Written Report

in Religion

Article 4

Jesus Christ suffered under Pontius

MAY 13

By: Sem. Kent Ian Ocbeña

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Outline
Main Topics
 JESUS AND ISRAEL
 JESUS AND THE LAW
- Jesus and the Temple
- JESUS AND ISRAEL'S FAITH IN THE ONE GOD AND SAVIOUR
• JESUS DIED CRUCIFIED
- Trial of Jesus
- CHRIST'S REDEMPTIVE DEATH IN GOD'S PLAN OF
SALVATION
• CHRIST OFFERED HIMSELF TO HIS FATHER FOR OUR SINS
• JESUS CHRIST WAS BURIED

The Paschal Mystery of Jesus, which comprises his passion, death, resurrection, and
glorification, stands at the center of the Christian faith because God's saving plan was
accomplished once for all by the redemptive death of his Son Jesus Christ.

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 JESUS AND ISRAEL

From the beginning of Jesus public ministry certain Pharisees and partisans of Herod together
with priests and scribes agreed together to destroy him. Because of certain of his, expelling demons
forgiving sins, healing on the Sabbath day, his novel interpretation of the precepts of the law
regarding purity, and his familiarity with tax collectors and public sinners.
Jesus endorses some of the teachings imparted by this religious elite of God's people: the
resurrection of the dead, certain forms of piety (almsgiving, fasting and prayer), The custom of
addressing God as Father, and the centrality of the commandment to love God and neighbour.
In the eyes of many in Israel, Jesus seems to be acting against essential institutions of the Chosen
People:
• submission to the whole of the Law in its written commandments and, for the Pharisees, in the
interpretation of oral tradition;
• the centrality of the Temple at Jerusalem as the holy place where God's presence dwells in a
special way;
• Faith in the one God whose glory no man can share.

JESUS AND THE LAW

At the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus issued a solemn warning in which he
presented God's law, given on Sinai during the first covenant, in light of the grace of the New
Covenant.

Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets: I have come not to abolish but
to fulfil. For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter, not one stroke of a
letter, will pass from the law, until all is accomplished. Therefore, whoever breaks one of the least of
these commandments, and teaches others to do the same, will be called least in the kingdom of
heaven; but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.

“Jesus did not abolish the Law of Sinai, but rather fulfilled it with such perfection that he revealed
its ultimate meaning and redeemed the transgressions against it.”

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JESUS AND THE TEMPLE

Like the prophets before him Jesus expressed the deepest respect for the Temple in Jerusalem.
It was in the Temple that Joseph and Mary presented him forty days after his birth. At the age of
twelve he decided to remain in the Temple to remind his parents that he must be about his Father's
business. He went there each year during his hidden life at least for Passover. His public ministry itself
was patterned by his pilgrimages to Jerusalem for the great Jewish feasts.

Jesus went up to the Temple as the privileged place of encounter with God. For him, the
Temple was the dwelling of his Father, a house of prayer, and he was angered that its outer court had
become a place of commerce. He drove merchants out of it because of jealous love for his Father:
"You shall not make my Father's house a house of trade. His disciples remembered that it was
written, 'Zeal for your house will consume me.'" After his Resurrection his apostles retained their
reverence for the Temple.

“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.”

JESUS AND ISRAEL'S FAITH IN THE ONE GOD AND SAVIOUR

Jesus scandalized the Pharisees by eating with tax collectors and sinners as familiarly as with
themselves. Against those among them "who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and
despised others", Jesus affirmed: "I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance."
He went further by proclaiming before the Pharisees that, since sin is universal, those who pretend
not to need salvation are blind to themselves.

Jesus gave scandal above all when he identified his merciful conduct toward sinners with God's
own attitude toward them. He went so far as to hint that by sharing the table of sinners he was
admitting them to the messianic banquet. But it was most especially by forgiving sins that Jesus
placed the religious authorities of Israel on the horns of a dilemma. Were they not entitled to
demand in consternation, "Who can forgive sins but God alone?" By forgiving sins Jesus either is

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blaspheming as a man who made himself God's equal, or is speaking the truth and his person really
does make present and reveal God's name.

