Lenten Weekday

GOD’S LOVE POURED OUT
From a commentary by Origen 7
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St. Paul has told us that the love of God has been poured into our hearts
by the Holy Spirit. Now in his desire to demonstrate the power of that love more
fully, he gives us the convincing proof that it was not for good people but for
sinners that Christ died. It is indeed true that we were sinners before we turned
to God and that our Lord Jesus Christ laid down his life for us before we believed
in him. This he surely could not have done without an immense love for us,
either the love that he himself showed by dying for sinners or the love God the
Father showed by giving his only Son for our redemption.

Few people would give their lives even for a just person, and all of us face
death with reluctance, even in a just cause. How great a Savior we have, then,
and how deeply we ought to ponder his love for us! It is a clear proof of his
divine goodness that when the time appointed came, he did not hesitate to
suffer and die for the wicked and unjust. In the gospel it is said that no one is
good but God the Father; and so unless our Savior had been his Son, sharing in
the Father’s very substance, he could not have shown such great goodness
toward us. By this proof, therefore, we can recognize in him that good man for
whom someone might have the courage to die.

Once people have understood the extent of Christ’s goodness toward
them and his love has been poured into their hearts, they will long not only to
die for this good man Christ, but to die voluntarily. In fact we often see this
happen, when Christians whose hearts are overflowing with love for Christ
present themselves before their persecutors of their own free will and with the
utmost courage, confessing the name of Christ in the presence of angels and
men for the whole world to hear. Not only do they have the courage to suffer
injustice for the name of this good man, but for his sake they are even ready to
give their lives. Few would do this even for a just person, since our love of this
mortal life is so great that even in a just cause hardly anyone can bear to die.
Only for God’s sake will people have the courage to submit to death of their own
free will. For any other reason they can scarcely endure it, even in the cause of
justice and in obedience to the law of nature.

God has proven his love for us; it was while we were still sinners that
Christ died for us. Since we are justified by the shedding of his blood, how can
we doubt that he will save us from the wrath to come?

The Apostle has told us that at the appointed time Christ died for the
wicked. Now he is showing us how this reveals God’s immeasurable love for the
human race. If the love of God for ungodly sinners was so great that he could
give his only Son for their salvation, he says, how much more abundantly will
his love be poured out upon those who have turned to him in repentance and
whom he has redeemed by his Son’s own blood.

7 Origen, Lib.4,10-11; PG 14, 997-999.