237. Christ’s death as obedience
237. CHRIST’S DEATH AS OBEDIENCE
Was Christ’s death a free choice of His own, or was it an obedience to His Father’s will?
If the answer is that it was both, why do we tend to contrast free choice and obedience if obedience is an act of free choice?
It is written (Phil 2:8): He became obedient to the Father unto death.
It was befitting that Christ should suffer out of obedience. First of all, because it was in keeping with human justification that as by the disobedience of one man many were made sinners, so also by the obedience of one many shall be made just, as is written in Romans 5:19.
Secondly, it was suitable for reconciling man with God; hence it is written (Eph. 5:2): He delivered Himself for us an oblation and a sacrifice to God for an odor of sweetness. Now obedience is preferred to all sacrifices, according to 1 Kings 15:22: Obedience is better than sacrifices. Therefore it was fitting that the sacrifice of Christ’s Passion and death should proceed from obedience.
Thirdly, it was in keeping with His victory whereby He triumphed over death and its author, because a soldier cannot conquer unless he obey his captain. And so the Man-Christ secured the victory through being obedient to God. . . . Christ received a command from the Father to suffer. For it is written (Jn 10:18): I have power to lay down My life, and I have power to take it up again . . . this commandment have I received of My Father—namely, of laying down His life and of resuming it again. . . .
Objection: Charity is a more excellent virtue than obedience. But we read that Christ suffered out of charity, according to Ephesians 5:2: Walk in love, as Christ also has loved us and delivered Himself up for us. Therefore Christ’s Passion ought to be ascribed rather to charity than to obedience.
Reply: For the same reason Christ suffered out of charity and out of obedience, because He (1) fulfilled even the precepts of charity out of obedience only, and (2) was obedient out of love to the Father’s command (III,47,2).
St. Thomas’ last paragraph answers the question about free choice and obedience. The subjective, personal motive for the external act of obedience can be love (charity), and love is always free. The fact that we usually take as our model for obedience the servile submission of a slave to a tyrant rather than the trusting surrender to a lover says more about the subjective effects of our fallenness upon our unconscious minds than it does about the objective nature of love and obedience.
The value of obedience depends on the nature of the person and the commands obeyed. When that person is God, the value of obedience is absolute. Thus “Thy will be done” is the essential formula for obedience and for charity, for “God is charity.” That is also the whole meaning of life in one sentence. The meaning of life = sanctity = “Thy will be done” = charity. It’s so simple that it’s hard.
When I was about ten years old, the Holy Spirit put into my mind the most brilliant idea I ever had in my life. I asked my father, “Dad, all the stuff we learn in church—it’s all only one thing, right?” “Just one thing? What do you mean?” he asked, suspiciously. “I mean, all we have to do, about everything, is just ask Jesus what He wants us to do and then do it, right?” I will never forget his surprised look of approval. It’s all been pretty much downhill from there, I think.
Notice how St. Thomas connects these two in the last paragraph: obedience motivates love and love motivates obedience. Like acorns and oaks, each grows from and into the other. It’s an intrinsic cause-effect relation. The reason why “obedience is better than sacrifice” is that obedience is the interior reason and motivating cause for sacrifice. In turn, love is the reason and motivating cause for interior obedience, as well as for the exterior obedience of sacrifices. Motives can be arranged in a causal hierarchy just as physical events can. Let God’s love be the First Cause of everything in you.