Theological Outlines • by • Francis J. Hall

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August 22, 2005

Ch. XX. Q. 117. The Doctrine of the Passion

THE theology of the passion and death of Christ is necessarily very complex, because it is concerned with God's remedy for the most chaotic complication known to man, that of sin. But the doctrine of the passion — the determinative truth which every man needs to believe for his soul's health — can be stated in comparatively simple terms, somewhat as follows: The death of Christ is the one true sacrifice for sin, which alone gives value to repentance affords a just basis of divine pardon, and makes possible the salvation from sin thai is available in the Church through Jesus Christ, our risen and glorified Saviour. It is all this because it constitutes the objective means of redemption from the power of Satan, of expiation for sin, and of reconciliation to God, by reason of which we are given a new footing in a covenant
of cleansing and sanctifying grace.1

2. The death of Christ has very great moral or subjective value. That is, as an example it appeals most powerfully to our hearts and consciences, and, by exhibiting both the dreadfulness of sin and Christ's love in coming to the rescue, it stimulates in us the motives for repentance, self-discipline and persevering use of the means of salvation. And the convenience of the method of Christ's redemption appears in the fact that His death not only opens the road to God, but also draws us with loving appeal to travel over it.2

3. But the doctrine of Christ's death gives primary emphasis to its objective value, that is, its value as opening the road, as constituting in itself the means, the only revealed means, of making our recovery and acceptance of God possible.3 And, as such means, it has infinite value because the Person who died is infinite. Although the Godhead did not—could not—die; yet He who did die on the Cross, in the Manhood, was no less than very God.4 Accordingly, (a) His death needs no repetition, for it accomplished its purpose once for all, consecrating an ever-continuing priesthood of Christ and a dispensation of saving grace which can never be exhausted;5 (b) The redemption is universal, affording sufficient basis for the salvation of all, in every age and race, who respond to the divine call and fulfil the necessary conditions of salvation.6

4. The death of Christ was vicarious. He died for others, and by His stripes we are healed.7 This does not mean that His death is a literal substitute for our suffering and dying; but that it stands alone in consecrating the means which change our death from destructive ruin into the gateway to everlasting life. He died as our Representative, as the Second Adam; and by sacramental identification with Him we are enabled to make His sufferings our own.8 And all the sufferings which we have to endure acquire purificatory and saving value9 for ourselves, through their being sanctified by His death.10

5. This is so because of the meritoriousness of Christ's passion.11 Christ was not only perfectly righteous, as seen in His life of human obedience, but His death—the act by which He redeemed mankind—was itself an act of obedient and willing self-surrender,12 especially meritorious because He did not deserve to die. In this connection, it is to be remembered that, while the perfection of His earthly life constituted a necessary condition of His death being undeserved, and therefore a sine qua non of its meritoriousness, His death, rather than His antecedent life, was the specific means and method of our redemption.13

6. But our Lord's death is not an isolated event. Although sufficient for what it once for all achieved, it postulates, ministers to and consecrates an ever-continuing mystery of salvation, without which it could have no value for us. If Christ had not redeemed us by His death, we could have gained no footing as subjects of saving grace. But unless Christ had risen from the dead, unless He were now our living Priest in heavenly places, and unless there had been instituted a sacramental dispensation whereby we can be united with Christ and share in the grace which He merited for us by His death — unless these mysteries had been added, — we should not have been able to participate in the benefits of redemption. Christ's death avails for us only because it consecrates abiding means of salvation.14

Posted by AKMA at August 22, 2005 12:11 PM

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