How the Passion Saves You: It's Not What You Think

Jesus died to save mankind. But why? 

When I first learned about Soteriology (the study of the Savior) in my theology classes, I remember wondering, “Why does a man dying in Jerusalem mean I get to go to heaven?” I believed it was true, but honestly, I couldn’t explain how it worked. 

Initially, I thought that Jesus took the beating that I deserved, but that didn’t seem quite right. This way of thinking makes the Father seem like a wrathful master who demands the blood of His Son as payment for the sins of His slaves. Where is the mercy or justice in that? 

Although I grew up Catholic, I had been unconsciously influenced by a very Protestant understanding of Redemption. Protestants generally believe in a doctrine called Penal Substitution, which basically means that Christ’s punishment substitutes for ours. This way of thinking paints the Father as an angry tyrant who just needs an outlet for His wrath before He can forgive us and not a loving God who would do anything to save His wayward children. The emphasis in the Passion must be the Father’s love and not His wrath, or else we risk making Christ the hero and the Father seem like the villain of Good Friday.

To gain some clarity on this issue, we will examine a couple of questions before finally demonstrating that the Father’s love, not His anger, causes Him to hand over His Son to the Passion. This article will address these three main questions to give us some much-needed clarity and background on this difficult doctrine.

1. How the Incarnation of Christ saves us

2. How the Passion and death of Christ saves us

3. How the Passion is a result of the Father’s love and not His wrath

I hope this article will simplify a difficult concept so that the reader can better appreciate the merciful heart of the Father and enter more deeply into the Passion of Christ this Triduum.

Let’s jump in. 

Before we determine how the Incarnation saves us, it is useful to know whether it was necessary for salvation. 

Thomas and Augustine both agree that God could have delivered the human race without the Incarnation of Christ. Thomas says:

A thing is said to be necessary for a certain end in two ways. First, when the end cannot be without it; as food is necessary for the preservation of human life. Second, when the end is attained better and more conveniently, as a horse is necessary for a journey. In the first way it was not necessary that God should become incarnate for the restoration of human nature. For God with His omnipotent power could have restored human nature in many other ways. But in the second way it was necessary that God should become incarnate for the restoration of human nature. 

The omnipotent God could have delivered the human race in any way He chose. If God had decided to forgive men without demanding satisfaction for sin, there would have been no injustice. God could have snapped His fingers like an Avengers villain and made all sins disappear!

To illustrate this point,  if a man is robbed and chooses to forgive his aggressor without demanding that the money be restored, there is no injustice. The person who was robbed has the right to demand satisfaction or to forfeit his right to satisfaction; he can choose to press charges or not. 

This being said, the all-wise God demanded that the balance of justice be restored to teach us the gravity of sin. If God had forgiven all sins without payment, it would have made sin seem trivial and small. 

Since God demanded the restoration of justice, the most fitting way to accomplish this end was through the Incarnation; in this way, the Incarnation is said to be necessary. Simply speaking, however, God did not need to humble Himself and come down from heaven to save us He could have done it in any number of ways. The Incarnation is the result of a totally free act of a loving God; not because it benefits Him, but because it benefits us and incites us to love Him. 

The Incarnation is the most fitting way to reconcile man to God because we were separated from God by a man's disobedience, so it was fitting that a man's obedience should restore us. God was offended by man, so it is most fitting that He be propitiated by a man. 

The trouble is that an offense against God is, in a certain respect, infinite and, therefore, impossible for a finite creature to repay. 

Thomas puts it this way:

Punishment is taxed according to the dignity of the person sinned against, so that a person who strikes one in authority receives a greater punishment than one who strikes anyone else. Now whoever sins mortally, sins against God, whose commandments he breaks, and whose honor he gives another by placing his end in some one other than God. But God’s majesty is infinite. Therefore, whoever sins mortally deserves infinite punishment.

The dignity of the one offended changes the gravity of the offense, and if the one offended has an infinite dignity, then an infinite punishment is merited. Battery is a horrible crime that will end in some jail time, but if this crime is committed against the president, it is likely to result in a life sentence. If someone sins against God, then they have sinned against His infinite dignity and, therefore, they merit an infinite punishment. 

