{"author":null,"canonical_references":[],"database_sha256":"8cfbe7284c6936871d57c02dc6aa63ebbdfd4722422d539dd9f716e46e91112e","date_end":null,"date_start":null,"edition_year":null,"id":"sermonindex-ecf-4340","native_reference":{"book_number":560,"chapter_from":5,"chapter_to":5,"system":"MyBible module coordinates (mapping unverified)","verse_from":27,"verse_to":27},"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>Apostolic Constitutions</b>: Do you therefore, who attend to the laws of God, esteem those laws more honourable than the necessities of this life, and pay a greater respect to them, and run together to the Church of the Lord, \"which He has purchased with the blood of Christ, the beloved, the first-born of every creature.\" For this Church is the daughter of the Highest, which has been in travail of you by the word of grace, and has \"formed Christ in you,\" of whom you are made partakers, and thereby become His holy and chosen members, \"not having spot or wrinkle, or any such thing; but as being holy and unspotted in the faith, ye are complete in Him, after the image of God that created you.\"<br/><i>— Constitutions of the Holy Apostles Book 2</i></p><p><b>Augustine of Hippo</b>: For in this sense must be understood that which the apostle whom we have so often quoted says elsewhere: \"Christ loved the Church, and gave Himself for it; that He might sanctify and cleanse it by the washing of water by the word that He might present it to Himself a glorious Church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing.\" It must, I say, be understood as implying, that by this laver of regeneration and word of sanctification all the evils of regenerate men of whatever kind are cleansed and healed,—not the sins only which are all now remitted in baptism, but those also which after baptism are committed by human ignorance and frailty; not, indeed, that baptism is to be repeated as often as sin is repeated, but that by its one only ministration it comes to pass that pardon is secured to the faithful of all their sins both before and after their regeneration.<br/><i>— ON MARRIAGE AND CONCUPISCENCE 1.38</i></p><p><b>Gaius Marius Victorinus</b>: What Christ is accomplishing [in baptism] is that the church should be \"holy and spotless.\" It is \"holy\" in that it has been cleansed by the washing of water by the Word. It is \"spotless\" in that it is without spot or wrinkle.<br/><i>— EPISTLE TO THE Ephesians 2.5.27</i></p><p><b>Origen of Alexandria</b>: To be without sin is understood in the Scriptures in two ways: the one, never to have sinned at all; the other, to have ceased from sinning. For it can come about that one who has sinned before, when he ceases from sinning, is said to be without sin. Thus also our Lord Jesus Christ \"presented to himself a glorious Church, not having spot\", not because the churchly man has never had a spot, but because he is by no means spotted any longer: \"not having wrinkle\", not that the wrinkle \"of the old man\" was never at some time in him, but that he has ceased to have it. In this manner also that which follows is to be understood: \"that it may be holy and unspotted\", not that from the beginning it was unspotted — for this indeed cannot be supposed of a man, that his soul was not spotted — but that it is reckoned pure and sincere, having ceased to be spotted any longer. We say these things for this reason, that we might teach that a man can, on the ground that he has ceased to sin, be called without sin and \"unspotted\".<br/><i>— HOMILIES ON THE GOSPEL OF Luke 2</i></p><p><b>Shepherd of Hermas</b>: And then the Son of God will be exceeding glad, and shall rejoice over them, because He has received His people pure.<br/><i>— Shepherd of Hermas, Similitude 9</i></p>","source_html_sha256":"d61431a415ae5b14211bba7d7d2bfc7bc010c38326b151194475741c0b7cc0c9","source_module":"ECF","source_row_id":4340,"source_url":"https://www.sermonindex.net/commentary/ecf/","text_sha256":"5ec5ce74debe8de47d20c5cad0667eddd1003cd9bf8331e082e5a693580867a7","translator":null,"work":null}