He passes to a word about the essence of the New Covenant of grace. This discourse may be connected with what precedes in this way. Although the Apostle’s precise thought in the preceding text is not clear, one cannot fail to see his constant zeal. He wished to do all things for the glory of God and the salvation of men.
What inspired him to this? Love. Blessed Theophylact also interprets the word “we were beside ourselves” as meaning that the Apostle was in ecstasy from his strong love for God. This love made him forget himself, so that he knew no measure in the impulses of self-denial.
And by what was this love nourished? By contemplation of the death of Christ the Savior for all men. When I think of this, he says, the love of God embraces my soul. I enter into the sense of God’s love, and I myself am set aflame with love.
Yet in interpreting the Apostle’s words further, it is better not to place them in relation to the preceding discourse. That could constrain his exalted teaching on the essence of the Covenant of grace. It is better to regard what precedes only as an occasion, or transition, to the exposition of this teaching.
“The love of God,” του Χριστου, means the love of Christ. It is the love which Christ the Lord showed when He was pleased to die for all, for He died from love alone. Yet, as “the love of God” often means divine love, or Godlike love, so in the expression “the love of Christ” one hears Christlike love.
The verb also leads to this: “constrains,” συνεχει, that is, seizes and embraces. For the love of Christ to seize and embrace us, it must be received into feeling. If anyone accepts the love of Christ with the whole fullness of his heart, he cannot but burn with the same love.
This love will unite warm thanksgiving to so great a Benefactor with self-denying readiness for all things for His sake. Above all, it will make him ready to do every good to all. This is because such good is most pleasing to Christ the Lord, and because he feels brotherhood with them in Christ.
Thus, if the love of Christ constrains someone, it is necessarily also Christlike. This love constrains us who have judged this, who have considered it, weighed it, and embraced it with the mind as far as possible. One cannot burn with the love of Christ without recognizing it, and without imagining all its immeasurable greatness.
Contemplation of Christ’s love, reflected in the heart, kindles the heart with love. Reflection on this love always bears this fruit. Here “judgment” does not mean comprehension. It means awareness of the incomprehensible greatness of Christ’s love, especially from the side indicated here by the Apostle.
He points precisely to Christ’s death for all, which took away the power of death from all. “For what greater love is there than to die for the whole universe lying in evil?” says St. Chrysostom. Blessed Theodoret writes: “We burn, says the Apostle, with love for Christ, reasoning that when we were subject to death, He alone accepted death for us, so that life might be gained for us all.”
“If One died for all, then all died.” The force of the saying is this: One died for all means that all died. Otherwise it could not be said that He died for all. The death of Him alone contained the death of all. In His death all died.
If this were not so, “if all had not died in Him, then Christ would not have died for all” (St. Chrysostom). In what sense this is true, the Apostle does not explain here. In the Epistle to the Hebrews he says that the Lord Jesus Christ, by the grace of God, tasted death for everyone (Heb 2:9).
In the Epistle to Timothy he explains that this grace was appointed for us before eternal times. He also says that the Lord, who tasted death, abolished death (2 Tim 1:10). If these words are understood literally, “He abolished death” and “all died in Him,” one would have to expect that after the Lord’s death no one should die.
Yet all do die, and the word of God is not false. Therefore one must conclude that there is a sense in which death has been abolished by Christ’s death, and all have already died in Him. At the same time, all must still die, as indeed they do.
This leads us to a brief outline of the mystery of the whole divine economy of salvation. God did not create death. It entered the world through sin. God told the first parents that if they transgressed the commandment, they would die. They transgressed, and they died. Death at once came into force.
That they died in soul was immediately shown by their attempt to hide from God. It was also shown by their covering over the sin and shifting it from one to the other. That they did not die bodily at once was the result of the grace appointed for us before eternal times.
This grace entered into the plans of world-being. The angels fell and were left in their fall, because of their extreme obstinacy in evil and opposition to God. If all of them had fallen, this link would have dropped out of the chain of creation, and the system of world-being would have been disrupted.
But since not all fell, but only a part, their link remained, and the harmony of the world remained unbroken. Man was created alone with his wife, so that they might beget the full number of persons who were to compose the human link in the system of world-being.
When he fell, this link fell out, and the world was losing its order. Since this link is necessary in the order of the world, one of two things had to happen. Either the fallen ones, as had been decreed, had to be given over to death, and new ancestors created. Or they had to be given a reliable means of restoration to their first rank.
Since the fall did not occur because, so to speak, the first creation was unsuccessful, but because created freedom contained the possibility of falling, wisdom judged otherwise. This was especially true of the freedom of a spirit physically united with a body. If creation had begun to be repeated, perhaps it would have had to be repeated without end.
