Why did Christ suffer the Passion? St. Thomas Aquinas believes that the Passion was
not absolutely necessary as God could have done otherwise but it was necessary in a
certain sense, within God’s plan of our salvation: “So must the Son of Man be lifted up,
so that everyone who believes in Him may have eternal life” (Jn 3:14-15) (3a. 46, 1).
Within God’s plan, Jesus’ death leads to eternal life for us.
Thomas maintains that the Passion was part of a process culminating in the exaltation
of Jesus, as Luke attests: “Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and so to
enter His glory” (Lk 24:6).
According to the Evangelists, Jesus’ death fulfills the Old Testament prophecies. For
instance, Luke writes: “The Son of Man indeed goes as it has been determined” (Lk
22:22). Likewise, Luke asserts: “These are the words that I spoke to you while I was still
with you, that everything written about Me in the law of Moses and in the prophets and
psalms must be fulfilled… Thus it is written that the Messiah would suffer and rise from
the dead on the third day” (Lk 24:44, 46) (3a. 46, 1).
We see a similar belief that Jesus’ suffering and death bore out the foreseen plan of
God in today’s Passion from Matthew (Mt 26-27). Jesus announces at His Last Supper:
“The Son of Man goes as is written of Him” (Mt 26:28). Jesus tells Peter that He could
appeal to His Father for legions of soldiers to save Him: “But how then should the
Scriptures be fulfilled, that it must be so?” (Mt 26:54). When the soldiers come to seize
Him, He says: “All this has taken place that the Scriptures of the prophets might be
fulfilled” (Mt 26:56).
In John’s Passion account (Jn 18-19), that we will hear on Friday, Jesus rebukes Peter
for cutting off the ear of the high priest’s slave, “Shall I not drink the chalice which the
Father has given Me” (Jn 18:11). The soldiers did not cut His tunic but cast lots for it:
“This was to fulfill the Scripture, ‘They parted My garments among them, and for My
clothing they cast lots” (Jn 19:24). Jesus appeals for a drink, “After this Jesus, knowing
that all was now finished, said (to fulfill the Scripture, ‘I thirst’” (Jn 19:28). The soldiers
did not break Jesus’ legs but pierced His side: “For these things took place that the
Scripture might be fulfilled, ‘Not a bone of Him shall be broken.’ And again, another
Scripture says, ‘They shall look on Him whom they have pierced’” (Jn 19:37).
Thomas believes that Jesus’ death fulfills both justice and mercy. With regard to justice,
Thomas reflects St. Anselm’s thinking that satisfaction for sin is needed because of the
majesty of God and the proper order of the universe (Anselm of Canterbury, Why God
Became Man and the Virginal Conception and Original Sin, I, 15).
But, even in justice, Thomas sees God’s mercy: “Since humanity could not satisfy the
sin of human nature, God gave us His Son to satisfy for us: ‘They are justified freely by
His grace through the redemption in Christ Jesus, whom God set forth as an expiation,
through faith, by His blood’ (Rom 3:24-25) (3a. 46, 1, ad 3).

Thomas believes that saving us through the Passion of Christ is more merciful than if
God had just remitted our sins: “And this came of more copious mercy than if He had
forgiven sins without satisfaction. Hence it is said: ‘For God, who is rich in mercy
because of the great love He had for us, even when we were dead in our sins, brought
us to life with Christ’ (Eph 2:4)” (3a. 46, 1, ad 3).
Rather than emphasize the suffering in itself, Thomas stresses Jesus’ interior “love and
obedience” as His “gift” to the Father:
He properly atones for an offense who offers something which the offended one
loves equally, or even more than he detested the offense. But by suffering out
of love and obedience, Christ gave more to God than was required to
compensate for the offense of the whole human race. First of all, because
of the exceeding charity, from which He suffered; secondly, on account of the
dignity of His life which He laid down in atonement for man; thirdly, on account of
the extent of the Passion, and the greatness of the grief endured. And therefore
Christ’s Passion was not only a sufficient but a superabundant atonement for the
sins of the human race; according to 1 John 2:2, ‘He is the propitiation for our
sins, and not for ours only, but also for those of the whole world’ (3a. 48, 2).
Thomas offers five reasons why Jesus’ Passion was suitable for delivering the human
race. He states: “In the first place, man knows thereby how much God loves him and is
thereby stirred to love Him in return, and in that lies the perfection of human salvation;
Paul says ‘God commends His charity to us, for when we were still sinners…Christ died
for us’ (Rom 5:8)” (3a. 46, 3). Notice that Thomas affirms that our perfection lies in
recognizing God’s love for us and responding with love.
Thomas proposes a second reason: “In this way, He set us an example of obedience,
humility, constancy, justice and the other virtues displayed in the Passion, which are
requisite for man’s salvation: ‘Christ also suffered for us, leaving you an example that
you should follow in His steps’ (1 Pt 2:1)” (3a. 46, 3). In His death, Christ offered us an
example, how we should live our lives and bear our difficulties, humbly, in a steadfast
way and with justice.
According to Thomas, Christ not only freed us from sin but also gave us grace that
justifies us and opens eternal life for us: “Christ, by His Passion, not only delivered us
from sin, but also merited justifying grace for us, and the glory of bliss” (3a. 46, 3).
Thomas explains: “By Christ’s Passion we have been delivered not only from the
common sin of the whole human race… but furthermore, from the personal sins of
individuals, who share in His Passion by faith and charity and the sacraments of faith”
(3a. 49, 5).
Another reason for the Passion is that when we consider Jesus’ death, we are reluctant
to sin: “By this, we are all the more bound to refrain from sin: ‘You were bought with a
great price. Therefore glorify God in your body’ (1 Cor 6:20)” (3a. 46, 3).

