Article 516 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church concerns the reality of Christ as revelation of the Father. Jesus in other words is God, even though he is also true man. In him is the fullness of our human nature, as well as the fullness of God. The perfection of God in essence and deed is Jesus, who properly speaking is the second person of the Trinity. He does the will of God in all things, especially as he is in God and God is in him (John 14:11). The fullness of God’s being is consubstantially participated in by Christ in such a fashion that whoever has seen Christ has similarly seen God the father (John 14:9).
And so it is right to assert that God in Christ entered human history out of Love, in order that he might restore all of Creation back to himself by the blood of his cross. All the things that Christ did while on earth, such as: healing the sick; turning water into wine; casting out demons, and so on, he did in communion with the Father, and by the Father’s own will. He said in this regard to his interlocutors: "My Father is working until now, and I myself am working" (John 5:17). He never admitted to a real separation existing between himself and his father. Indeed, he ultimately said in John 10:30: “I and the Father are one.”
Jesus as true self-revelation of the Father is a teaching that the Church holds very dear, and it is at the center of the Creed. When the Church uses the words “consubstantial with the father,” to describe the one “through whom all things were made,” it tries to say that the essential “stuff” of which God consists – pardon the analogical language, the situation of speaking of God as composed of “stuff” – similarly constitutes Christ. This analogical depiction is akin to a father and his son sharing the same DNA, even though this analogy also fails to do the conceptualization any justice. Jesus is God, and not merely a creature of God. He was in other words “begotten, not made,” as the Creed asserts. And so, to witness God, we witness Christ, because the witness of the latter is the witness of the former.
This teaching, of Jesus as true revelation of the Father, suffered attacks in the history of the Church. Heresies such as Arianism, Ebionism, Adoptionism, Docetism and so forth over the ages sought to distort the nature of Christ as true God and true man. And in response to these heresies, the Church had to progressively define what this nature was. Through Councils and Inquisitions and other means, the Church sought to root out these errors and preserve the Tradition obtained via revelation, the revelation in Christ of a God that seeks to be known as accomplished in his only begotten son, “in whom he is well pleased” (Matt. 3:17). The Son of God was to remain known as true man, and true God.
In our day, this mystery of Jesus Christ as the revelation of God the Father is efficacious in bringing consolation to people who are in need of a message of assurance that there is a presence of the divine operating in their difficult situations. There are many people who do not seem to feel the presence of God operating in their lives. They wonder why they suffer so many hardships and setbacks, and they grope about for some way of understanding the otherwise incomprehensible reality of human existence. If we as Christian ministers can reach out to them with the message that the God who created life itself loves us so much that he participated historically in it, we can be sure to point them toward consolation, in such a way as to secure them a shot at salvation. Jesus himself said: “In this world you will have trouble, but be of good cheer, for I have overcome the world” (John 16:33). The grace of God as lived out in Christ in this way then becomes an efficacious model of perseverance in spite of earthly difficulties.
And so it is right to assert that God in Christ entered human history out of Love, in order that he might restore all of Creation back to himself by the blood of his cross. All the things that Christ did while on earth, such as: healing the sick; turning water into wine; casting out demons, and so on, he did in communion with the Father, and by the Father’s own will. He said in this regard to his interlocutors: "My Father is working until now, and I myself am working" (John 5:17). He never admitted to a real separation existing between himself and his father. Indeed, he ultimately said in John 10:30: “I and the Father are one.”
Jesus as true self-revelation of the Father is a teaching that the Church holds very dear, and it is at the center of the Creed. When the Church uses the words “consubstantial with the father,” to describe the one “through whom all things were made,” it tries to say that the essential “stuff” of which God consists – pardon the analogical language, the situation of speaking of God as composed of “stuff” – similarly constitutes Christ. This analogical depiction is akin to a father and his son sharing the same DNA, even though this analogy also fails to do the conceptualization any justice. Jesus is God, and not merely a creature of God. He was in other words “begotten, not made,” as the Creed asserts. And so, to witness God, we witness Christ, because the witness of the latter is the witness of the former.
This teaching, of Jesus as true revelation of the Father, suffered attacks in the history of the Church. Heresies such as Arianism, Ebionism, Adoptionism, Docetism and so forth over the ages sought to distort the nature of Christ as true God and true man. And in response to these heresies, the Church had to progressively define what this nature was. Through Councils and Inquisitions and other means, the Church sought to root out these errors and preserve the Tradition obtained via revelation, the revelation in Christ of a God that seeks to be known as accomplished in his only begotten son, “in whom he is well pleased” (Matt. 3:17). The Son of God was to remain known as true man, and true God.
In our day, this mystery of Jesus Christ as the revelation of God the Father is efficacious in bringing consolation to people who are in need of a message of assurance that there is a presence of the divine operating in their difficult situations. There are many people who do not seem to feel the presence of God operating in their lives. They wonder why they suffer so many hardships and setbacks, and they grope about for some way of understanding the otherwise incomprehensible reality of human existence. If we as Christian ministers can reach out to them with the message that the God who created life itself loves us so much that he participated historically in it, we can be sure to point them toward consolation, in such a way as to secure them a shot at salvation. Jesus himself said: “In this world you will have trouble, but be of good cheer, for I have overcome the world” (John 16:33). The grace of God as lived out in Christ in this way then becomes an efficacious model of perseverance in spite of earthly difficulties.
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