Pope claims Jesus dirtied Himself with sin and even became a serpent. Sacred Triduum heresy

One definition of sin is any thought, word, or action contrary to the will of God. Keep that in mind as you read the heretical accusations made against Jesus Christ by Franciscus.

…Pope Francis said the story of God’s love for us can be found on the Cross where Jesus emptied himself of his divinity and dirtied himself with sin in order to save humanity…“The serpent is a symbol of sin. The serpent that kills but also a serpent that saves. And this is the Mystery of Christ.  Paul, when speaking about this mystery, said the Jesus emptied himself, humiliated himself and destroyed himself in order to save us.  And (what’s) even stronger, ‘he became sin.  Using this symbol, he became a serpent. This is the prophetic message of today’s reading. The Son of Man, who like a serpent, ‘became sin,’ is raised up to save us.”

Thus far, the heretical words of our Pope and Our Cross.

Now, let us turn our hearts, minds, and souls to the Saints and see if they too, like Franciscus, teach that Jesus became a serpent, emptied Himself of His divinity and dirtied Himself with sin.

St. Thomas Aquinas

He takes the symbol from the old law, in order to adapt to the understanding of Nicodemus; so he says, Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert. This refers to Numbers (21:5) when the Lord, faced with the Jewish people saying, “We are sick of this useless food,” sent serpents to punish them; and when the people came to Moses and he interceded with the Lord, the Lord commanded that for a remedy they make a serpent of bronze; and this was to serve both as a remedy against those serpents and as a symbol of the Lord’s passion. Hence it says that this bronze serpent was lifted up as a sign (Nm 21:9).

Now it is characteristic of serpents that they are poisonous, but not so the serpent of bronze, although it was a symbol of a poisonous serpent. So, too, Christ did not have sin, which is also a poison: “Sin, when it is fully developed, brings forth death” (Jas 1:15); but he had the likeness of sin: “God sent his own Son, in the likeness of sinful flesh” (Rom 8:3). And thus Christ had the effect of the serpent against the insurgence of inflamed concupiscences.

474 He shows the manner of the passion when he says, so must the Son of Man be lifted up: and this refers to the lifting up of the cross. So below (12:34) when it says, “The Son of Man must be lifted up,” it also has, “He said this to indicate the manner of his death.”

He willed to die lifted up, first of all, to cleanse the heavens: for since he had cleansed the things on earth by the sanctity of his life, the things of the air were left to be cleansed by his death: “through him he should reconcile all things to himself, whether on earth or in the heavens, making peace through his blood” (Col 1:20). Secondly, to triumph over the demons who prepare for war in the air: “the prince of the power of the air” (Eph 2:2). 

Thirdly, he wished to die lifted up to draw our hearts to himself: “I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all to myself” (below 12:32). And fourthly, because in the death of the cross he was lifted up in the sense that there he triumphed over his enemies; so it is not called a death, but a lifting up: “He will drink from the stream on the way, therefore he will lift up his head” (Ps 109:7). 

Fifthly, he willed to die lifted up because the cross was the reason for his being lifted up, i.e., exalted: “He became obedient to the Father even to death, the death of the cross; on account of which God has exalted him” (Phil 2:8).

Catena Aurea 

CHRYS. Having made mention of the gift of baptism, He proceeds to the source of it, i.e. the cross: And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up. 

BEDE; He introduces the teacher of the Mosaic law, to the spiritual sense of that law; by a passage from the Old Testament history, which was intended to be a figure of His Passion, and of man’s salvation. 

AUG. Many dying in the wilderness from the attack of the serpents, Moses, by commandment of the Lord, lifted up a brazen serpent and those who looked upon it were immediately healed. The lifting up of the serpent is the death of Christ; the cause, by a certain mode of construction, being put for the effect. The serpent was the cause of death, inasmuch as he persuaded man into that sin, by which he merited death. Our Lord, however, did not transfer sin, i.e. the poison of the serpent, to his flesh, but death; in order that in the likeness of sinful flesh, there might be punishment without sin, by virtue of which sinful flesh might be delivered both from punishment and from sin.

