10. Спаситель

Salvation was the word most often heard in the last pre-Christian days, both in Judaism and in the pagan world. While in the pagan world, against the bright background of moral despair and carnal corruption, the desired salvation was depicted with vague, elusive features and the gaze of the pagans turned to the East - to the Jews, who concealed within themselves the coming salvation - ί ων ἐστ ί ν 1118, it was presented in a certain form: they expected salvation as a national theocratic good on the basis of legalistic righteousness and within the framework of a transcendental eschatological catastrophe 1119. The Gospel was woven into this fabric of soteriological expectations of humanity, clothed in the language of Jewish aspirations: it brought salvation to the world, salvation to all who had perished 1120. However, the most remarkable thing in evangelical soteriology is that, while responding to the existing religious needs of mankind, its essential content flows from a completely new and creatively original fact of the divinely-filial life of Christ, the inner good of eternal life revealed by Him. Relying in its periphery on the empirical consciousness of people and proclaiming forgiveness for sinners, peace for the burdened, freedom for the captives, the Gospel finds the main basis for the idea of ​​salvation not in this immediate human need, but in that new good of eternal life, which was first revealed in Christ. It considers the world truly lost and dead from the height of that new spiritual life that Christ brought into the world in His person, in His personal experience. Therefore, the gospel salvation not only conceals within itself the judgment of the world, but at the same time the entire gospel soteriology, to the last point, is included in the self-consciousness of Christ, from him alone it all flows. The entire gospel teaching about salvation comes down to the teaching about the Savior, and the entire gospel teaching about Christ the Savior is only a revelation of His self-consciousness. Christianity is entirely the work of Christ, rooted in His personal creativity, and all His work immanently emerges from His intimate relationship with His Heavenly Father. On this side, a whole abyss separates the Gospel from Jewish soteriology, in which the Messiah occupied a secondary place and was the performer of externally determined, or predetermined, tasks, an externally determined task. On the contrary, in Christianity, Christ the Savior is of central importance, and His entire work is rooted in His personal religious experience, all evangelical soteriology has internal content, immanent certainty - it does not accept anything from the outside, it is not essentially complicated by anything empirical. It is easy to see that Jewish folk theocratic soteriology with its legalistic basis and transcendental eschatological framework turns out to be external to the Gospel, and the Gospel puts new content into its images. The transition from Jewish messiology to the Gospel and the closest scheme for Gospel soteriology can be the Jewish system of messianic names, which receive primary significance in the New Testament teaching on salvation, since all salvation in the Gospel turns out to be the personal work of the Savior. From the evangelical point of view, Jewish names for the Messiah fall into three sections. In the first place, it is necessary to indicate the attitude of the New Testament Teacher to the name Messiah-Christ, which was in the mouths of the Jews the most common and most common name for the Savior they expected 1121. This name was not associated primarily with any one aspect of the messianic aspirations of Judaism, but embraced their entirety. This explains Jesus' attitude towards him. He adopted this name for Himself, considered it His name, “called” Himself Christ, but did not associate any new concept with it 1122. He applied this name to Himself in the Jewish sense, but His relation to other messianic names shows that He was not the Messiah in the Jewish sense. Consequently, calling Himself the Messiah-Christ, He took upon Himself the work of the Jewish Messiah, took upon Himself this title and thereby told everyone who expected Messianic salvation that only He alone could be the Messiah, so that they would not expect any other Messiah, that all those who came before Him were thieves and robbers and those who came after Him were false Christs and deceivers 1123, as a result of which it became it is inevitable and the only possible to recognize the path of salvation that is indicated in the Gospel and is clarified when applied to other messianic names. It must be assumed that in the deepest mystical sense Jesus was in fact the Messiah, that in the depths of His self-consciousness there was a connection with the creative and historical revelation of Jehovah 1124 that He could only attribute to Himself everything destined in Scripture 1125; nevertheless, in the rational-historical sense of Jewish usage and Jewish expectations, He was not the Messiah, the idea of ​​spiritual gospel salvation is completely new in the history of the Jewish religion, a new and, moreover, personal revelation of Jesus, so that in the rational-historical sense He was “called Christ” - “Jesus, called Christ” - Ἰ ησοῦς ὁ λεγ ό μενος Χριστ ό ς 1126. This name was a general name in the mouth of Christ, a designation of His person and His work, but for us the content of His self-consciousness and the nature of His work is indicated not by this name, not by His past use in Old Testament Jewish history, but by the subsequent content of the Gospel associated with other messianic names. The second group of messianic names from the evangelical point of view consists of the names “son of David” and “king of Israel,” denoting primarily the national-theocratic side of Jewish soteriology. The name “son of David”, which predetermined for the Messiah the task of restoring “the throne of His father David, and reigning over the house of Jacob forever” 1127, was apparently very popular 1128. And that in the mouths of the Jewish people this was not a simple title, but that bright national and political dreams were associated with it, this is evident from the people’s attempts to “take Jesus and make him king” 1129 and from the enthusiastic meeting given to Him upon entering Jerusalem. We know Christ's attitude to this messianic designation and to the political expectations associated with it. Following the solemn greetings of the people upon entering Jerusalem, Christ had a significant conversation with the Pharisees, in which He explained that the spiritual Messiah cannot be the son of David, since He is his lord 1130: thus the names Christ and son of David were separated, i.e. The national-political character was removed from the evangelical messianism. And this despite the fact that Christ preached the coming of the kingdom of God and called Himself the king of this kingdom, as is revealed from many gospel parables 1131. However, we know from the Gospel teaching about eternal life that no features of the worldly kingdom can take place in the society of His disciples 1132. The kingdom, like a feast, light, is in the Gospel of 1133 only a symbol of spiritual blessings. By renouncing the title “Son of David,” Christ decisively rejected from His spiritual kingdom any resemblance to a worldly, earthly, pagan reign. His kingdom is not of this world. He calls Himself a king in the sole sense of the owner and preacher of truth 1134. So, Christ, rejecting the title “son of David,” removed national-political goals from His work; He called Himself a figurative king only because the Jews were waiting for a king in the person of the Messiah, and only in order to reduce the political thoughts of Israel to the benefits of the kingdom of heaven. That is why the Jews’ hatred of Him, as the “King of the Jews,” was strong. The third group consists of the Jewish names of the Messiah “Son of God” and “Son of Man”, decisively adopted by Christ with a new meaning invested in them. Of these, the name “Son of God” denotes the inner personal life of Christ, His intimate relationship with the Heavenly Father, and the name “Son of Man” embraces His historical work, His saving service to the human race. Both the pagan and Jewish worlds knew about sonship. The pagans understood the sons of God as physically born of gods, mainly born from the marriage of gods with human mothers. Such physical ideas about the gods were contrary to the monotheistic view of the Jews. In the Old Testament language, sonship of God serves as an image to express the providential relations of God to man, to express the external relationship of God's chosenness and heavenly favor. In later Judaism, this chosenness of the Son of God received personal messianic certainty. In this sense, the name Son of God is often found in gospel history, in application to Christ, in appeals to Him from heaven 1135, from people and from unclean spirits 1136. The Gospel, like the Old Testament, is alien to the pagan-physical concept of sonship with God, and the teaching of Christ about sonship with God has Old Testament-Jewish ideas as its starting point. But Christ does not stop at the latter. Through the thickness of religious hopes for God's chosenness, He leads to the idea of ​​sonship with God, as a spiritual birth from God, a spiritual relationship with Him, the actual possession of divine life, the real revelation of God in human life. For the question of the relationship of the gospel's sonship to the Old Testament idea of ​​God's chosenness, the history of Christ's temptations in the desert is of decisive importance. The temptations of Christ stemmed from the Old Testament idea of ​​sonship with God, as an idea of ​​heavenly visible benevolence towards man, as a messianic-theocratic idea - and they were rejected by Christ in the name of spiritually real communication between man and God. Evangelical sonship with God consists in a person’s real experience of divine absolute love, in the actual possession of the freedom of ethical anthropocentrism and the bliss of eternal life. In the system of gospel terms, sonship with God is the least abstract and figurative, the most valid in terms of experience, and the richest in real content. At this point, the Gospel teaching coincides with the inner experience of Christ, revealed in the historical life of mankind. The idea of ​​sonship with God gives the main content to the entire Gospel, and it is revealed in the Gospel teaching about Fatherhood, spiritual righteousness and eternal life. Since the sonship of Christ in its essential aspect is assimilated by all believers, and the teaching about sonship of God in its spiritual content is revealed throughout the entire Gospel teaching; insofar as the doctrine of sonship with God, being part of Christ’s teaching about His person, does not exhaust the Gospel Christology. Evangelical Christology, presupposing the doctrine of sonship with God, has as its own content the individual characteristics of Christ's sonship with God: it is the teaching of Christ about Himself not as about υἱὸς θεοῦ, but as about ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ θεοῦ, not as one of sons, but as the only begotten Son of God 1137. That this is what the Gospel teaches, it is difficult to object to it. Christ said about Himself that He came down from heaven, came from God, came from the Father and came into the world 1138; He called Himself descended from heaven, the