The Resurrection of Christ and its moral significance

Jesus did and taught from the beginning until the day on which He ascended, giving commands to the apostles by the Holy Spirit, to whom He revealed Himself alive after His passion... (Acts 1:1-3). Jesus, who died and was buried, rose from the dead and “manifested Himself alive after His passion” to believers. The Resurrection of Christ is a fact of greatest significance in the history of Christianity. “If Christ is not risen, then our faith is vain,” writes St. Apostle Paul (1 Cor. 15:14,17). The greatness of this fact is not only enthusiastically confessed by believing theologians, but also recognized by half-believing thinkers of the rationalist school, and even evidenced by completely negative writers either by the excessive intensity of their denial or by their silent and involuntary concessions to faith under the condition of the reliability of the fact. However, the meaning of Christ's resurrection can be understood in different ways. Meanwhile, we must turn our attention not to the question of the reality of the resurrection of Christ and not to the miraculousness of this fact, but to its meaning, to the essence of its meaning 1 . We will outline the essential significance of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ in relation to those views on this subject that we consider either one-sided or false. Here, first of all, we must note the traditional dogmatic view of the meaning of the resurrection of Christ - a view that is completely unshakable and undoubted in dogmatic terms, but which is one-sided if they are thought to exhaust the moral significance of the fact. Therefore, according to the view (not in its unshakable apostolic and patristic basis, but in its one-sided application to the moral field among later theologians), the resurrection of Christ was the most obvious proof of the divine omnipotence of Christ and in this sense it served as the main basis of the Christian faith. By exposing the fact that the Lord Jesus was resurrected by His own divine power, they put His resurrection in connection with His miracles, as His most important miracle and even incomparable with all previous miracles in its exceptional significance; Thus, this miracle is presented as the basis of the Christian faith, without which all previous miracles would be an insufficient support for Christian conviction and which, on the contrary, in itself is completely and even abundantly sufficient for this purpose and therefore determines the moral content of life, without itself being determined by the moral meaning of the Gospel story. In these last theological conclusions, the view we are considering, based on an undoubted apostolic and paternal basis for us, comes into direct contradiction with the connection in which the resurrection of Christ stood with His suffering. Therefore, we consider it necessary to note the one-sidedness of such conclusions. The question thus comes down not to the objective significance of an undoubted fact, but to the image of its meaning, to the understanding of its moral meaning. In this case, the presentation of this view in the article “On the significance of the resurrection of Christ for our moral life” 2 is of particular interest to us. “What does Christianity give us? The author asks. Our Lord Jesus Christ, preaching His teaching, was Himself the first to fulfill the moral commandments He proclaimed. This means a lot, but not everything. It is desirable for a person to see more in the Founder of an unshakable religion. The Lord, further, confirmed His listeners in the truth of His teachings by those numerous miracles that He constantly performed, healing the sick, raising the dead, casting out demons, taming visible nature, etc. This already means more than just one example of fulfilling the commandments, but again not all: after all, various pagan religious teachers assured their listeners that they could perform various miracles and, indeed, by deception, etc. They often convinced those around them of the truth of their (imaginary) miracles, that they, the teachers, supposedly really had the gift of miracles. Finally, our Savior, who suffered for our sins and tasted death on the cross, rises from the dead on the third day, resurrected by His own power (John 2:19; 10:18). This already means everything. If the Lord, who voluntarily tasted death, Himself, by His own power, rose from the dead, then it is clear that He is not a man, but God, since only God alone can possess such power and no one else but Him; and if so, then it is also clear that the teaching of the Lord is true, that the Risen One himself can all the more resurrect us, etc. In short: from now on it is clear that the resurrection of Christ is the most central point in the history of Christianity... Yes, the significance of Christ’s resurrection is great, immeasurably enormous for our moral life, since only the latter determines its true content and pours into it the true, the only stable meaning! 3. Against these one-sided conclusions, we point out that the Lord Christ was raised from the dead by God 4 and this was not a revelation of divine power alone, but was a consequence of the moral meaning of Christ’s life, His moral truth: “God raised Jesus, breaking the bonds of death, because it was impossible for it to hold Him” (Acts 2:24). The glory of the resurrection is inextricably linked with the humiliation and suffering of Christ: since He, according to the apostle, made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a servant, becoming in the likeness of men, and, becoming in appearance like a man, humbled Himself, becoming obedient even to death, even death on the cross, then God exalted Him (Phil. 2:7-9 cf. Acts 2:36). The Resurrection of Christ was natural - in the realm of divine spiritual life and according to its laws - a consequence of His moral achievement and, only in this internal causal connection with His humiliation, the crown of His life. Therefore, firstly, it is impossible to understand the essence of Christ’s spiritual life after the resurrection if we consider the latter apart from His entire earthly life, since the content of His spiritual life after the resurrection is given by the meaning of His humiliation. Just as with regard to the apostles there is no doubt that the true understanding of the resurrection of Christ was given to them only because they had previously experienced the death and humiliation of Christ (cf. Acts 10:41), so with regard to theology we now affirm that it can comprehend the mystery of the resurrection of Christ only by first understanding the meaning of the humiliation of Christ... In the voluntary humiliation of Christ, the glory of God was manifested as internal, as spiritual eternal life; the resurrection of Christ was evidence of the reality of His eternal spiritual life. It is in this and only in this meaning, only in this connection with the meaning of the entire life of Christ that it can be called the basis of Christian conviction. Just as the resurrection of Christ in the view set forth, not being connected with the previous humiliation, would be the crown of the building not only without a foundation, but even without a body; so the life of Christ without His subsequent resurrection and ascension to the Father would have been a building without a top, a symbol without real good, a whisper without an audible sound. In terms of content, it no longer adds anything new to the life of Christ; on the contrary, it takes its content for itself from the latter; but it gives reality to this content, makes the building inhabitable, the sound audible. Secondly, it is impossible to understand the essence of Christ’s spiritual life after the resurrection without connecting it with the faith of the disciples. God made the crucified Jesus Lord and Christ, gave Him the name that is above every name (Acts 2:36; Philip. 2:9), but dominion is possible only if there are those who confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father (Phil. 2:10,11), only under the condition of faith; in other words, the spiritual existence of Christ upon ascending to the Father coincides with the universality of His existence, with His indwelling of faith in the hearts of believers (Eph. 3:7); it became possible only when believers became capable of not knowing Christ in the flesh and knowing Him in the spirit (2 Cor. 5:16; also 3:17, etc.) - it became possible only because believers became capable of this. The Resurrection of Christ was a triumph of the faith of His disciples, which matured throughout their lifetime communication with Christ, especially with their participation in His suffering and death, and which bore fruit at His resurrection. That the apostles at the death of Christ appear to us dejected and sad, and then, after some time after His death, turn out to be enthusiastic and joyful, this circumstance does not speak against our thought, but only constitutes the psychological task of the gospel story. A psychological analysis of the emergence of the apostles' faith in the resurrection of Christ provides the best confirmation that the resurrection of Christ was at the same time the resurrection of the faith of the apostles. Only in this connection with the resurrection of faith can the resurrection of Christ be called the reason for the rebirth of the apostles - only in the sense that the resurrection of Christ, as it is said, was the highest triumph of the faith of His disciples. But in any case - we repeat again - the final foundation of this faith was not the resurrection as an external event, but the impression of the entire earthly life of Christ, His entire ministry 5 . Along with the traditional dogmatic view of the meaning of the resurrection of Christ, unshakable in its basis, but one-sided in application to the moral significance of this fact, we must consider another view on this subject, no longer only one-sided, but also downright false. In its embryonic form, this is a crudely anthropomorphic view of the state and life of the Risen One. Therefore, we understand that Christ rose from the grave to continue his bodily-sensory life, although surrounded (by the radiance of divine glory: the gates of hell, having swallowed Christ, were deceived, they could not hold Him. His death was imaginary, He left the region of death the same as he entered there, He rose from the grave with the same bodily life that He lived on earth, with the only difference that His body after the resurrection acquired new properties of divine glory - omnipotence, omnipresence, remaining, however, our (earthly, mental) body - He, having ascended to the Father, ascended to heaven our (earthly, mental) body, literally sits in heaven at the right hand of God the Father. This is the popular metaphysics of the resurrection. And in fact, in such an abstract metaphysical form, without deducing practical results from this, this view would not deserve mention, but recently it has been put in literature on a broader basis, on which the question of the resurrection of Christ is brought into connection with the more general question of the relationship of modernity to Christianity, spirit to flesh, holiness to culture. This relationship has recently been established by some of our spiritual and secular writers in the sense of reconciling modernity with Christianity, in the sense of uniting the poles in holy flesh, in contrast to some historical extremes of Christian asceticism, which, however, do not exhaust not only the essence of Christianity, but even its historical manifestation. What is especially noteworthy for us in this case is that, striving to reconcile modernity with Christianity and defending the holiness of the flesh, they hope to find justification for this view in the gospel facts - the birth of Christ, His transfiguration and (especially) the resurrection, i.e. in the essence of the matter, the concept of holy flesh is expanded to these gospel events and the resurrection of Christ is thus understood literally as the resurrection of the flesh. In other words, here we see the derivation of practical consequences from a grossly sensory view of the life of the Risen Lord, its application to the interpretation of the moral significance of the fact of resurrection, and from this point the popular metaphysics of the resurrection attracts our attention. The question of the relationship of modernity to Orthodoxy was raised with complete clarity of consciousness and hotly discussed in the fifties and sixties of the last century. Archimandrite Feodor Bukharev was a convinced, consistent and tireless preacher of an optimistic, although not one-sidedly condescending, reconciliation of historical reality with the spirit of Christianity 6 . Armed against the extremes of both paganism, that is, the unbridled, sensual and material direction of life 7 and the Judeo-papist “enslavement of our spirit,” the named author with special attention revealed the last side of his worldview 8 . His main conviction is that through the feat of the Lord Jesus Christ all human life has been redeemed and sanctified and therefore all of it, in all the fullness and diversity of its forms and manifestations, must be dedicated to serving Him. The soul with its powers - mind, heart, will, imagination, the body with its functions - nutrition and reproduction, civilization and culture - science, arts, crafts, family, folk and civil forms - everything should be turned to the service of Christ. This general idea is revealed by our author in particular in two positions. Firstly. Since everything has been redeemed and sanctified by Christ, everything must belong to Him, and therefore to think that anything in our life can be done without relation to Christ, to separate the physical and civil from the spiritual, relegating them, as it were, to the backyard, means to encroach on the property of Christ. In everything that a person does according to the demands of his nature, he must serve Christ. Secondly. Serving Christ cannot even be accomplished without relation to the physical, secular, and civil 9 . One can quite agree with these thoughts about the relationship of Christianity to modernity. However, these thoughts themselves are not the subject of our interest. What is important for us is what the stated attitude of Christianity to modernity is based on. The incarnation of Christ, His transfiguration and resurrection, that is, the perception by the Son of God of our human nature forever, is presented as such a basis. “The Feast of the Nativity of Christ, we read, solemnly announces to us that God Himself, namely the Consubstantial One with His Father - God the Word, has taken into His very personality the true and complete human nature, and this is actually for us humans, and precisely sinners and perishing ones. Therefore, in the born Infant of God, all divine fullness is revealed to us; and thus it is already completely accessible to our faith - both in our relationships with people to reach in spirit the Only Begotten Son of God who appeared for all and for all in humanity, and in ourselves, in our moral activity, to be guided by His will and grace, and especially in the field of knowledge, arts, social life, to follow and assimilate His own creative and world-powerful thoughts, bearing everything with the verb of His power (Heb. 1:1). On the other hand, in “God the Word made flesh,” all human nature - soul, body, and in the soul and body all their natural powers and free action of these forces are, also for our sake, belonging to His own person, so that we must stand for all aspects of humanity, as for the property of Christ - for thought, will, imagination, heart, for the body itself and the satisfaction of its needs in Christ. Suppression, constraint, especially condemnation and rejection of anything truly human (except for sin, which already constitutes a perversion of humanity), is already an encroachment on grace itself, on the spirit and meaning of the birth for us of Christ the God-man 10... Likewise, the Transfiguration of the Lord, as a direct prefiguration of His subsequent glory and our future glorification, teaches us that “everything that relates not only directly to piety and truth, but also to the satisfaction that directly strives for the assimilation of various human sciences or arts and products, curiosity and need - everything related to earthly needs and interests, even down to the food and clothing necessary for the body” should be fulfilled and use it precisely according to Christ the Savior 11. Finally, “Christ accepted flesh, akin to our corporeality, and He retained, cognate with us, the materiality of the hands and the whole body, and in the glory of His resurrection. Why is this? Then, so that the entire multi-syllabic area of ​​the earthly, material, in which man labors and is burdened in various ways, is not outside of Christ’s grace and truth; then, so that a Christian, whether engaged in earthly things in thought or in life, clings to Christ as the head of everything - both earthly and heavenly (Eph. 1:10), and in Him was overshadowed, and in the midst of his worldly or secular activities, by the love of his heavenly Father; then, so that a Christian, striving for Christ with renunciation of everything worldly, does this without prejudice to the material and carnal, to which Christ’s very flesh belongs and stands up, accessible even after the resurrection to the touch” 12. Let us again note that the idea of ​​the Son of God assuming human nature forever is in itself undoubted; but the peculiarity of the stated reasoning is in establishing a direct relationship between the resurrected body of the Lord and the spiritual corporeality of our earthly life. So, it is assumed that the resurrection of Christ serves as a justification for our spiritual corporeality, elevating the latter to the level of our Christian duty, which clearly defines the sensory understanding of the resurrected body of Christ. This correlation deserves our attention as obviously false, since it exposes itself on both sides of the correlation. We must first of all point out the danger of unbridled carnality that threatens those who place our earthly life in direct relation to the life of the risen Lord. They must assimilate all our spiritual corporeality to the Risen One and see in the flesh of the Risen One the justification of all our carnality. In this case, it is instructive to observe what the views of the spiritual publicist of the sixties have recently degenerated into. Nowadays secular writers are already telling us about holy flesh, about holy voluptuousness, relying with the same decisiveness on the facts of the birth of Christ, His transfiguration and resurrection. In the sensual understanding of the resurrection of Christ they want to find support for the reconciliation of the sensual and spiritual principles of our life, and in turn they reduce the solution of significant issues of the moral problem to the reconciliation of these principles. In such a structure, everything takes on the appearance of a grandiose system built on a solid foundation: “Historical Christianity, we read, strengthened one of the two mystical poles of holiness to the detriment of the other - namely, the negative pole to the detriment of the positive - the holiness of the spirit to the detriment of the holiness of the flesh; the spirit was understood as something not polar opposite to the flesh, and, therefore, still affirming, but as something completely negating the flesh, as incorporeal. For historical Christianity, the incorporeal is spiritual and, at the same time, “pure”, “good”, “holy”, “divine”, and the carnal is “unclean”, “evil”, “sinful”, “devilish”. The result was an endless bifurcation, a hopeless contradiction between flesh and spirit, the same one from which the pre-Christian world perished, with the only difference being that there, in paganism, religion tried to get out of this contradiction by affirming the flesh to the detriment of the spirit, and here, in Christianity, on the contrary, by affirming the spirit to the detriment of the flesh... Isn’t it, according to the teachings of Christ, asceticism, mortification of the flesh, only a means, the purpose of which is purification, enlightenment and, finally, the resurrection of the flesh? Did not historical Christianity replace the end with the means to such an extent that, finally, the means became the only, all-consuming and self-sufficient goal? The resurrection of the flesh has moved into an unattainable mystical distance, almost in no way connected with the real, earthly, historical and organic reality of Christianity. The resurrection of the flesh, the holiness of the flesh were accepted abstractly, dogmatically, coldly and motionlessly; mortification is effective, vital, fiery, so that in the end mortification prevailed over resurrection. Historical Christianity has equated, as it were, the mortification and resurrection of the flesh. In the teachings of Christ there is no equal sign; there, the denial of the lower state of the flesh, only when combined with the affirmation of the higher state of the flesh, is the path to resurrection: a x b = c. In historical Christianity a = c; mortification is resurrection, death is life and life is death; death for death and life for death - nothing but death. The negation of life is immortality; the denial of the flesh is the spirit; negation for negation; one pure negation without any affirmation. Instead of the living dialectical development that is given in the teachings of Christ: thesis - flesh, antithesis - spirit, synthesis - “spiritual flesh”, in historical Christianity only a dead logical identity was obtained - ethereal holiness instead of holy flesh, ethereal spirituality instead of spiritual flesh. In the teachings of Christ, all the individual rainbow colors of life, reaching the highest degree of brightness, finally merge into one white color of the Resurrection, i.e. the highest affirmation of flesh and spirit; in historical Christianity, these rainbow colors gradually weaken, fade and, finally, are completely destroyed in one black color of death, mortification, the final negation of flesh and spirit: fasting, sorrow, pain, fear - these are the gradually thickening shadows that merge into one solid black monastic color of historical Christianity. The entire ancient multicolored, multilingual world, with all its treasures of science, art, publicity, wisdom - all “paganism”, which, if it did not find it, then it was not without reason that it still sought “holy flesh” - although it was accepted, absorbed by historical Christianity spontaneously, unconsciously, it was rejected by the Christian consciousness, reason, Logos, as “a world lying in evil” - too bright, “secular”. Thus, in Christianity, humanity, as it were, rebelled against itself and rejected itself, at least consciously, in a whole half of its highest, already achieved, religious values. In the life of not only each individual person, but also of all humanity, there has been an endless division, a hopeless tragic contradiction.... Isn’t the way out of this contradiction indicated in the teachings of Christ? Doesn’t this teaching affirm the this-worldly polar opposite of the other-worldly mystical unity of Spirit and Flesh? In other words, does not Christ affirm the equivalence, the equal holiness of the Spirit and the Flesh? If this is so, then the spirit is “flesh” - different, transformed, higher - but still “flesh”, even more “flesh” than ever; - the spirit is the flesh of the flesh, the hardest, incorruptible, real, and, at the same time, the most mystical in the flesh - that by which all of it is strengthened and held together. The spirit is not only the negation of the lower, but also the affirmation of the higher state of the flesh; spirit is a continuous movement, the aspiration of the flesh from a lower state to a higher one - “from light to light”, until the last white light of the Transfiguration, the Resurrection, in which all the individual rainbow colors of life merge into one. The Spirit is not disembodied holiness, but holy flesh. In fact, the teaching of Christ indicates with sufficient clarity three paths to this unity of the Holy Spirit and Holy Flesh in three main exhaustive moments of existence: at the moment of beginning - through the mystery of Christmas, the Incarnation - “The Word became Flesh”: at the moment of continuation - through the mystery of communion, the sacrament of Flesh and Blood; at the moment of the end - through the mystery of the Resurrection of the Flesh. In all three moments of existence, it is not disembodied holiness that is indicated, but Holy Flesh.... Christianity, in its two greatest mysteries - the mystery of the incarnate God ("Christmas") and the deified Flesh ("Resurrection"), drew the only possible radius that connected all points of the surface of the world globe with the center, all human I with Not - I" 13 ... In the presence (and even - we have reason to say - prevalence) of such an opinion, we have the strongest motive to reveal with particular persistence the idea of ​​​​the spirituality, or spiritual corporeality, of the risen Christ. By offering below from this point of view an analysis of the fact according to the Gospel narratives and then giving a significant explanation of the spiritual divine life of Christ in its relation to death and resurrection, we now, first, have a reason, in contrast to the above reasoning, to point out the unfoundedness of carnal conclusions from the truth of the resurrection of Christ. According to the undoubted teaching of the word of God, Christ Jesus was resurrected spiritually. According to the Apostle Peter, He was put to death in the flesh, but was made alive in the Spirit (1 Epistle 3:18: πνεύματι). The Apostle Paul, to whom the Risen One appeared (ὤφθη) “after” others, “now no longer” knew Christ in the flesh, even if he knew Him “so” before (2 Cor. 5:16) 14; for him, the risen “Lord is spirit” (ὁ κύριος τὸ πνεῦμἀ ἐςτιν), so that he who cleaves to the Lord is one spirit (ἕν πνεῦμα) with Him (1 Cor. 6:17). An elementary position in biblical theology should be called the truth that the spirit is not the second or third part of human nature, but the spirit is the divine principle of human life, the divine principle in man 15. God is spirit (πνεῦμα ὁ θεὸς John 4:24) - this means that God is nothing more than spirit, and that everything spiritual is essentially divine, only the divine can be spiritual, the spiritual as a predicate of the divine most strongly expresses its opposition to the “human,” base, humiliated. In particular, the spirit revealed in the resurrection of Christ (ζωοποιηθεὶς πνεύματι 1 Pet. 3:18) is the divine spirit, the divine principle of life, and not the spiritual, as opposed to the sensory. The Apostle Paul reveals in his first letter to the Corinthians that we will be resurrected in the image of the resurrection of Christ in a spiritual body, not in a natural body. The spiritual body is perishable, humiliated, and weak; the spiritual body is incorruptible, glorious, strong. Incorruptibility, glory, power, like spirituality, are predicates of the divine, the heavenly. We received our spiritual body from Adam, we have our spirit from Christ: Adam is the founder of our spiritual and physical life, which ends in death, Christ is the founder of our spiritual life, eternal. Why did Adam give us only mortal life and why can the Lord give us eternal life? Because “the first man is from the earth, the Persian is the second man, the Lord is from heaven. As is the earthy one, so are the earthy ones (who came from him in the flesh); and as is the one in heaven, so are those in heaven (who have become one spirit with Him). And just as we have borne the image of earth, we will also bear the image of heaven” (1 Cor. 15:47–49). The spirituality of the risen Christ is precisely divine spirituality. The divine spirit is a principle completely opposite to the human, spiritual-personal principle, to what in Holy Scripture is called flesh when this word is used in comparison with spirit. As such, the opposite of the spiritual, personal, human, carnal principle, the spirit was revealed in the resurrection of Christ, and will also be revealed in our future resurrection in the image of the resurrection of Christ. It is clearly testified to us that He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to our mortal bodies only under the condition that the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead lives in us; and that the Spirit of God, or Christ, lives in us, this can only mean that we live in the Spirit, and not in the flesh, that we are not debtors to the flesh, since those who live in the flesh will die, but those who kill the flesh in the Spirit will live (Rom. 8:1-13), those who sow to their flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, and those who sow to the Spirit from the Spirit will reap eternal life (Gal. 6:8). Therefore, to talk about the flesh of the risen Christ in connection with discussions about “holy voluptuousness,” or at least about “holy” paganism with its science, arts, and culture - to speak about the flesh of the risen Christ in justification of these reasoning means, from an exegetical point of view, to say not something that is groundless, but in a strikingly gross contradiction with the word of God 16 . But by rejecting the extreme, we still do not touch upon the moderate side of the considered sensual view of the resurrection of Christ, as it was given to us by the spiritual writer. If the resurrection of Christ does not justify our carnal life, then does it not at least justify the mental-physical conditionality of our life? Taking it for granted that a Christian is called to assimilate the spirit of Christ in the conventions of his life, we, however, believe that the meaning of our mental and physical convention is not first established on the perception of it by Christ - on the contrary, it was perceived by Christ due to its significance established by the creative will of God for world purposes 17. Explained by creative goals and the past of human history, the assimilation of human nature by the Son of God and His resurrection from the dead were not intended to perpetuate the spiritual corporeality of man, and there is no reason to deduce from the fact of the resurrection of Christ the justification of our mental and physical conditioning. Here, first of all, we must point out that, according to the teachings of the Apostle, the requirement that everything in our lives be done for the glory of God - “whether you eat, drink, or whatever you do, do everything to the glory of God” (1 Cor. 10:31) - stands firmly, not in the least presupposing the holiness of the soul and body, since “food does not bring us closer to God: for whether we eat, we do not we acquire; If we do not eat, we lose nothing" (1 Cor. 8:8) and even “food for the belly, and the belly for food; but God will destroy both” (1 Cor. 6:13), since “flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, and corruption does not inherit incorruption” (1 Cor. 15:50). Next. Just as the duty of serving God in a mental-physical condition does not presuppose the holiness and eternity of the latter, so in the same way its holiness and eternity do not follow from the fact of the resurrection of Christ: the mental-physical condition does not enter into the scope of the goals of this fact in itself, it is not directly affected by this fact. From the fact of the resurrection of Christ, no immediate conclusions can be drawn regarding our mental and physical conditioning, and these conclusions fall on another area. This fact affirms the spirituality of Christ in direct contrast to not the mental-physical life, much less in accordance with it, but in direct opposition to the carnal, “human” direction of life. These reveal the moral significance of the resurrection of Christ: it directs our thoughts to the divine content of our life, in contrast to the carnal beginning of the historical life of mankind, and not in direct opposition, much less for the eternal affirmation of our mental and physical conditioning. Therefore, putting the resurrection of Christ in direct relation to our mental and physical conventions means, at the very least, to distract attention from the proper subject and leave in the shadows the true moral significance of the resurrection of the Savior. But this is not enough. If our mental and physical conditioning is not directly affected by the idea of the resurrection of Christ and the idea of our rebellion in the image of His resurrection, since this idea is exhausted by the fact that we will rise for the divine-spiritual life, which is essentially accessible to our conditioning, then in any case the latter is rejected due to the historical circumstance that our body is not essentially, but by our origin from the sinner Adam, the body of death, in the members of which sin by nature lives, so that we are only in death we can free ourselves from sin and, so that we will no longer be slaves to sin, the body of sin must be abolished (Rom. 6:6,7). We have from God a dwelling in heaven, a house not made with hands, eternal, only under the condition of the destruction of our earthly house (2 Cor. 5:1). We are promised a spiritual body as completely corresponding to the spiritual divine life. Therefore, the full meaning of the death and resurrection of Christ is that by them the burden of the mortal body is removed from man (Rom. 7:24) - not in destruction, but in the possibility of full real participation in the divine spiritual life of Christ. And let this not be the final destruction of the body, but the transformation of our humiliated body in accordance with the glorious body of Christ (Phil. 3:21), and we will have a spiritual body instead of a spiritual body (1 Cor. 15:44), so that we cannot talk about our absolute metaphysical incorporeality after the resurrection. But our problem is not metaphysical, but moral, and we are least inclined to enter into a competition about words. We are not attracted by the metaphysical study of the “spiritual body”, since it is certain that it will not have anything material in itself, if only this word is given a real meaning - our life after the grave will not have material content, for in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but remain as the angels of God in heaven (Matthew 22:30 par.), so that flesh and blood will not step outside the tomb, in which the womb will be destroyed ( 1 Cor. 6:13; 15:50) 18. In the Old Testament Bible we read about one of Adam’s closest descendants, Enoch, the following: “And Enoch walked with God (i.e., pleased Him); and he was no more, because God took him” (Gen. 5:24). Here, according to the accepted interpretation, the idea is expressed of Enoch being taken alive into heaven, so that he did not see death (Heb. 11:5). The same thought was expressed in the fate of the prophet Elijah. “The Lord wanted to take Elijah up to heaven in a whirlwind... When Elijah and Elisha were walking... and they were talking along the way, suddenly a chariot of fire and horses of fire appeared and separated them both, and Elijah rushed into heaven in a whirlwind. But Elisha... saw him no more” (2 Kings 2:1,11–12). Over time, the Jews developed the belief that Elijah would appear again at the time of the Messiah... Is the same thought expressed in the resurrection of Christ and His ascension into heaven? No. Christ rose from the dead, just as we will be resurrected in the image of His resurrection. The reality of the death of Christ Jesus constitutes a necessary moment in the correct view of His resurrection. Usually the reality