Copyright © 2006 By Doug Lawrence. All Rights Reserved.
Catechism Of The Catholic Church Reprinted With Permission.
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God’s Truth From The Catechism Of The Catholic Church – cont.
Taking into account the fact that our sins affect Christ himself,
390
the Church does not hesitate to
impute to Christians the gravest responsibility for the torments inflicted upon Jesus, a responsibility
with which they have all too often burdened the Jews alone:
We must regard as guilty all those who continue to relapse into their sins. Since
our sins made the Lord Christ suffer the torment of the cross, those who plunge
themselves into disorders and crimes crucify the Son of God anew in their hearts
(for he is in them) and hold him up to contempt. And it can be seen that our crime
in this case is greater in us than in the Jews.
As for them, according to the witness of the Apostle, "None of the rulers of this age
understood this; for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory."
We, however, profess to know him. And when we deny him by our deeds, we in
some way seem to lay violent hands on him.
391
Nor did demons crucify him; it is you who have crucified him and crucify him still,
when you delight in your vices and sins.
392
II. CHRIST'S REDEMPTIVE DEATH IN GOD'S PLAN OF SALVATION
"Jesus handed over according to the definite plan of God"
599 Jesus' violent death was not the result of chance in an unfortunate coincidence of
circumstances, but is part of the mystery of God's plan, as St. Peter explains to the Jews of
Jerusalem in his first sermon on Pentecost: "This Jesus [was] delivered up according to the definite
plan and foreknowledge of God."
393
This Biblical language does not mean that those who handed
him over were merely passive players in a scenario written in advance by God.
394
600 To God, all moments of time are present in their immediacy. When therefore he establishes
his eternal plan of "predestination", he includes in it each person's free response to his grace: "In
this city, in fact, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel,
gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, to do whatever your hand
and your plan had predestined to take place."
395
For the sake of accomplishing his plan of
salvation, God permitted the acts that flowed from their blindness.
396
"He died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures"
601 The Scriptures had foretold this divine plan of salvation through the putting to death of "the
righteous one, my Servant" as a mystery of universal redemption, that is, as the ransom that would
free men from the slavery of sin.
397
Citing a confession of faith that he himself had "received", St.
Paul professes that "Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures."
398
In particular
Jesus' redemptive death fulfills Isaiah's prophecy of the suffering Servant.
399
Indeed Jesus himself
explained the meaning of his life and death in the light of God's suffering Servant.
400
After his
Resurrection he gave this interpretation of the Scriptures to the disciples at Emmaus, and then to
the apostles.
401
"For our sake God made him to be sin"
602 Consequently, St. Peter can formulate the apostolic faith in the divine plan of salvation in this
way: "You were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your fathers. . . with the precious
blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot. He was destined before the foundation
of the world but was made manifest at the end of the times for your sake."
402
Man's sins, following
on original sin, are punishable by death.
403
By sending his own Son in the form of a slave, in the
form of a fallen humanity, on account of sin, God "made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in
him we might become the righteousness of God."
404
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