Death Trampled Underfoot

But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honour; that he by the grace of God should taste death for every man. HEBREWS 2:9

When Athanasius comes to the cross in On the Incarnation, he says that it is “the sum of our faith”. Everything he has written so far leads here. The Word took a body for one great purpose: that in it He might die, and by dying undo the death that had taken hold of the human race. He does not treat the cross as a tragic accident or a noble example. He treats it as the centre of God’s saving work, and he asks, with the frankness of a man who expects hard questions, why it had to happen the way it did.

He wrote in a church that still carried the wounds of the fiercest persecution in its history. Men and women he knew, or whose names he had heard from childhood, had gone to their deaths rather than deny Christ; among them was Peter, bishop of Alexandria. So when Athanasius argues that Christ truly died and truly defeated death, he holds two things together that belong together: the cross, where the death of all was accomplished, and the martyrs, who showed that death had lost its sting.

In the stead of all

The heart of his teaching is simple. The human race lay under the sentence of death. The sentence could not simply be cancelled, for God is true. So the Word, who could not die in His own nature, took to Himself a body that could die, “that it, by partaking of the Word Who is above all, might be worthy to die in the stead of all.” He offered that body to death as a sacrifice free from any stain, and so, Athanasius says, He put away death from all His peers.

Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed. ISAIAH 53:4–5

Notice the words: in the stead of all. Athanasius uses them again and again. The debt owing from all was paid; the death of all was accomplished in the Lord’s body. He does not use the technical vocabulary later centuries would develop, and he is more interested in death and corruption than in guilt and wrath. But the substance is plain. Christ died in our place, and because He died, the law of death has spent its power.

He gives a homely illustration. When a great king enters a large city and takes up residence in one of its houses, the whole city is honoured and protected; no bandit dares attack it, because the king lives there. So it is, he says, with the Monarch of all. Now that He has come to our realm and dwelt in one body among His peers, the whole conspiracy of the enemy against mankind is checked.

Why not a quiet death

Then come the questions. Why did He not die privately, on a bed, as other men do, instead of being crucified in public shame? Athanasius answers that the Lord was not weak. He could not fall sick, for He healed the sickness of others. And His death had to be public, before witnesses, so that His resurrection could be believed. A man who died in secret and then appeared saying he had risen would be dismissed as telling idle tales.

Why, then, did He not choose some glorious death for Himself? Here Athanasius uses one of his best images. A noble wrestler does not pick his own opponents, lest he be suspected of fearing some of them. He lets the onlookers choose, especially his enemies, so that whoever they set against him, he may throw, and be known as superior to them all. So the Lord accepted the death His enemies chose — the cruellest and most shameful they could devise — so that by overcoming it He might be seen to have overcome death in every form. And so, Athanasius says, something startling happened: “the death, which they thought to inflict as a disgrace, was actually a monument of victory against death itself.”

And having spoiled principalities and powers, he made a shew of them openly, triumphing over them in it. COLOSSIANS 2:15

Why the cross

For believers who ask, not to argue but to learn, why He suffered on a cross rather than any other way, Athanasius offers three reasons. First, the curse. If Christ came to bear the curse that lay on us, how else could He become a curse than by the death that the law called accursed?

Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree. GALATIANS 3:13

Second, the outstretched hands. This is one of the most moving passages in the book. “For it is only on the cross that a man dies with his hands spread out.” It was fitting, Athanasius says, that the Lord should spread out His hands, so that with one He might draw the ancient people and with the other the Gentiles, and unite both in Himself.

And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me. JOHN 12:32

Third, the air. The devil, Athanasius believed, ruled in the lower air as the prince of the power of the air, and by dying lifted up the Lord cleared the way and opened a road into heaven for us. Modern readers may find this third reason the least persuasive; it depends on ideas of the heavens that belong to his age. But the first two are deeply scriptural, and the picture of the Saviour’s arms spread wide to gather Jew and Gentile together is one the church has never forgotten.

The body that died there did not see corruption. He rose on the third day — not sooner, lest anyone say He had not really died; not later, lest His body be thought another, or the witnesses of His death be scattered. Everything about the timing was fitted to make His death undeniable and His resurrection believable.

For thou wilt not leave my soul in hell; neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption. PSALM 16:10

The tyrant bound

What did that death and rising achieve? Athanasius answers by pointing to the martyrs. Before the Saviour came, he says, death was terrible even to the saints; everyone wept for the dead as though they had perished. But now that the Saviour has raised His body, those who believe in Christ tread death underfoot as nothing, and choose rather to die than to deny their faith. Man is by nature afraid of death. Yet he had seen young people, men and women, even children, face torture with a courage that astonished their persecutors. Something had happened to death itself.

Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same; that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil; and deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage. HEBREWS 2:14–15

He gives one of his most vivid pictures. When a tyrant has been defeated by a true king and bound hand and foot, the people who once trembled at him pass by and mock him, no longer afraid of his fury, because of the king who conquered him. So it is with death. Death has been conquered and exposed by the Saviour on the cross, bound hand and foot, and now “all they who are in Christ, as they pass by, trample on him”, scoffing at him and saying what was written of old: O death, where is thy victory? O grave, where is thy sting?

Death is swallowed up in victory. 1 CORINTHIANS 15:54

He piles up images. If you see a serpent trodden underfoot, you know it has lost its strength. If you see a lion made sport of by children, you know it is either dead or powerless. So, he says, when you see death despised by believers in Christ, do not doubt that Christ has brought it to nothing.

Come and see

Then he makes an invitation that is both an argument and an appeal. Some, he admits, will still doubt. Very well; let them test it. A man who doubts that fire has no power over asbestos, a substance said not to burn, should put it to the flame and know. In the same way, “let him who is incredulous about the victory over death receive the faith of Christ, and pass over to His teaching, and he shall see the weakness of death, and the triumph over it.”

O taste and see that the LORD is good: blessed is the man that trusteth in him. PSALM 34:8

And he goes further. A dead man can do nothing; his influence ends at the grave. But Christ is working every day, persuading multitudes from every nation to turn from idols, making the adulterer chaste and the murderer peaceful, the coward brave. How could a dead man do that? “But this work is not that of one dead, but of one that lives.”

I am he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death. REVELATION 1:18

The argument still holds. The best evidence that Jesus is alive is not a museum exhibit. It is a changed life. When a person enslaved to a sin is set free, when a frightened person is made brave, when a dying believer faces the end with peace, the risen Christ is showing Himself to be alive.

Sown, not lost

For those who believe, death has changed its nature. We still die, since our bodies are mortal. But we no longer die as condemned. We are like seeds sown in the earth; we do not perish in the ground but will rise again.

It is sown in corruption; it is raised in incorruption: it is sown in dishonour; it is raised in glory: it is sown in weakness; it is raised in power. 1 CORINTHIANS 15:42–43

This is the hope that carried the martyrs, and it carried Athanasius through five exiles. The worst the emperors could do was to kill him, and death had already been trampled underfoot.

A word of care is needed. Athanasius, like many in his age, admired the eagerness with which some Christians rushed towards martyrdom, and his language can suggest that seeking death is itself a mark of faith. The wiser tradition of the church, and indeed the Life of Antony itself, where Antony ministers to the martyrs but will not hand himself over, teaches that we should not throw our lives away. Courage in the face of death is one thing; courting it is another.

But the comfort stands, and so does the warning against a softer cross. Every age is tempted to make the cross only an example of self-giving or a protest against injustice. It is those things, but it is more. Something was done there that could not be done any other way. A sentence was carried out; a debt was paid; death met the Life and was destroyed. If you are afraid of dying — and most of us are — Athanasius does not scold you. He points you to the place where your death died, and to the One who has bound the tyrant.

FOR REFLECTION AND ACTION

1. Read the account of the crucifixion in one Gospel this week, and at each stage say quietly, This was in my stead.

2. Picture the outstretched arms of Christ on the cross gathering both Jew and Gentile. Is there someone you have kept outside your embrace whom He has gathered in?

3. Name honestly the fear of death or of loss that you carry. Bring it to Christ and ask Him to show you the tyrant bound.

4. Athanasius said the living Christ changes lives. Write down one change Christ has made in you that you could not have made yourself.

5. If someone you know is facing death, go and see them this week, and bring them the hope of 1 Corinthians 15.

6. Read sections 20 to 32 of On the Incarnation and write down the reason for the cross, and the image of death defeated, that moves you most.

A PRAYER

Lord Jesus, You tasted death for every man, and You bore in Your own body the death that was mine.

Thank You for the cross that men meant for Your disgrace and You made a monument of victory, and for Your arms spread wide, drawing near and far into one.

Thank You for the martyrs who trod death underfoot for Your sake; where I am still afraid, show me Your victory, and where I am still enslaved, show me that You are alive and at work.

When my time comes, let me go as a seed sown in the earth, in sure and certain hope of rising with You. Amen.