EARLY CHURCH ON JESUS’ ATONING DEATH

The following quotes on the extent of Jesus’ death are all from Catholic apologist William Albrecht. All emphasis will be mine.

John Cassian: For if He willeth not that one of His little ones should perish, HOW CANE WE IMAGINE WITHOUT GRIEVOUS BLASPHEMY THAT HE DOES NOT GENERALLY WILL ALL MEN, BUT ONLY SOME INSTEAD OF ALL TO BE SAVED? Those then who perish, perish against His will, as He testifies against each one of them day by day: “Turn from your evil ways, and why will ye die, O house of Israel?” And again: “How often would I have gathered thy children together as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not;” and: “Wherefore is this people in Jerusalem turned away with a stubborn revolting? They have hardened their faces and refused to return.” (Matt 23:37, Jer 8:5) The grace of Christ then is at hand every day, which, while it “willeth all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth,” calleth all without any exception, saying: “Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will refresh you.” (Matt11:28) But if He calls not all generally BUT ONLY SOME, it follows that not all are heavy laden either with original or actual sin, and that this saying is not a true one: “For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God;” nor can we believe that “death passed on all men.” (Rom 3:23, 5:12) And so far do all who perish, perish against the will of God, that God cannot be said to have made death, as Scripture itself testifies: “For God made not death, neither rejoiceth in the destruction of the living.” (Wisdom 1:13) And hence it comes that for the most part when instead of good things we ask for the opposite, our prayer is either heard but tardily or not at all; and again the Lord vouchsafes to bring upon us even against our will, like some most beneficent physician, for our good what we think is opposed to it, and sometimes He delays and hinders our injurious purposes and deadly attempts from having their horrible effects, and, while we are rushing headlong towards death, draws us back to salvation, and rescues us without our knowing it from the jaws of hell.” (The Conferences 13:7)

Ephrem the Syrian: GOD TASTED DEATH FOR EVERY ONE, but, because his immortal nature could not die in the flesh in which he died, he who was dead, as it is, did not die. He did not die because of his nature; he nominally clothed himself with death for his love to us. Since he was superior to death by his nature, death could not approach him. (Commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews)

Theodoret of Cyr: Of course, he endured the suffering FOR ALL: EVERYTHING in possession of created nature needed this healing. He said as much, in fact, “so that apart from God he would taste death for everyone,” only the divine nature is without need (he is saying); all other things needed the remedy of the incarnation. By becoming man God the Word destroyed the power of death; in destroying it he promised us resurrection, to resurrection he linked incorruptibility and immortality, and visible things also will share in incorruptibility. (Interpretation of Hebrews 2)

Mathetes or the letter to diognetes: And so, when he had planned everything by himself in union with his Child, he still allowed us, through the former time, to be carried away by undisciplined impulses…. And so, when our unrighteousness had come to its full term, and it had become perfectly plain that its recompense of punishment and death had to be expected, then the season arrived in which God had determined to show at last his goodness and power. O the overflowing kindness and love of God toward man! God did not hate us, or drive us away, or bear us ill will. Rather, he was long-suffering and forbearing. In his mercy, he took up the burden of our sins. He himself gave up his own Son as a ransom for us—the holy one for the unjust, the innocent for the guilty, the righteous one for the unrighteous, the incorruptible for the corruptible, the immortal for the mortal. (Letter to Diognetus 9.1-2)

Ignatius of Antioch: For says [the Scripture], “Thine eye shall not spare him. ”You ought therefore to “hate those that hate God, and to waste away [with grief] on account of His enemies. ”I do not mean that you should beat them or persecute them, as do the Gentiles “that know not the Lord and God;” but that you should regard them as your enemies, and separate yourselves from them, while yet you admonish them, and exhort them to repentance, if it may be they will hear, if it may be they will submit themselves. For our God is a lover of mankind, and “will have ALL MEN to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the truth.”. Wherefore “He makes His sun to rise upon the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust;”. of whose kindness the Lord, wishing us also to be imitators, says, “Be ye perfect, even as also your Father that is in heaven is perfect.”  (Epistle to the Philadelphians III)

Cyril of Jerusalem: Do not wonder that THE WHOLE WORLD was redeemed, for it was no mere man but the Only-begotten Son of God who died for it. The sin of one man, Adam, availed to bring death to the world; if by one man’s offense death reigned for the world, why should not life reign all the more “from the justice of the one?” If Adam and Eve were cast out of paradise because of the tree from which they ate, should not believers more easily enter into paradise because of the Tree of Jesus? If the first man, fashioned out of the earth, brought universal death, shall not he who fashioned him, being the Life, bring everlasting life? If Phinees by his zeal in slaying the evildoer appeased the wrath of God, shall not Jesus, who slew no other, but “gave himself a ransom FOR ALL,” take away God’s wrath against man? (Catechetical Lectures 13.2)

Cyril of Alexandria: But how is it that “one died for all,” one who is worth all others, if the suffering is considered simply THAT OF SOME MEN? If he suffered according to his human nature, since he made the sufferings of his body his own… . The death of him alone according to the flesh is known to be worth THE LIFE OF ALL, not the death of one who is as we are, even though he became like to us, but we say that he, being God by nature, became flesh and was made man according to the confession of the Fathers. (Letter 50)

Chrysostom: “The love of Christ,” he says, “constrains us,” that is, urges, impels, coerces us. Then, wishing to explain what had been said by him, he says, convinced of this, that if one person [died] indeed for all, then all have died, he did die for all so that the living might live no longer for themselves but for the one who died and rose for them. Do you see how appropriate it was for him to say, “The love of Christ constrains us”? He is saying, you see, if he died for the sake of us all, he died for the purpose that we the living might live no longer for ourselves but for him who died and rose for us. Accordingly, let us heed the apostolic exhortation, not living for ourselves but for him who died and rose for us. (Homilies on Genesis 34.15)

