November 13, 2009

Augustine (354–430) on God's Love and the Son's Dying for Men

Who is there, moreover, who should not be earnestly disposed to give the return of love to a God of supreme righteousness and also of supreme mercy, who has first loved men of the greatest unrighteousness and the loftiest pride, and that, too, so deeply as to have sent in their behalf His only Son, by whom He made all things, and who being made man, not by any change of Himself, but by the assumption of human nature, was designed thus to become capable not only of living with them, but also of dying at once for them and by their hands?
Augustine, “On the Catechising of the Uninstructed,” in NPNF, 1st Series, ed. Philip Schaff (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2004), 3:307. This is from chapter 22.39.

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Observe:
1) "Who is there..." means everybody. It is all inclusive of every particular living human.
2) Every human should give thanks to God because God loved them.
3) The Father loved them by sending His only Son, "who made all things" (i.e., including every particular human).
4) The Son shares the nature of every human.
5) The Son was designed (by the love of the Father) to die at once for them all, even the one's who "by their hands" killed Him.

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