Son of man who is in heaven 1139. And although it cannot be denied that this phraseology is a feature of the fourth Gospel; nevertheless, the essential meaning of these sayings is deeply embedded in the entire content of the Gospel teaching. If these sayings were not in the Gospel, the main idea expressed in them would constitute a necessary conclusion from the data of the Gospel teaching. For the Gospel, the concept of a new revelation, a new experience of divine experiences is essential and inalienable. Eternal life, exceeding the natural-evolutionary boundaries of worldly life, is the planting of the Heavenly Father, the inspiration of His spirit. The novelty of the Gospel is not in a word, not in one word, but in the reality of unprecedented experiences that began in Christ. This creates the exceptional worldwide significance of the Gospel, not only in contrast to philosophical teachings, but also from other religions. The Gospel in this respect is different from the Chinese religion, which even in the teachings of the sages remains completely on a folk-traditional basis; it is also different from Buddhism, in which the unprecedented is given only in personal insight, in the theoretical understanding of the truth, which is why the emptiness of a negative result is inevitable here. Let's not even talk about the abstraction of the religious philosophy of the classical peoples. On the contrary, the newness of the Gospel is in the reality of spiritual experience. If the Gospel did not have a new fact of spiritual life under it, its meaning would fade to the last degree. The theoretical doctrine of man's sonship with God is of too little value. The Gospel would fall below all other creativity, religious or aesthetic. It would not have a force equal to inspiration, which in Christianity is replaced by spiritual reality. Everything forces us to understand the work of Christ not as a theoretical invention, but as living creativity, a living revelation of the Heavenly Father. If sonship with God is essentially a birth from the Father, a new “spiritual” movement along with natural-historical development, then the founder of spiritual life could only be the firstborn of the Father. His natural-historical difference from subsequent sons is that He is born of the Father, while they are regenerated. And this is based on the solid facts of gospel history. In Him, self-consciousness of God was immediately given, and not a logical conclusion. He was born this way, and not that He gradually came to the conviction of His sonship with God. Then, in Him, God's filial self-consciousness was the complete and sufficient basis for conscious life activity: His entire life was determined by this self-consciousness; He was only the Son of God. This is only possible to generalize in the recognition that in Him the self-consciousness of God was natural, that He was the Son of God by nature, i.e. from birth - He was spiritually born by nature. We would leave the soil of religious thought if we recognized it as possible to exhaust the mystery of Christ's sonship with God and replace it with some abstract formula. But we will only point to a fact of gospel history, equivalent to the above considerations about the sonship of Christ, if we say that Christ, speaking out for the work of preaching, coming into the world - ἐρχόμενος εἰς τὸν κόσμον 1140, recognized Himself as having come from Father and lonely in the world 1141. The idea of ​​anthropocentrism, which lies in the essence of sonship with God, was complicated in Christ by the historical feature that He came into the world as the only Son of God. In this natural-historical feature of the sonship of Christ, the complete basis for the entire work of salvation is given - its idea, motives and method of implementation. Christ came as the Savior of the world 1142 and saw His calling in the salvation of souls, because He carried within Himself the spiritual benefits of divine eternal life, in comparison with which all worldly blessings turn out to be insignificant and from the height of which all worldly existence is a dead vegetation. All of His salvific significance is based on His sonship with God. As the Son, He has life in Himself and has complete freedom and knowledge 1143 - and He revives people, gives them freedom, makes them sons of light. Only from Him could people receive the blessings of true life, only through Him could they come to the Heavenly Father, He was for them the only path, truth and life 1144. In this, all the speeches of Christ about the unique, incomparable position of His person in world history, in the universal relations of humanity to God, have solid support and a sufficient explanation. Next. Soteriological motives are also rooted in their comprehensive completeness in the divinely filial self-consciousness of Christ. They are given in divine filial love, in God's love of the Son for the whole world 1146. Whoever felt within Himself a son-heir, sent to the Father’s vineyard, carried His entire task, all His work in the depths of His heart. He knew what He “had” to do 1147, not as a slave, not as a disciple, but as a son, leading equally with the Father 1148. Eternal divine life, filled with absolute love, in itself has the beginning of self-communication, disclosure, expansion, discovery. And for this, it does not need any external push, except for the presence of a distressed world, perishing souls, scattered sheep, turning love into pity - it does not need external conviction, drawn plans, or any external instructions. Finally, the method of carrying out the work of salvation, with the simplicity of mathematical equality, grew out of the basic content of spiritual sonship with God. The work of the Son of God in relation to the