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| A Difficulty, How We are Justified in the Blood of the Son of God.
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Chapter 11.—A Difficulty,
How We are Justified in the Blood of the Son of God.
15. But what is meant by
“justified in His blood?” What power is there in this blood, I
beseech you, that they who believe should be justified in it? And
what is meant by “being reconciled by the death of His Son?”
Was it indeed so, that when God the Father was wroth with us, He
saw the death of His Son for us, and was appeased towards us? Was
then His Son already so far appeased towards us, that He even
deigned to die for us; while the Father was still so far wroth,
that except His Son died for us, He would not be appeased? And
what, then, is that which the same teacher of the Gentiles himself
says in another place: “What shall we then say to these things?
If God be for us, who can be against us? He that spared not His own
Son, but delivered Him up for us all; how has He not with Him also
freely given us all things?”811
Pray, unless the Father had been
already appeased, would He have delivered up His own Son, not
sparing Him for us? Does not this opinion seem to be as it were
contrary to that? In the one, the Son dies for us, and the Father
is reconciled to us by His death; in the other, as though the
Father first loved us, He Himself on our account does not spare the
Son, He Himself for us delivers Him up to death. But I see that the
Father loved us also before, not only before the Son died for us,
but before He created the world; the apostle himself being witness,
who says, “According as He hath chosen us in Him before the
foundation of the world.”812
Nor was the Son delivered up for us
as it were unwillingly, the Father Himself not sparing Him; for it
is said also concerning Him, “Who loved me, and delivered up
Himself for me.”813
Therefore together both the Father
and the Son, and the Spirit of both, work all things equally and
harmoniously; yet we are justified in the blood of Christ, and we
are reconciled to God by the death of His Son. And I will explain,
as I shall be able, here also, how this was done, as much as may
seem sufficient.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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