9. CHRIST IN RELATION TO HIS FATHER

WE MAY ALSO CONSIDER the consequences of the Incarnation from the point of view of the relations between Christ and His Father. As God, the Son of God is equal in Divinity to the Father; but in His human nature, the Son of God is subject to the Father. In the first place, all the goodness of the human nature of Christ comes from God the Father. Secondly, the human nature of Christ, as all creatures, is subject to the Divine governance of the world by God the Father. Lastly, since the will of the human nature of Christ was perfect in grace, it was fully and freely subject to God the Father. Christ, then, gives us once again a perfect example of the proper subjection of men to God.

BECAUSE CHRIST was human, He prayed to His Father. In this, also, He afforded us a perfect model. He asked for those things which God wished to give Him through prayer, such as the glorification of His body after the Resurrection. But He also offered to God in prayer the desires of His sensitive appetite. Thus, at the beginning of His Passion He prayed: "Let this chalice pass from Me". By so doing He showed us that it is possible for man to desire what God does not wish. But He also taught us on the same occasion that our rational wills should be conformed to the will of God against the tendencies of the sensitive appetite, for He concluded His prayer with the words: "Nevertheless, not as I will, but as Thou wilt." Because His prayers were always in conformity with the will of God, they were always answered.

THROUGH THE INCARNATION, Christ is the high priest of God and the human race. It is the function of a priest to act as a mediator between God and men. He must bring the gifts of God to men, and he must take the offerings of men to God, and make satisfaction for their sins. Now Christ fulfilled this role perfectly. He is the perfect Mediator between God and men, because He Himself is both God and man. He brings God's gifts to men, because it is through Christ that Divine grace is given to men. He offered Himself on the Cross to God as a satisfaction for the sins of men, and in this way He both brought to God the offering of mankind and made satisfaction for sin.

 THE OFFERING which Christ made to God for men as the sacrifice of Himself on the Cross. In this sacrifice, Christ was both the victim and the priest. As we have already seen, every visible sacrifice is a sign of an invisible sacrifice. The death of Christ Or the Cross was the visible sign of the internal act of  will by which Christ offered Himself to His Father for the sins of men. Christ was thus both the priest offering the victim of sacrifice to God and the victim. His sacrifice on the Cross accomplished the three goals of sacrifice: the remission of sin, peace between God and men, and holocaust. By His death, Christ re deemed men from sin and won for them the grace which establishes peace between God and men Through His death, Christ offered Himself wholly to God for men, and so was made a holocaust, that is, I victim wholly burnt or offered to God. Because it is God Himself, the Son of God, Who offers this sacrifice the sacrifice is of infinite value and it purchases an eternal reward for men, the vision of God in eternity For this reason, the priesthood of Christ is eternal It is important to note that Christ is the natural Son of God. Other men may become the adopted sons of God through grace; but since Christ is the Second Person of the Trinity, He is the natural Son of God, and not the adopted son of God.

THE INCARNATION is a work of God in the world It was, therefore, a part of the plan of Divine providence from the beginning. From all eternity, God the Father intended that His Son should become incarnate in Jesus Christ. We can say, then, that Christ a man was predestined to be the Son of God.

FROM THE POINT OF VIEW of the relation of Christ to men, it is important to remember both that He is man and that He is God. Because He is man, a men can be inspired by His example, attracted by His humanity, and ennobled by a familiarity with Him in prayer and grace. But since He is God, all men owe Him adoration. Adoration, as we have seen, is paying tribute to someone's excellence. When it is homage to God's perfection as the Supreme Being, the Creator of the world, then the adoration is latria.  When it is any lesser tribute to some lesser excellence, then it is veneration or dulia. Since Christ is God, we must pay Him the adoration of latria. We must acknowledge Him as the Supreme Being and the Creator of the world. Since there is only one Person in Christ, we must even give this adoration to Christ in His human nature, or in the images of Him which men make for use in religious actions. Naturally, we do not give the worship of latria to the human nature of Christ, or to images of Christ insofar as they are creatures. We give this worship to Christ in or through His human nature, or the images which represent Him to us. We might put it in another way by saying that we give an absolute adoration to the Person of Christ, but a relative adoration to His human nature and to images of Him.

WHEN MEN ADORE CHRIST, they truly adore God. Christ is Emmanuel, that is, God-with-us. In Christ we can, so to speak, see the face of God. It is His human face, it is true. But even this vision is a foretaste of the beatific vision of God which is the inheritance of all those who are members of Christ's Body, the Church. It is their inheritance because Christ is the perfect Mediator between God and men. He stands between God and men ----- He mediates between them ----- because He brings God's gifts to men and He takes men to God. As man, He is the perfect Mediator because He occupies a position midway between God and men. As man He is not God, and so He stands below God. But as a man possessing the fullness of grace, knowledge and power, He stands above men. He is thus in a perfect position to mediate between God and men. And this is what Christ is doing ceaselessly for men in and through His Body, the Church.

THE INCARNATION is God's answer to the misery of men without God. God stoops to man to raise him to Himself. "And I, if I be lifted up, will draw all things to Myself." Man has only to accept freely Christ as his Mediator. Not even Christ saves a man against his will. Because man is proud, God has stooped down to him. Since man is disobedient, God has given him the example of the perfect obedience of Christ. As man is ignorant and in error, God has given him Christ, the perfect Teacher. Could the love of God do more for man?  "By this hath the charity of God appeared towards us, because God hath sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we may live by him."