THEOPHYL. See then the aptness of the figure. The figure of the serpent has the appearance of the beast, but not its poison: in the same way Christ came in the likeness of sinful flesh, being free from sin. By Christ’s being lifted up, understand His being suspended on high, by which suspension He sanctified the air, even as He had sanctified the earth by walking upon it. Herein too is typified the glory of Christ: for the height of the cross was made His glory for in that He submitted to be judged, He judged the prince of this world; for Adam died justly, because he sinned; out Lord unjustly, because He did no sin. So He overcame him, who delivered Him over to death, and thus delivered Adam from death. And in this the devil found himself vanquished, that he could not upon the cross torment our Lord into hating His murderers: but only made Him love and pray for them the more. In this way the cross of Christ was made His lifting up, and glory. 

CHRYS. Wherefore He does not say, The Son of man must be suspended, but lifted up, a more honorable term, but coming near the figure. He uses the figure to show that the old dispensation is akin to the new, and to show on His hearers’ account that He suffered voluntarily; and that His death issued in life. 

AUG. As then formerly he who looked to the serpent that was lifted up, was healed of its poison, and saved from death; so now he who is conformed to the likeness of Christ’s death by faith and the grace of baptism, is delivered both from sin by justification, and from death by the resurrection: as He Himself said; That whosoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. What need then is there that the child should be conformed by baptism to the death of Christ, if he be not altogether tainted by the poisonous bite of the serpent?

CHRYS. Observe; He alludes to the Passion obscurely, in consideration to His hearer; but the fruit of the Passion He unfolds plainly; viz. that they who believe in the Crucified One should not perish. And if they who believe in the Crucified live, much more shall the Crucified One Himself. 

AUG. But there is this difference between the figure and the reality, that the one recovered from temporal death, the other from eternal.

Cornelius a Lapide

Vers. 14 and 15.—And as Moses, &c. Christ proceeds to instruct Nicodemus; (for as in the verses preceding He has taught him that He is God, so now He teaches him that He has been made man), that being crucified for man’s redemption He will merit that every one who believeth in Him, and trusts for salvation to the merit of His death, shall obtain it. For thus Christ is wont, when speaking concerning Himself, to unite things human to things Divine, and things lowly to things glorious. As though He said, “Whosoever is bitten by the serpents of sins, let him look to Christ, and he shall have healing by the remission of sins,” as Pope Adrian I. says in his first epistle to Charles the Great. The same proves that the use of images is lawful from this serpent. He adds, The figure afforded temporal life; the thing itself, of which it was the figure, life eternal.”

Christ refers to the history of the brazen serpent in

the wilderness, which is given in the 21st chapter of Numbers. Upon this history S. Augustine comments as follows (de peccat. merit., lib. 1, c. 32). “The serpent lifted up is the death of Christ. By the serpent came death, for he persuaded man to sin. Now the Lord took upon His flesh, not the poison of the serpent, which is sin, but death, that there might be in the likeness of flesh the penalty of sin without its fault, that thus both the penalty and the fault might be done away.” And Theophylact says, “In that brazen serpent was the appearance indeed of the noxious creature, but not its poison: so in Christ was the likeness of sinful flesh, but no sin.”

Most fully does S. Chrysostom draw out the analogies between the brazen serpent and Christ. He says, “Lest any one should say, ‘How are those who believe in the Crucified One able to be saved, when he did not deliver Himself from death?’” He brings forward the ancient history. For if the Jews by looking at the image of a brazen serpent were freed from death, how much greater benefit will they enjoy who look to the Crucified Redeemer? For by the one the Jews escaped temporal death: by the other believers escape everlasting death. There the suspended serpent healed the wounds which the serpents had made: here Jesus, nailed to the cross, healed the wounds inflicted by the incorporeal serpent (the devil). There those who looked with their bodily eyes obtained the healing of the body: here those who look with their spiritual eyes obtain the remission of all their sins. There a serpent bit, and a serpent healed: here death destroyed, and death hath saved. In the one case the serpent which destroyed was full of poison, and delivered no one from poison. And in the other case the death which destroyeth had sin, as the serpent had poison: but the Lord’s death was free from all sin, just as the brazen serpent had no poison. You see how the figure answers to the reality.

St John Chrysostom

And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up.”

This again seems to depend upon what has gone before, and this too has a very close connection with it. For after having spoken of the very great benefaction that had come to man by Baptism, He proceeds to mention another benefaction, which was the cause of this, and not inferior to it; namely, that by the Cross. As also Paul arguing with the Corinthians sets down these benefits together, when he says, “Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized into the name of Paul?” for these two things most of all declare His unspeakable love, that He both suffered for His enemies, and that having died for His enemies, He freely gave to them by Baptism entire remission of their sins.

