'As Utterly as Straw From Fire'

"Thus, taking a body like our own, because all our bodies were liable to the corruption of death, He surrendered His body to death and in place of all, and offered it to the Father. This He did out of sheer love for us, so that in His death all might die, and the law of death thereby be abolished because, when he had fulfilled in His body that for which it was appointed, it was thereafter voided of its power for men. This He did that He might turn again to incorruption men who had turned back to corruption, and make them alive through death by the appropriation of His body and by the grace of his resurrection. Thus he would make death to disappear from them as utterly as straw from fire...For by the sacrifice of His own body, He did two things: He put an end to the law of death which barred our way; and He made a new beginning of life for us, by giving us the hope of resurrection."

St. Athanasius, On The Incarnation, p.34,37