ARTICLE II
AND IN JESUS CHRIST, HIS ONLY BEGOTTEN SON, OUR LORD
THE REDEEMER
Man, because of original sin, was in a very sad condition.
He could not deserve heaven, and after a life full of guilt and misery, he would have had an eternity of sorrows. But the infinite mercy of God did not allow fallen man to perish.
When God cast Adam and Eve out of the earthly Paradise, He promised a Redeemer to save the human race, and for this purpose He sent His own Son.
It was right that God, offended by sin, should be given due satisfaction.
But no pure creature could give satisfaction commensurate with the offence inflicted upon the God of infinite majesty.
For this reason it was necessary that the Redeemer should be both man and God.
As man, He could suffer and satisfy; and as God, He could give to this satisfaction an infinite value.
Thus the mercy and justice of God were fully satisfied.
All sin is forgiven through the merits of the Redeemer, man doing on his part what is necessary for the application of these merits.
he men who existed before Jesus Christ, were saved by faith in the Redeemer who was to come. [And who were docile to the Voice of God in their consciences, to the Holy Spirit, and, after Moses, those who kept the 10 Commandments. Which is very difficult (to die without mortal sin) if one does not have the help of the Church].
Those who have existed afterwards and will exist, will be saved by believing in the Redeemer who has come.
We lost much by original sin, but we gain more by the Redemption.
No wonder the Church sings in the office of Holy Saturday, “O happy fault, that you merited for us such a Redeemer!”
ADVANTAGES OF REDEMPTION
1º By uniting the Son of God to human nature, He raised it to the most sublime degree.
2º By baptism we are made members of the mystical body of Jesus Christ, which is the Church, of which He is the head.
3º By being baptized, through the merits of Jesus Christ we have more grace than we would have had without original sin.
4º Baptism erases original sin, but does not remove the passions, the miseries of life and death.
But these evils are changed into great goods, for they are the cause of continual battles and victories in this life, and, consequently, of great merits and rewards in heaven.
These battles and victories, these merits and rewards, would not exist without original sin.
In such battles, if we wish, we can always win; and if in them we receive some wound, we have, through the Redemption, very easy means to heal it immediately.
If there were descendants of an innocent Adam, they could, with reason, envy in many things the condition of the descendants of sinful Adam, redeemed by Jesus Christ.
Therefore, we must try to take advantage of the infinite treasures of the Redemption rather than complain about our first parents.