{"author":null,"canonical_references":[],"database_sha256":"8cfbe7284c6936871d57c02dc6aa63ebbdfd4722422d539dd9f716e46e91112e","date_end":null,"date_start":null,"edition_year":null,"id":"sermonindex-ecf-210","native_reference":{"book_number":530,"chapter_from":15,"chapter_to":15,"system":"MyBible module coordinates (mapping unverified)","verse_from":3,"verse_to":3},"public_import_allowed":false,"record_kind":"verse-keyed-module-record","review_required":["English edition and exact text","author/work attribution","dating","verse mapping and citation kind","reuse and attribution","split author quotations and deduplicate"],"review_status":"unreviewed","source_html":"<p><b>Ambrose of Milan</b>: The Son loses nothing when he bestows upon all, just as he also loses nothing when the Father receives the kingdom, nor does the Father suffer loss when he gives what is his own to the Son.<br/><i>— On the Holy Spirit 1.3.49</i></p><p><b>Ambrosiaster</b>: The prophet Isaiah said: \"He was led like a sheep to the slaughter\" [Isaiah 53:7] and so on. Revelation [13:8] adds that he was slain from before the foundation of the world. And Deuteronomy [28:66] says: \"You will see your life hanging before your eyes, yet you will not believe.\" This is expressed in the future tense, to prevent the wicked from claiming that it does not apply to Christ.<br/><i>— COMMENTARY ON PAUL'S EPISTLES</i></p><p><b>Cyril of Alexandria</b>: He made his life be an exchange for the life of all. One died for all, in order that we all might live to God sanctified and brought to life through his blood, justified as a gift by his grace.<br/><i>— LETTER 41.11</i></p><p><b>Cyril of Jerusalem</b>: The iniquity of sinners was not as great as the justice of the One who died for them. The sins we committed were not as great as the justice he embodied, when he laid down his life for us.<br/><i>— Catechetical Lecture 13</i></p><p><b>Irenaeus</b>: But who is it that has had fellowship with us in the matter of food? Whether is it he who is conceived of by them as the Christ above, who extended himself through Horos, and imparted a form to their mother; or is it He who is from the Virgin, Emmanuel, who did eat butter and honey, of whom the prophet declared, \"He is also a man, and who shall know him?\" He was likewise preached by Paul: \"For I delivered,\" he says, \"unto you first of all, that Christ died for our sins, according to the Scriptures; and that He was buried, and rose again the third day, according to the Scriptures.\" It is plain, then, that Paul knew no other Christ besides Him alone, who both suffered, and was buried, and rose again, who was also born, and whom he speaks of as man. For after remarking, \"But if Christ be preached, that He rose from the dead,\" he continues, rendering the reason of His incarnation, \"For since by man came death, by man [came] also the resurrection of the dead.\" And everywhere, when [referring to] the passion of our Lord, and to His human nature, and His subjection to death, he employs the name of Christ, as in that passage: \"Destroy not him with thy meat for whom Christ died.\" And again: \"But now, in Christ, ye who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ.\" And again: \"Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth upon a tree.\" And again: \"And through thy knowledge shall the weak brother perish, for whom Christ died;\" indicating that the impassible Christ did not descend upon Jesus, but that He Himself, because He was Jesus Christ, suffered for us; He, who lay in the tomb, and rose again, who descended and ascended,-the Son of God having been made the Son of man, as the very name itself doth declare.<br/><i>— Irenaeus Against Heresies Book 3</i></p><p><b>John Chrysostom</b>: \"For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received.\"</p><p>Neither here doth he say, \"I said unto you,\" nor, \"I taught you,\" but uses the same expression again, saying, \"I delivered unto you that which also I received:\" nor again here doth he say, \"I was taught,\" but, \"I received:\" establishing these two things; first, that one ought to introduce nothing from one's self; next, that by demonstration from his deeds they were fully persuaded, not by bare words: and by degrees while he is rendering his argument credible, he refers the whole to Christ, and signifies that nothing was of man in these doctrines.</p><p>But what is this, \"For I delivered unto you first of all?\" for that is his word. \"In the beginning, not now.\" And thus saying he brings the time for a witness, and that it were the greatest disgrace for those who had so long time been persuaded now to change their minds: and not this only, but also that the doctrine is necessary. Wherefore also it was \"delivered\" among \"the first,\" and from the beginning straightway. And what didst thou so deliver? tell me. But this he doth not say straightway, but first, \"I received.\" And what didst thou receive? \"That Christ died for our sins.\" He said not immediately that there is a resurrection of our bodies, yet this very thing in truth he doth establish, but afar off and by other topics saying that \"Christ died,\" and laying before a kind of strong base and irrefragable foundation of the doctrine concerning the resurrection. For neither did he simply say that \"Christ died;\" although even this were sufficient to declare the resurrection, but with an addition, \"Christ died for our sins.\"</p><p>But first it is worth while to hear what those who are infected with the Manichaean doctrines say here, who are both enemies to the truth and war against their own salvation. What then do these allege? By death here, they say, Paul means nothing else than our being in sin; and by resurrection, our being delivered from our sins. Seest thou how nothing is weaker than error? And how it is taken by its own wings, and needs not the warfare from without, but by itself it is pierced through? Consider, for instance, these men, how they too have pierced themselves through by their own statements. Since if this be death, and Christ did not take a body, as ye suppose, and yet died, He was in sin according to you. For I indeed say that He took unto Himself a body and His death, I say, was that of the flesh; but thou denying this, wilt be compelled to affirm the other. But if He was in sin, how saith He, \"Which of you convinceth Me of sin?\" and \"The prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing in me?