Chapter Two: I Believe in Jesus Christ, His Only Son, Our Lord (422 – 682)

Part One: The Profession of Faith

Section Two: The Profession of the Christian Faith

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1. The Good News: God sent his Son
   • God fulfills his promise to his people in Christ
   • The genealogy of Christ
2. “To preach…the unsearchable riches of Christ”
   • When this truth is believed, we want to let other people know about this
   • inviting others to join in the joy of communion with Christ
3. At the heart of catechesis: Christ
   • Everything that is taught has Christ as its center
   • This is the high call

Article 2: And in Jesus Christ, his only son, our Lord

I. Jesus

• in Hebrew means “God saves”
• signifies God present in the Son, reconciling ourselves to him
• the glorification of the name should make using the name flippantly unthinkable
• the name is a prayer

II. Christ

• Christ comes from the Greek translation of the Hebrew Messiah meaning “anointed.”
• Title proper to Christ
• This roots Jesus deeply in the history of Israel
• Misunderstood by some in Jesus’ time as a political position
• threefold office of priest, prophet, and king
• The Father anoints, the Son is the anointed, the Holy Spirit is the anointing
• His messianic kingship both as Son of Man and suffering Servant

III. The only Son of God

• term son of god is given to the angels, the Chosen people (Israel), kings as a term of adoption
• as the previous two terms, this title is rooted in Hebrew, but only finds its fulfillment in Jesus in the Paschal mystery (life, death, resurrection of Christ)
• Jesus has a particular relationship with God as the only divine Son of God
• Jesus prays “My Father” and instructs the disciples to pray “Our Father”

IV. Lord

• YHWH, the ineffable Hebrew name, is rendered as Kyrios (Lord)
• Title used for God and, in the New Testament, Jesus, who is recognized as God himself
• Jesus has divine sovereignty by the works of power over nature, illnesses, demons, death, and sin
• The assertion of Christ as Lord is essential for a Christian, and his lordship means that we do not submit to any earthly power

IN BRIEF

452 The name Jesus means “God saves”. the child born of the Virgin Mary is called Jesus, “for he will save his people from their sins” (Mt 1:21): “there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12).

453 The title “Christ” means “Anointed One” (Messiah).Jesus is the Christ, for “God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power” (Acts 10:38). He was the one “who is to come” (Lk 7:19), the object of “the hope of Israel” (Acts 28:20).

454 The title “Son of God” signifies the unique and eternal relationship of Jesus Christ to God his Father: he is the only Son of the Father (cf Jn 1:14, 18; 3:16, 18); he is God himself (cf Jn 1:1). To be a Christian, one must believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God (cf Acts 8:37; 1 Jn 2:23).

455 The title “Lord” indicates divine sovereignty. To confess or invoke Jesus as Lord is to believe in his divinity. “No one can say ‘Jesus is Lord’ except by the Holy Spirit'” (I Cor 12:3).

Article 3: Who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, Born of the Virgin Mary

Paragraph 1. The Son of God Became Man

I. Why did the Word Become Flesh?

• The Church gives us four reasons (make it personal)
  • in order to save us by reconciling us with God (to reconcile me with God)
  • that we might know God’s love (so that I know God’s love)
  • to be our model of holiness (to be my model for holiness)
  • partakers of the divine nature (so that I can partake in God’s divine nature)
• This is true for all people, regardless of belief or behavior, or anything else

II. The Incarnation

• Jesus emptied himself, while fully God, to become fully man, in order to humble himself and be obedient to death on the cross

