Слово 35

(1) About the words: the first man from the earth, ringed; the second man is the Lord from heaven (1 Cor. 15:47). - (2) How do we put off the earthy man and put on Christ, and become His relatives and brethren? 1. And first, blessed Paul richly treated us to a meal of divine words and transformed our hearts; and now again he treats us to another meal of the same God-inspired words, which, being filled with spiritual dishes that nourish the inner man and cheer and strengthen the heart with the life-giving bread of the Word and the joyful wine of wisdom and knowledge of God, is also filled with the Divine grace of the Holy Spirit, filling the soul with all joy and gladness and disposing it, leaving earthly things behind, to ascend on the wings of the mind to the heavenly and to God Himself. Let's see what kind of apostolic meal this is and what kind of food is on it? But first, let us extricate our minds from the earthly, and, as those who have heard divine words, let us pay attention in order to listen with all diligence to what is spoken, so that we may worthily become friends with the Holy Spirit, who through the Apostle teaches us the hidden secrets of the kingdom of heaven. This is what he says: the first man from the earth has a ring; the second man is the Lord from heaven. Do not, beloved, leave this word without studying it and do not think that it is understandable. It contains deep thoughts and requires great attention and study. But prepare your ears to hear what will be said, and you will know the depth of the mysteries of God that are hidden in this saying. The first man from the earth, ringed; the second man is the Lord from heaven. Jacob is the ringed, so are the rings; and Yakov is heavenly, and tats are also heavenly. He calls Adam the first and dusty man, as it is written: and God created man, dust from the ground (Gen. 2:7), who, after being created from earth by dust and receiving the spirit of life, called the mental soul and image of God, was introduced by God into paradise and received the command to cultivate it and keep it, so that as long as he kept the commandment of God, he would remain in it immortally, meeting with the Angels, and with them always praising God, intelligently contemplating Him, receiving (mental) illuminations from Him and listening (when necessary) to His divine voice, and at what hour will he break the commandment of God and tear down from the tree from which he was commanded not to eat, be put to death, blinded by the eyes of his soul, stripped of the garments of divine glory, deprived of fellowship with the Angels and expelled from paradise, as he suffered everything this. For when he bowed to the crafty words of the deceiver the devil and transgressed the commandment of God, having eaten from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, he righteously lost all these blessings, became deaf (for spiritual things), so that with unclean ears he would no longer hear divine words, which only the worthy hear, and he became mentally blind, so as not to see that unspoken glory any more, since he self-willingly alienated his mind from it. his own and with passionate attention latched onto the fruit of the forbidden tree, believing the serpent, who said: if you take away the day from it... you will be like a god, knowing good and evil (Gen. 3:5). The earthy man was deceived by these words and, hoping that he would truly become a god, he ate from the tree of knowledge. For this, he lost all spiritual and heavenly blessings, and instead of them he received an addiction to earthly and visible creatures and became, I will say again, deaf, blind, naked, unsympathetic to those blessings from which he fell, and besides, he was still mortal, corruptible and senseless, like foolish animals, as the prophet David says: to be likened to senseless cattle and to become like them (Ps. 48:13). Do you see now from what glory and what bliss man has fallen into what dishonor, foolishness and corruption? From how great wealth came to how great poverty? And we have not yet said everything that needs to be said. So, the first man came from the earth, was ringed, and became (morally) earthy (fleshly) just as we said. Now let's see and learn from the Divine Scriptures, what is the second person, the Lord from heaven? This is God from God, the beginningless Son of the beginningless Father, the Incorporeal of the Incorporeal, the Incomprehensible of the Incomprehensible, the Eternal of the Eternal, the Impregnable of the Unapproachable, the Incontainable of the Incontainable, the Immortal of the Immortal, the Invisible of the Invisible, the Word of God and God, by whom all things were created, both earthly and heavenly. Being such, and abiding in the Father, and having the Father abiding in Himself, without separating from Him, He descended to earth and was incarnated by the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary, and became man, like us in everything except sin, in order to recreate and renew that first man, and with him all those born and being born from him, since they too are similar to him who gave birth to them. For just as Adam, who gave birth to them, by transgressing the commandment became corruptible, mortal, blind, naked from the divine robe and insensitive, so all of them, born of him, became everything that he became - the earthly one, that is, corruptible, mortal, deaf, blind, naked, insensitive, almost no different from irrational animals, or, better said, becoming worse than them, since they collected into themselves only the passions of each animal and keep them within themselves. Moreover, these, born of earth, fell into such great senselessness and such ignorance of God and His commandments that the honor that should be given to the only God began to be given to His visible creatures, and not only heaven and earth, the sun, moon and stars, fire, water and other creatures were deified, but even the most shameful passions were deified, and they, oh senselessness, were worshiped as God. And what passions? Fornication, adultery, sodomy, murder and many other things like that. The devil taught and persuaded man to do all this, and through this he subjugated the entire human race. If in ancient times there was one of the countless people who did not fulfill every will of the devil, but everyone sinned in the wrong way, but in another. And the fact that everyone came from the seed of those who sinned in the beginning was enough for everyone to be given over to death and corruption and relegated to hell. And there was no one who could deliver him from his hands. But God the Word, our Creator, took pity on us, and as He Himself knows, He descended to earth and became man, not in the image of human conception, but from the Holy Spirit and the Ever-Virgin Mary, as it is written: And the Word became flesh and dwelt in us (John 1:14). For just as in the beginning God created man, taking dust from the earth and breathing into his face the breath of life, and man became perfect into a living soul, not in the way in which people are usually born, so He, having come to recreate him, became man, perfect in body and soul, not in the image of human conception. We read in the Old Testament Scripture that God brought a dream upon Adam and, taking one of his ribs, created a wife from him; He did the same here, during His own incarnation. But listen, you understand! 2. Adam's rib is a wife. From this Adam's rib, that is, the wife, the Mother of God Mary, the Son and Word of God and God took flesh and transformed it into a perfect man with soul and body, so as to truly be the son of Adam. Having become a man, similar to us in everything except sin, He immediately became a relative in the flesh of all people, as the divine Chrysostom affirms where he says: “Having clothed himself with flesh, Christ clothed himself in brotherhood with us.” But Christ, being both God and man, both in Divinity is and will remain holy, and in humanity both in soul and flesh, is and will remain holy, most holy and immaculate; other people, although they became His brothers and relatives in the flesh, but, like earthly ones, remained the same and did not immediately (that is, through the very work of the incarnation of God) become saints and sons of God. Now listen carefully to what I am telling you. God became a man and immediately became a relative and brother of people. But since He alone was the Son of God and the God-man, then He alone was, is and will be holy, one righteous, one true, one immortal, one lover of mankind, one merciful and gracious, one Ruler and Lord, one Light of the world and one unapproachable Light. We, as mortals and perishable, do not have (remaining in our natural order) any other communication with Him, except for one affinity in the flesh, as stated above. Therefore, faith in Him (the Savior) has been placed as a mediator between God and people, so that God, instead of everything else, would accept this one faith that we have in Him, knowing that we are poor and that we can bring absolutely nothing to Him for our salvation except faith alone, and for this faith alone He would have mercy on us and give us forgiveness of our sins and deliverance from death and corruption. That He grants everything even to this day to all who believe with all their souls in Christ the Lord, and not just this one thing, but also everything that He promised in the Holy Gospel, that we will certainly receive everything through Him, that is, the blessings of this earth, which the meek will inherit with great gladness and joy of their hearts - He grants everything so that He (Christ) may be united with us, and through Him we will both become one with God and His Father, being combined at the same time with the Holy Spirit. We actually receive everything that has been said when we faithfully observe what we promised to observe in holy Baptism, and run away from everything that we then renounced. When we keep all this and all the commandments of God, then we become true believers, as if we demonstrate our faith by our works, and, as He is, we are made holy and perfect, and all wholly heavenly, children of the heavenly God, and in everything like Him, Christ the Lord, just as He became like us in everything except sin, only we are made like Him by grace. When, having given ourselves over to negligence, we despise His holy and life-giving commandments and, returning to our former ways, begin to do what He commands us not to do, then we are immediately deprived of all the benefits that He has given us through holy Baptism. And just as Adam, by transgressing the commandment, was expelled from paradise and removed from its sweets, from the communion with the Angels that he had there, and from God Himself, so we, when we sin, move away from the Church of His holy servants, are stripped of that divine garment, Himself, I say, Christ the Lord, in Whom we believe and in Whom we put on when we were baptized, we are deprived of eternal life and the non-evening light and unceasing, and eternal blessings, as well as sanctification and sonhood, and from those who became heavenly and in everything like the second man, the Lord Jesus Christ, we become earthly again, as the first man was, and not only this, but we become guilty of death, having to inherit pitch darkness and unquenchable fire, where weeping and gnashing of teeth. Let us not suffer expulsion from the visible paradise and not hear the condemnation of cultivating the land by the sweat of our brow, but we expel ourselves from the kingdom of heaven, alienate ourselves from these benefits, which we have not seen with our eyes, nor heard with our ears, nor breathed into a person’s heart, and we make them guilty of endless torment. And if God had not given us such a blessing that we could again return to Him through repentance, then no one would have the opportunity to be saved. Therefore, God, compassionate, loving and desiring our salvation, wisely placed between us and Himself the sacrament of confession and repentance, and gave everyone the power, if he wants, through confession and repentance to rise from his fall of sin by which he fell, and again to come to the former kinship, glory and boldness that he had with God, and again to become the heir of all the benefits that we spoke about above, or even greater ones, if we show warmer repentance. For whatever repentance a person shows, he gains the same boldness and approach to God, being worthy to clearly recognize this and talk with God, as with each other, face to face. So, those who, after Baptism, do not feel the assurance that they have such boldness and appropriation towards God and participate in those blessings of which we have spoken, and do not realize that they are clothed in Christ, and do not see the light of His Divinity, with the light of the Holy Spirit, let them carefully examine their conscience, and of course they will find that they have not kept either all or some of those agreements that they entered into with God when they received Baptism, or that they have buried their talent in the ground, that is, the gift of sanctification and sonship they received, and did not multiply it, which is why they are not worthy to contemplate and intelligently see their Master. God is true and does not repent of the gifts given by Him, but He Himself says: if you have My commandments and keep them, he is the one who loves Me... And I will love him, and I will appear to him Myself (John 14:21). Have you heard what Lord Christ says? Whoever, he says, loves Me and keeps My commandments, I will love him and will appear to him Myself. If now Christ is the truth, as He Himself said: I am the truth (John 14:6), and it is impossible for the truth to lie, as the Apostle says: it is impossible to lie to God (Heb. 6:18), then let none of those who do not see the Lord say that it is impossible to see Him, whereas this is not only not impossible, but also very easy. If He, as He Himself says, is the light of the world (John 8:12), then those who do not see Him are of course blind, and they are blind because they neither loved Him nor kept His commandments. For if they had loved Him and kept His commandments, then with all their souls they would have desired and sought to see Him, and He would have certainly revealed Himself to them as unfalse, essentially true and self-truth. Then He came into the world in order to enlighten all those who are in the world and those sitting in darkness with the light of His glory and His Divinity. So, those Christians who do not see the Lord intelligently, are not clearly and knowingly illuminated by His divine light, do not see Him abiding within themselves, let them not say, as infidels, that it is impossible to see Him; but let each of us, my beloved, examine his conscience, as I have already said, and of course find that he himself is to blame, that he does not have God in himself and does not see His glory, and then let him repent and mourn for himself that he is in such a poor state, and strive through repentance and confession to return what was lost, so that he may also receive eternal blessings in Christ Jesus our Lord, to whom be glory and dominion now and ever, and forever and ever. Amen. You might be interested in: