Gal 3, 1-5 Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed

Galatians 3

(Gal 3, 1-5) Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed

[1] O stupid Galatians! Who has bewitched you, before whose eyes Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified? [2] I want to learn only this from you: did you receive the Spirit from works of the law, or from faith in what you heard? [3] Are you so stupid? After beginning with the Spirit, are you now ending with the flesh? [4] Did you experience so many things in vain? - if indeed it was in vain. [5] Does, then, the one who supplies the Spirit to you and works mighty deeds among you do so from works of the law or from faith in what you heard?

(CCC 79) The Father's self-communication made through his Word in the Holy Spirit, remains present and active in the Church: "God, who spoke in the past, continues to converse with the Spouse of his beloved Son. And the Holy Spirit, through whom the living voice of the Gospel rings out in the Church - and through her in the world - leads believers to the full truth, and makes the Word of Christ dwell in them in all its richness" (DV 8 § 3; cf. Col 3:16). (CCC 475) Similarly, at the sixth ecumenical council, Constantinople III in 681, the Church confessed that Christ possesses two wills and two natural operations, divine and human. They are not opposed to each other, but co-operate in such a way that the Word made flesh willed humanly in obedience to his Father all that he had decided divinely with the Father and the Holy Spirit for our salvation (Cf. Council of Constantinople III (681): DS 556-559). Christ's human will "does not resist or oppose but rather submits to his divine and almighty will” (Council of Constantinople III: DS 556). (CCC 476) Since the Word became flesh in assuming a true humanity, Christ's body was finite (Cf. Council of the Lateran (649): DS 504). Therefore the human face of Jesus can be portrayed; at the seventh ecumenical council (Nicaea II in 787) the Church recognized its representation in holy images to be legitimate (Cf. Gal 3:1; cf. Council of Nicaea II (787): DS 600-603). (CCC 477) At the same time the Church has always acknowledged that in the body of Jesus "we see our God made visible and so are caught up in love of the God we cannot see" (Roman Missal, Preface of Christmas I). The individual characteristics of Christ's body express the divine person of God's Son. He has made the features of his human body his own, to the point that they can be venerated when portrayed in a holy image, for the believer "who venerates the icon is venerating in it the person of the one depicted" (Council of Nicaea II: DS 601).