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Creed 19 He was crucified for us under Pontius Pilot, He suffered

Creed 19 He was crucified for us under Pontius Pilot, He suffered

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Page 1: Creed 19 He was crucified for us under Pontius Pilot, He suffered

Creed 19He was crucified for us under Pontius

Pilot, He suffered

Page 2: Creed 19 He was crucified for us under Pontius Pilot, He suffered

He was crucified under Pontius Pilot

1. The Trial of Jesus• There was a great division among the Jewish

leaders during the trial of our Lord. Not only were the Pharisee Nicodemus and the prominent Joseph of Arimithea secret disciples of Christ, but also a great many of the priests and some of the party of the Pharisees. In the book of Acts St. James addressing St Paul “you see, brother, how many myriads of Jews there are who have believed, and they are all zealous for the law” (Acts 21:20).

Page 3: Creed 19 He was crucified for us under Pontius Pilot, He suffered

He was crucified under Pontius Pilot

1. The Trial of Jesus• The religious authorities in Jerusalem were not

unanimous about what stand to take toward Jesus. The Pharisees threatened to excommunicate His followers (John 9:22). The high priest Caiaphas prophesied that Jesus would die for the nation (John 11:48-50). The Sanhedrin having declared Jesus deserving of death as a blasphemer but having lost the right to put anyone to death, hands Him over to the Romans, accusing Him of political revolt, a charge that puts Him in the same category as Barabbas who had been accused of sedition (Matt 26:66). The high priest also threatened Pilot politically so that he would condemn Jesus to death (John 19:12, 15, 21).

Page 4: Creed 19 He was crucified for us under Pontius Pilot, He suffered

He was crucified under Pontius Pilot1. The Trial of Jesus

• The gospel and the New Testament does not hold Jews in general responsible for the crucifixion of the Lord.

• Our Lord forgave them on the cross and St Peter gave them excuses of ignorance on the day of Pentecost.

• All sinners were the authors of Christ’s suffering and death. So we should not lay the blame of Christ’s passion totally on the Jews but each of us in his own sinful ways especially when we relapse into sin, disorder, and crime are sharers in the suffering inflicted on Christ.

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He was crucified under Pontius Pilot2. Christ’s Redemptive Death in God’s Plan of

Salvation• Our Lord’s violent death was not the result of

chance in an unfortunate coincidence of circumstances, but part of the plan of God. “This Jesus was delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God” (Acts 2:23). This does not mean that those who handed Him over were merely passive players in a scenario written in advance by God.

Page 6: Creed 19 He was crucified for us under Pontius Pilot, He suffered

He was crucified under Pontius Pilot

2. Christ’s Redemptive Death in God’s Plan of Salvation• 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 Pilot, 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). For the sake of accomplishing His plan of salvation, God permitted the acts that flowed from their blindness.

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He was crucified under Pontius Pilot2. Christ’s Redemptive Death in God’s Plan of

Salvation• He died for our sins in accordance with the

Scriptures (1 Cor 15:3). In particular Jesus’ redemptive death fulfills Isaiah’s prophecy of the suffering servant (Isaiah 53:7-8). After His resurrection our Lord give this interpretation of Scriptures to the disciples at Emmaus and then to the apostles (Luke 24:25-27, 44-45).

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He was crucified under Pontius Pilot2. Christ’s Redemptive Death in God’s Plan of Salvation

• For our sake God made Him to be sin (2 Cor 5:21). St Peter can formulate the apostolic faith in the divine plan of salvation in this way “you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your fathers… with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot. He was destined before the foundation of the world but was made manifest at the end of times for your sake” (1 Peter 1:18-20). Our Lord did not experience reprobation as if He Himself had sinned but in the redeeming love that always united Him to the Father, He assumed us in the state of our waywardness of sin, to the point that He could say in our name from the cross: “My God, My God why have You forsaken Me?” having thus established Him in solidarity with us sinners, God “did not spare His own Son but gave Him up for us all” so that we might be “reconciled to God by the death of His Son” (Romans 8:32, 5:10).

Page 9: Creed 19 He was crucified for us under Pontius Pilot, He suffered

He was crucified under Pontius Pilot2. Christ’s Redemptive Death in God’s Plan of Salvation

• God revealed His greatest love prior to any merit on our part, “in this is love, not that we loved God but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the expiation for our sins” (1 John 4:10; 4:19). God “shows His love for us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8).

• This redemptive love is universal and not restrictive “so it is not the will of your Father who is in heaven that one of these little ones should perish” (Matt 18:14). He affirms that He came “to give His life as a ransom for many” ( Matt 20:28). Although the whole humanity in all history has been contrasted with the unique person of the redeemer, it takes faith to take the redemption through Him.

Page 10: Creed 19 He was crucified for us under Pontius Pilot, He suffered

He was crucified under Pontius Pilot

3. Christ offered Himself to His Father for our sins• Christ’s whole life is an offering to the Father. He came

down “from heaven, not to do His own will, but the will of Him who sent Him” (John 6:38). He said on coming into the world “Lo, I have come to do Your will, O God” (Hebrew 10:5-10). “My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me, and to accomplish His work” (John 4:34). “The Father loves Me, because I lay down My life” “for I do as the Father has commanded Me, so that the world may know that I love the Father” (John 10:17; 14:31).

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He was crucified under Pontius Pilot3. Christ offered Himself to the Father for our sins

• The desire to embrace His Father’s plan of redeeming love inspired Jesus’ whole life. His redemptive passion was the very reason for His incarnation and so He asked “and what shall I say? Father, save Me from this hour? No, for this purpose I have come to this hour” (John 12:27). “Shall I not drink the cup which the Father has given Me? (John 18:11). From the cross, just before “it is finished” He said, “I thirst” (John 19:30; 19:28). Our Lord is “the Lamb who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29). By coming to be baptized with sinners He allows Himself to be led to the slaughter silently bearing the sin of the multitude, and also the paschal lamb the symbol of Israel redemption at the first Passover (Isaiah 53:7). Christ’s whole life expresses His mission: “to serve and to give His life as a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45).

Page 12: Creed 19 He was crucified for us under Pontius Pilot, He suffered

He was crucified under Pontius Pilot

3. Christ offered Himself to the Father for our sins• Our Lord freely embraced the Father’s redeeming

love. For He “loved them to the end,” for “greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends” (John 13:1; 15:13). Indeed, out of love for His Father and for men, whom the Father wants to save, Jesus freely accepted His passion and death: “no one takes (My life) from Me, but I lay it down of My own accord” (John 10:18). Hence the sovereign freedom of God’s Son as He went out to His death.

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He was crucified under Pontius Pilot3. Christ offered Himself to the Father for our sins

• At the Last Supper our Lord anticipated the free offering of His life “On the night He was betrayed” (Matt 26:20; 1 Cor 11:23). On the eve of His passion while still free, Jesus transformed this Last Supper with the apostles into the memorial of His voluntary offering to the Father for the salvation of men: “this is My body which is given for you.” “This is My blood of the new covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins” (Luke 22:19; Matt 26:28; 1 Cor 5:7). The Eucharist that Christ institutes at that moment will be the memorial of His sacrifice (1 Cor 11:25). Our Lord includes the apostles in His own offering and bids them perpetuated (Luke 22:19). By doing so, the Lord institutes His apostles as priests of the new covenant “for their sakes I sanctify Myself so that they also may be sanctified in truth” (John 17:19).

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He was crucified under Pontius Pilot3. Christ offered Himself to the Father for our sins

• In the garden of Gethsemane the cup of the new covenant, which our Lord anticipated when He offered Himself at the Last Supper, He accepted from His Father’s hands. He made Himself “obedient unto death” (Phil 2:8). He prayed: “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from Me” (Matt 26:39). Thus He expresses the horror that death represented for His humanity. Like ours His human nature is destined for eternal life but unlike ours, its perfectly exempt from sin, the cause of death. Above all, His human nature has been assumed by the divine person of the “Author of life”, the “Living One” (Acts 3:15; Rev 1:17; John 1:4,5:26). By accepting in His human will that the Father’s will be done He accepts His death as redemptive, for “He Himself bore our sins in His body on the tree” (1 Peter 2:24; Matt 26:42).

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He was crucified under Pontius Pilot• In other words, our Lord in His human life were

not supposed to die. He was to live forever. Never even age. The life that He is sacrificing is an eternal life in the world. His death is able to redeem all humanity.

• Our offering (giving up) of His body and blood to the Father is an offering of Christ physical life with us in the world since we don’t see Him now in the flesh, but in return we encounter Him in the Spirit.

