There are those who rely on their important friends or their own abilities, and others on their wealth – a presumption common to man. But do you really suppose that another man can save you from the wrath to come? The psalmist says, ‘his brother shall redeem him’, but who is this brother? It is he who after his resurrection said, ‘Go and tell my brothers’.
When we call God our Father we are calling Christ our brother, and so need not fear the evil day, since we are not relying on ourselves or our powerful friends but on him died for us so that we might not die an eternal death, who humbled himself that we might be raised up.
If Christ be not our redeemer who can save us?
For even if a man has led a holy life, it will go hard with him if you put aside your mercy when he stands before you. But you do not search out our sins in anger, and so we believe that one day our home will be with you. This is our hope, but let us know ourselves.
If we reckon up our deserts they are only a list of your gifts; and let us not say we have no debt to pay, in case the devil should prove us wrong, and take us to himself.
Let us answer that our debt has been paid by Christ, that holy victim we receive at your altar, in whom we have triumphed over the enemy.
(S. Augustini, In Iohannis euangelium tractatus CXXIVpassim; Sermones 372 et 141)