“Jesus performed acts, such as pardoning sins that manifested him to be the Saviour God himself.
Certain Jews, who did not recognize God made man, saw in him only a man who made himself God,
and judged him as a blasphemer.”

JESUS DIED CRUCIFIED

“THE TRIAL OF JESUS”

Jews are not collectively responsible for Jesus' death

The historical complexity of Jesus' trial is apparent in the Gospel accounts. the personal sin of
the participants (Judas, the Sanhedrin, Pilate) is known to God alone. Hence we cannot lay
responsibility for the trial on the Jews in Jerusalem as a whole, despite the outcry of a manipulated
crowd and the global reproaches contained in the apostles' calls to conversion after Pentecost. Jesus
himself, in forgiving them on the cross, and Peter in following suit, both accept "the ignorance" of the
Jews of Jerusalem and even of their leaders. Neither all Jews indiscriminately at that time, nor Jews
today, can be charged with the crimes committed during his Passion. . . the Jews should not be
spoken of as rejected or accursed as if this followed from holy Scripture.

"Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures"

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CHRIST'S REDEMPTIVE DEATH IN GOD'S PLAN OF SALVATION

Jesus' violent death was not the result of chance in an unfortunate coincidence of
circumstances, but is part of the mystery of God's plan, as St. Peter explains to the Jews of Jerusalem
in his first sermon on Pentecost: "This Jesus (was) delivered up according to the definite plan and
foreknowledge of God." This Biblical language does not mean that those who handed him over were
merely passive players in a scenario written in advance by God.
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 Pilate, 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." For the sake of accomplishing his plan of salvation, God
permitted the acts that flowed from their blindness.

"He died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures"

The Scriptures had foretold this divine plan of salvation through the putting to death of "the
righteous one, my Servant" as a mystery of universal redemption, that is, as the ransom that
would free men from the slavery of sin. Citing a confession of faith that he himself had
"received", St. Paul professes that "Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures."
Indeed Jesus himself explained the meaning of his life and death in the light of God's suffering
Servant. After his Resurrection he gave this interpretation of the Scriptures to the disciples at
Emmaus, and then to the apostles.

“For our sake God made him to be sin”

"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 the times for your sake. "Man's sins, following on
original sin, are punishable by death. By sending his own Son in the form of a slave, in the form of a
fallen humanity, on account of sin, God "made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we
might become the righteousness of God."

“God takes the initiative of universal redeeming love”

By giving up his own Son for our sins, God manifests that his plan for us is one of benevolent
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." God "shows his love for us in that while we were yet
sinners Christ died for us."

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CHRIST OFFERED HIMSELF TO HIS FATHER FOR OUR SINS

“Christ's whole life is an offering to the Father”

The Son of God, who came down "from heaven, not to do (his) own will, but the will of him
who sent (him)", said on coming into the world, "Lo, I have come to do your will, O God." "and by that
will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all." From the
first moment of his Incarnation the Son embraces the Father's plan of divine salvation in his
redemptive mission: "My food is to do the will of him who sent me, and to accomplish his work." The
sacrifice of Jesus "for the sins of the whole world" expresses his loving communion with the Father.
"The Father loves me, because I lay down my life", said the Lord, "(for) I do as the Father has
commanded me, so that the world may know that I love the Father."

"The Lamb who takes away the sin of the world"

After agreeing to baptize him along with the sinners, John the Baptist looked at Jesus and
pointed him out as the "Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world". By doing so, he reveals
that Jesus is at the same time the suffering Servant who silently allows himself to be led to the
slaughter and who bears the sin of the multitudes, and also the Paschal Lamb, the symbol of Israel's
redemption at the first Passover. Christ's whole life expresses his mission: "to serve, and to give his
life as a ransom for many."

