Закон Божий

The lover of mankind, the Lord our God, when He created man in His image and likeness, implanted a law in his soul, through which he could know everything that concerns his duties and act according to that law. According to that law, he could know what his duty was to God, his Creator, to himself and his neighbor. But after the fall of man, this law was so deteriorated that barely traces of it remained. From this it followed that people chose evil instead of good, and, darkened by the darkness of ignorance, they revered vices instead of virtues. Therefore, our merciful Creator, in His natural goodness, depicted that law on two tablets, which through Moses, His faithful servant, transmitted to His chosen people - Israel, and then to all people and nations. But the purpose of both natural and written law is nothing other than love alone. For the most merciful and man-loving God, knowing that without love there can be no well-being in the human race, for the reason that the Father, providing for His children, gave us a law for our benefit and for the sake of our well-being, which is that we, firstly, God, and then our neighbor like this: love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind... and your neighbor as yourself; On these two commandments, according to Christ Himself, the whole law and the prophets are established (Matthew 22:40). Great evil is sin. For sin is a crime and destruction of the eternal and unchangeable law of God. Sin is lawlessness (1 John 3:4). What God commanded and legitimized is ruined through sin, and God commanded and legitimized is done in opposition, and disobedience is revealed. Through sin, the law of God, eternal and unchangeable, is destroyed. For God gave His law to us so that we might keep it intact. And when a person sins and violates God’s law, he violates that Divine institution and law, which must remain eternally inviolable and intact. And so man destroys what God has established; and the damned sinner changes and destroys what in itself should be unchangeable and indestructible. The law of God depicts what should be this way, and not otherwise, as depicted; for example, to honor and love God above all things and to love your neighbor as yourself. This is what the eternal and unchanging truth demands from a person. But the blinded sinner, despite this, dares to destroy the inviolable and violate the inviolable, to the dishonor of the eternal God and his own destruction. God, Who issued the law and commands it to be kept, is great and terrible, and He is the God of vengeance (Ps. 3:1), and commands it to be kept firmly: You commanded to keep Your commandments firmly (Ps. 119:4). And for the transgression of His holy law He threatens with temporary and eternal execution. We are afraid to violate the decrees of the earthly king, whose anger only our body can kill. How can one violate God’s command and not fear His righteous wrath, which can destroy both soul and body in fiery hell (Matthew 10:28)? There cannot be true repentance without knowing, feeling and recognizing one’s weakness, sin, poverty and damnation, and all this is known and felt from the law and the legal curse. Therefore, anyone who wants to truly repent must delve into the law and put his conscience before the law and consider how the law exposes, wounds and oppresses him. In such cramped conditions, that is, feeling the legal curse and wrath of God against the sins committed, by faith resort to Christ and seek merciful deliverance from the wrath of God and the execution that follows wrath. The law of God was given to us, in which eternal truth is depicted. We had to either fulfill it completely, and thus be righteous before God, and receive eternal life, according to Scripture: the person who fulfills what is written in the law will live by it (Gal. 3:12); or, if we do not fulfill it, we will be under the curse of the law, according to what has been said: cursed is everyone who does not do everything that is written in the book of the law (Deut. 27:26; Gal. 3:10). But sin, living in man, received great power from the law, and was, as it were, irritated by it, and whatever the law commanded or forbade, it kindled great lust in man against it. Therefore, man could not fulfill what the law wanted from him, overcome by weakness and lust, and so the law exposed him as weak and a criminal, and did not heal him. And although man could not do what the law commanded him, the truth of God demanded its own from him. She demanded what he owes to the Creator and his God, that is, perfect obedience and reverence, and so determined that a person either fulfill the entire law of God and receive God’s blessing, or, having not fulfilled it, lose God’s blessing and be struck by a curse. The truth of God cannot be violated, but it certainly demands that the lawbreaker be punished, for the property of truth is to give everyone their due. No man was found who would perfectly fulfill the law of God, because all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God (Rom. 3:23). No one did what the truth of God demanded, and everyone was convicted by the law as a criminal and rebellious. Consequently, everyone, according to the definition of God’s truth, remained under the curse, and fell under eternal condemnation and death. God's mercy and love for mankind did not tolerate man being left under a curse; it did not tolerate seeing him in eternal destruction. God's truth demanded its own, and God's mercy wanted its own. It was necessary for God’s truth to receive its satisfaction, and for His mercy not to remain without its satisfaction. God, the righteous and merciful, in His wisdom, invented a means with which both His holy truth and His mercy were pleased. He pleased His Son, Who is the Hypostatic Wisdom of God, to become incarnate. The Son of God appeared in the flesh, and for us, cursed by the law, he became cursed, the only one blessed forever (Rom. 9:5), and thus redeemed us from the curse of the law, becoming a curse for us (Gal. 3:13); and, instead of us, who did not fulfill the law, He completely fulfilled the law, so that the justification of the law would be fulfilled in us, who do not live according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit (Rom. 8:4). So the law of God received its end, that is, its perfect fulfillment, in Christ, which it did not receive in us. Thus, the Hypostatic Wisdom of the Father – Christ, satisfied Him with God’s truth and mercy. Truth - since He was wounded for our sins and tormented for our iniquities (Isa. 53:5; Rom. 4:25; 1 Cor. 15:3); mercy - since a person who is cursed and subject to eternal condemnation, through faith in Christ, receives blessings from God and is saved (1 Peter 3:9; Gal. 3:9, 14; Rom. 5:9-10). And what he could not find in the law, as he was weak, he finds all by faith in Christ. Thus mercy and truth met, truth and peace kissed each other! Truth has shone from the earth, and truth has come from heaven (Ps. 84:11-12). Do not do what your conscience forbids you to do, for what an infallible conscience forbids, the law of God also forbids. A good conscience is in accordance with the law of God. The law of God says: do not kill, do not steal, and so on - you hear the same in your conscience. Beware of doing what your conscience forbids, so as not to wound your soul by wounding your conscience. They will ask: “When Christians are not under the law, but under grace, then why is the law preached?” 1. It is preached to the faulty, so that, having become frightened and felt, they come to repentance. Thus, the holy Forerunner, wanting to lead people to repentance and thus prepare their hearts for the acceptance of the gospel faith, preached: the ax is already lying at the root of the trees: every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire (Matthew 3:10). 2. It is also preached to pious true Christians, so that, according to its rule, they would correct their lives, so that, looking at it as in a mirror, they would recognize the weakness of their nature and purify them by faith in Christ, the Son of God, and so they would put off the old man and put on the new, and advance in the love of God and their neighbor, which is the purpose of the law. The purpose of exhortation is love from a pure heart and a good conscience and unfeigned faith (1 Tim. 1:5).