Lenten Lecture Series 4/11/2025: "It is Finished."

Summary

The Lenten Lecture given by Dr. Faith Paul at the Holy Family Catholic Church in St. Louis Park delves into the profound meaning behind the phrase 'It is Finished,' spoken by Christ from the cross. Addressing themes of triumph and the paradoxical nature of the crucifixion, she explores the ancient Christus Victor theory, which suggests that Jesus' death was not just an ending but a victorious fulfillment of divine purpose. By revisiting early Christian views, she encourages a deeper understanding of the atonement and its impact on humanity's liberation from sin.

Highlights

• Dr. Faith Paul explores the rich meaning behind 'It is Finished' and its association with triumph. ✝️
• A focus on the Christus Victor theory reveals Christ's death as a strategic victory over sin and death. 🔍
• The lecture cautions against simplifying the doctrine of atonement into single theories. ⚠️
• Recapitulation is revisited as a narrative device to understand Christ's redemptive work. 📚
• A provocative analogy compares the crucifixion to a trap for Satan, underscoring the cunning of divine strategy. 🎣

Key Takeaways

• Christ's proclamation 'It is Finished' signifies not just the end but the fulfillment of his divine mission. ✝️
• The lecture delves into the paradox of the crucifixion being both a sign of defeat and a triumph. 🏆
• Dr. Paul highlights the oft-overlooked Christus Victor theory, showing its relevance even today. 📚
• The concept of recapitulation helps weave a narrative from the fall of man to Christ's victory. 📜
• The analogy of Christ's actions as a mousetrap for the devil brings a fresh perspective on his death and resurrection. 🐭

Overview

Dr. Faith Paul captivated the audience at Holy Family Catholic Church by unpacking the layers of meaning behind Christ’s last words from the cross. The talk, part of a Lenten Lecture Series, focused on the phrase 'It is Finished', exploring its implications as a declaration of divine triumph rather than mere conclusion. Paul's reflection set the stage for a thoughtful and engaged exploration into the broader themes of redemption and sacrifice.

The lecture spotlighted the lesser-known Christus Victor theory which historically framed the crucifixion as a cosmic victory over malevolent powers. This perspective, which fell out of emphasis since the 11th century, was revitalized through Dr. Paul's engaging narrative, suggesting that understanding this ancient theory can enhance modern spiritual insights and appreciation towards the depth of divine love and sacrifice manifested in the cross.

With a bold analogy likening Jesus's sacrifice to a clever trap for Satan, Dr. Paul injected the lecture with fresh imagery and provocative thought. This vivid depiction, complemented by the exploration of the Greek and Latin origins of the phrase 'It is Finished', provided a dynamic and vivid recounting of Christ’s final mission on earth, aligning it with themes of fulfillment and ultimate victory over sin and death.

Chapters

• 00:00 - 03:00: Introductory Prayer and Welcome This chapter introduces the final Friday evening lecture of a series, beginning with an introductory prayer and welcome. The speaker expresses gratitude to the attendees for joining the final event in the series. They mention that the concluding lecture will be a homily, indicating a religious or spiritual context for the gathering.
• 03:00 - 04:30: Introduction of Dr. Faith Paul The chapter titled 'Introduction of Dr. Faith Paul' begins with the mention of a Good Friday service scheduled to take place. The speaker suggests starting with a prayer, invoking the holy trinity. The prayer seeks divine assistance to continue engaging deeply with the concepts of sacrificial love during the ongoing Lenten period of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving as it approaches its conclusion.
• 04:30 - 10:00: Reflection on the Sixth Word from the Cross This chapter reflects on the sixth word from the Cross and highlights the Christian concept of God's love for the world through the sacrifice of His son. The speaker emphasizes the importance of being inspired by this act to not only express gratitude but also to have a strong desire to follow God's holy will. The chapter concludes with a traditional Christian blessing in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and informs about additional notes available at the cross aisle.
• 10:00 - 20:00: Discussion on the Triumph of the Cross The chapter introduces Dr. Faith Paul, who is presenting the final lecture in a series of Friday night lectures. Dr. Paul holds both a master's and a Ph.D. in philosophy from St. Louis University and has taught philosophy at the University of St. Thomas from 2008 until 2021. The context of the discussion seems to be related to the theme of 'Triumph of the Cross'.
• 20:00 - 25:00: Christristus Victor Theory of Atonement The chapter discusses an interview with a teacher at St. Agnes School, where she teaches both English and religion, currently focusing on religion. The author expresses gratitude for her participation as she has become an integral part of the St. Agnes team. The author humorously notes having included many people from St. Agnes in the series.
• 25:00 - 40:00: Irenaeus and Recapitulation The gathering commences with a warm welcome and acknowledgement of the audience’s faithfulness in attending a Friday night session during Passion Tide, as they approach Holy Week. The speaker expresses appreciation for the opportunity to reflect together on the profound significance and glory of the cross, setting the stage for a discussion centered on Irenaeus and the theological concept of recapitulation.
• 40:00 - 55:00: Devil, Deception, and Victory The chapter titled 'Devil, Deception, and Victory' focuses on the sixth phrase from the cross, 'It is consummated,' which is seen as Christ's words of triumph. This chapter explores the theme of triumph associated with this saying, emphasizing that the cross of Christ represents the instrument of his victory.
• 55:00 - 62:00: Practical Implications and Conclusion The chapter delves into the paradoxical nature of the crucifixion of Jesus. It emphasizes the contrast between the traditional view of the cross as a symbol of dishonor and shame, and the Christian belief in the glorification of Jesus through the crucifixion. The discussion highlights the conflicting perspectives of various groups, such as Jews and Greeks, and encourages reflection on the deeper significance of the cross.
• 62:00 - 65:30: Closing Prayer The chapter discusses the concept of the triumph of the cross, exploring how what seems like a defeat can actually represent the ultimate victory. It delves into the tradition of understanding the atonement of Christ, specifically focusing on the Christus Victor theory of atonement. The discussion aims to deepen the understanding of Christ's work on the cross in reconciling humanity to the Father.

Lenten Lecture Series 4/11/2025: "It is Finished." Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 i'd like to welcome all of you here tonight for the last Friday evening uh lecture in this series Of course the very last lecture is the homaly at the
• 00:30 - 01:00 Good Friday service which will be at 3M here of course on Good Friday Let's start with a prayer In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit Amen Heavenly Father as our Lenton time of prayer fasting and almsgiving uh comes to a conclusion next week we ask you Lord to continue to help us to delve more deeply not only in mind but in heart into your sacrificial love You
• 01:00 - 01:30 sent your son because you loved the world and he took upon himself our punishment We ask you Lord to help us to truly be impressed by that to the point whereby we are not only filled with gratitude but a great desire to continue to conform to your holy will In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit Amen We do have some sheets available right at the cross aisle if you'd like to have uh some of the added notes and
• 01:30 - 02:00 references It's my pleasure to introduce to you today Dr Faith Paul who is giving this last of the Friday night lectures She has both an M's and a PhD in philosophy from St Louis University and she taught philosophy at at University of St Thomas from 2008 until 2021 when I was a I got to interview as
• 02:00 - 02:30 well I got to interview her for a teaching position at St Agnes School where she teaches English and religion and currently mainly religion So she has been a wonderful part of the team at St Agnes and I'm so grateful you can be here today If you've noticed I've been stealing a lot of St Agnes people for my first series here Thank you
• 02:30 - 03:00 Thank you for that warm welcome Father Um and it's great to see you all here tonight It's Friday night It has probably been a long week and a long Lent And here we are We're looking into Here we are in Passion Tide We're looking into moving into Holy Week Um it's beautiful that you want to stay here on a Friday night and to continue to reflect on the glory of the cross Uh tonight I get to reflect with you all on
• 03:00 - 03:30 the sixth word or phrase from the cross It is consummated which is traditionally regarded as Christ's words of triumph Each of the sayings from the cross in the in the three hours devotion has a particular theme associated with it And the theme for this saying it is consummated or it is finished is triumph So to focus this reflection I'd like to think about what it means that the cross of Christ is the instrument of his victory We hear phrases like that so
• 03:30 - 04:00 often especially this time of year that we forget how how odd it is how how how strange it is to say that Jesus was glorified on the cross the cross which is the ultimate sign of dishonor and shame This claim to say the least is is confusing maybe even paradoxical The cross of Christ was after all an offense to the Jews and foolishness to the Greeks And if it doesn't scandalize us or or cause us to ponder its meaning uh
• 04:00 - 04:30 we might not be looking at it closely enough So to dig deeper into this this this idea of the triumph of the cross um how this defeat can also be the ultimate victory Tonight I want to focus on one important thread in the tradition for understanding the meaning of the atonement of Christ The work that he did in the cross reconciling us to the father Um uh it it's it's known as the Christristus Victor theory of the
