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August 22, 2005
Ch. XX. Q. 116. Of the Passion
POSTPONING to the next question the doctrine of the passion at large, we here deal with the more important events connected with it. On the eve of His death Christ instituted the Holy Eucharist as an abiding means of spiritual sustenance, and as a memorial for His Church to celebrate, declaring its consecrated species to be His Body and His Blood of the New Covenant. Thus He established a representative and applicatory sacrifice for Christians, whereby His redeemed can formally identify themselves with Him in His death, through feeding on His flesh and blood, and can acceptably participate under earthly conditions in His ever-continuing priestly oblation in heavenly places.1
2. On the same occasion, by a symbolical feet-washing, the deeper meaning of which He declared that His apostles could not yet understand, He in effect instituted what in its later development is called the sacrament of Penance.2
3. The acuteness of His agony in the garden appears to have been due partly to the burden of human sin which He had assumed, and partly to the fierceness of His battle with Satan, then reaching its climax. Mere dread of suffering does not account for it. The terms of His prayer reveal at once the fulness of His experience of human strain in resisting temptation and the inevitable persistence in His obedience in accepting what the Father had given Him to endure.3
4. The manner of His death shows (a) that He was reckoned among trans-gressors and slaves, as does also the price of His betrayal;4 (b) that He was forsaken of men and deprived of the felt consolations of divine favour;5 (c) that He was to draw all men by the outstretched arms of His love.6 The seven words which He uttered from the Cross declare His work to be (a) the remedy of sin;7 (b) reconciliation of penitent sinners;8 (c) provision for holy souls;9 (d) bodily pain;10 (e) spiritual pain and isolation;11 (f) complete redemption;12 (g) a sacrifice to the Father.13
5. The passion culminated in death because He came to bear all the consequences of sin, and death is one of them; and in order that He might break the power of death by His resurrection.14
6. By His descent into hades He underwent the conditions of the dead in which all men share. He also preached to the spirits in prison, and brought deliverance to His saints of previous dispensations.15 Neither His body in the grave nor His soul in hades were separated from His Person, but were sustained respectively against corruption and the power of hell by their hypostatic union with His Godhead.16
1 See Qq. 150-161, in vol. III.
2 St. John xiii. 4-11; A.J. Mason, Faith of the Gospel, ch. ix. 18; T.H. Bernard, Centraa Teachings of Jesus Christ, Pt. I. ch. iii.
3 St. Matt. xxvi. 36-46; St. Mark xiv. 32-42. St. Luke xxii. 39-46. Cf. Lam. i. 12; Heb. v. 7-8; St. Thomas, III xlvi. 6, 8; Thomas Jackson, Works, vol. VII, pp. 384, 472- 485, 502 et seq.; A.J. Mason, ch. vi. 17; D. Stone, Outlines of Christ. Dogma, p. 194.
4 Isa. liii. 12; Zech. xi. 12-13; St. Matt. xxvi. 14-15. Cf. Gen. xxxvii. 28.
5 Isa. liii. 3; St. Matt. xxvi. 56; xxvii. 46; Psa. xxii. 1, 6-8.
6 St. John xii. 32-33.
7 St. Luke xxiii. 34.
8 St. Luke xxiii. 39-43.
9 St. John xix. 25-27.
10 St. John xix. 28.
11 St. Matt. xxvii, 46.
12 St. John xix. 30.
13 St. Luke xxiii. 46. See Bp. Pearson, Creed, fol. pp. 189-191, 202-206; A.P. Forbes, Nicene Creed, pp. 209-213.
14 Ezek. xviii. 4, 20; 1 Cor. xv. 54-57; St. Thomas, III, 1.; Bp. Pearson, fol. pp. 210-217.
15 1 St. Pet. iii. 18-22; Col. ii. 15. St. Thomas, III. lii.; F. Huidekoper, Belief . . . Concerning Christ's Mission to the Underworld, pp. 48-54, 66-78, 164-171; A.P. Forbes, pp. 224-226; P. G. Medd, Our Mediator, §§ 151-153; R.E. Hutton Soul in the Unseen World, pp. 161-172; D. Stone, pp. 300-304.
16 Psa. xvi. 10; Acts ii. 24-27; St. Thomas, III. 1. 2-3; Rich. Hooker, Eccles. Polity. V. lii. 4; A.P. Forbes. pp. 223-224; W. Bright, Sermons of St. Leo, n. 96; A.J. Mason, ch. vii. 1.
Posted by AKMA at August 22, 2005 11:18 AM