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Office Of Readings | Week 20, Friday, Ordinary Time | A Reading From The Discourses Of Saint Ambrose On The Psalms | The Man Christ Jesus, The One Mediator Between God And Men
‘The man Christ Jesus, the one mediator between God and Men.’
Saint Ambrose of Milan (c. 340–397), one of the Latin Fathers of the Church, offers in this commentary a theological reflection on Psalm 49(48), where it is written: ‘Brother cannot redeem brother, nor give to God a ransom for him’ (Ps 49:7). Ambrose interprets this in light of Christ’s unique role as Redeemer, contrasting human limitation with divine sufficiency.
The argument proceeds by juxtaposition. First, Ambrose states the inability of any human being—even the closest of kin—to redeem another. Because all share the same fallen condition, no one has the resources to pay the ransom of another’s soul. Against this background, Christ is introduced: the one man who redeems humanity, not as a fellow victim but as the deliverer who transcends human weakness.
The paradox is central: Christ is ‘a man’ yet not merely so. Ambrose highlights the mystery of the Incarnation: ‘He is a man, yet who will recognise him?’ The rhetorical question points to the hiddenness of Christ’s divinity under the appearance of his humanity. This is linked to 1 Timothy 2:5: ‘There is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.’ Christ is both fully human, sharing the condition of those he redeems, and uniquely without sin, making his redeeming sacrifice effective.
Ambrose further emphasises the depth of Christ’s love. He lays down his life not only for brothers or kinsmen but for strangers, demonstrating a love that exceeds natural bonds. The act of redemption is described in sacrificial terms: Christ gives his body and blood as the price of release from sin, cancelling the debt incurred by humanity through Adam’s fall.
Finally, Ambrose clarifies the paradox of Christ as both brother and Lord. Scripture names him ‘brother’ (cf. Heb 2:12), but his redeeming work is possible not in virtue of kinship alone but because ‘God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself’ (2 Cor 5:19). It is the union of the Word with human nature—the Incarnation—that allows Jesus to redeem. Thus, Christ’s mediation consists in being truly man, yet uniquely united with God.
The passage illustrates Ambrose’s close engagement with Scripture, his use of sharp contrasts to draw out theological truth, and a focus on the Incarnation as the foundation of redemption. His teaching anticipates later Christological formulations: only one who is fully human and fully divine can bridge the gulf between God and humankind.
A Reading From The Discourses Of Saint Ambrose On The Psalms | The Man Christ Jesus, The One Mediator Between God And Men
Brother cannot redeem brother, but a man will redeem man. No one can give to God the ransom for himself nor the price of his soul’s redemption. Christ is saying: What have I to fear in the day of evil? What can do me harm if I do not need a redeemer but am myself the redeemer of all mankind? Shall I free others, yet tremble for myself? See, I shall make all things new, so as to surpass even the love and devotion of brothers. Where a brother, born of the womb, cannot redeem, suffering as he does from the infirmity of a common nature, yet a man will redeem, that man of whom it is written: The Lord will send them a man who will save them; the man who said of himself: You seek to kill me, a man who has spoken the truth to you.
He is a man, yet who will recognize him? Why will no one recognize him? Because, as there is one God, so there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus. He alone will redeem man, showing love greater even than that of brothers. He poured out his blood for strangers, as no one is able to do for a brother. He did not spare his own body in redeeming us from sin, but gave himself as the redemption of all, and Paul the apostle is a true witness to him: I speak the truth and do not lie.
But why will this man be the only redeemer? Because no one can equal him in the love he showed in laying down his life for his own poor servants. Nor can anyone equal him in sinlessness, for all men are ruled by sin, and all are victims of the fall of the first Adam. He alone is chosen to redeem, for he alone cannot be subject to that age-old sin. So let us understand by ‘the man’ the one who took upon himself the condition of man in order to crucify in his own flesh the sin of all, and to cancel by his own blood the debt owed by all: the Lord Jesus.
You may ask: How can we say that brother cannot redeem when the man we are discussing has said: I shall declare your name to my brothers? But it was not as our brother but as the man Christ Jesus, in whom God dwelt, that he forgave our sins. For it is written that God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself. God was in the man Christ Jesus, of whom alone it was said: The Word became flesh and dwelt among us. It was not, therefore, as a brother but as the Lord that he dwelt among us in the flesh.
Christian Prayer With Jesus Christ
Lord Jesus Christ,
true man and true God,
you alone are the mediator between heaven and earth.
By your blood you have redeemed the world,
by your sacrifice you have cancelled our debt.
Grant that, freed from sin and reconciled to the Father,
we may live as your brothers and sisters,
and proclaim your saving love to all nations,
who live and reign with the Father in the unity of the Spirit,
for ever and ever.
Amen.
Glossary Of Christian Terms
Redeemer: One who pays the price to set another free; in Christian theology, Christ redeems humanity from sin and death through his sacrifice.
Mediator: The one who stands between God and humanity to reconcile them; uniquely fulfilled in Christ (1 Tim 2:5).
Ransom: Biblical metaphor for redemption, signifying the cost or price by which humanity is delivered from sin (cf. Mk 10:45).
Incarnation: The Christian belief that the eternal Word of God became flesh in Jesus Christ (Jn 1:14).
Sinlessness of Christ: The doctrine that Jesus, though fully human, was without sin (Heb 4:15), enabling him to redeem others.
Adam: The first man, whose fall into sin introduced death and corruption into the human condition; Christ is the ‘new Adam’ (Rom 5:12–21).
Reconciliation: The restoration of relationship between God and humanity, accomplished in Christ (2 Cor 5:19).
In his exposition of the Lord’s Prayer, Saint Augustine presents not a set of verbal formulas but the structure of Christian desire. The prayer given by Christ is, for Saint Augustine, a complete guide to the orientation of the soul. It teaches not what God needs to hear, but what humanity needs to learn to desire rightly. To pray well is to have the heart corrected and enlarged, so that its longings accord with divine wisdom [ … ]
We process. Glass exhibition cases, old reliquaries. A forearm here; here a nun’s fingertip. In chapel, at a glance, there are the usual faces. But they all stand to attention. Jonathan breaks from the procession to – fire the organ with oomph and dignity: Ride on! ride on in majesty! The angel-squadrons of the sky look down with sad and wondering eyes to see the approaching sacrifice. When we’ve done the readings, the Arch holds that tree in his hands to deliver the homily. He rocks quietly on his feet, some few seconds, as if balance defeated it. A way you might affect as the Spirit moves… Copying. Then he says: ‘Our palm fronds may seem to us today rather dry. I mean this not in a literal sense, but by the standards of those who originally lined the roadways in order to welcome Jesus into Jerusalem, as they proclaimed Jesus to be the Messiah, who would be clambering up and ripping their palm branches fresh from off the trees. I think perhaps also our faith is somewhat distant from that of the people there on that highroad into Jerusalem, and something of our sense of the meaning has shifted in vividness from what it was then. And of course the expectation of all those many people is markedly different, but in many important respects the same. There are the same essential qualities to all our faith in God, which springs complete from our humanity, and that is one and the same in value for all of us, and time is consistent on this point. So then, let us renew the fullness of Catholic faith, and let us ask the Lord’s blessing as we embark upon our Holy Week. ‘Our Lord enters into Jerusalem in order to refresh us. He is to die in order that we may have life. There is a living reality here, both spiritual and as entangled in the joy of our daily living. We have Ladies’ Day where I grew up. They still have it, and they close the roads off, and little children parade, dressed-up like spring brides. When I was a boy, there was a May Day festival, and there was a May pole on the field, with the people dancing, like Morris dancers might be one way of visualizing this if you’ve never seen it, with their ribbons tied onto the top of the May pole, and they would weave around each other, dressing the pole, which is what we called it. It was like a dance with red and white and blue ribbons all hung off of the top of the May pole, which stood there all year, only like a telegraph pole, but it was concreted in, and then there was a slide, and swings – one baby-swing and two you could have a go at – terrible health and safety but that’s what it was in those days. ‘There was a round-a-bout – we used to run it round and round to try to get it off its central axis. It were rusty as anything and creaked like mad – on concrete. And climb up where it was all greased up at the top. Ruth, who was big as the next four of us, used to sit there sucking on the lollipops we nicked for her from Raddies, and she’d direct matters. We were trying to destroy it, and get it to dislodge from its central axis, and fly away – roll off into that farmer’s field, which he only ever kept for silage, but we never succeeded. There was a car someone had left there so we spent forever smashing that up, until someone who lived in one of the houses there took exception to our doing that, so he put thick grease under the door handles and gave us a right talking to. ‘It would only be a few stands, hot-dogs and things like that. The man selling the hot dogs would have his records on full blast. There’d be a couple of set-up stalls. Air-rifles – that sort of thing. But we all had them, and we all went shooting, of course, if not with twelve bores then with smaller gauge. Or pay a pound – I have no idea how much it was in actual fact then – it might have only been a few pennies – and we’d get all that time smashing up the crockery the man would put up for us to smash on the dressers. That was my particular favourite thing to do at these festivals, by the way, in case you were wondering. You got a little bucket of so many cricket balls. ‘I dread to think what went into those hot dogs. Probably EE rules would forbid it now. But it was a fair mix in those days. A lot of young people then were C of E. We’ve done a lot to hang onto our young people, which is a tremendous encouragement when you consider how things are, while in recent decades the Church of England hasn’t been so successful. People still want it on feast days and what are essentially now civic celebrations. It’s strange to see, though, how all the little stands there people have are run by the police and people like that along those lines. There’s no May pole. That was a sort of faith that ran and ran beneath all the theoreticals of it in the 1960s and the 1970s and into the 1980s. The May pole isn’t there now in the particular place I’m thinking of. Considering May poles were officially suppressed hundreds of years ago – as a part of the protestant reformation. One or two of you are probably thinking I’m remembering things from that time! ‘I should have liked to say that those processionals were so hardwired into us, that even after the last thirty years, when I became a bishop, they are still with us. They were […]
In this poem, Herbert expresses a yearning for divine grace to enliven and sustain his spiritual life. Herbert begins by admitting a sense of spiritual stagnation, stating, ‘My stock lies dead, and no increase / Doth my dull husbandry improve.’ Here, Herbert characterizes his inner resources or spiritual vitality as unproductive, and he attributes this lack to his own insufficient efforts, likened to a ‘dull husbandry’, or poor cultivation. This admission reveals Herbert’s dependence on external, divine intervention for renewal, as he implores grace to ‘drop from above’ [ … ]
