Advent with Athanasius – Part 3

Thus far in our reading of Athanasius (read part 1 and part 2 here), we have seen him demonstrate the Incarnation as God’s gracious response to “turn what is corruptible to incorruptibility” (ch. 20). His argument has sought to show that the Incarnation served to restore the image of God to humans, since sin had tarnished it in such a way that we who were created to commune with God, did not know Him through the things He had made. In chapters 20-32, Athanasius adds to his argument that the Word, Who by nature is immortal, took on “body able to die” that He might destroy death. For Athanasius, the Incarnation is not simply that the Son is restoring the image of God to those who were created to bear it. The Incarnation is necessary because it is the only way that God could destroy death on our behalf. The Son became man in order to die as a man and through His sufferings conquer death with His incorruptible life. He was born to die in order that those born in death would be reborn unto eternal life.

The Son became man in order to die as a man and through His sufferings conquer death with His incorruptible life. Share on XIn order to prove this, Athanasius takes up the manner in which Christ died. Why must the Christ suffer and die publicly, and on a cross? I find Athanasius’s reasoning in this section fascinating, for it is easy to see how clearly he holds to two natures being united together in the person of Jesus. The Son is by nature Life (Ch. 22). He has assumed a human nature in order that He could die. Yet, because His Divine self has taken on a body and that body is never put aside. For His body is the evidence or “trophy” of His victory over death. He writes,

The Lord was especially concerned for the resurrection of the body that he was to accomplish; for the trophy of victory over death was this [resurrection] being shown to all and all being persuaded of the removal of corruption effected by him and of the incorruptibility henceforth of [their] bodies, as a pledge of which for all and proof of the resurrection in store for all, he preserved his own body incorruptible (ch. 22).

When the Lord of Life united Himself to a body, He “followed it to destruction.” For Athanasius, Jesus’s life had to be taken at the hands of others, for illness was not able to hurt He who drove out illness in others. Nor would it have been convincing had Jesus perished out of sight and then returned claiming to have resurrected. For Athanasius this would have invited distrust in death. No, Jesus must be put to death publicly at the hands of others. His body must be witnessed by the crowds as lifeless. He must be buried for multiple days, for

He could have raised the body immediately upon death and shown it alive again, but foreseeing well the Savior did not do this. For someone might have said that he had not died at all, or that death had not fully touched him, if he had shown the resurrection immediately. Had the interval between death and resurrection been within the same day, the glory of incorruptibility would have been obscure. So, in order that the body might be shown to be dead, the Word waited one intermediary day, and on the third day showed it to all as incorruptible. So that death might be shown in the body, he raised in on the third day (ch. 26).

It must be witnessed that He truly died and that He was buried. The witness of these acts are paramount for Athanasius. Jesus’s death was not obscure or private, but publicly. As Paul tells the Galatians, “It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified” (Gal 3:1). Not only was He crucified and resurrected publicly, His resurrection body is not a new body, in the sense that it was a body other than the one in which He was crucified. No, His resurrection body is the body of His death vivified by His incorruptible life.

Lest, by raising it up when it had remained for a long time and been completely corrupted, he should be disbelieved, as though he bore not his own but another body—for, because of the length of time, one might distrust what appeared and forget what happened—therefore he waited no more than three days nor put off for long those who had heard from him about the resurrection, but while the word was still echoing in their ears and their eyes were still expecting and their minds were in suspense, and those who put him to death and witnessed the death of the lordly body were still living upon earth and in the same place, the Son of God himself, after an interval of three days, showed the body which had been dead as immortal and incorruptible; and it was demonstrated to all that the body died not by the weakness of the nature of the indwelling Word, but in order that death might be destroyed in it through the power of the Savior (ch. 26).

 This is the proof of death’s destruction: He Who is Life, died and overwhelmed death with His Life. His body perished and was raised imperishable. This is the whole point of the Incarnation! As Paul would later write to the church in Corinth, “Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised” (1 Cor 15:12-13). For Paul, the question is not whether Christ was truly man, but whether He truly raised from the dead. If the man Jesus raised from the dead, then everything has been changed. “For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive” (15:21-22). Because Christ died and was raised in the flesh, all who follow him are made the same. “What is sown is perishable; what is raised is imperishable” (15:42). And this is the hope of the gospel: “This perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality” (15:53). In Christ, death has been destroyed and now all who follow Him by faith will “be like him, because we shall see him as he is” (1 Jn 3:2) when He returns.

For Athanasius, the greatest witness that death has been swallowed up by Life in Christ is the fearlessness of His disciples. Share on XChristians throughout Church history have lived as though death has been defeated in Christ and is nothing to be feared. For Athanasius, the greatest witness that death has been swallowed up by Life in Christ is the fearlessness of His disciples who “would rather choose to die than deny their faith in Christ. For they really know that when they die they are not destroyed, but both live and become incorruptible through the resurrection” (ch. 27). During Advent, may our contemplation of the Incarnation loosen our hold on the present age and our life in it. May we with boldness proclaim the victory of Christ over death and sin and live in such a way that others are confronted with Life in the land of death. And may we long for the day when Christ returns and we are clothed in His imperishable life fully and completely. Let us worship the Incarnate Son of God Who has destroyed death and blesses us with eternal life in His name.