of Christ's death is spoken of only to prove the reality of His miraculous resurrection. But it is necessary to imagine in all reality the reality of His death in order to correctly understand the essence of His resurrection. At the heart of the gospel story is the idea that, just as grain bears fruit after rotting, so a person must die, destroy his soul, in order to be resurrected. In agreement with this and Ap. Paul teaches that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God and corruption does not inherit incorruption, that our mental and physical life is only grain for sowing, which must rot in death. Even less can the state of the resurrected Christ be compared with the life of Lazarus, the daughter of Jairus and the son of the widow of Nain after their resurrection by Christ. This was the resurrection of the dead to continue their temporary life, without the slightest change in the nature of the resurrected, it was only a temporary abolition of death, which after some time befell them again. On the contrary, Christ, having risen from the dead, no longer dies; death no longer has power over Him (Rom. 6:9), just as all those who are worthy to achieve that age and resurrection from the dead can no longer die (Luke 20:35–36). The resurrection of Christ was not the abolition of death for mental-physical life, which even after the resurrection is subject to death, but it was a resurrection in a spiritual body, just as we will be resurrected in a spiritual body. Christ defeated death, destroyed its power, freed us from the law of death, but this does not mean that death has no power over our mental and physical life - no, but just as He really died in the flesh and came to life in the Spirit, so we are freed by Him from the law of sin and death only according to the law of the Spirit of life in Him (Rom. 8:2). With the resurrection of the dead to temporary life, the Jews of the time of Christ Jesus were associated with the superstitious belief that those raised from the dead could work miracles (Matthew 14:2 par.). At the same time, the Jews lived in the hope that during the Messiah, those among them who were scattered would be miraculously gathered to Jerusalem, and the dead would be resurrected to participate in the bliss of the kingdom of God (cf. John 11:24). The basic idea of ​​the gospel story, its basic concept of the relationship between spirit and flesh, eternal life and temporary life, were entirely turned against such sensual expectations and views. The disciples of the Lord Jesus were gradually raised by Him from such views and hopes to a purely spiritual hope, gradually raised by Him to view the temporal as a symbol of the eternal spiritual. Just as all sorts of sensual benefits, in particular those flowing from His miraculous power, were presented to the disciples of Christ not in front of His tomb, but behind it as past symbols of the coming spiritual kingdom. Here we find a reason, in addition to what was said above about the essential connection of the posthumous glory of Christ with His lifetime humiliation, to talk about the relationship of this glory of Christ to His lifetime miracles. Having arisen from previous humiliation as from its root, the resurrection of Christ refers to His earthly glory, to His miracles, as its symbol. From faith in them, the disciples ascended to faith in the resurrection, not as from lesser to greater along homogeneous steps, but as from external to internal, from the visible to the spiritual through the feat of self-denial, through the transformation of faith, its rebirth, and the moment of the collapse and burial of external faith and at the same time the cradle of the revived spiritual faith was their participation in the death of Christ. Having made these general remarks about the resurrection of Christ, its relation to the previous humiliation and external glory, and also to the faith of the disciples, we now move on to an analysis of the gospel accounts of the resurrection, which will confirm the expressed view of the essence of the resurrection and its meaning. Here, first of all, our attention is drawn to the fact that none of the believers witnessed the actual resurrection of Christ. True, for the apostles this fact was the subject of the strongest faith, they even saw the risen Christ, therefore they call themselves witnesses to the reality of the resurrection of Jesus, for them this event was one of the events of His life, during the entire course of which they stayed and treated Him, starting from the baptism of John until the day on which He ascended from them (Acts 1:22; 2:82, etc.); despite all this, they were not eyewitnesses of the very moment of His rise from the grave, and were not present at His resurrection. The Apostle and Evangelist John, who stood at the cross of Jesus and was an eyewitness to the flow of blood and water from His pierced side, wrote in the Gospel “and he who saw it bore witness, and his testimony is true; he knows that he speaks the truth, so that you may believe” (19:35); but he could not testify about the resurrection of Christ in a similar way 19. This circumstance suggests that the resurrection of Christ did not contain anything external that would exceed the faith of the disciples; whereas it is incomprehensible from the point of view of the opinion that the resurrection was that most obvious proof of the divine power of Christ, which lay at the basis of faith. Rather, it must be said that the resurrection of Christ, like the incarnation of God the Word, was “a historical phenomenon only in its consequences and in the glory of the Only Begotten of the Father in dwelling among people... Therefore, the evangelists did not and could not give a strictly historical and detailed description of the initial events of the gospel - its beginning and end, the birth and resurrection of Christ” 20... And on the contrary: the believers did not witness the rise of Christ from the tomb, but those who were at the tomb not only did not turn to Christ, but easily became a tool of His enemies; and again - the thief crucified with Christ, and the centurion, who saw His suffering and death, believed in Christ, and those guarding the tomb surrendered to their enemies. The event of the resurrection was addressed to the guards with its terrifying side, so that they trembled and became as if they were dead. Then they reported everything that had happened to the high priests, who, in consultation with the elders, bribed them to spread the rumor that the body of Jesus was stolen by His disciples. Did the high priests and elders believe in the resurrection of Christ? Psychologically, it is quite plausible 21 that they accepted the message of the guards as the news of the resurrection, especially since they were already prepared in advance for the idea of ​​​​the resurrection of Jesus and the guards were assigned to the tomb at their insistence (Matt. 27:63,64). But their faith was similar to the faith of Herod the tetrarch in the resurrection of John the Baptist - it was faith in the resurrection for this life: if they understood this event in the true spiritual sense, it would not have bothered them 22. While unbelievers, seeing the resurrection, did not become believers, believers believed without seeing, so that the Lord said about them: “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed” (John 20:29). The accounts of the four evangelists about the resurrection of Christ are among those gospel accounts that are almost impossible to bring to unity in detail. In particular, it is difficult to establish in whom faith in the risen Christ was first revealed, in Mary Magdalene or in Jesus’ beloved disciple, His confidant (John 13:23), John. The question essentially boils down to the following: what happened first, the appearance of the Risen One to women (Matt. 28:9), or the coming to the tomb of Peter and John, as it appears in the gospels of John and Luke? For some reasons the latter must be accepted as probable. In this case, the events should be put in this order: on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and other women come early to the tomb and see that the cave in which the body of the Lord was laid is empty; Mary Magdalene announces this to Peter and John (and other disciples), who rush to the tomb and also see that it is empty; Probably Mary Magdalene also returned to the tomb with them, to whom the Risen One appeared on his second return from the tomb 23 . Let us now focus our attention on the journey to the tomb of Mary Magdalene and especially on the arrival there of John and Peter, as very important moments in the gospel stories about the resurrection of Christ. On the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and other women with purchased aromas went to the tomb of Jesus to anoint Him according to Jewish custom, which they did not have time to do during His burial on Friday evening, which the Jews considered the beginning of Saturday - the day of rest (and that was Easter Saturday). When they came to the tomb cave, they saw that the stone had been rolled away and it was empty. That's all they could tell the apostles about. True, it is reported that at the sight of the empty tomb they remembered Christ’s prediction that “the Son of man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, and be crucified, and on the third day rise again” (Luke 24:7,8); but it does not say that they believed the resurrection of Christ. On the contrary, when she came to Simon Peter and the other disciple whom Jesus loved, Mary Magdalene could only say: “They have taken away the Lord from the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid Him” (John 20:2). According to Mary Magdalene, Peter and another disciple (John) immediately went to the tomb. “They both ran together; but the other disciple ran faster than Peter, and came to the tomb first. And bending down, he saw the linens lying; but did not enter (the tomb cave). Simon Peter comes after him, and enters the tomb, and sees only the linen cloths lying, and the cloth that was on His head, not lying with the linen cloths, but especially rolled up in another place. Then the other disciple, who had first come to the tomb, also entered in, and saw and believed” (John 20:4–8). Here is the first revelation of faith in the Risen One! At the same time, all the ancient and modern denials that belief in the resurrection of Jesus began with the hallucinations of a woman “out of whom came seven demons” must collapse. Faith in the Risen One was revealed first of all in the beloved disciple, who behaved under the terrifying circumstances of the death and resurrection of the Lord with amazing calm. What was his faith based on? What is it generated by? It is said: I saw and believed. Says the same eyewitness who stood at the cross of Jesus and saw the flow of blood and water from His side; with the same detail he reproduces what he saw in the tomb of the Risen One. But what exactly did he see? The linen cloths with which the body of Jesus was wrapped, and the linen cloth that was on His head, that is, in essence, he saw the empty tomb, “the place where He was laid,” “only the linen cloths lying” (Luke 24:2). Obviously, this vision could not be a productive cause of faith - it only provided the absence of an insurmountable obstacle to faith in the form of the dead body of Jesus. The presence of a dead body excluded the possibility of faith, but its absence could not in itself give rise to faith, because it could lead to the assumption: “they took the Lord away from the tomb, and we do not know where they laid Him” 24. John's faith is remarkable in that he was the one who did not see and yet believed. In this sense, M. M. Filaret evaluates the faith of the beloved disciple of the Lord. “All the apostles,” he writes, saw the Lord: but it would be incredibly humiliating for their sacred council if there was not one among them to whom the predominant blessedness proclaimed by the Lord belonged, not to see and believe. We do not want to see and do not dare to imagine you, blessed apostles, deprived of any blessedness of believers. Show us, you yourselves, which of you is blessed, who has not seen and yet believed? Look, brothers, is this not what St. John, when, narrating about the visit to the Holy Sepulcher, on the morning of the Resurrection, by two disciples, he writes: another disciple, who had come first to the tomb, was seen and believed. What did he see upon entering the tomb? Without a doubt, it is the same thing that the first disciple saw, namely Peter: the form of a single robe lying down. What did you believe? Is it what Magdalene had previously declared: having taken the Lord from the tomb, we do not know where he laid Him? But what was there to believe? There is no hidden truth here, and only obvious ignorance. What did the disciple, his beloved Jesus, believe? I guess, and I think, out of necessity, it should be guessed that at that moment, as he entered the tomb, in the sight of a single robe lying, an unusually living love unusually aroused faith in him; (the slight thought that it was impossible to imagine a case in which the vestments that wrapped around the body of the Lord with the mast could separate from the dead body gave him a great thought about the resurrection; he saw nothing more than the absence of the buried Jesus from the tomb, but in the depths of his loving heart he felt that the Beloved lived, despite the fact that he was not prepared to believe in His resurrection even by knowledge of the Scriptures" 25. In this M. M. Philaret’s deep reasoning draws attention only to the discrepancy between what John saw from his faith as a direct cause and effect, but the living connection of the beloved disciple’s faith with his previous participation in the events of the earthly life of the Lord was not clarified. John’s faith came from the depths of his soul, as the mature fruit of his previous experiences of communication with Life. This “saw and believed” gives the complete impression of a person who knew in advance what he now did not see. It was especially important for the apostle to survive the death of his beloved Teacher. In this interpretation of facts that are very important to us, we can rely on the authority of Prof. M. D. Muretova. At the cross, he writes, “Unbelief furiously triumphs in its apparently final victory over faith. But this is a momentary and imaginary victory. Here, at the cross, faith has its devoted servant - the beloved disciple of the Lord, one of all the disciples, who neither abandoned his Teacher nor denied Him. Christ was condemned, crucified and died - the blow of the spear serves, apparently, as the final triumph of unbelief... But this blow also serves as the true guarantee for the triumph of faith. At the cross stands a devotedly believing disciple, friend and confidant of the Crucified One, a silent witness to the fact that Christ did not die in the same way as the sons of unbelief and death die. From the pierced side of the Crucified One, he sees with reverence the immediate and rapid flow of blood and water, as a sign and revelation that this is the flesh not of a sinful man, but of the Word who became flesh and revealed in Himself the glory of the Only Begotten from the Father - that very living blood and living water of the body of the sinless God-man, which should become a living source of the eternal and blessed life of the believing sons of truth and love. The evangelist with particular solemnity and expressiveness points to this “and immediately blood and water came out,” for even then, at the cross, he saw in this mysteriously extraordinary phenomenon a sign of the incorruptibility of the body of the deceased God-man (Acts 2:27 - 13:35) and of the life-giving power of it, which was to appear at the resurrection of the Crucified One, to eternal life with faith of those who partake of the living blood of Christ God-man. This explains that the Theologian remains calm when the news of the disappearance of the body of Christ from the tomb so worries all the other apostles, for they did not yet know from Scripture that He had to rise from the dead - but He entered, and saw, and believed (20:8-9). In the mysteriously sublime speeches of the Lord, John had long heard hidden indications of the victory of death by the Lord, although only now he understood their full meaning (cf. 2, 22, -3, 14, -6, 47-60, -10, 18, -14, 19, -16, 28, etc.). Who existed and ruled the world and humanity before the Forerunner, because he was the beginning of it (1, 15, 27, 30), Who united heaven with earth (1, 15), Who alone was the Son of man who came down from heaven, existing in heaven (3, 13), - the living bread of God, coming down from heaven and giving life to the world (6, 33), - the beginning (8, 25), existing before the existence of Abraham (9, 58) and having glory with the Father before the existence of the world (17, 5): He could not die as all sinful people die and become a prey to corruption - but if he gave up his spirit and died, then so that the blood of the sinless and resurrected Sufferer could serve as a source of new and eternal life for the sons of light, believing that Jesus is Christ the Son of God, and believing that they have life in His name" 26 . The Risen Lord repeatedly appeared to believers. These appearances of the Risen One were “the final triumph of faith over unbelief” 27. According to the clear meaning of the Gospel narratives, in the patristic interpretation, “the body of the Lord, although it was not a spirit, 28 was spiritual, 29 that is, alien to any material coarseness and was controlled by the spirit. The body we now have is spiritual, that is, it is controlled by the soul, and is enlivened by natural and spiritual properties and forces. And Paul calls the body, as it will be after the resurrection, spiritual (1 Cor. 15:44), that is, it is quickened and governed by the Spirit of God, and not by the soul, having been recreated in an ineffable and spiritual way for incorruption, and being preserved therein. This is how we need to think about the body of the Lord after the resurrection, precisely as spiritual, subtle, alien to any coarseness, not needing food or anything else” 30. It is noteworthy in this regard that the Risen One appeared, as he appeared to the eleven, in the house when the doors were locked by John. 20:19), that He did not have a specific appearance and that those to whom He appeared did not recognize Him by appearance - they recognized Him only from His words and actions. So Mary, to whom He first appeared, “did not know that it was Jesus.” Even when He spoke to her, asking why she was crying and who she was looking for, she mistook Him for a gardener. Only when He, probably, especially expressively called her by name, did she recognize Him. Two of the disciples to whom He appeared on the way to Emmaus also did not recognize Him: “their eyes were held back, so that they did not recognize Him” (Luke 24:16). Only when, upon coming to the village, He lay down with them, took the bread, blessed it, broke it and gave it to them, did their eyes open and they recognized Him in the breaking of the bread. When He appeared to the eleven, they, confused and frightened, thought that they saw a spirit, so that He, to prove the reality of His appearance, showed them His hands and feet, allowed them to touch Him, and even ate food in front of them. But the Risen One appeared, that is, was visible? Did you even allow yourself to be touched, did you taste food? “Don’t be embarrassed, in the words of St. John Chrysostom about: it was a matter of condescension... He does not constantly treat his disciples and not as before. He appeared in the evening and disappeared; then - once more, eight days later, and disappeared again; then he appeared again... But what does it mean: he appeared? From this it is clear that if He had not descended, He would not have been visible, since His body was already incorruptible and immortal... A body so thin and light that it entered through the closed doors was obviously alien to any fatness; but Christ shows him this way in order to assure him of the resurrection and teach that it was He who was crucified, and not another who was resurrected in His place. Therefore, He was resurrected, having on Himself the signs of the cross; That’s why He also eats food... Therefore, just as before the crucifixion, we see Him walking on the waves and yet we do not say that His body was of a different nature, not ours; So even after the resurrection, seeing the wounds on Him, we will not call Him corruptible” 31... Thus, according to the patristic interpretation, which fully expresses the meaning of the Gospel narratives, the appearances of the risen Lord were actually His appearances, visions: there was nothing in them that exceeded the faith of those to whom He appeared, nothing carnal, outwardly convincing, visually demonstrative; they were a “triumph of faith.” This general character of the appearances of the Risen One finds special confirmation in certain particulars. So, having appeared to Mary Magdalene, the Lord said to her: “Do not touch Me, for I have not yet ascended to My Father, but go to My brothers and say to them: I am ascending to My Father and your Father, and to My God and your God” (John 20:17). Of the many interpretations of these words of the Risen One, the only one that corresponds to the meaning of the Gospel narrative must be recognized as their explanation given by John Chrysostom and especially clearly stated by Theophylact. “Having recognized the Lord, writes the latter (in h. 1.), Mary wants to approach Him, treat Him as before, and, perhaps, embrace Him as her Beloved. But He raises her mind so that she thinks of something higher and listens to Him with great reverence. Do not touch Me, that is, the circumstances are no longer in the same position and I will no longer treat you as before. Although He did not say this in words, this is the meaning of the words: I ascend to My Father, I hasten there. And since I am in a hurry there, and no longer have such a body to deal with people, then one must be more reverent towards Me, to the highest of ordinary conversation and touch, that is, address. Look how many thoughts the evangelist expressed briefly. The Lord said: do not touch Me. Then, as if someone asked: why? Therefore, he answers, that My body is no longer the kind that is typical for earthly life, but the kind that is appropriate for heaven and the mountain villages. Then the questioner continues: why do you walk on earth when you have such a body? Therefore, he answers, “I have not yet ascended to My Father, but I will ascend.” The state of the Risen One from the rise from the grave to the ascension to the Father was a transitional state to that spiritual existence, after departing to the Father, when we no longer know Christ in the flesh (2 Cor. 5:16) 32. But isn’t it something else we see in the image of the Lord’s appearance to the eleven? The first time He appeared to them was on the first day of the week. When they, confused and afraid, thought that they saw a spirit, He showed them His hands and feet and His ribs; when they still did not believe and were amazed, He took food and ate before them. – This time, one of them, namely Thomas, was not with the apostles. Having heard from the disciples about the Lord’s appearance to them, he said to them: “Unless I see in His hands the marks of the nails, and put my finger into the marks of the nails, and put my hand into His side; I won’t believe it.” After eight days, the Lord appeared to them again while Thomas was with them. Standing in the midst of them, He said: Peace be with you! Then he says to Thomas: “Put your finger here, and look at My hands; give me your hand and place it in my side; and do not be an unbeliever, but a believer.” Thomas answered Him: “My Lord and my God!” Jesus says to him: “You believed because you saw Me; Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed” (John 20). Apparently, in these appearances of the Lord, and especially in the last one - to which we pay primary attention - vision serves as the basis of faith. But solid arguments do not allow us to stop at such a level in understanding the fact, without penetrating into its depth. If, in relation to John, “he saw and believed,” there is no doubt that the vision did not serve as a sufficient basis for his faith; then undoubtedly the same is true in relation to Thomas’s faith. What Thomas saw could not be the reason for His faith. He saw too little for this; in his ulcerated hands and pierced rib, He could not see anything divine that is not visible. What he saw does not assuage doubt 33 . Therefore, here, more than in other cases, 34 there is a need for an explanation that could do without the need to presuppose rational doubt. This is the well-known explanation, which in Thomas’s demand sees only “the remnant of a sensual-egoistic and still developing faith, the influence of too great joy and the desire to personally verify the desired truth,” understands the apostle’s statement “in the sense of faith being perfected and ascending from step to step, with an overly intense and fiery desire for the fulfillment of the object of faith and promise” 35. It should be noted that the rest of the apostles, to whom the Lord also showed hands and feet, “did not believe for joy” (Luke 24:41), and not out of doubt. For our part, we consider it necessary to draw attention to one circumstance that has not been appreciated as it deserves. “I won’t believe it,” said Thomas, “if I don’t see the wounds from the nails in His hands.” Let us assume that Thomas doubted the resurrection of Christ, that he needed external evidence of the fact, external signs by which he could recognize the Risen One; Does his statement make sense then? If a son is brought to his mother, whom she lost twenty years ago as a child of five, in order to recognize him, she will look for some memorable “mole” on his body, will look out in his face at least one familiar feature of his former expression, will look closely at the color of his body, feel his hair. Are these the external signs that the Apostle Thomas wanted? Was this the kind of external proof that the other apostles wanted? If Thomas's unbelief were the result of his rational doubt, he, of course, would have looked for external signs of conviction. But in fact, what he required was not an externally familiar facial feature. “I won’t believe it unless I see the wounds of the nails in His hands.” But besides His wounds on His arms and legs and ribs, was there not a single feature in His face that was familiar to the disciples? Wasn’t His voice, His gaze dear and close to them? And on the contrary, why would they remember so much the wounds on their hands and feet from nails and on their ribs from a spear? This would also be understandable in relation to John, who stood at the cross and saw the flow of blood and water from the pierced side of the Lord, for whom this vision was indelibly etched in his memory. But the rest of the disciples, even before the hands, feet and ribs of the Lord were ulcerated, scattered and did not stand at His cross. Of course, they knew about these wounds, they were for them a symbol of the Lord’s suffering, just as His cross was a symbol of their salvation, but, obviously, it was not the psychological significance of the signs of recognition that brought these wounds to mind... Finally, think about these words: “unless I see in His hands the marks of the nails, and put my finger in the marks of the nails, and put my hand into His side, I will not believe.” Do they not emanate some kind of mystical horror, far beyond the boundaries of intellectual doubt? “I will put my finger into the wounds of the nails, I will put my hand into His side”: I will etch His wounds, I will reproduce for myself the horror of His death, His shame and my own humiliation... Is so much needed for recognition? No, here one hears some kind of thirst for new participation in the death of the Lord - a thirst flowing from the mystical connection of the resurrection of Christ with His suffering and death, as well as the connection of faith in His resurrection with participation in His death. Undoubtedly, there was a moment in Thomas’s demand that temporarily deprived him of the bliss of “those who did not see and believed,” but it was not a moment of doubt, but of “slowness of heart,” of excessive realism in feelings. And perhaps for Thomas this material-sensory heaviness was especially heavy due to personal fallout from the past. Even earlier, this same Thomas, when the Lord Jesus decided to go to Judea to raise Lazarus, although the Jews were already looking to stone Him, said to the other disciples: “Come and we will die with Him.” He loved Christ to the point of being willing to participate in His death, but did not yet believe that His death was a bridge to the resurrection and that participation in it was the path to participation in His glory. Therefore, now, after the resurrection of the Lord, his thirst was especially strong to assimilate His resurrection not out of connection with death, so that in him faith in the Risen One would be strong to overcome the fear of his own death 36. However, Thomas’s personal characteristics distinguished him from the other apostles not in essence, but only in the degree of faith. The connection between the resurrection of the Lord Jesus and His death was essentially the same for all of them. When He appeared to the two disciples going to Emmaus, He explained to them everything that was said by the prophets about His sufferings and glory, and “their heart burned within them”; Having entered the village, He remained with them, and as he reclined with them, he took the bread, blessed it, broke it and gave it to them, that is, he reenacted before them the Last Supper, which represented His suffering and death (cf. 1 Cor. 11:26), and “He was recognized by them in the breaking of the bread.” Appearing to the eleven disciples, He showed them his hands, feet and ribs - “he showed the hands on which were the marks of nails, he also showed the ribs from which the source of the sacraments flowed; showed his hands to certify the truth of the resurrection, to assure those who doubted that He truly suffered and rose again, that His dead and buried body truly arose” 37. Then He took the food and ate before them. The last message is too short; Is it possible in this case to mean the breaking of bread 38? At least during the phenomenon at the Sea of ​​Tiberias, described in Chapter 21. ev. John, the Lord Jesus “said to them: Come, dine... He comes, takes bread, and gives them fish also” (vv. 12, 13). Thus, there is no doubt 39 about the clear expression in the course of the Gospel narratives of the idea of ​​​​the connection between faith in the resurrection of Christ and the reality of His suffering and death, with the participation of believers in His death. “Unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone; and if he dies, he will bear much fruit” (John 12:24). Christ died - and for those who died with Him, He rose again; He died in the flesh and for those who died with Him in the flesh He rose again in the Spirit. The flesh is of no use; the spirit gives life (John 6:63): Christ was put to death in the flesh, but was made alive in the spirit (1 Peter 3:18 cf. 1 Tim. 3:16), and became a life-giving spirit (1 Cor. 15:45). And we, in order to come to life with Him, so that His life may be revealed in our mortal flesh, must die with Him, experience His death (2 Tim. 2:11; 2 Cor. 4:10). The resurrection of Christ, as a historical fact, was together with the resurrection of the disciples who died with Him. What constituted historical reality in the appearances of the Risen One to the disciples? This is the reality of the disciples’ spiritual communication with Him, the reality for them of His spiritual – divine, eternal life. The content of spiritual life was revealed to them by all the deeds and all the teaching of the Lord Jesus, and now they were convinced of the reality of His spiritual life - that it is independent in its existence from the material conditions of existence, that it is stronger than death, that it is an imperishable, eternal reality. “He is alive” - this is what the disciples were told by the appearance of the Risen One (Luke 24:23; Acts 25:9; Apostle 1:8), - He lives after all suffering and death, He is alive and can no longer die (Rom. 6:9; Acts 13:34). The appearances of the Risen One were the spiritual communication of the disciples with Him. When He appeared to Mary Magdalene, she did not recognize Him by appearance and could not touch Him, but she learned from Him that He ascends to the Father. When He went with two disciples to Emmaus and explained to them what was said about Him in all Scripture, their eyes were held back, so that they did not recognize Him, but their heart burned within them (Luke 24:32). However, all these were preparatory phenomena; The central of the manifestations of the Risen One was the appearance of His eleven: then He breathed into them the Holy Spirit... Apparently in the transitional state of the Risen One before his ascension to the Father 40, there was something material-corporeal in His appearances. When the eleven and those who were with them were embarrassed at the appearance of the Risen One to them and thought that they saw a spirit, He said to them: Why are you embarrassed and why do such thoughts enter your hearts? Look at My hands and at My feet; it is I Myself; touch Me and look at Me; For a spirit does not have flesh and bones 41 as you see with Me. He even asked them for food and ate before them (Luke 24:37–43). This material-corporeal element in the appearances of the Risen One to the disciples before His ascension to the Father, of course, constituted their peculiarity from His later appearance to Saul (Acts 9:3–6). But what kind of physicality this was, for which closed doors did not serve as an obstacle, for which eating food and even appearance itself was a matter not of necessity, but of indulgence, we cannot comprehend this. In any case, it was physicality, the presence of which in the appearances of the Risen One did not give them the significance of external persuasiveness and did not change their essential character as spiritual communication with Him. Therefore, the Apostle Paul does not distinguish his Damascus vision of the Risen One from His appearances to the disciples before the Ascension: “He rose again and appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brethren at one time, most of whom are still alive, and some have died. Then he appeared to Jacob, and also to all the apostles. And last of all he appeared to me, as to a certain monster” (1 Cor. 15:4–7. Wed. Acts 22:17,18). Finally, the Lord who rose from the grave, upon appearing to His disciples, ascended from them to His Father, which He had already predicted when He appeared to Mary Magdalene. Whatever the physicality in the appearances to His disciples, the meaning of His resurrection and His appearances must be understood in the light of this last moment of the appearance of the Risen One - His departure to the Father. Without this final moment, the appearances of the Risen One would have been a monstrous phenomenon. He ascended from the apostles into heaven, that is, He became invisible to them forever (until the second coming) (Acts 1:9), He ascended to the Father, so that we no longer know Him in the flesh 42. Just as the appearances of the risen Lord Jesus had to end with His departure to the Father (John 20:17), so His departure to the Father necessarily presupposes His spiritual dwelling in the hearts of believers, or the giving of the Holy Spirit to them. Based on the gospel narratives, it is impossible to restore the chronological sequence of these events, since the evangelists Mark and Luke (cf. Matt.) report the ascension of the Lord, but do not convey the gift of the Spirit to the disciples, and the evangelist John talks about the gift of the Spirit to the disciples, but does not talk about the ascension of the Risen One, although Luke testifies to the joy that filled the hearts of the disciples at the ascension of the Lord (24:52), and in the gospel John the Risen One instructs Mary to convey to the disciples: “I ascend to My Father” (20:17), etc. And it is hardly possible to establish here a chronological before and after, since in essence the departure of the Lord Jesus to the Father and the gift of the Spirit to the disciples are inextricably linked, as Christ explained to His disciples even earlier: “I will pray the Father, and he will give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you forever, the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him; and you know Him, for He abides with you and will be in you. I will not leave you orphans: I will come to you... It is better for you that I go (to Him who sent Me); for if I do not go, the Comforter will not come to you; and if I go, I will send Him to you” (John 14:6–18; 16:7). Of the evangelists, only John reports about the gift of the Spirit to the disciples by the Risen One. Jesus said to the disciples: Peace be with you! As the Father sent Me, so I send you. Having said this, he blew and said to them: Receive the Holy Spirit. Whose sins you forgive, they will be forgiven; on whomever you leave it, it will remain on him” (John 20:21–23). Here freedom of spiritual life and free moral life are combined with the gift of the Spirit. Western interpreters (Augustine 43 and Gregory Dvoeslov), in explaining this passage of the Gospel, draw our attention to the gift of love as the primary gift of the Holy Spirit. And rightly so. This union of the gift of Christ’s love with the gift of His Spirit (Rom. 8:9) was already foreshadowed by the Lord Himself in his farewell conversation with his disciples: “If you love Me, keep My commandments. And I will pray the Father, and he will give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you forever” (John 14:15,16). In the same sense, writes St. Apostle John: “No one has ever seen God. If we love each other, then God abides in us, and His love is perfect in us. That we abide in Him, and He in us, we know from what He has given us of His Spirit... His commandment is that we believe in the name of His Son Jesus Christ and love one another, as He commanded us. And whoever keeps His commandments abides in Him, and He in him. And we know that He abides in us by the Spirit which He has given us” (John 3:23–24; 4:12–13). So the Apostle Paul speaks of love in the spirit (Col. 1:8; Rom. 15:30), that the love of God has been poured out into our hearts by the Holy Spirit given to us (Rom. 5:5. Wed. Gal. 5:22; 2 Tim. 1:7). Other evangelists, although they do not talk about the Lord giving His spirit to the disciples during His ascension, nevertheless give a valuable indication of the other side of the spiritual gift - namely, the universality of the spirit of Christ (Matt. 28:19; Luke 24:47; Comp. 1 Tim. 3:16). In the fullness of its connection with the sufferings of the Lord Jesus, on the one hand, and with the faith of the disciples, as well as the indicated spiritual gifts, on the other hand, the resurrection of Christ is revealed to us in all its greatness. Faith in the resurrection of Christ makes the meaning of His work and teaching a living reality for us, makes His spiritual life real for us. “If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved” (Rom. 10:9). By this very faith we are already made alive with Christ (Eph. 2:5; Col. 3:1), so that in truth He was raised for our justification (Rom. 4:25). In short, we have been reborn by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead to a living hope, to an inheritance incorruptible, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven (1 Pet. 1:3,4). Three important moments make up the gospel story: the miracles of Christ, His death and resurrection. The internal connection of these three moments is that the Lord Christ Jesus renounced external glory and preferred death to it in order to establish the kingdom of the sons of the resurrection. The author and finisher of faith, Jesus, according to the Apostle Paul, instead of the joy that was set before Him, endured the cross, despising the shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God (Heb. 12:2). According to the teaching of the same apostle, Christ, being the image of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God; but he emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, becoming in the likeness of men; and becoming in appearance as a man, he humbled himself, becoming obedient even to the point of death, even death on the cross. Therefore God has highly exalted Him and given Him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father (Phil. 2:6-11). Likewise, the apostle Peter also identifies these three main points in the gospel story. So on one occasion he said to the Jews: Jesus of Nazareth, a man testified to you by God by the powers and miracles and signs that God did through Him among you, as you yourselves know, this, according to the definite counsel and foreknowledge of God, you took and, nailing him with the hands of the wicked, killed him, but God raised Him up, breaking the bonds of death, because it was impossible for it to hold Him (Acts 2:22-24). Likewise, on another occasion, in a speech to the pagans, St. The apostle thus depicted to his listeners the course of Christ's life: God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power, and He went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, because God was with Him... Finally they killed Him, hanging Him on a tree. God raised him up on the third day (Acts 10:38–40). The gospel story was addressed to the Jews by the miracles of Christ, by which they were hardened, so that they crucified Him (John 12:37–41). Believers participate in the life of Christ through His death and resurrection. Since the time when the disciples of the Lord, having confessed Him as the Son of God, stood out from the people as believers from unbelievers, - from the time of Peter’s confession at Caesarea Philippi, Christ gradually accustomed them to the thought of His death, raised in them the expectation of His death and resurrection, tirelessly and persistently taught them that He must die and rise again: this is precisely what He taught them as His disciples, for this purpose He retired with them (Matt. 16:21; 17:22,23; 20:18,19 par.). And after His resurrection He explains to them nothing less than that He had to suffer and enter into His glory (Luke 24:26). The completeness in the upbringing of the apostles and their preparation for the worldwide preaching of Christ is evidenced by the evangelist by the fact that they became close to the risen Lord and comprehended with their minds the meaning of the death and resurrection of Christ (Luke 24:46). The crown of the gospel story and its final goal is life through death, victory over death in resurrection. The revival of death is the central point in the gospel of Christ. He called people to become sons of God, that is, sons of the resurrection (Luke 20:36). He founded the kingdom of God, that is, the kingdom of the sons of the resurrection. The work of Christ meets the real need of people, since all our grief, all our evil is embraced by death: it is our middle evil, it is the sharpest weapon of sin and hell. Just as the work of Christ overcomes the core of our evil, so death is the central evil of our life because it strikes and poisons the very core of our existence - our attachment to life. People are greedy for life, attached to it: this is precisely the human way of existence, this thirst is the characteristic definition of our life, its difference from the way of existence of other creatures. The thirst for life is revealed in us through our desire for happiness and perfection. Life for us is a boundless impulse towards happiness and limitless improvement. In these basic aspirations of our nature, it is realized, receiving flesh and blood in them - our natural aspiration to God, to the divine content of life. We want to be blessed and perfect “like gods”: here is the natural basis of human religion, which forms the prius of “human” existence. Our thirst for life, our impulses for happiness and perfection, our religion have the only adequate form of expression in a miracle: we thirst for life, that is, we thirst for a miracle; we want happiness and perfection, that is, we want a miracle; we rush to God, that is, to a miracle. The thirst for life in the form of a desire for a miracle, the thirst for happiness and perfection in the form of an impulse for a miracle, religion in this very form, this is actually human thirst, human aspiration, human religion. This is how our life, our history began: it began with the desire of our ancestors to taste the miraculous fruits of the tree in order to be blessed and perfect like gods. And in all of “human” history, everything that is best, everything that is alive, everything that is human has been reduced to a thirst for a miracle; where it extinguished, there began the realm of animal existence. The Jewish people, as God's chosen people, were the most life-loving and most attached to the miracle. And so our thirst for life inevitably meets death. On the very day when the first parents wished to become gods through eating the fruits, the sentence “you will die by death” was fulfilled over them... Our thirst for life stands face to face with death. Death in all its horror meets only man. Animals are not afraid of death. It's only scary for us. For us, it is not only the cessation of life, but it deprives every hour of our life of meaning, it poisons our entire life, it makes our impulses for happiness and perfection, our religion, meaningless. What is our happiness, our power, our glory? Isn’t the only end for them death - the fate of the happiest, most powerful and glorious of people?.. “Alexander, the son of Philip, a Macedonian, made many wars, and captured many fortified places, and killed the kings of the earth. And he went to the ends of the earth, and took spoil from many nations; and the earth fell silent before him, and he was exalted, and his heart was lifted up. He gathered a very strong army, and they dominated the regions, and the peoples, and the rulers, and they became his tributaries. After that he went to bed and felt that he was dying." “The life of mortals in this world is incomprehensible, unexplored, gloomy and short, imbued with suffering. There are no means by which those born can avoid death. Old age comes, and death is near: such is the fate of everything living. Just as ripe fruits hang on the branches, ready to be plucked at any moment, so mortals, as soon as they are born, are in constant danger of death. A clay vessel made by a potter is bound to break sooner or later; such is the fate of all mortals. Both young and old, wise and foolish - all are subject to the power of death; it reigns undivided over all people. Alas! This world is connected with death and destruction! “Is it possible to laugh, is it possible to have carefree fun when the whole world is engulfed in a destructive flame? Look at this dressed shadow, made of wounds, frail, obsessed with desires, having neither strength nor protection. This body is exhausted, frail and weak, as if it were ready to crumble into pieces - life in it is already turning into death." “Oh death! How bitter is the memory of you for a person who lives calmly in his possessions, for a person who is not bothered by anything, is happy in everything, and is still able to eat food... Whether you live ten, a hundred or a thousand years, it’s all the same: in hell there is no study of the time of life.” So what is our life? Continuous fear of death, making us “subject to slavery throughout our lives.” Therefore, all the efforts of Adam’s descendants are aimed at one thing - victory over death, all their hopes are concentrated in one hope of immortality! At first glance, immortality appears to a person as a continuation of life beyond the grave - in Sheol, Hades. But from our earthly life beyond the grave there remains only a pale shadow, a bloodless ghost, a lifeless likeness; our feelings, joy, hope, our affections, our works - everything that now makes up our life, living in it - all this cannot cross the border of death, because all this is inextricably linked with the local conditions of life, in them you only find food for yourself, in them you only receive your reality. In Hades, “dead shadows” “blow lifelessly,” devoid of feeling and insane. The Greek hero, “godlike” Achilles, ruling in the kingdom of dead shadows, envies the fate of the “living” day laborer, who earns his daily bread by serving a poor plowman. In the same way, Jewish Sheol is a region of sleep and darkness, a land of oblivion, a land of silence, where there is no work, no reflection, no knowledge, no wisdom. At the same time, this is the kingdom of those rejected from the hand of God, of whom God no longer remembers, where His mercy is no longer proclaimed and His miracles are no longer known. “It is not the grave that glorifies Thee, nor death that praises Thee, nor those who go down to the grave who trust in Thy truth. Alive, only living will glorify You” (Is. 38:18,19). Where there are no miracles, where there is no bliss, where there is no life, there is no God. To live, a person must either be saved from death or resurrected after death. The pre-Christian pagan world primarily focused its thought on immortality, and the Jewish world on the resurrection from the dead. A person inevitably dies, but death does not eliminate the possibility of immortality. In nature, everything ends in death, but every death is followed by life. The pagan sages understood this truth and applied it to human existence. “Who knows,” said the Greek poet, “if life is not death, and if death is not life?” If this is the connection between life and death, then true life can only be achieved through death. Of course, it is not violent death that leads to immortality - to kill oneself would mean to affirm death: the threshold to immortality is free death as a human feat. We find a call to the feat of death in Eastern and Western sages. According to the pantheistic view of Indian religion, world life is the play of Maya, a ghostly web, a deceptive dream, a severe nightmare, the kingdom of continuous death. All living beings of this world, although they really suffer from difficult dreams, do not really exist: only God alone truly lives. Our whole life is severe suffering and continuous dying. The world with all the creatures filling it is only a ghostly manifestation of divine life, like bubbles on the surface of water, like sparks from a red-hot iron struck with a hammer. But in the power of man there is a means to free himself from the nightmare of ghostly existence: whoever realizes the illusory nature of existence, frees himself from attachment to life, suppresses desires and passions in himself, he rises above the deception of ghostly existence, awakens, as if from a dream, throws off the shackles of imaginary individuality and, merging with God, becomes divine and immortal. Hence, the final task of human moral activity is to extinguish every desire, every movement of life, in death before death. In this way, a person destroys the mortal material in himself, so that there is no food left for death and it is left only to finish what a person has been doing all his life, to give him the last desired freedom from the shackles of individuality, from the heaviness of the body, from the deception of a ghostly existence. On the path of voluntary dying, a person actually protects himself to a significant extent from external troubles, becomes insensitive, dispassionate and fearless, conquers even the fear of death, and overcomes individuality in himself. But this victory is given to him only in his dying breath and ends with him. Here only negative freedom is achieved and there is no positive content for it. This fully corresponds to the fact that the deity itself, understood pantheistically, represents only the negation of living individualities, an abstract unity, meaningless and lifeless. In essence, it is elusive to human quest, unattainable for him, just as man himself comes to it dead, making an empty sacrifice out of his life. In Plato's philosophy, the emptiness of the universal basis of world phenomena is filled with content: he recognized reason and its ideas as such a basis, in relation to which the creatures of this world are phenomena. The human soul comes from the ideal world, but is imprisoned in the body, as in a prison. The ideal origin of the soul is revealed in memory, to which true knowledge is reduced, and knowledge forms the only way by which the soul again rises to the ideal world and is cleansed of the sensory shell. Thus, in Plato's system, philosophy has the practical meaning of purification. In this life, our knowledge is conditioned and limited by the plumpness of our body, which, like the bars of a prison, closes the truly existing from us, so that we are the closer to the truth the less we trust our bodily senses, and knowledge in fullness and perfection will be available to us only after death, when we directly contemplate the kingdom of ideas. Therefore, the true philosopher desires death, and philosophy is dying, or preparation for death. Of course, suicide is unacceptable, but the philosopher suppresses in himself the sensual affects that bind him to the body, pollute his soul, so that he works towards the gradual liberation of his soul from the shackles of the body and joyfully meets death in due time, which transfers his immortal spirit to the community of the gods. Thus, Plato’s philosophy gives positive content to the immortal life of our spirit and its communication with the ideal kingdom; however, here the ideal world exists only for human knowledge, and not for human life, with ideas a person can only enter into abstract communication, and not in a living one, only the spirit in freedom from the body is intended for immortality, which, however, is accessible only to our thinking, contemplation, there is no reason to believe that even after death, anything more than abstract thinking, which however does not constitute life, will be preserved from a person. Therefore, just as this life is deprived of all meaning, so it does not prepare the afterlife. Along with the idea of ​​immortality, the idea of ​​resurrection was also known in the pre-Christian world, which mainly developed in the consciousness of the Jewish people. The Jews connected the expectation of the resurrection with the times of the Messiah, in which Jewish righteousness would receive its full reward and the Jewish people would triumph over all their enemies. In the Jewish understanding of the image of resurrection, what primarily attracts attention is that it acts as a simple abolition of death and the resumption of earthly life, which is why it turns out to be necessary only for the dead Israelites in order to make it possible for them to participate in the benefits of the messianic kingdom, which will be fully and primarily available to the sons of Abraham who lived before it. The blessings of the messianic kingdom appear here before us in a sharply sensual coloring and in the radiance of wonderful grandeur. In the kingdom of the Messiah, a new heaven and a new earth were expected with unprecedented fertility and an unprecedented abundance of all kinds of objects of sensual pleasure. At the same time, the resurrected are presented in the fullness of the properties of mental and physical life, although its boundaries expand to the limits of the miraculous, in which divine protection is revealed for the righteous. Although the possibility of resurrection in Jewish beliefs was almost not affirmed on the properties of human nature and therefore least of all gave room for positive conclusions in favor of the development of the sensual aspects of life, since here in the foreground was nomistic righteousness, which required a commensurate reward, however, the sensual nature of the latter, which presupposed the fullness of sensual needs in the resurrected and sensual conditions of their life, stands beyond any doubt. Along with this, the availability of messianic benefits is limited to one God's chosen people, and their participation in the divine life after the resurrection is exhausted by the theocratic structure of the messianic kingdom with an amazingly harsh judgment for all the enemies of Israel. In contrast to pagan and Jewish aspirations, Christ the Savior taught not about immortality, but about the resurrection from the dead - about the resurrection not for earthly carnal life, but for heavenly, spiritual, angelic life. First of all, what is noteworthy in the teachings of Christ is that He did not base faith in the afterlife on the properties of a human being; He did not teach about the afterlife existence of any part of human nature - the soul or spirit. In His teaching, the afterlife is assimilated only to divine life, which in its very essence is eternal life, imperishable, inaccessible to death. A person can be immortal only in the sense that he accepts into himself the divine life, which will not see death forever: by it a person can live after death. Therefore, in order to be resurrected, a person must have eternal life in himself before death. “This is the will of Him who sent Me, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in Him may have eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day” (John 6:40 cf. 54). Christ is the resurrection and the life (ἐγώ εἰμι ἡ ἀνάστασις καὶ ἡ ζωή John 11:25), i.e. He is the resurrection because He is life. He will resurrect us because He gives us eternal life, which will never perish (John 8:51; 10:28; 11:26). However, the afterlife, according to the teachings of Christ, is not immortality itself, but resurrection - and resurrection not for earthly life, but for heavenly, angelic life. He did not say to His disciples: you are immortal, therefore you will not die, or: you will be resurrected, although you die 44. And He said: you must die in order to be resurrected. Man must die and his death is a necessary condition for resurrection. But the fact that he must die is not enough for his resurrection: he must die freely. Christ calls His disciples to death. “He who saves his soul (life) will lose it; but he who loses his life for My sake will save it... If anyone wants to come after Me, deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. For whoever wants to save his soul will lose it; and whoever loses his life for My sake will find it (Matt. 10:39; 16:24 par.). If a grain of wheat falls into the ground and does not die, then only one will remain; and if it dies, it will bear much fruit. He who loves his life will destroy it; But he who hates his life in this world will keep it to eternal life” (John 12:24,25). The death to which Christ calls His disciples is, in any case, physical death, but first of all it is spiritual and personal self-denial: Christ calls us to self-denial to the point of death, to complete self-denial, the reality of which makes it impossible to resume earthly, carnal life in the fullness of its spiritual and personal interests. This condition of the Christian resurrection sufficiently substantiates the conclusion that the life of the sons of the resurrection will be a completely different life - they will live an eternal divine life. One day, “the Sadducees, who say that there is no resurrection, came to Him and asked Him: Teacher! Moses said: If anyone dies without having children; then let his brother take his wife for himself, and restore seed to his brother. We had seven brothers; the first to marry died and, having no children, left his wife to his brother. Likewise the second and third, even up to the seventh. After all, the wife died. So, in the resurrection, which of the seven will she be the wife of? For everyone had it. Jesus answered and said to them, “You are mistaken, not knowing the scriptures or the power of God.” For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage; but remain as the angels of God in heaven. And regarding the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what God said to you: I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob? God is not the God of the dead, but of the living." We are promised not the immortality of eternal life, but resurrection, since we must die in order to live eternal divine life after death, and this will be a different life than the one that dies. And death is necessary for eternal life because only in this way can we acquire eternal divine life. What deserves special attention in Christ’s call to self-denial before death is that Christian death is self-denial for the assimilation of eternal divine life, so that the voluntary dying of a Christian is quite similar to what happens to a tree to which a graft is made. A Christian will live a different life after death, but he himself will live a different life; he will live the life that he must assimilate before death, but he can fully assimilate it only in self-denial before death. Christ revealed to us that God is Spirit, that He is love. The spiritual life of a Christian, to which eternity is promised, is not the anatomical remnant of a human being, divided into spirit, soul and body, or spirit and body, but it is divine life. Spiritual divine life is not again a mystical abstraction, but it is a living reality - it is a life of love. “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; just as I have loved you, let you also love one another. Therefore everyone will know that you are My disciples if you have love for one another” (John 13:34,35). The life of love is eternal divine life. “God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him... We know that we have passed from death to life because we love the brothers” (1 John 3:14; 4:16). And the knowledge about which the Lord speaks in His high priestly prayer - “This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God” (John 17:3) - is also love. “Love is from God, and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. He who does not love has not known God, because God is love” (1 John 4:7,8). The teaching of Christ is the only one of all religious teachings because in it the metaphysical foundations have entirely moral significance. – The fact that divine spiritual life is love is a sufficient reason why it can only be acquired through voluntary death. “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13). Love and death are inextricably linked. Only love makes a transition from death to life; at the same time, love becomes real and complete only in self-denial to the point of death. Therefore, divine spiritual life is given to us not in immortality, but in resurrection. This leads to the fact that death actually destroys the carnal principle in us, the carnal elements, the body of death, and thereby serves the complete triumph of spiritual life. So, the formula of Christianity is this: the divine in love until death for eternal life in resurrection. Eschatology is an essential part of the Christian worldview. The Lord Christ taught about eternal divine life and the kingdom of God, or heaven. The fact that John’s gospel mainly speaks about life, and the kingdom is rarely mentioned (3:3.5; 18:38), on the contrary, the first three evangelists mainly talk about the kingdom and less often about life - this circumstance already speaks enough for the fact that in essence the teaching about the kingdom of God coincides with the teaching about eternal life. The same clearly follows from the fact that the expressions “eternal life” and “the kingdom of God” in many cases replace one another: thus “it is better for you, crippled, to enter into life” (Mr. 9:43,45; Matt. 18:8) = “it is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye” (Mr. 9:47) = “it is better for you to enter life with one eye” (Matt. 18:9); also “have eternal life”, “enter into life” (Matthew 19:16,17 par.) = “enter the kingdom of heaven”, “enter the kingdom of God” (Matthew 19:23,24 par.). The preaching of the kingdom of God can be viewed in part as a form of teaching about eternal life, most adapted to Jewish political aspirations. In essence, the kingdom of God, embracing eternal life as the highest of the goods that compose it, complements it, just as society complements the individual. Eternal life is the property of the individual; The kingdom of God is the kingdom of the sons of the resurrection. In the kingdom of God, eternal life is revealed under the law of the organic connection between people. By virtue of this law, whoever is worthy of eternal life and the resurrection from the dead τῆς ἀναστάσεως τῆσ ἐκ νεκρῶν), he becomes a necessary member of the kingdom of God (υίοἰ εἰσιν θεοῦ τῆς ἀναστάσεως υίοὶ ὄντες ), - and vice versa, in order to achieve eternal life, it is necessary to become a member of the kingdom of God (1 John 4:12,20). In Christ’s preaching about the kingdom of God, our attention involuntarily dwells on the fact that it appears either to have come along with the gospel of Christ (for example, Mark 1:15; Luke 4:21 and many others), or to be fully realized, “to come in power,” only in the future (Mark 9:1 and many others). Just as in essence the kingdom of God coincides with eternal life, so its eschatological character is formed by the resurrection of its members from the dead. The difference between the kingdom of God, which has already been revealed with the preaching of Christ, and his coming coming in power is completely exhausted by the difference between the assimilation of eternal divine life by believers before death and its full revelation after death in the resurrection. “Truly, truly, I say to you, the time is coming (ἔρχεται ὥρα) and has already come (καὶ νὺν ἐστίν) when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and having heard, they will live” (John 5:25). The eschatology of the kingdom of God only imparts a character of objectivity to the resurrection of the dead. Since believers will not be resurrected each by themselves, but as sons of the kingdom according to the law of the organic connection of people with each other, then the resurrected will not only be alive for God, but will be real for each other, that is, they will be resurrected in some corporeality (σῶμα πνευματικόν), the resurrection will be universal, and the judgment over them will be objectively universal, the parousia will be objective Christ... So, the resurrection from the dead is the most basic Christian hope. But Christ the Savior not only called for voluntary self-denial and preached the resurrection from the dead, not only taught about the resurrection, but He actually conquered death, appeared “the firstborn from the dead” (1 Cor. 15:20; Rev. 1:5), founded the kingdom of the sons of the resurrection. The Lord Christ founded the kingdom of the sons of the resurrection because it was through Him that eternal divine life appeared in people (1 John 1:2), through Him divine love was revealed to us (1 John 3:16; 4:9,10,16), with which He first loved us. Therefore, only the one who believes in the Son, keeps His word, is quickened by Him, lives by Him has eternal life... In order to convey His divine life to people, Christ “had” to die, to give His soul for the deliverance of many, because only in His voluntary death His love was manifested in the highest way, only through death could He spiritually unite with all believers. However, Christ “had” not only to die, but also to be resurrected. “This is why the Father loves Me, because I lay down My life in order to take it up again. No one takes it away from Me; but I myself give it away. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to receive it again. I have received this commandment from My Father” (John 10:17,18). The resurrection of the dead is the greatest Christian hope; the resurrection of Christ forms the cornerstone of Christianity. If Christ had died and not risen, then Christianity would have been only a doctrine; if Christianity were only a doctrine, it would be the strangest doctrine, and we would be the most unfortunate of people. But Christ has risen. Christianity is not only a doctrine, it is life. “I live, and you will live” (John 14:19). What significance does the resurrection of Christ have for us? What practical conclusions follow from this? The risen Christ is for us the firstborn of the dead. He died and rose again. And we are called to the hope of the resurrection. In order to rise with Him, we must die with Him. To die with Christ means to live according to the spirit and not according to the flesh. Fruit of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness, goodness, faith, gentleness, self-control. The works of the flesh are: adultery, fornication, hatred, murder, enmity, quarrels, uncleanness, lasciviousness and the like. Those who live according to the flesh will die; Those who live in the spirit will live. We must avoid two extremes in drawing conclusions from the fact of the resurrection of Christ: pagan asceticism, or self-mortification, and the grossly sensual expectations of Judaism. The spirit of a Christian is not an anatomical part of the human being, the immortality of which would require ascetic freedom from physicality, it is the spirit of divine life. But still, our hope is resurrection, not for the continuation of sensory life, but for spiritual life. In Christianity there is no basis either for pantheistic asceticism or for the holiness of the flesh. The fruit of the spirit is love, and we can manifest love only in the fullness of natural life. This is an indirect conclusion from Christian hope, contrary to pantheistic asceticism, in the sphere of which there is no place for manifestations of love. But the direct conclusion from the Christian hope is that we should live in the conditions of natural life, not according to the flesh, but according to the spirit, so that we bear in our body the death of Christ, so that His life may also appear in us. So, both at the beginning and at the end, the resurrection of Christ refers us to His death. This is the final basis of our conviction. If in this way external vision is taken away from us, as the support of our faith, and the latter is sent, as its only basis, to our own creativity and experience of spiritual life, then all the more it acquires internal indestructibility, being positively invulnerable not only to the imaginary arrowhead of scientific negative criticism, but even to the real instrument of principles and powers, height and depth (Rom. 8:38,39), because our faith acts by love ( Gal. 5:6; cf. 2 Cor. 5:1–8; It is precisely this kind of indestructible faith that affirms both the beginning and the end of the gospel story, requiring from the purely objective side only ideological content, but not in any way the strength that it draws from the experimental experience of the life of Christ (2 Cor. 13:5). If Christ lives in me (Gal. 2:20) and I live for Him (Rom. 14:8), then therefore Christ lives. My faith is free from the power of all weak elements, because it operates in a new sphere, and itself is the beginning of a completely new order of life (2 Cor. 5:17). In order for us to know the Lord and the power of His resurrection, so that this faith is born in us, we do not need signs and wonders, not visions of the invisible, but we need participation in His sufferings, conformity with His death, so that we ourselves can achieve the resurrection from the dead (Phil. 3:10,11; Col. 2:12). We must carry in our own body the death of the Lord Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may be revealed in us (2 Cor. 4:10), and be weak in Him, so that we may live with Him by the power of God (13:4). We need to die with Him in order to live with Him (2 Tim. 2:2), - to be baptized into the death of Christ, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead, so we too may live a new life and thus, united with Him in the likeness of His death, be united with Him in the resurrection (Rom. 6:4,5). We need to surrender to Him who rose from the dead (7:4), to become one spirit with Him (1 Cor. 6:17). If the life of Jesus is revealed in us, if we look not at what is visible, but at what is unseen, if we walk by faith and not by sight (2 Cor. 4:11,18; 5:7), then our heavenly hope is necessarily strengthened and the source of our life is confirmed for us - the eternal life of Christ Jesus. At the same time that we find ourselves the most unfortunate people within the boundaries of earthly existence and visible blessings (1 Cor. 15:19), for us the invisible life of the Lord becomes more real than the visible world, for we have no one else to go to, as only He has the verbs of our life (John 6:68). In the reality of our inner life (2 Cor. 4:16) the unshakable foundation of our faith is both that the Son of God was born of the seed of David according to the flesh, and that Jesus was revealed through the resurrection from the dead to be the Son of God in power, according to the spirit of holiness (Rom. 1:3,4). Without the ideological content of eternal divine Life, as it is revealed in the gospel history, the facts of the birth of Jesus from the Spirit and His resurrection from the dead would be monstrous facts; and there are no external arguments that could convince me of their reality. But accepted in the light of the reason of the Gospel story and confirmed by the experience of my own spiritual life, the truth of the eternal life of the Lord Jesus cannot be shaken in me by any external evidence. What is the importance if my life for those observing it from the outside is insignificant, perishable and quickly approaching death; a Christian within himself has an everlasting life; in one second of death he can experience eternity, pass into eternity. I am alive for Christ and Christ is alive for me; to Him all those who believe live, and He lives to those who believe. We live together with Him in heaven (Eph. 1:3; 2:6; Philip. 3:20). My dead nature was quickened by Christ, therefore Christ lives (1 Cor. 15:13). Truly Christ rose from the dead, because our death was swallowed up in His victory and to us, the dead, life was given by Him (Eph. 2:1–6). Thanks be to God, who has given us victory through our Lord Jesus Christ! Let us therefore be strong, unshakable, and always abound in the work of the Lord, knowing that our labor is not in vain before the Lord (1 Cor. 15:57,58). We consider it worth noting that the apologetic task on the issue of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus is not only not limited to the historical reliability of the fact and should embrace its significance, but actually comes down to the latter. “The Resurrection of Christ, rightly writes one author, is a very important question in the great controversy that is currently being waged about the fundamental truths of the Christian faith. This struggle is increasingly focused on the person and life of Jesus and here - mainly on His resurrection, both sides feel that in it is the solution to everything. One or another view of the personality and life of Jesus and, as a result, one or another attitude towards Christianity and the church depends on the recognition or denial of the resurrection. But here not only the reality of the resurrection is disputed, but also its meaning. While some - and not only those who recognize the resurrection as a historical fact, but also those who deny it - see in the belief in the resurrection of Christ the basis of Christianity, one of the main dogmas with which it stands or falls - others argue that the question of the resurrection is only a historical question and that for Christianity and Christian life it means nothing whether it is resolved affirmatively or negatively" (Right. Ob. 1870, 1, 575–570). Christ. Thurs. 1900, 1, p. 523 ff. On the moral significance of the resurrection of Christ and His ascension into heaven, also see W. Milligan The resurrection of our Lord, Lond. 1896, and The ascension and heavenly priesthood of our Lord. London 1894, Die Auferstehung Jesu in ihrer Bedeutung fur d. chr. Glauben von W. Kruger Brem. 1867. Acts 2:21,32 (cf. 30); 3:15; 4:10; 5:30; 10:10; 13:30.34; 17:31; Rom. 4:24; 8:11; 1 Cor. 6:11; 15:15; 2 Cor. 4:14; Gal. 1:1 ; Ephesus 1:20 ; Col. 2:12 ; 1 Thess. 1:10 ; Heb. 13:20. I. Glebov (Bo the cross of the Lord and His appearance to the disciples after the resurrection. Kharkov. 1900. P. 29) unreasonably contrasts the indicated places (in refutation of Schleiermacher “Christian Faith” 2, 93 (?) D. christliche Glaube 2 Bnd 3 Ausg. Berl. 1836. P. 85) John. 2:19; 10:18; Mf. 17:9; MP. 8:31; Onion. 24:7, since John. 2:19; 10:18 (not to mention Matthew 17:9; Mark 8:31; Luke 24:7) can be reduced through John. Acts 5:26 2:24,32, etc., as was done in Acts. 3:15 (God raised the Author of life from the dead), to put it another way, John. 2:19 etc. is explained through Acts. 2:24, etc., and not vice versa, and it is impossible Acts. 2:24 reduce to John. 2:19. However cf. Die Auferstehungsgeschichte des Herrn von F. L. Steinmeyer, Berl. 1871. Ss. 30 f. 73 f. In this connection of thoughts, we cannot pass over in silence the refined defense of the view in question, set out in the pages of Orthodoxy. Interlocutor, Oct. 1902 “If Christ were only a righteous man, who only for his high righteousness was awarded the gracious sonship of God and whom God, as a demonstration of His truth and mercy, deigned to raise from the dead and illuminate with the unapproachable light of His divine glory, then His resurrection and glorification, of course, could not have any influence on the fate of all other people; because in this case, His resurrection from the dead and for Him would only be a miracle of God’s mercy, and a miracle is always and certainly an exceptional fact in nature, that is, in each individual case it can be accomplished only on special grounds of divine wisdom and according to the special will of the almighty will of God. Consequently, by the very conditions of its origin, it cannot abolish the universal law of nature and must necessarily remain an individual fact. And as a result of this, if a holy and merciful God raised one person from the dead, then it would not at all follow that He was therefore obliged to raise all other people from the dead, i.e., a miracle cannot in any way lead to such a situation that all people in general must certainly rise from the dead, because one of the people was resurrected. Because of Christ's great righteousness, God was certainly able to raise Him from the dead; and if other great righteous people had been found, then Almighty God, of course, could also raise them from the dead, but not because He had previously raised Christ, but because they themselves would have been worthy of His mercy, since the basis for the miracle of the resurrection here, obviously, would not have been the dignity of human nature, but the personal moral dignity of those righteous people over whom the miracle would have been performed. Therefore, every righteous person in this case would return from death to life completely regardless of the fact that the righteous man Christ was resurrected, so that His resurrection would be the same isolated fact as the resurrection of any other person over whom God would have been pleased to show the miracle of His omnipotence. Meanwhile, both Jesus Christ Himself and His apostles place the future resurrection of dead people in a causal dependence on the fact of His resurrection. The Savior directly says: I live, and you will live (John 14:19), that is, He directly makes the future life of people dependent on His own life. And the apostle explains this dependence with a very expressive parallel of the causes of death and resurrection: as death is through man, so through man is the resurrection of the dead; just as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will live (1 Cor. 15:21–22). To understand the causal dependence of our future resurrection on the resurrection of Christ, the author turns to the omnipotent power of Christ as the productive cause of our resurrection, i.e. he explains our resurrection, too (as in the above assumption) solely as a miracle of divine omnipotence, but not the omnipotence of God the Father, but the omnipotence of Christ Himself. “According to the apostolic preaching, Christ was delivered up for our sins, and rose again for our justification (Rom. 4:25), because because of His resurrection from the dead, all generally dead people must be resurrected in full force of the entire human race (1 Cor. 15:20–22). This significance of Christ's resurrection, of course, is determined by the union in Christ of two perfect natures - the true divine nature with the true human nature. He is not an ordinary man, but the true Son of God, who deigned to become a true man; and His human nature... He accepted into eternal and inseparable union with His deity" ... When "our actual world is destroyed by fire and dissolved into its constituent elements (2 Pet. 3:10-12)", then "the divine Head of being will animate the whole body of his humanity, beginning with Adam and ending with the last man who is destined to see death (John. 5:28; Mf. 25:32), so that in relation to the human race He will then appear as a new Adam... Indeed, with the general destruction of our world, the creative activity of the omnipotent Son of God, of course, will remain indestructible and unchanged: and since His omnipotent power is now part of the world forces, then simultaneously with the process of physical destruction, therefore, the process of the divine-human creativity of Christ will undoubtedly take place in the world, and therefore the last moment of world destruction in reality became “It will naturally turn out to be the moment of completion of Christ’s work in the world.” In response to these considerations, we must first of all notice that St. Scripture is not on the author's side. Not that in St. In Scripture, Christ was recognized as “only a righteous man” - about this, the author and I cannot have any bickering or bewilderment, but possible ideas about the face of Christ are not limited to the dilemma: either “only a righteous man”, or a divinely omnipotent man. A third idea is possible, that the divine life was manifested in Christ in human weakness, revealed in the form of human “righteousness” (to use the author’s favorite expression), so that Christ was truly a “righteous man” and “God was pleased to raise Him from the dead as a demonstration of His righteousness and mercy.” So up. Peter said to the Jews: “Men of Israel! Hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a man testified to you by God by miracles and miracles and signs, which God did through Him among you, as you yourselves know, whom you took, according to the definite counsel and foreknowledge of God, and nailed him with the hands of the wicked, and killed him: but God raised Him up, breaking the bonds of death, because it was impossible for it to hold Him” (Acts 2:22-24). And ap. Paul, in a “remarkable parallel of the causes of death and resurrection,” calls Christ a man: as death is through man, so through man is the resurrection of the dead (1 Cor. 15:21). The author also failed to logically substantiate the causal dependence of our future resurrection on the divine omnipotence of Christ. He reasons: if God had resurrected Christ as a righteous man, then this miracle would have been an exceptional fact in nature and it would not have followed from it that God was therefore obliged to resurrect other righteous people. On this he substantiates the dependence of our resurrection on the omnipotence of Christ, believing that only in this case the resurrection of Christ creates the law of the resurrection of the dead. But his reasoning is wrong. God, out of love, always deigns to resurrect every righteous person, every person who has within himself the germs of eternal life. The love of God and the righteousness of man sufficiently justify the “obligation” for God to resurrect the righteous. And the essential connection between the resurrection of the righteous and the resurrection of Christ is that the righteous (Christians) have the life of Christ in themselves, live by Him, and assimilate His righteousness by faith. In this way, the resurrection of Christ loses its exclusivity; therefore, there is no logical necessity to reduce the law of the resurrection of the dead to the divine omnipotence of Christ. This law is based on the omnipotence of God the Father and on our assimilation of the righteousness of Christ, His eternal life, His spirit. This is what the apostle teaches us. Paul, who writes: God raised the Lord, He will also raise us by His power Cor. 6:14); if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead lives in you, then He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who lives in you (Rom. 8:11); He who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us through Jesus (2 Cor. 5:14 cf. vv. 10 and 11: if the life of Jesus is revealed in our body, therefore “through Jesus” means: through the revelation in us of the life of Jesus). Thus God, rich in mercy, out of His great love, quickens us with Christ and raises us up with Him (Eph. 2:1–7). The promise of Christ: I live, and you will live (John 14:19) does not change anything in this case, since God raised in the person of Christ the chief of life (Acts 3:15) and the firstborn of the dead (1 Cor. 15:20; Rev. 1:5). The interest of the issue under discussion is not dogmatic, but moral. The true deity of Christ is certain. But the question is how the deity of Christ acts in the resurrection of the dead - whether as a mechanical force of omnipotence, or as a moral-life-giving force. The author of the above discussion reduces the matter of our resurrection to the mechanical action of omnipotence and completely pushes the matter of our revival to the last moment of world history, assuring that only “then the Lord Christ will appear in relation to the human race as a new Adam.” This means replacing living religious life with abstract formulas. On the contrary, according to the teaching of the word of God, although in the coming ages the exceeding riches of the grace of God will be shown in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus (Eph. 2:7), however, we have already been made alive with Christ (2:51; and now Christ is already the new Adam for us, as the founder of our spiritual eternal life, since we already live by Him: and we can hope to participate in His glory through the resurrection only under the condition that we now live according to the spirit of Christ (Rom. 8:9-11). Therefore, faith in the resurrection is a moral-life-giving power and find out the meaning the resurrection of Christ - this means indicating the grounds and motivations for our moral rebirth, for our participation in the death of Christ (Phil. 3:10,11: Rom. 6:4 and many other places indicated below). We consider it necessary to note that we deliberately limit the question to the resurrection of the righteous, since in St. Paul (on whose writings we mainly rely here, as the Orthodox Church does. Sobes.) “all reasoning comes down to justification and is designed to achieve righteousness. Everything unnecessary is not touched by thought and is not expressed in words, because it lies beyond the periphery of Christian grace.” Chr. Thurs. 1899, 1, p. 1903. However, the revelation of the truth of the general resurrection would not require us to cancel the considerations expressed, but only to expand them, that is, to apply the revival of believers in Christ to liberation from corruption and sinners. And certainly we have the basis for such an application, since it is categorically testified that “even the creation waits with hope for the revelation of the sons of God, that the creation itself will be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious freedom of the children of God” (Rom. 8:19,21). If this is affirmed in relation to the creature, then is it not even more certain in relation to the spiritual? It must also be borne in mind that God’s judgment on the world will be carried out through the saints (1 Cor. 6:2). In all this, the “organic” connection of the revival of believers through Christ with the liberation from death of all its victims is sufficiently indicated, and therefore the law of resurrection is sufficiently proven by this. His works are especially important: “On Orthodoxy in relation to modernity”, St. Petersburg. 