Skip to main content

Athanasius, On the Incarnation (4 of 9), Advent 2025

The fourth chapter of Athanasius' "On the Incarnation" (paragraphs 19-25) focuses on the death of Christ.

Athanasius considers the "bodily death" of the Word "the very centre of our faith" revealing that Christ is God.

"Here, then, is the second reason why the Word dwelt among us, namely that having proved His Godhead by His works, He might offer the sacrifice on behalf of all, surrendering His own temple to death in place of all, to settle man's account with death and free him from the primal transgression."

Notice the idea of what was "fitting" for God to do: "We are speaking of the good pleasure of God and of the things which He in His loving wisdom thought fit to do."

Athanasius uses various paradigms to speak of the "mission" of Christ, and to his death:
  • It was to "change the corruptible to incorruption". 
  • "recreate the likeness of the image in men" 
  • He "showed himself mightier than death". 
  • Also, it was "death in place of all, to settle man's account with death and free him from the primal transgression". 
  • Christ "became a curse". 
  • His death with arms outstretched was the basis for calling both Jew and Gentile.
  • Christ's death opens the door of heaven for us. 
In fact, Athanasius devotes a lot attention to the manner/mode of Christ's death, for example the fact that it was public, not private, and the fact that it was by crucifixion, not by some other more honourable means. He makes the analogy of a wrestler who is willing to take on any challenger, not limiting the opponent/s he is willing to face.

"A generous wrestler, virile and strong, does not himself choose his antagonists, lest it should be thought that of some of them he is afraid. Rather, he lets the spectators choose them, and that all the more if these are hostile, so that he may overthrow whomsoever they match against him and thus vindicate his superior strength. Even so was it with Christ. He, the Life of all, our Lord and Saviour, did not arrange the manner of his own death lest He should seem to be afraid of some other kind."

Even the circumstance of Christ's death being, as it were, in mid-air (on the cross) is of significance: "But the Lord came to overthrow the devil and to purify the air and to make "a way" for us up to heaven, as the apostle says, "through the veil, that is to say, His flesh."

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The origin and spread of the early Baptist churches in the North West of England and elsewhere

The origins of Baptist churches go back to the 1600s.  The very first Baptist church began in 1609 and was for English speaking Christians based in the Netherlands, relocating to London in 1611 (Thomas Helwys). These churches were known as "General Baptists" and followed the theology of Arminius and the Anabaptists.  A second genesis of Baptist churches was in London in about 1638 (John Spilsbury). These churches followed the Reformed Theology of John Calvin and the Synod of Dordt. In 1644, the First London Baptist Confession was signed by seven Baptist churches in the capital.  Baptist churches later spread from London outwards.  During the time of the English Civil War (1642-1651), there were Baptist Christians in the New Model Army of Oliver Cromwell. In 1648 the New Model Army campaigned in Lancashire during the Second Civil War.  1. John Wigan & the "Coldhouse cause"   During the time of the English Civil War (1642-1651), John Wigan (d. 1665),...
Post a Comment
Read more

Die Erweckung (revival of evangelical Christianity in Germany in the 1800s)

Die Erweckung (literally, "the Revival") is a name for the revival of evangelical Christianity in Germany in the 1800s. It has overlap with the Réveil in Switzerland, France and the Netherlands, and also with the second Evangelical Revival in Britain and the Second Great Awakening in America. The Pietist movement, which began during the Baroque era around 1675 under the leadership of Philip Spener, had waned by the 1730s. By this time, Halle university, originally founded by Pietists and a flagship of the movement, became a centre for rationalism under academics such as Christian Wolff (1679–1754).  In the interim, Pietism was kept alive in part by a network of small groups (the Diaspora) which followed the spirituality of the Moravian Christians, a movement similar to Pietism but with its own church structures under the leadership of Von Zinzendorf. There was also the Basle-based Christentumsgesellschaft founded by Urlsperger in 1780, a society founded to counter the ratio...
Post a Comment
Read more

Don't it always seem to go that you don't know you've got till it's gone

If you are old enough (or, young enough) to get the reference, the title of this blog post is a line from a 1970 song . The next line is, "They paved paradise, and put up a parking lot." This is a post about things that we have as Evangelical Christians, but perhaps have failed to cherish and value. These are reasons to stay Evangelical - even if other Christian traditions might at times seem appealing, tempting even. Evangelical Christianity is the faith I have received, the form of Christianity I was born into spiritually, and which has been my home since 1991. At least in this post, my concern is not to question the legitimacy of other Christian traditions, such as Roman Catholicism or Eastern Orthodoxy, or the faith of those brought up in those traditions, so much as to value my own tradition, and to encourage my fellow evangelicals to "stick with it" and "dig deeper" rather than going elsewhere. This blog is dedicated to a couple of dear friends who i...
Post a Comment
Read more