Abstract

Michael Stickelbroeck:
The Sacraments as Concrete Expression of Salvation History
(FKTh 2013-3, p. 177–201)

The article discusses the soteriological valence of sacraments, which base on the fundamental sacrament Christ. The main concern is he transmission of the reality of grace, proper to Christ, to humankind in need for redemption. The son, who incarnates himself unto creaturely mortality, touches per fidem et fidei sacramenta the personal center of everybody in his singularity, for carrying with him his entanglement in soufering, debt and dead. In the early church they included this in the motiv of the admirabile commercium: Christ accepted what stands for our live, handing us over what is his.

The sacramental signs are the mode, in which incarnation works further and is transmitted to us. They are symbols, which God needs to communicate to us his salvatory acting.