Thursday 26 June 2008

The Superabundance of Salvation

This is why Paul (Rom 5:15-21) can say that the balance between sin and grace, fear and hope, damnation and redemption, and Adam and Christ has been tilted in the favor of grace, and indeed so much so that (in relation to redemption) the mountain of sin stands before an inconceivable superabundance of redemption: not only have all been doomed to (the first and second) death in Adam, while all have been freed from death in Christ, but the sins of all, which assault the innocent one and culminate in God’s murder, have brought an inexhaustible wealth of absolution down upon all. Thus: ‘God has consigned all men to disobedience, that he may have mercy upon all.’ (Rom 11:32) Hans Urs von Balthasar