42. Christ’s Death for all Men

I. “He is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for those of the whole world” (1 John ii. 2). The magnificent superabundance of Our Lord’s Redemption is shown in this, that He did not die for the elect only, but also for the reprobate; He suffered the penalties not only of the sins that we shall repent of, but of those which will remain unforgiven through our perverse obstinacy. No sinner, however atrocious, is excluded from Christ’s love and the benefit of His death. He desires the salvation of all, and provides them with the means of obtaining forgiveness and eternal life. “He will have all men to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the truth” (1 Tim. ii. 4). Some labour under particularly adverse conditions, but there is more abundant grace and more generous allowance for them. However great the disadvantages of a man’s surroundings, however handicapped he may be by the prejudices of a bad education and an heredity of evil, he has, somehow, compensation for all this, and the means of saving his soul. So much has been done for us, that nothing remains undone which might have been done. We are saved almost in spite of ourselves. Nothing can outweigh Our Lord’s propitiation except a man’s own full and deliberate rejection of it. Only by persevering ill-will on our part can we fail of salvation. What immense confidence in Our Lord you ought to have for yourself and others!

II. Notwithstanding the infinite efficiency of the death of Christ, and its application to all, it is ineffective in many cases. St. John explains this; the light shined in the darkness, but the darkness would not comprehend it (John i. 5). God sent His Son for the illumination of all men, yet “men loved darkness rather than the light, for their works were evil” (John iii. 19). The sun pours forth light and warmth upon all the earth, yet it is possible for men to conceal themselves from its rays, and make it to themselves as if it did not exist. There are three stages of grace prepared for us by the passion of Christ. There is a first grace moving men to abandon sin and turn towards truth and holiness. All receive this; it makes salvation possible for all. Next there is sanctifying grace, the state of possessing God and loving Him. Not all are willing to go so far as this; and of those who do, some fail and return to sin and final loss. The third stage is of those who persevere to the end and attain to glory. Thus it is that many who are called are not finally chosen. They reject grace and pervert Redemption itself to their ruin. You cannot trust yourself. Whatever you are or have, there is in you a root of perversity, which may bring you to destruction if you fail in humility or prayer.

III. There are many now who will not take the trouble to secure for themselves their share in the Atonement of Christ. They think it a bad bargain to sacrifice the advantages of the present for those which, though eternal, are not at present visible to them. Many prefer to follow the animal impulses of the lower nature rather than the calls of the supernatural. They say that the law of Christ is too difficult for human nature, or is actually opposed to it, that grace and the evidence of truth are insufficient, that God expects to reap where He has not sown. But sooner or later, the sufficiency of grace, light, and strength, is placed within their reach; and the power of Christ’s merit makes all things possible to them. A day will come when the groundlessness of all excuses will be proved. Then sinners will recognize their folly and hate themselves for it. In the multitudes of the elect brought out of the great tribulation, they will see how easily salvation might have been attained, how it was actually within their grasp, and how completely their destruction is their own fault. Be wise in time. Take account of the future as well as of the present. Know that Jesus will never fail you if you be true to yourself and Him.

41. The Excess of the Passion

 

I. From one point of view it might seem unnecessary for Our Lord to go to the extreme of suffering so much and dying; for His smallest action was of infinite merit, so that it exceeded all the demerits of the world, and could have purchased life for all. Yet there is a beautiful appropriateness and fitness in the excesses of the Passion. The death of Christ is in accordance with that fundamental law, typified in all the ceremonies of the Old Testament, that “without the shedding of blood there is no remission” (Heb. ix. 22). Throughout nature we may trace the principle that death produces life. The spring is preceded by winter. “That which thou sowest is not quickened unless it die first” (1 Cor. xv. 36). Of old this was represented by the fable of the phœnix. After a hundred years of life it built itself a funeral pyre, and out of its ashes a new phœnix arose. Life, then, must be preceded by an adequate death. Death is a vivifying action, a creative action, we may say, and is itself the cure of death. The supernatural life of man, being a participation in the Infinite, must proceed from an infinite death. Our death in sin is irremediable, as far as we are concerned, and in a manner infinite. It requires to be remedied by a death which is productive of God in us. Therefore God died in His human nature. See then the great efficiency of the death of Jesus; and estimate rightly the greatness of the evil that sin inflicts, and the greatness of the boon bestowed on you.
II. The excess of Our Lord’s Passion is in full accordance with universal law. God destroys nothing; not even the energies of evil. He allows all things to work out their activities to the full; He lets the battle rage till evil exhausts itself, and is broken like a wave on an iron-bound coast. Sin, therefore, being, in its tendency, destructive of God, is allowed to go to its last extremity in destroying the life of God in human nature. Not till then had it done its worst; and after that, it can do no further harm except what we deliberately invite upon ourselves. Our Lord rose again unharmed by it, and in that consists His victory. His triumph is thus far greater than if He had prevented sin, or stifled its energies by an extra-legal intervention of new forces in the universe. In His Passion Our Lord bore the whole brunt of all the sins of the world, and not merely those of His actual enemies. The hatred and fury of Caiphas, Pilate and Herod, were the embodiment of our malice. But, further, in Gethsemani He actually saw and endured the full horror of each individual sin that we have committed. How fearful would have been the consequences of your sins to you if they had not been exhausted on Our Lord! “If in the green wood they do these things, what shall be done in the dry?” (Luke xxiii. 31).

III. The excess of the Passion teaches us important lessons. 1. It is an instance of the extraordinary prodigality of bounty which appears in all God’s works. Let this move you always to do the most you can, and not the least that you are obliged. Be generous towards God and your neighbour. 2. It lays down the important rule of self-sacrifice, as the grandest source of good in this world, and the only force that can counteract the terrible effects of selfishness. “Contempt of death is the source of all moral force.” “Those who are ready to die will always master those who prefer to live” (Lacordaire). 3. Considering the enormous destructiveness of sin, and the share of our burden which Jesus assumed, we should be content to endure such minor consequences of it as come upon us. 4. Judge of the horrible power which sin will exert in hell on those who are so foolish as to refuse the benefits of Redemption. 5. Reflect on the greatness of the love of Jesus for you, in that He endured such excesses for your sake, without compulsion, and with nothing to gain. In return give yourself to Him without reserve.

40. The Last Supper

 
I. In the Last Supper Jesus Christ exhibits His love, and proves Himself to be our best Friend. The account of it begins: “having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end” (John xiii. 1). This was the farewell banquet on the last evening of His earthly life; in it He delivered His Testament, His final word of love, and bequeathed us a keepsake and eternal memorial of Himself. This bequest was not His portrait, not even the most valuable of His created works, not an empty type or figure of Himself; it was Himself under the form of a simple creature, it was His own Body and Blood, it was the food of eternal life for our souls under the appearance of perishable bodily nourishment. This gift was not bestowed in its reality on the twelve alone, and as a mere historical remembrance for succeeding generations, but it was to be a personal gift for every human being to the end of time; it was to be the means of incorporating Christ, not merely with the human species in general, but with each individual soul. In this Supper Our Lord gives expression in act to that which He declared of old: “My delights are to be with the children of men” (Prov. viii. 31); and He literally fulfils that other promise: “Behold I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world” (Matt. xxviii. 20). This gift is the supreme expression of Christ’s love for you: the devout reception of it is the supreme expression of your love for Him. You receive in it the full effects of His love, and you are able to make Him a full and adequate return.




II. On this occasion Our Lord further exhibits the most profound humility, and makes Himself our Servant; according to His word: “the Lord . . . will gird Himself, and make” His servants “sit down to meat, and passing will minister unto them” (Luke xii. 37). In this He places us above Himself: “Which is greater, he that sitteth at table, or he that serveth? . . . But I am in the midst of you as he that serveth” (Luke xxii. 27). Our Lord showed His humble servitude by kneeling before His Apostles and washing their feet. By this He cleansed them from the remnants of their sins, and represented the much more lowly servitude by which He cleanses mankind from the intolerable loathsomeness of their iniquity. Thank Our Lord for this exceeding humiliation. He points out its lesson to you: “I have given you an example, that as I have done to you, so you do also” (John xiii. 14). “You also ought to wash one another’s feet” (ib.), by humble service towards them. How have you done this in the past; how will you carry it out in the future? By doing so to men you repay the debt that you owe to Christ.




