ANSWERING QUESTIONS ON CHRISTOLOGY: “IF JESUS IS GOD, DID GOD DIE ON THE CROSS?” By Fr. Abe Arganiosa

“We, unlike some of them, do not announce a Gospel of prosperity, but Christian realism. We do not announce miracles, as some do, but the sobriety of Christian life.We are convinced that all this sobriety and realism which announce a God Who became man (therefore a profoundly human God a God Who also suffers with us) give meaning to our own suffering. In this way, announcement has a broader horizon and a greater future. We also know that these sects are not very stable. … The announcement of prosperity, of miraculous healing, etc., may do good in the short term, but we soon see that life is difficult, that a human God, A GOD WHO SUFFERS WITH US, is more convincing, truer, and offers greater help for life”. [Interview of Pope Benedict XIV on the Way to Cameroon, Africa. March 17, 2009. Vatican Information Service]

POPE BENEDICT XVI STATED THE ABOVE STATEMENT NOT JUST AS A BURST OF THE MOMENT, UNDER UNEXPECTED INTERVIEW. THOSE WHO ARE FAMILIAR WITH HIS WRITINGS [Well, I only own 17 of his books in English not including the encyclicals and apostolic letters] CAN EASILY RECOGNIZE THAT HE IS CONSISTENT ON THIS MATTER:

“This is a tragic element, the shadow of hovering so many religions, that they are simply a cry to which the response remains uncertain. Only GOD HIMSELF can hear the cry. JESUS CHRIST, both SON OF GOD AND MAN, who carries on his love right THROUGH DEATH, who transforms death into an act of love and truth, he is the response; the Covenant is founded in him.” [Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger. God is Near Us. Ed. by Stephan Otto Horn and Vincenz Pfnür, Trans. by Henry Taylor. San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2003. p. 39.]

IF THE CROSS… THEN THE LITURGY OF THE GOOD FRIDAY IS A FARCE. WE ARE GIVING LATRIA TO A PIECE OF WOOD, TO A MERE ‘HUMAN BODY’ AND GIVING UNWORTHY HONOR EXCLUSIVE FOR DIVINITY TO ‘HUMAN NATURE ONLY.’ INSTEAD, THE CROSS IS A FOR US A DIVINE INSTRUMENT FOR THE CORONATION OF CHRIST OUR LORD AND GOD. IT HAS BECOME HIS THRONE OF GLORY:

“The Cross is his THRONE, from which he draws the world to himself. From the place of total self-sacrifice, from this place of truly divine love, he reigns as the true king in his own way…” [Pope Benedict XVI, Jesus of Nazareth vol. 2, p. 211-212]

IN EFFECT,

“The Cross of Jesus replaces all other acts of worship as THE ONE TRUE GLORIFICATION OF GOD, in which God glorifies himself through him in whom he grants us his love, thereby drawing us to himself.” [Pope Benedict XVI, Jesus of Nazareth vol. 2, p. 223]

“Ever since, standing against the whole flood of filth and evil is the obedience of the Son, IN WHOM GOD HIMSELF SUFFERED, and hence this obedience always INFINITELY SURPASSES THE GROWING MASS OF EVIL (cf. Rom 5:16-20).” [Pope Benedict XVI, Jesus of Nazareth vol 2, p. 133]

RECONCILIATION WITH GOD, ONE OF THE MAJOR THEMES OF PAULINE THEOLOGY AND ESSENTIAL IN REDEMPTION, CAN ONLY BE MEANINGFUL AND PROVEN TRUE IF THE CRUCIFIED ONE IS GOD RATHER THAN MERE ‘HUMAN NATURE’ OR ‘MERE BODY’. CARDINAL RATZINGER SETTLED THIS MATTER IN HIS BESTSELLER CLASSIC ‘INTRODUCTION TO CHRISTIANITY’. THIS IS TO PROVE THAT WHILE ON THE CROSS JESUS WAS NOT A MERE MAN BUT GOD ALSO BECAUSE HE WAS DOING DIVINE ACTIVITIES SUCH AS ‘SAVING’ AND ‘REDEEMING’:

“God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself” (2 Cor 5:19). This is truly something new, something unheard of – the starting point of Christian existence and the center of New Testament theology of the Cross: God does not wait until the guilty come to be reconciled; he goes to meet them and reconciles them. Here we can see the true direction of the Incarnation, of the Cross.

“Accordingly, in the New Testament the Cross appears primarily as a movement from above to below. It stands there, not as a work of expiation that mankind offers to the wrathful God, but as the expression of that foolish love of God’s that gives itself away to the point of humiliation in order thus to save man…” [Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger. Introduction to Christianity. Trans. by J.R. Foster. San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1990. p. 283.]

“This divine activity now takes on dramatic form when, in Jesus Christ, it is God himself who goes in search of the “stray sheep”, a suffering and lost humanity. When Jesus speaks in his parables of the shepherd who goes after the lost sheep, of the woman who looks for the lost coin, of the father who goes to meet and embrace his prodigal son, these are no mere words: they constitute an explanation of his very being and activity. His death on the Cross is the culmination of that turning of God against himself in which he gives himself in order to raise man up and save him. This is love in its most radical form. By contemplating the pierced side of Christ (cf. 19:37), we can understand the starting-point of this Encyclical Letter: “God is love” (1 Jn 4:8). It is there that this truth can be contemplated. It is from there that our definition of love must begin. In this contemplation the Christian discovers the path along which his life and love must move.” [Benedict XVI. Deus Caritas Est #12.]

AGAIN, THE HOLY FATHER STRESSED THE SAME TEACHING IN HIS POST-SYNODAL APOSTOLIC EXORTATION:

In the mystery of Christ’s obedience unto death, even death on a Cross (cf. Phil 2:8), the new and eternal covenant was brought about. In his crucified flesh, God’s freedom and our human freedom met definitively in an inviolable, eternally valid pact. Human sin was also redeemed once for all by God’s Son (cf. Heb 7:27; 1 Jn 2:2; 4:10). As I have said elsewhere, “Christ’s death on the Cross is the culmination of that turning of God against himself in which he gives himself in order to raise man up and save him. This is love in its most radical form.” (18) In the Paschal Mystery, our deliverance from evil and death has taken place. [Benedixt XVI, Sacramentum Caritatis #9.]