III. True God and True Man

• Jesus is inseparably God and inseparably man
• The heresies
  • Gnostic Docetism – (denies Christ humanity)
    • Paul of Samosata – 3rd century taught that man (Jesus) became God (river of Jordan spirit ascension, Jesus is then adopted by God)
    • Arianism heresy – Arius taught that there was time when Christ did not exist. This was condemned by the council of Nicaea in 325.
  • Nestorian heresy – Christ is a human person joined to the divine person
    • opposed at the third ecumenical council at Ephesus in 431
    • Mary is truly the mother of God. From the very moment of his conception, Jesus, the second person of the trinity, united to himself. The child in Mary’s womb, the child she bore, was a divine person. This is how fully Jesus has united to our humanity
  • Monophysites heresy – says the human nature ceases to exists when the divinity takes over
    • Jesus keeps his humanity in order to come close to us.
    • Council of Chalcedon in 451 Christ is to be understood in two natures, never abolished by the union, without confusion, change, division, or separation
• hypostasis – one person
• “What he was, he remained, and what he was not, he assumed.”
• This understanding is important so that we can love him for who he truly is (most importantly), and to be able to talk about it correctly with others

IV. How is the Son of God Man?

• Everything Christ is and does in his human nature derives from the Trinity
• Christ’s human soul operates with intellect and will

1. Christ’s soul and his human knowledge
   • Apollinarius of Laodicea incorrectly says that Christ’s divinity replaced his human soul
   • Christ’s soul has a true human nature
   • Jesus in his human body assumed true human knowledge. He learned, asked questions, and grew as a human
   • This speaks to his voluntarily emptying of himself and take on a human human power, will, and intellect
   • He lived like us in all things
   • At the same time “The human nature of God’s Son, not by itself but by its unison with the Word, knew and showed forth in itself everything that pertains to God.” – St. Maximus the Confessor
   • He knew in his eternal plans what he was here to reveal – he knew fully what would happen to him
2. Christ’s human will
   • Christ possesses two wills and two natural operations, divine and human, that are not opposed but in cooperation
   • Christ’s human will submits his human body to the divine will of the trinity
3. Christ’s true body
   • Christ’s holy image can be venerated as that veneration venerates the person depicted in it
4. The heart of the Incarnate Word
   • God has loved us with a human heart
   • loves all human beings without exception

IN BRIEF

479 At the time appointed by God, the only Son of the Father, the eternal Word, that is, the Word and substantial Image of the Father, became incarnate; without losing his divine nature he has assumed human nature.

480 Jesus Christ is true God and true man, in the unity of his divine person; for this reason he is the one and only mediator between God and men.

481 Jesus Christ possesses two natures, one divine and the other human, not confused, but united in the one person of God’s Son.

482 Christ, being true God and true man, has a human intellect and will, perfectly attuned and subject to his divine intellect and divine will, which he has in common with the Father and the Holy Spirit.

483 The Incarnation is therefore the mystery of the wonderful union of the divine and human natures in the one person of the Word.

Paragraph 2: Who Was Conceived by the Holy Spirit, Born of the Virgin Mary

I. Who was conceived by the Holy Spirit

II. Born of the Virgin Mary

• (487) What the Catholic faith believes about Mary is based on what it believes about Christ, and what it teaches about Mary illumines in turn its faith in Christ.
• Jesus has always existed, he has always been divine, and his human form was divine at conception

1. Mary’s predestination
   • but not fated – she still had a choice
2. The Immaculate Conception
   • Mary’s Immaculate Conception refers to Mary’s conception free of original sin, by virtue of her Son, wholly by God’s grace
   • Allows Mary to say yes without the restraint of a single sin
   • This singular grace is allowed because God always gives us exactly what we need to achieve the call on our lives
   • Panagia – the All Holy
3. “Let it be done to me according to your word…”
   • As St. Irenaeus says, “Being obedient she became the cause of salvation for herself and for the whole human race.” Hence not a few of the early Fathers gladly assert. . .: “The knot of Eve’s disobedience was untied by Mary’s obedience: what the virgin Eve bound through her disbelief, Mary loosened by her faith.” Comparing her with Eve, they call Mary “the Mother of the living” and frequently claim: “Death through Eve, life through Mary.”
4. Mary’s divine motherhood
   • Theotokos – “Mother of God”
   • Elizabeth refers to Mary as “the mother of my Lord”
5. Mary’s virginity
   • supernatural, no earthly father contribution
   • passed through time because it was true – it was a challenge and thus wouldn’t have been added for effect.
6. Mary – “ever-virgin”
   • Aeiparthenos – Ever virgin
   • Jesus’ delivery sanctified Mary’s virginity – did not diminish it.
   • References to siblings in the Bible do not refer to the biological children of Mary.
7. Mary’s virginal motherhood in God’s plan
   • virginity manifests God’s initiative
   • Jesus is the New Creation
   • Through the virgin birth Jesus ushers in the new adoption of the children of faith
   • Shows Mary’s undivided gift of herself
   • She is the most perfect symbol of the church

