Part 4 — The Death upon the Cross
The debt owed by all is paid in the Lord's body; and the death that pays it had to be one received from others, seen by witnesses, and endured upon the Cross.
Before you listen
Part three asked why the Word had to take a body at all. Part four asks a narrower question, and asks it over and over: why this death. Athanasius lets the objections be put plainly — why not lay the body aside quietly, why not avoid the plot, why not at least choose a death with some honour in it — and answers each one before moving to the next. Follow the objections, and notice that every answer turns on what a death would have to show, rather than on what it would cost.
Listen for The word "unfitting". It is how Athanasius rules an alternative out, and each time it appears another possible death has been closed off, until only one is left.
Open the reading · 17:37The text in hand
The passage, in full
This showed no weakness in the Word. On the contrary, it made Him known as Saviour and as Life, since He waited for death in order to destroy it, and hastened to accomplish the death offered Him for the salvation of all. And besides, the Saviour came to accomplish not His own death, but the death of men. He did not lay the body aside by a death of His own, for being the Life He had none. He received instead the death that came from men, so that when it came upon Him in His own body He might make an end of it altogether.
The passage, in full
Death must come before resurrection, for there could be no resurrection unless death had gone before. So if the death of the body had happened somewhere in secret, with the death neither seen nor taking place before witnesses, then His resurrection also would have been unseen and unattested. Or why, when He had risen, did He proclaim the resurrection, and yet let His death happen out of sight? He drove out demons before the eyes of all. He made the man blind from birth see again, and changed the water into wine, so that through these things He might be believed to be the Word of God. Why then would He not show His mortal nature to be incorruptible before the eyes of all, so that He might be believed to be Himself the Life?
A line to keep
The death they thought to inflict as a disgrace was itself the monument of victory over death.
A line to keep
For it is only upon a cross that a man dies with his hands spread out.
What this part is doing
The debt, and the first-fruits
The part opens by settling accounts with what came before: all were owing death, and the Word yields His own body in the place of all. Two things are said to happen together in that one body — the death of all is fulfilled in it, and corruption vanishes from it because of the Word who dwelt there. What is left is a body displayed incorruptible, the first-fruits of a resurrection meant for everyone.
A death received, and seen
Athanasius will not let the Word be the author of His own death: being the Life, He had no death of His own, so He waited for the one that came from men and hastened to accomplish it. And it had to happen in the open. Death must come before resurrection, so a death in secret would have left the resurrection unattested, with no witnesses for the disciples to appeal to.
Why this death and no other
A death of His own devising would have suggested He could prevail only against that one, so He took the death His enemies chose, as a wrestler leaves the choice of opponent to the crowd. Three reasons are then given for the Cross in particular: it is the death appointed for a curse, it is the only death in which a man dies with his hands spread out, and it happens in the air.
Words it keeps using
Check yourself
Nothing here is marked or counted. They exist so you can notice what did not land.
Why not lay the body aside privately, in the way men die?
Because the death that comes upon men comes from the weakness of their nature, and the Lord is the Power of God and Life itself. Had He died on a bed after the manner of men, it would have been thought that He too suffered this by weakness, and that there was nothing more in Him than in other men (section 21).
Why did the death have to take place before witnesses?
Because death must come before resurrection, so a death neither seen nor witnessed would have left the resurrection unseen and unattested. Athanasius adds that the disciples could not have spoken boldly of a resurrection if those they spoke to had not themselves witnessed the death (section 23).
Why the Cross, rather than some other public death?
He did not devise a death at all, lest He seem afraid of some other one, but accepted the death His enemies thought most dishonourable (section 24). Three reasons are then given for the Cross itself in section 25: it is the death appointed for a curse, it is the only death in which a man dies with his hands spread out, drawing both peoples to Himself, and it takes place in the air, which the Lord came to cleanse.
Terms
ransom
What is paid to discharge a debt. The Word offers His own body — His temple, the bodily instrument — as a ransom for all, and so pays in His death what was owed.
incorruption
Not merely deathlessness but permanence in being: what man would have kept had he guarded his likeness to the One who is. It is promised again through the Resurrection.
first-fruits
The Lord's own body, displayed incorruptible after death, as the first instance of what is to happen to all. Athanasius calls it the first-fruits of the resurrection of all, and later a pledge and token of the resurrection in store for everyone.
the monument of victory
The lasting public sign that death has been defeated. Athanasius uses it first of the resurrection of the Lord's body, which was to be shown to all as proof that corruption had been blotted out, and then of the Cross itself, the death meant as a disgrace.