Explanation of sinful handwriting

Whoever says that the primordial Adam gave a handwriting to the devil who deceived him, with which he subjected himself to him into eternal slavery, suffers from complete ignorance and misunderstanding of the Holy Scriptures. If he had known the meaning of the words spoken by the Creator to the deceived one, and if he had heeded the words of the secret preacher, who strictly commands: Believe not every spirit, that is, do not follow every teaching, but tempt the spirits if they are from God (1 John 4:1), that is, whether their teaching is consistent with the inspired prophetic and apostolic sayings, then he would not have raised such an offensive lie to primordial and would not thereby accuse the Righteous Judge of injustice. By saying this, I mean that He cursed the land, which had not done anything wrong, saying: Cursed is the land because of your deeds (Gen. 3:17), and the one who retreated from Him and gave himself up to the godless demon, not only left without punishment, but showed great providence and care for him and his descendants from generation to generation: he assigned His guardian angels to him and his descendants, as it is written in the second song, where It says: Ask your father, and your elders will tell you, and tell you. When the Most High divides the tongues, set the boundaries of the tongues according to the number of the angels of God. And the portion of the Lord became His people Jacob, and so on (Deut. 32:7–9). And that the Creator would not have spared him if he had known that he had voluntarily signed up for slavery to the God-fighting demon, is clear from what the Divine Scripture says: Thou hast despised all who depart from Thy justifications. For what reason? As if their thoughts were unrighteous, he says (Ps. 119:118). And again: Thou hast hated all who practice iniquity; thou hast destroyed all who speak lies (Ps. 5:6–7). From these sayings of the Holy Scripture it is clear that the first-created one would then have been hated in every possible way by the One who created him, as having deviated from the commandment of his Creator, and would have been put to shame as having committed great lawlessness, and the Creator would have immediately completely destroyed him, as having shown wickedness against such great goodness towards him from the One who created him. Meanwhile, the Creator not only did not destroy him and hated him, not only did he not immediately destroy him, but, on the contrary, showed patience and love for mankind towards him, and, as if regretting him, says to him: Adam, where are you? (Gen.3:9). He asked this not because he did not know the place where he hid - He who knows everything, but as if he were saying to him: “Do you understand, O foolish one, from what glory and honor into what disgrace and dishonor you have fallen?” This clearly proves the falsity of those who slander him and say that he gave the demon who deceived him a handwriting, with which he handed himself over to him into eternal slavery. Moreover, what good could he hope to receive from the evil demon, by whom he was deprived of his equal glory, or how could he fear the one whose head to erase he received from the Lord of all the power to write a handwriting against himself, especially since he heard from his Creator: I will put enmity between him and the human race (cf. Gen. 3:15). Having heard from his Creator and Master that enmity was ordained, how could the primordial one give his enemy a handwriting against himself? All this wisdom is a deception and blasphemy of some crazy people who did not accept it from the Divine Scripture, but invented it with their meager minds and spread it everywhere, passing it on to ignoramuses like themselves, not at all afraid of the divine saying: Destroy all who speak lies. Having shown the falsity of the above opinion, as having no evidence or confirmation, we should find out the meaning of the manuscript mentioned in the Divine Scripture, how to understand it. It is known that the divine Apostle Paul mentions a handwriting taken from Wednesday and nailed to the Savior’s cross (Col. 2:14), that is, what has already become invalid; from the letter to the Ephesians we learn that this handwriting is the law of the Mosaic commandments and traditions, and what is written in the book of Deuteronomy about sacrifices and burnt offerings, about the Passover of the Old Testament, about circumcision, about prohibitions regarding food and about various cleansings and washings of the body, which book the Apostle usually calls the mediastinum of the fence and enmity, speaking in The epistle to the Ephesians is clearly like this: For this is our peace, having created both as one, that is, uniting into one the people of the Jews and the believing pagans, and destroying the mediastinum of the fence, destroying enmity with His flesh, abolishing the law of the commandments of the teachings, so that He would create both by Himself into one new man, creating peace: and reconcile both in the one body of God by the cross, having killed the enmity against him (Eph. 2:14-16), as in the letter to the Colossians he says: Having given us (forsaken) our trespasses, having destroyed the handwriting of the teachings that was against us, even that was taken away from the environment, nailing it to the cross (Col. 2:13-14). He calls this Scripture, written with hand and ink, enmity and the mediastinum of the fence, because of the gravity of the Mosaic commandments contained in it, which he calls handwriting, which the Jews could not fulfill, and which therefore turned out to be hostility to God and the mediastinum of the fence for them, separating us and separating us from the love of God. And that the commandments of the law were unfulfillable for the Jews, the Apostle Peter clearly taught us this in the Acts, telling us to the believing Pharisees, who argued that we should circumcise the Gentiles who turn to God and demand from them the fulfillment of the entire law of Moses: Now why do you tempt God, wanting to put a yoke on your neck as a disciple, which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear, but through the grace of the Lord Jesus We believe in Christ to be saved (Acts 15:10–11). This is the handwriting, that is, the book of the Mosaic Testaments, called enmity and the mediastinum of the fence, this yoke, as a burden and as the cause of a curse, and not a blessing, the Only Begotten Son and the Word of the beginningless God the Father, having clothed himself with flesh and being under the law, so that he might redeem those under the law, nailed it to His cross, that is, made it insignificant and removed it from the environment, as cries out the holy Apostle Paul in his letter to the Galatians, saying: Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become the curse of us. It is written: Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree (Gal.3:13). In order to free us from the curse written in the book of the Old Testament, where it is said: Cursed is every man who does not abide in all the words of this law that I do (Deut. 27:26), and to deliver us from such a terrible and terrible curse, our Lord and God Jesus Christ, in His inscrutable goodness and love for mankind, deigned to accept such a shameful death, and in the heat of the moment. The blessing of Abraham will be in Christ Jesus, so that we may receive the promise of the Spirit by faith (Gal. 3:14). Since this handwriting was destroyed by the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, we are now no longer under the law of the Mosaic commandments, but under the grace and light of the perfect law of the Gospel, which is why we do not need circumcision, for by divine baptism we are cleansed from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit. Circumcision cleansed only the outside of the dish, but Holy Baptism cleanses and sanctifies both the inside and the outside, as it is written: Sprinkle me with hyssop, and I will be clean: wash me, and I will be whiter than snow (Ps. 50:9). It is not only in one city, ancient Jerusalem, that we are commanded to sacrifice the lawful Passover, but in every city and in every country we are allowed to offer to the Lord a pure and acceptable sacrifice, the Lamb of God Himself, who takes away the sin of the world, as it is written: Then you are pleased with the sacrifice of righteousness, the offering and the burnt offering (Ps. 50:21), as in another place it says: Sacrifice and offering are not You willed it, but you completed the body for me (Ps. 39:7), that is, the very Body of the Lord, offered to God and the Father for the sake of our salvation instead of any other Old Testament sacrifice. Let me say briefly: all ancient manuscript writing ceased with the cross of Christ, as it is written: The ancient handicraft, behold, was all new (2 Cor. 5:17). This is the meaning of the manuscript contained in the apostle. Now we will hear the explanation and manuscripts of sins, what it means. In the prayer of the sixth hour it is written like this: “And by His honorable cross the handwriting of our sin has been torn to pieces.” This handwriting has the same meaning as what was said in the Gospel of John to the rebellious Jews: Everyone who commits sin is the slave of sin (John 8:34); Likewise, the blessed Apostle Peter writes: For whoever is overcome is the one who works (2 Pet. 2:19). Each of us is bound captive by our sins, and by them, like a dumb animal, we are always drawn to commit sin and work uncontrollably to the lusts of our flesh, as if we were masters of some kind. It is appropriate, therefore, that our enslavement to passions is called the handwriting of our sins, to which we have enslaved ourselves, like slaves who give their masters a serf's manuscript from themselves, that they will work for them until their death. This most destructive enslavement of ours to passions, allegorically called handwriting, was torn to pieces by our Savior with His cross, giving us the gift of the Holy Spirit, for which we cry out: “Abba Father,” by which we are enlightened and strengthened, and through this the handwriting that we gave from ourselves to the evil lusts of our flesh will be torn to pieces. Having been freed by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the assistance of the Holy Spirit from such evil enslavement to sinful passions, we become beloved children of God. By the freedom with which the cross of the Savior freed us, let us stand and not give ourselves up again into the yoke of slavery, lest we turn into a pillar of salt, and lest the wise parable be applied to us, that the pig, having washed himself, returned to the foul mud, and the dog turned to his own vomit (2 Pet. 2:22). You might be interested in: