<Next Chapter> <Return to overview>
The Gospels report that at two solemn moments, the Baptism and the Transfiguration of Christ, the voice of the Father designates Jesus his "beloved Son" [Mt 3:17; 17:5]. Jesus calls himself the "only Son of God", and by this title affirms his eternal pre-existence [Jn 3:16; 10:36]. He asks for faith in "the name of the only Son of God" [Jn 3:18]. In the centurion's exclamation before the crucified Christ, "Truly this man was the Son of God" [Mk 15:39], that Christian confession is already heard. Only in the Paschal mystery can the believer give the title "Son of God" its full meaning (CCC444). 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 (Jn 1:14, 18; 3:16, 18); he is God himself (Jn 1:1). To be a Christian, one must believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God (Acts 8:37; 1 Jn 2:23) (CCC254). When the promised Messiah-King is called "son of God", it does not necessarily imply that he was more than human, according to the literal meaning of these texts. Those who called Jesus "son of God", as the Messiah of Israel, perhaps meant nothing more than this [1 Chr 17:13; Ps 2:7; Mt 27:54; Lk 23:47] (CCC441).
The Church uses the term "person" or "hypostasis" to designate the Father, Son and Holy Spirit in the real distinction among them (CCC252). Jesus revealed that God is Father in an unheard-of sense: he is Father not only in being Creator; he is eternally Father by his relationship to his only Son who, reciprocally, is Son only in relation to his Father [Mt 11-27] (CCC240). He is naturally Son of the Father as to his divinity and naturally son of his mother as to his humanity, but properly Son of the Father in both natures" [Lk 2:48-49] (CCC503). We believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty, make of heaven and earth, of all that is, seen and unseen. We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, one in Being with the Father. Through him all things were made. For us men and for our salvation he came down from heaven ... On the third day he rose again in fulfillment of the Scriptures; he ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father (The Nicene Creed).
By calling God "Father", the language of faith indicates two main things: that God is the first origin of everything and transcendent authority. God transcends the human distinction between the sexes. He is neither man nor woman: he is God (CCC239). The Church recognizes the Father as the "source and origin of the whole divinity" (CCC245). We do not divide the Godhead, since the Father is its "source and origin," but rather confess that the Son is eternally begotten by him and the Holy Spirit proceeds from him (CCC2789). The Father's only Son, conceived as man in the womb of the Virgin Mary, is "Christ", that is to say, anointed by the Holy Spirit, from the beginning of his human existence, though the manifestation of this fact takes place only progressively: to the shepherds, to the magi, to John the Baptist, to the disciples [Mt 1:20; 2:1-12; Lk 1:35; 2:8-20; Jn 1:3 1-34; 2:11]. Thus the whole life of Jesus Christ will make manifest "how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power" [Acts 10:38] (CCC486). Jesus is conceived by the Holy Spirit in the Virgin Mary's womb because he is the New Adam, who inaugurates the new creation: "The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man is from heaven" [1 Cor 15:45,47]. From his conception, Christ's humanity is filled with the Holy Spirit, for God "gives him the Spirit without measure" [Jn 3:34]. From "his fullness" as the head of redeemed humanity "we have all received, grace upon grace" [Jn 1:16; Col 1:18] (CCC504).
The apostles confess Jesus to be the Word: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God"; as "the image of the invisible God"; as the "radiance of the glory of God and the very stamp of his nature" [Jn 1:1; Col 1:15; Heb 1:3] (CCC2241). Christ, the Son of God made man, is the Father's one, perfect and unsurpassable Word (CCC65). 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 (CCC479). We can believe in Jesus Christ because he is himself God, the Word made flesh (CCC151). The Word became flesh so that thus we might know God's love: "In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him" [1 Jn 4:9]. "For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life" [Jn 3:16] (CCC458).
To become a child in relation to God is the condition for entering the kingdom [Mt 18:3-4]. For this, we must humble ourselves and become little. Even more: to become "children of God" we must be "born from above" or "born of God" [Jn 3 7; 1:13; 1:12; Mt 23:12]. Man's Creator has become man, born of the Virgin. We have been made sharers in the divinity of Christ who humbled himself to share our humanity (CCC526). The Old Testament suggests and the New Covenant reveals the creative action of the Son and the Spirit, [Pss 33 6; 104:30; Gen 1:2-3] inseparably one with that of the Father. This creative co-operation is clearly affirmed in the Church's rule of faith: There exists but one God... he is the Father, God, the Creator, the author, the giver of order. He made all things by himself, that is, by his Word and by his Wisdom, by the Son and the Spirit who, so to speak, are his hands. Creation is the common work of the Holy Trinity (CCC292).
Following the holy Fathers, we unanimously teach and confess one and the same Son, our Lord Jesus Christ: the same perfect in divinity and perfect in humanity, the same truly God and truly man, composed of rational soul and body; consubstantial with the Father as to his divinity and consubstantial with us as to his humanity; like us in all things but sin. He was begotten from the Father before all ages as to his divinity and in these last days, for us and for our salvation, was born as to his humanity of the virgin Mary, the Mother of God. We confess that one and the same Christ, Lord, and only-begotten Son, is to be acknowledged in two natures without confusion, change, division or separation. The distinction between the natures was never abolished by their union, but rather the character proper to each of the two natures was preserved as they came together in one person (prosopon) and one hypostasis (CCC467). Thus everything in Christ's human nature is to be attributed to his divine person as its proper subject, not only his miracles but also his sufferings and even his death: He who was crucified in the flesh, our Lord Jesus Christ, is true God, Lord of glory, and one of the Holy Trinity (CCC468).
"In the beginning was the Word... and the Word was God... all things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made" [Jn 1:1-3]. The New Testament reveals that God created everything by the eternal Word, his beloved Son. In him "all things were created, in heaven and on earth... all things were created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together" [Col 1:16-17] (CCC291). Christ is the center of the angelic world. They are his angels: "When the Son of man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him" [Mt 25:31]. They belong to him because they were created through and for him [Col 1:16] (CCC331). God "from the beginning of time made at once (simul) out of nothing both orders of creatures, the spiritual and the corporeal, that is, the angelic and the earthly, and then (deinde) the human creature, who as it were shares in both orders, being composed of spirit and body" (CCC327). In the Old Testament, "son of God" is a title given to the angels, the Chosen People, the children of Israel, and their kings [Dt 14:1; (LXX) 32:8; Job 1:6; Ex 4:22; Hos 2:1; 11:1; Jer 3:19; Sir 36:11; Wis 18:13; 2 Sam 7:14; Ps 82:6]. It signifies an adoptive sonship that establishes a relationship of particular intimacy between God and his creature (CCC441).
Angels are spiritual creatures who glorify God without ceasing and who serve his saving plans for other creatures: The angels work together for the benefit of us all (CCC350). The existence of the spiritual, non-corporeal beings that Sacred Scripture usually calls "angels" is a truth of faith (CCC328). As purely spiritual creatures angels have intelligence and will: they are personal and immortal creatures, surpassing in perfection all visible creatures, as the splendour of their glory bears witness [Lk 20:36; Dan 10:9-12] (CCC330). St. Augustine says: "'Angel' is the name of their office, not of their nature. If you seek the name of their nature, it is 'spirit'; if you seek the name of their office, it is 'angel': from what they are, 'spirit', from what they do, 'angel'" (CCC329). Angels and men, as intelligent and free creatures, have to journey toward their ultimate destinies by their free choice and preferential love. They can therefore go astray. Indeed, they have sinned (CCC311). From the Incarnation to the Ascension, the life of the Word incarnate is surrounded by the adoration and service of angels. When God "brings the firstborn into the world, he says: 'Let all God's angels worship him'" [Heb 1:6] (CCC333).
Satan or the devil and the other demons are fallen angels who have freely refused to serve God and his plan. Their choice against God is definitive. They try to associate man in their revolt against God (CCC414). Behind the disobedient choice of our first parents lurks a seductive voice, opposed to God, which makes them fall into death out of envy [Gen 3:1-5; Wis 2:24]. Scripture and the Church's Tradition see in this being a fallen angel, called "Satan" or the "devil" [Jn 8:44; Rev 12:9] The Church teaches that Satan was at first a good angel, made by God: The devil and the other demons were indeed created naturally good by God, but they became evil by their own doing (CCC391). Scripture speaks of a sin of these angels [2 Pt 2:4]. This "fall" consists in the free choice of these created spirits, who radically and irrevocably rejected God and his reign. We find a reflection of that rebellion in the tempter's words to our first parents: "You will be like God" [Gen 3:5]. The devil "has sinned from the beginning"; he is "a liar and the father of lies" [1 Jn 3:8; Jn 8:44] (CCC392). It is the irrevocable character of their choice, and not a defect in the infinite divine mercy, that makes the angels' sin unforgivable. There is no repentance for the angels after their fall, just as there is no repentance for men after death (CCC393). Scripture witnesses to the disastrous influence of the one Jesus calls "a murderer from the beginning", who would even try to divert Jesus from the mission received from his Father [Jn 8:44; Mt 4:1-11]. "The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil" [1 Jn 3:8]. In its consequences the gravest of these works was the mendacious seduction that led man to disobey God (CCC394).
In particular Jesus' redemptive death fulfils Isaiah's prophecy of the suffering Servant [Is 53:7-8 and Acts 8:32-35]. Indeed Jesus himself explained the meaning of his life and death in the light of God's suffering Servant [Mt 20:28]. After his Resurrection he gave this interpretation of the Scriptures to the disciples at Emmaus, and then to the apostles [Lk 24:25-27, 44-45] (CCC601). John the Baptist looked at Jesus and pointed him out as the "Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world" [Jn 1:29; cLk 3:21; Mt 3:14-15; Jn 1:36]. 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 [Is 53:7,12; Jer 11:19; Ex 12:3-14; Jn 19:36; 1 Cor 5:7]. Christ's whole life expresses his mission: "to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many" [Mk 10:45] (CCC608). Jesus fulfilled the work of the Father completely; his prayer, like his sacrifice, extends until the end of time. The prayer of this hour fills the end-times and carries them toward their consummation. Jesus, the Son to whom the Father has given all things, has given himself wholly back to the Father, yet expresses himself with a sovereign freedom [Jn 17:11, 13, 19, 24] by virtue of the power the Father has given him over all flesh. The Son, who made himself Servant, is Lord, the Pantocrator. Our high priest who prays for us is also the one who prays in us and the God who hears our prayer (CCC2749).
The characteristics of the awaited Messiah begin to appear in the "Book of Emmanuel" ("Isaiah said this when he saw his glory," [Jn 12:41; Isa 6-12] speaking of Christ), especially in the first two verses of Isaiah 11: There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots. And the Spirit of the LORD shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the LORD [Isa 11:1-2] (CCC712). The Messiah's characteristics are revealed above all in the "Servant songs" [Isa 42:1-9; Mt 12:18-21; Jn 1:32-34; Isa 49:1-6; Mt 3:17; Lk 2:32; Isa 50:4-10; Isa 52:13-53:12]. These songs proclaim the meaning of Jesus' Passion and show how he will pour out the Holy Spirit to give life to the many: not as an outsider, but by embracing our "form as slave" [Phil 2:7]. Taking our death upon himself, he can communicate to us his own Spirit of life (CCC713). This is why Christ inaugurates the proclamation of the Good News by making his own the following passage from Isaiah: [Isa 61:1-2; Lk 4:18-19] The Spirit of the LORD God is upon me, because the LORD has anointed me to bring good tidings to the afflicted; he has sent me to bind up the broken hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound; to proclaim the year of the LORD'S favor (CCC714).
Jesus himself affirms that God is "the one Lord" whom you must love "with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength" [Mk 12:29-30]. At the same time Jesus gives us to understand that he himself is "the Lord" [Mk 12:35-37] (CCC202). The title "Lord" indicates divine sovereignty. To confess or invoke Jesus as Lord is to believe in his divinity (CCC455). Jesus ascribes this title to himself in a veiled way when he disputes with the Pharisees about the meaning of Psalm 110, but also in an explicit way when he addresses his apostles [Mt 22:41-46; Acts 2:34-36; Heb 1:13; Jn 13:13] (CCC447). In the encounter with the risen Jesus, this title becomes adoration: "My Lord and my God!" [Jn 20:28,21:7] (CCC448). By attributing to Jesus the divine title "Lord", the first confessions of the Church's faith affirm from the beginning that the power, honour and glory due to God the Father are due also to Jesus, because "he was in the form of God", [Acts 2:34-36; Rom 9:5; Titus 2:13; Rev 5:13; Phil 2:6] and the Father manifested the sovereignty of Jesus by raising him from the dead and exalting him into his glory [Rom 10:9; 1 Cor 12:3; Phil 2:9-11] (CCC449).
For a moment Jesus discloses his divine glory, confirming Peter's confession. He also reveals that he will have to go by the way of the cross at Jerusalem in order to "enter into his glory" [Lk 24:26]. Christ's Passion is the will of the Father: the Son acts as God's servant (CCC555). Before three witnesses chosen by himself: Peter, James and John. Jesus' face and clothes become dazzling with light, and Moses and Elijah appear, speaking "of his departure, which he was to accomplish at Jerusalem" [Lk 9:31] (CCC554). The veiled character of the glory of the Risen One during this time is intimated in his mysterious words to Mary Magdalene: "I have not yet ascended to the Father; but go to my brethren and say to them, I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God" [Jn 20:17]. This indicates a difference in manifestation between the glory of the risen Christ and that of the Christ exalted to the Father's right hand, a transition marked by the historical and transcendent event of the Ascension (CCC660). After his Resurrection, Jesus' divine sonship becomes manifest in the power of his glorified humanity. He was "designated Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his Resurrection from the dead" [Rom 1:3; Acts 13:33]. The apostles can confess: "We have beheld his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth" [Jn 1:14] (CCC445).
The Word became flesh for us in order to save us by reconciling us with God, who "loved us and sent his Son to be the expiation for our sins": "the Father has sent his Son as the Saviour of the world", and "he was revealed to take away sins" [1 Jn 4:10; 4:14; 3:5]. Sick, our nature demanded to be healed; fallen, to be raised up; dead, to rise again. We had lost the possession of the good; it was necessary for it to be given back to us. Closed in the darkness, it was necessary to bring us the light; captives, we awaited a Saviour; prisoners, help; slaves, a liberator. Are these things minor or insignificant? Did they not move God to descend to human nature and visit it, since humanity was in so miserable and unhappy a state? (CCC457).
But when the time had fully come, God sent forth his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons' [Gal 4:4-5]. This is 'the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God' [Mk 1:1]. God has visited his people. He has fulfilled the promise he made to Abraham and his descendants. He acted far beyond all expectation - he has sent his own 'beloved Son'. [Mk 1:11; Lk 1:5, 68] (CCC422). Jesus of Nazareth is the eternal Son of God made man. He 'came from God', [Jn 13:3] 'descended from heaven', [Jn 3:13; 6:33] and 'came in the flesh' [1 Jn 4:2] (CCC423). Jesus performed acts, such as pardoning sins, that manifested him to be the Saviour God himself (Jn 5:16-18). Certain Jews, who did not recognize God made man (Jn 1:14), saw in him only a man who made himself God (Jn 10:33), and judged him as a blasphemer (CCC594).
