Voices from the Past: Meditations on the Person and Work of Christ
Athenasius, Bishop of Alexandria, was born around 295 of wealthy parents who invested in his theological training. In his Easter Letter of 367 he listed as canonical the twenty-seven books we now have in the New Testament; for this contribution he became known as the “Father of the Canon.” But it is his fight against the heresy of Arianism that Athenasius is best known for. As a young man of 27 he attended the First Council of Nicaea (325) and took a leading role in the conflict. The rest of his life was given to the defense of the person Christ as being co-equal, co-eternal, and co-substantial with the Father, for if Christ be not all He said He is then He cannot be our Saviour. For these convictions he suffered exile five times and died in Alexandria 2nd May 373.
Reading “For if through the offence of one many be dead, much more the grace of God, and the gift by grace, which is by one man, Jesus Christ, hath abounded unto many.” Romans 5:15
As we have already noted, it was unthinkable that God, the Father of truth, should go back upon His word regarding death in order to ensure our continued existence. He could not falsify Himself. What, then, was God to do? Was He to demand repentance from men for their transgression? You might say that that was worthy of God.
You might argue further that, as through the transgression they became subject to corruption, so through repentance they might return to incorruption again. But repentance would not guard the divine consistency, for death holds dominion over men. Nor does repentance recall men from what is according to their nature; all that it does is to make them cease from sinning.
Had it been a case of a trespass only, and not of a subsequent corruption, repentance would have been well enough; but when once transgression had begun men came under the power of the corruption proper to their nature and were bereft of the grace which belonged to them as creatures in the image of God.
No, repentance alone cannot redeem! What—or rather Who—was it that was needed for such grace and such recall as we required? Who, save the Word of God Himself, Who also in the beginning had made all things out of nothing? His part it was, and His alone, both to bring again the corruptible to incorruption and to maintain for the Father His consistency of character with all. For He alone, being Word of the Father and above all, was in consequence both able to recreate all, and worthy to suffer on behalf of all and to be an ambassador for all with the Father.
Athanasius, On the Incarnation of the Word
