught that prophecy still depends on a geopolitical nation-state called “Israel” which was founded by atheists in 1948. I looked deeper and asked…what does that ultimately lead to? I was shocked to discover their belief of a rebuilt temple in Jerusalem. The one the Lord predicted would be destroyed in Matthew and it was in 70AD. "Jesus left the temple area and was going away, when his disciples approached him to point out the temple buildings. He said to them in reply, 'You see all these things, do you not? Amen, I say to you, there will not be left here a stone upon another stone that will not be thrown down.'" Matthew 24:1-2 This all happened. Jesus predicted it and it was fulfilled. In 70 AD the Temple was destroyed. The altar was gone. The Levitical priesthood stopped functioning. The animal sacrifices ended. That is not a minor detail. The Mosaic covenant was inseparable from Temple sacrifice. Without the Temple, the sacrificial system of the Old Covenant could not continue. In its place, rabbinic Judaism emerged. No longer centered on Temple sacrifice, but on Torah study and synagogue life. The sacrificial order did not continue. It was finished. So then why would Christian Zionists believe the temple would be built back up again? For what? To bring back animal sacrifices? This goes against Jesus’s own words. The Church teaches that Christ’s sacrifice on the cross is final, perfect, and complete. The Old Covenant sacrifices are over because they were fulfilled in Jesus Christ. Jesus said, “It is finished.” The Temple is fulfilled in Christ. The priesthood is fulfilled in Christ. The sacrifices are fulfilled in Christ. In the Old Covenant, a sacrifice wasn’t complete unless it was eaten. The Passover lamb had to be consumed. So when Jesus says, “This is My Body. This is My Blood,” He is revealing Himself as the true and final Lamb that was slain. The Eucharist lead me to the Catholic Church. I realized it is not symbolic. It is participation in the once-for-all sacrifice of Calvary. There is no future blood offering coming. There is no need for a third temple. To suggest that redemption requires a return to animal sacrifice is to deny the sufficiency of the Cross. That is why the Catholic Church does not embrace Zionism. Any system that shifts salvation history away from Christ and back to land, ethnicity, or political power distorts the Gospel. When theology is detached from the Cross and tied to a modern nation detached from Christ, It no longer is Christianity. Christ did not die to restart the Old Covenant. He fulfilled it. In Christ, Jew and Gentile are all welcomed into this new covenant. Through baptism, we are grafted into the covenant promises. The people of God are defined not by bloodline but by union with Jesus Christ, our King. We are not waiting for another altar. We already have one. A priest once told me that in the Catholic Mass, the altar serves as the sacred table where the one and only sacrifice of Jesus Christ, the true Victim, is made present, with the priest acting in persona Christi to offer this Holy Sacrifice, symbolically uniting the faithful to Christ's sacrifice on Calvary, thereby making the Eucharist the source and summit of Christian life. And that truth led me home to the Catholic Church.