Sect. 190Christ the Substantial and Born Mediator Between Man and GodChrist the Substantial and Born Mediator Between Man and God
I. Christ’s Headship over mankind appears in its brightest light in His office of mediator between God and man. The office of mediator in general supposes the mediating person to stand midway between two contending persons or parties. When the parties are of different rank, as God and man, the intermediate position requires rank below the higher and above the lower party. Such a position belongs to the “one mediator of God and man, the Man Christ” (1 Tim. 2:5) by reason of His essential constitution: as true man, He is below God; as the “Man Christ,” He is above all creatures. As God, He is a Person distinct from the Person of the Father; as Man, He represents a Person virtually distinct from the Logos. The Mediator, further, must be connected with both parties. The Man Christ is consubstantial with man and with God: by His humanity He is the born Head of mankind; by His Divinity He is the Only-Begotten of the Father and like unto the Father. “The head of every man is Christ … and the head of Christ is God” (1 Cor. 11:3). His mediatorship, then, is not accidental or delegated: it arises naturally from His personal constitution, which also makes Him the only, the universal and perfect, mediator between man and God.
II. Christ’s function as mediator necessarily proceeds from His human nature as principium quo operandi, yet it obtains its mediating efficacy from the Divine Nature, i.e. from the dignity of the acting Person. Its first object, as commonly stated, is the remission of sin and the granting of grace, whereby the friendship between God and man is restored. This object is attained by the worship of infinite value, which is offered to God by and through Christ. Christ, however, is mediator on the side of God as well as on the side of man: He reveals to man Divine truths and Divine commands; He distributes the Divine gifts of grace and rules the world. St. Paul sums up this two-sided mediation in the words, “Consider the apostle and high priest (pontificem, ἀρχιερέα) of our confession, Jesus” (Heb. 3:1). Jesus is the Apostle sent by God to us, the High Priest leading us on to God.
III. The fact of Christ’s existence is in itself a mediation, a bond, between the Creator and His creatures. By uniting our humanity to His Divinity, He united us to God and God to us. He is of God and in God, but He is also of us and in us. In Him we know, love, and worship God; God, on the other hand, pours out His supernatural gifts on the Head of our race, and through the Head on the members. A substantial—or, as the Fathers prefer to call it, a physical—union is thus effected between man and God. “That they all may be one, as Thou, Father, in Me and I in Thee.… I in them and Thou in Me, that they may be made perfect in one” (John 17:21–22) St. Thomas, 3, q. 26.
I. Christ’s Headship over mankind appears in its brightest light in His office of mediator between God and man. The office of mediator in general supposes the mediating person to stand midway between two contending persons or parties. When the parties are of different rank, as God and man, the intermediate position requires rank below the higher and above the lower party. Such a position belongs to the “one mediator of God and man, the Man Christ” (1 Tim. 2:5) by reason of His essential constitution: as true man, He is below God; as the “Man Christ,” He is above all creatures. As God, He is a Person distinct from the Person of the Father; as Man, He represents a Person virtually distinct from the Logos. The Mediator, further, must be connected with both parties. The Man Christ is consubstantial with man and with God: by His humanity He is the born Head of mankind; by His Divinity He is the Only-Begotten of the Father and like unto the Father. “The head of every man is Christ … and the head of Christ is God” (1 Cor. 11:3). His mediatorship, then, is not accidental or delegated: it arises naturally from His personal constitution, which also makes Him the only, the universal and perfect, mediator between man and God.
II. Christ’s function as mediator necessarily proceeds from His human nature as principium quo operandi, yet it obtains its mediating efficacy from the Divine Nature, i.e. from the dignity of the acting Person. Its first object, as commonly stated, is the remission of sin and the granting of grace, whereby the friendship between God and man is restored. This object is attained by the worship of infinite value, which is offered to God by and through Christ. Christ, however, is mediator on the side of God as well as on the side of man: He reveals to man Divine truths and Divine commands; He distributes the Divine gifts of grace and rules the world. St. Paul sums up this two-sided mediation in the words, “Consider the apostle and high priest (pontificem, ἀρχιερέα) of our confession, Jesus” (Heb. 3:1). Jesus is the Apostle sent by God to us, the High Priest leading us on to God.
III. The fact of Christ’s existence is in itself a mediation, a bond, between the Creator and His creatures. By uniting our humanity to His Divinity, He united us to God and God to us. He is of God and in God, but He is also of us and in us. In Him we know, love, and worship God; God, on the other hand, pours out His supernatural gifts on the Head of our race, and through the Head on the members. A substantial—or, as the Fathers prefer to call it, a physical—union is thus effected between man and God. “That they all may be one, as Thou, Father, in Me and I in Thee.… I in them and Thou in Me, that they may be made perfect in one” (John 17:21–22) St. Thomas, 3, q. 26.
Seção 64% da obra, de A Manual of Catholic Theology (Wilhelm & Scannell, sobre a Dogmatik de Scheeben). Ver o original.