2. But wherefore did He not say plainly, “I am about to be crucified,” instead of referring His hearers to the ancient type? First, that you may learn that old things are akin to new, and that the one are not alien to the other; next, that you may know that He came not unwillingly to His Passion; and again, besides these reasons, that you may learn that no harm arises to Him from the Fact, and that to many there springs from it salvation. For, that none may say, “And how is it possible that they who believe in one crucified should be saved, when he himself is holden of death?” He leads us to the ancient story. Now if the Jews, by looking to the brazen image of a serpent, escaped death, much rather will they who believe in the Crucified, with good reason enjoy a far greater benefit. For this takes place, not through the weakness of the Crucified, or because the Jews are stronger than He, but because “God loved the world,” therefore is His living Temple fastened to the Cross.

(Tomorrow, more confrontation of and correction of these execrable sulphurous heresies)

Sacred Tritium blasphemous heresies corrected by Tradition (Lutheranism, the new Catholicism?)

On must return to Tradition to confront and counter the modern blasphemous heresy that Jesus became sin and to confront and counter the temptation to understand scripture differently than did the early Church Fathers and Drs. of the Church for not every word of Holy Writ is literal, especially "He became sin" or "He was made a curse.

The Hypostatic union is a real substantial unity which means that Jesus did not empty Himself of His Divinity as claimed by Our Pope and Our Cross.

What sort of Catholic is it who thinks that Jesus would destroy The Hypostatic Union or that He could become sin, become a serpent?

To destroy the Hypostatic Union would mean that  Jesus would not longer be the Divine Person, perfect  God and perfect man, and to think that He actually became sin, even a serpent, would mean that God accepted a sinful victim to redeem the world and to ransom us from the Devil.

In what sort of Catholic mind is it that these insane ideas are thought not only ontologically possible but praiseworthy?

Lord have mercy. Heresy on high during the Sacred Tritium, the Holiest time of the  Ecclesiastical Calendar.

Well so much for Catholic Tradition and Dogmatic Teachings, they are out and surprises and heresy are in.

At one time, before seminaries threw-out his Great Commentary, those young men studying to become priests were learnt true Theology in the classic commentary of Cornelius a Lapide and they were taught what the words of Holy Writ meant and, thus, were spiritually inoculated against the malign and baleful poison of modernism which is making a blasphemous mockery of truth masquerading behind the smiley face of a farcical mercy that pits Jesus against Himself.

Now, let's turn to Lapide to understand what Holy Writ truly means about became sin for the true meaning of those words is as completely separated from the claims of what those words mean by Cantalamessa and Franciscus as Heaven is separated from Hell.

Cornelius a Lapide (2 Corinth 5)

Ver. 21.—Him who knew no sin. Experimentally, says S. Thomas, Christ knew no sin, though by simple knowledge He did, for He did no sin.

Hath made Him to be sin for us.

For us, says Illyricus, who were sin; because, he says, sin is the substance and form of our soul. But to say this of ourselves is folly, of Christ blasphemy. (1.) The meaning is that God made Christ to be the victim offered for our sin, to prevent us from atoning for our sins by eternal death and fire. The Apostle plays on the word sin, for when he says, “Him who knew no sin,” he means sin strictly speaking; but when he says, “He made Him to be sin for us,” he employs a metonymy. So Ambrose, Theophylact, and Anselm. In Ps. xl. 12, Christ calls our sins His. (2.) Sin here denotes, says S. Thomas, the likeness of sinful flesh which He took, that He might be passible, just as sinners who are descended from Adam are liable to suffering. (3.) Sin, in the sense of being regarded by men as a noteworthy sinner, and being crucified as a malefactor. So the Greek Fathers.