To crystalize all that we’ve covered so far:

1. God could have saved the human race without demanding that justice be satisfied; however,

2. God, in His wisdom, demanded that His justice be satisfied 

3. Man is a finite creature and cannot atone for the infinite offense of mortal sin 

The stage is now set for the Incarnation. 

Man sinned and incurred an infinite debt. Now he needed a Redeemer capable of giving God something of equal or greater value to reestablish justice. The Incarnation is the only solution. Nothing done by finite men who are subject to time can remit an infinite and eternal punishment unless the offering is somehow infinite.

When Christ offered His human nature to the Father on our behalf, He satisfied the Father’s justice and gave the Father something greater than what He had lost by the sins of all mankind. 

Since Christ is divine, He is able to merit an infinite amount because the acts of Jesus are the acts of God. And, since He is man, He is able to merit in the name of all human nature. Just as Adam, as our first representative and head, rebelled in the name of all human nature, so now Christ, our new Representative and Head, submitted His will to the Father in the name of all human nature. 

Through sin, man robbed God of the honor due to Him; through the Incarnation, a man offered to God something greater than what He was deprived of by sin. 

The Incarnation satisfies God's justice. From the first moment of His conception in Mary's womb, Jesus merited salvation for every man, woman, and child ever to be born. God loves the Sacred Humanity of Christ more than He hates the sins of the whole world because the Humanity of Christ is joined to the infinitely lovable Godhead. The solution has become clear: God alone can atone for the infinite injustice of sin, but He must do it as man. Since Christ offered His Humanity to the Father on our behalf as a man, all sins from Adam to Antichrist were atoned for immediately after Our Lady's Fiat. In the womb of Mary, the infinite God injects Himself into history as a man to save men who were incapable of saving themselves. The infinite God assumes a finite human nature and, thereby, is able to atone for the infinite offense of mortal sin and open the gates of heaven. 

So, to answer our first question, Christ saves us as a man by offering His Sacred Humanity to God on our behalf. Christ's humanity pleases God more than the sins of all mankind offend Him, so the Father accepts Christ's Incarnation as the satisfaction of His justice. Adam represented mankind as our first head and offended God on behalf of all men; Christ is our new Head and propitiated God on behalf of all men. 

But wait, if Christ made satisfaction for all sins from the first moment of His conception, why did He need to suffer His Passion and die? Here we will address our second question. 

Thomas says:

From the beginning of His conception Christ merited our eternal salvation; but on our side there were some obstacles, whereby we were hindered from securing the effect of His preceding merits: consequently, in order to remove such hindrances, it was necessary for Christ to suffer.

Men attain salvation by loving God more than any created thing. Christ does everything He can to make sure that men do not fall into hell, so he proves His love for us by publicly giving His life for us on the Cross. As we established earlier, God could have saved men without humbling Himself in the Incarnation; in the same way, He could have saved men without the Cross and without death. The blood from Jesus’ circumcision alone is sufficient to atone for the sins of the whole world. Each and every one of Jesus’ acts as a man is infinitely meritorious due to His union with the Godhead. To put this in perspective, Christ atoned for the sins of all mankind as a fetus in the womb of Mary.

So why did Jesus die for us? As Augustine says:

Nothing will incite another more to love you than that you love him first: for he must have a hard heart indeed, who not only refuses to love, but declines to return love already given.

Christ loves us with an everlasting love, and He chose to demonstrate it on the Cross. It was not enough for Him to tell us He loved us unconditionally, He wanted to prove it by offering His Body and Blood for the salvation of sinners. On the Cross, Christ teaches us that no matter how violently we turn away from Him in this life, He will never turn away from us. This sacrifice removes impediments to our salvation by inciting us to return the love already freely given to us and thereby unite ourselves to God. After the Passion, we can no longer doubt that God loves us unconditionally and this may be the greatest motive we have to love Him. 

So, to answer our second question, the Passion of Christ saves us by removing impediments within us, namely, hardness of heart and lack of belief in God’s love for mankind. How can we question God’s love after He freely suffered so much on our behalf? Christ did not need to suffer the Cross, but He freely chose to in order to inspire love within us and save us. All that Jesus does, He does for us and for our salvation.

Now that we understand how the Incarnation merits our salvation and how the Passion removes impediments on our behalf let’s examine how the Father’s love for mankind, not His wrath, causes the Passion.

The love of the Father must be emphasized whenever the Passion of Christ is discussed. If we have a faulty understanding of the Father’s love, we will see the Father as vengeful and sanguinary rather than loving and merciful. This is the error I nearly fell into when I first studied the Passion, and it must be avoided at all costs.

But how can a loving and just Father send His Son into the world to die for sins He did not commit? Isn’t it wicked and cruel to hand over an innocent man to be Crucified? 

Thomas responds to this objection by saying:

It is indeed a wicked and cruel act to hand over an innocent man to torment and to death against his will. Yet God the Father did not so deliver up Christ, but inspired Him with the will to suffer for us. 

God the Father hands over the Son to His Passion not out of anger with mankind but out of love for mankind so that we might be saved. He inspires in Christ the will to freely suffer for our sake, and in this sense, the Son also delivers Himself up to the Passion. This is what Thomas means when he says:

Christ as God delivered Himself up to death by the same will and action as that by which the Father delivered Him up; but as man He gave Himself up by a will inspired of the Father. Consequently there is no contrariety in the Father delivering Him up and in Christ delivering Himself up.

The Father hands over His Son to the Passion not to pour out His wrath but rather to reconcile mankind to Himself out of love. Christ, as God, has the same will as the Father, and Christ, as man, loved the Father so much that He had no other will but to do His Father’s bidding. Jesus was not forced to endure His Passion but underwent it freely out of love for mankind and obedience to His Father in order to merit our salvation and His own glorification. 

The Father so loved the world that He was willing to send His only Son so that we might not perish but have eternal life. Mankind is thereby saved from damnation, and the Son is glorified as the Savior of all. The will to save mankind is the same in the Father and the Son.

The Father delivers up Christ, and Christ delivers Himself up with perfect concordance of will. The love Christ shows for mankind on the Cross is the Father’s love; the Son’s will to save mankind is perfectly united with the will of the Father. In an act of love and mercy, the Father inspires Christ with the will to save us. Therefore, when we see Christ’s love for us, we see the Father’s love for us. If understood correctly, the Passion is an outpouring of the Father’s love and not His anger.

So what of God’s wrath? 

In one way, it is true to say Jesus suffered because of the Father’s wrath insofar as He resembles a man being punished out of wrath. He suffered in His flesh to teach us the severity with which God punishes sins. When God punishes, He, in many ways, resembles an angry and demanding man. And so, Christ endures the Father’s wrath by resembling a punished sinner to teach us the severity with which God punishes sin. 

But it is far better to say that His suffering was caused by love. The Father loves us and sends His Son; the Son loves us and delivers Himself up for us. The Passion is the fruit of divine love, not wrath. God delivers Christ up to death to demonstrate the punishment due to us for our sins and to lead us away from vice. Jesus loves us and is willing to take our punishment upon Himself in the above-mentioned sense in order to teach us the gravity of our actions and lead us to heaven.

In conclusion, the Father loves each of us as if we were the only one. We can each say with Saint Paul that Christ loved me and delivered Himself up for me (cf. Gal 2:20) and that the Father has loved me and delivered His only Son up for me. The love of the Father saves us. The Father, in giving His Son, gives us the best gift He has. He doesn’t simply transfer our punishment to Christ as I once thought. Rather, He inspires Christ with a superabundant charity and causes Him to merit satisfaction for our sins. 

Once I understood the Father's love, I was able to pray to Him with renewed confidence and trust. I saw myself as a beloved son, a prince in the kingdom, and another Christ. This Good Friday, let us honor the Father and the Son as beloved children of God. 

Thanks for reading,

P.S.

This is a massive and difficult topic, and I’m sure you have questions! Leave a comment letting me know what you’re curious about!

P.P.S.

In case you’re wondering if Jesus freed all the souls in Purgatory when He descended into hell, Thomas says no! Check out the last reference for more info. 

Reference: 

https://aquinas.cc/la/en/~ST.III.Q1.A2.C

https://aquinas.cc/la/en/~ST.IIISup.Q99.A1.SC.3

https://aquinas.cc/la/en/~ST.II-II

https://aquinas.cc/la/en/~ST.III.Q47.A3.Rep1

https://aquinas.cc/la/en/~ST.III.Q47.A3.Rep2

https://aquinas.cc/la/en/~ST.III.Q52.A8.C