MAGISTERY
On the morning of September 11, 2001, I sat in my basement staring in utter shock as I watched the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York collapse right before my eyes. The sight of two planes flying directly into the towers was horrific, but when I saw those enormous towers, possibly the world’s most vivid symbols of man’s power, completely fall within a matter of minutes I was shaken to the bone, numbed and left trembling in disbelief.
Like most everyone who watched the events of that day, I was overwhelmed by the magnitude of evil unleashed on the thousands of unsuspecting people who died there. To witness such manifest evil filled everyone who watched it with fear and confusion. How could this happen? What kind of evil and depth of hate could drive someone to do such a thing? Seeing the face of evil that day drove multitudes of Americans and people all around the world to their knees. Suddenly everyone, even the normally cynical, secularized news commentators were talking about God, the mystery of evil and the existence of the devil.
While many commentators and writers groped for some explanation of the meaning and source of the evil we had witnessed, I was deeply shaken by the stark way in which the collapse of the towers laid bare the sobering fact of our fragile, contingent existence. As the flaming towers disappeared from view on the television screen, the words of Scripture came to mind:
“As for man, his days are like grass; he flourishes like a flower of the field; for the wind passes over it, and it is gone, and its place knows no more” (Psalm 103:15-16).
“All flesh is grass and all its glory like the flower of the grass. The grass withers and the flower falls…” (1 Peter 1:24).
Those towers not only symbolized, but they actually embodied so much of man’s glory and power. They stretched to the skies as a kind of declaration of man’s potential, his almost unlimited capacity to achieve. The towers were a wonder; a source of pride, an immovable sign of invincibility. Yet in a matter of moments, all that glory was reduced to nothing. It was gone forever.
The collapse of the towers has shaken our foundations. It drove home in a completely unavoidable way a fundamental truth about ourselves that we normally refuse to pay attention to. That is, the glory of man is an illusion. The psalmist says it best: “man is like a breath, his days are like a passing shadow” (Psalm 144:4). Our days are passing, indeed all that we touch turns to dust and ashes. Despite our best efforts nothing lasts. We are fragile, contingent, utterly dependent beings.
I believe this sobering fact is for some, the most frightening aspect of this entire ordeal. That is the reason people so readily turn to God for answers. In the face of such a frightening mystery, no one else has anything worth listening to. Whenever we’re forced to come to terms with our passing, fragile condition, only God, and his word can bring understanding and consolation.
In the passage quoted above, St. Peter not only acknowledges that “all flesh is grass,” he goes on to say, “but the word of the Lord abides forever.” God’s word is true, it’s eternal, and it will never change. Only in God’s word will we find the truth hidden in the mystery of our own existence. There we will find the rock solid security for which our hearts long.
The heart of God’s word to his people is revealed in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. He is God’s perfect word to the human race. All we need to know about our lives is revealed in him. He unfolds the mystery of our existence.
The truth revealed in Jesus is contained in the Gospel. My purpose in writing this short booklet is to provide for you a brief understanding of the Gospel. I’ve included many quotes and scripture references so you can use this booklet as a resource for your prayer and study.
What is the Gospel?
To know the Gospel is to know the essence of Christianity. It contains the heart or core of the Christian understanding of reality. It is not an exaggeration to say that ignorance of the Gospel is ignorance of Jesus. St. Paul said that the Gospel contains “the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God” (Eph 3:8) but “now is made manifest to his saints (Col 1:26). The Gospel makes known “a secret and hidden wisdom of God” (1 Cor 2:7) and carries within it God’s eternal plan for his creation.
The word Gospel means “good news.” For St. Paul this “mystery hidden for ages” contains God’s good news for his creation. This is “God’s gospel” (1 Thess. 2:2), a secret wisdom hidden for ages in the heart of God. It is a specific plan, which reveals the truth, not a truth, about the meaning of human life. The Gospel contains the definitive word about our existence, and “there is no other gospel” (Gal 1:6) that can rival this “glorious gospel of the blessed God” (1 Thess. 1:8). This is the final word, “the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation” (Eph 1:13), the definitive interpretation of the human condition and of our final destiny.
It’s important to see that for St. Paul the Gospel is more than words, more than another philosophy or religion, rather it is the very “power of God” (Romans 1:16). It’s a word that is accompanied by God’s own authenticating power and authority: “our message of the gospel came to you not in word only, but also in the power of the Holy Spirit and with full conviction” (1 Thess. 1:5). This is the word, “the gospel of Christ” (Philippians 1:27), that God stands behind. It comes through “a demonstration of the Spirit and power, that our (your) faith may not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God” (1 Cor. 2:4-5).
St. Paul’s Anthropology
The first thing the Gospel reveals to us is God’s perspective on the fundamental truth about the condition of the human race. St. Paul identifies four powers- sin, death, the law, and the devil, which all conspire together to lead the human race into a state of slavery and alienation from God.
Sin and Death
St. Paul begins this way: “sin came into the world through one man” (Romans 5:12), that is Adam, who freely chose to disobey God’s direct command to him. In the story of creation, Adam falls prey to the subtle seduction of the devil, which leads him to doubt God’s good intentions for Adam. The power of the seduction came in the temptation to believe that by disobeying God, Adam and Eve, would “become like God” (Gen. 3:5). God’s command to them was clear, “you shall not eat of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die” (Gen 3:2). The devil directly contradicts God’s word assuring Eve she “will not die” but instead, the opposite will happen, “your eyes will be opened and you will be like God” (Gen. 3:5).
Adam and Eve chose to believe a lie. They thought they could find life apart from God’s command. They believed that somehow God was holding something back from them and as a result he couldn’t be trusted. That one act of disobedience brought enmity between God and man. Instead of walking with God in peace in the Garden of Eden and living in union with him, God, “drove out the man” and set an angel with a flaming sword to “guard the way to the tree of life” (Gen. 3:24). Because of sin, Adam is cut off from the source of life.
St. Paul sees it this way, “sin came into the world through one man and death (came) through sin” (Romans 5:12); because of “one man’s trespass, death reigned through that one man” (Romans 5:16). Death enters the world through Adam’s sin; death is a punishment for sin. St. Paul takes it one step further by saying, “death spread to all men, because all men sinned” (Romans 5:12). The logical progression is this: death comes through sin; all men sin, therefore all men die. Death comes to each man and woman because each has sinned.
St. Paul describes this fundamental state or condition a number of ways: “you were dead through the trespasses and sins in which you once walked…so you were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind” (Ephesians 2:1,3). Not only does death become our end, but also we live our life here on earth “having no hope and without God in the world” (Eph. 2:12).
That is a very sobering, grim picture of what sin has done to the human race. It’s a vision of man that doesn’t play well in our day, but nonetheless it is the biblical understanding of what sin has done to us. Sin is the source of all human misery. It leaves us lost, broken and without a future. Like Adam, our sin has cut us off from “the way to the tree of life.”
Many today want to say that death is just the natural next step in a great evolutionary cycle, and consequently, it should not be feared, but it should be welcomed. Pope John Paul II spoke about it this way.
In our human condition touched by sin, death presents a certain dark side which cannot but bring sadness and fear…However rationally comprehensible death may be from a biological point of view, it is not possible to experience it as something “natural”. This would contradict man’s deepest instincts. As the Council observed: ‘it is in the face of death that the riddle of human existence becomes most acute. Not only is man tormented by pain and by the advancing deterioration of his body, but even more so by the dread of perpetual extinction (Letter to Elderly, 11/99).
There is nothing natural about our own extinction. According to St. Paul, death is a power that “reigns” over man, exercising a dominion over him by casting a shadow over his horizon. So total is death’s “reign” over man that some philosophers have defined human existence as “being toward death.” Death casts its shadow over all of life because it exercises final dominion over all of us, the rich and the poor, the weak and the strong, the wise and the fool. Death has the final word.
