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(1) What was Adam's crime? - (2) How, because of his crime, all people became corruptible and mortal? – (3) How did the merciful and humane God, through the economy of the incarnation, deliver the human race from corruption and death? – (4) And what is the mystery of the cross and the three-day burial of the Lord God and our Savior Jesus Christ? 1. The primordial Adam, being in paradise, fell, at the suggestion of the serpent, into pride and, dreaming of being a god, as the devil told him, he ate from the tree from which God commanded him not to eat. For this he was given over to great punishments - decay and death, to humble his pride. But when God condemns something, He gives a sentence, and His sentence becomes a deed and an eternal punishment, and there is no longer any possibility of destroying this punishment, which occurs by Divine determination. Think now: Adam sinned a great sin, because he did not believe the words of God, but believed the words of the serpent. Compare God and the serpent, and you will see how great the sin of the wise Adam was. In his great wisdom, he gave names to all animals; but when with all his soul he believed the serpent, and not God, the Divine grace that rested in him retreated from him, since he became an enemy of God, because of the unbelief that he showed in His words. Adam thought that God was jealous of him and did not want him to know good and evil, and for this reason he commanded him not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, so that he would not become a god like God who created him. And he tasted, and immediately knew his nakedness, and instead of becoming god, he became corruptible, and like corruptible, mortal. 2. And so, as you see, the sentence of God remains forever an eternal punishment. And we people have all become corruptible and mortal, and there is nothing that could remove this great and terrible sentence. When it is not possible to remove this sentence, then what is the use of wisdom, or wealth, or power, or the whole world? For this reason, the Most High Son of God, the Lord Jesus Christ, came to humble himself in Adam’s place—and truly humbled himself even to the point of death on the cross. The word of the cross, as Scripture says, is this: cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree (Gal. 3:13). - Adam, having no need, took from the fruit of this tree (from which God commanded him not to eat, threatening that as soon as he ate, he would die), ate, and died. You need to know that just as a person has a body and a soul, he has two deaths: one is the death of the soul, the other is the death of the body, as well as two immortalities - mental and physical, although both are in one person, for soul and body are one person. So Adam died in soul immediately as soon as he tasted it, and then, nine hundred and thirty years later, he died in body. For just as the death of the body is the separation of the soul from it, so the death of the soul is the separation from it of the Holy Spirit, which the God who created him favored to overshadow man, so that he would live like the Angels of God, who, being always enlightened by the Holy Spirit, remain motionless against evil. For this reason, the entire human race became what the forefather Adam became through the fall - mortal, that is, in soul and body. Man, as God created him, was no longer in the world, and it was not possible for anyone to become what Adam was before breaking the commandment. But it was necessary for such a person to exist. 3. So, God, desiring to have such a man as in the beginning created Adam, sent His Only Begotten Son to earth in the last times, and He, having come, became incarnate, taking on perfect humanity in order to be perfect God and perfect man, and the Divinity thus had a man worthy of Him. And behold the man! There has never been another like it, there is not, and there never will be. But why did Christ become such? In order to keep God's law and His commandments and to enter into the struggle and defeat the devil. Both were accomplished in Him by themselves. For if Christ is the very God who gave the commandments and the law, then how could it be possible not to keep to Him that law and those commandments that He Himself gave? And if He is God, as He truly is, then how was it possible for Him to be deceived or deceived by any trick of the devil? The devil, however, as blind and senseless, rebelled against Him in battle, but this was allowed in order for some great and terrible sacrament to take place, namely, so that the sinless Christ would suffer and through this Adam, who had sinned, would receive forgiveness. For this purpose, instead of the tree of knowledge there was a cross, instead of the stepping of the feet with which the first parents walked to the forbidden tree, and instead of the stretching out of their hands, which they stretched out to take the fruit of the tree, the immaculate feet and hands of Christ were nailed to the cross, instead of eating the fruit there was eating gall and otta, and instead of the death of Adam - the death of Christ. Then what happened? Christ lay in the tomb for three days, for the sake of the sacrament of the Most Holy Trinity, to show that although He alone, the Son, was incarnate and suffered, yet this economy is the work of the Most Holy Trinity. What is this house-building? One Person of the Holy Trinity, namely, the Son and Word of God, having become incarnate, offered Himself in flesh as a sacrifice to the Divinity of the Father, and the Son Himself, and the Holy Spirit, so that the first crime of Adam would be graciously forgiven for the sake of this great and terrible deed, that is, for the sake of this sacrifice of Christ, and so that by his power another, new birth and re-creation of man would be accomplished in holy Baptism, in which we are cleansed by water dissolved with the Spirit Saints. From that time on, people are baptized in water, immersed in it and taken out of it three times, in the image of the three-day burial of the Lord, and after they die in it to this entire evil world, in the third removal from it they are already alive, as if resurrected from the dead, that is, their souls are revived and again receive the grace of the Holy Spirit, as Adam had it before the crime. Then (the baptized) are anointed with holy myrrh, and through it they are anointed with Jesus Christ, and smell supernaturally. Having thus become “worthy of being fellow members of God, they eat His Flesh and drink His Blood, and through consecrated bread and wine they are made co-corporeal and intimate with the incarnated and sacrificed God. After this, it is no longer possible for sin to dominate and tyrannize over them, as it does over gods by grace. Since Adam fell under an oath, and through him all the people descended from him, but God’s verdict on this could not be destroyed in any way, then Christ became an oath for us, through the fact that he was hanged on the tree of the cross, in order to offer Himself as a sacrifice to His Father, as it is said, and to destroy the verdict of God by the superabundant dignity of the sacrifice. For what is greater and higher than God? Just as in all this visible creation there is nothing higher than man, for everything visible was created for man, so God is incomparably higher than all created things, and nothing can compare with Him, not all visible and invisible creation. Thus, God, Who is incomparably above all visible and invisible creation, took on human nature, which is above all visible creation, and sacrificed it to His God and Father. Ashamed of such a sacrifice, I will say this, and honoring it, the Father could not leave it in the hands of death, which is why He destroyed His sentence and raised from the dead first and foremost the One who gave Himself as a sacrifice, in atonement and in exchange for the people of his kindred - and then, on the last day of the end of the world, He will resurrect all people. However, the souls of those who believe in Jesus Christ, the Son of God, in this great and terrible sacrifice, are resurrected by God in this life, and the sign of this resurrection is the grace of the Holy Spirit, which He gives to the soul of every Christian, as if another soul. Such a soul of a Christian is called faithful because it has been entrusted with the Holy Spirit of God, and it has received Him - the Spirit of God, Who is eternal life, since the Holy Spirit is the eternal God, emanating from the eternal God and Father. 4. Since in this way the cross became, as it were, the altar of this terrible sacrifice, for the Son of God died on the cross for the fall of people, then the cross is rightly honored and worshiped, and is depicted as a sign of the common salvation of all people, so that those who worship the tree of the cross are freed from the oath of Adam and receive the blessing and grace of God for the practice of every virtue. For Christians, the cross is majesty, glory and power, for all our strength is in the power of the crucified Christ; all our sinfulness is mortified by the death of Christ on the cross, and all our exaltation and all our glory are in the humility of God, who humbled himself so much that he deigned to die even among evildoers and thieves. For this reason, Christians who believe in Christ mark themselves with the sign of the cross not simply, not haphazardly, not with carelessness, but with all attention, with fear and trembling and with extreme reverence. For the image of the cross shows the reconciliation and fellowship into which man has entered with God. Therefore, demons are afraid of the image of the cross, and cannot bear to see the sign of the cross depicted even in the air, but they flee from it immediately, knowing that the cross is a sign of the fellowship of man with God and that they, as apostates and enemies of God, removed from His divine face, no longer have the freedom to approach those who have been reconciled with God and united with Him, and can no longer tempt them. If it seems that they are tempting some Christians, let everyone know that they are fighting against those who have not properly learned the high sacrament of the cross. Those who have understood this sacrament and have actually experienced the power and strength that the cross has against demons, have also known that the cross gives strength, strength, meaning and divine wisdom to the soul - these exclaim with great joy: let me not boast except in the cross of our Lord, by whom the world was crucified to me and to the world (Gal. 6:14). So, since the sign of the cross is great and terrible, then every Christian has the duty to perform it with fear and trembling, with reverence and attention, and not simply and haphazardly, out of habit only and with negligence, for according to the amount of reverence that someone has for the cross, he receives corresponding strength and help from God, to whom be glory and dominion forever. Amen. You might be interested in: