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(1) Each of us must know that he is Adam in order to be Christ. – (2) The sacrament of the incarnation of the Son and Word of God has the goal of re-creating those who believe in Him and making them incorruptible and immortal. – (3) God’s decrees become the law of nature. – (4) What decrees of God are again canceled by Him and how? 1. If any of us does not know that he is Adam, the one who sinned before God in paradise, then how can he recognize and think that the descent of the Son and the Word of God was for him? Such a law was established after the fall that, just as each of us becomes Adam, that is, a corruptible and mortal man, not because of our own sin, but because of the disobedience of our ancestor Adam, from whose seed we come; so again each of us becomes Christ, incorruptible and immortal, not for the sake of our virtues, but for the sake of the obedience of the second Adam, who is Christ our Lord, who came down from heaven, being made bone of His bones and flesh of His flesh. And just as corruption and death pass from generation to generation from the old Adam, so incorruption and immortality pass to Christians from the new Adam. Just as we know that we are partakers of the nature of our forefather Adam, the fallen, by the sign that we also sin and transgress the commandments of God, so we know that we are partakers of the Divine grace of our second ancestor - Christ the Lord, by the sign that we no longer sin as soon as we receive this Divine grace. We draw from the fullness of Christ, just as myriads of lamps would be kindled from some source of fire, and the more they were lit, the more he would abound in fire and pour it out from himself, for Christ, as God, is filled with all goodness. 2. He, without distancing himself from all things, deigned to withdraw into the most pure womb of the Ever-Virgin, to be born, to feed on milk, to grow and become a man, to also hunger, thirst, toil and shed sweat, then to be envy of the Jews for the miracles He performed in demonstration of His Divinity, to be hanged on the cross like a villain, along with the robbers, to die shamefully by death, according to His will, I was buried, resurrected and ascended into heaven in order to send down on the believers the Holy Spirit, proceeding from the Father, Whom He sent. For this was the goal and end of the entire incarnate economy of Christ, so that the Holy Spirit would be received into their souls by those who believe in Him, as God and man, one Christ in two natures, Divine and human, inseparable and unmerged; so that this Holy Spirit would be, as it were, the soul of the soul of believers, and for this reason they would be called Christians; so that (by the action of this Holy Spirit) they are in some way refined, recreated, renewed and sanctified in mind, conscience and in all feelings, so that after this they no longer have any corrupted life in themselves, which could raise in their soul the urge and desire for carnal pleasures and worldly lusts. For every person from the first day of his birth (from the moment of conception) is already subject to corruption and death, and great and divine power is required to recreate him to incorruptibility and immortality. If someone, along with bodily age, grows in thinness, then in such a person, of course, the power of corruption and the dominion of death increases, becoming even more powerful in him, because as the corruption that someone develops in himself, the sting of death enters into him, that is, either more or less. If now a small and gentle child needs divine strength in order to free himself from corruption, then how much greater strength is needed for one who, along with age, has grown in badness, and along with it and through it has increased in himself corruption, which the Godfather David calls in his psalms bonds and sackcloth, crying out to God: “Thou hast torn my bonds to pieces.” I will devour a sacrifice of praise to You (Ps. 116:8), that is, I will thank and glorify You because You have torn apart my bonds, that is, corruption; and again: Thou hast torn my sackcloth to pieces, and thou hast girded me with gladness. For let my glory sing to You and not be moved (Ps. 29:12–13); that is, You took off from me the sackcloth that I wore, that is, corruption, and girded me with joy, that I might glorify You, not I, but the Holy Spirit through me, because the joy and glory that David received from God was the Holy Spirit, Whom he has in himself, he says: and I will not be moved (I will not have the need to repent), that is, I will not sin? So, it is absolutely necessary for everyone to make every possible effort to receive from above from Christ the Lord this joy and glory, that is, the grace of the Holy Spirit, so as to have the strength to sin no more. For what someone does by choice, he can destroy by choice, but what is from nature cannot be destroyed by choice. If man has now become naturally corruptible and mortal, then he cannot, by the power of his own will alone, become incorruptible and immortal. And from the time of Adam’s expulsion from paradise, that is, from the time when, due to a crime, he became corruptible and mortal, even to this day (until this day. - Ed.) not a single person has appeared incorruptible and immortal. 