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What the Fathers say
Eastern Fathers
John Chrysostom
"No man taketh it from Me, but I lay it down of Myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again." Because they often took counsel to kill Him, He telleth them, "Except I will, your labor is unavailing." And by the first He proveth the second, by the Death, the Resurrection. For this is the strange and wonderful thing. Since both took place in a new way, and beyond ordinary custom. But let us give heed exactly to what He saith, "I have power to lay down My life." And who hath not "power to lay down his life"? …
Gregory of Nyssa
And so too He foretells that at the time of His Passion He would voluntarily detach His soul from His body, saying, "No man taketh" my soul "from Me, but I lay it down of Myself: I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again." … For His Godhead, alike before taking flesh and in the flesh and after His Passion, is immutably the same, being at all times what It was by nature, and so continuing for ever. …
Athanasius of Alexandria
To be troubled was proper to the flesh, and to have power to lay down his life and take it again when he wanted was no property of people but of the Word's power. For human beings die not by their own power but by necessity of nature and against their will. But the Lord, being himself immortal but having mortal flesh, had power as God to become separate from the body and to take it again when he wanted to. …
Western Saints
Augustine of Hippo
I. e. Because I die, to rise again. There is great force in, I lay down. Let not the Jews, He says, boast; rage they may, but if I should not choose to lay down My life, what will they do by raging? (iv. de Trin. c. xiii.) Wherein He showed that His natural death was not the consequence of sin in Him, but of His own simple will, which was the why, the when, and the how: I have power to lay it down. (Tr. xlvii) How doth our Lord lay down His own life? Christ is the Word, and man, i. e. in soul and body. …
Thomas Aquinas
Now he explains the effect of the sign. And since the sign was "I lay down my life for the sheep," he explains how he lays it down. First, he excludes violence; secondly, he speaks of his power. The violence he excludes is that which could be employed in taking a life: such violence was not accomplished in Christ. Concerning this he says, no one takes it from me, that is, my life, by violence, but I lay it down, by my own power, that is, of my own accord: "Can the prey be taken from the mighty?" (Is 49:24). …
Bonaventure
"No man takes it from me: but I lay it down of myself," and thus I lay it down freely; whence he says: "And I have power to lay it down," that is, to set it aside, "and I have power to take it again"; whence Isaiah chapter fifty-three: "He was offered because he himself willed it." And why? …
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