Moehler goes on to argue that, if the Church is a continuance of the incarnation, she must be, like the latter, a visible one. This can mean no more than that even as the Son of God during his stay upon earth wrought visibly for mankind in the flesh, so also the saving efficacy of Christ, abiding after his departure from the earth, requires a visible medium. Such a point, however, Protestantism is far from disputing. In the separate congregations, in their visible means of grace, and in the audible exposition of the word of God, even Protestants admit that the efficacy of Christ is visibly perpetuated, and the idea of Christianity and the Church gradually realized. Every Protestant denomination aspires to be the palpable image, the living presentment, of the Christian religion. Moehler's conception of the Son of God continually appearing among men in human form has even become a favorite theme of modern Protestant theology. This will appear from the mere perusal of the disquisitions on this head of the so-called Christological school. The advantage gained for the Catholic interpretation amounts to nothing. For the point is not that the efficacy of Christ is perpetually exercised among men in a visible manner, but it is in question whether this continued exercise ensues only in the fold of a particular institution, and by particular means of grace.
Moehler arrived at his doctrine in [{676}] reference to the Church through the medium of his views regarding the means of grace. In his opinion "the Eucharistic descent of the Son of God" (and the same must be inferred to apply to all the means of grace which it is the function of the Church to administer [Footnote 149]) "is a part of the totality of his merit, wherewith we are redeemed." The sacramental offering of Christ is "the conclusion of his great sacrifice for us," and in it "all the other parts of the same sacrifice are to be bestowed upon us; in this final portion of the objective offering, the whole is to become subjective, a part of our individual being." But the incarnation of God, or, in other words, the work of our salvation accomplished by Christ during his walk upon earth, stands in need of no continuation or completion by a posthumous labor of Christ, constituting "a part of the totality of his merit, wherewith we are redeemed." The perpetual condescension of Christ, administered by the Church, to our helplessness, does not form a complement to the objective work of salvation; it is not an integral part of it, but only its continued application. "Christus" says Suarez, "jam vero nos non redimit, sed applicat nobis redemptionem suam" [Footnote 150] If this work of redemption were even now in progress—that is to say, if "the Eucharistic descent of the Son of God" were "a part of the totality of his merits, wherewith we are redeemed," then Christ would not have fully taken away the sin of the world once for all on Golgotha. Who would maintain such a proposition? Moehler would be the last man to do so. He would therefore undoubtedly have renounced the opinion in question if these, its logical results, had presented themselves to his mind. The sacramental offering of Christ, as indeed the whole of his perennial saving efficacy in the sacraments of the Church, wherewith we are saved, is only the means by which it is applied to our salvation. The ground of salvation for all mankind was perfected in the sufferings and death of Christ. The realization of salvation for individuals is accomplished by their appropriating to themselves the salvation purchased or achieved for all mankind by the precious blood of Jesus Christ; a work in which, undoubtedly, Christ himself co-operates as the head of the Church.
[Footnote 149: For, according to St. Thomas, "the Eucharist is the perfectio omnis sacramenti, habens quasi in capitulo et summo omnia, quae alia sacramenta continent singillatim; the perfection of the whole sacrament, having as it were in an epitome and a summary all the virtues which, other sacraments contain singly."—IV. Sent. a. 8. q. 1, a. 2, solut. 2 ad. 4.]
[Footnote 150: At present Christ does not redeem us, but applies to us his redemption. De Incarnat., Par. I., Disp. 39, Sec. 3.]
In this sense the apostle says that he fills up those things that are wanting of the sufferings of Christ in his flesh. By faithfully following Christ, we partake more and more of the fruits of redemption. Thus is Christ likewise gradually fulfilled in the individual Christians—that is to say, he finds in them a more and more ample expression. And in the same degree in which Christ stamps himself upon the single members of the Church, the latter also is more and more filled with him.
Scarce has the apostle declared of Christ, in Col. ii. 9, that in him dwelleth all the
of the Godhead corporally, when he turns to the Colossians with the words, "And you are filled in" God—that is to say, "in him," i.e. in Christ, in so far as ye stand in communion with him, "which is the head of all principality and power." This communion of individuals with Christ, and their attendant participation in the fulness of the Godhead which dwelleth in him, is accomplished by the instrumentality of the Church, particularly by the sacrament of baptism, which incorporates the individual with the Church. Verse 10-12: "Et estis in illo repleti. In quo et circumcisi estis, circumcisione non manu facta, sed in circumcisione Christi, consepulti ei in baptismo."
Thus the Church is seen to be the pleroma of the Godhead in a twofold [{677}] point of view. First, in her members, which, being gradually filled with God, become partakers of the divine nature. In the second place, in the active cooperation of the Church herself in the performance of this work.
In the first regard, the repletion of the Church with God is not a state attained once for all. It is rather a process of measured growth
