It would seem that God the Father committed an act of injustice when He has Christ, His Son who is completely innocent, suffer and die for condemned humanity. St. Bonaventure, however, tells us that it would be an injustice if Christ suffered against His will. Yet, this is not the case. Christ, Himself, tells us:
“For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life, that I may take it again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again; this charge I have received from my Father." (John 10:17-18)
Christ willingly gives His life for our salvation, because “Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” (John 15:13)
Here is St. Bonaventure’s explanation from his Breviloquium:
“Finally, no innocent person is morally obliged to suffer against his will, since this would contradict the order of divine justice; also, no mortal being wishes for death and suffering by natural impulse, for it is his nature to flee death. Christ, then, could assume these penalties only in a qualified manner: He was not to suffer against His rational will, since He not only lived in the state of beatitude and of union with the omnipotent Godhead through which He could repel any evil, but He also possessed perfect innocence which, according to the order of natural justice, cannot be obligated to suffer. Yet He was to suffer against His instinctive will: that is, against the sensible impulse and desire of His flesh. He expressed in His prayer - a rational act - the will of the flesh through which He shrank from suffering, when He said: "Let this cup pass away from Me"; but He conformed His rational will to the will of His Father, thus placing reason above instinct, when He said: "Not My will but Thine he done." One will was not opposed to the other, for "in His divine will, He wished what was just; in His rational will, He consented to justice; and in His natural instinct, while averse to pain, yet He did not contest justice. Each will acted in its field, tending toward its proper object: divine will to justice, rational will to obedience, and sensible will to nature." And so there was in Christ no conflict or struggle, but peaceful order and orderly peace.” (4.8.5)
I have started to read Albert Vanhoye’s book Old Testament Priests and the New Priest: According to the New Testament and I was struck by this finding at the end of the first chapter:
“The narrative writings of the New Testament never show the Jewish high priests in the exercise of their cultic functions. What is given emphasis is their authority rather than their priesthood; they are ‘important personages’ i.e. ‘high’ more than they are ‘priests.’ It was not possible, however, to separate the two aspects entirely, for the high priests were recognized as being the religious leaders of the people of God. It followed from this that the Christians were in an extremely embarrassing situation. The Gospel narratives, which say little about Jewish priests and much about the high priests, result inevitably in giving the priesthood an unfavorable image. And yet it could not be denied that the priesthood constituted one of the fundamental institutions of the Old Testament. How could the Christian Church claim to be faithful to the totality of biblical revelation and to possess in Christ its definitive fulfillment, if it found itself in a negative relationship with regard to this fundamental institution of the people of God?”
Vanhoye closes his first chapter without answering his question. I haven’t read further, so I don’t know if he does later in the book, but I wanted to point out the importance of his assertion in this paragraph and what its implications are. He shows that the Jewish high priests are not shown exercising their cultic functions. Rather, they are portrayed more as political figures. I think the reason for this is, and hopefully Vanhoye will make this connection later in the book, the Evangelists are implicitly stating what the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews makes explicit; namely that the Old Testament Priesthood has been fulfilled in Christ. When Christ appears, the high priests are no longer portrayed as cultic leaders because THE High Priest has arrived. The cult of the Old Testament people of God, the Qahal, is fulfilled and carried on in the person of Christ. The Levitical priesthood was a concessionary priesthood instituted after the sin of the golden calf. Prior to the golden calf, the priesthood was passed on from father to firstborn son. Now that God’s Firstborn Son has arrived, the priesthood can return back to its original dimension of being about spiritual fatherhood. The spiritual fatherhood aspect of the priesthood is important for understanding the Church’s teaching on why only men can be priests.
For more on Christ’s priesthood, see the paper I wrote for my Biblical Foundations class in Grad school. I’m going to have to revisit this paper and include Vanhoye’s insight here.
“He was a baby and a child, so that you may be a perfect human. He was wrapped in swaddling clothes, so that you may be freed from the snares of death. He was in a manger, so that you may be in the altar. He was on earth that you may be in the stars. He had no other place in the inn, so that you may have many mansions in the heavens. ‘He, being rich, became poor for your sakes, that through his poverty you might be rich.’ Therefore his poverty is our inheritance, and the Lord’s weakness is our virtue. He chose to lack for himself, that he may abound for all. The sobs of that appalling infancy cleanse me, those tears wash away my sins. Therefore, Lord Jesus, I owe more to your sufferings because I was redeemed than I do to works for which I was created.
You see that he is in swaddling clothes. You do not see that he is in heaven. You hear the cries of an infant, but you do not hear the lowing of an ox recognizing its Master, for the ox knows his Owner and the donkey his Master’s crib.”
-St. Ambrose, Exposition of the Gospel of Luke, 2.41-42.
