ЗАКОН БОЖИЙ

You grew up in the Orthodox faith and boast of your knowledge of your faith and the rules of Christian activity, you say that you confess one baptism for the remission of sins. But if you do not fulfill the law of God, do not act like a Christian, then see to it that uncircumcision (the pagan), who by nature fulfills the law, does not condemn you, “a transgressor of the law under the Scripture and circumcision” (Rom. 2:27) (you who have and know the Scripture and were baptized for salvation). What then will your title of Christian, your communion of the Holy Mysteries of Christ, and all of Christianity serve? By breaking the law, you yourself have refuted everything that you had, just like a pagan; with him you will go to your place (2). Can works under the law justify a person? No, because the law made us know that there is sin; without the law we would have no concept of sin. Can there be a justifying force in the law, which has shown us the line separating good from evil? A person can be justified only by the justification of Jesus Christ through faith in His merits (2). “Who are you, man, that you argue with God? Will the product say to the person who made it: “Why did you make me this way?” Does not the potter have power over the clay, so that from the same mixture he can make one vessel for honorable use, and another for low?” (Rom. 9:20, 21). Your task, man, is to submit to the Lord, your Creator; to resist you is unnatural and very disastrous. By the will of God, man exists, and the will of God, good and perfect, gave him the best rules or laws of life. If he does not fulfill them, then he goes against the purpose of his existence, against his own good. He himself, of course, cannot establish the best laws for himself: darkened by sin, he is more likely to invent rules that can harm him and upset his internal and external well-being. How many whims does a person have that undermine his well-being! (2) Sin is first of all lawlessness (see 1 John 3:4), according to Scripture, that is, a violation of the law of God given to man, and above all - the law of love for God and neighbor, rebellion against God, His greatness, holiness and truth, disobedience to Him and agreement and combination with the devil, the original and instigator of all sin - the rebellion of a sinner against himself, against his soul and body, against his conscience, this guardian of soul and body, their holiness and purity; there is a distortion, perversion, desecration in us of the image of God, according to which we were created in the beginning (8). Man, the rational creation of God, the king of earthly creatures, was also given by the Creator firm and immutable laws, deeply laid in the depths of his being, in his conscience and heart, and he is obliged to fulfill them as a rule of life, as a sacred and immutable duty of the creature towards its Creator. The good of his life depended and depends on the fulfillment of these laws: closeness to the Creator, union with Him, peace, joy, immortality, and violation of them entailed all sorts of disasters - destruction of the union with the Creator, confusion in soul and body, darkness, sorrow and cramped conditions, curse, illness and death. For a short time the first people were faithful to God through the fulfillment of this commandment and were blessed by their union with Him. The union was treacherously broken, man sinned and upset the wondrous harmony of his god-like nature, corrupting the mind, heart and will, desecrating his conscience, fell into unpayable debts to his Creator and subjected himself to the terrible judgment of God's truth. The terrible judgments of God began to be fulfilled over the human race, immediately Adam and Eve were the first to hear from the Creator Himself the terrible judgment of curse and death and the expulsion from paradise of sweets for cultivating the earth, and then the Lord condemned the first world of people to destruction by a flood; the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah - to be destroyed by fire and brimstone rain, then civil strife and bloody wars of nations, crop failures, pestilences, earthquakes opened as punishment for sins, and through all times, even before our ill-fated time, the Lord reveals His terrible judgments over nations, as well as over individuals (9). You might be interested in: