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The redemption, covering the entire human race and accomplished in the New Adam,
must be realized in freedom for each
of the old Adam's children;
the assimilation of the redemption is the proper work of each of them. The redemption thus becomes a work of human freedom and personal volition. Thus, in Holy Scripture, the testimony concerning the accomplished redemption links its realization with this volition: “he hath made him to be
[the victim of]
sin for us, who knew no sin;
that we might be made the righteousness of God in him”
(2 Cor. 5:21).
… Thus, the redemption is given not as a compulsory or automatic act, but under the condition that
it be received by faith and assimilated in freedom.
The redemption thus consists in the self-identification of the sinless New Adam with the sinful old Adam and in the New Adam's living-out the life of the old Adam with its sinfulness.
… “To bear sin” is not just to attribute it to oneself ideally, while remaining apart from it;
it is to experience its burden really, to suffer it to the end, to live it. God is not deceived, and He does not tolerate fakery. That is why, before the tribunal of God's Truth, redemption cannot be a mere appearance. Sin is just as real as the world and man, insofar as it is their state.
This experiencing and this suffering include and concentrate in themselves the power of every sin and the power of all sins as a whole, in their integral. Clearly, it is a question here of a special form of the supernatural knowledge and the supernatural experiencing of universal human sinfulness on the part of the New Adam. In Him,
every human being can find himself and his sin,
as well as the power to be redeemed from it, if, by his freedom, through his essence of the old Adam,
he desires to be included in this redemption, “to believe and be saved.”
Likewise, the redemptive sacrifice, accomplished just once for eternity, is being accomplished empirically, so to speak, in the repeated liturgies. Therefore,
the man who sins really tears open anew the bloody wounds of Christ,
inflicted once on Golgotha;
and this man receives remission of sins from Christ if he turns to Him for this remission (in baptism and in penitence).
Christ assumed the entire human nature;
He therefore can assume, in and through it, the entire sin of all human individuals, although personally He did not commit it. Thus, in His holy humanity, as well as in the universal human personality of the New Adam,
every adamite can find and realize his justification and reconciliation with God.
In virtue of His love, the Savior identifies Himself with every sinner who comes to Him, so that it can be said about each sinner: “not I, but Christ liveth in me”
(Gal. 2:20).
By the power of His redemptive sacrifice, Christ the High Priest offers remission of sins to sinners who come to Him with faith, love, and repentance. Universal forgiveness of sins is acquired for all by the redemption, and
it must be received with faith
(see
John 3:16-18).
The objective accomplishment of salvation must be realized for every human being by his
subjective acceptance
(or nonacceptance)
of the redemption on the basis of his free, personal self-determination (see
Mark 16:16).
But the subjective nonacceptance of redemption does not abolish its objective force. … The connection between this objective principle of life and its subjectivity is established by means of freedom. Grace is a gift, and it is given freely;
it does not coerce man (as insuperabilis et indeclinabilis), and it does not transform man into a thing, into an object of creation. Instead, it convinces, captivates, and regenerates. Salvation exists for every human being;
it is acquired by Christ in His high-priestly ministry, whereas
the path of the personal acquisition of salvation
can be complex, broken, and contradictory. But in the end, God's love overcomes creaturely sin;
and, in the fullness of time, “God will be all in all” (see
1 Cor. 15:28).
See also
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