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| Of the Same Subject.
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Chapter
15.—Of the Same Subject.
19. It is not then difficult to see
that the devil was conquered, when he who was slain by Him rose
again. It is something more, and more profound of comprehension, to
see that the devil was conquered when he thought himself to have
conquered, that is, when Christ was slain. For then that blood,
since it was His who had no sin at all, was poured out for the
remission of our sins; that, because the devil deservedly held
those whom, as guilty of sin, he bound by the condition of death,
he might deservedly loose them through Him, whom, as guilty of no
sin, the punishment of death undeservedly affected. The strong man
was conquered by this righteousness, and bound with this chain,
that his vessels might be spoiled,827
which with himself and his angels
had been vessels of wrath while with him, and might be turned into
vessels of mercy.828
For the
Apostle Paul tells us, that these words of our Lord Jesus Christ
Himself were spoken from heaven to him when he was first called.
For among the other things which he heard, he speaks also of this
as said to him thus: “For I have appeared unto thee for this
purpose, to make thee a minister and a witness both of these things
which thou hast seen from me, and of those things in the which I
will appear unto thee; delivering thee from the people, and from
the Gentiles, unto whom now I send thee, to open the eyes of the
blind, and to turn them from darkness [to light], and from the
power of Satan unto God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins,
and inheritance among them which are sanctified, and faith that is
in me.”829
And hence
the same apostle also, exhorting believers to the giving of thanks
to God the Father, says: “Who hath delivered us from the power of
darkness and hath translated us into the kingdom of His dear Son:
in whom we have redemption, even the forgiveness of sins.”830
In this
redemption, the blood of Christ was given, as it were, as a price
for us, by accepting which the devil was not enriched, but bound:831
| 831 [In this representation of
Augustin, the relics of that misconception which appears in the
earlier soteriology, paricularly that of Irenæus, are seen:
namely, that the death of Christ ransoms the sinner from Satan.
Certain texts which teach that redemption delivers from the
captivity to sin and Satan, were interpreted to teach deliverance
from the claims of Satan. Augustin’s soteriology is more
free from this error than that of Irenæus, yet not entirely free
from it. The doctrine of justification did not obtain its most
consistent and complete statement in the Patristic
church.—W.G.T.S.] | that we
might be loosened from his bonds, and that he might not with
himself involve in the meshes of sins, and so deliver to the
destruction of the second and eternal death,832
any one of those whom Christ, free
from all debt, had redeemed by pouring out His own blood
unindebtedly; but that they who belong to the grace of Christ,
foreknown, and predestinated, and elected before the foundation of
the world833
should only
so far die as Christ Himself died for them, i.e. only by the
death of the flesh, not of the spirit.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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