I. Christ - The Unique Word Of Sacred Scripture
102 Through all the words of Sacred Scripture, God speaks only one single
Word, his one Utterance in whom he expresses himself completely: (cf. Hebrews 1:1-3)
You recall that one and the same Word of God extends throughout Scripture,
that it is one and the same Utterance that resounds in the mouths of
all the sacred writers, since he who was in the beginning God with God
has no need of separate syllables; for he is not subject to time.
St. Augustine, En. in Psalm 103, 4, 1:PL 37,1378; cf. Psalm 104;
John 1:1
Christ's soul and his human knowledge
472 This human soul that the Son of God assumed is endowed with a true
human knowledge. As such, this knowledge could not in itself be unlimited:
it was exercised in the historical conditions of his existence in space
and time. This is why the Son of God could, when he became man, "increase
in wisdom and in stature, and in favor with God and man", (Luke 2:52) and would
even have to inquire for himself about what one in the human condition
can learn only from experience. (cf. Mark 6:38; 8:27; John 11:34; etc.) This corresponded to the reality of his
voluntary emptying of himself, taking "the form of a slave". (Philippians 2:7)
II. Christ's Redemptive Death In God's Plan Of Salvation
"Jesus handed over according to the definite
plan of God"
600 To God, all moments of time are present in their immediacy. When
therefore he establishes his eternal plan of "predestination",
he includes in it each person's free response to his grace:
"In
this city, in fact, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles
and the peoples of Israel, gathered together against your holy servant
Jesus, whom you anointed, to do whatever your hand and your plan had
predestined to take place."
Acts 4:27-28; cf. Psalm 2:1-2.
For the sake of accomplishing his
plan of salvation, God permitted the acts that flowed from their blindness. (cf. Matthew 26:54; John 18:36; 19:11; Acts 3:17-18) |