Thomas says that Christ’s Passion has given us “greater dignity… as man deserved
death, so a man by dying should vanquish death: ‘Thanks be to God who has given us
the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ’ (3a. 46, 3).
Thomas affirms that, for these reasons, it was more fitting that we should be saved “by
Christ’s Passion than simply by God’s will” (3a. 46, 3).
Thomas maintains, as did the Fathers of the Church, that Jesus’ Incarnation and all His
actions are salvific: “From the beginning of His conception, Christ merited our eternal
salvation; but on our side there were some obstacles, whereby we were hindered from
securing the effect of His preceding merits: consequently, in order to remove such
hindrances, ‘it was necessary for Christ to suffer’ (3a. 48, 1, ad 2).
In the second volume of his book, Jesus of Nazareth, Pope Benedict calls
attention to Jesus’ anguished cry on the Cross, as not only the cry of Jesus, as
an individual, but, rather Jesus’ cry is the cry of His whole Body. According to the
Pope, Jesus’ cry on the cross includes the anguish of all people, past, present
and future:
He prays as ‘head,’ as the one who unites us all into a single common
subject and incorporates us all into Himself. And He prays as ‘body,’ that
is to say, all of our struggles, our voices, our anguish, and our hope are
present in His praying… now in a new way, in fellowship with Christ. And
in Him, past, present, and future are always united (Benedict XVI, Jesus of
Nazareth, Part Two (Nairobi: Paulines, 2011), 164).
Thomas, likewise, considers Jesus’ action as the “head” of the body:
Grace was bestowed upon Christ, not only as an individual, but inasmuch
as He is the Head of the Church, so that it might overflow into His
members; and therefore Christ’s works are referred to Himself and to His
members … Consequently Christ by His Passion merited salvation, not
only for Himself, but likewise for all His members (3a. 48, 1).
Thomas explains that Jesus’ Passion causes the forgiveness of sins in three
ways. The first is “by way of exciting our charity… it is by charity (love for God)
that we procure pardon of our sins: ‘Many sins are forgiven her because she has
loved much’ (Lk 7:47)” (3a. 49, 1).
The second reason relates Jesus as the head to His body:
Christ’s Passion causes forgiveness of sins by way of redemption. For
since He is our head, then, by the Passion which He endured from love
and obedience, He delivered us as His members from our sins, as by the
price of His Passion… For just as the natural body is one, though made up

of diverse members, so the whole Church, Christ’s mystic body, is
reckoned as one person with its head, which is Christ (3a. 49, 1).
The third reason relates to Jesus’ divinity: “Thirdly, by way of efficacy, inasmuch
as Christ’s flesh, wherein He endured the Passion, is the instrument of the
Godhead, so that His sufferings and actions operate with Divine power for
expelling sin” (3a. 49, 1).
In the Old Testament legislation, an unclean object makes a clean object unclean. Pope
Benedict explains that Jesus’ death reverses this process:
When the world, with all the injustice and cruelty that make it unclean, comes into
contact with the infinitely pure one- then He, the pure One, is stronger. Through
this contact, the filth of the world is truly absorbed, wiped out, and transformed in
the pain of the infinite love. Because infinite good is now at hand in the man
Jesus, the counterweight to all wickedness is present and active within world
history, and the good is always infinitely greater than the vast mass of evil,
however terrible it may be. (Benedict XVI, Jesus of Nazareth, Part Two (Nairobi:
Paulines, 2011), 175).
In a similar way, Thomas affirms that Christ’s love was greater than sin: “Christ’s love
was greater than His slayers’ malice: and therefore the value of His Passion in atoning
surpassed the murderous guilt of those who crucified Him; so much that Christ’s
suffering was sufficient and superabundant atonement for His murderers’ crime” (3a. 48,
2, ad 2).
Christ overcomes death and evil by undergoing them: “Just as Christ was not obliged to
die, but willingly submitted to death so as to vanquish death by His power, so neither did
He deserve to be classed with thieves; but He willed to be reputed with the ungodly that
He might destroy ungodliness by His power” (3a. 46, 11, ad 1).
Especially when we emphasize Jesus’ self-offering, we may overlook the Trinitarian
aspects of the redemption. St. Thomas reflects:
Christ’s blood or His bodily life, which is in the blood, is the price of our
redemption and that life He paid. Hence both of these belong to Christ as man;
but to the Trinity as to the first and remote cause, to whom Christ’s life belonged
as its first author, and from whom Christ received the inspiration of suffering for
us. Consequently it is proper to Christ as man to be the Redeemer immediately;
although the redemption may be ascribed to the whole Trinity as its first cause
(3a. 48, 5).
Denis Vincent Wiseman, O.P.
References to Thomas Aquinas’ Summa Theologiae, give the part of the
Summa, the question and the article. In this case, it is the third part of the

Summa, questions 46, 48 and 49, and various articles. If the reference is a reply
to an objection that had been raised earlier, the reference will offer “ad…” with
the number of the objection.