At Mount Sinai Israel needed mediation; they were justly terrified by God's thunderings. God gave Moses as a temporary mediator Deut. Deut In His humanity Christ suffered our judgment for sin.
In His divinity He endured that judgment to the very end. Christ prostrated Himself to the earth because we needed rescue—that's humbling. God lowered Himself to gather to Himself His rebellious children.
Even the earthly body of Christ was lowly. It was as crude as the tabernacle in the desert compared with the pyramids of Egypt or the ziggurats of Babylon. Christ willingly compromised His reputation by becoming a man Phil. Paradoxically, in Christ's humility, God also reveals His other-worldly glory. Phillips explains: "Jesus saw the event of His greatest earthly humiliation—the apex of His servant obedience—as His true glorification on earth. True godliness is lived out in a mutually loving experience with God.
With biblical warrant, we usually think of the cross as the greatest manifestation of God's love. But if on the cross , Christ's descent reached the pit of hell, the incarnation was His first step in that agonizing descent.
We need to know Christ as He truly is, God and man in one beautiful, glorious person. And yet the power of God is not limited to this; even had sin not existed , God could have become incarnate. All the other causes which are assigned in the preceding article have to do with a remedy for sin. For if man had not sinned , he would have been endowed with the light of Divine wisdom, and would have been perfected by God with the righteousness of justice in order to know and carry out everything needful.
But because man , on deserting God , had stooped to corporeal things, it was necessary that God should take flesh, and by corporeal things should afford him the remedy of salvation.
Hence, on John , "And the Word was made flesh," St. Augustine says Tract. The infinity of Divine power is shown in the mode of production of things from nothing. Again, it suffices for the perfection of the universe that the creature be ordained in a natural manner to God as to an end. But that a creature should be united to God in person exceeds the limits of the perfection of nature.
A double capability may be remarked in human nature : one, in respect of the order of natural power, and this is always fulfilled by God , Who apportions to each according to its natural capability; the other in respect to the order of the Divine power, which all creatures implicitly obey; and the capability we speak of pertains to this.
But God does not fulfil all such capabilities, otherwise God could do only what He has done in creatures, and this is false , as stated above I But there is no reason why human nature should not have been raised to something greater after sin. For God allows evils to happen in order to bring a greater good therefrom; hence it is written Romans : "Where sin abounded, grace did more abound. Predestination presupposes the foreknowledge of future things; and hence, as God predestines the salvation of anyone to be brought about by the prayers of others, so also He predestined the work of Incarnation to be the remedy of human sin.
Reply to Objection 5. Nothing prevents an effect from being revealed to one to whom the cause is not revealed. Hence, the mystery of Incarnation could be revealed to the first man without his being fore-conscious of his fall.
For not everyone who knows the effect knows the cause. Article 4. Whether God became incarnate in order to take away actual sin, rather than to take away original sin? It would seem that God became incarnate as a remedy for actual sins rather than for original sin. For the more grievous the sin , the more it runs counter to man's salvation , for which God became incarnate.
But actual sin is more grievous than original sin ; for the lightest punishment is due to original sin , as Augustine says Contra Julian. Therefore Incarnation of Christ is chiefly directed to taking away actual sins. Further, pain of sense is not due to original sin , but merely pain of loss, as has been shown I-II But Christ came to suffer the pain of sense on the Cross in satisfaction for sins —and not the pain of loss, for He had no defect of either the beatific vision or fruition.
Therefore He came in order to take away actual sin rather than original sin. Further, as Chrysostom says De Compunctione Cordis ii, 3 : "This must be the mind of the faithful servant, to account the benefits of his Lord, which have been bestowed on all alike, as though they were bestowed on himself alone.
For as if speaking of himself alone, Paul writes to the Galatians : ' Christ. Therefore we ought to have this conviction, so as to believe that He has come chiefly for actual sins. Hence it is written Romans : "But not as the offense, so also the gift. For judgment indeed was by one unto condemnation, but grace is of many offenses unto justification.
But "greater" is said in two ways: in one way "intensively," as a more intense whiteness is said to be greater, and in this way actual sin is greater than original sin ; for it has more of the nature of voluntary , as has been shown I-II In another way a thing is said to be greater "extensively," as whiteness on a greater superficies is said to be greater; and in this way original sin , whereby the whole human race is infected, is greater than any actual sin , which is proper to one person.
