Saved. Fr. Mitch Pacwa, S.J.

Human

      Look up the following passages and note what Scripture says about the nature of humanity.

PASSAGE	NOTES
Genesis 6:5
Proverbs 20:9
Ecclesiastes 7:20
Isaiah 53:6
Isaiah 64:6
Romans 3:9
Romans 3:22b-24
1 John 1:8

      Study

       The Enormity of Sin and the Infinity of the Savior

      Contemporary culture has difficulty treating sin against God as a serious concern. People understand frequently enough that they are sinners, since often enough their sinful behavior gets them into a variety of serious problems: important relationships are ruptured due to various forms of infidelity; arrests and convictions are the result for those sins that society still recognizes as criminal, such as theft, perjury, or murder; and/or physical ailments and even death can result from certain sins of drunkenness, drug abuse, sexual excess, gluttony, and so on. Reality has a way of indicating to sinners that their behavior is not good for them.

      Still, many modern people have a difficulty in understanding that sin is an offense against God. Some people think that God is so big that sins by puny humans cannot really affect him. Some think that humans are so small that he will not notice their sins. Others presume that he is all merciful and automatically forgives everyone, like an indulgent grandfather might do. Still others believe that since everyone is committing the same kinds of sins, particularly the sins of the flesh, God cannot condemn so many people and that he will just ignore the common sins and sinners — like a mob of gatecrashers busting into heaven. None of these ideas fit the understanding of sin that God has revealed in Scripture.

      A more accurate picture flows from a common understanding of offenses: the seriousness of the offense is determined not by the person perpetrating it but by the person who is offended. For instance, fighting with my brother was wrong; hitting my parents or grandparents would have been be a far worse offense because of their greater status in the family, even though I would have been doing the very same bad action against any one of them. In civil society, a barroom brawl will land a person in the county jail for a short while; however, even threatening to strike the president of the United States will land a person in federal prison because of his status under the law.

      We must apply this principle to God. Precisely because Almighty God is infinite, truly eternal, and all good, the sins we commit against him acquire an infinite and eternal quality of greater evil, not unlike the way that hitting the president acquires a federal quality to the offense and its punishment. Each person must consider his or her sins in light of the infinite God whom we offend. Humans, by their very nature, are finite, time-limited creatures incapable by nature of ever accomplishing a way to make up for an infinite, eternal sin. Furthermore, humans, even when they want to be good, still find that they have a wounded human nature that is incapable of accomplishing the good they may want to do.

      Consider

      We can examine ourselves and realize that by nature we are incapable of ever paying the infinite and eternal debt for sin. Further, like St. Paul, people realize how difficult it is for them to do the moral good even when they truly want to avoid sin and act morally. For centuries, sinners have been able to relate very personally to St. Paul’s response to the dreadful human dilemma of serving God with the mind but sinning with the flesh.

      Stop here and read Romans 7:14-23 in your own Bible.

       Two Steps to Recovery

      Paul here expresses the powerlessness experienced by those recovering from addictions to alcohol, drugs, sexual and lustful urges, gambling, gluttony, or other compulsive behaviors.

      The first step to recovery for addicts is the profound realization that they are powerless over the object of their addiction. Every sinner needs to arrive at the same point as Paul or the addicts: each sinner is powerless over sin, and if left to its own logic and dynamic, sin is a destructive force that will lead a person to spiritual, emotional, social, and eventually to physical death.

      The second step to recovery is acknowledging that nothing within creation and no sin is more powerful than God, and that only he can free an addict from addiction and only he can free any sinful human being from sin. God’s merciful grace infinitely exceeds human sin because he has sent his own infinite, divine Son to become flesh and dwell among us.

      The Christian contemplates this reality, that God the Son, who is infinite due to his divine nature, truly became flesh, so that as a true human being he can represent all of humanity. Yet he did so without ever having sinned like the rest of humanity.

      Investigate

      Jesus’ Characteristics

      Look up the following passages about Jesus and list his characteristics.

PASSAGE	NOTES
John 1:29
Hebrews 4:15
Hebrews 7:26
Hebrews 9:13-14
1 Peter 2:22-24
1 Peter 3:18
1 John 3:5
Revelation 5:6

      God’s “Own Blood”

      One of the most interesting passages in Scripture has St. Paul telling the bishops and priests of Ephesus that they must “shepherd the church of God which he obtained with his own blood” (Acts 20:28, author’s translation). Some modern translations add “the blood of his Son,” but “Son” is not in the Greek manuscripts; it is God’s “own blood” (tou haimatos tou idiou). Clearly, this verse recognizes that Jesus Christ, the only Person of the Trinity who became incarnate and shed blood, is God and thereby has obtained the Church through his precious blood. (See Session 3, pp. 81-82, for further discussion of this text in light of the Holy Eucharist.)

       Elements of the Savior

      Christians understand that the mystery of salvation encompasses three essential elements of the Savior.

      First, he is God the Word, infinite and without limit to save sinners, whose offenses against God possess an infinite quality due to the One who was offended by them. Unless the Savior were infinite, he would be incapable of overcoming human offenses against the Infinite One.

      Second, the Savior is truly human: he became flesh (Jn 1:14). He did not merely take on a human appearance, the way the Greek myths describe their gods doing — almost always to work mischief against humans and especially against women. Jesus Christ truly became man, with a human body and soul, will and mind, without in any way ceasing to be infinite God. As a true human being he could authentically represent the human race as a go-between or mediator between human beings and God, which is what makes it possible for Jesus to be the New Adam who redeems the sins of the first Adam.

      Third, Jesus, unlike the rest of humanity, is without sin and guilt, and therefore he is able to be the innocent sacrifice for others and truly atone for their sins, without the least need to atone for any sins of his own.

      Investigate

      Jesus’ Role

      Look up the following passages and make notes on the role of Jesus.

PASSAGE	NOTES
1 Corinthians 15:22
1 Corinthians 15:45
1 Timothy 2:5
Hebrews 9:15
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