MERIT OF JESUS CHRIST. — Since in Jesus Christ all the conditions of supernatural merit are verified (freedom, state of wayfarer, despite the beatific vision, fullness of grace, holy activity in perfect observance of the law and the divine will, especially in obedience to the command to face passion and death on the cross), the possibility of merit in Him in general is beyond all doubt. But this possibility is confirmed by the fact, which is a matter of faith, because it is explicitly affirmed in Holy Scripture and in the documents of the Church’s magistery. St. Paul (Phil. 2) affirms that the Father exalted the Son for His obedience even unto death on the cross. The Council of Trent (Session VI, chap. 7) teaches that Christ is the meritorious cause of human sanctification because “His most holy passion on the wood of the cross merited justification for us” (Denz.-U., 799).
As for the possibility, St. Thomas finds no difficulty even in the beatific vision, which the soul of Jesus habitually enjoyed, because while it could not merit according to the divine love proper to the blessed, it could merit according to the love proper to those who still live on earth:
“Yet He did not merit through charity insofar as it was the charity of the comprehensor, but insofar as it was the charity of the wayfarer, for He was at once wayfarer and comprehensor” (Summa Theologiae, IIIa, q. 19, a. 3, ad 1).
As for the subject to which merit is attributed and the object of merit, traditional theological thought, summarized by the Angelic Doctor, reduces to the following main points:
a) Christ merited for Himself all that does not repugn or is fitting to His dignity; thus He never merited for Himself eternal life, which He already possessed.
b) Christ could merit and in fact did merit for man sanctification and eternal life, through His theological activity from the first moment of His conception and especially in the tragic hours of His passion and death, freely accepted with loving obedience (v. LIBERTY OF JESUS CHRIST). The reason why the infinite merits of the life, passion, death, and even the Resurrection of Jesus are applied to all humanity lies in the revealed doctrine of the Mystical Body (v.), according to which Christ and the men united to Him constitute a single organism of supernatural life, as it were a single mystical person. It is the principle of solidarity arising from the very incarnation of the Word: through it a vital communion is established between the Head and the members, amply illustrated by St. Paul (especially in 1 Corinthians, Colossians, Ephesians, Romans). The redemptive work of Christ, therefore, and its effects become the possession of man, being turned to his advantage (Summa Theologiae, IIIa, q. 18, a. 4; q. 48, a. 1). This principle also applies to the satisfaction rendered by the Redeemer on behalf of man to divine justice (v. VICARIOUS SATISFACTION).
c) After His death and Resurrection, Christ can no longer merit. The question arises regarding the glorified Christ in heaven and the Christ hidden in the sacrament of the Eucharist. In the first regard, a theological discussion has arisen around a text from Heb. 7:25: “Whereby he is able to save forever those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for us.” For some theologians (e.g., Vázquez), this intercession is not prayer at all, which would no longer be fitting for Christ, not even as man, after His passage to the state of glory. Others (Franzelin), however, do not hesitate to recognize in the intercession a form of prayer, provided that any notion of indigence is excluded. St. Thomas resolves the question with these clear words (In Eph. lect. 4): “He intercedes for us first through His humanity, which He assumed for us, by representing it; likewise by expressing the desire of His most holy soul for our salvation, with which He intercedes for us.” In other words, the intercession of Jesus in heaven is not a source of new merits, but is to be understood as prayer in the sense that His glorified soul continues to manifest to God the will to save men, the same will that accompanied Him throughout His mortal life and led Him to immolation on the cross. The external sign of that loving will are the scars, which Jesus willed to preserve in His pierced hands, always ready to be raised in an act of prayer before the Father. Similarly, the Eucharistic life of Jesus, including the Sacrifice of the Mass, does not produce new merits but applies the infinite merits of His life, passion, death, and Resurrection to individual souls and to the whole Mystical Body, which is the Church. Any other opinion runs counter to serious theological difficulties.