IN BRIEF

508 From among the descendants of Eve, God chose the Virgin Mary to be the mother of his Son. “Full of grace”, Mary is “the most excellent fruit of redemption” (SC 103): from the first instant of her conception, she was totally preserved from the stain of original sin and she remained pure from all personal sin throughout her life.

509 Mary is truly “Mother of God” since she is the mother of the eternal Son of God made man, who is God himself.

510 Mary “remained a virgin in conceiving her Son, a virgin in giving birth to him, a virgin in carrying him, a virgin in nursing him at her breast, always a virgin” (St. Augustine, Serm. 186, 1: PL 38, 999): with her whole being she is “the handmaid of the Lord” (Lk 1:38).

511 The Virgin Mary “co-operated through free faith and obedience in human salvation” (LG 56). She uttered her yes “in the name of all human nature” (St. Thomas Aquinas, S Th III, 30, 1). By her obedience she became the new Eve, mother of the living.

Paragraph 3: The Mysteries of Christ’s Life

I. Christ’s Whole Life is Mystery

• “mystery” doesn’t mean a mystery – it means something that needs to be mediated on
• everything in Jesus’ life is a sign of his mystery
• His humanity appeared as sacrament – the sign and instrument of his divinity

1. Characteristics common to Jesus’ mysteries
   • revelation – God’s love among us
   • redemption – Jesus engages in all humanity
     • incarnation through being poor enriches us through his poverty
     • hidden life – submission atones for our disobedience
     • teaching his words purifies hearers
     • healings and exorcisms – took our infirmities
     • Resurrection – he justifies us
   • recapitulation – act of summarizing or restating
     • recapitulated the history of mankind to regain what we lost through Adam
2. Our communion in the mysteries of Jesus
   • did this for us
   • he is our model
   • for us to live in him

II. The Mysteries of Jesus’ Infancy and Hidden Life

1. The preparations
   • God willed to prepare of Jesus’ coming over centuries
   • St. John the Baptist greatest and last prophet
   • the liturgy of Advent – the Church unites herself to the ancient expectancy of the Messiah
   • preparations are for his first coming and his final coming
2. The Christmas mystery
   • Jesus is born in humility and poverty.
   • Heaven’s glory made manifest
   • Jesus joins with us in our humanity
   • only when Christ is formed in us will the mystery of Christmas will be fulfilled in us
3. The mysteries of Jesus’ infancy
   • circumcision – sign of his incorporation into Abraham’s descendants
   • epiphany – manifestation as the Messiah
   • presentation of Jesus at the temple
   • flight into Egypt and the massacre of the innocents manifest opposition of dark to life
4. The mysteries of Jesus’ hidden life
   • work – manual labor and participation in community
   • obedience – to his mother and father fulfills the fourth commandment
   • finding of Jesus in the temple – only event that breaks the silence of the hidden years as a glimpse to his total consecration

