Christ the Savior
by Fr. Walter Farrell, O.P., Fr. Martin Healy
B. THE PERSONHOOD OF CHRIST: TWO NATURES IN ONE DIVINE PERSON
1. HOW THE TWO NATURES ARE JOINED
2. THE UNION OF CHRIST'S TWO NATURES IS A PERSONAL UNION
3. THE PROFOUND MYSTERY OF ONE PERSON IN CHRIST WITH TWO NATURES
4. WHY CHRIST ASSUMED A HUMAN NATURE FOR OUR SALVATION
5. THE HUMAN SOUL OF CHRIST
6. THE PERFECTIONS OF THE HUMAN NATURE AND KNOWLEDGE OF CHRIST
7. CHRIST AS HEAD OF HIS CHURCH
8. CHRIST AS HEADSHIP
9. CHRIST IN RELATION TO HIS FATHER
C. CHRIST AS OUR SAVIOR
1. HIS HUMBLE BIRTH
2. HIS BAPTISM
3. THE DEVIL'S TEMPTING OF CHRIST
4. CHRIST'S MIRACLES
5. THE CONTEXT OF CHRIST'S TEACHINGS
6. HIS PASSION AND DEATH
7. HIS RESURRECTION
The vision of God is the goal of human life. It is Divine grace and the supernatural infused virtues which come to man with it that enable him to attain the vision of God. But by sin, Adam lost grace and the infused virtues for himself and for the whole human race. How, then, can man ever reach his true destiny? Must we say that real happiness is forever impossible to him? By sin he has cut himself off from God. Like a petulant child, he has run away from the home of God's love. But the love of God for man is strong and deep and wise; it has reached down from Heaven and rescued him from sin and death, and the manner of its coming beyond the understanding of man.
"By this hath the charity of God appeared toward us, because God hath sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we may live by him. In this is charity: not as though we had loved God, but because He hath first loved us, and sent His Son to be a propition for our sins" [1 John, IV, 9-10].
This is the central mystery of Christianity — the mystery of the Incarnation of the Son of God. To save men from their sins, God sent His own Son into the world as a man. The Word of God, the Second Person of the Trinity, became man and dwelt among us for our salvation. The Son of God is both God and man. He is one Divine Person existing in two natures, one Divine and the other human. Try as we may, we shall never understand in this present life how the Son of God could become man and still remain God. But this is the mystery of God's love for us which He has revealed to us. Christ Himself, Son of God in human flesh, proclaimed this stupendous truth. His miracles proved His claim. He was put to death by the Sanhedrin for making this claim. Christ died on the Cross rather than retract it; He rose from the grave to prove that He, Who really was man, was also really God.
Though we cannot understand this mystery, still, as St. Thomas and the the Church point out to us, by it the goodness, wisdom, justice and power of God are made known to us. In the Incarnation God, Who is almighty has condescended to unite to which is created and limited in power. Surely this is a sign of God's goodness to man. Since Jesus Christ is both God and man, He can offer to God an infinite satisfaction for man's sins against God, and in this the wisdom of God is manifested to us. Because Jesus Christ is man, it is man who satisfied God for sin, and in this we see the justice of God. Lastly, to unite a human nature to the Son of God as His very own human nature — this is a work that demands Divine power.
The love of God for man shines out more clearly in the mystery of the Incarnation when we realize that God did not have to become man in order to save man from his sins. God could simply have forgiven man his sins and restored grace to him; or He could have been content with any satisfaction for sin that man himself might make. But the love of God for man was not content with half-measure or with what was simply necessary. God chose the best possible means of saving man, the best possible means of leading man to good and withdrawing him from evil.
Through the Incarnation, God leads man to good. The Incarnation is the firm foundation of the virtues of faith, hope and charity. It is the foundation of faith because in Christ we hear the voice of Himself. It is the foundation of hope because it is a manifestation of the strength of God's love of us. It is the foundation of charity because God's great love for us cannot but enkindle our love for Him. Moreover, in the Incarnation men find the example they must follow to reach the vision of God, for in the life and actions of Christ we see the work of the Christian virtues in their full perfection. Lastly, through the Incarnation the Divine life of grace is restored to man, and it becomes possible for him to live divinely here on earth so that he may inherit the vision of God in Heaven.
The Incarnation withdraws man from evil. First of all, it shows him that he must prefer God and himself to the devil, who brought about the ruin of human nature. Secondly, it shows man his own great dignity. God has united to Himself no other nature but the nature of man. Surely, then, man is something wonderful in God's eyes and in the universe. But the Incarnation also preserves man from presumption, for grace is restored to him through Jesus Christ and not because of his own merits. Then, too, in the Incarnation the love of God dissolves the hard ice of human pride. If God is humble enough to become man, can man be too proud to become godlike through Divine grace? Most importantly, Jesus Christ, the God-Man, satisfied God for man's sins and so merited for him the forgiveness of his sins.
The Son of God became man to Save man from sin. Some theologians have held that God would have become man even if man had not fallen into sin. But St. Thomas remarks that God has not told us what He would have done if man had not sinned. It is better, therefore, to say no more than God Himself has said, that the Son of God became man to redeem man from sin. He came into the world to take away all sin, both actual and original sin. Since Original Sin infects the whole human race, it can be said that, though Christ came to take away all sin, nevertheless He came principally to rescue man from Original Sin.
St. Thomas also remarks that Christ came into the world at just the right time. Had He come immediately after Adam sinned, man would not have appreciated the value of his redemption by Christ. To appreciate the value of the divine gifts he threw away by sin, man needed to live for some time on his own resources. Moreover, the dignity of the Person Who was coming to save man — the Second Person of the Trinity — demanded that the world be prepared for His coming by the long line of patriarchs and prophets who preceded Him. Again, if Christ had come at the beginning of the history of the human race, faith in Him might be weakened in the time to come. On the other hand, had Christ delayed His coming until the end of men's history on earth, it is very likely that by that time men would have forgotten about God and His commandments.
In itself, the Incarnation is a mystery that surpasses human understanding. We can do no more than state it correctly. St. Thomas begins his statement of the mystery with the infallible definition of the Council of Chalcedon: "We confess that in these latter times the only-begotten Son of God appeared in two natures, without confusion, without change, division, without separation — the distinction of natures not having been taken away by the union." If we strip this definition down to its essentials, we might say that in the Incarnation we have one Person, the Son of God, and two natures, one Divine, the other human, and these two natures are united in the one Person. To understand what we mean, we must recall what is signified by the terms "nature" and "person", and by a union in a person.
All of us know, at least in an elementary way, a what is meant by the terms nature and person. We know that a dog has a nature, an animal nature, the nature of a dog; but we realize that a dog is not a person. We know that John Smith has a human nature and is a person, and we understand, too, that his nature is not precisely the same thing as his person. His human nature is the same as the human nature of all other men, but his person is not. We can assert that all men are rational animals, that they all have bodies and souls. But if John Smith steals ten dollars from Mary Jones, we can say that he did it, but we cannot say that anyone else did it. As a human being John Smith has a body and soul like all other men, but only the person known as John Smith, and no one else, stole Mary Jones' ten dollars. We might state all this simply by recalling that the answer to the question, "What is it?" gives us the nature of a thing; and the answer to the question, "Who is it?" gives us the person. If we ask, "What is that coming down the road?" the answer may be, "It is a human being". The answer gives us the nature of what is coming down the road. But if we want to know the person coming down the road, we must inquire, "Who is it?"
The nature of a thing tells us what it is; but the person tells us who it is. This implies, too, another important distinction between a nature and a person. The answer to the question, "What is it?" might be anything — an atom, a boat, a rose, a horse, a man, or even the Divine Nature. But the reply to the query, "Who is it?", must always be a rational being, an intellectual being. If we ask, "Who is it?", we never expect to be told, "A rose," or "A boat". We expect to hear that it is John Jones, or St. Thomas, or the Archangel Raphael, or the Son of God. A person is always a rational being, and therefore a being with free will — a being who has control of his own actions, someone who is master of himself, someone who is responsible for his own actions. A person is always, then, someone who is unique, who is himself and nothing or no one else. A nature may be common to many individuals. There may be thousands of dogs, but they all have in common the same kind of nature. There may be thousands of men, and they all have in common the same kind of nature. But every human person is himself and no one else; his personality is not possessed in common by anyone else.