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 (CCC480). Jesus is inseparably true God and true man. He is truly the Son of God who, without ceasing to be God and Lord, became a man and our brother: "What he was, he remained and what he was not, he assumed", sings the Roman Liturgy. And the liturgy of St. John Chrysostom proclaims and sings: "O only-begotten Son and Word of God, immortal being, you who deigned for our salvation to become incarnate of the holy Mother of God and ever-virgin Mary, you who without change became man and were crucified, O Christ our God, you who by your death have crushed death, you who are one of the Holy Trinity, glorified with the Father and the Holy Spirit, save us!" (CCC469). St. Ignatius of Antioch at the beginning of the second century says: You are firmly convinced about our Lord, who is truly of the race of David according to the flesh, Son of God according to the will and power of God, truly born of a virgin,... he was truly nailed to a tree for us in his flesh under Pontius Pilate... he truly suffered, as he is also truly risen [Rom 1:3; Jn 1:13] (CCC496).
Jesus Christ possesses two natures, one divine and the other human, not confused, but united in the one person of God's Son (CCC481). 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 (CCC482). Christ enjoyed in his human knowledge the fullness of understanding of the eternal plans he had come to reveal [Mk 8:31; 9:31; 10:33-34; 14:18-20, 26-30]. What he admitted to not knowing in this area, he elsewhere declared himself not sent to reveal [Mk 13:32, Acts 1:7] (CCC474). In all of his life Jesus presents himself as our model. He is "the perfect man", [Rom 1 5:5; Phil 2:5] who invites us to become his disciples and follow him. In humbling himself, he has given us an example to imitate, through his prayer he draws us to pray, and by his poverty he calls us to accept freely the privation and persecutions that may come our way [Jn 13:15; Lk 11:1; Mt 5:11-12] (CCC520). The Son of God has truly been made one of us, like to us in all things except sin (CCC470). This is why the Son of God could, when he became man, "increase in wisdom and in stature, and in favor with God and man" [Lk 2:52]. This corresponded to the reality of his voluntary emptying of himself, taking "the form of a slave" [Phil 2:7] (CCC472).
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", [Is 53:8] and "My flesh will dwell in hope. For you will not abandon my soul to Hades, nor let your Holy One see corruption" [Acts 2:26-27; Ps 16:9-10]. Jesus' Resurrection "on the third day" was the proof of this, for bodily decay was held to begin on the fourth day after death [1 Cor 15:4; Lk 24:46; Mt 12:40; Jon 2:1; Hos 6:2; Jn 11:39] (CCC627). Since the "Author of life" who was killed [Acts 3:15] is the same "living one [who has] risen", [Lk 24:5-6] the divine person of the Son of God necessarily continued to possess his human soul and body, separated from each other by death: By the fact that at Christ's death his soul was separated from his flesh, his one person is not itself divided into two persons; for the human body and soul of Christ have existed in the same way from the beginning of his earthly existence, in the divine person of the Word; and in death, although separated from each other, both remained with one and the same person of the Word (CCC626).
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, [Mt 26:42; Lk 22:20] making himself "obedient unto death". Jesus prays: "My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me..." [Phil 2:8; Mt 26:39; Heb 5:7-8]. 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 [Rom 5:12; Heb 4:15]. 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; Jn 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 Pt 224; Mt 26:42] (CCC612). In Christ, and through his human will, the will of the Father has been perfectly fulfilled once for all. Jesus said on entering into this world: "Lo, I have come to do your will, O God" [Heb 10:7; Ps 40:7]. Only Jesus can say: "I always do what is pleasing to him" [Jn 8:29]. In the prayer of his agony, he consents totally to this will: "not my will, but yours be done" [Lk 22:42; Jn 4:34; 5:30; 6:38]. For this reason Jesus "gave himself for our sins to deliver us from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father" [Gal 1:4]. "And by that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all" [Heb 10:10] (CCC2824).
"Although he was a Son, [Jesus] learned obedience through what he suffered" [Heb 5:8]. How much more reason have we sinful creatures to learn obedience - we who in him have become children of adoption. We ask our Father to unite our will to his Son's, in order to fulfill his will, his plan of salvation for the life of the world. We are radically incapable of this, but united with Jesus and with the power of his Holy Spirit, we can surrender our will to him and decide to choose what his Son has always chosen: to do what is pleasing to the Father [Jn 8:29]. In committing ourselves to [Christ], we can become one spirit with him, and thereby accomplish his will, in such wise that it will be perfect on earth as it is in heaven. Consider how Jesus Christ teaches us to be humble, by making us see that our virtue does not depend on our work alone but on grace from on high. He commands each of the faithful who prays to do so universally, for the whole world. For he did not say "thy will be done in me or in us," but "on earth," the whole earth, so that error may be banished from it, truth take root in it, all vice be destroyed on it, virtue flourish on it, and earth no longer differ from heaven (CCC2825).
The entry of Christ's humanity into the glory of God (CCC656). "So then the Lord Jesus, after he had spoken to them, was taken up into heaven, and sat down at the right hand of God" [Mk 16:19]. Christ's body was glorified at the moment of his Resurrection, as proved by the new and supernatural properties it subsequently and permanently enjoys [Lk 24:31; Jn 20:19, 26]. But during the forty days when he eats and drinks familiarly with his disciples and teaches them about the kingdom, his glory remains veiled under the appearance of ordinary humanity [Acts 1:3; 10:41; Mk 16:12; Lk 24:15; Jn 20:14-15; 21:4]. Jesus' final apparition ends with the irreversible entry of his humanity into divine glory, symbolized by the cloud and by heaven, where he is seated from that time forward at God's right hand [Acts 1:9; 2:33; 7:56; Lk 9:34-35; 24:51; Ex 13:22; Mk 16:19; Ps 110:1]. Only in a wholly exceptional and unique way would Jesus show himself to Paul "as to one untimely born", in a last apparition that established him as an apostle [1 Cor 15:8; 9:1; Gal 1:16] (CCC659). Henceforth Christ is seated at the right hand of the Father: "By 'the Father's right hand' we understand the glory and honour of divinity, where he who exists as Son of God before all ages, indeed as God, of one being with the Father, is seated bodily after he became incarnate and his flesh was glorified" (CCC663).
Being seated at the Father's right hand signifies the inauguration of the Messiah's kingdom, the fulfilment of the prophet Daniel's vision concerning the Son of man: "To him was given dominion and glory and kingdom, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him; his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom one that shall not be destroyed" [Dan 7:14]. After this event the apostles became witnesses of the "kingdom [that] will have no end" [Nicene Creed] (CCC664). It was the Son's task to accomplish the Father's plan of salvation in the fullness of time. Its accomplishment was the reason for his being sent. The Lord Jesus inaugurated his Church by preaching the Good News, that is, the coming of the Reign of God, promised over the ages in the scriptures. To fulfill the Father's will, Christ ushered in the Kingdom of heaven on earth. The Church "is the Reign of Christ already present in mystery" (CCC763). 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 (CCC680).
"Christ died and lived again, that he might be Lord both of the dead and of the living" [Rom 14:9]. Christ's Ascension into heaven signifies his participation, in his humanity, in God's power and authority. Jesus Christ is Lord: he possesses all power in heaven and on earth. He is "far above all rule and authority and power and dominion", for the Father "has put all things under his feet" [Eph 1:20-22]. Christ is Lord of the cosmos and of history. In him human history and indeed all creation are "set forth" and transcendently fulfilled [Eph 1:10; 4:10; 1 Cor 15:24, 27-28] (CCC668). As Lord, Christ is also head of the Church, which is his Body. [Eph 1:22] Taken up to heaven and glorified after he had thus fully accomplished his mission, Christ dwells on earth in his Church. The redemption is the source of the authority that Christ, by virtue of the Holy Spirit, exercises over the Church. "The kingdom of Christ [is] already present in mystery", "on earth, the seed and the beginning of the kingdom" [Eph 4:11-13] (CCC669).