III. The Mysteries of Jesus’ Public Life

1. The baptism of Jesus
   • acceptance of his mission as the suffering servant, allows himself to be numbered among the sinners
   • Jesus submits to his father’s will out of live and consents to the baptism and death for our sins
   • Through baptism, believers are sacramentally assimilated to Jesus
2. Jesus’ temptations
   • Where Adam fails, Jesus rebukes temptation
   • Jesus, the new Adam remains faithful and fulfills Israel’s vocation perfectly in contrast to those who provoked God in the 40 years in the desert – Jesus is the devil conqueror
3. “The Kingdom of God is at hand”
   • Jesus inaugurated the kingdom of heaven on earth – the Church
4. The proclamation of the Kingdom of God
   • Everyone is called to enter kingdom
   • the poor and the lowly – those who accepted him with humble hearts
   • sinners are invited to the table – he invites them into conversion
   • parables demonstrate that words are not enough – deeds are required.
   • “What use have I given to the talents God has given me?” Father Mike
5. The signs of the Kingdom of God
   • Jesus accompanies his words with deeds (miracles)
   • His miracles free and heal – and sometimes this causes offense.
   • Jesus is not a sideshow. His miracles show his divinity and his power of God and the Father has sent him
   • His signs and wonders invite us to believe in him – not simply to learn and satisfy curiosity, but to follow him
6. “The keys of the Kingdom”
   • Jesus chooses the disciples – the twelve apostles
   • Simon Peter – the first head of the Church. The rock upon which the Church is built
   • Jesus gives Simon Peter the power to bind and loose – absolve sins, pronounce doctrinal judgments, and make disciplinary decisions
   • The Church exists in a tangible way, not just in our hearts or minds
7. A foretaste of the Kingdom: the Transfiguration
   • Jesus takes Peter, Jame, and John to the mountain
   • Moses and Elijah are there
   • Jesus’ divine glory is revealed and he reaffirms his submission to the crucifixion
   • On the threshold of the public life is the baptism and reflects our baptism
   • On the threshold of the Passover is the Transfiguration and reflects our resurrection in Christ
8. Jesus’ ascent to Jerusalem
   • His agony reflects our agony – we are not alone
9. Jesus’ messianic entrance into Jerusalem
   • He chooses his time and conquers by his humility that bears witness to the truth

IN BRIEF

561 “The whole of Christ’s life was a continual teaching: his silences, his miracles, his gestures, his prayer, his love for people, his special affection for the little and the poor, his acceptance of the total sacrifice on the Cross for the redemption of the world, and his Resurrection are the actualization of his word and the fulfilment of Revelation” John Paul II, CT 9).

562 Christ’s disciples are to conform themselves to him until he is formed in them (cf Gal 4:19). “For this reason we, who have been made like to him, who have died with him and risen with him, are taken up into the mysteries of his life, until we reign together with him” (LG 7 # 4).

563 No one, whether shepherd or wise man, can approach God here below except by kneeling before the manger at Bethlehem and adoring him hidden in the weakness of a new-born child.

564 By his obedience to Mary and Joseph, as well as by his humble work during the long years in Nazareth, Jesus gives us the example of holiness in the daily life of family and work.

565 From the beginning of his public life, at his baptism, Jesus is the “Servant”, wholly consecrated to the redemptive work that he will accomplish by the “baptism” of his Passion.

566 The temptation in the desert shows Jesus, the humble Messiah, who triumphs over Satan by his total adherence to the plan of salvation willed by the Father.

567 The kingdom of heaven was inaugurated on earth by Christ. “This kingdom shone out before men in the word, in the works and in the presence of Christ” (LG 5). the Church is the seed and beginning of this kingdom. Its keys are entrusted to Peter.

568 Christ’s Transfiguration aims at strengthening the apostles’ faith in anticipation of his Passion: the ascent on to the “high mountain” prepares for the ascent to Calvary. Christ, Head of the Church, manifests what his Body contains and radiates in the sacraments: “the hope of glory” (Col 1:27; cf.: St. Leo the Great, Sermo 51, 3: PL 54, 310C).