B. THE PERSONHOOD OF CHRIST: TWO NATURES IN ONE DIVINE PERSON
1. HOW THE TWO NATURES ARE JOINED
Now in the Incarnation we say that there are two natures but only one Person. In the Person of Christ, the Son of God, there are two natures, one Divine, one human. Christ is God, the Supreme Being, the Omnipotent Creator and Lord of the world. The Person, Christ, is the Divine Nature. But He also has a human nature, a human body and a human soul. The one Person is both God and man. There are two "Whats" in Christ but only one "Who." If we ask, "What is Christ?', we must give two answers: we must say, "He is God," and "He is man." But if we inquire, "Who is He?" then we must have only one reply; we must declare, "He is the Son of God." It does not matter that we might also state, "He is the Second Person of the Trinity," or "He is Jesus Christ, the Son of Mary of Nazareth," or "He is the Messiah." All these are only other names for one and the same Person. In Christ, then, we have one Divine Person Who exists in two natures, One human, the Other Divine.
In Christ the Divine Nature and the human nature are united. In what way are they united? Here we find ourselves in the very heart of this great mystery. Obviously they are not simply united in the way in which two stones lying together on the ground are united. if that were the case, then there would be two persons in Christ, the Divine Person and a human person. This would not be a union, but simply a juxtaposition, a placing together of two natures. Nor can we say that the two natures are fused together, in the way, for example, that hydrogen and oxygen are mixed together to make water. This is impossible, first of all because it would mean that the Divine Nature of Christ would have to be changed in some way, and the Divine Nature is absolutely unchangeable. If the Divine and the human natures in Christ were really fused to together, either the Divine Nature would become human, or the human nature would become Divine, or the resulting mixture would be something that was neither human nor Divine. But none of these things is possible. The Divine Nature cannot be changed at all; the human nature cannot become divine; and Christ is not something that is neither Divine nor human. He is both God and Man. In Christ we find both natures in their full perfection.
Nor can we say that the two natures are united to one another as the soul and body are united together to form one man. In this case, soul and body are two incomplete principles which complete one another in their union. But the Divine Nature is not at all incomplete or imperfect. It cannot directly unite with a human nature as one incomplete principle with another. Besides, as in the case of hydrogen and oxygen, the union of body and soul brings into being something which is different from either the body or the soul alone; it brings into being the whole man. But in the Incarnation the union of the two natures does not bring into being any third being distinct from the Divine and human natures. In the Incarnation the two natures are complete, not mixed or fused with one another, nor forming and third thing distinct from both.
2. THE UNION OF CHRIST'S TWO NATURES IS A PERSONAL UNION
The union between the two natures in Christ is a personal union. It takes place in the Person of the Son of God. The two natures are not united to one another directly. They are not mixed or fused with one another to form a third thing distinct from both. Rather they are united to one another indirectly in the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity. Nor is this personal union of the two natures in Christ like the union between body and soul in a man. In an ordinary man, his person or personality is the result of the union of soul and body. There is no human person until a human soul and a body are united together to form the whole man. But in the Incarnation, the person pre-exists the union of the two natures, because it is the Person of the Eternal Son of God. In the Incarnation the Son of God, Who is Eternal, assumes to Himself a complete human nature, a body and soul. By this union the human nature becomes the human nature of the Son of God. He is the Person existing in this human nature, the Person responsible for all its actions, the responsible Agent acting in and through this human nature in the world of men. It should be clear at once that the human nature of Christ has no human personality. If we were to look at the human nature of Christ and ask, "What is it?" the answer would have to be, "It is a human nature." But if we were to inquire, "Who is He?" then we would not give in reply the name of any human or created person, because there is no created personality present in Christ. We should have to say, "He is Christ, the Son of God."
3. THE PROFOUND MYSTERY OF ONE PERSON IN CHRIST WITH TWO NATURES
Because there is only one Person in Christ, and because that Person exists and acts in two natures, one human, one Divine, it follows that all the actions of both natures can be and must be attributed to the same one Person. It is the person, not the nature, which is the responsible agent. Hence, we can say of Christ that He created the world; that He performed miracles by His own power; that He is immortal and Eternal; and on the other hand, that He ate, drank, slept, suffered, died, rose again and ascended into Heaven.
Surely this is a profound mystery. We cannot hope to understand it until we see it clearly in the vision of God. We cannot positively understand how it is possible for God to assume to Himself a human nature. We even find difficulty in seeking to understand how the human nature of Christ can exist without a human personality. But this is a mystery revealed to us by God Himself. With the humility of faith, we submit our own minds to the infinite wisdom and truth of God. because God has revealed this sublime truth to us, we know that it is possible for the Son of God to assume to Himself a human nature without a human personality. because God has said so, we know that this staggering possibility is an actual fact, a consoling fact. For, if God has so loved men that he sent His only-begotten Son into the world as Man, then surely God's love can raise man up to the unfathomable happiness of the vision of God.
In many ways, as we have already seen, it was fitting that the Son of God should assume a human nature, in fact it was more fitting for Him to assume a human nature than any other kind of nature. From the point of view of dignity, it is fitting that the Son of God, Who is the absolute perfection of Divine Knowledge, Who is the Divine Intellect, and should assume to Himself a nature that is also rational and intellectual. Again, even though the Angels are also intellectual beings, it was more fitting that God should become Man [not become a man], because man needed salvation and could be saved, whereas the evil angels, the devils, could not be saved, and the good Angels do not need redemption.
4. WHY CHRIST ASSUMED A HUMAN NATURE FOR OUR SALVATION
Since the purpose of the Incarnation was the salvation of the sinful race of Adam, it was also fitting that the Son of God should assume to Himself an individual nature of the race of Adam. In this way, the same human race that had offended God in Adam and had lost God's grace could satisfy God for man's sin and regain the grace of God.
For this reason, too, the Son of God assumed to Himself a complete, perfect human nature, a human body united to a human soul, a rational, intellectual soul. If He had not done this, then he could not have satisfied God for sin as a real Man, a true representative of the race of Adam. We cannot escape from this mystery, then, by saying either that God only appeared to us as a man, but that His body had no human soul, no human intellect or human free will. In all these hypotheses, Christ would not have been a real Man and He would not have been able to offer God a man's reparation for sin.
The Son of God assumed to Himself a complete human nature. Now, because this human nature is the human nature of a Person Who is God, it is only natural that this human nature will have all the perfection that is possible to a human nature and that is not opposed to the purpose of the Incarnation — the redemption of mankind. We must consider briefly both the perfection of Christ's human nature and its weaknesses.
In the order of Divine grace, the human nature of Christ is the most perfect of all human natures. Since the human soul of Christ is so intimately united to the Person of the Son of God, it is only natural that His soul should be perfectly sanctified by Divine grace.
Divine grace made His soul holy and pleasing to God, just as it does in the souls of other men. Moreover, the soul of Christ was to be the source of the supernatural acts by which the redemption of man would be accomplished. But sanctifying grace is necessary for meritorious supernatural acts; hence the soul of Christ was given this grace. In addition, Christ was to be the source of grace for all other men. How could He give grace to others if He did not possess it Himself?
As in other men, so too in Christ, sanctifying grace brought to His soul the perfection of the supernatural virtues. But because of the perfection of Christ's grace, not all of these virtues were necessary to Christ. In the perfection of His grace Christ already possessed the vision of God. His soul already enjoyed from the beginning of its existence the happiness of seeing God face to face. Hence there was no need in Christ for the virtues of faith or hope. He did not need faith, for He saw God face to face; and He did not have to hope for what He already possessed. But Christ had the other supernatural virtues and gifts of the Holy Ghost in a pre-eminent degree.
Christ also possessed to the fullest degree the gratuitous graces of which we have already spoken, including the gift of prophecy and the power of working miracles. In God's plan, Christ was to be the perfect teacher of all men; hence God gave Him these gifts to fit Him for this task.
To sum it all up, we must say that Christ possessed the fullness of grace. His soul is intimately and substantially united to God in the Person of the Son of God. Because it is more closely united to God, the source of Divine grace, than any other creature, it receives the greatest outpouring of grace. Since Christ is to communicate the grace of God to others, it must possess the greatest degree of grace. It might be well to remark here that Christ possessed an absolute fullness of grace. We say of Mary, His Mother, and some of the Saints, that were also full of God's grace. In their case we are referring to a relative fullness of grace; they possessed as much grace as they needed to perform the work God gave them to do. But Christ had the most stupendous task of all: he had to redeem the whole human race, and hence, possessed an absolute fullness of grace.
Although the soul of Christ possessed the fullness of grace, His grace was still a created reality; it was something finite and limited in itself. It was the greatest possible participation in the Divine life, the greatest share in the Divine life and to this extent might be called infinite. No other degree of of grace, in fact the grace of all other men and Angels put together cannot surpass the grace of Christ; but in itself the grace of Christ is still a finite created reality, although unlike the grace of other men, it is not capable of any increase; no one can gain more than the greatest degree of anything, and from the beginning Christ possessed the greatest degree of grace.
