189. Беседа о новом рождении свыше

(Printed in the collections of 1844 and 1848) Do not marvel, for you are to die: it is fitting for you to be born again. (John 3:7). It is not surprising if the birth of some people, whose life is especially pleasing to God, and beneficial for other people, is provided for with the promise of joy, and is remembered with a holiday. Thus, an Angel predicted about the birth of the Great Forerunner of the Lord: “many people will rejoice at his birth” (Luke 1:14). But when we see that custom makes every person’s birthday a personal or household holiday, then thoughts of bewilderment and even surprise are born. Is birth, followed by fleeing life and inevitable death, worthy of celebration? Man, says Job, “is born of a small child, and is full of wrath” (Job 14:1): is this something to celebrate? “I was conceived in iniquity,” says David, “and in sins did my mother give birth to me” (Ps. 50:7): what is there to celebrate? - Blessed is he who can celebrate that birth, by which shortcomings are filled, imperfections are corrected, the disasters of this first birth are ended - a new birth, a spiritual birth, a new birth. “It is fitting for you to be born again”: the Lord said to Nicodemus in a nightly, solitary conversation with him. He did not say: “you” must be born again, although he spoke to only one person; but he said: “It is fitting for you”: so that it could be seen that this is not about the need of this or another person in particular, but that the law is spoken to all of you who want to be true disciples of the heavenly Teacher Jesus Christ. “It is fitting for you to be born again.” The Lord's teaching about the rebirth of man seemed strange to Nicodemus, although neither ill-intention can be attributed to him, since he recognized the Divine messenger of Jesus through His miracles, nor gross ignorance, because he was a Prince and a Pharisee. First, the sensual mind arose in him, reasoning about objects in terms of the concepts of the corporeal world only, and asked: “How can a man be born, an old man? Can food be brought into its mother’s womb for the second time and be born?” (John 3:4) And when this crude elemental wisdom was refuted by the concept of a higher birth by water and spirit: then the philosophical mind entered into the competition and demanded explanation and proof: “how can these things be?” (John 3:9) Doesn’t something similar to this happen today? What is revival? What kind of thought is it to produce a person again during his existence, when he, without a doubt, should remain the same person? Why this exquisite sophistication, this incomprehensible mystery? Isn't it enough to just be good Christians? Do not such words against the deep Christian teaching burst out from some like stones thrown at random, without realizing that they want to hit them? Know, then, that this is not a matter of arbitrarily ascending wisdom, as with the Apostle, and I wish that “everyone who is in you should not philosophize any more than he ought to philosophize” (Rom. 12:3); not about an addiction to dark mystery, which, however, I don’t know who would want to prefer to possible clarity; It’s not about deviating from simplicity, about which I am concerned with the Apostle, “lest your minds become corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ” (2 Cor. 11:3): but the point is to either gain or lose the kingdom of God. Rebirth is required not in order to become a sage or a mystic, but in order to acquire the Kingdom of God. If you remove the thought of rebirth from yourself, then you remove from yourself the opportunity to see the kingdom of God. “Unless one is born again, he cannot see the Kingdom of God” (John 3:3), says the Lord. So I repeat: blessed is he who can celebrate his birth from above. To this you can say: why don’t we congratulate ourselves on the bliss of rebirth, when we are born of water and spirit in holy baptism? - Here is a thought worthy of careful study in the doctrine of regeneration. Let us distinguish between baptism with water and baptism with the spirit, as Jesus Christ Himself distinguishes them in His saying to the Apostles: “John baptized with water, but you are to be baptized with the Holy Spirit” (Acts 1:5), and let us ask: is the baptism which we have been worthy of, is it only baptism with water? - No, without a doubt. If it were only baptism with water, it would hardly differ from the simple cleansing ablutions used during the times of the Old Testament; it would be a rite, and would not deserve the name of Sacrament, which the Church distinctively gives it; the sovereign name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit would appear strangely inactive in Baptism; to assert that we were baptized in the name of the Holy Spirit, but were not baptized in the spirit, would be an irreconcilable contradiction in itself. “As many as were baptized in Christ,” says the Apostle, “put on Christ” (Gal. 3:27): without a doubt, water cannot do this, but perhaps the spirit. If our baptism is more than baptism with water alone, then it is impossible not to admit that it is baptism with water and spirit, or, according to the word of the Lord, birth with water and spirit, and according to the expression of the Apostle, “the bath of regeneration” (Titus 3:5); in a word, rebirth. So, truly in holy baptism we were made worthy of rebirth, “begotten,” as the Apostle explains, “not from a seed that was corrupted, but incorruptible, by the word of the living God, and abiding forever” (1 Pet. 1:23), - by the power of the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Well? So, is the Kingdom of God truly within us? - It must be so. So are we blessed? - Let anyone who can say this about himself; but I don’t dare, because I see too much that contradicts this; I see more the appearances and deeds of the unregenerate, old man, than the regenerated, new man, more of the poverty of Adam than of the bliss of Christ. See what characteristics the Holy Scripture describes for those who are truly regenerate. “Whoever is born of God commits no sin, for His seed abides in him; and cannot sin, for he is born of God” (1 John 3:9). That is: the grace of God, like a seed, like the beginning of a new life in a person, inspiring him with faith and love for God, constantly produces in him good thoughts, intentions and deeds; and therefore it is not at all akin to him to commit sin and find pleasure in it. Will any of us who are baptized dare to say about ourselves that we are like that? “Whoever is born of God overcomes the world” (1 John 5:4). Do any of us feel like such a winner? Are not many of us overcome by self-interest, or glory, or the vanity of the world, and drawn into captivity by its charms? “You,” it is written to the regenerated, “have received the anointing of the Holy One and know everything” (1 John 2:20). “And you do not demand, but who teaches you, for the anointing itself teaches you in all things” (1 John 2:27). Show me here at least one of these leaders, so that I can learn from him how to resolve the difficulties of the teaching now being presented. We are now between opposites. On the one hand, there are reasons to think that we are involved in spiritual rebirth through holy baptism; on the other hand, there are signs by which one cannot help but admit that for the most part we lack the properties and actions of a regenerated person. How can these inconsistencies be explained and reconciled? The word of the Lord’s parable fits here: “The kingdom of heaven is like a hidden treasure in a village” (Matthew 13:44). The village, or field, represents a person. The depth in which the treasure is hidden signifies the heart or interior of man, more or less revealed by faith. Here, in the sacrament of baptism, the Spirit of God, “who breathes wherever he wants” (John 3:8), breathed invisibly, and brought in His breath a treasure, an incorruptible seed of rebirth, new life from God. So the treasure has been laid, and is definitely in our field: but has each of us done on our part what the parable further requires? Did you “gain” it through deep self-knowledge and going inside yourself? Did he “hide” it from invisible thieves, through humility? “Did you sell everything you had” (Matthew 13:44), did you reject the world and the flesh, did you give up passions and desires without a trace in order to take your inner treasure and use it for your bliss? If we haven't done anything like that; if they didn’t bother to penetrate what’s hidden in our field; if we only graze on its surface with sensual pleasure, like wordless grain; if we bury the hidden treasure deeper and deeper with skill and squabbles of vain, unclean, lawless thoughts and deeds: then the treasure lies, but we do not use it; The incorruptible seed in us does not vegetate, does not bloom, does not bear fruit; our spiritual life is either in embryo or faint; We must desire that someone would again care about our revival, as St. Paul did about the revival of the previously baptized Galatians, when he wrote to them: “My children, even though I am sick, until Christ is imagined in you” (Gal. 4:19). That is: as a giving birth mother, I am in labor and suffering in order to promote your spiritual birth, and, moreover, not for the first time: at first this was necessary, when it was necessary, through faith and baptism, to place in your hearts the firstfruits of the spirit; but when you, “having begun in the spirit, are now finished in the flesh” (Gal. 3:3), then a new painful feat is required in order to open the spiritual treasure buried under the predominant flesh, in order to grow the arrested sprout of the spirit to bear spiritual fruits, so that the image of Christ, impressed into the soul by baptism, is clarified and manifested in all its abilities, powers, dispositions and deeds that are Christ-like and pleasing to God. “I am still ill, until Christ is imagined in you.” Whoever agrees with these reflections about how important and necessary revival is for true Christianity; and yet in his life, deeds and conscience he does not find reassuring evidence that he really enjoys the fruits of rebirth; he should think, not without care, in what state he is, and what this leads to. The judgment of Christ has been pronounced and, most likely, will not change. As He judged on a silent night in the presence of Nicodemus alone: ​​so He will judge on the glorious last day in the presence of all Angels and all men: one who is not born again cannot see the Kingdom of God! Others think: is it possible to determine all the steps to the Kingdom of Heaven? Maybe we will be saved somehow. - This is as if someone, noticing the difficulty and unknown hope of agriculture, said: perhaps bread will be born without cultivation and without sowing. “Sow to the spirit,” says the Apostle, “from the spirit you will reap eternal life” (Gal. 6:8). If we do not sow, then it is true that there will be nothing to reap. Others, on the contrary, will say: good; I will certainly sow to the Spirit, and I will become regenerate. - No, beloved! And this is not a reliable way. Neither the careless “maybe” nor the arrogant “certainly” are suitable in matters of the spirit. Anyone who, as if to order, thinks of becoming reborn, will most likely become a dreamer. A baby cannot be born when and how he wants: the mother must give birth to him, according to the order of nature. In the same way, a person cannot be reborn when and how he wants: he must be reborn by the Spirit of God, according to the order of grace. Between the extremes of careless inactivity and arrogant enterprise lies the modest but active path of the spirit, which the Apostle indicates with the following words: “Work out your salvation with fear and trembling” (Phil. 2:12). “Work out salvation,” and do not think that it will happen by itself, but do it with “fear and trembling,” not relying on what you do yourself, and constantly being careful not to resist God’s action in you. “God is the one who works in you to do whatever you will and to do for good pleasure” (Phil. 2:13). Do you want to know especially about rebirth, what depends most on us, and what is most needed on our part? Look, as the Apostle directed, at the image of rebirth presented in natural birth. Not only the one who gives birth suffers from childbirth, but the one who is born is sick and cries. Here is a living parable for the doctrine of regeneration. Be sick about the old, carnal life, from which you have not yet been resolved; cry about your sins, not only because hell threatens you for them, but even more because you were not faithful to God, who created you and who loves you, that you appeared ungrateful before Christ, who suffered for you, that you grieved the Holy Spirit; cry with heartfelt tears, tears of sad love; Find food for yourself in these tears, according to what is written: “Tears were bread for me day and night” (Ps. 41:4). “For sorrow, even according to God, repentance without repentance leads to salvation” (2 Cor. 7:10) - repentance is not only verbal, but active, not short-term, but decisive and permanent, that which in the baptized the Church significantly calls the second baptism, and consequently an essential part of rebirth, that about which there is joy in heaven. Know, you who seek to be children of God, the spiritual taste of pure, Divine sadness, and you will know rebirth, and taste new life, to the joy of yourself and Heaven, to complete joy, inalienable forever. Amen. “It came from a word on the birthday of the Sovereign Emperor Nikolai Pavlovich on June 25, but the year of its pronunciation is not indicated in the manuscript. In the conversation, the following in the manuscript has been changed. intro: It is not surprising that the birth of a king becomes the subject of a national holiday, that the birth of the Most Pious Tsar becomes the subject of a church holiday. “When a righteous king sits on the throne, he will not oppose anything evil before his eyes,” says the wise one (Prov. 20:8). When God deigns to give birth to such a king: then He prepares for Russia the cornerstone of what may be a wavering edifice of the kingdom, gives a new medicine against the people’s evils and troubles, reveals a new treasure of the people’s good, erects a new wall against enemies, spreads over his church a new cover of a quiet and serene stay - there is something to celebrate and highly triumph! This is a holiday of love and gratitude to the king, as the supreme creator of the people's good, and at the same time love, gratitude and prayer to God, the One Supreme Giver of all good, and the only One who can preserve for a long time the gift sent down from Him. I don’t say happy is the king for whom they celebrate like this, for this is not being done as a favor to him, but I will insistently say: let the people consider themselves happy that they can celebrate like this, for through love for the king and prayer for him they affirm their own prosperity. And so I’m not surprised, but I’m glad that the Tsarev’s birthday is a holiday. But when on this occasion I bring to myself the thought that custom makes every person’s birthday a personal or household holiday, I am perplexed and almost surprised. Birth, followed by fleeing life and inevitable death - what is there to celebrate? You might be interested in: