Jesus Christ

The middle part of the Creed is the longest, because it tells a story. It is the story of a man born in a particular place, under a particular Roman governor, who died and rose again, and who is at the same time the eternal Son of God. Everything Christians believe turns on him. This article walks through what the Creed says about Jesus Christ, line by line.

Who he is: true God and true man

The name Jesus means "God saves" (CCC 430). Christ is the Greek for the Hebrew Messiah, "anointed one", the king and saviour Israel was waiting for (CCC 436). The Creed calls him God's "only Son" and "our Lord", titles that in the Church's faith belong to God himself (CCC 441–451).

The early Church took centuries to find words precise enough for this mystery, because errors pulled in both directions. Some said Jesus only seemed to be human; others that he was a man in whom God dwelt, as in a temple; others that his humanity was swallowed up by his divinity (CCC 465–467). In 451 the Council of Chalcedon gave the answer the Church still holds: Jesus Christ is one and the same Son, perfect in divinity and perfect in humanity, truly God and truly man, in two natures that are neither mixed together nor separated (CCC 467). He is not half God and half man, nor a blend of the two (CCC 464).

Why God became man

The Incarnation, from the Latin for "taking flesh", is the belief that the eternal Son of God became a human being (CCC 461).

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth;

— John 1:14

The Catechism gives four reasons why. He came to save us by reconciling us with God (CCC 457). He came so that we might know how much God loves us (CCC 458). He came to be our model of holiness (CCC 459). And he came to make us sharers in the divine life itself (CCC 460; 2 Peter 1:4). God did not rescue us from a distance. He came all the way in.

Born of the Virgin Mary

The Son was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit in the womb of the Virgin Mary, without a human father (Luke 1:26–38; Matthew 1:18–25; CCC 496–497). This is not a story about God's dislike of ordinary human origins. It is a sign that this child is a new beginning, wholly God's gift. Because the one Mary bore is God the Son, the Church honours her as Mother of God (CCC 495); see Mary, Mother of God.

His public life

The Creed jumps from his birth to his death, but the Gospels fill in the years between. After his baptism in the Jordan (CCC 535), Jesus went through Galilee announcing that the kingdom of God was near and calling people to turn back to God (Mark 1:14–15; CCC 541–546). He ate with sinners, healed the sick, forgave sins and drove out evil, signs that the kingdom had arrived in him (CCC 547–550). He chose twelve apostles, with Peter at their head (CCC 551–553). His teaching, above all the Sermon on the Mount, is still the Christian's rule of life (Matthew 5–7).

The Paschal mystery

The Paschal mystery, from Pascha, Passover, is the Church's name for Christ's passing through death to life: his Passion, death, Resurrection and Ascension (CCC 571).

He suffered and died for our sins

Jesus' death was not an accident or a tragic miscarriage of justice that God failed to stop. It was part of God's plan of love, foretold in the Scriptures (CCC 599–601). Jesus freely accepted it, offering his life for every human being without exception (CCC 605–609). At the Last Supper he gave his disciples his Body and Blood as the memorial of this self-offering (CCC 610–611). His obedience out of love undoes our disobedience (CCC 615), and his Cross is the one perfect sacrifice (CCC 613–614, 618).

The Church is careful to add that the Jewish people as a whole, then or now, cannot be blamed for his death. All of us, as sinners, share responsibility for it (CCC 597–598).

He descended to the dead

The older wording says Jesus "descended into hell". Here "hell" means not the place of the damned but the realm of the dead, which the Old Testament calls Sheol. Jesus truly died, and in his soul he went down to the just who had died before him, to open heaven to them (CCC 631–635).

He rose on the third day

On the third day Jesus rose from the dead, in his own body. Not as a ghost, and not merely in the memory of his friends: the tomb was empty, and he was seen, touched and heard (CCC 639–644). His risen body is the same body, yet transformed, no longer subject to death (CCC 645–646). St Paul, writing a little over twenty years later, passes on a list of witnesses that he himself had received (1 Corinthians 15:3–8). The Resurrection is the confirmation of everything Jesus did and taught (CCC 651–655).

He ascended and will come again

Forty days later Jesus ascended into heaven. He did not leave us; he went ahead of us, and now sits at the Father's right hand, a share in God's own glory and rule (CCC 659–664). He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, to bring history to its fulfilment and set all things right (CCC 668–682). See the life of the world to come.

Going deeper

• God the Father and the Holy Spirit, the other two parts of the Creed.
• The councils, for how Nicaea and Chalcedon found their words.
• The Eucharist, where his self-offering is made present.
• Read next: CCC 422–682, the whole of the Creed's second part.