569 Jesus went up to Jerusalem voluntarily, knowing well that there he would die a violent death because of the opposition of sinners (cf Heb 12:3).

570 Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem manifests the coming of the kingdom that the Messiah-King, welcomed into his city by children and the humble of heart, is going to accomplish by the Passover of his Death and Resurrection.

Article 4: Jesus Suffered Under Pontius Pilate, was Crucified, Died, and was Buried

• The Paschal mystery of the cross and resurrection stands at the center of the Good News
• The Old Testament points to Jesus
• Our faith can examine our redemption

Paragraph 1: Jesus and Israel

• Not “all Jews” and not “everyone” rejected Jesus or sought to destroy him
• Some thought he went against the precepts of religious law. He appeared as a contradiction.
• In particular
  • submission to the whole law
  • centrality of the Temple as the holy place
  • faith in God, whose glory no one can share

I. Jesus and the Law

• Jesus has the ultimate authority of the law (definitive interpretation) as He is the author of the law
• Jesus did not come to abolish the law, but to fulfill it

II. Jesus and the Temple

• The temple is not just a place of worship – the life of the Jewish person was completely connected to the temple
• Jesus expressed the deepest respect for the temple in Jerusalem
• Jesus says the temple is his body

III. Jesus and Israel’s Faith in the One God and Savior

• Jesus’ identity is in his divinity as displayed in his forgiveness of sins
• Jesus scandalized the Pharisees by interacting with tax collectors and sinners; Jesus says sin is universal

IN BRIEF

592 Jesus did not abolish the Law of Sinai, but rather fulfilled it (cf Mt 5:17-19) with such perfection (cf Jn 8:46) that he revealed its ultimate meaning (cf Mt 5:33) and redeemed the transgressions against it (cf Heb 9:15).

593 Jesus venerated the Temple by going up to it for the Jewish feasts of pilgrimage, and with a jealous love he loved this dwelling of God among men. the Temple prefigures his own mystery. When he announces its destruction, it is as a manifestation of his own execution and of the entry into a new age in the history of salvation, when his Body would be the definitive Temple.

594 Jesus performed acts, such as pardoning sins, that manifested him to be the Saviour God himself (cf Jn 5:16-18). Certain Jews, who did not recognize God made man (cf Jn 1:14), saw in him only a man who made himself God (Jn 10:33), and judged him as a blasphemer.

Paragraph 2: Jesus Died Crucified

I. The Trial of Jesus

1. Divisions among the Jewish authorities concerning Jesus
   • Jews believed different things about Jesus; some were his disciples
2. Jews are not collectively responsible for Jesus’ death
3. All sinners were the authors of Christ’s Passion
   • And we crucify him again each time we sin as he lives in our heart

II. Christ’s Redemptive Death in God’s Plan of Salvation

1. “Jesus handed over according to the definite plan of God”
   • does not usurp freewill
   • “This Biblical language does not mean that those who handed him over were merely passive players in a scenario written in advance by God.”
2. “He died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures”
3. “For our sake God made him to be sin”
4. God takes the initiative of universal redeeming love
   • “There is not, never has been, and never will be a single human being for whom Christ did not suffer.” ~ Council of Quiercy

III. Christ Offered Himself to His Father for Our Sins

1. Christ’s whole life is an offering to the Father
2. “The Lamb who takes away the sin of the world”
3. Jesus freely embraced the Father’s redeeming love
   • and freely lays down his life of his own accord
4. At the Last Supper Jesus anticipated the free offering of his life
   • Jesus offers himself at the meal, institutes the eucharist, and institutes the apostles as priests of the New Covenant
5. The agony at Gethsemani
6. Christ’s death is the unique and definitive sacrifice
   • it completes and surpasses all other sacrifices
7. Jesus substitutes his obedience for our disobedience
8. Jesus consummates his sacrifice on the Cross
   • his redemptive sacrifice is for all
9. Our participation in Christ’s sacrifice
   • This is what happens at every Mass

IN BRIEF

619 “Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures” (I Cor 15:3).

