{"author":null,"canonical_references":[],"database_sha256":"8cfbe7284c6936871d57c02dc6aa63ebbdfd4722422d539dd9f716e46e91112e","date_end":null,"date_start":null,"edition_year":null,"id":"sermonindex-ecf-6563","native_reference":{"book_number":650,"chapter_from":12,"chapter_to":12,"system":"MyBible module coordinates (mapping unverified)","verse_from":2,"verse_to":2},"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>Augustine of Hippo</b>: Our being born again by water and the Spirit is not a recompense for any merit but is freely given. And if faith has led us to the bath of regeneration, we ought not for that reason to think that we have first given something, so that our saving regeneration might be given us in return. For that one has made us believe in Christ who made for us the Christ in whom we believe. That one made in humans the beginning and the completion of their faith in Jesus who made the human Jesus \"the author and finisher of the faith,\" for this is what he is called, as you know, in the Epistle to the Hebrews.<br/><i>— PREDESTINATION OF THE SAINTS 31</i></p><p><b>Cyril of Jerusalem</b>: We preach not one coming of Christ but a second as well, far more glorious than the first. The first gave us a spectacle of his patience; the second will bring with it the crown of the kingdom of God. In general all things are twofold in our Lord Jesus Christ. His birth is twofold, one of God before the ages and one of a virgin in the consummation of the ages. His descent is twofold, one lowly, \"like the rain upon the fleece,\" and a second, his manifest coming, which is yet to be. In his first coming he was wrapped in swaddling clothes in the manger; in his second he will be \"robed in light as with a cloak.\" In his first coming he \"endured the cross, despising the shame\"; in his second he will come in glory, attended by a host of angels. We do not rest, therefore, in his first coming, but we look also for his second. Just as we said of his first coming, \"Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord,\" so we shall repeat the same at his second.<br/><i>— Catechetical Lecture 15:1</i></p><p><b>Ephrem the Syrian</b>: Let us look not toward human beings for the perfection of our faith. In fact, among them one is good for something, but the other is not. Rather let us look into \"Jesus Christ, the pioneer of faith,\" who was made our leader and \"the perfecter\" of our faith, because he began from the Jordan the fight against the enemy, then continued it in the desert, and finished it in Jerusalem through the cross, which was erected by the persecutors on Golgotha.<br/><i>— COMMENTARY ON THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS</i></p><p><b>Gregory of Nyssa</b>: And as fire that lies in wood hidden below the surface is often unobserved by the senses of those who see, or even touch it, but is manifest when it blazes up, so too, at His death (which He brought about at His will, Who separated His soul from His Body, Who said to His own Father \"Into Thy hands I commend My Spirit,\" Who, as He says, \"had power to lay it down and had power to take it again\"), He Who, because He is the Lord of glory, despised that which is shame among men, having concealed, as it were, the flame of His life in His bodily Nature, by the dispensation of His death, kindled and inflamed it once more by the power of His own Godhead, fostering into life that which had been brought to death, having infused with the infinity of His Divine power that humble first-fruits of our nature, made it also to be that which He Himself was—making the servile form to be Lord, and the Man born of Mary to be Christ, and Him Who was crucified through weakness to be Life and power, and making all that is piously conceived to be in God the Word to be also in that which the Word assumed, so that these attributes no longer seem to be in either Nature by way of division, but that the perishable Nature being, by its commixture with the Divine, made anew in conformity with the Nature that overwhelms it, participates in the power of the Godhead, as if one were to say that mixture makes a drop of vinegar mingled in the deep to be sea, by reason that the natural quality of this liquid does not continue in the infinity of that which overwhelms it. This is our doctrine.<br/><i>— AGAINST EUNOMIUS 5.5</i></p><p><b>Jerome</b>: God has entered us as contestants in a racecourse where it is our lot to be always striving. This place, then, a valley of tears, is not a condition of peace, not a state of security, but an arena of struggle and of endurance.<br/><i>— HOMILIES ON THE Psalms 16 (Psalms 83)</i></p><p><b>John Chrysostom</b>: In the next place as the sum and substance of his exhortation, which he puts both first and last, even Christ. \"Looking\" (he says) \"unto Jesus the Author and Finisher of our Faith\"; The very thing which Christ Himself also continually said to His disciples, \"If they have called the Master of the house Beelzebub, how much more them of His household?\" (Matt. x. 25.) And again, \"The disciple is not above his Master, nor the servant above his Lord.\" (Matt. x. 24.)</p><p>\"Looking\" (he says), that is, that we may learn to run. For as in all arts and games, we impress the art upon our mind by looking to our masters, receiving certain rules through our sight, so here also, if we wish to run, and to learn to run well, let us look to Christ, even to Jesus \"the author and finisher of our faith.\" What is this? He has put the Faith within us. For He said to His disciples, \"Ye have not chosen Me, but I have chosen you\" (John xv. 16); and Paul too says, \"But then shall I know, even as also I have been known.\" (1 Cor. xiii. 12.) He put the Beginning into us, He will also put on the End.</p><p>\"Who,\" he says, \"for the joy that was set before Him, endured the Cross, despising the shame.\" That is, it was in His power not to suffer at all, if He so willed. For \"He did no sin, neither was guile found in His mouth\" (1 Pet. ii. 22); as He also says in the Gospels, \"The Prince of the world cometh and hath nothing in Me.\" (John xiv. 30.) It lay then in His power, if so He willed, not to come to the Cross. For, \"I have power,\" He says, \"to lay down My life; and I have power to take it again.\" (John x. 18.) If then He who was under no necessity of being crucified, was crucified for our sake, how much more is it right that we should endure all things nobly!</p><p>\"Who for the joy that was set before Him\" (he says) \"endured the cross, despising the shame.\" But what is, \"Despising the shame\"? He chose, he means, that ignominious death. For suppose that He died. Why should He also die ignominiously? For no other reason, but to teach us to make no account of glory from men. Therefore though under no obligation He chose it, teaching us to be bold against it, and to set it at nought. Why did he say not \"pain,\" but \"shame\"? Because it was not with pain that He bore these things.</p><p>What then is the end? \"He is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.\" Seest thou the prize which Paul also says in an epistle, \"Wherefore God also hath highly exalted Him, and given Him a Name which is above every name, that at the Name of Jesus Christ every knee should bow.\" (Phil. ii. 9, 10.) He speaks in respect to the flesh. Well then, even if there were no prize, the example would suffice to persuade us to accept all such things. But now prizes also are set before us, and these no common ones, but great and unspeakable.<br/><i>— Homily on Hebrews 28</i></p><p><b>Theodoret of Cyrus</b>: He could have avoided suffering, he is saying, had he so chosen; but he put up with the suffering for the benefit of all. The Savior's joy is the salvation of human beings; for it he endured the suffering, and after the suffering he is seated with the Father who begot him.<br/><i>— INTERPRETATION OF Hebrews 12</i></p>","source_html_sha256":"8093ddbcd6f4725b4b55bec50b25ed8fa65f1ca6f3bebd040e1ce6dfb587bced","source_module":"ECF","source_row_id":6563,"source_url":"https://www.sermonindex.net/commentary/ecf/","text_sha256":"fdfca4335fc6633220a7bbd46fea25d45fc9058ba67fd71fdc8848a2d55f9fe8","translator":null,"work":null}