Catechism of the Catholic Church · Part One › Section Two › Chapter Two › Article 3 · Paragraph 1 (§§456–483)
Paragraphs · 28
The Catechism's text is under copyright, so each paragraph is quoted briefly here with a link to the full text at vatican.va.
I. Why Did the Word Become Flesh?
- §456 — With the Nicene Creed, we answer by confessing: "For us men and for our salvation he came down from heaven; by the power of the Holy Spirit, he became incarnate of the Virgin Mary, and was made man."vatican.va
- §457 — 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":vatican.va
- §458 — 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."vatican.va
- §459 — The Word became flesh to be our model of holiness: "Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me." "I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but by me."vatican.va
- §460 — The Word became flesh to make us "partakers of the divine nature": "For this is why the Word became man, and the Son of God became the Son of man: so that man, by entering into communion with the Word and thus receiving divine sonship, might become a son of God."vatican.va
Ii. the Incarnation
- §461 — Taking up St. John's expression, "The Word became flesh", The Church calls "Incarnation" the fact that the Son of God assumed a human nature in order to accomplish our salvation in it.vatican.va
- §462 — The Letter to the Hebrews refers to the same mystery:vatican.va
- §463 — Belief in the true Incarnation of the Son of God is the distinctive sign of Christian faith: "By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit which confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God."vatican.va
Iii. True God and True Man
- §464 — The unique and altogether singular event of the Incarnation of the Son of God does not mean that Jesus Christ is part God and part man, nor does it imply that he is the result of a confused mixture of the divine and the human.vatican.va
- §465 — The first heresies denied not so much Christ's divinity as his true humanity (Gnostic Docetism). From apostolic times the Christian faith has insisted on the true incarnation of God's Son "come in the flesh".vatican.va
- §466 — The Nestorian heresy regarded Christ as a human person joined to the divine person of God's Son. Opposing this heresy, St. Cyril of Alexandria and the third ecumenical council, at Ephesus in 431, confessed "that the Word, uniting to himself in his person the flesh animated by a rational soul, became man."vatican.va
- §467 — The Monophysites affirmed that the human nature had ceased to exist as such in Christ when the divine person of God's Son assumed it. Faced with this heresy, the fourth ecumenical council, at Chalcedon in 451, confessed: Following the holy Fathers, we unanimously teach and…vatican.va
- §468 — After the Council of Chalcedon, some made of Christ's human nature a kind of personal subject. Against them, the fifth ecumenical council, at Constantinople in 553, confessed that "there is but one hypostasis [or person], which is our Lord Jesus Christ, one of the Trinity."vatican.va
- §469 — The Church thus confesses that 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.vatican.va
Iv. How is the Son of God Man?
- §470 — Because "human nature was assumed, not absorbed", in the mysterious union of the Incarnation, the Church was led over the course of centuries to confess the full reality of Christ's human soul, with its operations of intellect and will, and of his human body.vatican.va
- §471 — Apollinarius of Laodicaea asserted that in Christ the divine Word had replaced the soul or spirit. Against this error the Church confessed that the eternal Son also assumed a rational, human soul.vatican.va
- §472 — This human soul that the Son of God assumed is endowed with a true human knowledge. As such, this knowledge could not in itself be unlimited: it was exercised in the historical conditions of his existence in space and time.vatican.va
- §473 — But at the same time, this truly human knowledge of God's Son expressed the divine life of his person. "The human nature of God's Son, not by itself but by its union with the Word, knew and showed forth in itself everything that pertains to God."vatican.va
- §474 — By its union to the divine wisdom in the person of the Word incarnate, Christ enjoyed in his human knowledge the fullness of understanding of the eternal plans he had come to reveal.vatican.va
- §475 — Similarly, at the sixth ecumenical council, Constantinople III in 681, the Church confessed that Christ possesses two wills and two natural operations, divine and human.vatican.va
- §476 — Since the Word became flesh in assuming a true humanity, Christ's body was finite. Therefore the human face of Jesus can be portrayed; at the seventh ecumenical council (Nicaea II in 787) the Church recognized its representation in holy images to be legitimate.vatican.va
- §477 — At the same time the Church has always acknowledged that in the body of Jesus "we see our God made visible and so are caught up in love of the God we cannot see."vatican.va
- §478 — Jesus knew and loved us each and all during his life, his agony and his Passion, and gave himself up for each one of us: "The Son of God.vatican.va
In Brief
- §479 — 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.vatican.va
- §480 — 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.vatican.va
- §481 — Jesus Christ possesses two natures, one divine and the other human, not confused, but united in the one person of God's Son.vatican.va
- §482 — 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.vatican.va
- §483 — The Incarnation is therefore the mystery of the wonderful union of the divine and human natures in the one person of the Word.vatican.va
Scripture cited · 44 verses
Deuteronomy 6:4 · Deuteronomy 6:5 · Matthew 11:27 · Matthew 11:29 · Mark 2:8 · Mark 8:31 · Mark 8:34 · Mark 9:7 · Mark 9:31 · Mark 10:33 · Mark 10:34 · Mark 13:32 · Mark 14:18 · Mark 14:19 · Mark 14:20 · Mark 14:26 · Mark 14:27 · Mark 14:28 · Mark 14:29 · Mark 14:30 · Mark 14:36 · Luke 2:52 · John 1:14 · John 1:18 · John 3:16 · John 6:61 · John 8:55 · John 11:34 · John 14:6 · John 14:9 · John 14:10 · John 15:12 · John 19:34 · Acts 1:7 · Philippians 2:7 · 1 Timothy 3:16 · Hebrews 4:15 · 2 Peter 1:4 · 1 John 3:5 · 1 John 4:2 · 1 John 4:3 · 1 John 4:9 · 1 John 4:10 · 1 John 4:14