And thus taking from our bodies one of like nature, because all were under penalty of the corruption of death He gave it over to death in the stead of all, and offered it to the Father— doing this, moreover, of His loving-kindness, to the end that, firstly, all being held to have died in Him, the law involving the ruin of men might be undone (inasmuch as its power was fully spent in the Lord’s body, and had no longer holding-ground against men, his peers), and that, secondly, whereas men had turned toward corruption, He might turn them again toward incorruption, and quicken them from death by the appropriation of His body and by the grace of the Resurrection, banishing death from them like straw from the fire.

—Athanasius, On the Incarnation of the Word of God

He took pity on our race, and had mercy on our infirmity, and condescended to our corruption, and, unable to bear that death should have the mastery— lest the creature should perish, and His Father’s handiwork in men be spent for naught— He takes unto Himself a body, and that of no different sort from ours.

—Athanasius, On the Incarnation of the Word of God

The central point of this drama is the God who shows favor, the God who walked with many of my brothers and sisters through the valley of the shadow of death and led them to a different destination from mine. They are now in His presence. They do not need the hope or the faith of which my story speaks. That’s because, when all is gone, God remains—and what we’ll see of Him most clearly in that day is His love.

—Barnabas Mam with Kitty Murray, Church Behind the Wire