This great grace was given to Him also because of the Divine plan that he was to be the Head of the whole human race in the spiritual order. Adam is the head in the natural order of the body. He was also the spiritual head before his sin. By his sin he lost God's grace for himself and for all his descendants, and in this way he ceased to be the head of the human race in the spiritual order. However, God determined to restore grace to the human race, and He made Christ the new spiritual head of all men. It is in this sense that the Fathers of the Church called Christ "the second Adam." From Adam until the end of time, all grace comes to men from Christ. Since His own personal sanctifying grace is the source of grace for all men, His grace is sometimes called capital grace or the grace of headship, which we will cover in a later segment. But for now we need to go deeper into the human nature and knowledge of Christ: Please continue to the next segment.
6. THE PERFECTIONS OF THE HUMAN NATURE AND KNOWLEDGE OF CHRIST
Since the human nature of Christ is the human nature of the Son of God, and since Christ in that nature is the head of men and Angels, it is natural to expect that it will have the excellence that is possible to a human nature. This precisely the case: in knowledge and power, the human nature of Christ possesses all the perfection possible to a human nature.
From the point of view of knowledge, it would have been absurd for God to give Christ a human mind without endowing it with all the knowledge possible to it. As God, Christ possessed the perfection of the Divine knowledge. As God, Christ knew everything that could be known about God and the world, about the past, the present and the future. But still, the perfection of the human nature of Christ demands that the soul of Christ should know everything that a human soul may know, and in the way in which it is possible for a human soul to know anything.
This means that the soul of Christ must have been enriched from the beginning with the vision of God. If Christ was to make it possible for other men to see God, certainly He must have seen God with His own human intellect. Obviously, this vision of God in the human intellect of Christ cannot be equal to the infinitely perfect vision of God which is proper to God alone. But since Christ, in His human nature, is the head of all creatures, He will see in His vision of God all that can be known about creatures — that is, He will see everything that is real about creation: all that has been, that is, or will be. He will not see everything that is possible to God within His human nature; for only God can fully realize the infinite power of God. In addition, the human soul of Christ possesses infused knowledge, just as the souls of the dead know by infused knowledge, since they no longer have sensory organs. Since knowledge of this kind exists in a created mind, it must exist in the human mind of Christ. Surely God would not allow the mind of His own human nature to lack any perfection, Through this infused knowledge Christ would know everything possible for a created intellect to know. He would not know the essence of God through this intellect, but He would know the essence of God through His beatific vision. Lastly, the human intellect of Christ could acquire knowledge just as other men obtain it. Through the senses He would come to learn the world in which men live; by the power of His mind He would come to understand the meaning of things just as other men do. It follows, then, that while the vision of God in the soul of Christ and the infused knowledge in His soul could not grow or increase, the acquired knowledge on the soul of Christ could increase. This is the meaning of the statement in Sacred Scripture that the Boy Christ advanced in wisdom.
Neither His beatific vision of God nor His infused knowledge increased, but His natural acquired knowledge was augmented. Naturally, since the human nature of Christ was a perfect human nature, since the power of Christ's mind was never weakened or darkened by sin, even the acquired knowledge of Christ surpasses the knowledge of all other men. We do not say that Christ, in this way, knew even things of which He had not experienced, such as the internet or the atomic bomb. But His mind grasped the essence of all things. Naturally, too, since Christ is God, it was not fitting that Christ should learn anything either from angels or men. God is the source of all knowledge; therefore, even in His human nature, He acquired all that He knew without any Angelic or human teacher.
As we have already noted, the great perfection of the human knowledge of Christ is due to the fact that it is the knowledge of the human nature that is God's, the human nature that was assumed by the Son of God. The absolute perfection of the Son of God demands that the human nature He assumes be as perfect as it can be. The necessity of this perfect knowledge in Christ appears even more clearly when we recall the role that Christ plays in the universe. He is the Head of men and Angels, and must direct them; therefore, he must know perfectly the world of men and Angels.
7. CHRIST AS HEAD OF HIS CHURCH
Christ is the Head of His Church. This is a truth which is profoundly significant for all men, especially the members of His Church. Christ is the head of the Church and the Church is His Mystical Body. The terms "head" and "body" are used in comparison with the head and body of a man. The head of a man is the first part of his body, beginning from the top down. The head is also his noblest part, for in it we find all the senses of man — sight, hearing, taste, smell and touch, the imagination and reason — whereas in the rest of the body we find only the sense of touch. The head is also the power which rules the rest of the body, for in it we find the brain, which moves all the parts of the body to their different actions for the good of the whole body. Now Christ plays all these roles in relation to His Church. He is the first, or the topmost, part of the Church, for He is the first-born of all the sons of God through grace. He is the noblest or most perfect part of the Church, for He possesses the absolute fullness of grace. Through His graces, He is the closest human being to God and His soul is the instrument by which the wisdom and power of God become active in the world of men. He is the Teacher, the Ruler and the Sanctifier of all men. Lastly, as the head directs the members of the body to the good of the whole, as the head gives life and movement to the body, so, too, Christ directs the members of the Church to the good of the whole Church and imparts life to all the members of His Church. Christ possesses the grace of headship because He bestows grace on all.
If Christ is the Head of His Church, then the Church is His Body. As the term "Head" is used figuratively of Christ in relation to the Church, so also the term "Body" is used figuratively of the Church in relation to Christ. It is obvious that the Church is not a physical body as the body of a man. It is rather a body in the sense in which we speak of a moral body, such as the body politic. The body politic is a group of men united to work together to achieve the common goal of all men in the temporal order. Now the Church is a group of men united to work together under the authority of Christ for the good of the whole Church, which is the attainment of the vision of God. However, the Church is even more than a moral body. In a moral body, the only means of union between the members is the free decision of their wills to work together. But in the Church the members of Christ's Body are united to Christ and to one another by the supernatural bond of God's grace and charity. All the members of Christ's Body, the Church, are united, not by a natural union of wills, but in the Divine life of grace and in the supernatural bond of Christian charity. Because both grace and charity are supernatural realities which are not fully understood by men in this life, we call this union a mystical, or mysterious, union. Hence, the Church is called not simply the Body of Christ, but the Mystical Body of Christ.
A natural body is alive, so the Mystical Body of Christ is alive in the supernatural order. As the soul is the source of the life of the human body, so the Holy Spirit, the Third Person of the Most Blessed Trinity, is the life of the Mystical Body of Christ. From Heaven, Christ, as the Son of God, sends the Spirit into the world to give supernatural life to His Church. The Holy Spirit communicates life to the Church in the order of truth, holiness and discipline. He is the source of truth in the Church, because it is the Holy Spirit Who imparts infallibility to the Pope and bishops in the teaching of Christian doctrine. He is the source of truth for all the members of the Church, for it is He Who bestows on all the gift of Divine faith whereby they lay hold on God's revealed truth. He is the source of holiness, since He is the principal agent infusing grace — a share in the Divine life — into the souls of men. He is the source of discipline, as it is He Who chooses — in a mysterious, invisible way — those who will be the visible rulers of the Church in the world. He is the primary source of all vocations to the priesthood or the religious life, to the episcopacy or the papacy. It is for these reasons that the Holy Spirit is called the Soul of the Church, the Soul of the Mystical Body of Christ. He is the source of all its supernatural life. He is the source of the charity which binds together all the members of the Church.
As there are many and different members in a living human body, so, too, Christ and the Holy Spirit have placed numerous and diverse members in the Church. As we have just said, some members of the Church are placed in positions of authority, and they are endowed with the graces necessary for teaching, ruling and sanctifying. To the others are given the graces required for obeying and serving the Church. But in all the members of the Church, whether they be rulers or ruled, God produces an astonishing variety of graces which gives the Church the great beauty that is to be found in any living body. In the Church there are humble missioners with the gift of tongues or of persuasive preaching. We can find, also, intellectual geniuses such as St. Thomas or St. Bonaventure. In the Church God produces the zeal of St. Paul, the charity of St. John the Evangelist, the fortitude of Pope Gregory VII or of St. Arnbrose, the temperance of Matt Talbot, the humility of the Cure of Ars, the purity of St. Agnes, the crusading spirit of St. Louis of France, the martyrdom of St. Maria Goretti.