Of these three interpretations the first is the more full, significant, and vigorous, and the one more consonant with the usage of Scripture, which frequently speaks of an expiatory victim as sin. Cf. Hosea iv. 8; Lev. iv. 24 and 21; Ezek. xliv. 29. The reason of this metonymy is that all the punishment and guilt of the sin were transferred to the expiatory victim, and so the sin itself might seem to be also transferred to it. In token of this the priest was accustomed to lay his hands on the victim, and call down on it the sins of the people; for by the hands are signified sinful actions, which are for the most part executed by the hands, as Theodoret says in his notes on Leviticus i. Therefore the laying of hands on the victim was both a symbol of oblation and a testimony of the transference of guilt to the victim, showing that it was expiatory, and that it bore the sin itself, with all its burden of guilt and punishment. In this way the high-priest on the great Day of Atonement turned a goat into the wilderness, having imprecated on it the sins of the whole people. Cf. Lev. xvi. 20.

Aquinas on Galatians 3:13 

13 Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us (for it is written: Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree)

Having explained the curse brought on by the Law, as well as the Law’s incapacity to deliver from sin, he now shows forth Christ’s power to set one free from this curse.

First, he shows how through Christ we are set free of that curse;

...

As to the first, he does three things:

First, he presents the author of the liberation;

Secondly, the manner of liberation (v. 13): being made a curse for us;

Thirdly, the testimony of the prophets (v. 13): for it is written: Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree.

He says therefore first: All who observed the works of the Law were under a curse, as has been said, and they could not be delivered by the Law. Hence it was necessary to have someone who should set us free, and that one was Christ. Hence he says, Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law: “For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God, sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and of sin, hath condemned sin in the flesh” (Rom 8:3). He redeemed, I say, us, namely, the Jews, with His own Precious Blood: “Thou hast redeemed us in thy blood” (Rev 5:9); “Fear not, for I have redeemed thee” (Is 43:1), from the curse of the law, i.e., from guilt and penalty: that he might redeem them who were under the law (4:5); 1 will redeem them from death” (Hos 13:14).

Then when he says, being made a curse for us, he sets forth the manner of the deliverance. Here it should be noted that a curse is that which is said as an evil. Now it is according to two kinds of evil that there can be two kinds of curse, namely, the curse of guilt and the curse of punishment. And with respect to each this passage can be read, namely, He was made a curse for us.

First of all with respect to the evil of guilt, for Christ redeemed us from the evil of guilt. Hence, just as in dying He redeemed us from death, so He redeemed us from the evil of guilt by being made a curse, i.e., of guilt: not that there was really any sin in Him—for “He did not sin, neither was guile found in his mouth,” as is said in 1 Peter (2:22) —but only according to the opinion of men and particularly the Jews who regarded him as a sinner: “If he were not a malefactor, we would not have delivered him up to thee” (Jn 18:30). Hence it is said of Him, “Him who knew no sin He hath made sin for us” (2 Cor 5:21). But he says, a curse, and not “accursed,” to show that the Jews regarded Him as the worst type of criminal. Hence it is said, “This man is not of God who keepeth not the sabbath,” (Jn 9:16) and “For a good work we stone thee not, but for sin and for blasphemy” (Jn 10:33). Therefore he says, being made for us a curse in the abstract. As though to say: He was made “curse” itself.

Secondly, it is explained with respect to the evil of punishment. For Christ freed us from punishment by enduring our punishment and our death which came upon us from the very curse of sin. Therefore, inasmuch as He endured this curse of sin by dying for us, He is said to have been made a curse for us. This is similar to what is said in Romans (8:3): “God sent his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and of sin,” i.e., of mortal sin; “Him who knew no sin,” namely, Christ, Who committed no sin, God (namely, the Father) “had made sin for us,” i.e., made Him suffer the punishment of sin, when, namely, He was offered for our sins (2 Cor 5:21).

Then He gives the testimony of Scripture when he says, for it is written: “Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree.” This is from Deuteronomy (21:23). Here it should be noted, according to a Gloss, that in Deuteronomy, from which this passage is taken, our version as well as the Hebrew version has: “Cursed by God is everyone that hangs on a tree.” However, the phrase “by God” is not found in the ancient Hebrew volumes. Hence it is believed to have been added by the Jews after the passion of Christ in order to defame Him.