The Devil
The third power that comes into play in this human struggle against powers of sin and death is the devil. Jesus called the devil “a murderer” and “a liar and the father of lies” (John 8:44). St. Peter warns his followers to “be sober, be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour” (1 Peter 5:8). The Scriptures teach us that the devil wields the power of death against us for his own ends. The devil, who “has the power of death” uses that power to lead the human race into a state of “lifelong bondage” through “the fear of death” (Hebrews 2:14).
The fear of death is the root of all other fears. The struggle against the myriad ordinary fears we face in life, such as the fear of pain, of being forgotten, of not having enough, of not accomplishing enough, of getting old, of being diminished in some way all find their power source in the fear of death. Enormous amounts of human energy are directed everyday toward staving off death.
We are susceptible to the devil’s strategy because we will do all we can to avoid these fears. Have you ever lied to avoid embarrassment? Have you ever used alcohol or drugs to escape from feelings of worthlessness or to numb pain? Have you ever put others down in order to elevate your own image in the eyes of others? Have you ever sought revenge against someone who has hurt you in some way?
What do all these examples have in common? They all involve engaging in a sinful form of behavior in order to avoid something we fear. The devil leads the human race into habit patterns of sin, and through sin into ever-deeper forms of bondage, by manipulating our fear of death. His ultimate goal is to make us his own slaves and to lead us to eternal death.
The Law
The fourth power St. Paul speaks about is the law, i.e., the Ten Commandments. In fact, St. Paul states that “the very commandment which promised life proved to be death to me” (Romans 7:10). How can that be? How can God’s law which is “holy and just and good” lead to my ultimate demise? He explains it this way: “while we were living in the flesh, our sinful passions, aroused by the law, were at work in our members to bear fruit for death” (Romans 7:5). Because of the “law of sin” within us, the law of God, which is meant for good, exposes the true condition of our hearts toward God. The commandments of God demand that we love him first, with all our heart, soul, mind and strength. Yet when we look at our lives in light of that command we know we don’t fulfill it. Instead what we find is “all kinds of covetousness” (Romans 7:8) and self-love.
As a result, the law becomes a curse against us. “For all who rely on the works of the law are under a curse; for it is written, ‘Cursed be every one who does not abide by all things written in the book of the law and do them’” (Gal. 3:10). Who has abided by every command in the book of the law? Who has fulfilled the law through their own deeds? For St. Paul the answer was clear: “it is evident that no man is justified before God by the law” (Gal. 3:11).
Because of this fundamental condition of man, he lives a life characterized by despair and empty futility. For no matter how hard he toils, no matter how many mountains he climbs, no matter how many kingdoms he builds, no matter how wealthy he becomes, in the end, death has its way with him. There is no resource in man, nothing in his flesh that can endure death. Sin has emptied the flesh of any capacity to bear a life that endures. On the contrary, death is the last word revealing the utter powerlessness of the flesh. Jesus said, “the flesh is useless” (John 6:63). That is, the flesh has no power within it, nothing strong enough to overcome the power of sin and death. Indeed, “all flesh is grass and its glory like the flower of grass. The grass withers and the flower falls” (1 Peter 1:24). Why? Because sin has cut man off from his life source, he has been cut off from “the way that leads to the tree of life.”
“Left to its own natural powers humanity does not have access to the‘Father’s house,’ to God’s life and happiness.”[1]
St. Paul recognizes what the power of sin, his own sin, has done to him: “Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?” (Romans 7:24). This is the central question for every human being: who will deliver me from the inescapable, final reality of my own impending death? Paul knows he is in a struggle against death, his “last enemy” (1 Cor. 15:26), a struggle he cannot win with his own resources. Only a power stronger than death can free him from his bondage.
“In Him Was Life”
In his first epistle St. John summarizes the core of the early Church’s faith: “we know we have passed from death to life” (1Jn 3:14). This is the foundation of the Christian view of reality. The “way that leads to the tree of life” has been opened. Man’s fundamental problem has been solved, the riddle of his existence has been answered: “death is swallowed up in victory” (1 Cor 15:54).
How did the first Christians know that death had been conquered and that they had “passed from death to life?” St. Peter’s first public preaching on Pentecost made it clear:
“Men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs which God did through him in your midst, as you yourselves know-this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men. But God raised him up, having loosed the pangs of death, because it was not possible for him to held by it” (Acts 2:22-24).
The apostles knew death had been conquered because they saw the risen Christ. Jesus, who was dead, rose again. He passed through death and entered a new type of existence, an existence beyond death, a reality no human being had ever seen before. The bodily resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth “is the original fact upon which Christian faith is based.”[2] St. Augustine states it succinctly: “the faith of Christians is the resurrection of Christ.”[3]
The whole of the Christian faith stands or falls on the resurrection of Jesus. As St. Paul states it, “if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins” (1 Cor 15:17). If Christ has not been raised death gets the final word, death remains the greatest power in the universe. Yet, St. Peter makes it clear that it was impossible for death to hold Jesus down. Jesus bore a life within himself that was stronger than death. The apostles saw this life with their own eyes, they touched it, and it became the source of their life:
“that which is from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon and touched with our hands, concerning the word of life-the life was made manifest, and we saw it, and testify to it, and proclaim to you the eternal life which was with the Father and was made manifest to us-that which we have seen and heard we proclaim to you…” (1Jn 1:1-3).
The New Humanity
The apostles realized that “eternal life” had come in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus bore in his own humanity the one reality that was stronger than sin and death, namely, God’s own life. Here we touch on the heart of what St. Paul described as the “mystery hidden for ages but now made manifest.” That mystery is a “new creation” (2Cor. 5:17); a new humanity brought into being in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus did not come simply to better or further our existence here on earth, but instead he came that a whole new existence could be born in him.
This new way of being is life beyond death, a life empowered by the risen Jesus who is no longer subject to death: “for we know that Christ being raised from the dead will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him” (Romans 6:9).
The Christian life is an actual sharing in Jesus’ risen state. The Gospel is a proclamation of this fact and an invitation to enter the new humanity in Jesus:
“as Christ has been raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life” (Romans 6:4).
“If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through his Spirit who dwells in you” (Romans 8:11).
“Christ’s Resurrection-and the risen Christ himself-is the principle and source of our future resurrection: ‘Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep…For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.’”[4]
The Gospel is so much more than simply the passing on of commandments and laws, rather at its heart, it is a transfusion of life. Jesus came not only to teach us how to live, but he came so that it would be possible for the human race to live forever free from the bondages of sin and death. St. Paul underlines this fact clearly when he contrasts Jesus and Adam: “the first man Adam became a living being; the last Adam (Jesus) became a life-giving Spirit” (1 Cor 15:44). Jesus is a life-giving Spirit.
The Gospel: Our Sure Hope
The Gospel is the message of hope for the human race because it puts us in touch with Jesus who is the life source of the new humanity. Humanity apart from Jesus has no future; humanity in Jesus will live forever. Only in Jesus is the entire regime of power that is set against the human race, namely the powers of sin, death, the devil and the curse of the law, decisively broken.
Jesus destroyed the power of sin by becoming sin for us:
“He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed” (1Pt. 2:24).
Sin had cut off the human race from its life source. In the words of Fr. Raniero Cantalamessa, “sin’s nearness to us provoked God’s remoteness.” God who is holy cannot be united to what is unholy. This state of alienation from God is what finally destroys every human being. Jesus went to the cross to deal with this separation and to make a way back to the Father. “The blood of Jesus cleanses us from all sin” (1Jn 1:7) and “purifies our conscience from dead works” (Heb. 9:14) so that we are made capable of drawing close to God and bearing his own life.
