Часть вторая. О Боге – Спасителе и особенном отношении Его к человеческому роду

Section I. About God the Savior § 71. The teaching of the Church and parts of this teaching The Orthodox Church teaches: “God so arranged for man that, because of his sin, the goodness of God would shine forth much more: since He determined to send His only begotten Son into the vale of earth, so that He, having received flesh from the Most Pure Virgin through the action of the Holy Spirit, would redeem man and bring him into His kingdom in much greater glory than what he had in paradise” (Rev. Confession. 1, answer to question 25). “When the first people confessed their sin before God, God, in His mercy, gave them the hope of salvation, promised that the seed of the woman would erase the head of the serpent (Gen. 3:15), i.e. that Jesus Christ will defeat the devil, who has deceived people, and will deliver them from sin, curse and death, and this promise was repeated to people many times... Finally, the Son of God came down from heaven for our salvation..., took on human nature... and accomplished our salvation" (Space. Christ. Catech. 1, about part 3; Right. Confess. 1, answer to question 38). This teaching of the Church contains two main parts: the first is about God as our Savior in general, since all the Holy Persons participated in the work of our salvation. Trinity; the second is about our Lord Jesus Christ in particular, as the very Author and Finisher of our faith and salvation (Heb. 2:10; 12:2). Note In Holy Scripture, the name of the Savior or our Savior is equally assimilated: a) to God in general, glorified in the Trinity, for example: to the only wise God and our Savior, Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory and majesty (Jude 25); or: Paul is the messenger of Jesus Christ, according to the command of God our Savior, and the Lord Jesus Christ, our hope (1 Tim. 1: 1; see also 1 Tim. 2: 3, 4; Titus 3: 4, 6, etc.); b) and in the closest sense, the Son of God, the Lord Jesus, for example: Father of the ambassador of the Son of the Savior to the world (1 John 4: 14; see also Titus 1: 4; 2: 13; 3: 6, etc.). Chapter 1. About God as our Savior in general § 72. God alone could save or restore a person who had fallen but still retained the ability to recover I. Man committed three great evils, failing to stand in the primeval covenant with God: a) he infinitely offended with his sin his infinitely good, but also infinitely great, infinitely just Creator, and through this he was subjected to eternal damnation (Gen. 3:17–19); b) infected his entire being, created by good, with sin - he darkened his mind, corrupted his will, distorted the image of God in himself; c) through sin he produced disastrous consequences for himself in his own nature and in external nature. Consequently, in order to save a person from all these evils, in order to reunite him with God and make him blessed again, it was necessary: ​​a) to satisfy for the sinner the infinite truth of God, offended by his fall; b) consume sin in a person’s entire being - enlighten his mind, correct his will, restore the image of God in him; c) destroy the disastrous consequences produced by man’s sin in his nature and in external nature. But no one could fulfill all the above conditions except God alone. 1. To fulfill the first condition, i.e. To satisfy the truth of God for the sin of man, an infinitely great, propitiatory sacrifice was required as much as the infinite insult inflicted by man on God, as infinite as the eternal truth itself. But no one could make such a sacrifice; for every single person is completely infected with sin, and so on. everyone is completely under the curse of God: a brother will not deliver, will a man deliver? He will not give God treason for himself, and the price of the deliverance of his soul (Ps. 48:8-9). None of the highest created spirits could have made such an infinitely great sacrifice to God for man, even if they wanted to: on the one hand, because the sacrifice of a created spirit and even all of them together, no matter what it consists of, by their very limitations, cannot have an infinite price; and on the other hand, because all good things are created by created spirits not on their own, but with the help of God’s grace. Such a propitiatory sacrifice for the sins of man, quite sufficient to satisfy infinite truth, could only be found and offered by the most supremely wise and omnipotent God. 2. In order to fulfill the second condition, namely, to consume sin in man’s entire being, to enlighten his mind, to correct his will, to restore the image of God in him, it was necessary no less than to recreate man: for sin is not something external in us, on the contrary, it has