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He was crucified under Pontius Pilot3. Christ offered Himself to the Father for our sins

• Christ’s death is the unique and definitive sacrifice. He is “the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world,” and the sacrifice of the new covenant which restores man to communion with God by reconciling him to God through the “blood of the covenant, which was poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins” (Matt 26:28, Ex 24:8; Lev 16:15-16; 1 Cor 11:25). The sacrifice of Christ is unique as it completes and surpasses all other sacrifices (Hebrews 10:10). First, it is a gift from God the Father Himself: for the Father handed His Son over to sinners in order to reconcile us with Himself. At the same time it is the offering of the Son of God made man, who in freedom and love offered His life to His Father through the Holy Spirit in reparation for our disobedience.

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He was crucified under Pontius Pilot3. Christ offered Himself to the Father for our sins

• Our Lord substitutes His obedience for our disobedience “for as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners so by one Man’s obedience many will be made righteous” (Romans 5:19).

• Our Lord consummates His sacrifice on the cross. It is love “to the end” (John 13:1) that confers on Christ’s sacrifice its value as redemption and reparation, as atonement and satisfaction. He knew and loved us all when we He offered His life (Gal 4:20; Eph 5:2,25). Now “the love of Christ controls us, because we are convinced that one has died for all; therefore all have died” (2 Cor 5:14). No man, not even the holiest, was ever able to take on himself the sins of all men and offer himself as a sacrifice for all. The existence in Christ of the divine Person of the Son who at once surpasses and embraces all human persons and constitutes Himself as the head of all mankind makes possible His redemptive sacrifice for all.

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He was crucified under Pontius Pilot

3. Christ offered Himself to the Father for our sins• The church venerates the cross of Christ as the sign of the

divine redemptive love. The cross is the unique sacrifice of Christ, the “One mediator between God and men” (1 Tim 2:5). He calls His disciples to “take up (their) cross and follow (Him)” (Matt 16:24). For “Christ also suffered for (us), leaving (us) an example so that (we) should follow in His steps” (1 Peter 2:21). The cross becomes both a sign of veneration and glory “God forbid that I should boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ,” and also a way of life, “by whom the world has been crucified to me and I to the world” (Gal 6:14).

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He confessed the good confession before Pontius Pilot

What is the good confession?• That He is king and His kingdom is not of this world,

but to be established in every corner of the world• He came to witness for the Truth in face of

hypocrisy and cowardice

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The cross as the sacrifice and the prayer

• The prayer of the heart both in Gethsemane and on the cross, Christ does not utter many words, but His holy heart is pulsating with prayers. In every throb of pain, in every tear of the skin, the tendons, muscles, and nerves, they are all lifted up on the alter of the heart together with the insults and the humiliation

• “He who offered Himself, as an acceptable sacrifice upon the Cross for the salvation of our race. His good Father smelled Him in the evening on Golgotha.”

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The cross of Christ as the sacrifice of sin

• The sin offering was described as the most holy (Lev 6:25, 29). “Sweet aroma to the Lord” (Lev 1:9, 13, 17), “Most holy of the offerings to the Lord” (Lev 2:2, 3, 9, 10).

• “Therefore Jesus also, that He might sanctify the people with His own blood, suffered outside the gate” (Hew 13:11).

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Why the Cross?

Why did He choose to die on the cross?1. It is the most painful2. It is unique and long3. Sign of shame and defaming by lifting a condemned

up for all to see4. Considered a curse in the Mosaic law (Gal 3:13)• In the cross He continued to do things on our behalf,

like fasting, baptism, obedience to the old law, etc. On the cross He suffers and dies on our behalf.

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He suffered…

• It was important to mention suffering in the Creed lest anyone think that the divinity in union with the humanity prevented Him from suffering. “A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief… He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet it pleased the Lord to bruise Him; He has put Him to grief. When You make His soul an offering for sin…” (Isaiah 53:3-10). Because of this great pain on the cross He cried “My God My God why have You forsaken Me?” (Mark 15:34) and because of the sweat and blood that came out of Him, He said, “I thirst” (John 19:38).

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Why have You forsaken Me?

• These words do not mean that He was separated from the Father. God forbid! They mean in fact that the Father left Him to suffer and did not remove the pain away, “He was pleased to bruise Him.”

• The Lord Christ never used His divinity to give rest to His human body

• The passion of the Cross was expressed in many ways in the Old Testament. Psalm 22:14, 15: “My heart is like wax; it has melted within Me. My strength is dried up like a potsherd, and My tongue clings to My jaws.”