\" and again, \"Thus it becometh Us to fulfill all righteousness?\" Nay, how did He at all die for sinners, if Himself were in sin? For he who dies for sinners ought himself to be without sin. Since if he himself also sin, how shall he die for other sinners? But if for others' sins He died, He died being without sin: and if being without sin He died, He died not the death of sin; for how could He being without sin? but the death of the body. Wherefore also Paul did not simply say, \"He died,\" but added, \"for our sins:\" both forcing these heretics against their will to the confession of His bodily death, and signifying also by this that before death He was without sin: for he that dies for others' sins, it followeth must himself be without sin.</p><p>Neither was he content with this, but added, \"according to the Scriptures:\" hereby both again making his argument credible, and intimating what kind of death he was speaking of: since it is the death of the body which the Scriptures everywhere proclaim. For, \"they pierced My hands and My feet,\" saith He, and, \"they shall look on Him Whom they pierced.\" And many other instances, too numerous to name all one by one, one may see in them stored up, setting forth His slaughter in the flesh and that He was slain for our sins. For, \"for the sins of my people,\" saith one, \"is He come to death:\" and, \"the Lord delivered Him up for our sins:\" and, \"He was wounded for our transgressions.\" But if thou dost not endure the Old Testament, hear John crying out and declaring both, as well His slaughter in the body as the cause of it: thus, \"Behold,\" saith he, \"the Lamb of God, Who taketh away the sin of the world:\" and Paul saying, \"For Him Who knew no sin, He made to be sin on our behalf, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him:\" and again, \"Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us:\" and again, \"having put off from himself principalities and powers, He made a show of them openly, triumphing over them;\" and ten thousand other sayings to show what happened at His death in the body, and because of our sins. Yea, and Christ Himself saith, \"for your sakes I sanctify Myself\" and, \"now the prince of this world hath been condemned;\" showing that having no sin he was slain.<br/><i>— Homily on 1 Corinthians 38</i></p><p><b>Origen of Alexandria</b>: After these points, Celsus proceeds to bring against the Gospel narrative a charge which is not to be lightly passed over, saying that \"if Jesus desired to show that his power was really divine, he ought to have appeared to those who had ill-treated him, and to him who had condemned him, and to all men universally.\" For it appears to us also to be true, according to the Gospel account, that He was not seen after His resurrection in the same manner as He used formerly to show Himself — publicly, and to all men. But it is recorded in the Acts, that \"being seen during forty days,\" He expounded to His disciples \"the things pertaining to the kingdom of God.\" [Acts 1:3] And in the Gospels it is not stated that He was always with them; but that on one occasion He appeared in their midst, after eight days, when the doors were shut [John 20:26], and on another in some similar fashion. And Paul also, in the concluding portions of the first Epistle to the Corinthians, in reference to His not having publicly appeared as He did in the period before He suffered, writes as follows: \"For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures; and that He was seen of Cephas, then of the twelve: after that He was seen of above five hundred brethren at once, of whom the greater part remain unto the present time, but some are fallen asleep. After that He was seen of James, then of all the apostles. And last of all He was seen of me also, as of one born out of due time.\" [1 Corinthians 15:3-8] I am of opinion now that the statements in this passage contain some great and wonderful mysteries, which are beyond the grasp not merely of the great multitude of ordinary believers, but even of those who are far advanced (in Christian knowledge), and that in them the reason would be explained why He did not show Himself, after His resurrection from the dead, in the same manner as before that event.<br/><i>— Contra Celsum, Book II, Chapter 63</i></p><p><b>Tertullian</b>: By ourselves the lower regions (of Hades) are not supposed to be a bare cavity, nor some subterranean sewer of the world, but a vast deep space in the interior of the earth, and a concealed recess in its very bowels; inasmuch as we read that Christ in His death spent three days in the heart of the earth, that is, in the secret inner recess which is hidden in the earth, and enclosed by the earth, and superimposed on the abysmal depths which lie still lower down. Now although Christ is God, yet, being also man, \"He died according to the Scriptures,\" and \"according to the same Scriptures was buried.<br/><i>— A Treatise on the Soul</i></p><p><b>Tertullian</b>: It was of Him, too, that he had said in a previous passage: \"Now unto the King eternal, immortal, invisible, to the only God; \" so that we might apply even the contrary qualities to the Son Himself-mortality, accessibility-of whom the apostle testifies that \"He died according to the Scriptures,\" and that \"He was seen by himself last of all,\" -by means, of course, of the light which was accessible, although it was not without imperilling his sight that he experienced that light.<br/><i>— Against Praxeas</i></p><p><b>Tertullian</b>: For even the apostle, to his declaration-which he makes not without feeling the weight of it-that \"Christ died,\" immediately adds, \"according to the Scriptures,\" in order that he may alleviate the harshness of the statement by the authority of the Scriptures, and so remove offence from the reader.<br/><i>— Against Praxeas</i></p><p><b>Tertullian</b>: For the Son, therefore, to die, amounted to His being forsaken by the Father. The Son, then, both dies and rises again, according to the Scriptures. It is the Son, too, who ascends to the heights of heaven, and also descends to the inner parts of the earth.<br/><i>— Against Praxeas</i></p>","source_html_sha256":"dde20fde703e357437ce7598e66218e4ac0bc6254d98804f6479318211aca748","source_module":"ECF","source_row_id":210,"source_url":"https://www.sermonindex.net/commentary/ecf/","text_sha256":"ff3b728a19a9820af4c9296ad15bf05d2c2ea33ec3e11af0a5aeef6c1a72b06d","translator":null,"work":null}