One might risk summing up what Hebrews conveys about the place and means of salvation: ‘Outside Christ the High Priest and his ongoing priestly self-offering and intercession there is no salvation.’ To avoid misunderstanding, one should add at once: ‘But there is no way to be “outside Christ” and no zone beyond him and his priestly activity.’ It was Augustine who classically expressed in debate with the Donatists his faith in Christ as the real, albeit invisible, minister of every baptism, no matter who was the visible minister of baptism. Later, Augustine’s principle was extended to the Eucharist, the administration of other sacraments, preaching, and the celebration of the divine office. We quoted Vatican II’s Constitution on the Divine Liturgy on the multifaceted presence of Christ in the celebration of the liturgy, preaching the Word, and praying the divine office.38
38 See K. Rahner, ‘The Presence of the Lord in the Christian Community at Worship’, trans. D. Bourke, Theological Investigations, x (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1973), 71 83.
Few have witnessed more powerfully than Tom Torrance to the active, priestly presence of Christ whenever the Eucharist is celebrated. We cited Torrance’s emphatic words: ‘when the Church worships, praises and adores the Father through Christ and celebrates the Eucharist in his name, it is Christ himself [in the Spirit] who worships, praises and adores the Father in and through his members, taking up, moulding and sanctifying the prayers of the people.’ (5) The fifth item in our summary of the permanent exercise of Christ’s priesthood concerns his role as the Mediator for the blessed in heaven. Adapting the words of the Creed, we can say: ‘His priesthood will have no end.’ In his glorified humanity Christ will remain eternally the Agent (or rather joint Agent with the Holy Spirit) through whom human beings will be raised and enjoy divine life forever.
In an essay on ‘The Eternal Significance of the Humanity of Jesus for our Relationship with God’, Karl Rahner put it this way: ‘the Word—by the fact that he is man and insofar as he is this—is the necessary and permanent mediator of all salvation, not merely at some time in the past but now and for all eternity.’39
39 K. Rahner, Theological Investigations, trans. K. H. Kruger and B. Kruger, iii (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1967), 35 46, at 45; italics ours.
Augustine was second to none when it came to this eternal priestly mediation of Christ and to applying the image of head and body to the final presence of all in Christ. He summoned Christians to their future life: ‘Be united in him [Christ] alone, be one reality alone, be one person alone (in uno estote, unum estote, unus estote)’ (In Ioannis Evangelium, 12. 9). From incorporation in Christ, Augustine moved to picture a profound solidarity with him, and even to a personal assimilation. Augustine, while expounding the resurrection of individuals to eternal life,40 also insisted that they will be drawn in the closest imaginable way into the reality of Christ: ‘and there will be one Christ loving himself (et erit unus Christus amans seipsum)’ (In Epistolam Iohannis, 10. 3).
40 See G. O’Collins, ‘Augustine On the Resurrection’, in F. LeMoine and C. Kleinhenz (eds.), Saint Augustine the Bishop: A Book of Essays (New York: Garland, 1994), 65 75.
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