Cardinal Luis F. Ladaria (b. 1944), is a Spanish Jesuit theologian served as Prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of Faith. In his book, Jesus Christ: Salvation for All, he wrote the following about the salvation of the person of Jesus:
The mysteries of the life of Christ shows us Jesus’s
growth and development in his relationship with the Father. This progress in
sonship, through the work of the Spirit, disposes him, on the one hand, to the
realization of the mission entrusted to him. But on the other hand, Jesus must
be made capable of communicating to humanity the perfection that he possesses.
Progression, therefore, is presupposed, it cannot be considered meaningless for
Jesus himself. And now appears the second moment in the life of Jesus that has
a special significance to our purpose here: this resurrection. It appears as
the moment of Jesus’ <<salvation>>, (Dial. Tryph. 73,2) <<which
shows that [Christ] admits them [Hebrew ancestors] to be his fathers, who
trusted in God and were saved by him [cfr. Ps 22:5-6] . . . and he foretells
that he shall be saved by the same God, but does not boast in accomplishing
anything through his own will or might>> (Dial. Tryph. 101,1)
Justin also tells us the following: <<For if the Son of God clearly
states that he can be saved, neither because he is a son, nor because he is
strong or wise, but that without God he cannot be saved [cfr. Ps 22:10-12],
even though he be sinless, as Isaiah declares in words to the effect that even
in regard to his very language he committed no sin “although he had done no
violence, and there was no deceit in his mouth” [Is 53:9]>> (Dial.
Tryph. 102,7)
For Jesus, salvation means acquiring through his
humanity, through his entire earthly life and especially in the resurrection,
that which in a true sense, and not merely figuratively, he will give back to
humanity. Christ, in his obedience to the Father until death, has imprinted in
his humanity the dispositions of sonship that correspond to him and are fitting
as the son of God. As a consequence of this, in his resurrection he will also
receive in his humanity, in his flesh, the divine properties of incorruptibility
and immortality. In this way, he will be able to make us participants in them
as well. All this will be made possible in the time and rhythm of humanity,
which do not allow things to be done once for all time. Christ can be the Savior
because in his humanity he has experienced and has received the salvation of God—in
a word, because he has been saved. By virtue of his infinite goodness and in
fulfillment of the Father’s plan, the Son of God, who has not known and cannot
know sin, has placed himself in the predicament of needing to be liberated and
saved from death through the glory of the resurrection.
Justin is not the only one of the Fathers who has spoken
of the salvation of Jesus. Hilary of Poitiers, two centuries later, and in the
midst of anti-Arian struggle, when the insistence on the humanity of Jesus gave
origin to erroneous interpretations, insisted on the need for Jesus to be saved
and on his solidarity with us in the weakness he shared with all of humanity:
<<Sharing in our common weakness he prayed the Father to save him, so
that he might teach us that he was born man under all the conditions of man’s
infirmity>> (Tr. Ps. 53,7) Thus Jesus invokes the name of God the
Father, so that he may be saved in that humanity that he has assumed for us.
Jesus first realized in himself the mystery of our salvation, and with his resurrection
he annulled the decree of condemnation threatening us (cfr. Col 2:14-15):
<<He fulfilled the mystery of our salvation, he who coming from the dead
is now eternal, first, by raising himself from the dead, and ending in himself
the decree of our death, within which we were imprisoned>> (Tr. Ps.
67,23)
The salvation of Christ and our salvation are one and the
same. In the glorification of Jesus’ humanity, salvation is realized in him and
in us. The salvation that he asks for and that takes place in him is the
glorification and divinization of humanity. The spiritualization of the flesh
in the resurrection is considered as the transformation of the substance of eternal
salvation: <<in aeternae salute substantiam>> (Tr. Ps.
143,18) Divinity is the substantia salutis, of which humanity, without
ceasing to be humanity, can participate. Above all, it is the humanity of
Christ, and because of it and through it, the humanity of all of us. It is the
salvation that Jesus asks for himself as a man, the pleading of the flesh (carnis
deprecatio), that in the resurrection and glorification of the Lord will
become for the Father what from eternity has been the Word. (Hilary of
Poitiers, De Trinitate III 16) IN that glory he will be eternally contemplated
by the just.
And even if it does explicitly seem to be the vocabulary
of salvation, Pope Leo the Great spoke of the exaltation of Christ in his
humanity, citing the hymn of Phil 2:6-11:
Being uniquely the Lord Jesus Christ . . . nonetheless we
understand that the exaltation, with which, as the peoples’ Doctor says, God exalted
him and gave him a name above any other (cfr. Phil 2:9-10), refers to that form
which should be enriched with the increase of such a great glorification . . .
The form of servant . . . through which impassive divinity carried out the
mystery of great mystery (cfr. 1 Tim 3:16), is human humility, exalted in the
glory of divine power. (Letter Promississe me memini)
On other occasions, with the insistence on the intimate
relationship existing between the humanity of Jesus and the Church, the Eastern
and Western fathers underlined that the sanctification and glorification that
Jesus received from the Father in his humanity was destined for us all. Thus
said Saint Irenaeus: <<For inasmuch as the Word of God was man from the root
of Jesse, and son of Abraham, in this respect did the Spirit of God rest upon
him, and anoint him to preach the Gospel to the lowly (cfr. Isa 8:1; Luke 4:18)
. . . Therefore did the Spirit of God descend upon him, [the Spirit] of him who
had promised by the prophets that he would anoint him, so that we, receiving from
the abundance of his unction, might be saved>> (Adv. Haer. III.9,3;
cfr. Demonstr.59) Athanasius spoke in a similar fashion: <<it is
not the Logos as Logos and Wisdom who is anointed by the Holy Spirit he gives,
rather it is the flesh assumed by him which is anointed in him and by him, so
that the holiness which has come upon the Lord as man may go from him to all
men>> (Athanasius of Alexandria, Contra Arianos 47. Also ibid.,
[148]: <<He sanctifies himself [cfr. John 17:10] so that we may be sanctified
in him>>. He added: <<Everything Scripture says that Jesus has
received is said because of his body, which is initiation of the Church . . . First,
the Lord has raised his own body and has exalted it in itself. Then he has
resurrected all its members to give them, as God, what he has received as
man>> (Athanasius of Alexandria, De Incarnatione Verbi et contra
Arianos 12) The growth and development in Christ, his anointing, exaltation
and glorification, do not affect his divine nature, but only his humanity,
although this does not mean they do not affect him <<personally>>
as the incarnate Son of God. But in this humanity we perceive that the whole
Church, of which Christ is head, is included, which contains potentially the universality
of the human race. IF Jesus did not have need of salvation, once the
incarnation took place for the salvation of the world, we could not imagine
that the events and vicissitudes of his human life, even his death and
resurrection, wouldn’t have held significance for him. IF this were so, the
very meaning of the incarnation would be seriously compromised.
This is why tradition has spoken, albeit making due
distinctions of the salvation of Jesus—a salvation that it ours as well. The
salvation Jesus experienced and received in his humanity is the one that corresponds
to him as head of the body, and the one that is ultimately destined for all
humanity. We can obtain this salvation through him, who, without having sinned,
has been made sin for us, so that we might become the justice of God in him
(cfr. 2 Cor 5:21). It does not seem exaggerated to think that the known axion
<<qod non est assumptum non est sanatum>> (<<What has not
been assumed has not been healed, but what is united with God is saved>>)
gets its full meaning if we consider, in the first place, that Jesus himself
has been <<saved>> in his humanity, which he has integrally assumed
(body and soul). And because of this, the whole human race has been saved; his
salvation has been passed on to all of humanity. It is clear that, in the case
of Jesus, <<salvation>> excludes liberation from sin, which he did not
commit nor could commit, but that he nevertheless bore for us. But even with
the exclusion of this aspect—indeed, a point of critical importance—the sanctification,
consecration, and salvation of Christ as a man are frequent themes in the theology
of the fathers. Christ’s entering into humanity is not even justified in many
instances. The humanity of Jesus is our model and measure, because he has
always fulfilled the will of the Father; it is especially in his death and
resurrection, as it is in the paschal mystery that the center of the divine
plan is found. Thus Jesus, perfected by obedience to the Father, is the cause
of salvation for all who obey him. The humanity revivified by the Lord, who has
received salvation from the Father, is the principle of the revivification of
humanity. There is no salvation for humanity outside of the participation in
Christ’s salvation. (Luis F. Ladaria, Jesus Christ: Salvation of All [Miami,
Fla.: Convivium Press, 2008], 80-84)
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