3. So, if a person needs to return again to that first state in which he was created, to become, that is, incorruptible, then no human will can lead him to this state, but only divine power, acceptable to him through combination with the divine nature. The divine nature will powerfully defeat the mortality of human nature and again call it back to its original state. The words and definitions of God become the law of nature. Why is it that the decree of God, spoken by Him as a result of the disobedience of the first Adam, that is, the decree of death and corruption for him, became the law of nature, eternal and unchangeable. Why, to abolish such a definition, the Son of God, our Lord Jesus Christ, crucified and died, offering Himself as a sacrifice to redeem man from death, a terrible and immeasurably great sacrifice. The definition of God: you are earth and will go to earth, as well as everything imposed on man after the fall, will still be in effect until the end of the age, but by the grace of God, due to the extraordinary sacrifice of Christ, in the next century it will no longer have any force when the general resurrection takes place, which resurrection would have been impossible to take place if the Son of God Himself had not risen from the dead, who died to abolish the said definition and resurrect all human nature, since he was resurrected man, that is, Christ, just as man, that is, Adam, originally died, both combining in themselves the entire human race. 4. However, let everyone know that God’s decrees regarding punishments for sins after the incarnate dispensation have time to be canceled in this life. The definitions of God, imposed on the first man Adam, who sinned in paradise, during his comfortable life, are not righteously canceled in this life and are set for man in the law of nature, and the definitions of Christ, imposed after the incarnate economy on us, who are in this calamitous life, can be canceled in this century. And every Christian, if he has fallen under them, must take care with all his zeal and effort that they are removed from him while still here, for they are incomparably more terrible than the first, since they extend over endless centuries. If the first definitions that deprive a person of temporary life, that is, the definitions of death and decay, seem unbearable, then the definition of eternal and endless punishments that will be imposed in the next century will be how much more difficult and unbearable for those who will have to experience them! What exactly are these definitions, listen. Our Lord Jesus Christ says: if anyone says to his brother... that he is a freak, he is guilty of fiery hell (Matthew 5:22). This means that the one who said this to his brother, as soon as he said it, immediately became guilty of eternal torment. But this decision or determination of the judgment of God loses its force as soon as someone repents and with such determination decides not to tell his brother again: the freak, that he would rather die than agree to do this; because, in fact, it is better for a Christian to die than to call his Christian brother “freak.” In the same way, that is, through repentance, contrition and determination to abstain from sins, all other judgments of Christ lose their force. But let us know that only here, in real life, where there is a transgression of God’s commandments, only here does the terrible judgment of judgment take place, for that, by God’s boundless mercy, for the sake of sincere and complete repentance. And whoever does not repent here, these definitions will inevitably be fulfilled; certainly, whoever swears to God in untruth will be punished as a wicked person; whoever looks at his wife with lust will be punished as a fornicator; the covetous will be punished as an idolater. However, if someone repents of such and similar sins, but at the same time turns out to be unmerciful, uncompassionate and hard-hearted, that is, he repays evil for evil and does not forgive his enemy, in this case he will not receive any benefit from his repentance, but all his repentance will be in vain, according to the definition of the Lord, who says: with whose judgment you judge, you will be judged (Matthew 7:2). And not only this, but something even worse could happen, it could happen that another, having sincerely repented, will find mercy from God and receive remission of all his sinful debt, but if after this he turns out to be uncompassionate and unmerciful towards others and does not forgive them for what they sin against him, then he himself ruins the merciful condescension and forgiveness shown to him by God, as the Holy Gospel says: isn’t it fitting and should you have mercy on your minion, just as I had mercy on you? And his Lord was angry and handed him over as a tormentor (Matthew 18:33–34). Grant us, Lord, to repent of our sins, and to be compassionate and merciful to our neighbors, so that we may be worthy to receive eternal bliss in Christ Himself, the true God, to whom be glory forever. Amen. You might be interested in: