Unit 3 rem early

the wills of the thoughts.

As for “we were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest,” we do not know what those who introduce spiritual natures from the beginning will say. How can one who is by nature a son of God be said to be by nature a son of wrath? Let them answer. We think that through the body of humiliation we became children of wrath by nature when our understanding clung to evils from youth; for according to Solomon there is no one righteous on the earth who does good and does not sin.

Eph. 2:6: “and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places.” Origen says: the one who takes “he raised and seated” more simply will say it is spoken according to God’s foreknowledge and predestination, as what will be already spoken of as done. But the one who contemplates Christ’s kingdom as intelligible will not hesitate to say that the person already holy, just as he is not “in flesh” even if simpler people say he is in flesh, so he is not “on earth” even if to the senses he is seen on earth. For the one in spirit is not on earth, and none of those in the heavenly places is in flesh but already in spirit.

Such dispositions, and the grasp of things so great and of such a kind, are not earthly but heavenly; all who already have their citizenship in heaven sit with Christ in the heavenly places, if indeed the kingdom of God is within us—so that in this way we have sat in the heavenly places, seated with Christ and settled with the Wisdom and the Word of God.

Eph. 2:12: “that you were at that time without Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.” Origen says: against those who think that believers in Christ do not live Israel’s polity but some other new one with nothing in common with that, there is a fine observation here. “For you were,” he says, “at that time without Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel”—as if now they are no longer without Christ, nor alienated from Israel’s polity. For all who understand the spiritual law and live by it are made kin to Israel’s polity, and more so than the bodily Jews. It follows that the one without Christ and alienated from Israel’s polity is also reckoned a stranger to the covenants of promise.

You will ask whether for this reason they are called “without God in this world”: because, as far as God’s foreknowledge goes, those to whom the letter is written were not without God.

Eph. 2:13: “But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have become near by the blood of Christ.” “Far” and “near” are named from things spatially far or near, to show a purpose far from God and one drawing near to his will. We become near when cleansed by the blood of Christ and bought with that price.

Eph. 2:14a: “For he himself is our peace.” Mark that, just as Christ is Word and Wisdom and Power and Life, so also Peace; and one must gather from all Scripture the names he is given, that we may understand him more exactly. So as the one who has him has Word when he has sought him and found him as Word (and likewise for Wisdom and righteousness), let us also seek him as Peace, that we may have him as he is Peace, and peace of all rational beings. The one who does not have the peace does not have Christ.

Eph. 2:14b–15, 17: “who made both one and broke down the dividing wall of the fence, the enmity in his flesh, abolishing the law of the commandments in decrees, that he might create the two into one new man … and coming he preached peace to you who were far and peace to those near.” Origen says: these things are said of the more divine powers and of those saved from among humans—the more divine powers being near even before, humans far (and to these the speaker will fit “having made peace through the blood of his cross, whether things on earth or things in the heavens,” and will narrate the whole passage so). The better powers were in friendship with God; humans in the world were in enmity toward him; and that enmity was the dividing wall of the fence, hindering human nature from being united to the blessedness of the better. So this dividing wall of the fence, being enmity, was broken through our Savior’s becoming human, and for that reason it is said to have been broken in his flesh.