Patristic Wisdom: Looking to the Fourth Sunday of Easter

For this is commendable, if because of conscience toward God one endures grief, suffering wrongfully. For what credit is it if, when you are beaten for your faults, you take it patiently? But when you do good and suffer, if you take it patiently, this is commendable before God. For to this you were called, because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that you should follow His steps:

Who committed no sin,
Nor was deceit found in His mouth;

who, when He was reviled, did not revile in return; when He suffered, He did not threaten, but committed Himself to Him who judges righteously; who Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness—by whose stripes you were healed. For you were like sheep going astray, but have now returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls. (1 Peter 2:19–25)

He foretold these things and suffered them; He was nailed to the cross, paying the penalty not for personal sins (for he did not sin, neither was guilt found in his mouth), but paying the debt of our nature. For our nature was in debt after transgressing the laws of its Maker. And since it was in debt and unable to pay, the Creator Himself in His wisdom devised a way of paying the debt; taking human limbs as capital He invested it wisely and justly in paying the debt and freeing human nature.

Those who saw Him nailed to the cross presumed that He was being punished for countless misdeeds and was paying the penalty for personal faults. It was for this reason that the Jews nailed Him between two malefactors, wishing thereby to gain for Him an evil reputation. But the Holy Spirit teaches through the prophet that He was wounded for our iniquities and weakened for our sins. He makes this clearer in what follows: Chastisement for our peace was inflicted on Him and by His bruises, we were healed. We were enemies of God, in that we had offended Him, so chastisement and retribution were due from us.

We did not, however, settle the debt. Our Savior settled it Himself. And by so suffering He bequeathed peace with God to us. What follows makes this clearer: All we like sheep have gone astray; man has lost his way. And so He has been led as a sheep to the slaughter and dumb as a lamb before his shearer. It was fitting for Him to heal like by like, and to recall the other wandering sheep by a sheep. He became a sheep, without being changed into one, or without being altered, or without quitting His own essence. He plainly assumed the nature of a sheep and, just as the ram is the leader of the sheepfold, so He became the leader of His fold and made all the sheep follow Him.

Theodoret of Cyrus, On Divine Providence 10.26, 28–29