In all these mysterious ways, God works out His Divine plan for men and for His Church. All the members of His Church labor together for the building up of the Body of Christ, for the salvation of men. Christ, His Blessed Mother, the angels and Saints in Heaven work for the release of the souls in Purgatory — the Church Suffering. They work also for the salvation of the Church Militant — the Church here on earth. Seeing us in their vision of God, they know all our needs, our trials and difficulties. Through their prayers, a constant torrent of God's graces is pouring into Purgatory and into the world to redeem men. The souls in Purgatory — the Church Suffering — expiate their sins in the purifying fires of Purgatory. Some theologians think they also can pray for the Church Militant on earth. At any rate, when their Souls are fully cleansed and they are admitted to Heaven, then they, also, as Saints of God, intercede for us who still remain here on earth. The members of the Church here on earth — the Church Militant — in their turn toil and pray for their own salvation and for the release of the Souls in Purgatory. In addition, they praise God in Himself and in His Saints. In all these wonderful ways, the grace of Christ circulates through the three great sections of His Church, the Church Triumphant in Heaven, the Church Suffering in Purgatory and the Church Militant on earth, binding them all together in the Communion of Saints.
This marvelous supernatural life of the Church is all traceable to the grace of headship which is Christ's. From this point of view, we can say that the Church is Christ; it is from Him that supernatural life flows to all its members. Christ lives on forever in His Church; here on earth the Church is the continuance of His life. In the Church, Christ still teaches men the truths of salvation, sanctifies their souls, and rules them for the salvation of the world.
There are, unfortunately, some men who are not under the headship of Christ. These are they who are either already in Hell for their sins, or who will be condemned to Hell for their sins. These men have lost their true head, and now are under the rule of the devil. They have no real head in the sense of a source of supernatural life; but they are subject to the external government of the devil.
Since the human nature of Christ is the human I nature of the Son of God, and since Christ in that nature is the head of men and Angels, it is natural to expect that it will have all the excellence that is possible to a human nature. This is precisely the case: in knowledge and power, the human nature of Christ possesses all the perfection possible to a in which it is possible for a human soul to know anything. This means that the soul of Christ must have been enriched from the beginning with the vision of God. If Christ was to make it possible for other men to see God, certainly He must have seen God with His own human intellect. Obviously, this vision of God in the human intellect of Christ cannot be equal to the infinitely perfect vision of God which is proper to God alone. But since Christ, in His human nature, is the head of all creatures, He will see in His vision of God all that can be known about creatures — that is, He will see everything that is real about creation: all that has been, that is, or that will be. He will not see everything that is possible to God; only God can fully realize the infinite power of God. In addition, the human soul of Christ possesses infused knowledge. We realize that this is possible, because the Angelic intellects know by means of infused knowledge, and the souls of the dead also know by infused knowledge, since they no longer have any eyes, ears, and so forth by which they could know anything. If the Angels and the souls of the dead are to know the things in the world, they must know them through knowledge which God infuses into their minds. Since knowledge of this kind is attainable by a created mind, it must exist in the human mind of Christ. Surely, God would not allow the mind of His own human nature to lack any possible perfection. Through this infused knowledge Christ would not know the essence of God; He knew the essence of God through His beatific vision of God. But through this infused knowledge He would know everything that is possible for a created intellect to know. Lastly, the human intellect of Christ could acquire knowledge just as other men obtain it. Through the senses He would come to learn the world in which men live; by the power of His mind He would come to understand the meaning of things just as other men do. It follows, then, that while the vision of God in the soul of Christ and the infused knowledge in His soul could not grow or increase, the acquired knowledge in the soul of Christ could increase. This is the meaning of the statement in sacred scripture that the Boy Christ advanced in wisdom. Neither His beatific vision of God nor His infused knowledge increased, but His natural acquired knowledge was augmented. Naturally, since the human nature of Christ was a perfect human nature, since the power of Christ's mind was never weakened or darkened by sin, even the acquired knowledge of Christ surpasses the knowledge of all other men. We do not say that Christ, in this way, knew even things of which He had not experience, such as the television or the atom bomb. But His mind grasped the essence of all things. Naturally, too, since Christ is God, it was not fitting that Christ should learn anything either from Angels or men. God is the source of all knowledge; therefore, even in His human nature, He acquired all that He knew without any Angelic or human teacher.
As we have already noted, the great perfection of the human knowledge of Christ is due to the fact that it is the knowledge of the human nature that is God's, the human nature that was assumed by the Son of God. The absolute perfection of the Son of God demands that the human nature He assumes be as perfect as it can be. The necessity of this perfect knowledge in Christ appears even more clearly when we recall the role that Christ plays in the universe. He is the head of men and Angels, and must direct them; therefore, He must know perfectly the world of men and Angels. In addition, He is to lead men to the vision of God. But unless He knows the destination well, how can He lead men to it? It was necessary then, for Christ to know God and the whole universe as perfectly as is possible.
We may say the same about the power of Christ. Since He is God, it is fitting that His human nature possess all the power possible to a creature. As He is the head of men and angels, it is fitting that He have all the power necessary to fulfill this role in the universe. Because the human nature of Christ is a creature, it cannot have the omnipotence of God. It cannot create anything or annihilate anything; these actions are proper to God alone. But Christ had the power to work miracles through His human nature; it was the instrument used by His Divinity to produce miraculous effects in the world. Obviously, too, the human nature of Christ, in virtue of its fullness of grace and perfection of knowledge, had the power to instruct all creatures.
The perfection of the human nature of Christ is an inspiration to all men. It shows them what God wants them to be; not that all men, or anyone man, could ever reach the excellence of Christ. But it is the will of God that all should approach the perfections of Christ as closely as possible. Still, God, in His wisdom, did not make the human nature of Christ so perfect that men might not recognize Christ as one of themselves, as another person with a human nature. In Christ we find those human imperfections which are not contrary to His human perfection, and which are useful in the work of redemption which Christ was to accomplish. Christ was hungry at times, and thirsty, and tired; He could feel pain. He could suffer and die, and He did suffer and die for the sins of men. By His sufferings and death He paid the penalty of the sins of men. He could feel sorrow at the prospect of death; He could weep over the death of Lazarus, His friend. But He did not have those defects of human nature which are due solely to sin. Since He had to suffer and die to redeem men from sin, He assumed in His body the defects of suffering and death; but He Himself, because He was sinless, did not contract the penalties of suffering and death as a punishment for His own sins. He assumed these defects only to pay the penalty of other men's sins. He Himself was absolutely sinless; the perfection of His holiness did not even tolerate in Him any inclination to evil, any disordered concupiscence of the flesh. But the sufferings and the death He endured for men are an example of patience and love to all.
The Son of God has become man. Christ is both God and man. Important consequences result from this tremendous fact. From the point of view of Christ Himself, it follows that since there is only one Person in Christ, whatever we can say of either of His natures can be said of that Person. Hence, we can declare that Christ is God, or that Christ is man. We can state that the Son of God is eternal, and that He died on the Cross at Calvary. Because the Person in Christ is a Divine Person, the Son of God, we can call Mary the Mother of God; she has given birth to God in His human nature. However, it is important to remember that the two natures of Christ remain themselves; hence, we cannot say that the Divinity of Christ is human, or that the Divine Nature died on the Cross, or that the human nature of Christ is eternal or strictly omnipotent.
This great grace was given to Christ also because in the Divine plan He was to be the head of the whole human race in the spiritual order. Adam is the head of the whole human race in the natural order of the body. He was also, before his sin, the spiritual head of the human race. By his sin he lost God's grace fro himself and all his descendants, and in this way he ceased to be the head of the human race in the spiritual order. However, God determined to restore grace to the human race, and He made Christ the new spiritual head of all men. It is in this sense that the Fathers of the Church called Christ the "second Adam." from Adam to the end of time, all grace comes to men from Christ. Since His own personal sanctifying grace is the source of grace for all men, His grace is sometimes called capital grace or the grace of headship.
In virtue of the oneness of personality in Christ, we must also assert that there are not two Christs, the one human and the other Divine. We must affirm that there is one Christ, Who is both human and Divine. Because there is but one Person, one responsible Agent in Christ, it follows that there must also be a unity or a conformity between the Divine will of Christ and His human will. Since Christ possessed a perfect human nature, He also possessed a free human will. The human will of Christ was perfectly conformed to the Divine will of Christ. It did not will anything against the Divine will, nor did it refuse anything the Divine will commanded. This does not mean that Christ did not suffer at all in undergoing death on the Cross. Christ allowed His sensitive appetite to function quite naturally during His Passion and death. As in other men, His soul, through the action of the sensitive appetite, feared the prospect of suffering and death. This is the meaning of Christ's statement in the garden of Gethsemane: "My soul is sorrowful unto death". His will, considered simply as a tendency to good, also shrank from suffering and death. But His will as a rational appetite, as an inclination to good under the control of reason, accepted suffering and death as the will of God. In the action of His human will, then, Christ gave us the example of a perfect will. While still subject to the movement of the passions, the will of Christ was rationally obedient to God, even unto the death of the Cross.
