One Body Offered for All

The Word saw that the corruption of men could not be undone in any other way than by death, as a necessary condition, and that it was impossible for the Word to suffer death, since he is immortal and the Son of the Father. For this reason he takes to himself a body capable of death. He did this so that the body, by sharing in the Word who is above all, might be worthy to die in the place of all; so that, because of the Word who had come to dwell in it, it might remain incorruptible; and so that from then on corruption might be stopped in all by the grace of the resurrection. So, by offering to death the body he himself had taken, as an offering and sacrifice free from every stain, he at once put away death from all who are like him, by offering an equivalent. For being above all, the Word of God, by offering his own temple and bodily instrument for the life of all, naturally discharged the debt by his death. And so, being joined to all by a like nature, he, the incorruptible Son of God, naturally clothed all with incorruption by the promise of the resurrection. For the corruption that comes in death no longer has any ground against men, because of the Word, who by his one body has come to dwell among them. [a]

It is like a great king who has entered some large city and taken up residence in one of its houses. Such a city is certainly held worthy of great honor; no enemy or bandit comes down on it any longer to subdue it. On the contrary, it is thought to deserve every care, because the king has taken up residence in a single house there. So it has been with the King of all. For now that he has come to our realm and taken up residence in one body among those like him, from now on the whole plot of the enemy against mankind is checked, and the corruption of death that once prevailed against them is done away. For the human race would have gone to ruin, had not the Lord and Savior of all, the Son of God, come among us to meet the end of death.