The Person and Mission of the Son of God

12. The "scandal" of Christianity is the belief that the all-holy, all-powerful and all-knowing God took upon himself our human nature and endured suffering and death to win salvation for all people (cf. 1 Cor 1:23). The faith we have received declares that Jesus Christ revealed and accomplished the Father's plan of saving the world and the whole of humanity because of "who he is" and "what he does because of who he is". "Who he is" and "what he does" acquire their full meaning only when set within the mystery of the Triune God. It has been a constant concern of my Pontificate to remind the faithful of the communion of life of the Blessed Trinity and the unity of the three Persons in the plan of creation and redemption. My Encyclical Letters Redemptor Hominis, Dives in Misericordia and Dominum et Vivificantem are reflections on the Son, the Father and the Holy Spirit respectively and on their roles in the divine plan of salvation. We cannot however isolate or separate one Person from the others, since each is revealed only within the communion of life and action of the Trinity. The saving action of Jesus has its origin in the communion of the Godhead, and opens the way for all who believe in him to enter into intimate communion with the Trinity and with one another in the Trinity.

"He who has seen me has seen the Father", Jesus claims (Jn 14:9). In Jesus Christ alone dwells the fullness of God in bodily form (cf. Col 2:9), establishing him as the unique and absolute saving Word of God (cf. Heb 1:1-4). As the Father's definitive Word, Jesus makes God and his saving will known in the fullest way possible. "No one comes to the Father but by me", Jesus says (Jn 14:6). He is "the Way, and the Truth, and the Life" (Jn 14:6), because, as he himself says, "the Father who dwells in me does his works" (Jn 14:10). Only in the person of Jesus does God's word of salvation appear in all its fullness, ushering in the final age (cf. Heb 1:1-2). Thus, in the first days of the Church, Peter could proclaim: "There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved" (Acts 4:12).

The mission of the Saviour reached its culmination in the Paschal Mystery. On the Cross, when "he stretched out his arms between heaven and earth in the everlasting sign of [the Father's] covenant",⁴² Jesus uttered his final appeal to the Father to forgive the sins of humanity: "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do" (Lk 23:34). Jesus destroyed sin by the power of his love for his Father and for all mankind. He took upon himself the wounds inflicted on humanity by sin, and he offered release through conversion. The first fruits of this are evident in the repentant thief hanging beside him on another cross (cf. Lk 23:43). His last utterance was the cry of the faithful Son: "Father, into your hands I commit my spirit" (Lk 23:46). In this supreme expression of love he entrusted his whole life and mission into the hands of the Father who had sent him. Thus he handed over to the Father the whole of creation and all humanity, to be accepted finally by him in compassionate love.

Everything that the Son is and has accomplished is accepted by the Father, who then offers this gift to the world in the act of raising Jesus from the dead and setting him at his right hand, where sin and death have power no more. Through Jesus' Paschal Sacrifice the Father irrevocably offers reconciliation and fullness of life to the world. This extraordinary gift could only come through the beloved Son, who alone was capable of fully responding to the Father's love, rejected by sin. In Jesus Christ, through the power of the Holy Spirit, we come to know that God is not distant, above and apart from man, but is very near, indeed united to every person and all humanity in all of life's situations. This is the message which Christianity offers to the world, and it is a source of incomparable comfort and hope for all believers.