Lent 2015, Day Fifteen—Athanasius (8)

Our last citations from Athanasius come from two other of his works, Four Discourses Against the Arians, and Letter to Epictetus.  You may access these two works here and here.

Formerly, the world, as guilty, was under judgment from the Law; but now the Word has taken on Himself the judgment, and having suffered in the body for all, has bestowed salvation to all.  (Four Discourses Against the Arians 1.13.60)

For, as when John says, “The Word was made flesh” we do not conceive the whole Word Himself to be flesh, but to have put on flesh and become man, and on hearing, “Christ hath become a curse for us,” and “He hath made Him sin for us who knew no sin,” we do not simply conceive this, that whole Christ has become curse and sin, but that He has taken on Him the curse which lay against us (as the Apostle has said, “Has redeemed us from the curse,” and “has carried,” as Isaiah has said, “our sins,” and as Peter has written, “has borne them in the body on the wood”).  (Four Discourses Against the Arians 2.19.47)

For what John said, “The Word was made flesh” has this meaning, as we may see by a similar passage; for it is written in Paul: “Christ has become a curse for us.” And just as He has not Himself become a curse, but is said to have done so because He took upon Him the curse on our behalf, so also He has become flesh not by being changed into flesh, but because He assumed on our behalf living flesh, and has become Man.  (Letter to Epictetus 59.8)

Jerry Shepherd
Lent
March 6, 2015

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