The Son's humble sayings belong to his poverty, so that we might become sons of God

And again he says: "Just as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him in love, having predestined us for adoption through Jesus Christ to himself" (Ephesians 1:4-5). And again he speaks about the two peoples: "That he might create the two in himself into one new man, making peace, and reconcile both in one body to God through the cross, having killed the enmity in him" (Ephesians 2:15-16). And when he says, "Why do you call me good? No one is good except one, God" (Matthew 19:17), God, having numbered himself with human beings, said this according to his flesh, and in response to the mind of the one who approached him. For that man considered him only a man and not God, and the answer has this sense: "If you consider me a man," he says, "and not God, do not call me good; for no one is good." For goodness does not belong to human nature, but to God. And he adds: "Do you know the commandments?" (Matthew 19:17). When the man said, "Which ones?" he said: "You shall not commit adultery, you shall not murder," and so on (Matthew 19:18-19). He answered, saying: "All these I have kept from my youth; what do I still lack?" (Matthew 19:20). He said to him: "If you want to be perfect, go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and take up your cross and follow me" (Matthew 19:21). Through these words, then, he showed that goodness belongs to him as well. For how can the one who does not follow the good inherit eternal life? And when he says about the last day, that "No one knows, not even the Son, but only the Father" (Matthew 24:36), he speaks in a human way. For if he knows the Father, how does he not know the last day? "No one knows the Father," he says, "except the Son, and the one to whom the Son chooses to reveal him" (Matthew 11:27). And if the Holy Spirit knows all the things of God, how does the Son not know the day which he created? And if the ages came into being through him, and the times, it is clear that the last day is also found among the ages and times, and it is impossible for him to be ignorant of it. Therefore, all the lowly words spoken by the Lord belong to his poverty, so that we might become rich in him, not so that we might blaspheme against the Son of God through them. And for this reason the Son of God became a son of man, so that the sons of man—that is, of Adam—might become sons of God. For the Word begotten from above from the Father ineffably, unspeakably, incomprehensibly, eternally—this same one is begotten in time from below from the Virgin Mary, the Mother of God, so that those who were first born from below might be born a second time from above, that is, from God. He therefore has a mother only on earth, and we have a Father only in heaven. And for this reason he calls himself Son of man, so that human beings might call God Father in the heavens: "Our Father," he says, "who is in the heavens" (Matthew 6:9). Just as we, the servants of God, have become sons of God, so the Master of the servants became the son of his own servant, mortal, that is, of Adam—so that the sons of Adam, being mortal, might become sons of God, according to what is said: "He gave them authority to become children of God" (John 1:12).