[K:JNWTS 28/2 (September 2013): 15]

Augustine: Christ’s Merit and Ours

For as he [the Lord Jesus] alone became the Son of Man so that through him we might become children of God, so on our behalf he alone without meriting any evil underwent punishment so that through him we might without meriting any good attain grace. After all, as nothing good was owed to us, so nothing bad was owed to him. Hence, in order to show his love for those to whom he was going to give a life they did not deserve, he chose to suffer on their behalf a death that he did not deserve (Augustine, “Answer to the Two Letters of the Pelagians,” Book 4, 4.6 in The Works of Saint Augustine: A Translation for the 21st Century. Answer to the Pelagians II [New City Press, 1998] 190-91).