Abstract

According to I Timothy I: 15, ‘Christ Jesus came into the world in order to save sinners’, and Thomas Aquinas, of course, accepts this. ‘The work of the Incarnation’, he says, ‘was directed chiefly to the restoration of the human race through the removal of sin.’ According to him, God became incarnate so that sinners might he brought back to God. But how can the Incarnation lead to this effect, and how can the fact that Christ was God do anything to bring us anything we might think of as salvation? This chapter chiefly looks at the ways in which Aquinas answers these questions. The different sections of the chapter look at: the general picture; sin and the Incarnation; satisfaction – the restoration of people subject to sin to a right relationship with God through Christ's suffering and death; the idea that something more is required for Christ's satisfaction to be effective in delivering from us sin; the receipt of justification by virtue of Christ's grace; and the resurrection and ascension of Christ.