“The truth is, men were more inclined to avoid the death of the flesh which they could not avoid, than the death of the spirit; that is, they shrank more from the punishment than from what deserved the punishment. Few, after all, care— or care very much— abou not sinning; but they make a great fuss about not dying, though it is in fact unobtainable. So then, in order that as by one man came death so by one man there might come the resurrection of the dead, the mediator of life came to show us how little we should really fear death, which in our human condition cannot now be avoided anyway, and how we should rather fear ungodliness which can be warded off by faith. And to do this he came to meet us at the end to which we had come, but not by the way we had come. We came to death by sin, but he came by justice; and so while our death is the punishment of sin, his death became a sacrifice for sin.”
Augustine, On the Trinity, Book IV, 13