Sin and Redemption

Does man really need redemption? When Man sinned by trying to be “like God”, it was that he refused to recognize his own limits and wanted to stand on his own (i.e. become autonomous and self-sufficient), thus he delivered himself up to death. Evil has this character that it is not only a perverted use of what is inherently good, but is also self-destructive. On his own, man does understand that his life alone does not endure and that he must therefore strive to exist in others, so as to remain through them and in them in the land of the living. Man tries this by living in one’s own children: that is why in primitive peoples, failure to marry and childlessness are regarded as the most terrible curse; they mean hopeless destruction, final death. Another way discloses itself when man discovers that in his children he only continues to exist in a very unreal way; he wants more of himself to remain. So he takes refuge in the idea of fame, which should make him immortal if he lives on through all ages in the memory of others. But this second one of man’s attempts to give himself immortality fails just as badly as the first: what remains is not the self but only its echo, a mere shadow. So, self-made immortality is really only a hades, a “scheol”: more non-being than being. The inadequacy of both ways lies partly in the fact that even the other person to whom I have entrusted my continuance will not last - he too will perish. It is in vain that man attempts to give himself eternal life on his own. Eternal life requires God’s intervention to restore man. It requires His redemption. Incarnation — in which God assumes a human nature - is the necessary basis of redemption because this, in order to be efficacious, must include in the one redeemer both the humiliation and nature of man, without which there would be no human act of sacrifice, and the dignity of God, without which the satisfaction would not be adequate. "For an adequate satisfaction", says St. Thomas, "it is necessary that the act of him who satisfies should possess an infinite value and proceed from one who is both God and Man" Redemption in History Salvation history traces a pattern of God’s redemptive work. God chooses Abraham and blesses him with the promises of numerous progeny. Isaac, his miraculously-born son, is seen as prefiguring the redemption of Christ by his acceptance of his father’s will to be offered as a sacrifice. Again we see in Joseph, the providence of God that saves the Israelites in difficult times. Redemption is particularly seen in the deliverance of God’s people from the slavery of Egypt often described as a ransoming: “For remember that you too were once slaves in the land of Egypt and the Lord your God ransomed you” (Dt 15:15). This is an imagery since God does not pay a price for ransom. God has intervened also in might in the restoration of His people after the Exile (Is 29:22; 35:10; Jer 31:11). Prophets of the Exile looked forward to a restoration that would establish God’s messianic kingdom, including a fundamental conversion from sin, establishment of justice, peace among all people, and obedience to God (Jer 31: 31-34). In Isaiah, salvation is attributed to God’s activity (Is 9:6). The saviour would come from the house of David (2 Samuel 7:12-16). The conception of redemption shifts gradually from the earthly to the spiritual redemption from sin. A high point in Old Testament spirituality is reached in Psalm 50, a fervent and hopeful prayer for forgiveness by one who is convinced that God will not spurn a contrite and humble heart (Ps 50:19). It is written that God “will redeem Israel from all their iniquities” (Ps 129:8). Another high point is reached in the “Suffering Servant” of the Lord, in recognizing that the innocent victim suffered because the sins of all had been placed upon him (Is 52:13-53:12) “But he was pierced for our offences, crushed for our sins; upon him was the chastisement that makes us whole, by his stripes we were healed” (53:5) In the New Testament, redemption is described as the deliverance, through the death and Resurrection of Christ, from the state of estrangement from God (Rom 4:25) that prevailed from the earliest days of human existence (Gen 3:1-11:19), ratified by each person by his own sins (Rom 3:23); this redemption includes all of creation for it “was made subject to vanity” because of human sin (Rom 8:20). The final stage to be realized at the general resurrection, will bring with it the end of all the ills that afflict human kind, but many of the messianic benefits are already enjoyed by the redeemed. However, the disciples themselves thought of Christ as an earthly redeemer - On the road to Emmaus after Christ’s crucifixion, we read their complaint “But we were hoping that it was he who should redeem Isreal” (Lk 24:21). Their mistaken notions were corrected by Jesus Himself (Lk 24:25-27). Although the total redemptive work of Jesus includes His incarnation, life, passion, death, and Resurrection, His death is the cause par excellence of redemption. His ministry was marked by miracles that signified the overthrow of the kingdom of Satan in order to make way for the kingdom of God. He referred to himself as Son of Man, found in Daniel’s prophecies as a transcendent divine being (Dn 7:13), and identified His mission with that of the Servant of the Lord (Isaiah). He came “not to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Mk 10:45). How then should the “ransom” be understood? Jesus dies in order to deliver “many” (a term that does not necessarily imply any restriction) from their states as sinners and ultimately death. However the image of a price of ransom cannot be pressed too far; man is held in bondage to sin through the activity of Satan, but it cannot be thought that the price (the life of Jesus) is delivered to Satan; he has no rights over God’s creatures. Jesus does die in obedience to the will of the Father and to offer Him a sacrifice on behalf of all, and in this sense His life might be said to be paid to God. All sacrifices of mankind to conciliate God by cult and ritual were bound to remain helpless human work, because God does not seek, nor does He need, bulls and goats but man! Man’s unqualified “yes” to God could alone form true worship. Everything belongs to God, but to man is given the freedom to say yes or no, to love or to reject; love’s free worship is the only thing for which God must wait - the only worship or “sacrifice” that can have any meaning. In Christ the idea of the substitute sacrifice has acquired a new meaning. Christ took from man’s hands the sacrificial offerings and put in their place his sacrificed personality, his own “I” (Heb 9:11). When the text says that Jesus accomplished the expiation through his blood, this blood is not to be understood merely as a material gift and measurable means of expiation, but as signifying the release of life and a concrete expression of self-emptying love that extends “to the end” (John 13:1). To the extent that this exodus of love is the “ec-stasy” of man outside himself, in which he is stretched out, torn apart, to the same extent worship (sacrifice) is always the cross and dying of the grain of wheat that can only come to fruition in death. However, the governing principle of the sacrifice, is not pain and destruction, but love. In the depth of His agony, He cries out “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” (Mark 15:34), a prayer of Isreal (Ps 22:2) which summarizes in a shattering way the needs and hopes at the moment when he is so utterly abandoned by God. The Son still holds on to the faith when faith seems to have become meaningless. His cry is not for his survival but for the Father. He has descended into hell and still established the nearness of God in the midst of apparent abandonment. Where hell is radical loneliness, Christ went down into the abyss of our abandonment. Where no voice can reach us any longer, there he is. Hell is thereby overcome by his love. He has trampled death by his death. In rising from the dead, Christ, unlike Lazarus, did not simply return to the mortal life He had known before but He was glorified and exalted to the right hand of the Father (Mk 16:19). The new life He now possesses is conferred on the believer in virtue of His Resurrection “For since by a man came death, by a man also comes resurrection from the dead. For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made to live” (1 Cor 15:21-22).