Jesus’ death on the cross makes the new creation possible. The cross is the means by which all the powers of darkness are destroyed:
“And you, who were dead in trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, having canceled the bond which stood against us with its legal demands; this he set aside, nailing it to the cross. He disarmed the principalities and powers and made a public show of them, triumphing over them in him” (Col. 1:13-15).
The death of Jesus breaks the stranglehold of these powers. Sin’s power is washed away by Jesus’ precious blood; the legal demands of the law are perfectly fulfilled in his act of sacrificial love and its curse is broken; having dealt with our sin he disarms the devil who can no longer stand as our accuser. Finally, death itself is consumed by the greatness and power of his life. Human flesh, which stood condemned, is now taken up into glory in the flesh of Jesus of Nazareth. The risen Christ is the new creation!
Saved Through Faith
How does one enter the new creation? Aren’t we all evolving into the kind of life Jesus now lives? Won’t we all automatically become what Jesus is after we die?
St. Paul makes it clear that sharing in Jesus’ resurrected life is a gift which we receive by faith: “by grace you have been saved through faith; and this is not your own doing, it is the gift of God, lest any man should boast” (Eph 2:8-9). The new creation, that is, participating in Jesus’ risen existence, is not something we earn, or automatically inherit, nor is it something into which we naturally evolve. No one deserves it nor can lay claim to it. It is not something we can attain through meditation, mind control, money, esoteric philosophy, magic or new age spirituality. It comes through faith, which is a conscious, wholehearted surrender of one’s entire life in trust to Jesus, the risen Lord of the new humanity. It demands a decision, a turning away from everything in our lives that is inconsistent with Jesus’ will for us.
Faith itself is a gift, a work of God in us, whereby God confirms in us the truth revealed in Jesus. God the Father helps us see the truth about his Son. After St. Peter confessed that Jesus was “the Christ, the Son of the living God,” Jesus said to him: “Blessed are you Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven” (Mt 16:17).
Faith has two fundamental aspects: “faith therefore…involves a dual adherence: to God who reveals and to the truth he reveals, out of trust which one has for him who speaks. Thus, we must believe in no one but God: the Father, the Son and Holy Spirit.”[5]
Through faith we acknowledge that St. Paul’s understanding of our condition before God is true, that we are “under sin” and completely incapable of changing that condition on our own resources. The new life we need comes only through Jesus. “No one, therefore, can enter into communion with God except through Christ, by the working of the Holy Spirit.”[6]
It is crucial to see that faith is more than an intellectual assent to a set of truths. It includes that but at its heart is a radical abandonment of one’s whole life in trust to Jesus. A friend of mine describes faith this way, “to have faith is to lean on Jesus in such a way that if he wasn’t there we would fall flat on our faces.” Faith includes a dimension of risk, of letting go, of placing one’s confidence completely in Jesus.
St. Paul says, “faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” Faith is complete assurance in the hope of eternal life. We know we will gain heaven not because we see it or are convinced we’ve earned it, but because Jesus promised to bring us there. We have full confidence that his words are true and that he is able to do all he has promised. Like Abraham, whom the liturgy describes as “our father in faith,” we are called to live a life “fully convinced that God is able to do what he has promised” (Romans 4:21).
Faith is so important that St. Paul tells us “without faith it is impossible to please God” (Hebrews 11:6). Faith pleases God because it does justice to Him. It gives to God what is rightfully his, our complete obedience and trust.
Is Jesus the Only Way?
Does this mean that Jesus is the only Savior of the world? If so, then what happens to all those who don’t know Jesus, who never come to an explicit faith in him? Are we to believe that they will be condemned?
