Christ did what he did in order to strengthen believers, for no one can redeem something which did not originally belong to him. Therefore, whether it is because we have been redeemed, or because we have been sanctified (i.e., purged from the works of the flesh and the filthiness of idols), or because we have been justified (for it is just to worship only the Creator and spurn everything else) or because we are wise, having learned that worldly people are unwise—all this is a gift of God through Christ. But this is our redemption— when the devil desires it, Christ offers himself to the devil so that he may cancel sin and rescue the devil’s captives. Commentary on Paul’s Epistles.
But of Him are ye in Christ Jesus. By the gift of God Himself, by His grace, were ye called to believe in Christ. So Anselm. To be in Christ is to have been incorporated with Him in Baptism, or to be in the Church of Christ, and in Christianity.
Who of God is made unto us wisdom and righteousness and sanctification and redemption. This righteousness, say our modern innovators, is imputed, because it is ours, not substantially and inherently, but is merely the external righteousness of Christ imputed to us; before God we seem righteous. But I reply: If this be true, then in the same way the active redemption wrought by Christ, which S. Paul here joins with righteousness, will be imputed to us, and consequently we shell be redeemers of ourselves, which is absurd. In the second place, wisdom is infused into us, and so is faith, and so therefore is righteousness; for the Apostle classes together the righteousness and wisdom of Christ as both alike ours.
I say, then, with Chrysostom, Theoph...
We are taught by the knowledge that Christ is redemption, because he gave himself as an atonement on our behalf, that when he bestowed immortality on us as our own possession, he ransomed us from death with his own life. .
The expression of Him, I suppose he uses here, not of our introduction into being, but with reference to the faith: that is, to our having become children of God, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh. John 1:13 Think not then, that having taken away our glorying, He left us so: for there is another, a greater glorying, His gift. For you are the children of Him in whose presence it is not meet to glory, having become so through Christ. And since he has said, The foolish things of the world He chose, and the base, he signifies that they are nobler than all, having God for their Father. And of this nobility of ours, not this person or that, but Christ is the cause, having made us wise, and righteous, and holy. For so mean the words, He was made unto us wisdom.
Who then is wiser than we are who have not the wisdom of Plato, but Christ Himself, God having so willed.
But what means, of God? Whenever he speaks great things concerning the Only-Begotten, he adds mention of the Fathe...