Chrysostom: Do you see the fruit of the cross, how great it is? Fear not the matter, for it seems to you indeed to be dismal, but it brings forth innumerable good things. From these considerations he shows the benefit of trial. Then he says, “that by the grace of God he might taste death for every one.” “That by the grace of God,” he says. And he indeed suffered these things because of the grace of God toward us. “He who did not spare his own Son,” he says, “but gave him up for us all.” Why? He did not owe us this but has done it of grace. And again, in the epistle to the Romans he says, “Much more have the grace of God and the free gift in the grace of that one man Jesus Christ abounded for many.” This occurred “that by the grace of God he might taste death for every one,” not for the faithful only, BUT EVEN FOR THE WHOLE WORLD, for he indeed died FOR ALL. But what if all have not believed? He has fulfilled his own part. Moreover, he said rightly, “taste death for every one”; he did not say “die.” For as if he really was tasting it, when he had spent a little time in the grave, he immediately arose. (On the Epistle to the Hebrews 4.3)

Augustine: Paul said: “Therefore all died; and Christ died FOR ALL, in order that they who are alive may live no longer for themselves, but for him who died for them and rose again.” ALL PEOPLE, consequently, WITHOUT A SINGLE EXCEPTION, were dead through sin, original sin or original with personal sin superadded, either by ignorance of or conscious refusal to do what is right. AND FOR ALL THESE DEAD SOULS ONE LIVING MAN DIED—a man utterly free from sin—with the intention that those who come alive by forgiveness of their sins live no longer for themselves but for him who died for all on account of our sins and rose again for our justification. (City of God 20.6)

Augustine: As the apostle says, and as we have often repeated: “Since one died for all, therefore all died, and he died for all in order that they who are alive may live no longer for themselves but for him who died for them and rose again.” The living are those for whom he who was living died in order that they might live; more plainly, they are freed from the chains of death, they for whom the one free among the dead died. Or, still more plainly: they have been freed from sin, for whom he who was never in sin died. Although he died once, he dies for each at that time when each, whatever his age, is baptized in his death; that is, the death of him who was without sin benefits each man at the time when, having been baptized in his death, he who was dead in sin shall also die to sin. (Against Julian 6.15.48)

Augustine: Let us then, first of all, lay down this proposition, and see whether it satisfies the question before us: that free will, naturally assigned by the Creator to our rational soul, is such a neutral power, as can either incline towards faith, or turn towards unbelief. Consequently a man cannot be said to have even that will with which he believes in God, without having received it; since this rises at the call of God out of the free will which he received naturally when he was created. God no doubt wishes ALL MEN to be savedand to come into the knowledge of the truth; but yet not so as to take away from them free will, for the good or the evil use of which they may be most righteously judged. This being the case, unbelievers indeed do contrary to the will of God when they do not believe His gospel; nevertheless they do not therefore overcome His will, but rob their own selves of the great, nay, the very greatest, good, and implicate themselves in penalties of punishment, destined to experience the power of Him in punishments whose mercy in His gifts they despised. Thus God’s will is forever invincible; but it would be vanquished, unless it devised what to do with such as despised it, or if these despises could in any way escape from the retribution which He has appointed for such as they. (A Treatise on the Spirit and Letter Chapter 58)

Hilary of Poitiers: Do you now perceive what it is to be the image of God? It means that all things are created in Him through Him. Whereas all things are created in Him, understand that He, Whose image He is, also creates all things in Him. And since all things which are created in Him are also created through Him, recognize that in Him Who is the image there is present the nature of Him, Whose image He is. For through Himself He creates the things which are created in Him, just as through Himself ALL THINGS are reconciled in Him. Inasmuch as they are reconciled in Him, recognise in Him the nature of the Father’s unity, reconciling all things to Himself in Him. Inasmuch as all things are reconciled through Him, perceive Him reconciling to the Father in Himself all things which He reconciled through Himself. (De Trinitate Book VIII)

Pope St. Leo the Great: For as it cannot be denied that “the Word became flesh and dwelt in us,” so it cannot be denied that “God was in Christ, reconciling the world to Himself.

But what reconciliation can there be, whereby God might be propitiated FOR THE HUMAN RACE, unless the mediator between God and man took up the cause OF ALL? And in what way could He properly fulfil His mediation, unless He who in the form of God was equal to the Father, were a sharer of our nature also in the form of a slave: so that the one new Man might effect a renewal of the old: and the bond of death fastened on us by one man’s wrong-doing. Its original technical meaning is the action of an advocate who plays into the enemy’s hand. In theology the devil (διάβολος) is man’s adversary, and man himself is be fooled into collusion with him by breaking God’s Law.

For the pouring out of the blood of the righteous on behalf of the unrighteous was so powerful in its effects, so rich a ransom that, if the whole body of us prisoners only believed in their Redeemer, not one would be held in the tyrant’s bonds: since as the Apostle says, “where sin abounded, grace also did much more aboundAnd since we, who were born under the imputation. (To the Monks of Palestine)

FURTHER READING

John Calvin and Particular Redemption

The Case for Unlimited Atonement Pt. 1

LIMITED ATONEMENT DEBATE PT. 2

CHARLES HADDON SPURGEON VS. JAMES WHITE

HOW JUDAS ISCARIOT REFUTES CALVINISM

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