The Appropriation Of Christ's Redemption By The Church


"The redemption of Christ is imputed, in principle, to all men.
Christ’s merit and satisfaction have been accepted by God in such a way that they can be reckoned for all men. They are capable of saving all. They are imputed, in principle, to all men. All have from Christ the right, even the obligation, to claim them. If they neglect that obligation, they rob Christ of something.

The valid foundation and the error of the Lutheran doctrine of appropriation.
If we were to proceed no farther than the above statements, we would have to say that Christ is equally the Head of all men, that he forms with them all one single juridical person of which they are the body and he the head. And how would one speak of this juridical person? It would be necessary to say both that this person is justice in Christ and sin in men; that this person is saved if one regards the satisfaction offered for him, but condemned if one considers the condition of those for whom the satisfaction is offered. One could even attribute to the Head what is immediately true of the Body alone: so that one would say that Christ, remaining forever just, has been made sin for us (2 Cor 5:21) and that he has become a curse (Gal 3:13). One also could attribute to the Body what is immediately true of the Head: That men are already saved (in Christ) while they are still condemned (in themselves); that they are already justified while they are still sinners, simul peccatores et justi, to use an expression of Luther.

Under this aspect and at this first instant of the work of redemption, the Lutheran teaching of justification would be true- and everyone knows that the greatest errors have never been anything but truths displaced. Let us not forget, however, that the work of redemption has, at this moment, just begun and that to stop at this stage would mean a break in its normal development. That is precisely what happens in the case of obstinate sinners. The doctrine of a purely juridical solidarity between men and Christ applies in reality only to those who refuse to welcome redemption into their hearts, who refuse to appropriate it to themselves.

According to the classic Protestant thesis, this appropriation of Christ’s redemption is made by faith, which explains how a trust in Christ necessarily brings for the believer and absolute conviction of his own salvation. Men who are so appropriated to the redemption of Christ continue to be really and intrinsically sinners in themselves, while God only imputes to them the justice of Christ, covering them with the mantle of Christ. In a word, God regards them as just. Hence, the Church and Christ together, according to the Protestant, form one juridical person, and the justice of Christ passes to the Church just as the sin of the Church passes to Christ, who was made ‘sin’ and ‘accursed’ for us.

The Catholic doctrine of appropriation.
The traditional teaching of the Church is very different. There is, indeed, an appropriation of Christ’s justice that incorporates men into Christ; but the direct effect of this justification is the bringing down of the justice of Christ, the grace and the truth of Christ, into the hearts of men. The sin of men passes juridically to Christ, in the sense that he has agreed to suffer in order to expiate sin, but the justice of Christ passes really to his Church, so that, where sin abounded, grace abounds all the more. St. Paul, who wrote, ‘For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin’, also wrote ‘so that in him we might become the righteousness of God’ (2 Cor 5:21), as well as ‘But if Christ is in you, although your bodies are dead because of sin, your spirits are alive because of righteousness’ (Rom 8:10; emphasis added).

And so, around the prayer, adoration, and offering of Christ are gathered all the prayer, adoration, and offering of the Church. On the supreme supplication and supreme suffering of Christ are suspended the supplication and suffering of the Church, his Body and his Bride. Consequently, one ought to say that the entire Church forms with Christ one sole mystical person, who adores, offers, and makes supplication.

The merit of Christ is diffused in his members.
The great supplication addressed by Christ to God in order to merit our salvation has drawn down for us (without any right or previous merit of our own) a shower of grace that abounds in Christ and burst forth in him. This grace that we have not merited depends on our openness to it. And if we welcome it into our hearts, we will be able, in turn, to merit before God, certainly not with a merit comparable to Christ’s or a ‘rival’ to Christ’s (this is what Protestant theology never ceases to attribute to us Catholics), but a merit dependant on that of Christ. The deeds we will accomplish, nourished by the divine life of a first grace freely conferred by God, will blossom into the fruits of grace. God orders them to obtain in this life a growth in charity and, in the world to come, the full blooming of a life of glory. It is a reward for such works that heaven is promised in the Gospel: ‘Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven’ (Mt 5:12).

It is clear, says St, Thomas, that there is an infinite distance between man and God, and man receives from God all that he is able to render to God. Hence, between man and God there cannot be, strictly speaking, an equality, justice, a right recompense, or merit; all such notions can only be used relatively or proportionately, so that man ought to offer to God, insofar as he is capable, the things that God himself never ceases to place in his heart.

Our merits are God’s gifts.
Only because God himself has willed it to be so can our acts, performed in grace, draw down upon us, as a reward that God cannot refuse to give, an increase in charity and a life of glory. If, therefore, God is obliged ‘in justice; to reward our merits, it is by reason of his own arrangement; and it is duet to himself, not to us, that he is so bound: hence the words of St. Augustine, ‘what we call our merits are the gifts of God’ and ‘when God crowns our merits, he is only crowning his own gifts.’ Indeed, the merits of Christians in the state of grace are nothing but the merits of Christ, who is their Head, of whom they are the living members. As Cajetan writes:

The action by which we merit eternal life is less our work than the work that
Christ, as Head, accomplishes in is and by us…Hence the words of the Apostle: ‘I
live, no not I, but Christ lives in me’ (Gal 2:20). The Christian may say in all
truth: ‘I merit, no not I, but Christ in me; I fast, no not I, but Christ in
me.’ So it is with all the voluntary actions that the true members of Christ
accomplish for God. Hence, the merit of eternal life is attributed, not so much
to our works, but to the works that Christ as Head accomplishes in us and by us."

-Charles Cardinal Journet