As a person with a human nature, Christ had also the power to act in a human way. He was capable of acts of reason and will. In fact, all the actions of the human nature of Christ, even the purely vegetative functions of His body, were under the control of His rational luman will. Moreover, since Christ was able to act freely, He was capable of meriting grace for Himself and for others. But here we must make an important distinction. Since Christ did not exist in His human nature until the Son of God assumed a human nature to Himself in the womb of the Virgin Mary, Christ did not merit for Himself either the personal union of His human nature with the Son of God, nor sanctifying grace, nor the perfection of His knowledge. But He merited for Himself the glory of His body after His Resurrection and His Ascension, and, in general, all the perfections which He acquired in the course of time. In addition, He merited by His free actions all the graces given to men as members of His Mystical Body, and even the graces whereby the Angels assist Him in the work of building up His Mystical Body.
9. CHRIST IN RELATION TO HIS FATHER
We may also consider the consequences of the Incarnation from the point of view of the relations between Christ and His Father. As God, the Son of God is equal in Divinity to the Father; but in His human nature, the Son of God is subject to the Father. In the first place, all the goodness of the human nature of Christ comes from God the Father. Secondly, the human nature of Christ, as all creatures, is subject to the Divine governance of the world by God the Father. Lastly, since the will of the human nature of Christ was perfect in grace, it was fully and freely subject to God the Father. Christ, then, gives us once again a perfect example of the proper subjection of men to God.
Because Christ was human, He prayed to His Father. In this, also, He afforded us a perfect model. He asked for those things which God wished to give Him through prayer, such as the glorification of His body after the Resurrection. But He also offered to God in prayer the desires of His sensitive appetite. Thus, at the beginning of His Passion He prayed: "Let this chalice pass from Me". By so doing He showed us that it is possible for man to desire what God does not wish. But He also taught us on the same occasion that our rational wills should be conformed to the will of God against the tendencies of the sensitive appetite, for He concluded His prayer with the words: "Nevertheless, not as I will, but as Thou wilt." Because His prayers were always in conformity with the will of God, they were always answered.
Through the Incarnation, Christ is the high priest of God and the human race. It is the function of a priest to act as a mediator between God and men. He must bring the gifts of God to men, and he must take the offerings of men to God, and make satisfaction for their sins. Now Christ fulfilled this role perfectly. He is the perfect Mediator between God and men, because He Himself is both God and man. He brings God's gifts to men, because it is through Christ that Divine grace is given to men. He offered Himself on the Cross to God as a satisfaction for the sins of men, and in this way He both brought to God the offering of mankind and made satisfaction for sin.
THE OFFERING which Christ made to God for men as the sacrifice of Himself on the Cross. In this sacrifice, Christ was both the victim and the priest. As we have already seen, every visible sacrifice is a sign of an invisible sacrifice. The death of Christ Or the Cross was the visible sign of the internal act of will by which Christ offered Himself to His Father for the sins of men. Christ was thus both the priest offering the victim of sacrifice to God and the victim. His sacrifice on the Cross accomplished the three goals of sacrifice: the remission of sin, peace between God and men, and holocaust. By His death, Christ re deemed men from sin and won for them the grace which establishes peace between God and men Through His death, Christ offered Himself wholly to God for men, and so was made a holocaust, that is, I victim wholly burnt or offered to God. Because it is God Himself, the Son of God, Who offers this sacrifice the sacrifice is of infinite value and it purchases an eternal reward for men, the vision of God in eternity For this reason, the priesthood of Christ is eternal It is important to note that Christ is the natural Son of God. Other men may become the adopted sons of God through grace; but since Christ is the Second Person of the Trinity, He is the natural Son of God, and not the adopted son of God.
The Incarnation is a work of God in the world It was, therefore, a part of the plan of Divine providence from the beginning. From all eternity, God the Father intended that His Son should become incarnate in Jesus Christ. We can say, then, that Christ a man was predestined to be the Son of God.
From the point of view of the relation of Christ to men, it is important to remember both that He is man and that He is God. Because He is man, a men can be inspired by His example, attracted by His humanity, and ennobled by a familiarity with Him in prayer and grace. But since He is God, all men owe Him adoration. Adoration, as we have seen, is paying tribute to someone's excellence. When it is homage to God's perfection as the Supreme Being, the Creator of the world, then the adoration is latria. When it is any lesser tribute to some lesser excellence, then it is veneration or dulia. Since Christ is God, we must pay Him the adoration of latria. We must acknowledge Him as the Supreme Being and the Creator of the world. Since there is only one Person in Christ, we must even give this adoration to Christ in His human nature, or in the images of Him which men make for use in religious actions. Naturally, we do not give the worship of latria to the human nature of Christ, or to images of Christ insofar as they are creatures. We give this worship to Christ in or through His human nature, or the images which represent Him to us. We might put it in another way by saying that we give an absolute adoration to the Person of Christ, but a relative adoration to His human nature and to images of Him.
When men adore Christ, they truly adore God. Christ is Emmanuel, that is, God-with-us. In Christ we can, so to speak, see the face of God. It is His human face, it is true. But even this vision is a foretaste of the beatific vision of God which is the inheritance of all those who are members of Christ's Body, the Church. It is their inheritance because Christ is the perfect Mediator between God and men. He stands between God and men — He mediates between them — because He brings God's gifts to men and He takes men to God. As man, He is the perfect Mediator because He occupies a position midway between God and men. As man He is not God, and so He stands below God. But as a man possessing thefullness of grace, knowledge and power, He stands above men. He is thus in a perfect position to mediate between God and men. And this is what Christ is doing ceaselessly for men in and through His Body, the Church.
The Incarnation is God's answer to the misery of men without God. God stoops to man to raise him to Himself. "And I, if I be lifted up, will draw all things to Myself." Man has only to accept freely Christ as his Mediator. Not even Christ saves a man against his will. Because man is proud, God has stooped down to him. Since man is disobedient, God has given him the example of the perfect obedience of Christ. As man is ignorant and in error, God has given him Christ, the perfect Teacher. Could the love of God do more for man? "By this hath the charity of God appeared towards us, because God hath sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we may live by him."
C. CHRIST AS OUR SAVIOR AND REDEEMER
The Son of God came into this world to save men from sin and the consequences of sin. the whole life of Christ, therefore, is dominated by this purpose. From the very beginning of His human life, from the moment of His conception in the womb of His Mother, christ is the Savior of mankind. Moreover, since He was capable of rational acts and therefore of free acts from the first moment of His existence in the womb of Mary, He began even at that moment to give to God that perfect obedience which is the souls of the sacrifice of Himself whereby He has redeemed mankind. As Adam had destroyed all human nature by his disobedience, so Christ restored human nature in His human nature. It is true that the principal redeeming act of Christ is the shedding of His Precious Blood on the Cross of Calvary. But, it is also true that from the beginning of His human life, Christ directed all the acts of His will to their final consummation on Calvary. From the very beginning, the will of Christ was perfectly conformed to the will of God.
It is for this reason that Christ was content to be born of a poor woman of Nazareth, in the poverty of a stable at Bethlehem. It is for this reason that christ was content that his Divinity and Majesty as the Son of God should be manifested only gradually to mankind. Had He made His Divinity known to all men at once and unmistakably, then there would have been no room for faith in Himself; and, in the plan of God, men must be saved by faith. Hence, in the beginning, the Divinity of Christ was manifested only to His Mother and to St. Joseph, to the shepherds and to the Magi from the East. In this way, too, God safeguarded men's belief in the reality of the human nature of Christ. For had Christ manifested Himself as God at once —- by some stupendous manifestation of His Divine power —- men would have doubted that He was really a man, and so would have missed the awe-inspiring message of the Incarnation, the magnificent love of God for man. On the contrary, God saw to it that men of good will should be able to perceive both the Divinity and the humanity of Christ. The humble circumstances of His birth, the obscurity of His life at Nazareth, His familiar intercourse with men during His public ministry —- all these would convince men of the reality of His human nature. On the other hand, the Star from the East which announced His birth to the Magi, the prophecy of Simeon, the Angels who appeared to the shepherds —- all these were Divine signs of the Divinity of Christ. When the time was right, the miracles and prophecies of Christ Himself would convince men of His Divinity.
In obedience to the will of God, Christ submitted Himself to the Old Law which God had given to the Jews. Though He Himself was the founder of the New Law of grace, nevertheless He took upon Himself the burden of the Old Law. He submitted to the rite of circumcision, which was a profession of obedience to the Old Law. By shedding His blood in this way, He proved the reality of His human nature and at the same time He dedicated Himself to God for the salvation of men. In so doing, He also showed His approval of circumcision, which God had instituted for the Jews as a sign of their faith in the Savior Who was to come. The circumcision of Christ is also a manifestation of the wisdom of God, for if He were not circumcised, then the Jews, to whom He first preached the Gospel of salvation, would not have received Him at all.