Today is the Solemnity of Christ the King. If indeed Christ is a king, and he is, then he necessarily has a kingdom. That kingdom is the Church, His own Body. When He established His kingdom, He did so based on the model of the Old Testament Kingdom of David. The Kingdom of David had a visible dimension with a hierarchy as well as an invisible spiritual dimension. Likewise, Christ’s Kingdom, the Church, has a visible dimension with a hierarchy as well as an invisible spiritual dimension.
One of the aspects of the Davidic Kingdom was the office of the Prime Minister. This office was one of succession, meaning that when one prime minister left the office it did not remain empty, but another took his place. We see this in Isaiah 22: 15-25. Also in Isaiah, we see that the Davidic Prime Minister possessed the keys to the kingdom as a sign of his authority. The Prime Minister had the highest authority in the kingdom, second only to the King. It was the Prime Minister who ruled when the king was away. Isaiah also tells us that the Prime Minister “shall be a father to the inhabitants of Jerusalem and to the house of Judah.”
Christ the King establishes Peter as the Prime Minister of the restored Davidic Kingdom, the Church, in Matthew 16: 18-19. In doing so, He quotes directly from Isaiah 22. Christ gives Peter the keys to His Kingdom, so that Peter can rule when He is away. The office of Christ’s Prime Minister is also one of succession. It doesn’t end with Peter. Linus takes over after the death of Peter and then Clement, and so on down to the current successor of Peter, Benedict XVI. Just as the Old Testament Davidic Prime Minister was a father to his people, so is Christ’s Prime Minister. In fact, the word “Pope” (or in Latin “Papa”) means “father.” The Pope is the principle of unity for Christ’s Kingdom while He is away at the right hand of the Father and the Pope is running the Kingdom until Christ the King comes back in glory at the end of time.
To reject the King is to reject the Kingdom. We see this in Scripture with the Israelites who were to be a kingdom of priests with God as their King. The Israelites wanted to be like the other nations and have an earthly king to rule them. They rejected God as their King and thus rejected the Kingdom.
In the New Testament the Jewish leaders also reject their King. They cry, “We have no king but Caesar” and send the true King to the Cross. In rejecting the King, they reject the Kingdom.
Christ only established One Kingdom, One Church. It is an historical fact that the Church He established is the Catholic Church. The Catholic Church is the Body of Christ, His Kingdom. For a thousand years there was only one type of Christian—the Catholic Christian. Then the Eastern Orthodox broke away from the One Church established by Christ. About 500 years later, the Protestants also left this Church.
Christ the King is intimately connected to His Kingdom, which is His Body, the Church. Thus, not only does it hold true that if you reject the King, you reject the Kingdom, but also if you reject the Kingdom, you reject the King. I would argue that the Eastern Orthodox did not so much reject the Kingdom, for they kept all the Sacraments, as reject the authority of Christ’s Prime Minister. The Protestants led by Luther, however, rejected the Kingdom entirely. They claimed that the Catholic Church was overcome by Satan and that the Pope was the antichrist.
Let’s return back to Matthew 16, the point where Christ sets up the office of Prime Minister in His Kingdom. Not only did He establish Peter as the first Prime Minister, but He added a promise—the gates of Hell would not prevail against His Church, His Kingdom. But if Luther is right, if the Church has gone astray, then that means that the gates of Hell HAVE overcome His Church and it makes Christ out to be a liar! Certainly, no Protestant would be willing to say that, but that is precisely the logical consequence of saying that the Church that Christ established has gone astray and is now taken over by Satan.
If Christ is our King, then we should believe His words. If He says that the gates of Hell will not prevail against the Church and that the Holy Spirit will guide the Church into all truth, then it is so. Thus, to reject His Church, His Kingdom, is to reject Him, the King.
Listen to the words of St. Cyril of Jerusalem in his Catechetical Lecture 18.26:
“But since the word Ecclesia is applied to different things (as also it is written of the multitude in the theatre of the Ephesians, And when he had thus spoken, he dismissed the Assembly [Acts 19:14]), and since one might properly and truly say that there is a Church of evil doers, I mean the meetings of the heretics, the Marcionists and Manichees, and the rest, for this cause the Faith has securely delivered to you now the Article, And in one Holy Catholic Church
; that you may avoid their wretched meetings, and ever abide with the Holy Church Catholic in which you were regenerated. And if ever you are sojourning in cities, inquire not simply where the Lord's House is (for the other sects of the profane also attempt to call their own dens houses of the Lord), nor merely where the Church is, but where is the Catholic Church. For this is the peculiar name of this Holy Church, the mother of us all, which is the spouse of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Only-begotten Son of God (for it is written, As Christ also loved the Church and gave Himself for it [Ephesians 5:25], and all the rest,) and is a figure and copy of Jerusalem which is above, which is free, and the mother of us all [Galatians 4:26]; which before was barren, but now has many children.”
