Christians die for the sins of the world

The following excerpt from Colossians 1 illuminates the way in which Christ saves the world through His body.

15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. 16 For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. 17 And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. 18 And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. 19 For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, 20 and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.

Colossians 1:15–20 (English Standard Version)

The firstborn of creation

15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. 16 For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. 17 And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.

Christ is the typological blueprint for creation, the Logos. By extension, the identities of everything in the world are typological refractions of Christ’s identity. However, man is uniquely endowed amongst the created order. Man was created in the image of God. Being made in Christ’s image, man is uniquely capable of participating in Christ’s divine life through imitation.

The firstborn from the dead

18 And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. 19 For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, 20 and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.

By becoming the firstborn from the dead, Christ restored man’s nature. His death broke the power of death, making it possible for us to become part of His body through baptism.¹ As members of the church, we experience renewed communion with the life of God.

Man was created to be the mediator between God and the world.² When man sinned and separated himself from God, the rest of creation was involuntarily pulled into death with man. It therefore follows that creation would be restored through the restoration of man.

Christ’s death restored man. Man’s death (the living sacrifices of the saints) restores the world. The story of St. Telemachus exemplifies this principle. His martyrdom catalyzed an entire civilization’s deliverance from the bloodlust of the gladiatorial games.

A certain man named Telemachus, who had embraced a monastical life, came from the East to Rome at a time when these cruel spectacles were being exhibited. After gazing upon the combat from the amphitheatre, he descended into the arena, and tried to separate the gladiators. The sanguinary spectators, possessed by the demon who delights in the effusion of blood, were irritated at the interruption of their cruel sports, and stoned him who had occasioned the cessation. On being apprised of this circumstance, the admirable emperor numbered him with the victorious martyrs, and abolished these iniquitous spectacles.

Ecclesiastical History by Theodoretus (Bishop of Cyrus)

Footnotes

1. Romans 6:3–4 (English Standard Version)

   3 Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4 We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.

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2. Genesis 1:28 (English Standard Version)

   27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.

   28 And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”

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