At the time of His circumcision, Christ was given the name Jesus. This was the name that God Himself had chosen for Him. It was foretold to Mary and Joseph by Angels. In Hebrew the name means "Savior." In this way, God announced the role which Christ was to play in the history of the world.
Jesus as Christ gave men an example of humility and obedience by submitting Himself to circumcision; so too, Mary, His Mother, gave men the same example by going to the Temple to be purified after the birth of Christ. Like her Son she needed no purification. But like her Son she obeyed the will of God and showed her approval of the Old Law of God.
So too, forty days after His birth, Christ was offered to God in the Temple in accordance with the Jewish rite. He Himself was consecrated to God as the first-born of Mary. And, even though He was sinless, the usual offering for the expiation of sin was made for Him. In this way, He taught men that they must offer themselves to God.
The entrance of any great man into a position of power and authority is always marked by some important ceremony. This is true of the life of Christ. Before He began His public ministry for the salvation of men, He was Baptized by John the Baptist. John the Baptist, a cousin of Christ, was the herald chosen by God to prepare men for the coming of Christ as their Savior. He had been sanctified by Christ Him. self while he was still in the womb of his mother, Elizabeth. He had led a life of extreme asceticism and prayer. Then, inspired by the Holy Spirit, he began to preach to men repentance for sin as a preparation for the coming of the Savior. Under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit he also Baptized men with water. The Baptism of John did not give men the grace of the Holy Spirit as the Baptism of Christ does. But it prepared the way for the Sacrament of Baptism which Christ was to institute. John's preaching prepared men for faith in Christ. It accustomed men to the rite of Baptism which Christ would institute. And the penance which John preached prepared men to receive the effect of Christ's Baptism. Because John's Baptism did not give men the grace of God, those Baptized by John needed also the Baptism of Christ for salvation.
The Baptism of Christ by John marked the beginning of the public ministry of Christ. Although Christ was sinless and needed no purification at all, He received the Baptism of John. In the first place, since John's Baptism did not really forgive sin or give grace, it was not unfitting for Christ, Who possessed the fullness of grace, to receive this Baptism. In this way Christ showed His approval of John's Baptism, and, therefore, of the efforts of John to lead men to Himself. By receiving Baptism from John, Christ also sanctified Baptism.
The Baptism of Christ by John sanctified Baptism. This is made clear to us by the fact that when Christ was Baptized in the Jordan, the Heavens were opened, the Holy Spirit descended in the form of a dove and rested over the head of Christ, and the voice of God was heard saying, "This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased" (Matt. III, 17). Through the sin of Adam the gates of Heaven were closed to all men. But at the Baptism of Christ the Heavens were opened. This signified that through the Sacrament of Baptism which Christ would institute, the gates of Heaven are reopened to man. In addition, the appearance of the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove and the voice of God the Father show us that the whole Trinity was present at the Baptism of Christ. Since Baptism sanctifies men in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, it was fitting that the Trinity should be manifested at the Baptism of Christ.
According to St. Thomas, Christ was Baptized in His thirtieth year. This, St. Thomas regards as the perfect time for His Baptism. At the age of thirty a man should be in the prime of his manhood. He should be fit for his life's work. Now Christ was about to begin to teach men the truths of God's revelation which they must believe to be saved. His Baptism, then, at this age signaled the beginning of the important work of His life. Besides, by beginning His public ministry Christ was beginning the New Law of grace. It was fitting that He should have shown men that He was capable of keeping the Old Law. But by deferring the beginning of His public ministry to this age, He had given men the example of thirty years of conformity to the Old Law. No one could say that He abrogated the Old Law because He could not keep it Himself. We can also see a Divine symbolism in the Baptism of Christ at the age of His maturity. As Christ was Baptized at the perfect age of manhood, so Christian Baptism brings forth perfect men, men perfected by God's grace.
Christ came into the world to save men by His teaching, His example, His Passion and death on the Cross. The purpose of His life dictated the manner in which He lived. Because He had had to teach ignorant, sinful men the truths of God, He did not shun men. He did not lead a solitary life, disdaining the company of men because He was too perfect for them. Rather He went out into the world of men, seeking them in the towns and the villages, in the fields and on the roads, in the mountains and on the sea. How could He teach them, if He did not walk with them and talk with them? How could He lead them by His example, if He led a hidden life far from their eyes? Because He came to save sinners, He sought them out, like the good shepherd seeking his lost sheep. He became man so that men might find it easier to come to God. Hence, in His human nature, He made Himself accessible to all men, rich and poor, good and evil.
Nor did he repel men by an extreme austerity. It is true that Christ at times practiced abstinence in eating and drinking. He did this in order to give men good example. Because He was the perfect man, He had no need to discipline His appetites by fasting or abstinence. But He did so to show men that they can profit by mastering the tendencies of their sense appetite. On the other hand, for the most part, Christ ate and drank in the normal manner of men. Because He was always in perfect control of Himself, there was never anything excessive in His eating and drinking. But by acting as other men He made it possible for men to approach Him easily.
Only in the practice of poverty does Christ give the appearance of being different from most men. Most men either hate poverty and seek riches, or, if they are rich, they cling to their wealth. But Christ was voluntarily poor. He knew that the cares of wealth prevent men from being good preachers of the word of God. So He Himself gave an example to all the Apostles He would send to men in the course of time. He renounced worldly wealth, so that He might preach God's word unhindered by cares. He deliberately kept Himself poor in the things of this world, so that He might enrich men in the things of God. He knew, too, that men are only too inclined to think that God's ministers preach God's word for their own advantage. Hence, He gave up the wealth of the world so that His message to men might be recommended to them by His own unselfishness. Lastly, He lived a life of poverty in order to show men more clearly the power of His divinity. He would save mankind without any of the things which men hold necessary for success.
3. THE DEVIL'S TEMPTING OF CHRIST
He also endeared himself to men by allowing Himself to be tempted by the devil. The great spiritual perfection of Christ might have led men to despair of their own salvation. Men, weary of the struggle against temptations, might too easily say, "It was easy for Christ to be good; He had no temptations". But Christ was tempted by the devil. When He was hungry, after forty days of fasting, the devil tempted Him with bread. When that temptation failed, the devil tempted Him first to vainglory and then to worldly power and wealth. Christ was thus tempted to sins of both the flesh and the spirit of man. As man He conquered these temptations and vanquished the devil. In so doing He has given all men an example. The temptations of the devil can be overcome with the grace of God and strength of will. He has even shown good people that their goodness does not mean that they are not still subject to temptation. If the goodness of Christ could be subjected to temptation, then temptation is the common lot of all men. But all men can take refuge in the mercy of Christ. He Who was tempted can understand the needs of other men. Christ, Who has overcome temptation, will mercifully aid those who are still subject to temptation. This was a revelation of His mercy from God to man, as much as in His miracles.
His doctrine was a revelation from God to man. He revealed to men the deep secrets of God, the mysterious inner life of the Trinity, and the secret of God's relations with man, the Incarnation and all that it implies. Because it was a message from God and because its truth was beyond the grasp of the human mind, it was necessary for Christ to give guarantees of the truth of His message. This He did by the miracles He performed. A miracle is a work or an effect that can be produced only by the power of God. It is a finger of God pointing to truth — either the truth that Christ was the Son of God, or the truth of the Divine message He was teaching to men. Christ worked miracles to prove that His doctrine was really a Divine message. Since only God can work miracles, it follows that the claim of Christ was true. His message was a Divine message or God, Who worked miracles through Him, is a liar. But God cannot lie. Therefore, the message of Christ is a Divine revelation to men.
The miracles of Christ proved that He Himself was God. His miracles showed that He had power over all of creation. When He expelled demons from those possessed by devils, He showed His power over the angels. When He caused the Star of Bethlehem to point out the place of His birth, when He caused the sun to be darkened for three hours at the time of His Passion and death, He showed His power over nature. When He changed water into wine at Cana, He showed His power over the inanimate things of the world. When He cured the paralytic, or the man born blind, when He raised Lazarus from the grave, He showed His power over men. He performed so many miracles, so many miracles of different kinds, and at the decision of His own will, that He manifested a Divine command of the whole created world. Since He Himself claimed to be God, and since He worked so many kinds of miracles at will, we can only agree that He was God.
One of the most significant of His miracles was His transfiguration on Mount Tabor.