Therefore the wisdom of God, guided by boundless goodness, judged to arrange another means of rising for the fallen. In the arrangement of this means, the first place had to be occupied by the fulfillment of the sentence of eternal justice: “In dying you shall die.” There had to enter in a death equal in force to the death of all men.
By virtue of that death, all would be considered already dead, or as having paid the debt of death. Through this they would receive the right to live again in hope of life. For this the Son of God and God Himself had to take human nature upon Himself, with all its infirmities except sin, and die in it.
This death, as the death of God in the flesh, had to possess boundless value and universal scope. As an innocent death, it could be imputed to others under sufficient conditions. In this lies the grace appointed for us before eternal times.
This decree entered into the plans of world-being and, where needed, appeared active in providential power. Yet its actual fulfillment had its appointed time. In the middle of the sixth millennium after the fall, the Son of God came, was incarnate, and died on the Cross.
God died according to human nature, and in this one death He truly contained the deaths of all men. One died, and all died. Contemplating this, the Apostle cried out: “The love of Christ constrains us, who have judged this.”
But if all died, has death been destroyed? Indeed it has. God, having died according to human nature, abolished death (2 Tim 1:10), for on the third day He rose in glorified humanity. From that moment He abides in this Resurrection. Humanity has already tasted the glory and majesty of the Resurrection.
If, when One died, all died, then when One rose, all rose. The power of Christ’s Resurrection is truly such that the foundation of the resurrection of all lies in it. This power does not pass to each by imputation alone, but will be tasted by each in very deed.
Each person will personally taste this power and rise. But its own time has been appointed for this. Just as there was a time for the Son of God to appear in the flesh, to die in it and rise, so a time has also been appointed when all will taste the Resurrection.
When this is accomplished, then what is written will be fulfilled: “O death, where is your sting?” “Death is swallowed up in victory.” But in order to rise, one must die. In order to die, one must be born as one sentenced to death.
Thus it was ordained that the first parents should not die immediately after the fall, but remain alive for a time as those sentenced to death. They were also to beget those sentenced to death. From this there entered the order of world-being a period of mortality and corruption, as a path toward incorruptible and immortal life.
People are born as those sentenced to death, each separately. Yet it has been appointed for all men to rise together in incorruption, so that all may appear at once in the glory predestined for them. The angels were created all together. Men will appear in a rank like theirs all together only after the Resurrection.
Since men do not all appear in the world at once, but are born as the all-governing wisdom of God determines for each, every person must wait for the general Resurrection after dying as one sentenced to death. Hence, for each person there is an inevitable period of existence separated from the body, in expectation of the Resurrection.
If we look outwardly, we shall see death and corruption reigning on earth. If we pass in thought into the hidden realities of being, we shall see human souls in countless number. They live as God has appointed for them, awaiting union with resurrected, incorruptible bodies.
They groan, desiring to be clothed with the heavenly dwelling. This is not full human life. While living in the body, we cannot understand precisely wherein the impoverishment or diminution of life without the body consists. Yet it must exist, and does exist, as was revealed to the Apostle.
For this reason he said above: “We do not desire to be unclothed, but further clothed.” The sorrow of this deprivation is swallowed up by love. All know that this mode of being was established and continues so that all who are to be partakers of the Resurrection in incorruption may be born.
The law of self-denial penetrates every degree of human existence. Although the Resurrection is still only awaited, it is so certain that it is as though it had already occurred. Through hope all partake of the Resurrection as though they had already risen. Let it not yet exist in fact; it is already ours.
This is how all have died in Christ, and all still die. They have risen in Him, and yet remain not yet raised. It remains to see why this temporal life exists. It exists so that, in this brief time, one may come alive in spirit.
Having fallen, the first parents died spiritually. This is evident from the fact that after the fall they thought to hide from God. It is also evident from the fact that they shifted the guilt of transgression from one to the other. The strict sentence of justice struck them, but the promise of the Deliverer revived their spirit.
Therefore after their expulsion they wept and were contrite, but they were not swallowed up by despair. The hope of deliverance enlivened and raised their spirit. They received this enlivening in spirit while they were dead both spiritually and bodily.
Yet when they came alive in spirit through the hope of deliverance, they thereby drew upon themselves the power of the Deliverer’s all-embracing death. They became partakers of the Resurrection in incorruption. They became those sentenced to death, so that in due time they might receive the Resurrection in incorruption.
And this came about for the sake of enlivening in spirit through the promise of the Deliverer. As they then became, so all men were born from them. They were born bodily as those sentenced to death, and spiritually dead. Yet by coming alive in spirit like them, they were to have hope of the Resurrection in incorruption, despite death.
THEOSIS