• 04:30 - 05:00 atonement Um and it's it's a thread of the tradition that's sort of receded in emphasis starting around in the 11th century Um but I think that offers some important insights into the notion of Christ's victory over sin and death um that I think we're really not so attuned to seeing in our modern world So it makes some sense to look back at how the earliest Christians thought about these things Now there are two important concepts at play in the Chris Victor theory Uh the first is recapitulation
• 05:00 - 05:30 I'll explain what that is and then ransom I'm going to handle ransom second because it seems to be the more mysterious and like let's be honest spookier of the two And um and I've been told there's no time for Q&A so we can get to that part of the talk and I can start waving my hands and talking really quickly and you won't be able to ask me any questions So So I'll be off the hook which promisory note that's a pun Are you guys getting lots of puns from Father Morardi yeah I miss those I really miss
• 05:30 - 06:00 those Okay I'll come back to that Um there is I think real practical and devotional import to these ideas is it's not just thinking through the history of ideas or you know learning about the history of theology Uh I think and I hope that looking at the Chris Victor theory can help us see the glory and the power of the cross from an angle that we might not that we might otherwise not pay attention to Um so to start thinking about this this saying of Christ from
• 06:00 - 06:30 the cross it is consummated I want to start by thinking of the linguistic import Um what we'll hear when the passion narrative from John is read at the Good Friday service next week um is the common English translation of John 19:30 And and this just appears in in John's uh gospel It's not in the synoptics but but it's translated which you're probably familiar with in English is it is finished which is totally adequate of translation Um but the meaning of the term is really rich and
• 06:30 - 07:00 it will bear some fruit I think to take a quick look at the quick look at this word finished in both Latin and Greek In the vulgate the Latin translation is consumatum Hence our title tonight it is consummated Consummation is the point at which something is finalized Think of the consummation of a marriage a definitive action that brings to completion and makes something real and something difficult or maybe even possible to dissolve The Greek original is
• 07:00 - 07:30 teti which means something more like the task or the mission to be accomplished is completed or maybe better has been fulfilled I'm completely unqualified to speak to you about Greek unless it's words that Aristotle uses a lot and thankfully the root of this word is one that Aristotle uses a lot Um so the ancient Greek philosophers were interested in this concept of talos Taos means purpose and that's the root of
• 07:30 - 08:00 teti Telos means a built-in purpose or goal What these ancient philosophers called a final end The final end of an acorn is to be a glorious oak tree The final end of an activity is the ultimate purpose or meaning for that action So tetlest means something like the final end for what I have been doing here has been completed Tetstai is about more than just the final moment of something as in
• 08:00 - 08:30 all things come to an end etc Sometimes movies end too abruptly right Sometimes TV series cut out too soon And uh we're left wanting more There's not resolution There's not some sort of conclusion Um we get to the end and we say "That's it I will be grading lots of essays for my literature students this weekend." And I will get to the end and say "Wait that's it I'll just come to the point where they were exhausted and quit." Like mid-sentence It's like it's they're
• 08:30 - 09:00 seniors It's the end of the year Pray for them Um but that's that's not satisfying because we are critters made to make sense of reality through story through narrative That's how we understand And um God communicates his love and his truth to us through stories not fictions true stories Um and so that's an important concept to keep in mind We'll come back around to this when we're thinking about the idea of of something coming to its final end It's not just
• 09:00 - 09:30 the last in a sequence of moments but it's the completion or the fulfillment Um but the cross wasn't the cross was not an abrupt ending but rather something instrumental in fulfilling the final end or purpose of Christ's incarnation And these words were are not just the mere sigh of relief of someone who just underwent something awful and finally it's over Like that was a bad thunderstorm or that was a bad toothache and I'm happy that it's over It's probably more like the
• 09:30 - 10:00 the relief and and sense of completion that a mother feels when she and her baby have just come safely through childbirth Well that's teti Uh you see words with the same root talos throughout the New Testament like in the passages from the passage from first Corinthians on your handout Um after St Paul calls the resurre resurrected Christ the first fruit among the dead He says "Then comes the end or taos when he hands over the kingdom to God the
• 10:00 - 10:30 Father." Not just the last moment of his life but the point of it We see the word talos too in St John's account of the last supper that you're going to hear in Thursday's reading Now before the festival of the Passover Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart from this world and go to the Father Having loved his own who were in the world he loved them to the end to the taos Think about that He loved them to the point of fulfilling the ultim
• 10:30 - 11:00 ultimate purpose for which he came Now I know what you're saying Jesus wasn't probably speaking Latin or Greek on the cross Uh he was probably speaking in Aramaic And we don't know just what that phrase was but some people speculate it is um would come from the root of the Hebrew word kala Um that's the word used in Genesis 2 where on the seventh day God finished his work He finished it and then he rested God realized all he wanted to in the his
• 11:00 - 11:30 good work of creation at that point content with its completion This was the beginning but it was also an end So now that we have a sense of what consummation is the natural question what was it exactly that Christ was consummating what was the mission he was coming to fulfill now there's a clear easy answer that we repeat in our prayers and our liturgies Um but there are actually a lot of angles of approach for explaining it We know this for our
• 11:30 - 12:00 sake and our salvation he came down from heaven What was he saving us from from the power of sin and death And then we come to this vexing question Well how exactly did Christ dying on a cross and rising again accomplish this task of saving us from the power of sin and death what precisely was the problem that needed to be solved and how was the cross meant to solve it there's a distance to be retraversed a bridge a
• 12:00 - 12:30 chasm to be bridged between man and God because of human sinfulness And the doctrine we we call this the doctrine of atonement And it concerns how it is that the life death and resurrection of Christ make possible such a reunion The word atonement is a portmanto or just like a squished up word literally at one minute And there have been in the history of the Christian tradition various formula or images used to talk about the atonement None of which you can take in isolation None stands on its own to fully explain the doctrine All of
• 12:30 - 13:00 which have at least some claim to biblical basis and most of which hold some literal truth about the salvation on offer because of the cross of Christ though perhaps only if we nuance them properly And sure enough people have debated about these and fought about them through the centuries But here are just a few of the more familiar um theories of the atonement I'm going to keep saying theories That's not really the right word It's more like a it's more like an image or a picture or formula to help us understand something Um but but here are a few of those Uh
• 13:00 - 13:30 the first Jesus bore the penalty for our sins so we don't have to Jesus' perfect sacrifice offers satisfaction for a debt of honor that we could not repay ourselves to the father whose honor is infinite Jesus sets the perfect perfect example for us in his sacrificial love on the cross that we might imitate it Jesus ransoms or liberates us from the power of sin Jesus' death defeats the power of Satan And there are many more ways to
• 13:30 - 14:00 talk about the atonement besides these Um some are squarely within Catholic Orthodoxy Uh others need a little work to fit the story properly And um and I don't think any of them on their own tell the whole story What's most likely true is that the whole story of what Christ accomplished on the cross and how that's supposed to work to save us is richer and more complex than we can comprehend Not reducible to any one of these formula images Attempts to articulate what all exactly it was that
• 14:00 - 14:30 Christ's victory amounted to what it accomplished and perhaps most mysteriously how that's supposed to work are all going to be partial the truth revealed in some combination of them hidden in metaphors and images that if pressed too hard or stretched too much might fall apart CS Lewis who's good at making very complex things simple for us I'm grateful to him for that He says helpfully that Christians don't have to understand how Jesus life death and resurrection work to reconcile us with
• 14:30 - 15:00 the father We just have to believe that it works Just like you don't have to understand all the intricacies of of human biology and organic chemistry to know that food nourishes you and you need it you still have every reason to partake of food even if you don't understand the science of it But the doctrine of the atonement is still worthy of contemplation because it tells us vital things about how much God loves us Um so I said at the outset then I was going to talk about the Christristus uh I'm sorry I was going to talk about
• 15:00 - 15:30 Christ's victory the it in the it is consummated And I just want to look with you at at one of perhaps the primary way that the first Christians understood the meaning of the cross and the task Jesus came to accomplish by it It's called the Christ Victor view That's a label that some 20th century theologian applied to a kind of family resemblance of views that you found basically all the way up until the 11th century Um the Petristic fathers uh favored looking at it in this way And here's how um uh the 20th
• 15:30 - 16:00 century theologian Gustav Owen describes this family of views On the cross and in his resurrection Jesus quote fights against and triumphs over the evil powers of the world the tyrants under which mankind is in bondage and suffering And in him God reconciles the world to himself The momentous events of Good Friday are the culmination of a cosmic war the decisive battle which with the resurrection is where Jesus defeats the power of Satan and undoes
• 16:00 - 16:30 the effects of the fall most notably the power of death It is true that one blessed consequence of this victory is that Jesus opened the gates of heaven to us and made possible eternal life And furthermore he harrowed hell on Holy Saturday descending into the netherorld to pull out the righteous who would believe his message But the good news of Good Friday according to the Christ Victor view is about even more than just its blessed effects for you and for me and our eternal prospects God had well
• 16:30 - 17:00 this is not quite the right way to put it but he had more skin in the game As important as we are in this story his original purposes for creation had been spoiled by human and angelic misuse of freedom Never beyond the reach of God's redemption But things weren't as they ought to have been things were radically out of order and they needed to be set a right So to see how this is different from some of the other theories I listed above it's helpful to look at the particular version of the human problem
• 17:00 - 17:30 the solution addresses The problem for us with respect to sin on the Christ victor view is not that our disobedience warranted a punishment that someone must pay That might be true but that's not what they were concerned with It's not that we've offended God's honor and we need someone to consiliate him also probably true The problem is that when our first parents disobeyed in the garden they became ins snared in enslaved to the power of the devil And what's needed to reconcile humans to God then is some way to break that power or
• 17:30 - 18:00 better to break those powers Throughout the New Testament Satan is called the prince of this world uh a a Protestant local theologian actually Greg Boyd explains I think helpfully quote while Jesus and his followers of course believed that God was the ultimate lord over creation they clearly viewed Satan as the functional lord of the earth at the present time end quote we had given the reigns over as it were to to Satan and Boyd goes on to say everything Jesus was about was
• 18:00 - 18:30 centered on vanquishing this empire taking back the world that Satan had seized and restoring its rightful viceroys or stewards humans to their position of guardianship of the earth Each one of Jesus's many healings and deliverances were understood to diminish Satan's hold on the world and to liberate people to whatever degree from his stronghold." End quote All throughout his earthly ministry Jesus was healing and casting out demons and announcing that his kingdom had come And
• 18:30 - 19:00 his death was the last step in fulfilling his mission He accomplished everything he needed to to vanquish Satan And the resurrection was the ultimate triumph that restored incorruptibility to human to humanity Incorruptibility is the undoing of that strongest power of Satan's the power of death One of the earliest and most articulate defenders of this view of this view was Erenus of Leon a second century Greek bishop in France He had um he had been taught by he had listened to the sermons of St Polycarp and St
• 19:00 - 19:30 Polycarp uh we think had learned under the apostle John So that is just to say was an OG Um his best known work is called against the heresies And it he doesn't give a theory of the atonement None of the earliest Christians were really preoccupied with explaining what Christ came to do and how he accomplished it The point that the point was defeating Satan was just taken for granted What an araeus had to fight against were heresies about the nature
• 19:30 - 20:00 of Christ He wrote against the Gnostics who had a dualistic picture of the world Spirit good I'm sorry Yeah Spirit good matter bad It's a reductive view of the world My lack of of parts of speech made clear there The Gnostics didn't believe Jesus was actually fully human He was a special kind of spiritual being with a special teaching or knowledge That's what Nosis means uh to hand on to people And the Gnostics think that Jesus didn't
• 20:00 - 20:30 literally resurrect Uh he didn't have a bodily resurrection They thought his mission was purely spiritual Now what the Gnostics believed the problem to be solved by Jesus was this That what humans need is to be liberated from the bondage of being embodied of being material things So we can aspire to the kind of spiritual perfection and to shadow embodiment Or at least that's how Erynaeus characterizes the Gnostic view The body as they saw it is a prison and Jesus the teacher who shows us how to escape it Now Erna argued against the
• 20:30 - 21:00 Gnostics that Christ had to be fully human embodied and like us in every way but sin to liberate us from what truly ins snared us Being embodied was always part of the design plan design plan for humans That's not the problem Christ's true humanity was necessary in order for his passion and resurrection to have the needed effect And at the same time Jesus had to be fully God because only one who was divine would have the power to undo the effects of the fall Maybe there's a passage in St Paul that I think helps us
• 21:00 - 21:30 to understand and see what Erynaeus was focused on best It's um on your handout It's it's a little long but I'm going to read it all um from Colossians 1 He Christ is the image of the invisible God the firstborn of all creation For in him all things in heaven and on earth were created Things visible and invisible whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers All things have been created through him and for him He himself is before all things and in him all things hold together He is
• 21:30 - 22:00 the head of the body the church He is the beginning the firstborn from the dead so that he might come to have first place in everything For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell And through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things whether on earth or in heaven by making peace through the blood of the cross Jesus was in the union of both his true humanity and divinity the image of the invisible God And he came to restore us to our full
• 22:00 - 22:30 humanity And he did this through what Erenus calls recapitulation Um he wrote this book against the heresies in Greek And we don't have the entirety of it in Greek anymore Some of it we just have uh in in Latin fragments Um and recapitulation is like pretty darn close to the word that we have the closest word we have for it So what does he say all right Here's this also on your handout um on the backside Um Ernes says "He has therefore
• 22:30 - 23:00 in his work of recapitulation summed up all things both waging war against our enemy and crushing him who had at the beginning led us away captives in Adam and trampled upon his head As our species went down to death through a vanquished man so we may ascend to life again through a victorious one And as through a man death received the palm of victory against us so again by a man we may receive the palm against death." Now we are familiar with this motif of
• 23:00 - 23:30 Christ as the second Adam and Mary as the second Eve Um and uh this this comes from that passage of St Paul's that first Corinthians passage I mentioned at the outset Um where he talks like that was one of the first theologians to really expound on that theme Um and and he he takes this to be a matter of recapitulation And here's what that is It's just the repetition or rehashing of the main events or themes of a narrative in a way that helps draw out the meaning of the whole There's there's this idea in
• 23:30 - 24:00 biology which I'll be totally honest it's not it's it's been like a little bit discredited but it's not entirely off It just had been overstated and it's this that the development of embryos actually mimics or mirrors the history of the development of a species across time or rather an embryo's development retells the story of the species evolution as a whole just in an abbreviated or otherwise more complete form And they call that recapitulation Um in music recapitulation occurs in the repreeze of
• 24:00 - 24:30 a sonata where all the musical themes played throughout the piece reappear and then join together to bring completion and elevation to the individual parts As one music critic explains and I like his word choice here the recapitulation delivers the taos of the entire sonata the point of the essential structural closure the goal toward which the entire sonata has been aimed So recapitulation is a kind of rehashing or recycling of plot
• 24:30 - 25:00 developments at the end of something to bring a sense of completeness and which makes everything make deeper sense And it's in this context that Irenaeus presents the cross as the instrument of Christ's victory He invites us to widen the scope of our vision now in this moment when we're looking at Christ on the cross So don't look away from the image of Christ on the cross but zoom out to see that moment first as part of the whole of Jesus life of perfect obedience to the father This is the completion of that
• 25:00 - 25:30 And then zoom out even further and see the whole big picture of salvation history beginning with creation and the fall and God's covenant with his people his choosing of the people of Israel and his repeated endeavors to win them back All of the repeated falls This whole long story gets recapitulated in the life of Christ and finds its final consummation in his death on the cross and then his resurrection Um one reason why I think a lot of
• 25:30 - 26:00 contemporary theologians and just modern people aren't really into the Chris Victor theory it's a whole lot about the devil Now we're pious Catholics so we believe the devil is real Um I don't know that we are always equipped to think uh in non-thical ways about him I think we mythologize the devil a lot Uh but this is this is the truth of our faith And and here's how Erynaeus looks at it The devil tricked he duped Adam and Eve into sinning He took God he took
• 26:00 - 26:30 God's word and twisted it used it out of context to manipulate Adam and Eve into doing his will instead of God's He held up as he held up what was a genuine good knowledge of good and evil But but he sold it to Adam and Eve such that they desired it for the wrong reasons at the wrong time He nudged them so that they like he himself had done would grasp at what was not rightfully theirs for the taking And he did this through a kind of deception or trickery But then Jesus came and as Erynaeus described it Jesus confounded
• 26:30 - 27:00 the devil It's not a kind of deceit or trickery rather but a profound kind of confusion that Christ caused in Satan How did he confound him by means of the very word of God By taking the words of God and using them against Satan Just as Satan had used the words of God but manipulated them and distorted their truth to trick Adam and Eve It's like Jesus read the scouting report He saw what Satan's techniques were and then
• 27:00 - 27:30 didn't succumb to them Erynaeus walks through the temptations of the wilderness to explain how Jesus saw through Satan's designs and then beat him by the very means Satan had defeated Adam Adam wasn't hungry but Satan tempted him anyway by twisting God's words about food So then Jesus resists temptation about food and does so using the very words of God Man does not live by um bread alone And likewise for the other temptations There's the pattern And this is true for every episode of Christ's life where he was tempted and
• 27:30 - 28:00 overcame But also the pattern of his life as a whole Think of his beginning He was born of Mary the new Eve who was asked before her husband was to act in faith And she chose to trust in the goodness of God's plan instead of doubt it to trust that he had her best interest in mind even though she cannot understand what is going to happen that he wasn't holding something back from her She undoes what Eve does in the garden And then if we look at the end of Christ's life if we look at him on the
• 28:00 - 28:30 cross we see his talos He was obedient He was obedient until the end in his passion and death And Erynaeus says "God recapitulated in himself the ancient formation of man that he might kill sin deprive death of its power and vivify man and therefore his works are true." So crucially what's included in this recapitulation isn't just what began with the fall but actually the very beginning of time when Jesus with the father and the spirit was laying out the foundations of the world What gets rec capitulated retold is the whole story of
• 28:30 - 29:00 creation and God's original purposes to make the world a place where his glory could dwell a temple on earth where mankind would be a priestly kingdom to enjoy friendship with God and act as stewards or viceroys of the goodness of creation But the whole the whole story then including the parts where things went off track because of of human sin and and and and um demonic sin The story gets retold and refreshed in the life and death and resurrection of Christ In liberating the world from the dominion of devil God was setting things right
• 29:00 - 29:30 according to the original plan that we should be the tenders of the garden and the priests and kings to distribute God's blessings and enjoy sunship under him When Jesus announced the coming of his kingdom he meant that the new covenant that resurrected God's original plan for creation had begun with his life in ministry Now not very long after Erynaeus there is this another interesting strand that comes about in these Chrisus Victor theories of the atonement These these um theories that focus on the defeat of the devil and
• 29:30 - 30:00 it's the notion of ransom And and I told you before I'm going to start talking faster and waving my hands Um so uh and you can't get me in Q&A so I'm off the hook All right And I told you that was a pun so see if you can find it Okay Elements of this theory of rans ransom are deeply mysterious cloaked in metaphors that I think we might be it's in a hard place because we're at a cultural distance that makes it hard to see clearly through them and understand what in the analogy is literal and what in the picture is not an essential part And here's the other tricky part about
• 30:00 - 30:30 it where these fathers um and theologians talk about ransom It's coming from homaly illustrations We know how homaly illustrations can go You can't like you know put complete faith and stock in them They're pictures right it's an attempt to to to make lively something for people to understand But there's something really interesting this So this ran ransom version of Chris's Victor tradition gets popular in the 4th century and then has a pretty long shelf life Uh they're trying to make sense of this passage from Mark 10:25 For even
• 30:30 - 31:00 the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many So what's going on here with ransom the relevant image is that of someone carried off into slavery which like would have legit been something you would have been worrying about back in that time It could happen Um and since what Jesus was rec recapitulating in his incarnation was the story of the people of Israel this was all referring back to as well the times the Israelites were enslaved in
• 31:00 - 31:30 Egypt in the various periods of exile and even in Jesus' own day when the Jews were subjugated to the Roman Empire The analogy is that Jesus came to ransom us not from these political pl powers that have stolen and enslaved us but from the devil There was some sense in which we were under the devil's dominion He had some sort of claim on us and that Jesus was in his death on cross on the cross able to buy us back Now there were church fathers like Gregory Nazenzis and then later St Enzel who were very
• 31:30 - 32:00 critical to take of of taking this image of ransom too literally They were wary of this approach because it seemed to say Satan had some legitimate claim of justice on human souls that they belonged to him and it was somehow right to repay him as such um or there was some obligation to repay him But in reality all souls belong to God But I think there's a way to take the ransom picture very seriously um and not think that what was literally happening was was literally humankind owing something to Satan We do know from the scriptures
• 32:00 - 32:30 that God allows Satan to exert control and influence over people Think of Job And it's humans who gave their freedom over to the devil It wasn't God's choice And Jesus offered himself freely This was an act of mercy not some fulfilling of some obligation of justice Um but here's how the ransom metaphors go And the first we looks look at comes from Gregory of Nissa from the 4th century It's on your handout In order to secure that the ransom in our behalf might be easily accepted by him who required it The
• 32:30 - 33:00 deity was hidden under the veil of our nature so that as with ravenous fish the hook of the deity might be gulped down along with the bait of flesh and thus life being introduced into the house of death and light shining in darkness That which is diametrically opposed to light and life might vanish For it is not in the nature of darkness to remain when light is present or of death to exist when life is active So Jesus human nature was this bait on the fish hook
• 33:00 - 33:30 that Satan bit He saw the opportunity to kill and to influence those to kill and he took it and didn't realize he was also swallowing up divinity which he could not handle Now later in the sixth century St Augustine um says this there's actually like four or so sermons where he uses an example like this He really liked this one Uh he said the devil exalted when Christ died and by the same death of Christ the devil was conquered as if he took the bait in a trap He was rejoicing at the death as if
• 33:30 - 34:00 he were the commander of death That at which he rejoiced was there stretched for him a mouse trap for the devil The cross of the Lord the bait with which he was to be caught the death of the Lord And behold our Lord Jesus Christ rose again Where is the death that hung on the wood of the cross um that word mousetrap is really interesting Uh it's similar to it's the same word that Augustine uses for trap when he's talking about the sort of traps of
• 34:00 - 34:30 temptation that he was kind of hoping to fall into in his early life when he was you know looking for places to fall Uh he would talk about these traps uh when he was living a prophaget life but that word mousetrap um then also took on a whole tradition and meaning in the way people would talk about Christa's victor Uh and there's like really interesting art depicting for instance there's there's a famous altar piece where St Joseph is at his workbench and um I mean it's the whole holy family but you see at St Joseph's workbench he's making
• 34:30 - 35:00 mouse traps Um so what's going on here vaunting about his greatest power death Satan swallowed up Christ humanity and inadvertently swallowed his divinity as well to which he had no rights and whose brightness he could not withstand When Satan's greatest power failed with Christ's resurrection that made possible our own rescue Christ was the first fruits among the dead So going back to this idea we heard from Erynaeus about confounding the devil I don't think we should think of
• 35:00 - 35:30 this as a kind of deception Everything Jesus did was true and good and just But Jesus I'm sorry but Satan could make no sense of what Jesus was doing He could make no sense of the sermon on the mount He could make no sense of the kingdom of God Maybe he wasn't fooled about whether Christ was divine but about how the divine could be so humble how the divine could love to such extremes could forgive sins could give up pleasure and power and wealth and honor that Satan used time and again to entrap humans He
• 35:30 - 36:00 didn't understand how Jesus could tell his followers that the path to happiness was to follow him to their own crosses that they would only be blessed if they renounced attachment to worldly goods Maybe that's how Satan could be duped So um you guys have been listening so well I'm really grateful Um I just want to say a little bit about what I think some of the practical upshot of this is these these images of the defeat of devil uh the devil by taking up all of human
• 36:00 - 36:30 history and and retelling it and weaving it into a meaningful defeat of Satan in the life and death and resurrection of Christ Um and about this idea that it's it's this that liberates us from being ins snared to the devil St Paul makes it clear that Jesus death and resurrection liberate us from the power of death But we can only be part of this victory and so be saved if we are willing to suffer with Jesus If we are willing to follow him and act in those ways that absolutely confound the
• 36:30 - 37:00 devil We must join ourselves to the suffering of Jesus in order to enjoy the victory That means that we have to live the kind of life that he lived in in perfect obedience to the father's will detach from the worldly goods we would otherwise make as idols and give our power over to Now that is something that is too much for us to do on our own We can only do by the grace of God But Jesus left us his holy spirit to enliven us and indwell in us and to make that
• 37:00 - 37:30 life possible And if we accept and abide in that grace we can be partakers in the victory and the victory is assured We wait from Good Friday through Holy Saturday for what's to come But we know that Christ finished the work He completed the mission At Easter our brothers and sister sisters in the Orthodox church will sing a prayer at their pascal liturgy soon that just gives me goosebumps when I hear it It begins with the opening words of Psalm 68 Let God
• 37:30 - 38:00 arise Let his enemies be scattered Let them also that hate him flee before him As smoke is driven away so drive them away As wax meltth before the fire so let the wicked perish at the presence of God But let the righteous be glad Let them rejoice before God Yay let them exceedingly rejoice And then they sing and I'll whisper this part because I know it's not time yet Christ is risen from the dead But this part is what gets me trampling down death by
• 38:00 - 38:30 death and upon those in the tomb bestowing peace and life That's how all of history is recapitulated and that's how it's all consummated Thanks be to God [Applause]
• 38:30 - 39:00 Thank you very much Dr Paul And let's end with a memory Remember oh most gracious Virgin Mary that never was it known that anyone who fled to thy protection implore thy help or sought thy intercession was left unaded Inspired by this confidence I fly into thee Virgin of Virgins my mother To thee do I come before thee I stand sinful and sorrowful Oh mother of the word
• 39:00 - 39:30 incarnate despise not my petitions but in thy mercy hear and answer me Amen May almighty God bless you in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit Amen Thank you one and all God bless you