How did Jesus save us?

[DanteAlighieri]

Thank you, everyone, for all your replies. It’s really helped me to begin my understanding. It seems I have a LOT to learn. You would never know I was baptized Catholic as an infant with how little I really know

Don’t feel so bad! I, too, am a cradle Catholic who has learned more in the last 12 years than I did in my first 20. It alarms me sometimes how little I know, and it troubles me that there are so many Catholics who know less.

The best thing you or I can do is to keep educating ourselves in the faith. This forum is a good resource, but go buy yourself a copy of the Catechism. Write down your questions and post them here, or ask your confessor or someone you know who is knowledgeable.

To paraphrase scripture, much is expected of those who are given wisdom and knowledge. You’ve been given the gift of intellectual curiosity – use it!

Peace,
Dante

 

[Anna_Elizabeth]

There is a principle at work that is present in the work of salvation by God. It is that there is no forgiveness of sin without the shedding of blood. The first time we see this principle at work is after Adam and Eve sinned, they covered themselves with leaves and later God covered them with animal skins. Here we see an example of the slaying of life and the shedding of blood in order to cover mans shame. Later we see the role of sacrifice in the story of Cain and Abel. Abel’s was the fitting sacrifice because it came through the shedding of blood. Cain’s did not and so was not satisfactory to God. Throughout the Old Testament we see again and again the role of blood sacrifice (such as that of a lamb etc.) as atonement for sin and as a sign of covenant between God and Man. This means of atonement and covenant between God and man was fulfilled and perfected in the sacrifice of Christ on the cross and is entered into at every sacrifice of the mass.

Through sin man incurs an infinite dept because he has committed an offence against an infinite being, God. Man being finite cannot pay the infinite dept that he owes in order to have his sins remitted. Therefore an infinite being, God, had to become a man to pay a dept God did not owe but that man could not pay. Through the mystery of incarnation Christ became man for this purpose in order for man to be redeemed and be able to enter into eternal life with God. That’s why we call Jesus the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

Oh, refugio, I have tried to explain this to so many people, and especially I have tried to convince my liturgy committee that understanding this is absolutely necessary to understanding everything in salvation history!!! Ironically, Vatican II requested greater understanding of the faith, but almost no one describes the role of the bloody sacrifice (and of a lamb - or at least a ram ), that culminates in the sacrifice of the “unblemished,” “no bones broken” sacrifice of the Lamb of God!

Unfortunately, when I try to find out just why blood was necessary in the first place, I can’t really get an answer that serves. I have a problem with the “covering the shame” reason you suggest, but admittedly it WAS the first bloody sacrifice.

I do thank you, and I wonder if you can suggest any materials besides Scott Hahn’s that elaborate on this covenant and atonement explanation?

Anna

 

[Ruben]

Hi Anna, this might help. From Fulton Sheen.

From Sin is in the Blood:
(See bolow link.)

“What is the ultimate basis of the remission of sin? This is a question that we have to answer if we are to understand our priesthood. The answer is given in the 22nd verse of chapter nine of the Epistle to the Hebrews. “Without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sin.”

semperficatholic.com/page30.html

 

[Anna_Elizabeth]

Hi Anna, this might help. From Fulton Sheen.

From Sin is in the Blood:
(See bolow link.)

“What is the ultimate basis of the remission of sin? This is a question that we have to answer if we are to understand our priesthood. The answer is given in the 22nd verse of chapter nine of the Epistle to the Hebrews. “Without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sin.”

semperficatholic.com/page30.html

Thanks, Ruben. That helps! Anna

 

[ElleJ]

Oh my goodness, thank you, ALL of you! I just love this forum and learning from all of you. I actually do have a copy of the Catechism. I originally bought it so that I would have quick answers for the students in my CCD class because sometimes they come out with some good questions that I don’t know the answers to. I have a few books too that help a lot. Catholicism for Dummies is one I particularly like because it describes the very basics, and The How-To Book of the Mass is an excellent resource.

I have learned so much from all of you. I don’t post hardly at all because, well, I don’t ever think I could actually contribute a knowledgeable answer that I would consider helpful to anyone, but I sure do learn a lot, and I thank you

 

[emrys250]

I found an article that answers this question nicely while providing an interesting history lesson. And it’s 100% Catholic:
newadvent.org/cathen/02055a.htm
Like you, ElleJ, it seems that many theologians have speculated about this question!

 

[alexaustralia]

Hi all,

I’ve always found insufficient the “God required blood” thought of mind (and its variations) regarding salvation/justification

God’s love for humanity has never been impeded by sin (i.e. while still sinners the Incarnation occurred precisely because he loved us). God the Father did not sacrifice his Son so He could love us, Jesus died so we would realise how much he already loved us. However, although sin is powerless against God’s love, the same cannot be said about us. Sin does impede our love for God and only through Jesus can we defeat sin, hence the reason for the incarnation and his redemptive grace in our lives.
The idea that God the judge required to inflict the just punishment for sin and that that punishment was suffered by Christ, I believe to be flawed. The reason is that the just punishment for sin is not death but complete AND eternal separation from God. I believe that through Jesus we see both his love for humanity as God and his love for God as man, both through the act of obedience to the will of the Father (after all the just requirement of the law is the complete obedience to God). I think God could have simply redeemed us from heaven if that was his choosing but obviously it wasn’t. Animal sacrifice, bloody offerings and the like were definitely chosen by God as pointers to the ultimate sacrifice that Jesus was to undertake but I believe the reasons for these means to demonstrate his love are much deeper than mere “balancing of the accounts” between good and evil in a sort of juridical setting.

Alex

 

[Ruben]

We are definitely reflecting on deep mystery no doubt about it. That the blood of Jesus is required as the means of our salvation implies a very deep mystery that ultimately was conceived in the mind of God from eternity.

The Church teaching is not so much that God requires blood. It is the washing away of our sins and our eternal salvation that requires it ([God] “…washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb” - Rev. 7:14). It is for us that Christ’s blood was shed. In the natural order blood is life-giving. The separation of blood from the body represents death. A body separated from its blood dies. Christ died in order to enter fully into humanity for the purpose that humanity would be able to enter into Christ’s divinity. In the supernatural order Christ’s blood is life-giving and this life is his sanctifying grace. There is no other way to enter into God’s divinity except through the sacrificial death of Jesus. God deigned this from eternity. We enter into this mystery at every “sacrifice of the mass” where we recieve his body, blood, soul and divinity through Holy Communion.

There is also represented in the practice of our faith another dimension to how we enter into Christ’s redemptive sacrifice, gain its merits and enter into the life of Christ, into his mystical body. It’s true that Christ’s death sufficiently merited our salvation and his blood does cleanse our sins, but there is a requirement for us as well. It is that **we **“die” daily (“Take Up Your Cross and Follow Me.” Mark 8: 34). We die to our lower nature (we die to our pride, we die to our avarice, we die to our lust…) which is to say we die to our fallen sinful nature. We die to our sins (mortification) through repentance so that we may live in Christ (I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me - Galatians 2:20).

Most certainly it was out of his supreme love for us that God gave his only son and through Christ’s sacrifice we are redeemed. It’s true there are deep meanings we can meditate on other then just the idea of the “balancing of the accounts”, but we must acknowledge that God does reconcile in strict justice as well as with his infinite mercy. The wages of sin is death and no other death could satisfy that dept other then Christ’s death. This is taught by the Church herself.