Rich Word became poor; bought us from the curse; one flesh’s death enough

Rich as God, he willingly became poor and became as we are, so that human nature, having come in Christ into the heights of divine superiority, might put away the shame of poverty. For God the Father raised us together in Christ and seated us together in the heavenly places, as it is written. But we would not have come into these things if the One who is rich as God had not clothed himself with the nature that is poor. A human who is poor by his own nature would not “become poor”; that befits more fittingly the One who is truly rich — that is, the Word from God the Father — when he became as we are. So there is one Christ and Son.

“Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree.” While the letter of the law declares cursed the one in transgression and sins, the One who did not know sin — that is, Christ — was brought under the curse, enduring an unjust sentence and suffering what befits those under a curse, so that the One worth all, dying for all, might loose the charges of everyone’s disobedience and buy what is under heaven with his own blood.

He would not have become worth all, if he were a mere human. But if he is understood as God become human and suffering in his own flesh, the whole creation is little beside him, and the death of one flesh suffices for the redemption of what is under heaven — for it was the Word sprung from God the Father’s own.