All Creation Confessed Him at His Death

The Savior saw fit to do all this for a reason. People had failed to recognize his providence revealed in the universe, and had failed to see that he is God from what was shown in creation. So he did these things that they might at least recover their sight from the works of his body, and through him gain some idea of the knowledge of the Father, inferring, as I said before, his providence over the whole from particular cases. For who that saw his power over evil spirits, or saw the evil spirits confess that he was their Lord, will still keep his mind in doubt whether this is the Son and Wisdom and Power of God? [a]

For he made even the creation break its silence. At his death, wonderful to tell, or rather at his very trophy of victory over death, I mean the cross, the whole creation was confessing that the one who was made known and suffered in the body was not merely a man, but the Son of God and the Savior of all. For the sun hid its face, the earth shook, and the mountains were split. All people were struck with awe. These things showed that Christ on the cross was God, while the whole creation was his slave, bearing witness by its fear to the presence of its Master. In this way, then, God the Word showed himself to people by his works. But our next step must be to tell and speak of the end of his bodily life and course, and of the kind of death his body died. We must do so above all because this is the sum of our faith, and everyone without exception speaks of it; and so that you may know that from this too, no less than from the rest, Christ is known to be God and the Son of God.