Teacher Notes: Unit 6, Redemption
Why this unit matters
Students have heard “Jesus died for our sins” all their lives, but few could explain what it means. Some have absorbed a picture of an angry God who needed someone to punish, which makes the Father look cruel. Others think the Cross was simply an injustice that God reversed at Easter. This unit gives them the Church’s actual account: the Incarnation and the Cross as acts of love, the Cross as merit, satisfaction, sacrifice and redemption, and the Resurrection as the source of new life.
By the end of the unit, students should be able to:
- give the Catechism’s four reasons for the Incarnation;
- summarise Anselm’s argument and Aquinas’s qualification of it;
- explain the four aspects of the Cross in Aquinas, especially satisfaction;
- say who was responsible for Christ’s death, and why the Church rejects blaming the Jewish people;
- explain the descent to the dead and the Paschal mystery;
- describe Christ’s three offices and how the baptised share them.
A shape for a 50-minute lesson
| Time | Activity |
|---|---|
| 5 min | Put the big question on the board. Take three or four answers without correcting them. |
| 15 min | Read What the Church teaches and Where it comes from together. |
| 15 min | Teacher-led explanation, using the lesson’s table. |
| 10 min | Discussion question, or work through What the Church does not claim. |
| 5 min | Students attempt two Check your understanding questions before opening the answers. |
Lesson by lesson
6.1 Why did God become man?
Goal: students can explain why the Incarnation was fitting, even though God could have forgiven by mercy alone.
Activity: set out Anselm’s argument as four premises on the board, and ask students to find the step they find weakest. Then introduce Aquinas’s qualification and see whether it answers their objection.
Discussion questions:
- If you hurt a friend badly, is “sorry” always enough? What else might be needed to put things right?
- Why might God choose to save us through a man, rather than from outside?
Misconceptions to watch for:
- “God had to be paid before he could forgive.” Aquinas says God could have forgiven freely.
- “The Incarnation was only about the Cross.” Christ’s whole life saves.
6.2 The Cross
Goal: students can explain satisfaction as love offered, not pain inflicted, and name the four aspects.
Discussion questions:
- Aquinas says the value of the Cross lies in love, not in the amount of suffering. Why does that matter?
- What difference does it make that Christ said, “No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord”?
Sensitivity: antisemitism. This lesson touches on one of the most harmful misreadings in Christian history, the charge that “the Jews killed Christ”. State the Church’s teaching clearly, using CCC 597–598 and Nostra Aetate 4: the cause of Christ’s death was the sins of all humanity, and the Jewish people as a whole, then or now, are not to be blamed. If students raise passages such as Matthew 27:25, explain how the Church reads them, and do not let the misreading pass.
Misconceptions to watch for:
- “The Father was angry with the Son.” The Father sends the Son in love; the Son offers himself in love.
- “The ransom was paid to the devil.” The image means a costly freeing, not a payment to Satan.
- “Since Christ died for all, everyone is saved automatically.” His gift must be received.
6.3 Descent, Resurrection and new life
Goal: students can explain the descent to the dead and why the Resurrection is a cause of our salvation, not only a happy ending.
Activity: show students an icon of the Resurrection in the Eastern tradition (the Anastasis), in which Christ stands on the broken gates of Hades and pulls Adam and Eve from their tombs. Ask them to identify each element using the lesson.
Discussion questions:
- Why might the Church celebrate Easter as an even greater feast than Christmas?
- In what ways can an ordinary student share Christ’s work as priest, prophet and king?
Misconceptions to watch for:
- “Jesus went to hell to suffer.” He descended as conqueror to the realm of the dead.
- “The Resurrection just proves Jesus was right.” It is also the source of our new life.
Answer key
The answers to every Check your understanding question also appear on the lesson pages behind Show answer, and are left off printed handouts.
Lesson 6.1: (1) To reconcile us with God; to show God’s love; to be our model; to make us sharers in the divine nature. (2) Only man ought to make satisfaction; only God can; so a God-man. (3) Yes, by mercy alone; but the Incarnation was most fitting. (4) By sharing our nature he lets us share his life by grace. (5) Whether he would have come without the Fall; undecided.
Lesson 6.2: (1) He merited our justification and made satisfaction; he died for all, but only those to whom his merits are applied benefit. (2) Merit, satisfaction, sacrifice, redemption. (3) The love and obedience of his self-offering. (4) All sinners; not the Jewish people as a whole. (5) The Father gives the Son in love, and the Son offers himself freely.
Lesson 6.3: (1) Christ really died and went to the realm of the dead to free the just who had died before him. (2) Death for our trespasses; Resurrection for our justification. (3) Christ’s passover from death to life, one saving event. (4) Priest, prophet, king, with any one example of sharing. (5) His risen humanity is the instrument by which God raises us to grace and to bodily resurrection.