Jesus Christ: sixteen questions

In Hebrew, Jesus means "God saves". The angel Gabriel gave him this name at the Annunciation. Since God alone can forgive sins, it is God who, in Jesus his eternal Son made man, saves his people from their sins.

"Christ" is the Greek form of the Hebrew "Messiah", the Anointed One; in Israel, kings, priests and sometimes prophets were anointed for a mission from God, and Jesus fulfils all three. In the Greek Old Testament, God's holy name was rendered "Kyrios", Lord. When the New Testament calls Jesus "Lord", it recognises him as God himself.

Not as a title of honour only, as kings and holy people were sometimes called sons of God. Jesus is the only Son of the Father, eternally. Peter confessed it by a revelation from the Father, and the Resurrection showed it in power.

For us and for our salvation: to reconcile us with God; so that we might know God's love; to be our model of holiness; and to make us "participants of the divine nature" (2 Peter 1:4).

He is true God and true man, not part God and part man, nor a mixture of the two. He became truly man while remaining truly God. The Council of Chalcedon (451) confessed one and the same Son, perfect in divinity and perfect in humanity.

Yes. He had a real human soul, with human knowledge that could grow, and a human will. The Third Council of Constantinople (681) confessed that he has two wills, divine and human, not opposed but in harmony: his human will follows his divine will.

Yes. Jesus knew and loved each one of us in his life, his agony and his Passion, and gave himself up for each of us. He has loved us with a human heart. That is why the Church honours his Sacred Heart as the great sign of his love.

Everything in his life, his words and deeds, his silences and sufferings, reveals the Father. He is our model in all of it, and he lets us live in him what he lived, so that we become one with him.

His miracles were signs that the kingdom of God was present in him and that the Father had sent him. They invite faith; they were not done to satisfy curiosity. He did not come to remove every evil on earth, but to release us from the worst slavery, which is sin.

The guilt of those who took part in his trial is known to God alone. The Church teaches that the Jewish people as a whole, then or now, cannot be held responsible. She teaches instead that all sinners caused his sufferings, and that Christians who sin bear the gravest responsibility.

His death was not an accident but part of God's plan, foretold in the Scriptures, without making those who handed him over mere puppets: "Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures" (1 Corinthians 15:3). It is the Paschal sacrifice and the sacrifice of the New Covenant, unique and surpassing all others. By his obedience to the end, out of love, he made amends for our disobedience and reconciled us to God.

Yes. God's love excludes no one. The Church teaches that there is not, never has been and never will be a single human being for whom Christ did not suffer. He knew and loved us all when he offered his life.

"Hell" here means the realm of the dead (Sheol or Hades), not the hell of the damned. Jesus truly died and, in his soul, joined the dead. He went there as Saviour, to open heaven to the just who had gone before him.

Yes. The Resurrection is a real event, with signs that were historically verified: the empty tomb and the appearances to many witnesses. No one saw the moment itself. It was not a return to earthly life, like that of Lazarus; Jesus rose in a glorified body that could no longer die.

It confirms all that Christ did and taught, and it confirms the truth of his divinity. By his death he delivers us from sin; by his Resurrection he opens a new life for us. The risen Christ is the source of our own future resurrection.

Forty days after Easter, Christ's humanity entered the glory of heaven, from where he will come again. He goes before us as our Head, so that we may hope to be with him for ever, and there he prays for us and sends us the Holy Spirit.