- Get link
- Other Apps
- Get link
- Other Apps
Christ as Firstfruit
Blog 14
Christ can do what every other person can do, but Jesus' works have infinite impacts because He is the incarnate God. On the other hand, the actions of everyone else can only affect that person.
For example, a martyr feels pain as the evil people torture him, but this endurance will determine his own eternal destiny. However, when Jesus bore the pain from the Jews and Romans, He gave all of humanity healing and salvation, "By whose stripes you were healed (1 Peter 2:24).
Christ is the representative for all of us. Much like how He rose from the dead and established victory over death, all people will also rise from the dead, "Now Christ is risen from the dead, and has become the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep" (1 Corinthians 15:20). "He is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things He may have the preeminence" (Colossians 1:18).
Moreover, Jesus transferred His victory against Satan to all of the human race, "I give you the authority to trample on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy" (Luke 10:19).
All of these victories that Jesus obtained will be transferred to His people, "having been justified by His grace we should become heirs according to the hope of eternal life" (Titus 3:7).
Maximus the Confessor linked the humanity of Christ as the first fruit to the human race, “For He united our nature to himself in a single hypostasis, without division and without confusion, and joined us to himself as a kind of first fruits. This holy flesh with its intellectual and rational soul came from us and is ours. He deemed us worthy to be one and the same with himself according to his humanity.” [1]
Christ can do what every other person can do, but Jesus' works have infinite impacts because He is the incarnate God. On the other hand, the actions of everyone else can only affect that person.
For example, a martyr feels pain as the evil people torture him, but this endurance will determine his own eternal destiny. However, when Jesus bore the pain from the Jews and Romans, He gave all of humanity healing and salvation, "By whose stripes you were healed (1 Peter 2:24).
Christ is the representative for all of us. Much like how He rose from the dead and established victory over death, all people will also rise from the dead, "Now Christ is risen from the dead, and has become the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep" (1 Corinthians 15:20). "He is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things He may have the preeminence" (Colossians 1:18).
Moreover, Jesus transferred His victory against Satan to all of the human race, "I give you the authority to trample on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy" (Luke 10:19).
All of these victories that Jesus obtained will be transferred to His people, "having been justified by His grace we should become heirs according to the hope of eternal life" (Titus 3:7).
Maximus the Confessor linked the humanity of Christ as the first fruit to the human race, “For He united our nature to himself in a single hypostasis, without division and without confusion, and joined us to himself as a kind of first fruits. This holy flesh with its intellectual and rational soul came from us and is ours. He deemed us worthy to be one and the same with himself according to his humanity.” [1]
[1] Maximus the Confessor, On the Cosmic Mystery of Jesus Christ, 70.
Comments
Post a Comment