On Christ the True Redeemer

Tuesday after the Third Sunday of Lent

On Christ the True Redeemer

You were redeemed with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb unspotted and undefiled. (1 Peter 1:19-20)

Through the sin of the first parents the entire human race was alienated from God, as is said in Ephesians 2:12—not indeed from the power of God, but from the vision of God’s face, to which both sons and members of the household are admitted. And further, we came into the power of the usurping devil, to whom man by his own consent subjected himself, to the degree that he could—although he could not do it by right, because he was not his own, but belonged to another.

And therefore through his own passion Christ did two things. For he freed us from the power of the enemy by conquering him through things contrary to the things by which the enemy conquered man—namely, humility, obedience, and the bitterness of punishment, which are opposed to the delight of the forbidden food. And further, by making satisfaction for the fault, he joined us to God and made us members of the household of God, and even sons.