Since the Ascension God's plan has entered into its fulfilment. We are already at "the last hour" [1 Jn 2:18; 1 Pt 4:7]. "Already the final age of the world is with us, and the renewal of the world is irrevocably under way; it is even now anticipated in a certain real way, for the Church on earth is endowed already with a sanctity that is real but imperfect" [1 Cor 10:11]. Christ's kingdom already manifests its presence through the miraculous signs that attend its proclamation by the Church [Mk 16:17-18, 20] (CCC670). Though already present in his Church, Christ's reign is nevertheless yet to be fulfilled "with power and great glory" by the King's return to earth [Lk 21:27; Mt 25:31]. This reign is still under attack by the evil powers, even though they have been defeated definitively by Christ's Passover [2 Th 2:7]. Until everything is subject to him, "until there be realized new heavens and a new earth in which justice dwells, the pilgrim Church, in her sacraments and institutions, which belong to this present age, carries the mark of this world which will pass, and she herself takes her place among the creatures which groan and travail yet and await the revelation of the sons of God" [2 Pt 3:13; Rom 8:19-22; 1 Cor 15:28]. That is why Christians pray, above all in the Eucharist, to hasten Christ's return by saying to him: [1 Cor 11:26; 2 Pt 3:11-12] Maranatha! "Our Lord, come!" [1 Cor 16:22; Rev 22:17,20] (CCC671).
Before his Ascension Christ affirmed that the hour had not yet come for the glorious establishment of the messianic kingdom awaited by Israel [Acts 1:6-7] which, according to the prophets, was to bring all men the definitive order of justice, love and peace [Is 11:1-9]. According to the Lord, the present time is the time of the Spirit and of witness, but also a time still marked by "distress" and the trial of evil which does not spare the Church [Acts 1:8; 1 Cor 7:26; Eph 5:16; 1 Pt 4:17] and ushers in the struggles of the last days. It is a time of waiting and watching [Mt 25:1, 13; Mk 13:33-37; 1 Jn 2:18; 4:3; 1 Tim 4:1] (CCC672). Since the Ascension Christ's coming in glory has been imminent [Rev 22:20], even though "it is not for you to know times or seasons which the Father has fixed by his own authority" [Acts 1:7; Mk 13:32]. This eschatological coming could be accomplished at any moment, even if both it and the final trial that will precede it are "delayed" [Mt 24:44; 1 Th 5:2; 2 Th 2:3-12] (CCC673). The glorious Messiah's coming is suspended at every moment of history until his recognition by "all Israel", for "a hardening has come upon part of Israel" in their "unbelief" toward Jesus [Rom 11:20-26; Mt 23:39]. St. Peter says to the Jews of Jerusalem after Pentecost: "Repent therefore, and turn again, that your sins may be blotted out, that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that he may send the Christ appointed for you, Jesus, whom heaven must receive until the time for establishing all that God spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets from of old" [Acts 3:19-21]. St. Paul echoes him: "For if their rejection means the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance mean but life from the dead?" [Rom 11:15] The "full inclusion" of the Jews in the Messiah's salvation, in the wake of "the full number of the Gentiles" [Rom 11:12, 25; Lk 21:24], will enable the People of God to achieve "the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ", in which "God may be all in all" [Eph 4:13; 1 Cor 15:28] (CCC674).
Before Christ's second coming the Church must pass through a final trial that will shake the faith of many believers [Lk 18:8; Mt 24:12]. The persecution that accompanies her pilgrimage on earth [Lk 21:12; Jn 15:19-20] will unveil the "mystery of iniquity" in the form of a religious deception offering men an apparent solution to their problems at the price of apostasy from the truth. The supreme religious deception is that of the Antichrist, a pseudo-messianism by which man glorifies himself in place of God and of his Messiah come in the flesh [2 Th 2:4-12; 1 Th 5:2-3; 2 Jn 7; 1 Jn 2:1 8, 22] (CCC675). The Church will enter the glory of the kingdom only through this final Passover, when she will follow her Lord in his death and Resurrection [Rev 19:1-9]. The kingdom will be fulfilled, then, not by a historic triumph of the Church through a progressive ascendancy, but only by God's victory over the final unleashing of evil, which will cause his Bride to come down from heaven [Rev 13:8; 20:7-10; 21:2-4]. God's triumph over the revolt of evil will take the form of the Last Judgement after the final cosmic upheaval of this passing world [Rev 20:12 2 Pt 3:12-13] (CCC677).