The apostolic preaching of the New Testament made it clear that Jesus is indeed the only Savior of the world:
Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, answered them, “Leaders of the people and elders:
If we are being examined today about a good deed done to a cripple, namely, by what means he was saved, then all of you and all the people of Israel should know that it was in the name of Jesus Christ the Nazorean whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead; in his name this man stands before you healed. He is ‘the stone rejected by you, the builders, which has become the cornerstone.’ There is no salvation through anyone else, nor is there any other name under heaven given to the human race by which we are to be saved” (Acts 4:8-12).
“But we believe that we shall be saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, just as they will” (Acts 15:11).
“Men, what must I do to be saved?” And they said, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household” (Acts 16:30-31).
“God desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God; there is also one mediator between God and men, the man Jesus Christ, who gave himself as a ransom for all” (1 Timothy 2:4-6).
“God has not destined us for wrath but for acquiring salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Thess. 5:9).
The Catechism of the Catholic Church and the teaching of Pope John Paul II underline this basic tenant of the faith:
“The name ‘Jesus’ signifies that the very name of God is present in the person of his Son, made man for the universal and definitive redemption from sins. It is the divine name that alone brings salvation, and henceforth all can invoke his name, for Jesus united himself to all men through his Incarnation, so that “there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.”[7]
“the truth of Jesus Christ, Son of God, Lord and only Savior, who through the event of his incarnation, death and resurrection has brought the history of salvation to fulfillment, and which has in him its fullness and center, must be firmly believed as a constant element of the Church’s faith.”[8]
“If we go back to the beginnings of the Church, we find a clear affirmation that Christ is the one Savior of all, the only one able to reveal God and lead to God.”[9]
What About Those Who Don’t Believe in Jesus?
Is salvation possible for those who don’t come to explicit faith in Jesus? There are many voices today, even within the Church, that propose some form of the doctrine of universal salvation. The presumption is that everyone, with the possible exception of mass murderers like Hitler and Stalin, will be saved. The teaching of the Catholic Church is quite different.
The Church’s position is stated clearly in Lumen Gentium, the document on the Church from the Second Vatican Council:
“Those who, through no fault of their own, do not know the Gospel of Christ or his Church, but who nevertheless seek God with a sincere heart, and moved by grace, try in their actions to do his will as they know it through the dictates of conscience-those too may achieve eternal salvation. Nor shall divine providence deny the assistance necessary for salvation to those who, without any fault of theirs, have not yet arrived at an explicit knowledge of God, and who, not without grace strive to lead a good life. Whatever good or truth is found among them is considered by the Church to be a preparation for the Gospel and given by him who enlightens all men that they may at length have life.”[10]
Here the Church states clearly that for those who “through no fault of their own” do not know Christ and who follow the “dictates of conscience,” salvation is possible.
Another document from Vatican Council II states that the hope of the resurrection is also within reach of “all men of good will in whose hearts grace is active invisibly.”[11] Both statements highlight the need for a disposition of openness to grace, that is, a heart and conscience set upon knowing and doing God’s will. Here the Church is simply echoing the words of St. Peter who said, “Truly I perceive that God shows no partiality, but in every nation any one who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him” (Acts 10:34-35).
Many who seek to promote some form of universal salvation often point to these two texts to support their position. They assume that the requisite dispositions of a good will, openness to grace and commitment to follow the dictates of conscience are present in everyone. This is noteworthy because it is an assumption the Church does not make. In the same paragraph from Lumen Gentium quoted above, the bishops of the Catholic Church draw a much different conclusion. After recognizing that salvation is possible for those who sincerely seek to follow the “dictates of conscience,” they acknowledge the sobering fact that men often do not choose to follow their conscience:
“but very often, deceived by the Evil One, men have become vain in their reasoning, have exchanged the truth of God for a lie and served the world rather than the Creator (Romans 1:2). Or else, living and dying in this world without God, they are exposed to ultimate despair. Hence to procure the glory of God and the salvation of all these, the Church, mindful of the Lord’s command, ‘preach the Gospel to every creature’ (Mk 16:16) takes zealous care to foster the missions.”[12]
The teaching of the Church here is clear: “very often” men do indeed reject God, and are not without fault. As Jesus himself said about those who refused to receive him, “men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil” (John 3:19). With all that is set against man, the powers of sin, death, the Devil and the weakness his own flesh, the fact that man “very often” succumbs to deception should not surprise anyone.
Thus, the theoretical possibility of personal salvation apart from explicit knowledge of Jesus is affirmed, yet at the same time the Church leaves no room for the presumption present in the various theories of universal salvation.
It is also important to remember that everyone who is saved, whether they know it or not, is saved by the death and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth: “all men and women who are saved share, though differently, in the same mystery of salvation in Jesus Christ through his Spirit.”[13] There is no other Savior, there is no other way to enter eternal life but through him. There is no parallel road to his, no alternative plan to save the human race, no other saviors acting independently in history to reach those who Jesus fails to reach. Jesus is “the same yesterday and today and for ever” (Heb. 13:8); he was, is and always will be the only Savior of the world.
Saved from What?
The third chapter of St. John’s gospel tells us that, “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God sent the Son into the world, not to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him. He who believes in him is not condemned; how who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God” (John 3:16).
Out of love God sent Jesus his Son into the world to save it. Save it from what? According to John, to save it from perishing. Like St. Paul, John knows that the world, because of sin, is dying. The death he refers to is not simply the dying of our earthly bodies, but dying an eternal death. The contrast is between eternal death and eternal life. Jesus came precisely to save us from eternal death.
Jesus spoke often about the “eternal fire” (Mt 25:41) that awaits all those who reject the Father’s merciful love in Jesus. All who reject the Son and the eternal life he alone brings are “condemned already.”
The condemnation is eternal separation from God, what Jesus refers to as “the hell of fire” (Mt 5:22), the “furnace of fire” (Mt 13:42), or the “unquenchable fire” (Mk 9:42).
Very little is said in our time about the reality of hell. The silence surrounding the doctrine of hell is deafening and has led some within the Church to attempt to deny its existence. Yet, as the Catechism reminds us, “the teaching of the Church affirms the existence of hell and its eternity.”[14] Pope John Paul II reaffirmed the Church’s teaching when he described hell as “the state of those who definitively reject the Father’s mercy.”[15]
Those who reject the Father’s mercy enter the state of “eternal damnation” following their death. Pope John Paul says that eternal damnation:
“consists precisely in definitive separation from God, freely chosen by the human person and confirmed with death that seals his choice forever. God’s judgment ratifies that state.”[16]
Hell is something man chooses. When man exercises his freedom by rejecting God, he is forced to live with the consequences of that rejection. There are only two ways, the way that leads to life and the way that leads to death. Each person must choose, there is no alternative: “I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day, that I have set before you life and death” (Deut. 30.19). Which will it be? The choice is ours. To avoid a choice is to travel the “easy” way, the way Jesus clearly warned us to avoid:
“Enter by the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is easy, that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard, that leads to life, and those who find it are few” (Mt. 7:13-14).
The narrow way is Jesus himself. He said, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but by me” (John 14:6). In Jesus, the Father has made a way to life for us. To travel the road that leads to life demands that we accept life on Jesus’ terms. Completely. He defines for us the meaning of our lives. To pick and choose, to attempt to define reality on our own terms is to fail to grasp our true condition.
Because of the whole regime of sin, death, the devil, and the law that is set against us, we are like a man trapped in a burning building, with no way out. Jesus is like a fireman who breaks into the building and reaches down to pull us out of the fire, to bring us to safety. We have one chance to be rescued. The only way out is to listen to him, to take his hand and go with him wherever he leads us.
What could be more foolish than for me to refuse his hand because I don’t like the means of rescue he has chosen? It is senseless to refuse his rescue and wait for another, because no one else is coming for me. Who in their right mind would resist his leading? We must either follow his lead or die. That’s exactly the situation we are in; the stakes could not be higher.
“And this is the testimony, that God gave us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He who has the Son has life; he who has not the Son of God has not life” (1 Jn 5:11-12).
No Greater Love…
The attack on the World Trade Center brought our country face to face with the frightening reality of the mystery of evil. The horrible events of those days shattered people’s security. Why do such events strike us so deeply? Why does the presence of such evil fill our hearts with panic and fear? The events of that day present a dramatic, sobering picture of the struggle between darkness and light, between death and life. Nothing grips us so deeply. We are shaken to the core because we are forced to come face to face with our own contingent, fragile existence. And, if we are honest, we must admit the face of evil is very frightening.
Tragedies, especially of this magnitude, lead many to despair. Does death get the final word? Is the darkness stronger than the light? The stories of the heroes who faced death in the furnace of those collapsing towers bring us some hope; their heroism sheds light into the darkness. We cling to these stories, repeating them over and over again. Each time reassuring ourselves that death does not get the last word.
But why should their deaths give us hope? Weren’t they too consumed by the fire? The reason their deaths mean so much to us is that we want to believe that love is stronger than death. Their heroic love brought meaning; their blood sanctified the ground; their love shed light into the darkness. Yet, as meaningful as this may sound, it only makes sense because of the death and resurrection of Jesus. We can find light in the darkness because the light of Christ has already shown into the darkness and “the darkness has not overcome it” (Jn 1:5). Because he laid down his life for his friends, the powers of death have been broken. In Jesus, that is, in his heart, love has shown itself to be stronger than death.
In the death of our heroes we see a glimmer of light, a reflection of Jesus Christ risen, “the true light that enlightens every man” (John 1:9). Our country turned to prayer in the days immediately following the tragedy because we knew, at least for a moment’s time, that we could not answer the deepest questions of our own hearts. Only God, in the person of Jesus his Son can calm our fears: “Fear not, I am the first and the last, and the living one; I died, and behold I am alive for evermore, and I have the keys of Death and Hades” (Rev. 1:17-18).
Why Jesus?
I want to conclude this short booklet with a quote that gives profound expression to the Catholic Church’s faith in Jesus, the unique, unrepeatable, incomparable Christ:
“one can and must say that Jesus Christ has a significance and value for the human race and its history, which are unique and singular, proper to him alone, exclusive, universal, and absolute. Jesus is, in fact, the Word of God made man for the salvation of all. In expressing this consciousness of faith, the Second Vatican Council teaches: ‘The Word of God, through whom all things were made, was made flesh, so that as perfect man he could save all men and sum up all things in himself. The Lord is the goal of human history, the focal point of the desires of history and civilization, the center of mankind, the joy of all hearts, and the fulfillment of all aspirations. It is he whom the Father raised from the dead, exalted and placed at his right hand, constituting him judge of the living and the dead.’ ‘It is precisely this uniqueness of Christ which gives him an absolute and universal significance whereby, while belonging to history, he remains history’s center and goal: ‘I am the Alpha and Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end’ (Rev 22:13).”[17]
[1] Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 661.
[2] Pope John Paul II, Novo Millennio Ineunte, no. 35
[3] St. Augustine, On the Psalms, 120, 6; CC 40, p.1791.
[4] Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 655.
[5] Dominus Iesus, no. 7.
[6] Pope John Paul II, Redemptoris Missio, no. 5.
[7] CCC, no. 432.
[8] Dominus Iesus, no. 13.
[9] Pope John Paul II, Redemptoris Missio, no. 5.
[10] Lumen Gentium, no. 16.
[11] Gaudium et Spes, no. 22.
[12] Lumen Gentium, no. 16.
[13] Dominus Iesus, no. 2.
[14] CCC, no. 1035.
[15] John Paul II, “Hell is the state of those who reject God,” L’Osservatore Romano, 4 August 1999.
[16] Ibid. p. 7.
[17] Dominus Iesus, no. 15.