penetrated our entire nature, infected all our powers with its poison, and corrupted our abilities; it damages each of us in the very seed and root - because we are all conceived in sin, and born in sin. But, without a doubt, neither man himself, sick, weak, deprived of the grace of God, nor any of the Angels, whose power is limited, could ever recreate a person. Only the One who created him in the beginning, and who said about Himself: I am, I am the one who blots out iniquities (Isa. 43:25) could recreate and cleanse man from sins. 3. Finally, in order to destroy the very consequences produced by the sin of man in his nature and in external nature, to destroy illness, suffering, death, to destroy that disorder and vanity to which the creation was subjected not by will, but because of the obedience (Rom. 8:20), it is necessary to recreate not only man, but also all of nature, as is obvious from the very nature of the indicated consequences. Moreover, it follows that neither man nor any Angel could fulfill this last condition, but only God could fulfill it. II. But, being unable to rise up on his own and fulfill all the conditions that must be fulfilled for this purpose, fallen man nevertheless retained within himself the ability or opportunity to be restored by Divine power. Through the Fall, he distorted the image of God in himself: but he did not erase, did not destroy even a trace of it in himself. did not lose the ability to reunite with God. He darkened his mind: but not to such an extent that he became incapable of recognizing and accepting even ready-made truth communicated from above. He corrupted his will and tilted it towards evil; but not to the point that she became completely evil and did not want good, did not love him. On the other hand, having become, through the Fall, decisively irresponsible before the judgment of God’s truth, fallen man nevertheless turned out to be not unworthy of God’s mercy. He arbitrarily violated the commandment of his Creator, an easy commandment, although he had every motive and every means to fulfill it: but he violated it through temptation from the devil, and not through any stubbornness, not through deliberate and fierce resistance to the will of God, as the devil himself fell. Our forefather sinned: but then he resignedly suffered the punishment determined by God, and spent his entire centuries-old life in repentance. The subsequent history of the human race shows that no matter how far, little by little, people deviated from truth and righteousness: but the feeling of the Divine was never exterminated in them; they sought God, although, due to their blindness, for the most part they did not know how to find Him; they tried to serve and please Him, although, for the same reason, not in the proper way; they tried to appease Him for their iniquities and make peace with Him through various sacrifices, ablutions and other means, although they could not achieve their goal. § 73. The means chosen by God for the restoration or salvation of man, and the meaning of this means God found a means for the restoration of man in which His mercy and truth were met, righteousness and peace were embraced (Ps. 84:11), in which His perfections were manifested to the highest degree and in complete harmony. 1. This remedy consists of the following. The Second Person of the Most Holy Trinity, the Only Begotten Son of God, voluntarily wanted to become a man, to take upon Himself all human sins, to endure for them everything that the righteous will of God determined, and thus satisfy eternal truth for us, to blot out our sins, to destroy their very consequences in us and in external nature, i.e. recreate the world. In the word of God, this great deed is depicted under the image of the covenant between God the Father and God the Son, who, departing into the world, said to the Father: sacrifice and offering did not desire ecu, but the body was completed by me. The ecu did not favor burnt offerings and sins. Then reh: here I go; in the head of the book it was written about Me, to do Your will, O God (Heb. 10:5-7; demolished. Ps. 39:7-9). The means chosen by God for our redemption are eminently consistent with His perfections. Here His infinite goodness was manifested: For God loved the world, as He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life (John 3:16). His infinite truth manifested itself when such an extraordinary, amazing sacrifice was required to satisfy it - the death of the God-man: Whose God ordained cleansing through faith in His blood, in the revelation of His righteousness, for the remission of former sins (Rom. 3:25). His infinite wisdom manifested itself, which thus found a way to reconcile eternal truth with eternal goodness in the matter of man’s redemption, to satisfy both and to save the lost - a way that no created mind could ever have imagined, and which is therefore called, by virtue of God’s wisdom, the hidden wisdom (1 Cor. 2:7), the secret hidden from everlasting and from generation to generation (Col. 1:26). Divine omnipotence manifested itself, which was able to combine into one person the God-man two natures, infinitely distant from each other, Divine and human, and combine unfused, immutable and inseparable. § 74. Participation of all Persons of the Most Holy Trinity in the matter of human salvation, and why did the Son become incarnate for this purpose? I. However, although the incarnation of the Son of God was chosen as the best means for our redemption, both the Father and the Holy Spirit took part in this great work. This is obvious from those places of Scripture where God is generally called our Savior, who accomplishes our salvation through Jesus Christ in the Holy Spirit, such as, for example, the words of the Apostle: when the grace and love for mankind appeared of our Savior God, not from the works of righteousness, which we have done, but according to His mercy, He saved us by the washing of rebirth, and the renewal of the Holy Spirit, which was poured out on us abundantly, by Jesus Christ Our Savior (Titus 3:4–6). In particular, Holy Scripture presents the following attitude of God the Father and God the Holy Spirit to the work of incarnation and redemption accomplished by the Son of God - 1. The Son of God came into the world and became incarnate from the Holy One. Virgos. And it is said about the Father that He sent His Son into the world (John 10:36) in the likeness of the flesh of sin (Rom. 8:3), begotten of a woman (Gal. 4:4). And the Holy Spirit was foretold by the Most Holy One. To the Virgin: The Holy Spirit will come upon You, and the power of the Most High will overshadow You: likewise, the holy thing to be born will be called the Son of God (Luke 1:35). 2. The Son of God was baptized upon entering upon the office of His public ministry. And the heavens were opened to Him, and in the sight of the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and coming upon Him. And behold a voice from heaven said: This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased (Matthew 3:16, 17). 3. The Son of God preached during His public ministry. And at the same time he testified: My teaching is not Mine, but Him who sent Me (John 7:16); I did not speak from myself: but the Father who sent me gave me commandment, what I should river and what I should say (John 12:49). And about the Holy Spirit he said even before the start of his sermon: The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, for the sake of the anointing of Me to preach good news to the poor; sent Me to heal the brokenhearted: to preach remission to the captives, and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the brokenhearted go into joy: to preach the year of the Lord is pleasant (Luke 4:18, 19). 4. The Son of God performed miracles to prove the divinity of His teaching and His embassy. And he said: The Father abides in Me, It is He who does the works (John 14:10; 25). And also: if I cast out demons through the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God will come upon you (Matthew 12:28). 5. The Son of God, to redeem us, died on the cross in His flesh. And the Apostle teaches that the Father did not spare His Son, but gave Him up for us all (Rom. 8:32). And in another place, that Christ offered Himself blameless to God by the Holy Spirit (Heb. 9:14). II. Why exactly did the Son of God become incarnate to accomplish our salvation, and not the Father and not the Holy Spirit, although They also participated in this matter: this is the mystery of the Divine. Based, however, on what is revealed to us about the Divine Persons and the work of our redemption, St. the fathers and teachers of the Church found the incarnation of the second Person of the Most Holy. The Trinity is most consistent with His properties - a) as the Son, so that His personal property remains unchanged; b) as such a Person through whom everything was created and in particular man was created (John 1:3) and for whom it was therefore most fitting to recreate what was created through Him; c) as the eternal Word, which alone could tell us about God (John 1:1, 18); d) as the image of God (Heb. 1:3), in which man was created and in which he must be recreated. § 75. The motivation for the work of salvation and the purpose of the coming to earth of the Son of God Why the Trinitarian God deigned to redeem us, there is only one reason for this, His infinite love for us sinners: God, says the Apostle, constitutes His love for us, since Christ, while we were still sinners, died for us (Rom. 5:8). In particular, the infinite love was manifested here: a) God the Father - for this the love of God was revealed in us, as God sent His Only Begotten Son into the world, that we may live by Him (1 John 4:9; carried down by John 3:16); b) God the Son, Who Himself testified that no one has greater love than this, but whoever lays down his life for his friends (John 15:13) and indeed, having loved those who are in the world, love them to the end (John 13:1) and laid down his life for them; c) God the Holy Spirit - before That (the Son) the imams brought both in one Spirit to the Father (Eph. 2:18), and - by His mercy, saved us by the washing of rebirth and renewal of the Holy Spirit (Tit. 3:5). That is why the whole work of our redemption is called a work of mercy and grace: salvation comes by grace, through faith: and this not from you: it is the gift of God (Eph. 2:8). 2. As for the purpose of the embassy and the coming into the world of the Son of God, it is clearly indicated by St. The Church, when it teaches us to confess: “for our sake man and for our salvation He came down from heaven.” And Holy Scripture confirms that the Son of God came to earth, indeed, not for any other purpose, but actually in order to save us (Luke 19:10), i.e. a) to satisfy eternal righteousness for us: God hath ordained cleansing through faith in His blood, at the revelation of His righteousness, for the remission of former sins (Rom. 3:25); b) to cleanse us from sins: He who gave Himself food for us, may He deliver us from all iniquity (Titus 2:14); c) to deliver us from death and the power of the devil: since the children have already partaken of flesh and blood, and He sincerely partook of the same, so that through death he will abolish the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver these, who through the fear of death through all their life are guilty of work (Heb. 2:14, 15); d) to make saints: the saving grace of God has appeared to all people, punishing us, so that, having rejected ungodliness and worldly lusts, we may live chastely and righteously and piously in this present age (Tit. 2:11, 12); For we are a workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God has first prepared, that we may walk in them (Eph. 2:10); and e) to give us eternal life: God so loved the world, as He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life (John 3:16). § 76. The eternal predestination of salvation, and why did the Redeemer not soon come to earth? I. God, in His infinite goodness, predestined from eternity to redeem us. Embracing in thought the entire work of our redemption, St. The apostles testify: we speak the hidden wisdom of God in mystery, which God hath ordained before the world for our glory (1 Cor. 2:7). Speaking, in particular, about the Redeemer Lord Jesus, they call Him the blameless lamb, foreknown before the foundation of the world, who appeared in the last year for our sake (1 Pet. 1:19, 20), the lamb slain from the foundation of the world (Ap. 13:8). Speaking, finally, about us, for whom the Redeemer suffered, they express that God chose us in him before the foundation of the world, to be holy and blameless before Him in love (Eph. 1:4) and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His good pleasure, and the grace given to us in Christ Jesus before eternal years (2 Tim. 1:9). II. But although the All-Good is still from eternity, and the trace. before our fall, he determined to redeem us: however, he did not suddenly deign to fulfill His predestination as soon as we fell; and He sent His Son to earth in the last days (Heb. 1:2). The Holy Fathers and teachers of the Church, delving into the plans of Divine economy, presented the following reasons for the late appearance of the Son of God in the world: 1. It was necessary that people, over the course of centuries, should experience and, as much as possible, feel more strongly the full depth of their fall and their moral impotence, and the more willingly they would desire Divine help, and the more zealously they would accept it when it was given (Rom. 8:3); for God could not save people against their will and desire. 2. It was necessary for the infection of sin, which had deeply penetrated human nature, to come out, little by little, so that this moral disease of humanity would fully mature and reach the final stage of its development, and then the heavenly Physician of souls and bodies would appear for its complete and complete healing - where sin had multiplied, says the Apostle, grace abounded (Rom. 5:20). 3. It was necessary to warn people about the coming to earth of such an extraordinary Messenger of God as the Redeemer, and to inform them, little by little, information about all the circumstances of His miraculous appearance, life and death, so that when He appears, they could recognize Him more accurately; it was also necessary to gradually prepare them for the assimilation of such a high teaching as the Redeemer had to bring, and which without this preliminary aid they would have been unable to assimilate. In short, it was necessary first to prepare the human race in different ways and in different respects to receive the predestined Redeemer from time immemorial, and then to appear to the Redeemer. The Infinitely Wise indeed did just that. § 77. God's preparation of the human race to receive the Redeemer and faith in Him at all times God's preparation of the human race to receive the Redeemer represents two great periods: the first period - before the father of believers, Abraham (approx. 3448 years); the second period is from Abraham until the coming of the Redeemer (approx. 2060 years). In the first, most extensive period, God prepared the entire human race in the same way. 1. As soon as our first parents fell, deceived by the serpent, God: a) spoke to them the promise that the seed of the woman would erase the head of this serpent (Gen. 3:15), i.e. that the Redeemer who is born of a woman (Gal. 4:4) will destroy the works of the devil (1 John 3:8), and will deliver the human race from all the disastrous consequences of the fall (Heb. 2:14); and at the same time b) established sacrifices, as a prototype of the great sacrifice that the Messiah had to offer on Calvary for the sins of the whole world (Heb. 9:26; 10:11, 12). Since the time of this first gospel of the Messiah, announced in paradise, and the establishment of sacrifices pointing to His suffering and death, saving faith in the Lord Jesus has already existed continuously in the human race. 2. The means that God used then to preserve and spread among people both true faith and piety in general, and especially the first gospel of the Messiah and the correct concept of the sign of sacrifices, were mainly the following: a) revelations - for this purpose God sometimes appeared Himself and talked with people (Gen. 4:8-15; 6:13-22; 8:15; 9:9-12), and sometimes gave people a gift prophecies, for example: Enoch (Jude 14) and Noah (Gen. 9:26, 27); b) miracles, such as: the transversion of Enoch, which served as an image of repentance by the family (Sir. 44:15), confusion of languages ​​(Gen. 11:1–10), the global flood (chap. 7); and c) that longevity with which God blessed the patriarchs, who usually lived for more than seven, eight and nine centuries. In the second period, God prepared his chosen people, the Jews, differently, and the pagans differently: the former mainly in a supernatural way, the latter mainly in a natural way. I. For the preparation of the Jews God used: 1. Promises and prophecies about the Messiah, which the Most Wise One communicated to His people with wise gradualness. Thus, first the Messiah is heralded as the seed or descendant of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, in whom (the seed) all the families of the earth will be blessed (Gen. 12:3; 18:18; 22:16–18; 26:4; 28:14), as the Reconciler and hope of the tongues (Gen. 49:10); then he is portrayed as a great prophet like Moses (Deut. 18:15–18); Anointed and King (Ps. 2), Eternal King and priest according to the order of Melchizedek (Ps. 109); even further - Immanuel, who will be born of the Virgin (Isa. 7:14), the mighty God (9:6), the lamb who takes away the sins of the World (53), the establisher of the New Testament (Ezek. 34:23–31; Dan. 9:24–27). At the same time, they were revealed, little by little: the time of the future coming of the Messiah (Dan. 9:24–27); the tribe from which He had to come (2 Sam. 7:16); the place where he was born (Mic. 5:2); and all even the slightest circumstances of His birth (Ps. 71:10–11), life (Is. 9:1–2; 26:19), death (Ps. 84:11, 12; 40:10) and resurrection (Ps. 71:20). 2. Preformations. Here infinite goodness, descending to the weakness of man, clothed its lofty promises and prophecies about the Messiah in sensual images, so as to more strongly imprint them in the memory of the people and always present them as if before their eyes. Such prototypes included - a) Some incidents and circumstances from the lives of private individuals, for example: the sacrifice of Isaac, indicating the death on the cross and resurrection of the Messiah (John 8:56); the Melchizedek priesthood, which typified the eternal priesthood of Christ (Heb. 5:6, 7); the stay of the Prophet Jonah in the belly of the whale for three days and three nights, which marked the three-day stay of the Messiah in the hearts of the earth (Matthew 12:40). b) Incidents and circumstances from the life of the entire people of Judah, especially in the days of Moses (1 Cor. 10:11; Rom. 10:4), such as: the slaughter of the Passover lamb by the Jews, who was the image of the Messiah in many respects (Ex. 12646; demolished John 19:36; 1 Cor. 5:7); the planting of a copper serpent in the desert, which prefigured the Messiah crucified on the cross and saving those who believe in Him from eternal death (John 3:14). c) The entire ritual law given by God through Moses, and which prefigured the New Testament events with its numerous sacrifices, cleansings, sprinklings, festivals, and priesthood: the shadow of God’s law of the good things to come, testifies St. Apostle, and not the very image of things (Heb. 10:1; demolished. Col. 2:17). 3. The law is not only ritual, but also moral and civil, which the Apostle generally calls a nurturer in Christ (Gal. 3:24). The ritual law led to Christ, as already noted, by the fact that it prefigured the events of the New Testament and, through its sacrifices, pointed the Jews to the sacrifice of Christ (Heb. 10:1). The moral law - in that with its lofty and detailed instructions, which the Jews, due to original sin, were not able to fulfill, clearly revealed their sinfulness to them: by the law, for the knowledge of sin (Rom. 3:20), brought them to the consciousness of their powerlessness and aroused in them the strongest desire for the Redeemer (Rom. 7:14-17, 24, 25). Finally, the civil law led to Christ by threatening death for violating almost every moral commandment (Exodus 21:15, 23–25; 31:14, etc.), and thus keeping the Jews constantly in fear under the yoke of work (Gal. 5:1), making them even more ardently desire that the Deliverer would come to earth soon, and the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus would free them from the law of sin. and death (Rom. 8:2). II. The pagans, for their wickedness and falling away from the faith, although God, according to the laws of righteousness, did not honor him with the protection and special leadership that he honored His chosen people, Israel: but, by infinite goodness, He did not forsake Himself unwitnessed to them (Acts 14:17), and He prepared them, little by little, for the knowledge and acceptance of the great mystery of salvation. The means for this were: 1. Natural law. The book of nature was always open to the pagans, telling them everything that can be known to man about God - “what is possible to know about God,” says the Apostle: “it is manifest in them: God has shown it to them.” For His invisible being from the creation of the world was conceived by created beings, and His ever-present power and Divinity are visible (Rom. 1:19–20). In the hearts of the pagans, the lawful deed always remained written, with a conscience that obeyed them, proclaiming to them moral duties (Rom. 2:15). 2. Remains of the primitive Revelation. The truths of the faith, and especially the promises of the Redeemer, given in the beginning to all mankind, passing from fathers to children, from ancestors to posterity, through oral instruction, were to spread among all nations, no matter how far they subsequently strayed into wickedness and idolatry. And although these truths, mixed with the new beliefs of pagan peoples, little by little could not help but lose their original purity and integrity, they could not help but become distorted, but even in a distorted form they still supported and preserved among the pagans the legends about the origin and primitive state of man, about the fall of the ancestors in paradise and, most importantly, the legends about the Redeemer of the human race and the expectation of His coming. 3. Relations between the pagans and the chosen people of God, to whom were entrusted the words of God and all the promises and prophecies about the Messiah (Rom. 3:2). These relations were particularly facilitated by the stay of the Jews in Egypt, the Assyrian captivity and the dispersion of the Israelites in the distant countries of the east among the pagans; the seventy-year stay of the Jews in captivity in Babylon and, finally, upon the return of the Jews from captivity in Babylon, new enslavements and their dispersion in different countries of the three parts of the old world. 4. Translation of the priest. Hebrew books into Greek, made two centuries before the appearance of the Messiah and which has since become accessible to learned pagans. Note The Old Testament prophecies about the Messiah, fulfilled with all accuracy in Jesus Christ, as one of the most important proofs of the divinity of the Christian religion, are considered with due thoroughness in “Basic Theology”, and here we are only named by us. You might be interested in: