Patristic Wisdom: Looking to the Last Sunday of the Year

Simone Martini, “Crucifixion”

He has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love, in whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins. He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him. And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist. And He is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things He may have the preeminence. For it pleased the Father that in Him all the fullness should dwell, and by Him to reconcile all things to Himself, by Him, whether things on earth or things in heaven, having made peace through the blood of His cross. (Colossians 1:13–20)

Freed thus from the condition of darkness, that is, plucked from the infernal place, in which we were held by the devil both because of our own and because of Adam's transgression, who is the father of sinners, we were translated by faith into the heavenly kingdom of the Son of God. This was so that He might show us by what love God loved us, when, raising us from deepest hell, He led us into heaven with His true Son.

Ambrosiaster, Commentary on Colossians

The Savior endured all this, “making peace through the blood of the cross, for all things whether in the heavens or on the earth.” For we were enemies of God through sin, and God had decreed the death of the sinner. One of two things, therefore, was necessary, either that God, in His truth, should destroy all men, or that in His loving-kindness, He should remit the sentence. But see the wisdom of God; He preserved the truth of His sentence and the exercise of his loving-kindness. Christ took our sins “in His body upon the tree; that we, having died to sin,” by his death “might live to righteousness.” [1 Pet 2:24] He who died for us was of no small worth; He was no material sheep; He was no mere man. He was more than an angel, He was God made man. The iniquity of sinners was not as great as the righteousness of Him who died for them. The sins we committed were not as great as the righteousness He wrought, who laid down His life for us.

Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechetical Lectures 13.33