III. The Last Supper was also the inauguration of the Eternal Sacrifice, and in it Jesus exhibits Himself as our High Priest. In the giving of His Body and Blood, He connects it significantly with the sacrifice that He was to offer on the cross the following day. “This is My body that shall be delivered, My blood which shall be shed.” The action in the supper-room was an anticipation of the action on Calvary. That mystical banquet was not only a memorial of Our Lord to us, it is also an act of worship on the part of men towards God. We receive in it a gift from heaven, we render back a sacrifice to Our Maker. Further, Our Lord conveyed the participation in His priestly office to the Apostles and their successors, saying: “Do this for a commemoration of Me” (Luke xxii. 19). By this instrumentality the Sacrifice of Calvary was made an eternal sacrifice, to be offered unceasingly among the Gentiles from the rising of the sun to its setting (Mal. i. 11). The Pasch of that evening was the Pasch of all time, and all mankind are called to partake of it with Jesus and His Apostles. This was the compendium of all God’s bounties: “He hath made a remembrance of His wonderful works; He hath given food to them that fear Him” (Ps. cx. 4, 5). Venerate this mystery of mysteries. In it you really partake in that solemn supper and in the sacrifice that Jesus offered on Calvary.  

24. The Offices of Christ. - Part I

 

I. Jesus Christ is our Redeemer; that is He has paid the price of our ransom, He has bought us out of slavery to sin and Satan, and has restored us to liberty, honour, and the enjoyment of our supernatural inheritance. These advantages mankind had lost through the sin of Adam and each one’s personal sins. They had lost the dignity of the supernatural life with the true freedom that belongs to it. They were incapable of executing the commands that God had given, and so were not fully under His dominion. They had chosen a lower state at the suggestion of Satan, and had placed themselves on the side of evil against the supreme good. Their natural forces had been corrupted and weakened; they had laid themselves open to temptations, and had less vigour to resist them. They were demoralized by their subjection, and were incapable of throwing off the yoke and asserting themselves against a triumphant enemy. They knew nothing of a nobler state, and did not even desire it. And all this was the prelude to eternal slavery and the overwhelming miseries of hell. Such was the thoroughly wretched and hopeless condition of all men. From this we have been “bought with a great price” (1 Cor. vi. 29), viz., the Incarnation and Death of Jesus Christ. None other could have delivered us: hence He is our sole Redeemer. Be careful that you do not “neglect so great salvation” (Heb. ii. 3); like many who love their chains, who will not submit to the conditions which the higher state requires, and who trample on the blood of their Redemption.

II. Jesus is also “the one Mediator of God and men” (1 Tim. ii. 5). Sin had intervened between God and men to separate them eternally. “Your iniquities have divided between you and God” (Isa. lix. 2). Satan was by this means a mediator of evil; and also because in his qualities he is between God and men, like Him in immortality and spiritual being, like us in sin and misery. Nothing less than an infinite mediation was required to intervene between God and man and unite them again, breaking down the wall of separation between them. Jesus Christ is the one and only possible Mediator: 1, by nature, because He shares at once in the divine and human nature, and so unites together in His person two things infinitely distant; 2, by office, because He alone has the power, through His atonement, of bridging over the infinite gulf opened by sin, and reconciling man to God. You must imitate Christ the Mediator, in these qualities. You must unite the divine and the human in your life; and you must mediate in your lowly way, trying to diffuse light and goodness in the world, and to bring sinners to the knowledge and love of God, and so to reconciliation with Him.

III. Jesus Christ is our Head. “He hath made Him head over all the church, which is His body” (Eph. i. 23). By His Redemption and Mediation, Christ has become our Spiritual Head, and the elect are the body, subordinate to Him. He is the highest and most honourable portion of that body, the brain which directs it, the centre to which all things converge, the source whence all motion and activity proceed. Christ founded the Church of the elect, gave it life, organization, doctrine and laws. He gives it the continual nourishment of grace in the seven sacraments. He abides with it all days, even to the end of the world, preserving it from the death of error and of extinction, purifying and reviving it constantly, securing its infallibility and indefectibility, and finally transforming it from the militant and suffering state into its final and permanent state of triumph. All this He did “that He might sanctify it . . . that He might present it to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle, nor any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish” (Eph. v. 26, 27). You are full of sins and imperfections now, and you will be until the end; but if you contend against them, suffer for them, and repent of them, you will still retain membership with the “glorious Church” and its Head.

23. The Worship Due to Christ

I. “He shall be great and shall be called the Son of the Most High” (Luke i. 32). The homage we pay to any one is proportioned to his eminence and greatness. Christ Our Lord is great in every respect. 1. In His natures, the Divinity, and a most perfect and holy Humanity. 2. In His power, for He can do all that He desires in heaven and on earth. 3. In His qualities, which are the Divine Perfections, and the highest degree of all human virtues, splendour, beauty, benevolence, justice. 4. In His relations, to God first, as a Person of the Blessed Trinity, and then to creatures, as their King, Priest, Teacher, and as Son of a Virgin Mother. 5. In His activities, the internal ones of intellect and heart, and His external ones of miracles and beneficence. 6. In the variety of the sufferings of His Passion and their effects. 7. In His possessions, for all things are His. 8. In every place; in His Blessed Mother, at Bethlehem, in the lowliness of Nazareth even, in the temple, on the cross and in death, in His descent to hell, and on the right hand of His Father. 9. In every time; for before Abraham and the world were made He was. He was great in anticipation and prophecy, greater still abiding and working in His Church. 10. One thing remains, that He be magnified in you, and His greatness be shown in its effects on your life. “Now also shall Christ be magnified in my body” (Phil. i. 20). For this greatness He depends on your good-will.

II. “Wherefore also God hath exalted Him, and hath given Him a name that is above every name; that in the name of Jesus every knee should bow” (Phil. ii. 9, 10). God has made Jesus to be served and venerated by every creature; and the veneration due to Him is that of supreme and divine adoration. He is God and Man together. If the Humanity were separable from the Divinity it would not be adorable with divine worship. But such subtlety of distinction is not allowable or possible. Jesus Christ is one person only; we cannot separate the divine and the human nature as if they were distinct entities, and pay a different kind of homage to each. Christ is to be venerated as “true God of true God” whether we consider Him in the divine nature as Son of God, or in the human nature as the Son of Man and the Son of Mary. In Him we adore the Divinity directly, and the Humanity by concomitance, as possessing the prerogatives of the one Divine Person who supports both natures. Our love and attachment are, however, elicited rather by the qualities exhibited in that nature “which we have seen with our eyes, which we have diligently looked upon, and our hands have handled” (1 John i. 1). Be careful to pay to Jesus in every way, in attitude, in thought, in word, the adoration which is His due.

III. Those who recognize the ineffable greatness and beauty of Our Lord will, like Moses, pay Him the homage of desiring earnestly to see His face. “If therefore I have found favour in Thy sight, show me Thy face that I may know Thee” (Ex. xxxiii. 13). They will picture Him in their imagination. They will love to have before their eyes something that will remind them constantly of Him. The representations of Him by statues or pictures, as an infant or as dying on the Cross, will be found on the walls of their houses, or in the open country, or worn upon their person, testifying to the faith, and love, and desire that are in them. The fullest representation of Christ is found in our brethren, who are His brethren, and especially in the poor, the abandoned and the suffering. We must recognize His lineaments in them, and even in our enemies; we must remember that what we do to them He considers as done to Himself, and that so we can testify our homage and love towards Him, and make Him a return for what He has done for us. Let this thought guide you in all your relations with your fellow-men.

22. The Predestination of Christ

I. “Jesus Christ, who was predestinated Son of God in power, according to the spirit of sanctification, by the resurrection of Our Lord Jesus Christ from the dead” (Rom. i. 4). All things were foreseen and ordained by God from eternity; so Our Lord, as being man, was predestined like the rest of His race. He was to be the first-born of humanity, the father of all supernatural life, both to the generations following Him and to those preceding Him; and all the rest of mankind were predestined after Him, and with relation to Him. There was a double predestination in Jesus Christ. It was first predestined that the Sacred Humanity should be united personally with the Word of God; and this, not in consequence of its being merited by the works and virtues of Christ, but by the infinite bounty of God. Secondly, it was decreed that He should not remain for ever in the suffering stage of human nature, bearing our afflictions, but that He should be raised from the dead and glorified by the exhibition of divine power, and that He should occupy as man the first place in heaven. This predestination had reference to Christ’s deeds and merits, as the reward earned thereby. Rejoice with Our Lord that His name is the first one written in the Book of Life; pray that yours may be written there after His, and strive to make it so.

II. “He hath chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy . . . who hath predestinated us unto the adoption of children through Jesus Christ unto Himself . . . He made us acceptable through His beloved Son” (Eph. i. 4-6). According to this passage, the predestination of Our Lord is the occasion and the source of ours. As the world in all its evolutions was prepared for the sake of man, so are the elect prepared for Christ, to lead up to Him as the perfection of humanity to glorify Him by multiplying His likeness, and to form a court around His majesty here and hereafter. “All things are yours . . . and you are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s” (1 Cor. iii. 22, 23). Further, we are predestined in Our Lord, and not by ourselves or for ourselves. We have no claim of our own and no merits by ourselves, but only as His brethren, and as members of His body. As all things were created through the Word of God, so it is through the Incarnate Word, the Image of the Father on earth, that all of us are created anew to the life of grace and glory. Recognize that without Him you are nothing, and that in Him you are everything both here and hereafter. Take care that you never allow yourself to be separated from Him by unbelief or sin.

III. The Predestination of Christ is further the exemplar of ours, and explains its method. 1. Our Lord received the grace of the Hypostatic Union in advance of His merits; but His heavenly glory as the reward of the merits operated in that union. So we receive from God the grace of our first enlightenment and vocation without any effort of our own; but the subsequent increase of grace and light, our further progress, and our final glorification depend on the use we make of grace and light, on our own fidelity and exertions in union with God’s assistance. 2. We also learn that our Lord’s merits and glory are closely associated with suffering. “Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and so to enter into His glory?” (Luke xxiv. 26). So also it must be with us. We are “predestinated to be made conformable to the image of His Son” (Rom. viii. 29), not only in glory, but in the means by which He entered into it. God requires of you not only action but endurance. Nerve yourself for suffering, and welcome it for the benefits it brings. “Labour the more that by good works you may make sure your vocation and election” (2 Pet. i. 10).

21. The Sonship of Christ

I. Our Lord Jesus Christ is the Son of God, not by adoption, in any sense of the word, but by nature. Adoption is the gratuitous assumption of a person who is not a relative, to bring him into the family and entitle him to an inheritance. This cannot be said of Our Blessed Lord. He has the two natures: the divine, which He possessed from all eternity; the human, which He took so many years ago; the one is of the substance of the Father, the other is of the substance of the Blessed Virgin Mary. But it is the one indivisible Person who exists in both these natures, and the same who is Son of God and Himself God, is also Son of Mary. St. Paul draws out for us this divine dignity of Jesus Christ. God, he says, “in these days hath spoken to us by His Son, whom He hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also He made the world: who being in the splendour of His glory, and the figure of His substance … sitteth on the right hand of the Majesty on high” (Heb. i. 2, 3). We adore Our Lord, therefore, with supreme worship as being true God of true God; and we venerate the unparalleled dignity of her who, being Mother of the Son of God, was also Mother of God. Adore Our Lord profoundly, especially when you enter His presence, for the sublime dignity which belongs to Him in His Divinity and His Humanity.




II. Our Lord Jesus Christ, as man, bore Himself with all respect, love and obedience towards His heavenly Father. He manifested God to us in that character, which hitherto had been unknown. God had been, during the old dispensation, the Lord of hosts, mighty and terrible, ready to punish every transgression. Our Lord, as His Son, was able to take a new attitude towards Him and teach it to us. The Infinite Majesty is always Father towards Him; and the same sentiments that He exhibits towards His only-begotten Son He feels also towards us. In return, Jesus shows us how we should comport ourselves towards Our Father in heaven. He showed obedience by carrying out His Father’s will to the death on the cross; He died as an exhibition also of love for the Father, that the world might know and imitate it. Every action of His life had as its object the manifestation and the glory of His Father. These duties are yours. See how you fulfil each one of them. See whether you live always as considering God to be your Father, and yourself to be His son.




III. “God sent His Son, made of a woman, made under the law … that we might receive the adoption of sons” (Gal. iv. 4, 5). The Son of God became Son of man so as to make all of us sons of God. We were outcasts, criminals under sentence of punishment, absolutely devoid of any claim to supernatural grace or heavenly glory, “by nature the children of wrath” (Eph. ii. 3). Now we have become children of God, not indeed by nature, but by adoption, on account of Jesus Christ being our brother in the flesh. So we are made “sons, heirs also; heirs indeed of God, and joint-heirs with Christ” (Rom. viii. 17). By this adoption we acquire the likeness to God which children have to their parents. First, sanctifying grace is poured out in our souls, and God dwells in us, forming in us a preliminary resemblance. Our duty next is to make this more perfect by the exercise of good works, which constitute a practical and active resemblance to God. From these two proceed the final transformation into the image of God by the addition of the life of glory. Then “we shall be like Him, because we shall see Him as He is” (1 John iii. 2). Thus we attain to the final results of the Incarnation. Humanity is inconceivably elevated, first in Jesus Christ, and by Him in us. He accomplishes it; but you must share in His works if you are to have your full share in His dignity.