238. How Christ’s death opened Heaven
238. HOW CHRIST’S DEATH OPENED HEAVEN
Christ’s death saved us; but how? What did He save us from? What did He save us for? Obviously, from sin and for Heaven; but how does this work?
The Apostle says in Hebrews 10:19: We have confidence in the entering in to the Holies—that is, of the heavenly places—through the blood of Christ.
The shutting of the gate is the obstacle which hinders men from entering in. But it is on account of sin that men were prevented from entering into the heavenly kingdom, since, according to Isaiah 35:8: It shall be called the holy way, and the unclean shall not pass over it. Now there is a twofold sin which prevents men from entering into the kingdom of heaven. The first is common to the whole race, for it is our first parents’ sin, and by that sin heaven’s entrance is closed to man. Hence we read in Genesis 3:24 that after our first parents’ sin God placed . . . cherubim and a flaming sword, turning every way, to keep the way of the tree of life. The other is the personal sin of each one of us, committed by our personal act.
Now by Christ’s Passion we have been delivered not only from the common sin of the whole human race, both as to its guilt and as to the debt of punishment, for which He paid the penalty on our behalf, but furthermore from the personal sins of individuals, who share in His Passion by faith and charity and the sacraments of faith (III,49,5).
The ideas of Heaven as a place, of sin as a door or gate that is shut, and of ourselves as outside that door, are all material analogies or images of spiritual truths. They enable these invisible truths to enter our visible imagination, as meaningful analogies, signs, images, or pointers.
One of the best images for God and for goodness is light. It was the very first thing God created, and God created the whole material universe to make visible to us some of the truths, some of the realities, that are in Him. Sin prevents us from entering Heaven because sin is a kind of darkness. It is anti-God and anti-light. No darkness can enter Heaven because Heaven is defined by God, not God by Heaven, and “God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all” (1 Jn 1:5).
Sin is of two kinds: in our nature and in our choices, in what we are and what we do, Original Sin and actual sins. The first is involuntary. We are born with it. We can call it Original Selfishness. Its cause was the first actual sin of our first parents, Adam and Eve. It was like a disease that spread by heredity, for heredity is not just biological but also spiritual, since souls and bodies are not related as two separate things, like a captain and a ship, but like two inseparable aspects of one thing, like the meaning and the words of a book. A baby can be born addicted to drugs, through no fault of its own, if its mother freely chose to take drugs during her pregnancy. We are born addicted to sin because Adam and Eve trusted the Devil instead of God. The Devil is a drug dealer, and the drug he sells is selfishness and mistrust.
The second kind of sin, “actual sin”, is voluntary. We will it, we choose to sin. We are not personally, individually responsible for our Original Sin, as a brain-damaged baby is not responsible for his brain damage, but we are responsible for our own actual sins, as a drug addict is responsible for the brain damage he inflicts upon himself by taking drugs. And we are born addicted (to sin) because Adam and Eve bought the Devil’s drug.
Christ saves us from both kinds of sin by “incorporating” us into His passion and death. We are not punished for another’s sin; we sinned “in” Adam. And we are saved “in” Christ, by “incorporation”, not by education; by “This is My Body”, not by “This is My Mind.” It’s all in that little word “in”.
Both kinds of sin are anti-God. Both are separations from God, like locked doors. Both are darknesses. These are two of many natural images Christ uses for this supernatural mystery: “I am the light of the world” (Jn 8:12) and “I am the door” (Jn 10:9). No image or concept exhausts the mystery.