Now that the Savior of us all has died on our behalf, we who believe in Christ no longer die as before, under the threat of the law. That condemnation has ceased. Instead, as corruption is brought to an end and abolished by the grace of the Resurrection, our bodies are dissolved only according to their mortal nature, at the time God has appointed for each of us, so that we may attain "a better resurrection."
Like seeds cast into the earth, we are not destroyed when our bodies are dissolved. Rather, as those who are sown, we will rise again, because death has been abolished by the grace of the Savior. Therefore the blessed Paul, who became a guarantor of the Resurrection for all, says: "This corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. When this mortal has put on immortality, then the saying that is written will come to pass: ‘Death has been swallowed up in victory. Death, where is your sting?’"
Someone may ask: If it was necessary for Him to hand over the body to death on behalf of all, why did He not lay it aside privately, as a human being, rather than going so far as crucifixion? It would seem more honorable for Him to lay aside the body with dignity than to endure such a death with disgrace.
But consider whether this objection is merely human, while what the Savior did is truly divine and worthy of His divinity for several reasons. First, the death that comes to human beings comes because of the weakness of their nature: unable to remain for long, they are dissolved with time. For this reason they also fall ill and, growing weak, die. But the Lord is not weak. He is the Power of God, the Word of God, and Life itself.
If He had laid aside the body somewhere in private, on a bed in the ordinary manner of human beings, it would have been thought that He suffered this because of a weakness in His nature and possessed nothing beyond other human beings. But since He was Life and the Word of God, and since the death had to be on behalf of all, the body was strengthened in Him because He is Life and Power.
Yet because death had to take place, He did not take the occasion for completing the sacrifice from Himself, but received it from others. For it was not fitting that the Lord, who healed the diseases of others, should Himself fall sick. Nor was it fitting that the body through which He strengthened the weaknesses of others should itself become weak.
Why, then, did He not prevent death as He prevented sickness? Because He had the body for this very purpose, and it would have been unfitting to prevent death, lest the Resurrection also be hindered. Yet it would likewise have been unfitting for sickness to precede His death, lest this be taken as weakness in the one who was in the body. Did He not hunger, then? Yes, He hungered because hunger belongs to the body; but He did not perish from hunger because the Lord was the one who bore the body. Thus, although He died as a ransom for all, He did not see corruption. His body rose whole and intact, because it belonged to none other than Life itself.