Christ had said to His disciples, "If any man will come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For he that will save his life shall lose it: and he that shall lose his life for my sake shall find it" (Matt. XVI, 24-25). He was trying to teach His disciples that by imitating His own immolation on the Cross they would find happiness, the happiness of the vision of God. To convince them of this truth, and to give them some inkling of its meaning, He took Peter, James and John to Mount Tabor. There, in their sight, He was transfigured. "His face did shine as the sun: and his garments became white as snow. And behold there appeared to them Moses and Elias talking with them . . . And . . . behold a bright cloud overshadowed them. And, a voice out of the cloud, saying: This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased. Hear ye him" (Matt. XVII, 2-5). The brilliance which shone from the body of Christ on this occasion was the light of glory transmitted from His Divinity to His human soul and from His soul to His body. Because He possessed the vision of God, Christ had the right to this light of glory from the beginning of His existence in His human nature. But, for the sake of men, this light of glory was deferred until after His Passion and death. On this occasion Christ worked a miracle. He allowed the light of glory to shine in His body. He did this, first to confirm His Apostles in their belief in His words. He did it, secondly to give them a glimpse of the meaning of His words. If a man denies his baser tendencies, if He believes in Christ and keeps the commandments of God out of love for God, he will gain eternal life. After death He will see God face to face, and his soul will be resplendent with the light of Divine glory. At the last resurrection, when his body is reunited to his soul, the light of glory in his soul will give even his body a reflection of the light of glory. When Christ allowed Peter, James and John to see Him transfigured on Tabor, He was giving them a preview of the glory that would come to all men of good will through His Passion and death. The transfiguration of Christ is both a testimonial to the truth of Christ's message and a glimpse of the world to come for all those who love Christ.
5. THE CONTEXT OF CHRIST'S TEACHINGS
After His temptation by the devil Christ began His ministry of teaching. He preached to God's Chosen People the Gospel of salvation. He preached it to the Jews because the promise of salvation had been made by God to the Jews. The message of God was to be preached first to the Jews and then, through them, to all men. The Jews, by believing in and worshipping one God, were nearer to God than the pagan nations of the world. It was fitting that God should reward their faithfulness by preaching the message of salvation first to them. Even from the natural point of view, it was proper that Christ should preach the Gospel first to His own people. Moreover, it was through His Passion and death that Christ merited power and lordship over all men. It was natural, therefore, that He should not wish His doctrine to be preached to the pagan world until after His Passion and death. It is even a sign of His great power that His Apostles should have converted the pagan world of Rome, while Christ Himself restricted His preaching to His own people.
Christ was absolutely truthful. It was natural, then, that He should preach His doctrine openly. He preached in the streets of the cities, in the porches of the Temple, in the plains of the countryside. He did not conceal His doctrine. It is true that He preached some of His mysteries in the form of parables. The meaning was there for those with good will to perceive His meaning. But, in His mercy, the parables sometimes concealed His true meaning from those who were not ready to receive His doctrine. On the other hand, He never concealed or "toned down" His teaching because of the malice or the sensibilities of His enemies. He did not hesitate to reproach the Scribes and Pharisees for their hypocrisy. He would not retract His promise of the Eucharist because the Jews refused to accept the idea that He would give them His flesh to eat and His blood to drink. On that occasion He even offered His chosen Apostles the choice of believing Him or abandoning Him. He taught openly and as one having authority.
Because He taught as one having authority, He never committed His doctrine to writing. The actual work of writing would seem an imperfection in One Who was God. It would seem that God had no other means of transmitting His doctrine to men. To teach is to impress a doctrine firmly in the minds and hearts of men. Certainly Christ, the God-man, is the perfect teacher. He could transmit His message to men by word and example more perfectly than any written work.
Moreover, He could send other men to bring His message to all men. He could so train and inspire and guide them that they would preach His message perfectly, whether by word or by writing. In addition, it is natural for men to be taught by other men. Hence, it was fitting that Christ should train His Apostles to speak for Him to other men.
Underlying His teaching as the miracle of the Transfiguration, was a preview of the glory that would come to all men of good will through His Passion and death: a glimpse of the world to come for all those who love Christ.
But the glory of Christ in His body, and the glory that is to come to all men at the end of the world are purchased with a great price. Before the body of Christ could be confirmed in the glory of His sanctified soul, before men could have any chance to emulate His glory, Christ had to win redemption for mankind by His Passion and His death upon the Cross of Calvary.
Christ did not suffer and then die upon the Cross because God was under any compulsion to demand so great a recompense for the sins of men. God could have simply condoned men's sins and granted them pardon when they repented of their sins. Nor was Christ Himself under any compulsion to suffer and die for the sins of men. He offered Himself freely and voluntarily as a sacrifice for men. But Christ suffered for men because this was the will of God. God willed that His only-begotten Son should become man to suffer and die for the salvation of men. This Divine decision manifests both the justice and the mercy of God. It manifests His justice, because it shows that God has actually demanded satisfaction for the sins of men against Him. It manifests His mercy, because no one but a God-man could have offered a suitable satisfaction for the sins of men. Because He was God, Christ could offer God an infinite satisfaction for the infinite malice of sin. Because He was man, Christ could offer a man's satisfaction for man's sin.
The wisdom of God's plan in the Passion and death of Christ is shown, too, by the other purposes which God accomplished in this way. Christ suffered and died to win God's pardon for the sins of men. But His suffering did more than this. In the first place, since He was both God and man, His suffering was a staggering proof of God's love for men. Could God do more for men than suffer and die for them? Secondly, in His Passion and death Christ gave to men an example of the perfect virtue which will lead men to heaven: obedience to God's will, humility, constancy in following God's will, fortitude in the face of death, a love of justice even unto death, and so on. Thirdly, by His suffering Christ merited grace and glory for men, and so made it possible for men to attain their real happiness. Fourthly, by suffering and dying for all men, Christ gave to men a strong additional motive for avoiding sin. If a father sold all his possessions in order to pay the foolish debts of his son, would not the son have a strong reason for behaving prudently in the future? If the Son of God suffered and died because of the sins of men, to pay the debt of men's sins, should not all men have a good reason for avoiding sin in the future? Lastly, the Passion and death of Christ are a Divine tribute to the dignity of man. Man had destroyed himself by falling victim to the devil in the garden of Paradise. Through Christ, a man conquers the devil and restores mankind to the friendship of God. Men can point to Christ with honest pride and say that their Brother Man has saved them.
In His Passion and Death Christ endured extreme suffering. He suffered at the hands of both men and women. A man betrayed Him; a woman betrayed His Apostle Peter; the Sanhedrin condemned Him; His own people cried out for His blood; Herod and Pilate washed their hands of Him; Pilate delivered Him over to scourging and the crucifixion on the Cross; the soldiers and servants mocked Him and spat upon Him and beat Him; He was abandoned by His Apostles and friends; His reputation was destroyed by the ignominy of His trial and death as a criminal; His soul was sad and weary at the prospect and the reality of suffering and death; His sensitive nature flinched from suffering and death; His hands and feet were pierced by nails; His brow was crowned with thorns; His whole body was torn with the lashes of the scourging. And because He had a perfect human nature He felt this suffering all the more keenly.
It is true that the higher part of His soul continued to enjoy the vision of God. But the lower part of His soul, His power to feel sensitive joy or pain, was inundated with the anguish of His torments. Christ allowed His human nature to experience the length and the breadth and the depth of human suffering. Because He suffered to atone for the sins of all men, He allowed Himself to endure the fullness of human pain. In Him the words of the prophet Isaias were fulfilled: "There is no beauty in him, nor comeliness: and we have seen him, and there was no sightliness, that we should be desirous of him: despised and the most abject of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with infirmity: and his look was as it were hidden and despised. Whereupon we esteemed him not. Surely he hath borne our infirmities and carried our sorrows: and we have thought him as it were a leper, and as one struck by God and afflicted. But He was wounded for our iniquities: he was bruised for our sins. The chastisement of our peace was upon him: and by his bruises we are healed" (Isaias LIII, 2-5).
The sublimity of Christ's love for men is shown by the fact that He did not have to suffer and die. Because He was God, He could have prevented His enemies from doing Him any injury. Because His soul had perfect control of His body, He could have prevented the wounds from achieving their normal effect. But, in obedience to the will of His Father, He submitted Himself to the violent hands of His enemies. God and Christ Himself, out of love for men, delivered Christ to the hands of His torturers and executioners. But it was these latter who scourged Christ, crowned Him with thorns, nailed Him to the Cross and so killed Him. His own people handed Him over to the Romans to be put to death, and the Romans crucified Him. In this way Christ suffered both from the Jews and from the pagans of the world. Since He came to save not only the Jews but also the rest of men, it was natural that He should suffer at the hands of both.
