Raymond Brown helpfully observes, “For the Christian the life-giving moment of the Spirit was not simply the descent of the Spirit upon Jesus in the form of a dove, but the Spirit flowing from within Jesus after his death. And the flowing blood, the sign of the sacrificial victim, showed that Jesus’ death was an atoning sacrifice for sin.”
If Jesus is just a container of Spirit, the life He has remains His alone. He has to be opened up, split and divided on the cross, in order to give the Spirit to us. Brown’s comments also suggest a neatly Trinitarian account of the atonement: Jesus had to die in order to release the Spirit His Father had poured upon Him.
YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE
Moral Certitude and the Iran War
The current military engagement with Iran calls renewed attention to just war theory in the Catholic tradition.…
The Slow Death of England: New and Notable Books
The fate of England is much in the news as popular resistance to mass immigration grows, limits…
Ethics of Rhetoric in Times of War
What we say matters. And the way we say it matters. This is especially true in times…