But it is possible to expound this authority both with respect to the evil of punishment and the evil of guilt. Of the evil of punishment thus: Cursed is everyone that hangeth on a tree, not precisely because he hangs on a tree, but because of the guilt for which he hangs. And in this way Christ was thought to be cursed, when He hung on the cross, because He was being punished with an extraordinary punishment. And according to this explanation, there is a continuity with the preceding. For the Lord commanded in Deuteronomy that anyone who had been hanged should be taken down in the evening; the reason being that this punishment was more disgraceful and ignominious than any other. He is saying, therefore: Truly was He made a curse for us, because the death of the cross which He endured is tantamount to a curse—thus explaining the evil of guilt, although it was only in the minds of the Jews—because it is written: Cursed is everyone that hangeth on a tree. But with respect to the evil of punishment, Cursed is everyone that hangeth on a tree is explained thus: The punishment itself is a curse, namely, that He should die in this way. Explained in this way, He was truly cursed by God, because God decreed that He endure this punishment in order to set us free

More to follow tomorrow as these heresies must be confronted and refuted and, to the extent that is possible, completely annihilated

Sacred surprises or a blasphemous heretical Messa of the Sacred Triduum ?

(Heresy confronted and corrected tomorrow)

Pope: Jesus annihilates himself, defeats the evil serpent

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2016-03-15 Vatican Radio

(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis said the story of God’s love for us can be found on the Cross where Jesus emptied himself of his divinity and dirtied himself with sin in order to save humanity. He said that the biblical story of salvation features the serpent, an animal he describes as both a powerful symbol of damnation and mysteriously of redemption as well. The Pope was speaking at his morning Mass on Tuesday at the Santa Marta Residence.

The mystery of the serpent

Using the day’s readings from the Book of Numbers and the gospel of St. John, Pope Francis’s homily reflected on the link between the meaning of Jesus’ annihilation of himself on the Cross and the story of how the people of Israel implored Moses to pray to God to take away the serpents that had been sent among them as punishment by the Lord.

Pope Francis pointed out that the symbol of the serpent features twice in this story from the Book of Numbers.

“The Lord said to Moses: ‘make a bronze serpent and mount it on a pole and whoever looks at it after being bitten will live.’ It’s a mystery: God doesn’t kill the serpents but leaves them alone. But if one of these (serpents) harms a person, look at that bronze serpent and he will be healed.  Lift up the serpent.”

The Pope noted that this verb, ‘lift up’ is at the heart of the argument between Christ and the Pharisees described in the reading by the gospel of St. John. At a certain point, Jesus says: ‘When you lift up the Son of Man, then you will realise that I AM.” First of all, he explained, ‘I AM’ is also the name that God used to describe himself and gave to Moses for communicating with the people of Israel.  And, then there is that recurring expression: ‘Lift up the Son of Man…” 

  

God’s annihilation

“The serpent is a symbol of sin. The serpent that kills but also a serpent that saves. And this is the Mystery of Christ.  Paul, when speaking about this mystery, said the Jesus emptied himself, humiliated himself and destroyed himself in order to save us.  And (what’s) even stronger, ‘he became sin.  Using this symbol, he became a serpent. This is the prophetic message of today’s reading. The Son of Man, who like a serpent, ‘became sin,’ is raised up to save us.”

Pope Francis went on to explain that this is “the story of our redemption, this is the story of God’s love. If we want to know God’s love, let us look at the Cross, a man tortured” a God, “emptied of his divinity,” “dirtied by sin.” But at the same time, he concluded, a God who through his self-annihilation, defeats forever the true name of evil, that Revelation calls 'the ancient serpent.'

“Sin is the work of Satan and Jesus defeats Satan by “becoming sin” and from there he lifts up all of us. The Cross is not an ornament or a work of art with many precious stones as we see around us. The Cross is the Mystery of God’s annihilation for love.  And the serpent that makes a prophecy in the desert is salvation, it is raised up and whoever looks at it is healed.  And this is not done with a magic wand by a God who does these things: No! This is done through the suffering of the Son of Man, through the suffering of Jesus Christ.”

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Below, please find the full text of Capuchin Father Raniero Cantalamessa’s homily for Good Friday (English translation courtesy of Zenit): 

Fr. Raniero Cantalamessa, ofmcp.

“BE RECONCILED TO GOD”

Good Friday Sermon, 2016, in St. Peter’s Basilica

God . . . through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation. . . . We beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. Working together with him, then, we entreat you not to accept the grace of God in vain. For he says, “At the acceptable time I have listened to you, and helped you on the day of salvation.” Behold, now is the acceptable time; behold, now is the day of salvation! (2 Cor 5:18–6:2)

These words are from Paul’s Second Letter to the Corinthians. The apostle’s call to be reconciled to God does not refer to the historical reconciliation between God and humanity (which, as we just heard, already occurred “through Christ” on the cross); neither does it refer to the sacramental reconciliation that takes place in Baptism and in the Sacrament of Reconciliation. It refers to an existential and personal reconciliation that needs to be implemented in the present. The call is addressed to baptized Christians in Corinth who belonged to the Church for a while, so it is therefore also addressed to us here and now. “The acceptable time, the day of salvation” for us, is the Year of Mercy that we are now in.

But what does this reconciliation with God mean in its existential and psychological dimension? One of the causes, and perhaps the main one, for people’s alienation from religion and faith today is the distorted image they have of God. What is the “predefined” idea of God in the collective human unconscious? To find that out, we only need to ask this question: “What ideas, what words, what feelings spontaneously arise in you without thinking about it when you say the words in the Lord’s Prayer, ‘May your will be done’”?

People generally say it with their heads bent down in resignation inwardly, preparing themselves for the worst. People unconsciously link God’s will to everything that is unpleasant and painful, to what can be seen as somehow destroying individual freedom and development. It is somewhat as though God were the enemy of every celebration, joy, and pleasure—a severe inquisitor-God.

God is seen as the Supreme Being, the Omnipotent One, the Lord of time and history, that is, as an entity who asserts himself over an individual from the outside; no detail of human life escapes him. The transgression of his law inexorably introduces a disorder that requires a commensurate reparation that human beings know they are not able to make. This is the cause of fear and at times hidden resentment against God. It is a vestige of the pagan idea of God that has never been entirely eradicated, and perhaps cannot be eradicated, from the human heart. Greek tragedy is based on this concept: God is the one who intervenes with divine punishment to reestablish the order disrupted by evil.

Of course in Christianity the mercy of God has never been disregarded! But mercy’s task is only to moderate the necessary rigors of justice. It was the exception, not the rule. The Year of Mercy is a golden opportunity to restore the true image of the biblical God who not only has mercy but is mercy.

This bold assertion is based on the fact that “God is love” (1 Jn 4:8, 16). It is only in the Trinity, however, that God is love without being mercy. The Father loving the Son is not a grace or a concession, it is a necessity; the Father needs to love in order to exist as Father. The Son loving the Father is not a mercy or grace; it is a necessity even though it occurs with the utmost freedom; the Son needs to be loved and to love in order to be the Son. The same can be said about the Holy Spirit who is love as a person.

It is when God creates the world and free human beings in it that love ceases for God to be nature and becomes grace. This love is a free concession; it is hesed, grace and mercy. The sin of human beings does not change the nature of this love but causes it to make a qualitative leap: mercy as a gift now becomes mercy as forgiveness. Love goes from being a simple gift to become a suffering love because God suffers when his love is rejected. "The LORD has spoken: ‘Sons have I reared and brought up, but they have rebelled against me’” (Is 1:2). Just ask the many fathers and mothers who have experienced their children’s rejection if it does not cause suffering—and one of the most intense sufferings in life.

***

But what about the justice of God? Has it been forgotten or underestimated? St. Paul answered this question once and for all. The apostle begins his explanation in the Letter to the Romans with this news: “Now the righteousness of God has been manifested” (Rom 3:21). We can ask, what kind of righteousness is this? Is it the righteousness that gives “unicuique suum,” each person his or her due, and distributes rewards and punishments according to people’s merits? There will of course come a time when this kind of divine righteous justice that gives people what they deserve will also be manifested. The apostle in fact wrote shortly before in Romans that God

will render to every man according to his works: to those who by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life; but for those who are factious and do not obey the truth, but obey wickedness, there will be wrath and fury. (2:6-8

But Paul is not talking about this kind of justice when he writes, “Now the righteousness of God has been manifested.” The first kind of justice he talks about involves a future event, but this other event is occurring “now.” If that were not the case, Paul’s statement would be an absurd assertion that contradicts the facts. From the point of view of distributive justice, nothing changed in the world with the coming of Christ. We continue, said Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet, to see the guilty often on the throne and the innocent on the scaffold. But lest we think there is some kind of justice and some fixed order in the world, although it is upside down, sometimes the reverse happens and the innocent are on the throne and the guilty on the scaffold.[1] It is not, therefore, in this social and historical sense that the innovation brought by Christ consists. Let us hear what the apostle says:

Since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, they are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as an expiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins; it was to prove at the present time that he himself is righteous and that he justifies him who has faith in Jesus. (Rom 3:23-26)

God shows his righteousness and justice by having mercy! This is the great revelation. The apostle says God is “just and justifying,” that is, he is just to himself when he justifies human beings; he is in fact love and mercy, so for that reason he is just to himself—he truly demonstrates who he is—when he has mercy.

But we cannot understand any of this if we do not know exactly what the expression “the righteousness of God” means. There is a danger that people can hear about the righteousness of God but not understand its meaning, so instead of being encouraged they are frightened. St. Augustine had already clearly explained its meaning centuries ago: “The ‘righteousness of God’ is that by which we are made righteous, just as ‘the salvation of God’ [see Ps 3:8] means the salvation by which he saves us.”[2] In other words, the righteousness of God is that by which God makes those who believe in his Son Jesus acceptable to him. It does not enact justice but makes people just

Luther deserves the credit for bringing this truth back when its meaning had been lost over the centuries, at least in Christian preaching, and it is this above all for which Christianity is indebted to the Reformation, whose fifth centenary occurs next year. The reformer later wrote that when he discovered this, “I felt that I was altogether born again and had entered paradise itself through open gates.” * But it was neither Augustine nor Luther who explained the concept of “the righteousness of God” this way; Scripture had done that before they did:

When the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of deeds done by us in righteousness, but in virtue of his own mercy” (Titus 3:4-5).

God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead through our own trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved. (see Eph 2:4-5)

Therefore, to say “the righteousness of God has been manifested” is like saying that God’s goodness, his love, his mercy, has been revealed. God’s justice not only does not contradict his mercy but consists precisely in mercy!

***

What happened on the cross that was so important as to explain this radical change in the fate of humanity? In his book on Jesus of Nazareth, Benedict XVI wrote, “That which is wrong, the reality of evil, cannot simply be ignored; it cannot just be left to stand. It must be dealt with; it must be overcome. Only this counts as a true mercy. And the fact that God now confronts evil himself because men are incapable of doing so—therein lies the ‘unconditional’ goodness of God.”[4]

God was not satisfied with merely forgiving people’s sins; he did infinitely more than that: he took those sins upon himself, he shouldered them himself. The Son of God, says Paul, “became sin for us.” What a shocking statement! In the Middle Ages some people found it difficult to believe that God would require the death of his Son in order to reconcile the world to himself. St. Bernard responded to this by saying, “What pleased God was not Christ’s death but his will in dying of his own accord”: “Non mors placuit sed voluntas sponte morientis.”[5] It was not death, then, but love that saved us!

The love of God reached human beings at the farthest point to which they were driven in their flight from him, death itself. The death of Christ needed to demonstrate to everyone the supreme proof of God’s mercy toward sinners. That is why his death does not even have the dignity of a certain privacy but is framed between the death of two thieves. He wants to remain a friend to sinners right up to the end, so he dies like them and with them.

***

It is time for us to realize that the opposite of mercy is not justice but vengeance. Jesus did not oppose mercy to justice but to the law of retaliation: “eye for eye, tooth for tooth” (Ex 21:24). In forgiving sinners God is renouncing not justice but vengeance; he does not desire the death of a sinner but wants the sinner to convert and live (see Ez 18:23). On the cross Jesus did not ask his Father for vengeance.

The hate and the brutality of the terrorist attacks this week in Brussels help us to understand the divine power of Christ’s last words: “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do” (Lk 23:24). No matter how far the hate of human beings can go, the love of God always has been, and will be, greater. In these current circumstances Paul’s exhortation is addressed to us: “Do not be overcome by evil but overcome evil with good” (Rom 12:21).

We need to demythologize vengeance! It has become a pervasive mythic theme that infects everything and everybody, starting with children. A large number of the stories we see on the screen and in video games are stories of revenge, passed off at times as the victory of a good hero. Half, if not more, of the suffering in the world (apart from natural disasters and illnesses) come from the desire for revenge, whether in personal relationships or between states and nations.

It has been said that “Beauty will save the world.”[6] But beauty, as we know very well, can also lead to ruin. There is only one thing that can truly save the world, mercy! The mercy of God for human beings and the mercy of human beings for each other. In particular, it can save the most precious and fragile thing in the world at this time, marriage and the family.

