Слово 28

(1) Всякий грех есть нечестие, и всякий грешник – нечестивец. – (2) Христос умер, чтоб исцелить людей от грехов их. – (3) To be called only Christians, this comes to us from our ancestors and from the Christian race. 1. The lawless, the illegal, the sinner, the wicked - all are generally called sinners, but each of them has; its difference. Беззаконник есть тот, кто не имеет закона (знать не хочет законов); противозаконник есть тот, кто делает что-либо не по законам, коим подлежит; грешник есть тот, кто, делает добро не добре, или неправильно; нечестивец есть безбожник или многобожник, который неправо умствует о Боге. The Divine Scripture also calls the fornicator, the covetous, the lover of money, the lover of glory, and all those who, enslaving to such passions, know that God, who created eyes, sees everything, and yet live with such lack of fear, as if God did not see them, as wicked. If they had the fear of God and reverence for God, Who is everywhere and sees everything, then they would not dare to despise Him, sinning before Him as if He did not see how they sin. When they love human glory more than the glory of God and do all kinds of evil, thinking that the watchful eye of God does not see them, then tell me, what fear of God do they have and what reverence for God, Whom even the most soulless creatures tremble? - And the holy Prophet David, having said: destroy all who speak lies, and so on, adds: because of the multitude of wickedness (Greek wickedness), I will purge them, for I have greatly grieved Thee, O Lord (Ps. 5:7, 11), - showing that by wickedness he means their sins, which made them transgressors of the commandments of God, and not their delusions in the belief about God. He again speaks regarding adultery with Bathsheba and the murder of Uriah: I have known my iniquity and have not covered my sin, reh: I will confess my iniquity to the Lord, and You have forsaken the wickedness of my heart (Ps. 31:5). Do you see how David’s heart, according to his own consciousness, disrespected God when he committed lawlessness? - So every Christian is ungodly when he sins without the fear of God, thereby becoming a reproach to Christ. Therefore, one of the God-bearing fathers says: “What is the use of being pious by faith and ungodly by life?” That is, what is the benefit of believing rightly and living lawlessly? - Let us suppose that a Christian is a traitor, a miser, an offender, but believes rightly - what good does faith do him if he does not do any of the deeds befitting a Christian, and does not have any of the virtues by which piety is revealed, but surpasses even the Greeks in wickedness, judging by the sins that he commits? Especially when, through his bad example, he causes harm to those with whom he communicates, and becomes the reason for the blasphemy of the name of God and the rooting of the faith of Christ because of his bad deeds? If, as Saint John the Theologian says, for this reason the Son of God has appeared, that he may destroy the works of the devil (1 John 3:8), then this one, who by faith accepted the revealed Son of God, and by his deeds shows that he is bound by the works of the devil, which the appeared Son of God destroyed, is he not worse than the most unfaithful, and is he not more wicked than the most atheists? 2. When you hear that God, who created heaven and earth, the sea and everything else, visible and invisible, and man himself, became man, do not think that this happened for anything other than so that it would be possible for God Himself to somehow raise death through human nature, and after this, do not seek anything more than to find out the reason why He raised death. - And listen! John the Baptist of the Lord says: Behold, the Lamb of God, take away the sins of the world (John 1:29). And the Prophet Isaiah, many years earlier, called Him the Lamb drawn to the slaughter, and precisely for our sins (Is. 53:7). Know from this that God incarnate raised death for the sake of sin, and precisely for the sake of it, so that by His grace those who by faith accept Christ as Lord could no longer sin, for the sake of delivering them from the sin of those who were slain, died and rose three days from the grave. From this it is obvious that those who sin have not yet accepted Christ the Lord, although they think that they have accepted Him. For if they had accepted Him, then He would have given them, as John the Theologian says, the realm of being children of God (John 1:12), who cannot sin, since it is written that whoever is born of God does not commit sin, for His seed abides in him; and cannot sin, for he is born of God (1 John 3:9), - and that whoever sins does not see Him, nor know Him (1 John 3:6), - and that he who commits sin is of the devil (1 John 3:8), and that the essence of the child of God and the child of the devil is revealed in that everyone who does not do righteousness is not of God ( 1 John 3:10). And if the one who does not do good deeds is not from God, then the one who also does bad deeds, where does he come from? “For this reason,” he says, the Son of God has appeared, so that he may destroy the works of the devil, which, if they are not destroyed in someone, will have no benefit to him from anything else. 3. Many of those who come from a Christian family think that it is useful for them to be called Christians, and do not know that this is just the name that they receive from their father or mother, or from the fatherland, and in itself does not bring any benefit. Only then, when they live according to the law of Christ, does the name of a Christian and the Christian faith become their property. If they do not live as Christians, it would be better for them not to bear the name of believers in Christ, or, better said, it would be better for them not to be born. For, coming from Christian parents, they could not help but belong to the believers in Christ; Therefore, it would have been better for them not to have been born at all, because, being born among Christians and having nothing Christian in them, they would be subjected to greater torment than the wicked. Those who, not coming from a Christian race, accept the faith of Christ are worthy of every blessing. Those who, having been born of Christians, transgress the law of Christ, dishonor both Christ, the Christian race, and our true piety. - Whatever happens to us, born of pious parents and raised in Christian piety, but may we observe everything required by our faith, so that, living according to the law of Christ, we may be worthy of the kingdom of heaven by the grace and love of mankind of our Lord, to whom be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen. You might be interested in: