What EXACTLY did Christ accomplish?

[OnTheRock]

I’m trying to understand precisely how and to what nature our Atonement was merited by the Sacrifice on Calvary.

I keep hearing, “Ransom”, “Redemption”, “Atonement” and “In Our Place”, with very little explanation given to the meanings, consequences, and basis of each idea, let alone which is genuinely Catholic.

It seems that RCC and NCC have conflicting views on the Theory of Atonement, with RCCs suggesting that Christ paid the ransom to free us from the bondage of sin, while NCCs suggesting that Christ suffered and died “in our place” (usher in the “Saved” theology). The views appear contradictory because a ransom would not provide a guarantee whereas a penal substitution atonement would. However, I’ve heard from multiple sources that RCCs and NCCs are supposed to hold similar views on the matter. This doesn’t add up for me.

Furthermore, when I analyze both sides, I find the NCC theory to fall to reason; among other things, Jesus could not have “suffered for us” (I.e. in our place) because this would entail an eternal separation from God in Hell, which is impossible because of the Oneness of their nature.

However, it would seem that the NCC theory is suggested by Scripture whereas I find little support for the RCC theory. Such verses as the Suffering Servant in Isaiah imply that Jesus is suffering so that we don’t have to, “our sufferings that he endured” (Isaiah 53:4).

I also have a footnote in my NAB on Leviticus 17:11 speaking of sacrifices for atonement, “Since the life of a living body is in its blood, I have made you put it one the altar, so that atonement may thereby be made for your own lives, because it is the blood, as the seat of life, that makes atonement” with the footnote reading “That atonement may thereby be made for your own lives: hence, the sacrifice of an animal was a symbolic act which substituted the victim’s life for the life of the offerer, who thus acknowledged that he deserved God’s punishments for his sins.”

If this sacrifice of the lamb in the OT was a prefigurement of the Sacrifice of Jesus, then would it not fall to reason that Jesus acted in our place? But then of course, I have difficulty understanding that Jesus suffered in our stead, and yet we must still suffer, die, and possibly pay the price of eternal damnation.

If anyone is able, I would like to understand this in terms of the Paschal Sacrifice, as well as what is individually taught by both Catholics and Protestants. A strong Biblical, historical, and well reasoned explanation is what I’m looking for

I hope I haven’t misrepresented anyone’s beliefs. I’m still learning here

 

[Barbkw]

Do you already have a good understanding of Judaism’s Passover ceremonies and their one Holy Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur)?

It’s perhaps better, to look at humanity in terms of God’s attempts to provide His children the way to eternal salvation.

Rather like our own attempts at herding cats

 

[Barbkw]

I was listening to a program on EWTN this morning from Franciscan University, they were discussing the various prefigurement sacrifices that surrounded the lives of various Biblical patriarchs:

Abraham (stopping the sacrifice of Isaac to create a new family of believers)
Joseph (sacrifice in the well and in slavery to eventually save his family & Egypt from starvation)
Moses (sacrifice of him as a baby to eventually save the Israelites from slavery)

P.S. What is the NCC?

 

[nickybr38]

Someone once explained it to me like this:

Early in the Old Testament mankind (or rather certain members OF mankind) make a covenant with God. Once a covenant has been made only DEATH can break it. So either mankind (that particular family of mankind anyway) had to die to break the covenant or God did. The problem is mankind broke the covenant over and over and when you break the covenant you have to be punished (that’s just how a covenant works). God got tired of punishing His people.

So He had two options. Either He Himself had to die, or they did. Thus Jesus was sent (fully God, fully man) to die, and to effectively break the covenant so that a new covenant, a gentler (perhaps) covenant could be entered into.

We become one of the covenanted people when we are baptised and are thus subject to the rewards and punishments of the covenant.

I don’t know. It made perfect sense to me when I heard it but I suck at explaining it. Haha.

What Jesus accomplished was to set the people free from the old covenant (and thus free from the rather harsh punishments they’d racked up) but also to establish a new covenant with a new people (new in heart, I’d say).

I don’t know. Sorry if that made no sense at all, maybe someone’s heard this theory before and can explain it better then I’ve done?

 

[rdscheirer]

Great post Nickybr38- the story comes full circle if you look at God asking to sacrifice Issac on Mount Moriah-which is under the dome of the rock on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem- Jesus was sacrificed on Golgotha- just a few steps from Moriah- to complete the circle that Abraham didn’t need to kill his son-even though that practice was prevalent in his community- sacrifice the firstborn to the gods.

 

[NYTony]

I think all of us have struggled with this at one time or another OntheRock. This passage by Archbishop Sheen has helped me in the past.

"The one note that kept ringing through His life was His death and glory. It was for that that He came primarily. Hence the night before His death, He gave to His Apostles something which on dying no one else could ever give, namely, Himself. Only divine wisdom could have conceived such a Memorial! Humans, left to themselves, might have spoiled the drama of His Redemption. They might have done two things with His death which would have fallen so short of the Way of Divinity. They might have regarded His redemptive death as a drama presented once in history like the assassination of Lincoln. In that case, it would have been only an incident, not a redemption. The tragic end of a man, not the salvation of humanity. Regrettably, this is the way so many look upon the Cross of Christ, forgetting His Resurrection and the pouring-out of the merits of His Cross in the Memorial action He ordered and commanded. In such case, His death would be only like a national Memorial Day and nothing more.

Or they might have regarded it as a drama which was played only once, but one which ought often to be recalled only through meditating on its details. In this case, they would go back and read the accounts of the drama critiva who lived at the time, namely, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. This would be only a literary recall of His death, as Plato records the death of Socrates, and would have made the death of our Lord no different from the death of any other man.

Our Lord never told anyone to write about His Redemption, but He did tell His Apostles to renew it, apply it, commemorate it, prolong it by obeying His orders given at the Last Supper. He wanted the great drama of Calvary to be played not once, but for every age of His own choosing. He wanted men not to be readers about His Redemption, but actors in it; offering up their body and blood with His in the re-enactment of Calvary, saying with Him, “This is my body and this is my blood”; dying to their lower natures to live to grace; saying that they cared not for the appearance or species of their lives such as their family relationships, jobs, duties, physical appearance, or talents, but that their intellects, their wills, their substance, all that they truly were, would be changed into Christ; that the Heavenly Father looking down on them would see them in His Son, see their sacrifices massed in His sacrifice, their mortifications incorporated with his death, so that eventually they might share in His glory.

 

[OnTheRock]

Thank you all, I really appreciate the help.

Note: I thought that “NCC” could abreviate “Non-Catholic Christian”, but I am certainly no forum buff

Going off of what nickybr38 said,

He had two options. Either He Himself had to die, or they did. Thus Jesus was sent (fully God, fully man) to die, and to effectively break the covenant so that a new covenant, a gentler (perhaps) covenant could be entered into.

I understand that God would have created the Old Covenant in such a way that we would need Him to send His Son. And so He did. But where I get lost is the precise way that this was accomplished. Maybe I could explain better with some scenarios…

A) God must enact His perfect justice upon the world for their sin, which would utterly destroy them. Thus, He sends Jesus to “become sin” and basically “take the hit” on the part of mankind, so that mankind doesn’t have to.

B) Mankind has incurred an infinite debt to God by means of Original Sin and general disobedience. Therefore, God sends Christ, an infinite being, on the behalf of Mankind to repay that debt and make Communion with Him a possibility again.

C) Mankind is enslaved to Sin and powerless without the Grace of and infinite sacrifice. Therefore, God sends Christ to pay the ransom for their release and merit for them the Grace necessary for them to return to Him.

I could probably come up with a couple more, but hopefully this better explains my confusion. Are any of these suggestions correct? Some? Even all? Am I totally off? I’m quite clueless here…

 

[DPMartin]

Thank you all, I really appreciate the help.

Note: I thought that “NCC” could abreviate “Non-Catholic Christian”, but I am certainly no forum buff

Going off of what nickybr38 said,

I understand that God would have created the Old Covenant in such a way that we would need Him to send His Son. And so He did. But where I get lost is the precise way that this was accomplished. Maybe I could explain better with some scenarios…

A) God must enact His perfect justice upon the world for their sin, which would utterly destroy them. Thus, He sends Jesus to “become sin” and basically “take the hit” on the part of mankind, so that mankind doesn’t have to.

B) Mankind has incurred an infinite debt to God by means of Original Sin and general disobedience. Therefore, God sends Christ, an infinite being, on the behalf of Mankind to repay that debt and make Communion with Him a possibility again.

C) Mankind is enslaved to Sin and powerless without the Grace of and infinite sacrifice. Therefore, God sends Christ to pay the ransom for their release and merit for them the Grace necessary for them to return to Him.

I could probably come up with a couple more, but hopefully this better explains my confusion. Are any of these suggestions correct? Some? Even all? Am I totally off? I’m quite clueless here…

OnTheRock

As Apostle Paul teaches, continue to meditate on these things and the Lord will bring you answer. In a manner that you will understand. Because in the final analysis, you are asking God how it is that He has done a thing. Hence in this does your relationship grow with and in Him.

It’s been my experience when you least expect it, the understanding hits you, and you know it can only be of the Lord. The Lord our God does not hid Himself from those who seek.

It seems the fundamentals are there, in your posting, but revelation is of God.

James:1:5: If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.

 

[tester]

from the OP:

Furthermore, when I analyze both sides, I find the NCC theory to fall to reason; among other things, Jesus could not have “suffered for us” (I.e. in our place) because this would entail an eternal separation from God in Hell, which is impossible because of the Oneness of their nature

.

If His presence is not there in hell, he sure is not omnipresent. There has to be some being above Him who is truly omnipresent.
Well. We know there’s no body is above GOD and He’s the only omnipresent GOD

Because God is omnipresent God’s presence is also in hell.

Hell is separation from the comfortable presence of God.

Hell is the unshielded experience of the presence of God in his holiness and just wrath, and the absence of his mercy and grace.

We need to realize that those who are in hell desire nothing more than the absence of God. They didn’t want to be in God’s presence during their earthly lives, and they certainly don’t want Him near when they’re in hell. The worst thing about hell is the presence of God there.

God is present in hell is His judgmental presence as R.C. Sproul puts it in simple terms as below.

“To be separated from God for eternity is no great threat to the impenitent person. The ungodly want nothing more than to be separated from God. Their problem in hell will not be separation from God, it will be the presence of God that will torment them. In hell, God will be present in the fullness of His divine wrath. He will be there to exercise His just punishment of the damned. They will know Him as an all-consuming fire.”

 

[maryj]

Maybe you can gleen some information out of this thread, quite interesting read
forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=474579

 

[CB_Catholic]

Someone once explained it to me like this:

Early in the Old Testament mankind (or rather certain members OF mankind) make a covenant with God. Once a covenant has been made only DEATH can break it. So either mankind (that particular family of mankind anyway) had to die to break the covenant or God did. The problem is mankind broke the covenant over and over and when you break the covenant you have to be punished (that’s just how a covenant works). God got tired of punishing His people.

So He had two options. Either He Himself had to die, or they did. Thus Jesus was sent (fully God, fully man) to die, and to effectively break the covenant so that a new covenant, a gentler (perhaps) covenant could be entered into.

We become one of the covenanted people when we are baptised and are thus subject to the rewards and punishments of the covenant.

I don’t know. It made perfect sense to me when I heard it but I suck at explaining it. Haha.

What Jesus accomplished was to set the people free from the old covenant (and thus free from the rather harsh punishments they’d racked up) but also to establish a new covenant with a new people (new in heart, I’d say).

I don’t know. Sorry if that made no sense at all, maybe someone’s heard this theory before and can explain it better then I’ve done?

I don’t think it was that Jesus “broke” the old covenant–he FULFILLED it, thus making it unnecessary for us to continue with the old system and enabling Him to establish a New Covenant. The scenario of the Transfiguration, in my mind, exemplifies this. Moses (representing the law) and Elijah (the prophets) are standing on the mount and Christ ascends to it and becomes transfigured–the Father speaks–saying “This is my beloved Son, listen to HIM.” IOW, now the Father has given us Jesus, the old covenant is now fulfilled in Him, He will establish a new one, and we are now to listen to the One who will establish it. We no longer need to observe the Law or look to the prophets because the One they spoke of and pointed to is now here. The old covenant is still there, but it’s terms have been fulfilled, it is no longer binding, and now we have a new one.

That’s how I understand it, anyway.

 

[Ignatius]

To put is as simply as possible; Christs life, death and resurrection accomplished the atonment for all sins which ever were or ever will be committed. He also gaves us an example of how we are to live, told us to live him and told us what to love him means. If you love him, you will do all that He commanded.

 

[Barbkw]

The Reformation split the terminology of salvation into so many fractured pieces of ideology, theology, terminology - all in the need to “set up shop” somewhere else.

Catholicism is actually so simple and yet spiritually it remains - even after 2,000 years - wrapped in the mystery of God.

Two simple actions are required - ask forgiveness in the Sacrament of Reconciliation from those actions that pull us away from closeness with Divinity. And then we receive in that Divine forgiveness and grace when we hear the priest’s words of absolution.

And secondly, to receive Christ into our heart, mind and soul, through the Eucharist.

We become the vessel through which Divinity touches humanity. And it changes us.

An amazing gift, for those who believe.

 

[maryj]

catholicintl.com/epologetics/articles/christiology/gibson-atonement2.htm

 

[Pax]

To the OP’s question:

Jesus accomplished what no other human being could do in providing redemption, atonement, and expiation for the sins of man. The most important thing to remember is that Jesus is both God and man. If he were not man, he could not offer a sacrifice on our behalf. Just as the man, Adam, fell in the garden and thus all men have inherited original sin, we needed a human champion to offer a sacrifice on our behalf.

No mere man could offer our infinite God a sacrifice of infinite value. Only God is capable of offering something of infinite value. It is for this reason that God became man, and thus a sacrifice of infinite value could be offered by a human being to God.

The non-Catholic teaching of penal substitution is simply false. One of the things that this doctrine does that is completely erroneous is to attribute to the saved an alien righteousness. In other words, sinners do not become truly righteous…they are only clothed in the righteousness of Christ. Man remains polluted and the Father simply looks at Jesus’s righteousness, and thus we are saved.

In truth, we do not receive an alien righteousness. We are, in fact, made righteous. Although there are many passages of scripture, especially in Paul’s writings that show that penal substitution is false, there is a favorite of mine that really brings home the Catholic view.

Romans 5:4 says:

For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so by one man’s obedience many will be made righteous.

The phrase “made righteous” is clearly ontological just as the fall is ontological.

The word “made” in Greek is “katestathesan” which refers to a real, actual, ontological change in the person’s soul. NOT merely legal declaration. The idea of penal substitution and imputed righteousness is simply false.

A talented Catholic poster on this forum known as Catholic Dude has written a great piece on the issue of penal substitution. I’ll post it later if he doesn’t wade in on the issue.

God bless.

 

[CB_Catholic]

To the OP’s question:

Jesus accomplished what no other human being could do in providing redemption, atonement, and expiation for the sins of man. The most important thing to remember is that Jesus is both God and man. If he were not man, he could not offer a sacrifice on our behalf. Just as the man, Adam, fell in the garden and thus all men have inherited original sin, we needed a human champion to offer a sacrifice on our behalf.

No mere man could offer our infinite God a sacrifice of infinite value. Only God is capable of offering something of infinite value. It is for this reason that God became man, and thus a sacrifice of infinite value could be offered by a human being to God.

The non-Catholic teaching of penal substitution is simply false. One of the things that this doctrine does that is completely erroneous is to attribute to the saved an alien righteousness. In other words, sinners do not become truly righteous…they are only clothed in the righteousness of Christ. Man remains polluted and the Father simply looks at Jesus’s righteousness, and thus we are saved.

In truth, we do not receive an alien righteousness. We are, in fact, made righteous. Although there are many passages of scripture, especially in Paul’s writings that show that penal substitution is false, there is a favorite of mine that really brings home the Catholic view.

Romans 5:4 says:

The phrase “made righteous” is clearly ontological just as the fall is ontological.

The word “made” in Greek is “katestathesan” which refers to a real, actual, ontological change in the person’s soul. NOT merely legal declaration. The idea of penal substitution and imputed righteousness is simply false.

A talented Catholic poster on this forum known as Catholic Dude has written a great piece on the issue of penal substitution. I’ll post it later if he doesn’t wade in on the issue.

God bless.

I might not be understanding the Protestant doctrine of “imputed righteousness” correctly, but it seems to me that if your sins are merely “covered”, rather than cleansed, it would go against the idea that nothing unclean can enter heaven. The sin is still there, but it is covered, yet the Scriptures indicate that we must be transformed, become new creatures in Christ. Those two ideas don’t seem to mesh very well. Plus, even if God would see one clothed in righteousness, He still knows that the unrighteousness remains under that clothing. I believe that the Catholic idea is much more Scriptually sound, and makes more sense, too. God actually cleanses and removes our sin and makes us totally righteous and fit to be in his Presence. Nothing remains of our unrighteousness. Am I correct in this?

 

[Pax]

I might not be understanding the Protestant doctrine of “imputed righteousness” correctly, but it seems to me that if your sins are merely “covered”, rather than cleansed, it would go against the idea that nothing unclean can enter heaven. The sin is still there, but it is covered, yet the Scriptures indicate that we must be transformed, become new creatures in Christ. Those two ideas don’t seem to mesh very well. Plus, even if God would see one clothed in righteousness, He still knows that the unrighteousness remains under that clothing. I believe that the Catholic idea is much more Scriptually sound, and makes more sense, too. God actually cleanses and removes our sin and makes us totally righteous and fit to be in his Presence. Nothing remains of our unrighteousness. Am I correct in this?

You’ve got it Carolyn.

God bless.

 

[Nathan_Wagar]

It seems that RCC and NCC have conflicting views on the Theory of Atonement, with RCCs suggesting that Christ paid the ransom to free us from the bondage of sin, while NCCs suggesting that Christ suffered and died “in our place” (usher in the “Saved” theology). The views appear contradictory because a ransom would not provide a guarantee whereas a penal substitution atonement would. However, I’ve heard from multiple sources that RCCs and NCCs are supposed to hold similar views on the matter. This doesn’t add up for me.

Penal substitution is not a viewpoint to be held by Catholics. The mass and the cross are a propitiation, not a substitution. The difference is subtle, but crucial. In a substitution, the substitute must receive the full punishment of the replaced, meaning physical and eternal spiritual death. In the traditional view this is why the early reformers took “and he descended to hell” quite literally. The logical problem with this belief is that Jesus did not suffer in hell, and if he did, he did not suffer for all eternity. Another problem with this paradigm is that in this view, Christ actually takes sin into himself, and God essentially no longer sees Christ, but our sin, and punishes him in our place. This is the source of many more modern accusations of “cosmic child abuse.” It portrays God, some would say, as little more than an ogre. It also creates a contradiction in that Jesus can not be a pure Passover Lamb offering if he is tainted with sin.

Propitiation is a different concept. It can be found in Numbers 25 with Phinehas, 1 Chronicles 21 with David, Abraham, Noah, Daniel, and Job. Job is a particularly good example because he is asked to sacrifice for his friends, since he is righteous and they are not, so that God will accept their sacrifice. Why? Because they had not spoken rightly about God like His servant Job. This goes back to a concept expounded by Anselm (some would say to the extreme) and Aquinas about satisfaction. God is a personal being, and must be appeased, much as you would need to appease or make reparations with your wife if you were to offend her. As Aquinas points out, the gravity of the sin is contingent on the person being offended, not the offender. An offense against the president by a homeless man is graver than an offense against a molester by prison guard. God is infinitely holy, and so a finite act by a human has an infinite offense to it, since God is the one being offended and He is infinite. Because of this, an infinite appeasement must be made. I will cover this a bit more in response to your other points as there is more to it than this.

Furthermore, when I analyze both sides, I find the NCC theory to fall to reason; among other things, Jesus could not have “suffered for us” (I.e. in our place) because this would entail an eternal separation from God in Hell, which is impossible because of the Oneness of their nature.

This is the standard response. Good catch.

However, it would seem that the NCC theory is suggested by Scripture whereas I find little support for the RCC theory. Such verses as the Suffering Servant in Isaiah imply that Jesus is suffering so that we don’t have to, “our sufferings that he endured” (Isaiah 53:4).

Not quite. The early Jews in their literature refer to a tribulation prior to the end of the exile of the twelve tribes, which will be kick-started, so to speak, by the “birth pangs of the messiah,” who fell victim to the sufferings of the beginning of the Tribulation. Hence, he endured our suffering. This had to happen before the prophecy could be fulfilled. Protestants often look at this passage as a reference to Penal Substitution when it in fact is not speaking about this at all. For an excellent book on this, read Dr. Brant Pitre’s book “Jesus, the tribulation, and the end of the exile: Restoration eschatology and the origin of the atonement.”

 

[Nathan_Wagar]

I also have a footnote in my NAB on Leviticus 17:11 speaking of sacrifices for atonement, “Since the life of a living body is in its blood, I have made you put it one the altar, so that atonement may thereby be made for your own lives, because it is the blood, as the seat of life, that makes atonement” with the footnote reading “That atonement may thereby be made for your own lives: hence, the sacrifice of an animal was a symbolic act which substituted the victim’s life for the life of the offerer, who thus acknowledged that he deserved God’s punishments for his sins.”

This is true to a point. Sacrifices were a prefigurement of the cross, and as such should be viewed not so much as effectual on their own merits, but as pointing to something that is effectual. Because of this, can it truly be stated that the animals served as a substitute at all? The nature of the animals as sacrifice is because they are valuable, and were not required prior to the Israelites sinning by worshipping various animals as manifestations of egyptian gods. They were essentialy sacrificing what they had put before God; their idols. If this were not the case, then how can Melchizedek’s sacrifice be acceptable? It is unbloody, as is the Bread of the Presence in the tabernacle. If you look at how the Tabernacle and the Temple were constructed, the three chambers follow the three paths of the spiritual life.

The outer court is meant to be the outside sign, so to speak, where the bloody aspect takes place. The Holy Place, or the second veil, points to the mysteries, or the things they signify. Hence there is not bloody sacrifice, but rather the unbloody sacrifice of the Showbread (bread of the face). Bloody sacrifice is necessary in the sense that it demonstrates not just giving of property, but giving of life. Self-sacrifice, which is what God calls us all to. Hahn has argued effectively that this is also a unique dimension to Adam’s sin as well. However, self-sacrifice by a mere finite man cannot make up for the infinite offense, and so the god-man must appease the infinite wrong done to God with his infinite sacrifice. And now this is how it all ties together, because this will touch on other concepts which with you will be familiar as a Catholic. Jesus did not “take our place” by sacrificing himself instead of us. He sacrificed himself to provide that perfection through which we can unite our daily self-sacrifices to him. He essentially made it so that our sacrifices can now be infinitely pleasing to God, even as finite beings, since we unite ours to Christ’s. He did not substitute for us, he enabled us to do what before we could not, through him. In doing this, we all, every single on of us, reverse the Fall in union with Christ.

If this sacrifice of the lamb in the OT was a prefigurement of the Sacrifice of Jesus, then would it not fall to reason that Jesus acted in our place? But then of course, I have difficulty understanding that Jesus suffered in our stead, and yet we must still suffer, die, and possibly pay the price of eternal damnation.

See above

If anyone is able, I would like to understand this in terms of the Paschal Sacrifice, as well as what is individually taught by both Catholics and Protestants. A strong Biblical, historical, and well reasoned explanation is what I’m looking for
I hope I haven’t misrepresented anyone’s beliefs. I’m still learning here

On the day of atonement, there are actually two aspects to the sacrifice (among many). Two goats are cast lots over to determine the one for the Lord, and the one to symbolically have their sins transferred to and released into the wilderness. This is the origin of the term scapegoat, by the way. The Mishnah records that the scapegoat was pushed backwards over a cliff. The pure goat was sacrificed for sin. It can be argued that Christ fulfilled both, as the Epistle of Barbabas relates, since it points out a parallel that Jesus was led outside the Holy City to be slaughtered for our sins as well. However, keep in mind, he fulfilled both. A pure offering, again, cannot be with blemish. And the Passover lamb in particular must be without blemish. I recommend doing some study into how Jesus fulfilled every single Jewish feast, it would be worth your while. I hope some of this helps.

 

[IHSpetros]

OnTheRock,

I suggest you read the following article dealing with this subject:

catholicintl.com/qa/Questions%20276-300.pdf

Scroll down to page 11, and go to the title "Question 293: Does the Catholic Church Teach a “Substitutionary Atonement”?

This should answer your question from a Catholic perspective.

God Bless