Sect. 205The Salvation of MankindThe Salvation of Mankind

I. Christ came into this world to work out the salvation of mankind (Matt. 1:21; Heb. 5:9; “Who for our salvation came down from Heaven,” Nicene Creed). His salvation is announced by the Prophets as “life” and “health,” “peace,” “freedom,” and “justice”; in the New Testament it is described as “life eternal,” “grace,” “holiness,” and “heirship of the sons of God.” On its negative side it is spoken of as “redemption,” “ransom,” “deliverance from sin,” and all the consequences of sin (λύτρωσις, ἀπολύτρωσις, redemptio). Its positive side is the reconciliation of the sinner with God (κατάλλαξις, ἀποκατάλλαξις, reconciliatio), or the restitution of man to his original state of friendship with God. “In Whom we have redemption (τὴν ἀπολύτρωσιν) through His blood, the remission of sins” (Eph. 1:7; cf. Col. 1:14). “We glory in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by Whom we have now received reconciliation (τὴν καταλλαγὴν)” (Rom. 5:11 to the end). Daniel (9:24) prophesies the remission of sins and the reconciliation with God conjointly. Salvation, then, as wrought by the Redeemer, is the raising up of mankind from spiritual death unto supernatural life, a translation from sin to sanctity. The infusion of life into the dry bones of the plain in the vision of Ezechiel (37), and the sanctification of the people of Israel into a priestly kingdom (Exod. 19:6), were figures of our spiritual regeneration and sanctification. Mankind, regenerated and sanctified in Christ as its Head and Mediator, is the supernatural kingdom of God: the work of salvation is the perfect restitution of the supernatural order destroyed by sin. The order restored by Christ, according to many texts in the New Testament, is more perfect than the order (economy) of the Old Testament; more perfect even than that of the original state, especially as regards the communion of man with God and the perfection of God’s kingdom. “The dispensation of the fulness of time” in which the God-Man assumes the headship of all things, and gives man a share in the Divine Life, brings man and all things to their ultimate perfection (Eph. 1:10).

II. Christ working with God, or as the organ of God, is the cause, or principle, of Salvation: He “is made to us wisdom from God, and justice, and sanctification, and redemption” (1 Cor. 1:30). The question, however, arises: in what manner or form did He accomplish His work? Only they who deny Christ’s divinity, and the restoration by Him of the supernatural Economy of Salvation, will reduce His work to moral teaching and good example; for if such were the case, man would be his own saviour. Neither is it sufficient to say that Christ announced to man God’s will and willingness to save him, and confirmed the truth of this announcement by His death and Resurrection. This latter was the work entrusted to the Apostles, as St. Paul expressly teaches: “God hath reconciled us to Himself by Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation. For God, indeed, was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, … and He hath placed in us the word of reconciliation” (2 Cor. 5:18, 19). Scripture forces us to regard the work of the Saviour as a real, efficient cause of our salvation. His work partly replaces, partly completes, partly renders possible and efficacious, the saving work of man himself; on the other hand, it is a condition of, and merits, the saving work of God. It thus differs both from the purely human and from the purely Divine influence on our salvation: for it is a “mediation.”

III. Our redemption through Christ being a fundamental dogma of the Christian faith, and seldom directly assailed by heresy, the Church has but rarely formulated it authoritatively, and then only in general outlines. She has defined that Christ is the mediating cause of salvation, inasmuch as through His death, as a sin-offering, He has merited our salvation; and, making satisfaction for us to God, has blotted out sin. In other words, His merits and satisfaction, as being those of our Representative and Mediator, have obtained for us salvation from God. The oldest expression of the dogma is in the Nicene Creed: “crucified also for us” (pro nobis, ὑπερ ἡμῶν). The Council of Ephesus (Anath. x., xi.) speaks of the sacrifice of Christ as of a sin-offering; and the Creed of Toledo formally describes it as such (Denzinger, Enchiridion, n. xxvi.). Pope Eugenius IV. (Decr. pro Jacobitis) expressly mentions the “merit of the Mediator,” Who cancelled sin and opened heaven. The Council of Trent several times insists upon the merit of the Mediator; e.g. by the merit of the one Mediator original sin is taken away (sess. v. can. 3); the meriting cause (causa meritoria) of our justification is Christ, Who for us made satisfaction to God the Father (sess. vi. ch. 7). The terms “vicarious satisfaction,” “vicarious merit,” are not expressly found in the Church’s formularies; but their sense is sufficiently implied in the term “satisfaction for us” (pro nobis).

IV. 1. The dogma, as above formulated, forbids us to ascribe our salvation exclusively to either the power or the intercession of Christ glorified in heaven. It was His work on earth that saved man; in heaven He administers the fruits of His work on earth. “He sitteth at the right hand of God;” “always living to make intercession for us” (Col. 3:1; Heb. 7:25).

2. The work of the Saviour on earth was the obtaining of the good-will of God towards man. The first step was to appease the offended God. This He brought about by employing Himself on behalf of man, by interceding and intervening for him with God, in His quality of Mediator and perfect representative of mankind. Yet His work was more than a mere asking or intercession; it merited what it asked for, i.e. it was of such value before God that the salvation obtained is its rightful equivalent.

3. As Salvation implies remission of sin, the Mediator must take upon Himself the obligations or debt of the sinners, and make satisfaction for them to God. His work thus assumes the form of an Atonement or Expiation, by which He honours and pleases God more than sin had dishonoured and displeased Him.

4. The Atonement (expiation, satisfaction) for our sins, although a most essential part of Christ’s saving work, does not adequately represent this work. The Atonement is subordinate to, and co-ordinate with, the merit that purchases the Divine friendship. Apart from merit, atonement would be a bare punishment, or, at most, an appeasing of the Divine anger. Taken together as one organic whole, atonement and merit come under the general notion of Sacrifice; i.e. any action performed in order to give God the honour due to Him alone, and so to gain the Divine favour (St. Thomas, 3, q. 48, a. 3).

5. Both the satisfactory and the meritorious action must comply with the following three conditions: (a) The agent must be innocent and undefiled (Heb. 7:26), holy and pleasing to God: his holiness must be infinite if his satisfaction is to be perfect, (b) The action itself must be a work of justice (δικαίωμα, Rom. 5:18), as sin is a work of injustice; and a work of obedience opposed to the rebellion of the sinner against God’s will (Rom. 5:18). (c) Lastly, the action must be prompted by reverence for God’s majesty and law and by love for His goodness, in order to compensate for the sinner’s irreverence, lawlessness, and want of love. All of these conditions are fulfilled in Christ’s work. It is peculiar to the work of satisfaction that it should consist in voluntarily accepted suffering. Suffering inflicted on the sinner is the means by which God satisfies His outraged justice and re-establishes the violated order of things; hence, suffering is likewise the natural means of atonement. The sinner deserves death: having unfitted himself for the attainment of the bliss for which he was created, his further existence on earth is purposeless. Hence, Christ accepted death as the chief feature of His atonement. All this is fitly expressed by the technical term satispassio (atoning suffering) applied to the Saviour’s work. Although satisfaction and merit tend in different directions—the former aiming at paying off a debt, the latter at acquiring goods—yet satisfaction, even as such, cannot be adequately conceived without the element of merit. Satisfaction for sin implies, besides the reparation of the Divine Honour, the acquisition for the sinner of the grace of repentance, without which no sin can be remitted, and the reacquisition of supernatural habitual justice, which every man is under obligation to possess. Now, God alone gives grace: therefore Christ’s satisfaction for us would be incomplete and imperfect if it did not merit the graces of repentance and of habitual justice. Like a true sacrifice, the work of the Saviour is expiatory (atoning), because it is at the same time sanctifying.

Christ gave Himself for us, and thus made Himself the objective means, the real price, of our Redemption. In the sacrifice of Himself (a) He willingly suffers the pain of death inflicted on mankind for their sins; (b) He humbles and empties Himself to atone for the sinner’s disobedience, to pay to God the greatest honour, and to merit grace for man; (c) He substitutes His innocent life for the life of man forfeited by sin. In the sacrifices of the Old Testament, animals were indeed substituted for man; but Christ’s substitution is far more perfect, for His life is a human life anointed with Divinity. Thus the Sacrifice of Christ contains vicarious satisfaction (atonement) for our sins, and also the purchase-price (merit) of our salvation.

The word Redemption—the classic term for Christ’s work—expresses the purchase (emptio) of the freedom of man from the captivity of sin, and the repurchase (redemptio) for him of the liberty of the Sons of God; in other words, the transfer of man from the servitude of the devil to the liberty of the kingdom of God. In order not to misunderstand this “purchase from the devil at the price of Christ’s blood,” we must look upon Satan as a tyrant, holding unlawful possession of man, whom the Redeemer conquers by destroying the cause that delivered man into his power. The ransom of the slave is not paid to the unjust tyrant, but to the lawful master, as an indemnity for the injustice he suffered.

V. The various elements of the work of Christ which appear in the above analysis, are an exact reflection of the doctrine of Scripture. Scripture calls the work of Redemption a sacrifice, a sacrifice of propitiation, and generally applies to it the sacrificial terminology of the Old Testament: Christ is the High-priest of the New Testament, Who offers Himself as victim (hostia), and His action is termed oblation. Now the bloody sacrifices of the old law were certainly offered as sacrifices for sin: the sinner acknowledged that his life had been forfeited to God, and begged Him to accept, instead, the blood (“in which is the life”) of the victim (Lev. 17:11). The idea of substitution is especially clear in the laying of hands on the head of the victim, by which rite the victim was made the bearer of the sin of the offerer (Lev. 16:21). This idea of atonement, of which the old sacrifices were but symbols, was truly realized in the sacrifice of Christ (Heb. 10:1 sqq.), the only true priest, who not only symbolized, but effected our reconciliation with God. The Epistle to the Hebrews often insists on Christ’s priesthood (5:10; 6:20; 7:1–21; 9:11, 15, and 24–28; 10:1–22). The victim is Himself (Heb. 9:14–26), His Body and Blood (10:10; 9:14), which He offered on the Cross, where the real sacrificial act was completed (9:25 sqq.). St. Paul, too, says: “Christ hath loved us, and has delivered Himself for us, an oblation and a sacrifice to God, for an odour of sweetness (παρέδωκεν ἑαυτὸν ὑπὲρ ἡμῶν προσφορὰν καὶ θυσίαν τῷ Θεῷ εἰς ὀσμὴν εὐωδίας)” (Eph. 5:2; cf. 1 Cor. 5:7; Rom. 3:25). “Jesus Christ is the propitiation (ἱλασμός) for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for those of the whole world” (1 John 2:2; 4:10). Besides these direct testimonies, we have numerous passages in which to the Blood of Christ (shed in His death) are ascribed all the effects of the blood shed in the ancient sacrifices. The Blood of Christ is our ransom, λύτρον, ἀντίλυτρον (Eph. 1:7; Col. 1:14; 1 Pet. 1:19; Apoc. 5:9); our reconciliation with the Father (Col. 1:20; cf. Eph. 2:13–15); our justification (Rom. 5:9); the remission of our sins (Matt. 26:28); the cleansing of sin (1 John 1:7; Apoc. 1:5; 7:14; 22:14); the blood of a new testament with God (1 Cor. 11:25; 1 Pet. 1:2). In the same manner the death of Christ is given as our reconciliation (Rom. 5:10), and our redemption from sin (Heb. 9:15). The doctrine so clearly set forth in these passages, leaves no doubt as to the sense of the texts where Christ is said to have shed His Blood, or died, “for many,” “for all,” “for sinners,” “for us” (Matt. 26:28; 20:28; 1 Tim. 2:6; Rom. 5:6; 2 Cor. 5:14 sqq.; 1 Thess. 5:10). In most of these places the word ὑπὲρ (for) is used (not ἀντὶ =in the place of), which, adhering to the letter, may be interpreted “on behalf of,” and thus seems to weaken the vicarious import of Christ’s sacrifice. Ἀντὶ, however, is used in Matt. 20:28 (δοῦναι τὴν ψυχὴν αὐτοῦ λύτρον ἀντὶ πολλῶν), and 1 Tim. 2:14 (ἀντίλυτρον), and this, in connection with the above distinct doctrine, shows that ὑπὲρ has the sense of ἀντὶ. (See Liddell and Scott, sub voce). Then it is not easy to conceive how Christ died “on our behalf” if He did not die “instead of us.” The idea of vicarious sacrifice is also to the fore in the testimony of the Baptist calling Christ the Lamb that beareth or taketh away the sins of the world (with reference to Isaias 53); in 2 Cor. 5:21: “Christ Who knew no sin, God hath made sin (ἁμαρτίαν) for us,” i.e. treated Him as bearing our sin; and in Gal. 3:13: “Christ being made a curse (κατάρα) for us,” i.e. the object of the Divine anger which we deserved. The term Redemption itself carries with it a sacrificial notion (Lev. 27:27–33; Num. 18:15–17). The prophet Isaias most distinctly shows the vicarious character of the Redeemer’s work: “He hath borne our infirmities and carried our sorrows … 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. The Lord hath laid upon Him the iniquity of us all. He was offered because it was His own will … the Lord was pleased to bruise Him in infirmity: He shall lay down His life for sin [Hebrew, ‘as an offering for sin’] … He hath borne the sins of many, and He hath paid for the transgressors” (Isa. 53, et passim).

VI. The possibility and appropriateness of Christ’s vicarious satisfaction are objected to upon the ground of difficulties as to each of its three actors: God, Christ, Man.

1. Rationalists object to the idea of a God who takes offence at the acts of a being infinitely below Him; a God who gets angry and remains angry until satisfaction is forthcoming. This objection charges God with mutability, and with a certain pettiness of character. We have sufficiently answered the first part in sect. 65. As to the second, it is not below God’s dignity to rule even the minutest actions of His creatures according to His Holiness, Justice, and Mercy. The idea of petty revengefulness is completely excluded by the infinite mercy which God holds out to the sinner in order to facilitate his salvation. The very satisfaction which He requires is His own free gift, the sinner “being justified freely by His grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus” (Rom. 3:24).

2. “Satisfaction must be given by the offender, and not by a third person: vicarious satisfaction implies the punishment of the just for the unjust.” Answer: In the economy of salvation the sinner is bound to give personal satisfaction: if he does not, his lot is damnation. Christ was not punished instead of the sinner, nor against His own will as sinners are punished: by the holiest of free acts He bore the penalties of sin in order to merit for the sinner a means of satisfying which lay beyond human power. His vicarious satisfaction is not the transfer of punishment from the unjust to the just, but the transfer of the merits of the just to the unjust.

On the whole of this section, see St. Thomas, 3, qq. 48 and 49.