Bad Advertisement?
Are you a Christian?
Online Store:Visit Our Store
| The Remains of Death and the Evil Things of the World Turn to Good for the Elect. How Fitly the Death of Christ Was Chosen, that We Might Be Justified in His Blood. What the Anger of God is.
PREVIOUS SECTION - NEXT SECTION - HELP 
Chapter 16.—The Remains of
Death and the Evil Things of the World Turn to Good for the Elect.
How Fitly the Death of Christ Was Chosen, that We Might Be
Justified in His Blood. What the Anger of God is.
20. For although the death, too, of
the flesh itself came originally from the sin of the first man, yet
the good use of it has made most glorious martyrs. And so not only
that death itself, bat all the evils of this world, and the griefs
and labors of men, although they come from the deserts of sins, and
especially of original sin, whence life itself too became bound by
the bond of death, yet have fitly remained, even when sin is
forgiven; that man might have wherewith to contend for truth, and
whereby the goodness of the faithful might be exercised; in order
that the new man through the new covenant might be made ready among
the evils of this world for a new world, by bearing wisely the
misery which this condemned life deserved, and by rejoicing soberly
because it will be finished, but expecting faithfully and patiently
the blessedness which the future life, being set free, will have
for ever. For the devil being cast forth from his dominion, and
from the hearts of the faithful, in the condemnation and
faithlessness of whom he, although himself also condemned, yet
reigned, is only so far permitted to be an adversary according to
the condition of this mortality, as God knows to be expedient for
them: concerning which the sacred writings speak through the mouth
of the apostle: “God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be
tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also
make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it.”834
And those
evils which the faithful endure piously, are of profit either for
the correction of sins, or for the exercising and proving of
righteousness, or to manifest the misery of this life, that the
life where will be that true and perpetual blessedness may be
desired more ardently, and sought out more earnestly. But it is on
their account that these evils are still kept in being, of whom the
apostle says: “For we know that all things work together for good
to them that love God, to them who are called to be holy according
to His purpose. For whom He did foreknow, He also did predestinate
to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the
first-born among many brethren. Moreover, whom He did predestinate,
them He also called; and whom He called, them He also justified;
and whom He justified, them He also glorified.” It is of these
who are predestinated, that not one shall perish with the devil;
not one shall remain even to death under the power of the devil.
And then follows what I have already cited above:835
“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?”836
21. Why then should the death of
Christ not have come to pass? Nay, rather, why should not that
death itself have been chosen above all else to be brought to pass,
to the passing by of the other innumerable ways which He who is
omnipotent could have employed to free us; that death, I say,
wherein neither was anything diminished or changed from His
divinity, and so great benefit was conferred upon men, from the
humanity which He took upon Him, that a temporal death, which was
not due, was rendered by the eternal Son of God, who was also the
Son of man, whereby He might free them from an eternal death which
was due? The devil was holding fast our sins, and through them was
fixing us deservedly in death. He discharged them, who had none of
His own, and who was led by him to death undeservedly. That blood
was of such price, that he who even slew Christ for a time by a
death which was not due, can as his due detain no one, who has put
on Christ, in the eternal death which was due. Therefore “God
commendeth His love towards us, in that, while we were yet sinners,
Christ died for us. Much more then, being now justified in His
blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him.” Justified, he
says, in His blood,—justified plainly, in that we are freed from
all sin; and freed from all sin, because the Son of God, who knew
no sin, was slain for us. Therefore “we shall be saved from wrath
through Him;” from the wrath certainly of God, which is nothing
else but just retribution. For the wrath of God is not, as is that
of man, a perturbation of the mind; but it is the wrath of Him to
whom Holy Scripture says in another place, “But Thou, O Lord,
mastering Thy power, judgest with calmness.”837
| 837 Wisdom 12.18" id="iv.i.xv.xvi-p7.1" parsed="|Wis|12|18|0|0" osisRef="Bible:Wis.12.18">Wisd. xii. 18 | If, therefore, the just retribution
of God has received such a name, what can be the right
understanding also of the reconciliation of God, unless that then
such wrath comes to an end? Neither were we enemies to God, except
as sins are enemies to righteousness; which being forgiven, such
enmities come to an end, and they whom He Himself justifies are
reconciled to the Just One. And yet certainly He loved them even
while still enemies, since “He spared not His own Son, but
delivered Him up for us all,” when we were still enemies. And
therefore the apostle has rightly added: “For if, when we were
enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son,” by
which that remission of sins was made, “much more, being
reconciled, we shall be saved in His life.” Saved in life, who
were reconciled by death. For who can doubt that He will give His
life for His friends, for whom, when enemies, He gave His death?
“And not only so,” he says, “but we also joy in God, through
our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the
atonement.” “Not only,” he says, “shall we be saved,” but
“we also joy;” and not in ourselves, but “in God;” nor
through ourselves, “but through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we
have now received the atonement,” as we have argued above. Then
the apostle adds, “Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the
world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, in whom
all have sinned;”838
etc.: in which he disputes at some
length concerning the two men; the one the first Adam, through
whose sin and death we, his descendants, are bound by, as it were,
hereditary evils; and the other the second Adam, who is not only
man, but also God, by whose payment for us of what He owed not, we
are freed from the debts both of our first father and of ourselves.
Further, since on account of that one the devil held all who were
begotten through his corrupted carnal concupiscence, it is just
that on account of this one he should loose all who are regenerated
through His immaculate spiritual grace.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
|