620 Our salvation flows from God’s initiative of love for us, because “he loved us and sent his Son to be the expiation for our sins” (I Jn 4:10). “God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself” (2 Cor 5:19).

621 Jesus freely offered himself for our salvation. Beforehand, during the Last Supper, he both symbolized this offering and made it really present: “This is my body which is given for you” (Lk 22:19).

622 The redemption won by Christ consists in this, that he came “to give his life as a ransom for many” (Mt 20:28), that is, he “loved [his own] to the end” (Jn 13:1), so that they might be “ransomed from the futile ways inherited from [their] fathers” (I Pt 1:18).

623 By his loving obedience to the Father, “unto death, even death on a cross” (Phil 2:8), Jesus fulfils the atoning mission (cf Is 53:10) of the suffering Servant, who will “make many righteous; and he shall bear their iniquities” (Is 53:11; cf. Rom 5:19).

Paragraph 3: Jesus Christ was Buried

1. Christ in the tomb in his body
   • Jesus experienced a real death in consistency with his relationship to humanity
2. “You will not let your Holy One see corruption
   • “it was not possible for death to hold him” ~ Acts 2:24
3. “Buried with Christ…”
   • Baptism signifies the descent into the tomb

IN BRIEF

629 To the benefit of every man, Jesus Christ tasted death (cf Heb 2:9). It is truly the Son of God made man who died and was buried.

630 During Christ’s period in the tomb, his divine person continued to assume both his soul and his body, although they were separated from each other by death. For this reason the dead Christ’s body “saw no corruption” (Acts 13:37).

Article 5: He Descended into Hell: On the Third Day He Rose again From the Dead

Paragraph 1: Christ Descended into Hell

IN BRIEF

• Scripture calls the abode of the dead, to which the dead Christ went down, “hell” – Sheol in Hebrew or Hades in Greek – because those who are there are deprived of the vision of God.
• This does not liberate the damned as they do not want liberation or a relationship.
• The descent into hell brings the Gospel message of salvation to complete fulfillment. This is the redemptive work of his messianic mission for all people, those who had been, are, and will be.
• He comes to us to deliver us
• “Today a great silence reigns on earth, a great silence and a great stillness. A great silence because the King is asleep. the earth trembled and is still because God has fallen asleep in the flesh and he has raised up all who have slept ever since the world began. . . He has gone to search for Adam, our first father, as for a lost sheep. Greatly desiring to visit those who live in darkness and in the shadow of death, he has gone to free from sorrow Adam in his bonds and Eve, captive with him – He who is both their God and the son of Eve. . . ‘I am your God, who for your sake have become your son. . . I order you, O sleeper, to awake. I did not create you to be a prisoner in hell. Rise from the dead, for I am the life of the dead.'” ~ Ancient Homily for Holy Saturday

636 By the expression “He descended into hell”, the Apostles’ Creed confesses that Jesus did really die and through his death for us conquered death and the devil “who has the power of death” (Heb 2:14).

637 In his human soul united to his divine person, the dead Christ went down to the realm of the dead. He opened heaven’s gates for the just who had gone before him.

Paragraph 2: On the Third Day He Rose Again from the Dead

I. The Historical and Transcendent Event

1. The empty Tomb
   • This is not conclusive proof, however, it is the beginning of the revelation of the resurrection
2. The appearance of the Risen One
   • The idea that the resurrection is simply produced from the faith of the disciples does not work; there were doubters. They were demoralized at the crucifixion, they did not take the empty tomb as proof, they still doubted.
   • Instead, there was a direct experience of the reality of the risen Jesus from divine grace that removed these doubts. This realization did not bring about easy lives for these men and women, yet they remained faithful.
3. The condition of Christ’s Risen Humanity
   • Jesus is not a ghost
   • Jesus’ risen body is the same body that was crucified, however, it now has new properties of a glorified body
   • This resurrection is not a return to earthly life like previous miracles of resurrections
4. The Resurrection as transcendent event
   • while an actual event, it remains a mystery of faith

II. The Resurrection – A Work of the Holy Trinity

• The Father’s power “raised up” Christ his Son and by doing so perfectly introduced his Son’s humanity, including his body, into the Trinity. 