1860, and “On the modern spiritual needs of thought and life” M. 1866. “On Orthodoxy in relation to modernity” pp. 165, 305–7, 310. lb. pp. 12–13, 16, 19–20, 21, 26, 29, 31, 38–39, 40, 45–46, 67–70, 89–90, 200–203, 209, 223–224, 232, 326–332. “To suppress the human mind or other spiritual powers with a spiritual direction, instead of their versatile revelation in Christ - to eliminate our very physicality from any participation in grace-filled spirituality, would mean to put up with the spirit of Eutychianism, which recognized in Christ, our Savior and prototype, the absorption of the human into the divine, and with the Monothelites not to recognize in Christ, along with the divine, both human will and activity... No, the spirituality of our life and activity does not consist in soaring, which does not want to know human reality... One spirit-bearing elder suggested that in the event that a young monk with his youthful soaring began to rise above the ground to the sky, to hold him by the legs and put him on the ground. This is spirituality in the image and spirit of Christ, who descended to us on earth (pp. 68, 69)... The earthly and sensual, which raised the Old Testament faith to the spiritual and divine through simple direct impressions on the senses, can now and should be, by New Testament faith, with a distinct consciousness, with filial freedom, both studied and used precisely in the meaning that this entire area of \u200b\u200bthe earthly and visible, nature and the human world, as a whole and in parts down to the details, in laws, in powers and in their manifestation, express the thoughts of the Father Heavenly, fulfilled by His only begotten and consubstantial Son, perfected by the Holy Spirit - and in the same Christ the Son of God, by the grace of the Holy Spirit, accessible to our understanding and assimilation. Only through this can our views and our lives rise to the true heights of the New Testament; through this, often conflicting directions are simply reconciled by themselves: zeal for piety - in some, and the desire for living impetuosity, for distinct activity - in others. Are you consumed by zeal for your faith? Do not let the immeasurable treasures of God remain buried, not brought to the light of knowledge and use - in nature, in humanity, in everything visible and earthly. Or are you languishing with a thirst for knowledge, consumed by the desire for activity, jealousy for the success of everything that surrounds you and is connected with you? Our Lord and Savior, who adopted us as sons to His heavenly Father, Himself desires the same; He gives work to everyone and demands work from everyone and in every field" (88-89)... Page 19–20. That the Lord Christ took upon Himself human nature in the condition of its natural development and passed through every human age in order to sanctify every age with the corresponding period of His life - this is a patristic thought (see The Humiliation of G. N. I. Christ, p. 172); but in the patristic teaching this thought has only a soteriological application and no conclusions are drawn from it similar to those that we now have in mind. D. S. Merezhkovsky. Religion of L. Tolstoy and Dostoevsky (L. Tolstoy and Dostoevsky vol. 2) St. Petersburg. 1902 pp. 25–28, 65. However, some exegetes in 2 Cor. 5:16 κατ ὰ σάρκα refers to ἐγνἀκαμεν and γινώσκομεν, and not to Χριστόν. See eg. Wendt Die Begriffe Fleisch und Geisti im bibl. Sprachgebr. Gotha 1878. We do not now enter into an assessment of discussions about the reconciliation of the carnal and spiritual principles of human life and have no reason to enter. But, whatever the value of this reconciliation, why is it necessary to drag in gospel facts and truths here, distorting them? It is important for us to note the image of our future resurrection in the sense that we can conclude about the body of the risen Christ from our future resurrection, which will take place in the image of the resurrection of Christ and about which it is categorically stated that we will rise not in a mental, but in a spiritual body. Taking into account what has been developed by exegetical science on this issue, we can define the mental body and the spiritual body as follows: body (σωμα in contrast to flesh σαρξ) denotes the mutual limitation of created beings, which determines their reality. (Cf. W Milligan The resurrection of the dead an exposition of 1 cor. 15, 2 ed. Edinb. 1895, pp. 148–149: The word body (1 Cor. 15:44) only says that there shall be an investiture or framework within which the vital force shall dwell and by which each possessor of a body shall be separated from his fellows). The soul body is the material limitation of conditional beings, designed for their communication with the material world; The spiritual body is a limited conditional existence alien to materiality, adapted to communication with spiritual and divine existence. Now, through spiritual corporeality, we contemplate the spiritual world, as if through a dark glass, fortune-telling: then, through spiritual corporeality, we will contemplate it face to face (1 Cor. 14:12). But by asserting the immateriality of the spiritual body, we seem to set ourselves up against scientific authorities. Theologian and philosopher, with unflagging authority even in those particulars where they contradict each other (Right. Sobes. 1902, Dec. p. 808: “human souls, according to the power given to them by God, will develop their own creative activity and themselves form their future material bodies”; Chr. Cht. 1899, vol. 208, pp. 198–200: “being a substance immaterial, the spirit does not have the potential for the development of a material shell... It would be more logical to think about a secondary creative act"), they equally assert the material resurrection. Chr. Thurs. ib. p. 199: “As for the materiality of universal revival, it is inevitable by the very structure of limited existence (and for angels?!), expressed in material forms that determine the real personality of a person”; Right Sob. ib. p. 804: “For the eternal life of the next century, man does not need the deposition of a material body and not the putting on of some other immaterial body, but certainly a new union of the human spirit with the material body. The fact that such a union will actually occur in the world of the next century is certainly confirmed to the Christian by the very fact that the Savior rose from the dead not with some special body, but with a material body: because His resurrected body was the same one with which He was born and lived, and voluntarily accepted His torment on the cross and death. Therefore, the identity of the deceased and resurrected body of the Savior gives us positive grounds to say that with the revelation of the future life, man will certainly have a material body.” However, it should be borne in mind that the same scientists, expressing a clear thought about the materiality of bodies after the resurrection, no less decisively assure us that verbal materiality in essence will not be materiality, since it will be “materiality without earthly spontaneity” (Chronicles Reading 199). “After the resurrection, the new material bodies of people will be spiritualized and become immortal (1 Cor. 15:44–46,54), so that people can no longer die (Lk. 20:36), and they will not need to worry about maintaining their lives, and even the need for food itself will then be abolished (1 Cor. 6:13). Due to this spiritualization of bodies, no physical suffering will then exist... A spiritualized body will not be able to excite carnal passions, just as it will not be able to satisfy such passions. In view of this, all material values ​​there will inevitably lose their meaning and will naturally cease to serve as an object of human desires,” etc. (Prov. Sob. 811–812). If so, if the materiality of our afterlife bodily existence is affirmed only according to the essence of limited existence, i.e. no more for resurrected people than for angels, whom we do not call material beings, if the afterlife materiality is not accompanied by earthly spontaneity, if “there” there will be no physical functions of the body, no physical fear and pleasure, if “there” there will be no material values, if our body is spiritualized; then obviously it will be spiritual, immaterial materiality, that is, something that is devoid of any real meaning and even logical meaning. Each metaphysical concept is not just an empty phrase or a simple logical formula if it can be further or immediately reduced to our subjective experience. Thus, the concept of material life is entirely formed by the experience of our material life, and if all the real features of this experience are eliminated, then only an empty sound will remain from material life. We consider it unnecessary to provide here detailed evidence of the immateriality of the spiritual body (σῶμα πνευματικόν), but in any case, the author of the Right. Sob. when writing the indicated pages of the December book, one should not forget what he did in the October book. pp. 514–516 references to Kolos. 2:9. “The term σῶμα, we read there, among Greek thinkers denotes reality, essence, real objective existence, in contrast to representation, ghost, and only imaginary existence. So, for example, according to Didymus the Pythagorean, the Stoics thought that the virtues were inseparable from one another, and that they were καθ’ ὑπόστασιν, καθὸ δη καὶ σῶμα πᾶσαν ἀρετὴν εἶναι τὲ καὶ λέγεται, i.e. virtues are essentially identical with the ruling part of the soul, why is it that every virtue exists and is called... the body? Of course not. Understanding virtue as an essential, fundamental property of the very nature of the spirit, the Stoics looked at different types of virtue as the positive content of being, while they considered vice as a deficiency, absence, deprivation of virtue, like ghosts - non-existence. Consequently, every virtue is σωμα, - this means that every virtue is the real, genuine, true content of being”... But in saying this, we, of course, have no need to follow Stapfer, who in La mori et la resurrection de Jesus - Christ (Paris 1898) claims that none of the evangelists even saw the Risen One (p. 251 sequ), contrary to John. 20:20.25; Onion. 24:34, etc. Wed. I. A. Porret Iesus–Christ esl’il ressuscite (Revue de theologie el de philosoplae 1898) p. 514 sec. Shower. Thurs. 1903, Apr. page 651. Wed. Knabenbauer Evangel. sec. Malth. 2 p.m. (Par. 1893 in Cursus scrip. sac. auct. R. Cornely etc.) p. 548, 556–557. But was there any common sense in their invention that the body of Jesus was stolen by the disciples? No. But this crazy, hastily invented invention would in no case make sense... Cf. the later behavior of the members of the Sanhedrin in relation to the apostles and the prudent speech of Gamaliel Acts. 5:35–39. The narratives of the evangelists Matthew and Mark contradict this presentation of the matter. But in Matthew’s gospel the events are depicted too briefly, omitting the journey of Peter and John to the tomb and the Jerusalem appearances of the Risen One to the apostles. In the Gospel of Mark, the transition from Art. 8 is unnatural. to 9 art. Chapter 16 and at this point the text must be considered corrupt. In this case, the women told the apostles only about the emptiness of the tomb cave (John 20:2) and the disciples did not believe the women who saw only the empty tomb (as is the case according to St. Luke 24:11) and have not yet seen the risen Lord (as on the contrary is the case according to St. Mark 16:11). If so, then there is no basis for reproaching the disciples for “unbelief and hardness of heart, that those who saw Him risen did not believe” (Mark 16:14, so it is very plausible to recognize Mark 16:9–20 as a later addition); on the contrary, the unbelief of the disciples at the appearance of the Risen One was unbelief from joy (Luke 24:41 cf. Plummer A critical and exegetical commentary on the gospel ace. to Luke – Edinb. 1898 – ad. h. 1. p. 560). This also includes the remark made below about Thomas’s unbelief. It should be noted that some interpreters understand John’s “saw and believed” in the sense that he believed the words of Mary about the theft of Jesus’ body. (These are Theophylact, Augustine, Gregory Dvoeslov). So it was insignificant what the evangelist saw as a positive reason for his belief in the resurrection of the Lord. One can only wonder what kind of “obviousness” Edersheim stubbornly insists on. The life and times of Jesus the Messiah, vol. 2 (2 ed. Lond. 1884) pp. 621, 622, 634. Cp. Keim Geschichte Jesu vonNazara 3 (1872 Zur.) S. 551. Rather, it should be said together with W. Milligan The resurrection of our Lord (Lond. 1896) p. 132: it is the evidence of believers only. Works of Filaret M. M. - Words and speeches, vol. 3, M. 1877, p. 26. There are no words in brackets in Hebrew. collection – However, “love that aroused faith” is not the same as “loving imagination,” as expressed by R. Balmforth, who has an overly ardent imagination, The evolution of Christianity, Lond. 1898, p. 42. God. West. 1899 Feb. pp. 170–171. That is, a ghost, which is clear from Luke. 24:37–39. Wed. The resurrection of our Lord by W. Milligan (Lond. 1896), n. 6 pp. 241–242. John 7:39; 2 Cor. 3:17, 5:16, 1 Pet. 3:18 Wed. 1 Cor. 6:17 ; 1 Tim. 3:16; Heb. 9:14. Wed. higher. This is what Zlat says according to John. Theophylact in Blagovestnik (on St. Luke). – On the question of the properties of the body of the risen Lord, see the articles in Right. Review 1880, vol. 2, pp. 628–639; R. L. The Body of the Risen Christ the Savior. – and 1891, vol. 1. pp. 679–695: priest. N. Dobronravova About the resurrection of our Lord and the ucyca of Christ and his appearances after the resurrection. (Critical analysis of the Fichte Jr. hypothesis). Not entirely agreeing with each other on the basic view of the body of the Risen Lord, both articles equally testify that the metaphysical side of the appearances of the Risen Lord is at least incomprehensible to us and the desire to penetrate this mystery at all costs can only lead to fruitless and insignificant reasoning. St. John Zlat. per ev. John in h. 1. passim. Of the newest commentators cf. Cott, si d. Ev. d. Lukas von Godet, deut. bearb. v. E.R.u. K. Wunderlich (Han. 18 90), S. 608: Letzte Bibelstudien von H. G. Hoeleman (Leipz. 1885) S. 211. M.D. Muretov (Bog. Vestn. 1899, 1, 172): “Thomas believes not only that Christ was resurrected with his body, but also in that which he could neither see nor touch - the deity of Christ and His glory as the Only Begotten of the Father, the Son of God.” V.S. Solovyov (Three Conversations of the SPS. 1900 [Seven Easter Letters] pp. 249–250): “If Thomas’s lack of faith came from crude materialism, reducing all truth to sensory evidence, then, having become tangibly convinced of the fact of the resurrection, he would have come up with some kind of materialistic explanation for it, and would not have exclaimed: My Lord and my God! From the point of view of sensory evidence, the nail ulcers and the perforated rib did not in any way prove the deity of Christ. It is even clearer that Thomas’s unbelief did not stem from moral failure, or from hostility to the truth. Love for the truth attracted him to Christ and gave rise to boundless devotion to the Teacher. In John. 11:16 there is an indication of the psychological reason for the apostle’s unbelief. Thomas. The impetuous, anticipatory character, having accepted the truth, requires its immediate implementation, he is not satisfied with fundamental certainty, does not rely on the testimony of others, he needs now, here, to verify it in practice, to test its real power, to verify the truth with fact. Until then, he refuses to believe: if I don’t see, I won’t believe. But once he has seen, he already wholeheartedly believes in what he has not seen and what cannot be seen: the sensory fact was not the basis, but only the fulcrum for his faith.” Like Mf. 11:2–6 (Wed. Pr. Ob. 1883. vol. 3, p. 428 ff.); Onion. 1:18.20. God. Vestn. 1899, 1, 172. Cf. the words just quoted by V.S. Solovyov: we pay attention to the coincidence of the explanation of the fact between the theologian and the philosopher. Wed. Rom. 19:9; 1 Cor. 15:26 Wed. Heb. 2:14,15. John Zlat. in demon. 2 for the signing of Acts. Ap. 3 (Demons on various materials of the Holy Scriptures, vol. 2, St. Petersburg. 1862, p. 252). Wed. Ioanna Zlat. id. b. 3, pp. 346–347. This is the stereotypical mistake of theologians like Brandt, that the faith of the disciples in the Risen One would seem more understandable to them, wenn sie annehmen durften, dass die Erscheinungen bereits angefangen hatten, bevor die sichere Nachricht von dem Sterben Iesu am Kreuz die Iunger erreichte’ (Die ev. Geschichte und d. Ursprung d. Christenthums auf Grand einer Krilik der Berichte uber d. Auferslehung Iisu von W. Brandt, Leipz. 1893. S. 490)... Also A. Harnack (D. Wesen d. Christentums, Leipz. 1902, S. 98): in der sicheren Hoffnung auf die Wiederkunft sah mau uber die "Ankunft in Niedrigkeit" hinweg. Aber (the author must confess) dass man diese sichere Hoffnung zu fassen und festzuhalten vermochte, dass man trotz Leiden und Tod in Him den verheissenen Messias erblickte und wie man Ihn als den gegenwartigen Herrn und Heiland empfunden und ins Herz geschlossen hat – das ist das Erstaunliche! They cannot comprehend the mystical connection of faith in the Risen One with participation in His death. It says “flesh and bones,” not “flesh and blood.” “Flesh and bones” σωμα. The statement of priest P. Svetlov (The significance of the cross in the work of Christ, p. 441) that the ascension of Christ, when Christ became invisible (Acts 1:9), “was the actual recognition of the victory of Christ and His rights over humanity on the part of God the Father, visible to the world,” is completely devoid of meaning. – On the contrary, it is quite true in the Shower. Thurs. 1903 Apr. p. 653: “The Resurrection of the Lord, His appearance to the disciples and Ascension into heaven for the chief apostolic creed were a single and indivisible act of the transition of the body of Christ from a mental to a spiritual state... Here such phenomena in early Christian writing as the connection on one day or, at least, an unclear delimitation of the day of resurrection from the ascension and the name of the resurrection ascension find their basis.” In. loh, evang. tract. 121, 4: Migne s. lat. t. 39, col. 1958. John 11:25, 26 expresses only the moments of the system, but not its essence. You might be interested in: