Беседа 4

Col. 1:21–22. And you, who were once alienated and enemies, by disposition to evil deeds, He has now reconciled in the body of His Flesh by His death, in order to present you holy and blameless and blameless before Him. Praise be to Moses. - Why did Christ come into the world later than him? 1. Here (the apostle) shows that (Christ) reconciled (people), while they were unworthy of reconciliation - the expression: they were under the power of darkness - indicates the plight in which they were. But so that you, having heard about the dark power, do not imagine any necessity, he adds: “And you, who were once alienated.” Although here, apparently, he says the same thing, but (in fact) it is not the same: it is not the same thing to deliver from evil a person who has necessarily suffered evil, and (a person) who has voluntarily undergone it; the former is worthy of pity, and the latter of disgust. However, He, according to (the apostle), freed us, who had departed from Him not through captivity, not under coercion, but voluntarily, and reconciled us, despite our unworthiness. And since (the apostle) mentioned above about heavenly things, he now shows that all enmity originates from here, and not from there: they (the inhabitants of heaven) have long wanted (reconciliation), and God too, but you did not want. He makes it absolutely clear that if people had remained enemies until the last times, then the angels could not have done anything: they could not convince (people) and, having convinced them, free them from the devil. After all, there would be no benefit in convincing them without binding the ruler (the devil), just as there would be no benefit in binding (the ruler) unless those contained (under his power) wanted to get rid of them. Both had to be done; (the angels) could do neither one nor the other, but Christ accomplished both. And to convince (people) was a more amazing thing than to destroy death: the latter depended entirely on Him, and He alone was Master in it; and in the first, He was not the only one who acted, but we also took part, but we are more comfortable doing what depends on ourselves. So what was more important, (the apostle) puts it later; and he didn’t just say: warring, but “alienated,” which means strong enmity, and not only alienated, but also not expecting reunification. “And enemies, by location,” he says, showing that their alienation was not only in intention, but what? - “to evil deeds,” that is, you were enemies and acted like enemies. “Now He has reconciled in the body of His flesh by His death, that He might present you holy and blameless and blameless before Him.” Here he also presents an image of reconciliation - that (Christ reconciled us) “in the body,” being not only ulcerated, or beaten, or betrayed, but also having suffered the most blasphemous death. He again mentions the cross, and again points to another benefit; not only (says): delivered, but also hints here at what he said above - that he made us capable (of receiving deliverance). “By His death,” He says, “to present you holy and blameless and blameless before Him.” He not only freed us from sins, but also placed us among the glorified. He endured so much not only to free us from evil, but also to raise us to our original state, just as if someone, having freed a condemned person from punishment, elevated him to an honorable state. And He placed us among those who have not sinned in anything, or better, among those who have not only sinned, but also those who have accomplished the greatest feats, and what is even more, He has granted us holiness before Him. The word “innocent” expresses more than chastity, since the name “innocent” is applied to us when we do not even bring ourselves to condemnation or reproach by our actions. But since, having said that He accomplished this by His death, (the apostle) attributed everything to Him, so that no one would say that nothing is required on our part, he added for this: “If only you remain strong and unshakable in the faith and do not fall away from the hope of the gospel” (Col. 1:23). With these words he protects them from carelessness. And he didn’t just say: “you remain,” because there is shaky and wavering abiding, and there is standing and firm abiding. “If only you remain,” he says, “firm and unshakable.” Oh, what a turn of phrase he used! Not only not wavering, he says, but also unshakable. And look: so far he does not require anything difficult, nothing difficult, but only faith and hope - as if he is saying: if you continue in faith, then the hope of receiving future benefits is undeniable. It is possible here (no doubt); but in virtue it is impossible not to waver at least a little; so it's not difficult. “From the hope of the gospel,” he says, “which you heard, which was proclaimed to every creature under heaven” (Col. 1:23). But what is the hope of the gospel if not Christ? He is our peace, and He did it all; therefore, whoever attributes this to others has deviated (from the truth), and if He does not believe in Christ, then he has lost everything. “We heard,” he says. He again calls them as witnesses, and then the whole universe. He does not say: (the gospel) preached, but - “proclaimed”, in which they have already believed. This is what he did at the beginning, wanting to confirm them too by the testimony of many. “Whose I Paul became a minister” (Col. 1:23). And he does this for authentication. “I,” he says, “Paul, became a minister”: and he was of great importance, since he was glorified everywhere, and was a teacher of the universe. “Now I rejoice in my sufferings for you, and I fill up in my flesh what is lacking in the tribulations of Christ for His Body, which is the Church” (Col. 1:24). 2. What is the connection here? It seems invisible, but really big. And “a minister,” he says, instead of saying: I introduce nothing from myself, and proclaim the teaching of another; I believe so much that I suffer because of Him, and not only do I suffer, but I also rejoice in my suffering, looking at what we expect in the future; and I suffer not for myself, but for you. “And I fill,” he says, “the deficiency in my flesh of the sorrows of Christ.” I think he said something great; but this is not out of impudence - no! - but out of strong love for Christ. He does not want these sorrows to be assigned to him, but to Christ; and he said this because he wanted to attract them (the listeners) to Christ. “And everything that I suffer,” he says, “I suffer for His sake.” Therefore, give thanks not to me, but to Him: He endures it. This is the same as if someone, being sent to someone, asked another, saying: I ask you, go instead of me to such and such, and the latter then said: I am doing this for this one. So he is not ashamed to attribute these sufferings to Him, because (Christ) not only died for us, but even after death is ready to suffer for our sake. (The Apostle) wanted and tried to prove that (Christ) even now with His own body exposes Himself to danger for the sake of the Church. This is what his speech is aimed at, i.e., that you are brought not by us, but by Him, although we do this - we have taken upon ourselves not our own work, but His. It is the same as if a detachment were in battle under the protection of a general; and then, in the absence of the latter, the secondary military leader would begin to take the blows directed against him until the end of the battle. And that (the apostle) really did this for Him (Christ), listen to how he himself says: “For His Body,” wanting to say by this that I do not please you, but Christ, because I endure for Him what He should have endured. Look how much he expresses, revealing strong love. Just as in the second letter to the Corinthians he wrote: “He who has given us the ministry of reconciliation” (2 Cor. 5:18), and again: “In the name of Christ we ask: be reconciled to God” (2 Cor. 5:20), so here, in order to attract them more, he says the same: “For His sake I suffer,” i.e., although the One who owes you has departed, I still pay His debt. So he says “lack” in order to show that, in his opinion, Christ has not yet endured everything. For you, he says, He suffers even after death, if need requires. He presents the same thing differently in the Epistle to the Romans, saying: “Who... also prays for us” (Rom. 8:32, 34), showing that He was not content with only death, but even after that does infinitely many things for us. Thus, he says this not for his own exaltation, but wanting to show that Christ still cares about them, and to confirm his words he adds: “for His Body.” That this is really so, that there is no inconsistency here, is clear from the very fact that this is done “For His Body.” Do you see the connection between us and Him? So, why do you introduce the medium of angels here? “Whom,” he says, “I became a servant.” Why else are you introducing others here - angels? "I" am the "servant". Then he shows that he himself has done nothing, even though he is a servant. “Which I became,” he says, “a minister according to the economy of God, entrusted to me for you, to fulfill the word of God” (Col. 1:25). "On house building". By this, he either said: so He wanted that, after His departure, we would become successors to the ministry in the work of economy, so that you would not remain abandoned - He himself suffered, he himself was a messenger - or he expressed the following thought: for this reason (God) allowed me, the most severe persecutor of all, to persecute (Christ), in order to become worthy of credibility when preaching, - or he mentioned the economy in that the sense that he required not works, or exploits, or merits, but faith and baptism. Otherwise, you would not have accepted His teachings. “For you,” he says, “to fulfill the word of God.” He uses the word “fulfill” in relation to the pagans, showing that they still hesitate: the fact that the pagans could accept such lofty dogmas was not the work of Paul, but of God’s economy: I, he says, would not have had the power. Having pointed out what is more important, i.e., that his suffering is Christ’s (suffering), he then presents something more understandable, i.e., that “to fulfill the word of God for you” is also God’s work. Here he, although unclearly, shows that dispensation was revealed in that, that you are now recognized as capable of listening to the word (of God), and this is not out of negligence, but for the purpose of making you capable of receiving it. God does not suddenly do everything, but, out of His great love for mankind, adapts to us; and this is the reason why Christ came now, and not in ancient times. So in the Gospel (God) shows that He sent slaves first so that (the Jews) would not be moved to kill the Son. If they were not ashamed of the Son when He came after the servants, then much more if He had come first. If they did not obey the lesser orders, how could they obey the greater ones? So what does he say? Are not the Jews and Gentiles still in an even worse condition than they were before? This is finally the height of carelessness! After such a long time, after so many instructions, to still remain imperfect is extreme negligence! 3. So, when the pagans ask why Christ only came now, we will not allow them to say this, but we ourselves will ask: has He not completed His work? Just as if He had come from the very beginning and not completed His work, it would not have been enough to justify Him to point to the time of His coming, so now that He has completed His work, it would be unfair for us to demand an account of the time of His coming. And from a doctor who healed a disease and restored the patient to health, no one will demand a report regarding the treatment; and no one will ask a commander who has won a victory why he did it at such and such a time and in such and such a place. One could have asked about this when he had not done so; and if you did, then you need to accept it. Tell me what is more worthy of faith: your inventions and reasoning, or the execution of the deed itself? Tell me this: did He win or not? Did you win or not? Did what he said lead to the end or not? This is what the report should be. Tell me, of course you confess that there is a God, although you do not recognize Christ? I ask you: is God without beginning? You will certainly confirm this. Tell me: why didn’t He create people thousands of years earlier? Then they would have lived longer; and if being is a good, then it is a greater good to exist longer. But now did they suffer any damage during the time they were gone? No, there was no damage; why - the One who created them knows this. I ask you again: why didn’t He create everyone suddenly, but made it so that the soul of one, who was created first, has existed for so many years, while the share of the other, who has not yet come into being, gets to live less? Why did He arrange it so that this one is born first, and this one is the last? Such things are indeed worth exploring, but not out of idle curiosity; the latter in itself does not constitute research. But I will show you the real reason for what I started talking about (i.e., why Christ appeared late). Agree that human nature has its own ages - that in the first times our race was in a state of infancy, in subsequent times - in the position of youth, and in those times approaching old age, in the position of an old man; finally, when, after the weakening of the bodily members and the cessation of the struggle, the soul became stronger, we reached the point of wisdom. You will say: on the contrary, we teach children from an early age. True, we teach, but only unimportant subjects, and perhaps only to speak correctly, developing the gift of speech in them; and even then only when they begin to grow up. Look, God did exactly the same thing with the Jews; just like with children, He assigned to the Jews a literacy teacher, Moses, who led them, just like we children, to the gradual study of written signs, depicting them on the board. “The law is a shadow of things to come, and not the very image of things” (Heb. 10:1). And just as we buy gifts for children and give them money, demanding only one thing from them, that they immediately go to school, so God at that time sent (to the Jews) abundance and contentment, wanting to receive from them, for such attention to them, one thing, so that they would only listen to Moses. For this reason, He entrusted them with a mentor, so that they would not neglect him, but would look at him as a gentle father. And look, they were afraid only of him - they did not ask: where is God? And where is Moses? He terrified them with his mere presence. When they did wrong, look how he punished them. God wanted to reject them, but Moses did not allow it; or rather, it was all God’s work. He made threats just like his father; and Moses, as a teacher, begged Him and said: leave it to me, from now on I take them in my hands. Thus, the desert was a real school. And just as children, after spending some time in their studies, try to leave, so at that time they constantly strived for Egypt, cried, said: we are lost, we have lived, we have died. Moses also broke the tablet on which he had written, as it were, the names of things. He acted in the same way as the teacher who, having taken the board and seeing a bad letter on it, throws the board away, wanting to show strong anger; and even though he breaks it, the father will not be angry, because he tried and wrote, but they did not look at him, they only yawned to the sides and were naughty. And just as children, during their activities, beat each other, so he, at that time, commanded some to beat and kill others. And again, he punished them, like a (teacher) who gave lessons and, having asked, found them unprepared. (What are these lessons) I’ll give an example: there were such writings that pointed to the power of God revealed in Egypt. Yes, he says, but these letters announced plagues (Egyptian), that God was punishing enemies, and contained a lesson that was very instructive (for the Jews). What else was the punishment of enemies for you, if not a benefit? Yes, and in other ways He has benefited you. It’s the same as if someone began to claim that he knew the letters, and when they began to question him in detail, he was not able to answer and was punished for that: so they also said that they knew the power of God, but when it was necessary to show this knowledge in various cases, they were not able to answer and for that they were punished. Do you see water? At the same time, I must remember about the water of Egypt: whoever turned water into blood can do this too. Just like we often tell children: when you see the letter “a” in a book, remember that this is the same sign as on your board. Do you see the hunger? Remember that he destroyed (in Egypt) everything that was born. Do you see the wars? Remember the flood. Do you see that the earth is inhabited by strong nations? But they are not stronger than the Egyptians, and the one who took you out from among them can’t save you much more easily when you are not in their hands? But they did not know how to answer, interspersed, all the questions related to their alphabet, and for this they were punished. All they knew was that they ate, drank and rioted. Having experienced harm from pleasures, they should not have sought them in manna. They did the same thing as if the son of free parents, when they began to send him to school, wanted to live with slaves and serve with them; as if, receiving everything necessary for the maintenance of a free man, taking a place at his father’s table, he found the disorderly and noisy table of slaves pleasant. So they all strove to Egypt, although they said to Moses: by this, Lord, “everything that you eat... we will do and be obedient” (Ex. 24:7). And as it happens with very dissolute children that the father would sometimes like to kill them, and the teacher constantly begs him for them, so the same thing happened at that time. 4. But why are we told about this? Because we are no different from children. Do you still want to hear their teaching in order to see how much of a child there is in it? “An eye for an eye,” he says, “and a tooth for a tooth” (Lev. 24:20). And this is natural. Nowhere is the tendency to revenge so strong as in the soul of a child. Since vindictiveness is the most reckless passion, and this age is especially characterized by recklessness and lack of deliberation, it is understandable why anger has unlimited power over children. And the dominion of anger is so strong that they often throw themselves on the ground and then, jumping up, beat their knees in anger, or overturn benches, and only after that the tormenting passion in them begins to subside and their rage cools down. God acted in this way when he allowed them to tear out an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, or when he struck the Egyptians and Amalekites for the insults they inflicted (on the Jews). God gives permission to act in this way, like a father who, when some (little one) says: Father, so-and-so killed me, he replies: he is an evil person, we will not love him. In the same sense, God says: I will be the enemy of your enemies, and I will hate those who hate you. And again, when Balaam prayed, they were shown the same leniency as children. Just as it happens with children, when they see something that in itself is not at all scary - for example. wool, or something similar - suddenly they begin to get scared, and we, so that this thing does not instill fear in them, bring it to them and give it to them, or force the nurse to show it - this is what God did. Since the prophet was terrible for them, He turned their fear into courage. And just as children who are weaned are given a horn as a consolation, so God did not refuse the Jews anything, and sent them complete contentment. But even after that the child still asks for the breast: and they also all looked for Egypt and Egyptian meat. Thus, he who calls Moses their teacher, educator and leader will not sin. And this was a very wise man; After all, it is not the same thing to lead people who are already capable of reasoning maturely and to manage foolish children. If you like, you can say something else. Just as a teacher says to a child: when you go for natural needs, be careful, protect your dress while you sit, so did Moses. And just as in children - who do not yet have a charioteer - all the passions dominate: vanity, self-will, recklessness, anger, envy - so all these (passions) dominated over the Jews: they spat on Moses, they beat him. And just as a child lifts a stone at someone, and we all shout: don’t throw it, so they lifted stones at their father, although he, however, avoided them. And just as a child, if he sees some jewelry on his father, asks for it for himself because he likes it, so did the accomplices of Dathan and Aviron, who rebelled against the priesthood. They were envious, cowardly more than anyone else, and in all respects (they were people) with shortcomings. So, tell me, was it really necessary for Christ to appear at that time? To give commandments that have such a deep meaning at a time when they were under the power of frantic passion - when, in their voluptuousness, they were real horses - when they were slaves of greed and gluttony? It would be in vain for him to squander the lessons of philosophy and reason with crazy people. They would understand neither one nor the other. Just as someone who would begin to teach reading before the alphabet would never even teach the alphabet, so it would be then. But now it is not so: now, by the grace of God, great meekness and great virtue have been implanted everywhere. Let us be grateful for everything and not indulge in idle curiosity. It is not for us to know time, but for Him who created time and created the ages. Let us leave everything to Him. Giving glory to God means not asking Him to account for His deeds. So Abraham gave glory to God, “and being fully confident that He is able to do what He promised” (Rom. 4:21). He didn't even ask about the future; and we are looking for reasons for what has already passed. Look, what foolishness, what ingratitude! But let’s leave this at last - because there will be no benefit from this, and even greater harm; Let us nourish in our souls gratitude to our Master and send up glory to God, so that, giving thanks for everything, we may be rewarded with His love for mankind, with the grace and love for mankind of our Lord Jesus Christ, with whom to the Father with the Holy Spirit be glory, power, honor, now and ever, and to the ages of ages. Amen. The paragraphs in the text were arranged by us. – Editorial staff of “ABC of Faith” You might be interested in: