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

Bury, Greater Manchester - Timeline of churches

979?      First Church on the site of the present Parish Church (the picture below is an artist's impression of Bury parish church in 1485). This was the only church in the town of Bury until 1719 (see below).  1585      Parish church (re)built in the gothic style . 1650     During the Commonwealth, Henry Pendlebury was ordained for  Holcombe Chapelry.  1662     Having been ejected from the Church of England,  Henry Pendlebury of Holcombe   (1626-1695) held services at a Chapel on Bass Lane by Richard Kay, and others ejected from the C of E (replaced in 1712 by Dundee Chapel, Holcombe) 1669      The vicar of Bury parish reported to the Bishop of Chester that he heard several conventicles were "constantly kept at private houses of Independents, Presbyterians, Dippers and other such like jointly, of the bset rank of the yeomanry and other inferiors." 1689      ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Ebenezer Baptist Church in Bury (now, Bury Baptist Church)

The beginnings of what became Ebenezer Baptist Church in Bury go back to Andrew Nuttall (1784-1846) from Haslingden who came to live in Bury and started the "cause" as a branch of West Street Church in Rochdale, and later taken on by the "County Home Mission". In 1844, the Home Mission appointed Joseph Harvey as its missioner, and this led to the church being constituted in 1845 with fifteen members including Joseph Harvey (the founding pastor) and Andrew Nuttall.  During Harvey's pastorate, in 1853, the church moved into a permanent building on Knowsley Street (on the site of the present Art Picture House opposite the travel interchange). There may have been another Baptist church building on Spring Street completed in 1852.  Sometime around 1853, Joseph Harvey would baptise as a believer Franklin Howorth (d.1882), former minister of Bank Street Unitarian Chapel in Bury. Howorth amicably resigned the ministry at Bank Street and in 1854 started the "Free Ch...
Post a Comment
Read more

William Tyndale & the translation of the Bible into English

This year (2025) marks the 500 anniversary of the translation of the Bible into English by William Tyndale.  There were translations of the Bible from Hebrew/Greek into other languages from the earliest centuries of the Christian church. The first languages to "get" translations were Syriac (the area stretching eastwards from Antioch), Latin (Rome and western Europe) and Coptic (Egypt). Later, in the centuries from the 300s to 500s, translations were also made into Gothic, Armenian, Georgian and Ge'ez (Ethiopia) languages.   There had been translations of the Bible into English before Tyndale. The Venerable Bede, a leading monk living at Jarrow from the late 600s, undertook a translation of John's gospel into English. Also, King Alfred (849-899) translated the first five books of the Old Testament into English. Later, in 1384, Reformer John Wycliffe and his followers completed a translation into English from the Latin (Vulgate). However, the institutional church durin...
Post a Comment
Read more