Against Heresies: Book V

SINCE THE APOSTLE HAS NOT DECLARED AGAINST THE ESSENCE OF FLESH AND BLOOD: saying it cannot inherit the kingdom of God, the same apostle has consistently used the term "flesh and blood" regarding the Lord Jesus Christ. This is partly to assert His human nature (as He referred to Himself as the Son of man) and partly to affirm the salvation of our flesh. For if the flesh were not able to be saved, the Word of God would not have become flesh in any way.

And if the blood of the righteous were not to be accounted for, the Lord would certainly not have had blood in His being. Since blood has spoken since the world's beginning, God said to Cain, after he had killed his brother, “The voice of your brother’s blood cries out to Me.” And as their blood will be accounted for, He said to those with Noah, “For your lifeblood I will require a reckoning, from every beast;” and again, “Whoever sheds man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed.” Similarly, the Lord said to those who would later shed His blood, “All righteous blood shall be required that is shed on the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zacharias son of Barachias, whom you killed between the temple and the altar.

Truly I say to you, All these things shall come upon this generation.” He thus indicates the culmination in His own person of the shedding of blood from the beginning, of all the righteous people and prophets, and that through Himself there would be a reckoning for their blood. Now this blood could not be required unless it also had the capacity to be saved; nor would the Lord have summed up these things in Himself unless He had become flesh and blood in the manner of the original formation of man, saving in His own person at the end what had perished in Adam at the beginning.

BUT IF THE LORD BECAME INCARNATE FOR ANY OTHER PURPOSE AND TOOK FLESH FROM ANY OTHER SUBSTANCE: then He has not truly encompassed human nature in His own person, nor in that case can He be called flesh. For flesh has genuinely been made to consist of a transmission from that which was originally molded from the dust. If it had been necessary for Him to derive the material of His body from another substance, the Father would have originally molded the material from a different substance than He did.

However, the situation is that the Word has saved what was truly created, namely humanity that had perished, accomplishing through Himself the communion that should be held with it, and seeking its salvation.

But what had perished had flesh and blood. For the Lord, taking dust from the earth, molded man; and it was for his sake that all the unfolding of the Lord’s coming occurred. He Himself, therefore, had flesh and blood, summarizing in Himself not something else, but the original handiwork of the Father, seeking what had perished.

For this reason, the apostle, in the Epistle to the Colossians, says, “And although you were formerly alienated and enemies in your mind by evil works, yet now you have been reconciled in the body of His flesh, through His death, to present yourselves holy, blameless, and without fault in His sight.” He says, “You have been reconciled in the body of His flesh,” because the righteous flesh has reconciled that flesh which was under bondage to sin and brought it into friendship with God.

IF: then, anyone claims that in this respect the flesh of the Lord was different from ours because it did not commit sin and there was no deceit in His soul, while we, on the other hand, are sinners, he is stating the truth. But if he suggests that the Lord had a different kind of flesh, the statements about reconciliation will not align with that person. For reconciliation involves restoring what was previously in conflict. Now, if the Lord had taken flesh from a different substance, He would not have reconciled to God that which had become hostile through transgression. But now, through union with Himself, the Lord has reconciled humanity to God the Father, by reconciling us to Himself with the body of His own flesh and redeeming us with His own blood, as the apostle says to the Ephesians, "In whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins;" and again to the same, he says, "You who were formerly far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ;" and again, "By abolishing in His flesh the hostilities, [even] the law of commandments contained in ordinances." In every letter, the apostle clearly testifies that through the flesh of our Lord and through His blood, we have been saved.

IF: then, flesh and blood are the things that grant us life, it has not been stated about flesh and blood, in the literal sense of the words, that they cannot inherit the kingdom of God. Instead, these words refer to the sinful deeds previously mentioned, which lead people to sin and deprive them of life. For this reason, he says in the Epistle to the Romans: "Do not let sin reign in your mortal body to be under its control; neither offer your members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin, but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God." In these same members, then, in which we once served sin and produced fruit leading to death, He wants us to be obedient to righteousness, so that we may produce fruit leading to life. Remember, my dear friend, that you have been redeemed by the flesh of our Lord and renewed by His blood; and by "holding the Head, from which the whole body of the Church, being joined together, grows"—that is, acknowledging the coming in the flesh of the Son of God and His divinity, and steadfastly looking to His human nature, while also using these proofs from Scripture—you easily refute, as I have shown, all those heretical ideas that were devised later.