And in this respect Christ came principally to take away original sin , inasmuch as "the good of the race is a more Divine thing than the good of an individual ," as is said Ethic.
This reason looks to the intensive greatness of sin. In the future award the pain of sense will not be meted out to original sin. Yet the penalties, such as hunger, thirst, death, and the like, which we suffer sensibly in this life flow from original sin. And hence Christ , in order to satisfy fully for original sin , wished to suffer sensible pain, that He might consume death and the like in Himself. Chrysostom says De Compunctione Cordis ii, 6 : "The Apostle used these words, not as if wishing to diminish Christ's gifts , ample as they are, and spreading throughout the whole world, but that he might account himself alone the occasion of them.
For what does it matter that they are given to others, if what are given to you are as complete and perfect as if none of them were given to another than yourself? And thus we do not exclude that He came to wipe away the sin of the whole nature rather than the sin of one person. But the sin of the nature is as perfectly healed in each one as if it were healed in him alone.
Hence, on account of the union of charity , what is vouchsafed to all ought to be accounted his own by each one. Article 5. Whether it was fitting that God should become incarnate in the beginning of the human race? It would seem that it was fitting that God should become incarnate in the beginning of the human race. For the work of the Incarnation sprang from the immensity of Divine charity , according to Ephesians : "But God Who is rich in mercy , for His exceeding charity wherewith He loved us.
Further, it is written 1 Timothy : " Christ Jesus came into this world to save sinners. Therefore it was fitting that God should become incarnate at the beginning of the human race. Further, the work of grace is not less orderly than the work of nature. But nature takes its rise with the more perfect, as Boethius says De Consol. Therefore the work of Christ ought to have been perfect from the beginning. But in the work of Incarnation we see the perfection of grace , according to John : "The Word was made flesh"; and afterwards it is added: "Full of grace and truth.
On the contrary, It is written Galatians : "But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent His Son , made of a woman , made under the law ": upon which a gloss says that "the fulness of the time is when it was decreed by God the Father to send His Son.
Therefore God became incarnate at the most fitting time; and it was not fitting that God should become incarnate at the beginning of the human race. I answer that, Since the work of Incarnation is principally ordained to the restoration of the human race by blotting out sin , it is manifest that it was not fitting for God to become incarnate at the beginning of the human race before sin. For medicine is given only to the sick. Hence our Lord Himself says Matthew : "They that are in health need not a physician, but they that are ill.
For I am not come to call the just, but sinners. First, on account of the manner of man's sin , which had come of pride ; hence man was to be liberated in such a manner that he might be humbled , and see how he stood in need of a deliverer. Hence on the words in Galatians , "Being ordained by angels in the hand of a mediator," a gloss says: "With great wisdom was it so ordered that the Son of Man should not be sent immediately after man's fall. For first of all God left man under the natural law , with the freedom of his will, in order that he might know his natural strength; and when he failed in it, he received the law ; whereupon, by the fault, not of the law , but of his nature , the disease gained strength; so that having recognized his infirmity he might cry out for a physician, and beseech the aid of grace.
Hence the Apostle says 1 Corinthians : "Yet that was not first which is spiritual , but that which is natural ; afterwards that which is spiritual. The first man was of the earth, earthy; the second man from heaven , heavenly. Charity does not put off bringing assistance to a friend: always bearing in mind the circumstances as well as the state of the persons.
For if the physician were to give the medicine at the very outset of the ailment, it would do less good , and would hurt rather than benefit. And hence the Lord did not bestow upon the human race the remedy of Incarnation in the beginning, lest they should despise it through pride , if they did not already recognize their disease. Augustine replies to this De Sex Quest.
But in such times and places as His Gospel was not preached He foresaw that not all, indeed, but many would so bear themselves towards His preaching as not to believe in His corporeal presence, even were He to raise the dead.
Therefore let us unshrinkingly believe His mercy to be with those who are set free, and His truth with those who are condemned. The Gospel of John is less like a story and takes a more theological approach.
After identifying the Word as the second person of the Trinity , John highlights the human nature of Jesus, emphasising that Jesus was God in human form. John states that, The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us John In Jesus, humans can see what God is like. By becoming incarnate, God came closer to human understanding. The incarnation The incarnation is the Christian belief that God took human form by becoming Jesus.
0コメント