The Word of God Did Not Abandon His Creatures Who Are Hurtling to Their Own Ruin
by St Athanasius the Great
Feast of St Melania the Younger, Nun of Rome
Anno Domini 2022, December 31
The Word of God did not abandon the human race, His creatures, who are hurtling to their own ruin. By the offering of His body, the Word of God destroyed death which had united itself to them; by His teaching, He corrected their negligences; and by His power, He restored the human race.
Why was it necessary for the Word of God to become incarnate and not some other? Scripture indicates the reason by these words: “It was fitting that when bringing many heirs to glory, God, for whom and through whom all things exist, should make their leader in the work of salvation perfect through suffering.” This signifies that the work of raising human beings from the ruin into which they had fallen pertained to none other than the Word of God, who had made them in the beginning.
By the sacrifice of His body, He put an end to the law which weighed upon them, and He renewed in us the principle of life by giving us the hope of the resurrection. For if it is through ourselves that death attained dominance over us, conversely, it is through the incarnation of the Word of God that death has been destroyed and that life has been resurrected, as indicated by the Apostle filled with Christ: “Death came through one person; hence the resurrection of the dead comes through another person also. Just as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will come to life again.”
It is no longer as condemned that we die. Rather, we die with the hope of rising again from the dead, awaiting the universal resurrection which God will manifest to us in His own time, since He is both the author of it and gives us the grace for it.
*On the Incarnation 10.14
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