III. The Meaning and Saving Significance of the Resurrection

• The Resurrection points to the confirmation of all teachings and Jesus’ divinity
• The Paschal mystery – by his death we are liberated from sin, by his resurrection, a new life
• It brings filial adoption; we are given the gift of brotherhood with Christ.
• Christ is the source of our future resurrection

IN BRIEF

656 Faith in the Resurrection has as its object an event which as historically attested to by the disciples, who really encountered the Risen One. At the same time, this event is mysteriously transcendent insofar as it is the entry of Christ’s humanity into the glory of God.

657 The empty tomb and the linen cloths lying there signify in themselves that by God’s power Christ’s body had escaped the bonds of death and corruption. They prepared the disciples to encounter the Risen Lord.

658 Christ, “the first-born from the dead” (Col 1:18), is the principle of our own resurrection, even now by the justification of our souls (cf Rom 6:4), and one day by the new life he will impart to our bodies (cf Rom 8:11).

Article 6: He Ascended into Heaven, and is Seated at the Right Hand of God the Father Almighty

• Christ crucified, Christ buried, Christ resurrected. During the next 40 days, Christ is glorified but remains veiled until the Ascension, the irreversible entry of his humanity onto divine glory.
• His Incarnation is linked to his Ascension in that only one who has come from the Father can return to the Father; Jesus now provides this access.
• Henceforth Jesus is seated at the right hand of the Father, incarnate and flesh glorified

IN BRIEF

665 Christ’s Ascension marks the definitive entrance of Jesus’ humanity into God’s heavenly domain, whence he will come again (cf Acts 1:11); this humanity in the meantime hides him from the eyes of men (cf Col 3:3).

666 Jesus Christ, the head of the Church, precedes us into the Father’s glorious kingdom so that we, the members of his Body, may live in the hope of one day being with him for ever.

667 Jesus Christ, having entered the sanctuary of heaven once and for all, intercedes constantly for us as the mediator who assures us of the permanent outpouring of the Holy Spirit.

Article 7: From There He will Come Again to Judge the Living and the Dead

I. He Will Come Again in Glory

1. Christ already reigns through the Church…
   • Christ is the head of the church, which is the Body. We are meant to have a communal relationship with the Body
   • although imperfect, the Church is holy
2. …until all things are subjected to him
   • The renewal is happening and is still under attack by powers, although they have already been defeated
   • There has something that has been done, and still something to be done
   • the trial of evil does not spare the Church
3. The glorious advent of Christ, the hope of Israel
   • The full inclusion of the Jews, the reconciliation of Jews and Gentiles
4. The Church’s ultimate trial
   • The deception of the Antichrist (a pseudo-messianism by which man glorifies himself – or anything/one else – in place of God)
   • victory comes not in the church overcoming, but in the final evil overcoming by God

II. To Judge the Living and the Dead

• All comes from grace. We can either accept or reject this grace.

IN BRIEF

680 Christ the Lord already reigns through the Church, but all the things of this world are not yet subjected to him. the triumph of Christ’s kingdom will not come about without one last assault by the powers of evil.

681 On Judgement Day at the end of the world, Christ will come in glory to achieve the definitive triumph of good over evil which, like the wheat and the tares, have grown up together in the course of history.

682 When he comes at the end of time to judge the living and the dead, the glorious Christ will reveal the secret disposition of hearts and will render to each man according to his works, and according to his acceptance or refusal of grace.