The Word saw that human corruption could not be undone except through death. Yet the Word Himself, being immortal and the Father’s Son, could not die. For this reason He took for Himself a body capable of death, so that, by sharing in the Word who is above all, its death might be sufficient for all. Because the Word dwelt in it, the body could remain incorruptible, and so corruption might cease from all through the grace of the resurrection. Therefore, by offering to death the body He had taken for Himself, as an offering and sacrifice free from every stain, He immediately abolished death from all who shared the same human nature through the offering of a body like theirs.
For since the Word of God is above all, He naturally fulfilled what was owed in death by offering His own temple and bodily instrument as a substitute on behalf of all. And thus, being united with all through a body like theirs, the incorruptible Son of God naturally clothed all with incorruption in the promise of the resurrection. For the corruption of death no longer has any hold over human beings because the Word has come to dwell among them through the one body.
It is like a great king entering a large city and dwelling in one of its houses. The whole city is then held in great honor, and no enemy or robber attacks and destroys it. Instead, the city receives even greater care because the king dwells in one of its houses. So it has also been with the King of all.
For when He came into our realm and dwelt in one body like our own, every plot of the enemies against humanity was brought to an end, and the corruption of death, which had formerly held power over human beings, disappeared. The human race would have been utterly lost if the Lord and Savior of all, the Son of God, had not come to bring death to an end.