1. Salvation had been promised to Israel (and to the world) but Jesus alone received that promised salvation.
As we read in Acts 2:
“Men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs that God did through him in your midst, as you yourselves know— this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men. God raised him up, loosing the pangs of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by it. For David says concerning him,
“‘I saw the Lord always before me,
for he is at my right hand that I may not be shaken;
therefore my heart was glad, and my tongue rejoiced;
my flesh also will dwell in hope.
For you will not abandon my soul to Hades,
or let your Holy One see corruption.
You have made known to me the paths of life;
you will make me full of gladness with your presence.’“Brothers, I may say to you with confidence about the patriarch David that he both died and was buried, and his tomb is with us to this day. Being therefore a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him that he would set one of his descendants on his throne, he foresaw and spoke about the resurrection of the Christ, that he was not abandoned to Hades, nor did his flesh see corruption. This Jesus God raised up, and of that we all are witnesses. Being therefore exalted at the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he has poured out this that you yourselves are seeing and hearing. For David did not ascend into the heavens, but he himself says,
“‘The Lord said to my Lord,
Sit at my right hand,
until I make your enemies your footstool.’Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified.”
2. Jesus endurance on the cross required and exemplified his faith in God his Father.
Hebrews 11-12.4:
Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. For by it the people of old received their commendation. By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible. By faith… And all these, though commended through their faith, did not receive what was promised, since God had provided something better for us, that apart from us they should not be made perfect. Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted. In your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood.
From 1 Peter 2:
Servants, be subject to your masters with all respect, not only to the good and gentle but also to the unjust. For this is a gracious thing, when, mindful of God, one endures sorrows while suffering unjustly. For what credit is it if, when you sin and are beaten for it, you endure? But if when you do good and suffer for it you endure, this is a gracious thing in the sight of God. For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his steps. He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth. When he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly. He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed. For you were straying like sheep, but have now returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls.
From 1 Peter 2:
Now who is there to harm you if you are zealous for what is good? But even if you should suffer for righteousness’ sake, you will be blessed. Have no fear of them, nor be troubled, but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect, having a good conscience, so that, when you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ may be put to shame. For it is better to suffer for doing good, if that should be God’s will, than for doing evil. For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit
Of course, Jesus, being sinless, never intrinsically needed salvation or righteousness. But having joined us under the wrath of God, and taken our place in feeling the full curse on sin, he trusted God to vindicate him and God proved trustworthy. Thus, in Christ we have the sum and substance of our salvation. In him we get the salvation we do not deserve because he took the curse on sin that he did not deserve.
Mark,
Why was God the Father angry with God the Son?
In the peace of Christ,
– Bryan
Mark,
The Fathers understood the wrath as the curse of sin, which is death, not as God the Father being angry at God the Son. On the cross, in His Passion and death, Christ experienced through His human nature precisely what the curse is (suffering and death), even while God the Father continued to perfectly love the Son. Nothing came between the Father and Son. Nor could anything come between them, since they are consubstantial. The notion that God the Father could be angry at His Son (who is His perfect image) implies Arianism, i.e. that the Son is not the same being as the Father.
Traditionally, propitiation is understood in terms of making satisfaction, giving to God something more pleasing than all our sin was displeasing. Not as God the Father as taking out His anger on His Son. See Matthew Levering’s book Christ’s Fulfillment of Torah and Temple: Salvation According to Thomas Aquinas. Christ’s statement while on the cross doesn’t mean that God the Father was angry with the Son, but that God the Father had allowed Christ to be handed over to His enemies, something that He had never allowed before.
Traditionally as well, the Son always retained the Beatific Vision. Hence He never had faith, because faith is possible only in the absence of sight, and the Beatific Vision is seeing God the Father. So from a Catholic point of view, it is impossible for Christ to be “saved by faith” because it is impossible for Christ to need salvation, and it is impossible for Christ to have faith.
In the peace of Christ,
– Bryan
Bryan, Jesus joined the human race in its curse. He experienced the wrath of God especially on the cross. Beyond that, I don’t know what to say. Jesus certainly seemed to feel that God was mad at him, but I don’t think He was (any more than he was mad at Job).
Is dissing propitiation demanded by your Roman Catholic agenda? I’m resistant to assuming that Roman Catholicism requires anything so unbiblical, but you probably know something I don’t.
God’s “anger” is simply a way to speak of His love as it encounters sin. It is what happens when God’s righteousness has to get down to business.
That’s all.
1. I’ll believe what the Fathers say when I read it for myself, Bryan.
2. God was not angry with Jesus but well-pleased with him.
3. “My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me?” is not the question of someone basking in the beautific vision, whatever that is.
4. We agree that Jesus suffered the curse in his suffering and death.
5. But that means that, while he suffered and died through his human nature, it was God and no one else who suffered and died. (Theotokos is true and so is Theopaschite)
6. I don’t know what I think of your traditional understanding of propitiation (including whether it is traditional) but it does seem odd to admit that Christ suffered the curse and then not include it in the definition (or at least this Biblical instance of) propitiation. There is a nominal impulse (both Reformed and perhaps pre-Reformation) that claims God could have accepted Jesus’ stubbing his toe as propitiation, or dispensed with Jesus altogether. I’m wanting to avoid that.
7. It seems to me that the point of Arianism was to protect deity from being contaminated by earthly life. And it makes me wonder if the charge couldn’t be reversed or else nestorianism take its place. That said, since the Father knew his son was not personally guilty of anything, I don’t see how he could be personally angry with him. It pleased God to bruise him; that is about all that needs to be said.
8. Jesus never needed to become incarnate so the term “need” here needs to be qualified. But resurrection from death and glorification is our final salvation and Jesus received it first. He was condemned by his enemies as you say, and then rescued from them and from death itself. So I don’t see how you can discount that Jesus was saved.
9. And it is perfectly possible for Christ to trust God.
10. While I’m sure you know much, I really doubt you are qualified to speak for the alleged “Catholic point of view” on the topic of this post.
Mark,
I agree that it was God the Son who died, through His human nature. The curse is connected to propitiation because through Christ’s obedience even unto death (suffering the Adamic curse), Christ made His life a sacrifice of love to the Father. The greater the sacrifice, the greater the love (all other things being equal). And by suffering the curse (not the Father’s wrath for the Person of the Son or even for the Son’s human nature, in which there was no concupiscence, but the withdrawal of the preternatural gifts of impassibility and immortality that Adam and Eve had originally enjoyed), Christ was able to give a superabundant gift of love to His Father, i.e. the sacrifice of “obedience unto death”, laying down his life for-us-for-His-Father, an act, says Jesus, than which there is “no greater love” (John 15:13), pleasing the Father, and in His human nature superabundantly meriting grace for us. (In His divine nature He cannot merit.) In this way He made propitiation for us, by offering to the Father something more pleasing (i.e. His sacrifice of love) to the Father than all our sin is displeasing.
Jesus, in His human nature, was rescued from death, in the resurrection. But He, being God, resurrected Himself. See Summa Theologica III Q.53 a.4. Typically we speak of salvation as being by someone else. But in the resurrection, Christ ‘saves’ Himself (precisely what those taunting Him urged Him to do while He was hanging on the cross), by reuniting His soul and body. Only the God-man could do that, because only God can do that.
I won’t debate whether I’m qualified to say what is the Catholic position on Christ having the vision of God. I’ll just point to the evidence. See Mystici Corporis Christi, 75. See also Haurietis aquas, 56. See also John Paul II’s Apostolic Letter of 2000 titled Novo millennio ineunte, nos. 26-27. See also St. Maximus the Confessor, Questions and Doubts, no. 66, cited in no. 473 of the Catechism. The claim that there is true ignorance in Christ’s human soul was condemned by Eulogius (Catholic patriarch of Alexandria), and by Stephanus and Sophronius (bishops of Jerusalem), as belonging to the heresy of Paul of Samosota. Eulogius’ condemnation of the “agnoite” heresy was confirmed by Pope St. Gregory the Great (cf. Denzinger 248). St. Basil, St. Jerome, and St. Augustine all denied that ignorance could be affirmed of Christ’s human intellect. (See St. Basil’s Epistle 236, St. Jerome’s Epistle 36 ad Damasum). St. Fulgentius says the same (Epistle 14 to Ferrandus, no. 29-30). St. Anselm agrees (Cur Deus Homo, II.13). St. Thomas Aquinas argues in <a href="http://www.newadvent.org/summa/4010.htm"Summa Theologica III Q.10 a.2, that Christ, in His human soul, knew all things in the Word. Suarez (in his De Incarnatione) says the same. See also The Beatific Knowledge of Christ in the theology of the 12th and 13th Centuries (Rome: Catholic Book Agency, 1958), by William J. Forster. Professor Feingold presented a paper on this subject (pulling all this together) on October 24, 2008 at the Maritain Conference in Boston. (I was in the audience.) I don’t know if he has published it, but the title of his paper was “The Vision of God in Christ, Who Loved Me and Gave Himself for Me.”
In the peace of Christ,
– Bryan