Since our Lord Jesus Christ was without sin, "because he hath done no
iniquity, he who taketh away the sin of the world, neither was there deceit
in his mouth," He was not subject to death, even though death had by sin
entered into the world. As so for our sakes He submits to death and dies
and offers Himself to the Father as a sacrifice for us. For we had offended
Him and it was necessary for Him to take upon Himself our redemption that we
might thus be loosed from the condemnation - for God forbid that the Lord's
blood should have been offered to the tyrant! Wherefore, then, death
approaches, gulps down the bait of the body, and is pierced by the hook of
the divinity. Then, having tasted of the sinless and life-giving body, it
is destroyed and gives up all those it had swallowed down of old. For, just
as the darkness entirely disappears when light is let in, so is destruction
driven away at the onset of life, and life comes to all, while destruction
comes to the destroyer. - St. John of Damascus, *On the Orthodox Faith*
Book III, chapter 27
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