The guilt of those who brought about the death of Christ varies with their knowledge of what they were doing. Least guilty of all were the pagan soldiers who tortured and crucified Christ. They had no knowledge of the fact that Christ was the Savior of mankind, nor the fact that Christ was God, the Son of God. More guilty than they was Pilate who, though he also was ignorant of the true identity of Christ, nevertheless, out of cowardice, condemned an innocent man to death. Next in the mounting scale of guilt comes the multitude of simple people at Jerusalem who were misled by their leaders. They had seen the wonderful works of Christ and so might have believed in Him. But their leaders deceived them and made them doubt Christ. Most guilty of all were the arch conspirators among the leaders of the people. They knew that Christ had fulfilled in His Person and life the signs foretold by the prophets. But they were unwilling to accept Christ as their Savior. They deliberately blinded their eyes to the evident signs of His Divinity. God was ready to give them faith in Christ, but, in the hardness of their hearts, they refused to accept it. Because their ignorance of His true identity was deliberate, it does not excuse their sin. They committed the most grievous of sins. They delivered their Savior and their God to death at the hands of pagans.
Christ suffered and died on the Cross of Calvary. As He hung there, suspended between earth and sky, with His life's blood draining away in agony, His enemies mocked Him. "If thou be the son of God," they said, "come down from the Cross". As St. Paul has said, the crucified Christ is "unto the Jews indeed a stumbling-block, and unto the Gentiles foolishness" (1 Cor. I, 23). Did God fail on the Cross? Was His life among men a magnificent but futile gesture? St. Paul gives us the answer: "But unto them that are called, both Jews and Greeks," the crucified Christ is "the power of God, and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than men (1 Cor. I, 24-25). On the Cross Christ seems most helpless. But it is on the Cross that he accomplished His purpose, the salvation of men.
As Christ hung on the Cross, He willingly offered His human life and the sufferings and death of His body for the salvation of men. In the plan of God, Christ was the new Adam, the new Head of the human race. Because He offered His life willingly out of charity and obedience to His Father, His human will merited from God the salvation of mankind. Because He suffered and died out of love and obedience, Christ gave God more than was required to compensate for the sins of the whole human race. He satisfied or atoned for men's sins. He offered His life to God to honor God and to appease Him for the sins of men. His Passion, therefore, was a sacrifice most pleasing to God. The life which He so willingly laid down for men was the price paid to God for the sins of men and the punishment due to those sins. By paying the price of men's sins Christ redeemed all men. Christ did all this — He merited salvation, He atoned for sin, He sacrificed Himself to God for sin, He redeemed men — in obedience to the will of God. His human nature was the instrument of His Godhead, the instrument which the Son of God used to save men. Because it was the instrument of His Godhead, Christ accomplished what He had come into this world to do.
Because Christ is God as well as man, His Passion delivered men from sin and from the power of the devil. It freed men from the penalty of sin, death and the loss of the vision of God. His Passion reconciled men to God and reopened the gates of Heaven to all mankind. His Passion merited for Himself the exaltation of His own human nature. Because He was put to death unjustly, God raised Him from the dead. Because His body had suffered the humiliation of burial, He ascended into Heaven. Because He had endured the mockery of men, He now sits at the right hand of the Father in Heaven. Because He had been delivered over to the power of men, He has been made the judge of all men in the world to come. In the Passion of Christ the weakness of God is stronger than men. Through the human death of Christ the Divine life is restored to men.
Christ really died on the Cross. His human soul was separated from His body. But His Divine Personality remained united to both His body and His soul. For this reason the dead body of Christ was still infinitely precious. Because it was still united to the Person of the Son of God, any indignity inflicted upon it by the soldiers who lowered it from the Cross, any gesture of reverence paid to it by His Mother or the holy men and women who reverently buried it, was of infinite value for the salvation of men.
As soon as He died, the soul of Christ descended into Hell. The Hell of which we speak here is Limbo, the place in which the souls of the just were awaiting deliverance. He hastened to Limbo to announce to the just the reopening of the gates of Heaven. Through His Passion, He had made it possible for them to find glory in the vision of God. He did not descend into the Hell of the devils and the lost human souls. There .was nothing He could do for them. By their own free decision, they had cut themselves off from God forever. Only those united to Himself in faith and charity could obtain the benefits of His Passion.
On the third day after His death Christ rose again. His soul was reunited with His body and He rose from the tomb glorious and immortal. He waited three days to convince everyone that He had really died. He rose from the grave to confirm our faith in His Divinity. Because He has risen, we can also hope to rise again at the end of the world. Because He has risen from the grave, the new life of grace is given to our souls. Because He was God, He gave to His body and soul the power to unite with one another again. By the power of God Christ, Who had died on Calvary, rose again on the first Easter Sunday.
Christ rose again in His own human body. His body still bore the scars of His Passion. He could have removed these scars, if He had wished. But He chose to retain them. In this way He could prove to men that it was really Himself who had risen. Besides, He was to ascend into heaven to plead with His Father for the salvation of men. In heaven His scars would be a perpetual reminder to the Father of His suffering for men. In Heaven, too, the marks of His wounds would be an everlasting trophy of His triumph over the world, the devil and sin. But though He still bore the marks of His wounds, His risen body was glorified. It was immortal. He could never die again. The glory of His soul, united to God in the beatific vision, flowed over into His body and made it shine with a Divine light. His body was completely under the control of His soul.
After His Resurrection He appeared to His Mother, His Apostles and to His disciples. He walked with them, talked with them, ate and drank with them. In this way He gave them convincing signs of the reality of His Resurrection. Through their testimony the truth of His Resurrection has been given to the world. Those who believe in Him and in His resurrection can hope to rise again also.
The Resurrection of Christ is the cause of the resurrection of all men. Only God has the power to make men rise again. But Christ is God. And God intends to make the Resurrection of Christ the efficient cause of the resurrection of all men. At the end of time it will be the risen Christ who will make all men rise again. His risen human nature will be the instrument by which His Divine power will reunite the souls of all men to their bodies.
The Resurrection of Christ is also the model or pattern according to which the souls of the just shall rise on the last day. Christ will make sinners rise, but to their condemnation. Because they have no faith in Him nor love for Him, they can have no part in His glory. But the just will rise in the likeness of Christ. His body is now glorious and immortal. The bodies of those who had faith in Him, who loved Him and kept His commandments, will be glorious and immortal, too. The Resurrection of Christ is both the pledge of the future resurrection of men, and the model of the resurrection of the just who die in the grace of Christ.
Forty days after His Resurrection Christ ascended into Heaven. He went to Heaven to receive the glory which was due to Him. There He pleads with His Father always for the souls of men. In Heaven He sits at the right hand of God. As God He is equal to the Father and to the Holy Spirit. As man, as the perfect man, possessing the absolute fullness of God's grace, and as the glorious Head of the whole humanrace and of the angels, He sits at the right hand of His Father, that is, He has been given the power to judge all men and Angels. At the General Judgment it will be Christ Who makes the final truth known — the true character and the true meaning of the actions of men and angels. At this judgment it is Christ Who will give the final decision. At His word the damned will go into Hell forever to satisfy the justice of God, and the good will enter forever into the bliss of Heaven to manifest the mercy of God.
The human race today needs a Savior. Men are seeking salvation in ideas, in fascism, in nazism, in communism. Men are seeking salvation in science, in electronics, in atomic fission, in dreams of flights to the moon or Mars. Men look for the promise of strength in dictators or military geniuses or financial wizards. But there is no salvation for man except in Christ the Savior. It is Christ Who has re-established order in the world. Man introduced chaos into the world by disobedience to God. Christ has reintroduced the principle of obedience to God. By His obedience He has opened the floodgates of Heaven to the world of men. Because He died on the Cross out of love and obedience, the living waters of God's grace are ready to quicken the parched souls of men. Because He was humble, even unto death, men can be raised up to the dignity of sons of God. Because He loved both God and man, it is possible for men to love God and one another.
But Christ saves no one against his will. He can give salvation only to those who believe in Him, hope in Him and love Him. He has merited grace for all men. But men must freely accept this grace and use it for their salvation. We are all saved in Christ, our Head and our Savior. But only on condition that we freely unite our minds and hearts with His. Christ is not a dictator. He does not bend men to His will with guns and secret police and concentration camps and slave labor. He is a loving Savior. He compels no one to march with Him or for Hint. He hangs on a Cross between earth and sky, between men and God. He has nothing to recommend Him but humility and a great love. Yet His outstretched arms are big enough to hold the world. The road to happiness lies through His Cross. If any man will save his life, he must first lose it. He must deny himself and follow Christ.
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