Renewal in Christ: Athanasius on the Christian Life

Introduction Athanasius’s On the Incarnation is my favorite book of all time. I will never forget the first time I read it in seminary. Having recently acquired a hunger to learn, I was devouring all the most popular books of the day about Jesus. As I opened On the Incarnation , I assumed that because it was around seventeen hundred years old that it would be stale and a step behind contemporary theology. But what I read not only corrected me but left me in awe. Athanasius declared the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus with as much depth as anything I had read, while at the same time adding more color to the gospel and doing so in a way that was pastoral, poetic, and yet concise. Furthermore, as I learned about Athanasius, I found relief that he was writing not from a posh cottage in the countryside but rather out of his life experience which was characterized by controversy and suffering. This was theology for real life. Athanasius’s writing impacted me so much that I decided to read On the Incarnation every year around Christmas. As I have done so, each year my understanding of the person and work of Christ deepens and my love for God grows.

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