All Things Handed Over: His Power to Save

In this sense, then, we may understand that all things were handed over to the Savior. And if understanding must be followed by explanation, what was handed over to him was something he did not have before. For he was not man before, but became man to save man. The Word was not flesh in the beginning, but became flesh afterward. In that flesh, as the apostle says, he reconciled the enmity that was against us and destroyed the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, so that he might make the two into one new man, making peace, and reconcile both to the Father in one body. [a]

Yet what the Father has belongs to the Son as well, as he also says in John: “All things that the Father has are mine.” No better words could be found. For when he became what he was not, all things were handed over to him. But when he wishes to declare his oneness with the Father, he teaches it without any reserve, saying, “All things that the Father has are mine.” And one can only admire the exactness of the words. He did not say, “All things that the Father has, he has given to me,” so that he would not seem to have been without these things at some time; he said, “are mine.” For these things, being in the Father’s power, are equally in the Son’s.

But we must in turn examine what things the Father has. If creation is meant, then the Father had nothing before creation and turns out to have gained something extra from creation. Far be it from us to think so! For just as he exists before creation, so before creation he also has what he has, and this we believe belongs to the Son as well. For if the Son is in the Father, then all things that the Father has belong to the Son. So this saying overturns the perversity of the heterodox, who say: “If all things have been handed over to the Son, then the Father has ceased to have power over what was handed over, having appointed the Son in his place. For in fact ‘the Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son.’”

But “let the mouth of those who speak wickedness be stopped.” For although he has given all judgment to the Son, he is not therefore stripped of his lordship; and though it is said that all things are handed over by the Father to the Son, he is none the less over all. They clearly separate the only Son from God, though by nature he cannot be separated from him, even if in their madness they separate him in their words. The impious men do not see that the light can never be separated from the sun, in which it dwells by nature. For we have to use a poor comparison, drawn from familiar things we can touch, to put our thought into words, since it is too bold to intrude upon the incomprehensible nature of God.