Something similar happens in marriage to what happened in God’s relationship with humanity that the Bible in fact describes with the image of a wedding. In the very beginning, as I said, there was love, not mercy. Mercy comes in only after humanity’s sin. So too in marriage, in the beginning there is not mercy but love. People do not get married because of mercy but because of love. But then after years or even months of life together, the limitations of each spouse emerge, and problems with health, finance, and the children arise. A routine sets in that quenches all joy.

What can save a marriage from going downhill without any hope of coming back up again is mercy, understood in the biblical sense, that is, not just reciprocal forgiveness but spouses acting with “compassion, kindness, lowliness, meekness and patience” (Col 3:12). Mercy adds agape to eros, it adds the love that gives of oneself and has compassion to the love of need and desire. God “takes pity” on human beings (see Ps 102:13). Shouldn’t a husband and wife, then, take pity on each other? And those of us who live in community, shouldn’t we take pity on one another instead of judging one another?

Let us pray. Heavenly Father, by the merits of your Son on the cross who “became sin for us” (see 2 Cor 5:21), remove any desire for vengeance from the hearts of individuals, families, and nations, and make us fall in love with mercy. Let the Holy Father’s intention in proclaiming this Year of Mercy be met with a concrete response in our lives, and let everyone experience the joy of being reconciled with you in the depth of the heart. Amen!

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

*

Preface to the Complete Edition of Luther's Latin Writings

(LW p. 336-338)

... Meanwhile, I had already during that year returned to interpret the Psalter anew. I had confidence in the fact that I was more skilful, after I had lectured in the university on St. Paul's epistles to the Romans, to the Galatians, and the one to the Hebrews. I had indeed been captivated with an extraordinary ardor for understanding Paul in the Epistle to the Romans. But up till then it was not the cold blood about the heart, but a single word in Chapter 1 [:17], "In it the righteousness of God is revealed," that had stood in my way. For I hated that word "righteousness of God," which, according to the use and custom of all the teachers. I had been taught to understand philosophically regarding the formal or active righteousness, as they called it, with which God is righteous and punishes the unrighteous sinner. 

Though I lived as a monk without reproach, I felt that I was a sinner before God with an extremely disturbed conscience. I could not believe that he was placated by my satisfaction. I did not love, yes, I hated the righteous God who punishes sinners, and secretly, if not blasphemously, certainly murmuring greatly, I was angry with God, and said, "As if, indeed, it is not enough, that miserable sinners, eternally lost through original sin, are crushed by every kind of calamity by the law of the decalogue, without having God add pain to pain by the gospel and also by the gospel threatening us with his righteousness and wrath!" Thus I raged with a fierce and troubled conscience. Nevertheless, I beat importunately upon Paul at that place, most ardently desiring to know what St. Paul wanted. 

At last, by the mercy of God, meditating day and night, I gave heed to the context of the words, namely, "In it the righteousness of God is revealed, as it is written. ‘He who through faith is righteous shall live.'" There I began to understand that the righteousness of God is that by which the righteous lives a gift of God, namely by faith. And this is the meaning: the righteousness of God is revealed by the gospel, namely, the passive righteousness with which merciful God justifies us by faith, as it is written, "He who through faith is righteous shall live." Here I felt that I was altogether born again and had entered paradise itself through open gates. There a totally other face of the entire Scripture showed itself to me. Thereupon I ran through the Scriptures from memory. I also found in other terms an analogy, as, the work of God, that is, what God does in us, the power of God, with which he makes us strong, the wisdom of God, with which he makes us wise, the strength of God, the salvation of God, the glory of God. 

And I extolled my sweetest word with a love as great as the hatred with which I had before hated the word "righteousness of God." Thus that place in Paul was for me truly the gate to paradise. Later I read Augustine's The Spirit and the Letter, where contrary to hope I found that he, too, interpreted God's righteousness in a similar way, as the righteousness with which God clothes us when he justifies us. Although this was heretofore said imperfectly and he did not explain all things concerning imputation clearly, it nevertheless was pleasing that God's righteousness with which we are justified was taught. Armed more fully with these thoughts, I began a second time to interpret the Psalter. And the work would have grown into a large commentary, if I had not again been compelled to leave the work begun, because Emperor Charles V in the following year convened the diet at Worms.