The Passion of Christ; God's Greatest gift to mankind!

The Passion of Christ; God’s Greatest gift to mankind!

Of course many would surmise that his creation of humanity had to be the number one treasure since it was the gift of a living species that could think, create for himself, and give praise to his creator.  One would have to agree that in all of the universe nothing would ever compare with the words, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.”  (Gn 1: 26).

If we stop here with this statement of the Trinity, the reality of what the meaning of sin would entail since we know that the goodness of God’s love would be attacked by the evil that surely would become the adversary to mankind.  There had to be something that could overshadow even these attributes that man would have at his fingertips.  And because of the weaknesses man would inherit from the devil’s intervention those wonderful themes that men would create would end in disaster, through pride and selfishness.  

This of course is Sin!  Sin will bring death and without God’s grace to establish a manner to absolve the consequences of death God created one more gift that would overcome the eternal death of mankind; his own sacrifice to death!  

Death is a consequence of sin.  The Church’s Magisterium, as authentic interpreter of the affirmations of Scripture and Tradition, teaches that death entered the world on account of man’s sin.  Even though man’s nature is mortal, God had destined him not to die.  Death was therefore contrary to the plans of God the Creator and entered the world as a consequence of sin.  “Bodily death, from which man would have been immune had he not sinned” is thus “the last enemy” of man left to be conquered.  (CCC 1008).

Disfigured by sin and death, man remains “In the image of the Son”, but is deprived “of the glory of God,” of his likeness.”  The promise made to Abraham inaugurated the economy of salvation, at the culmination of which the Son himself will assume that “image” and restore it in the Father’s “likeness” by giving it again its Glory, the Spirit who is “the giver of life.”  (CCC 705).

Why then, the question on the minds of theologians, as well as the normal man, did God ever create mankind that was to be “in his image, after his likeness?”  Because God is so loving he would create a species that could imitate himself through love and compassion.  That would only become a direct imitation of his own Passion where no other sacrifice could ever erase the evil that sin created in man.

All sin is a direct connection to eternal death.  The Paschal mystery has two aspects: by his death, Christ liberates us from sin; by his Resurrection, he opens for us the way to a new life.  This new life is above all justification that reinstates us in God’s grace, “so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.”  Justification consists in both victory over the death caused by sin and a new participation in grace.  It brings about final adoption so that men become Christ’s brethren, as Jesus himself called his disciples after his Resurrection: “Go and tell my brethren.”  We are brethren not by nature, but by the gift of grace, because that adoptive filiation gains us a real share in the life of the only Son, which was fully revealed in his Resurrection.  (CCC 654).

Good Friday; the day of retribution bought and paid for our sins:  Easter Sunday; the moment that fulfilled the promise God made to the prophet Isaiah:  “If he gives his life as an offering for sin, he shall see his descendants in a long life, and the will of the Lord shall be accomplished through him.  Because of his affliction he shall see the light in fullness of days; Through his suffering, my servant shall justify many, and their guilt he shall bear.  Therefore I will give him his portion among the great, and he shall divide the spoils with the mighty, Because he surrendered himself to death and was counted among the wicked; And he shall take away the sins of many, and win pardon for their offenses.  (Is 53: 10 - 12).

Ralph B. Hathaway