Christ has redeemed us by giving Himself as our ransom; He is the price paid for every soul, and by redeeming us from death and giving us immortality He has made us His own. So now that we belong to the Lord we must follow His will in all things, not living for ourselves anymore but only for Him who has purchased us with His life. We are no longer autonomous but belong to the One who has bought us, and we must be ruled by His will. As long as death had power over us we were ruled by sin, but now that we belong to the Lord of life we must give our allegiance to our new Master. Sin must never again make us disobey Him, for that would bring us once more under the domination of the evil one and of death.
We feel bound to Christ when we know that He is, as Paul tells us, both victim and priest, that He was actually offered for us as our paschal sacrifice, and that He Himself was the priest who made this offering to God. He gave himself up, says Paul, as a sacrifice to us. Those who realize that Christ gave himself up and became our Passover will in their turn offer themselves to God as living sacrifices, holy and acceptable. They will become spiritual oblations. Refusing to conform to the standards of the world, they will change their whole outlook so as to know the will of God, what is good, pleasing to Him, and best in every way …
While our minds remain subject to our lower nature we are at enmity with God and refuse to obey His law … Meditating on Christ’s offering of His own blood in atonement for our sins should teach us to imitate Him and to make atonement for our own sins, mortifying our bodies in order to purify our souls.
St. Gregory of Nyssa