“Jesus freely embraced the Father's redeeming love”

By embracing in his human heart the Father's love for men, Jesus "loved them to the end", for
"greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends." In suffering and
death his humanity became the free and perfect instrument of his divine love which desires the
salvation of men. 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."

“At the Last Supper Jesus anticipated the free offering of his life”

Jesus gave the supreme expression of his free offering of himself at the meal shared with the
twelve Apostles "on the night he was betrayed". 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

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Father for the salvation of men: "This is my body which is given for you." "This is my blood of the
covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins."

“The agony at Gethsemani”

The cup of the New Covenant, which Jesus anticipated when he offered himself at the Last
Supper, is afterwards accepted by him from his Father's hands in his agony in the garden at
Gethsemani, making himself "obedient unto death". Jesus prays: "My Father, if it be possible, let this
cup pass from me. . .“ Thus he expresses the horror that death represented for his human nature.
Like ours, his human nature is destined for eternal life; but unlike ours, it is 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".

“Christ's death is the unique and definitive sacrifice”

Christ's death is both the Paschal sacrifice that accomplishes the definitive redemption of
men, through "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".

“Jesus 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." By his obedience unto death, Jesus accomplished the substitution of
the suffering Servant, who "makes himself an offering for sin", when "he bore the sin of many", and
who "shall make many to be accounted righteous", for "he shall bear their iniquities". Jesus atoned
for our faults and made satisfaction for our sins to the Father.

Jesus consummates his sacrifice on the cross

It is love "to the end" that confers on Christ's sacrifice its value as redemption and reparation,
as atonement and satisfaction. He knew and loved us all when he offered his life. Now "the love of
Christ controls us, because we are convinced that one has died for all; therefore all have died."

Our participation in Christ's sacrifice

The cross is the unique sacrifice of Christ, the "one mediator between God and men". But
because in his incarnate divine person he has in some way united himself to every man, "the

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possibility of being made partners, in a way known to God, in the paschal mystery" is offered to all
men.

JESUS CHRIST WAS BURIED

"By the grace of God" Jesus tasted death "for every one". In his plan of salvation, God
ordained that his Son should not only "die for our sins"but should also "taste death", experience the
condition of death, the separation of his soul from his body, between the time he expired on the
cross and the time he was raised from the dead. the state of the dead Christ is the mystery of the
tomb and the descent into hell. It is the mystery of Holy Saturday, when Christ, lying in the tomb,
reveals God's great sabbath rest after the fulfilment of man's salvation, which brings peace to the
whole universe.

“Christ in the tomb in his body”

Christ's stay in the tomb constitutes the real link between his passible state before Easter and
his glorious and risen state today. the same person of the "Living One" can say, "I died, and behold I
am alive for evermore":

God [the Son] did not impede death from separating his soul from his body according to the
necessary order of nature, but has reunited them to one another in the Resurrection, so that he
himself might be, in his person, the meeting point for death and life, by arresting in himself the
decomposition of nature produced by death and so becoming the source of reunion for the separated
parts.

“You will not let your Holy One see corruption”

Christ's death was a real death in that it put an end to his earthly human existence. But
because of the union his body retained with the person of the Son, his was not a mortal corpse like
others, for "divine power preserved Christ's body from corruption." Both of these statements can be
said of Christ: "He was cut off out of the land of the living", and "My flesh will dwell in hope. For you
will not abandon my soul to Hades, nor let your Holy One see corruption." Jesus' Resurrection "on the
third day" was the proof of this, for bodily decay was held to begin on the fourth day after death.

“Buried with Christ”

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 Baptism, the original and full sign of which is immersion, efficaciously signifies the descent
into the tomb by the Christian who dies to sin with Christ in order to live a new life. "We were buried
therefore with him by baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of
the Father, we too might walk in newness of life."

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