world is incomparable with any other calling, both worldly and religious, in its absolute simplicity, in the self-sufficiency of its internal foundations: the only work of the Son of God, who actually possesses the benefit of eternal life, is to convey to people His eternal abundant life, to enliven them with God's filial self-consciousness, to grant them God's filial freedom, to make them sons of the Father Heavenly 1149. Absoluteness leads only to absoluteness, freedom to freedom and life to life: the relationship of divine-filial love is equal to its own essence. The grain of wheat of spiritual life, without dying for the fruit, without dying for others, remains lonely and dries up: the fullness of its own life lies in giving itself to others, in passing into the fruit 1150. The bliss of love is to give oneself, to sacrifice oneself 1151; The highest degree of love is to lay down your life for your friends 1152. And this is even from the extreme sides of religious objectivity, since the Father: to love the Son because He lays down His soul for people 1153. All the benefits of sonship with God are realized and crowned in self-sacrifice, so that both the only calling and the inevitable task for the Son is to completely convey Himself to people, to be the bread of God for the world, the bread of life, to give His flesh and blood for the life of the world 1154. Not a single point of the Gospel teaching is expressed with such clarity as this one. One such saying denoting the task of the Son of God, such as: sow the sons of the kingdom, the sons of God 1155, or: he who sits on Me will live by Me 1156, sayings deeply rooted in the entire Gospel, show that we are dealing with religious creativity, surging from the unattainable depths of real spiritual life, with religious truth, revealing real experience. All other parts of the Gospel soteriology, all other elements of Christ’s work are concentrated around this main core and complicate it only peripherally, to the extent of contact with existing historical life, without adding anything to its essence. Thus Christ was a teacher, testified to the truth and enlightened the world 1157. But all His teaching had as its only subject eternal life, He taught only how man can become the son of God: His teaching does not contain a single Gnostic element, has no Gnostic complexity. He was a legislator, but His entire law is based on the principle of filial autonomy, filial freedom. He is a judge, but he judges the world only as the Son of God 1158, as he who sows the sons of God, who gives eternal life to the world... Gospel salvation in its idea, motives and method of implementation is revealed to us not only from the positive, but also from the negative side. We are persistently indoctrinated into what the evangelical faith should be, our relationship to Christ, and what it cannot be. The gift of the Gospel, as a work of living creativity, does not allow any compromises, does not tolerate any convention. He can be received with dignity, in his own measure, in his true sense. There is no possibility of devious use, partial sampling, conditional application, and there is no hope for the sentimental condescension of the donor. All are invited, but those without the wedding garment are severely rejected. Only royal sons, children of God, spiritually born, spiritually free are allowed to the feast. There is no place for anything slavish or submissive. Real birth of God cannot be replaced by a cowardly cry: “Lord! God!" - and timid helpfulness 1159. Thus, in particular, Christ was a teacher and mentor, the only teacher and the only mentor 1160. He taught as no man had ever taught 1161 - he taught with such authority that not only the scribes and Pharisees 1162, but also none of the prophets had. He did not rely on any external evidence except that of His Father 1163 ; He said what He Himself heard from the Father 1164, He spoke on His behalf, because He had the Father 1165 in Himself. He alone possessed religious truth and possessed all truth 1166. He was completely independent from the prophetic writings, with complete freedom he moved the center of their gravity, reduced one to the historically conditional and raised the other to the eternal and unchangeable 1167. As such a religious authority, Christ demanded trust from his listeners and disciples 1168... However, trust expresses only the initial stage in the living relationship of the disciples to Christ. What is important here is not only that everyone is given a criterion for testing the gospel teaching 1169, but also that Christ calls to Himself only those whom the Father Himself attracts 1170, reviving divine spirituality in every believer. The gospel truth is transmitted to the believer not only in the fullness of its content, but also in the imprecise originality of free creativity 1171: the gospel truth makes those who assimilate it free 1172. In the field of Christian teaching, more than in other fields, the student, having improved, becomes like a teacher 1173. The meal of Christian truth has no crumbs falling for dogs 1174 - it is for gentlemen only, for the master's friends 1175. And if the authority of Christ had been one iota less than what He possessed, if it had not been absolute, he would have crushed the disciples. But this was the authority of divinely filial freedom, which is assimilated by every believer. Then faith in Christ is trust in Him, faith in His power and, above all, in His miraculous power, faith in His works, which no one else has done 1176. Such was the initial faith of His disciples... But trust in Christ does not constitute the essence of the gospel faith, the final step in the disciples’ relationship to Him. What is required of them is an omnipotent faith, for which nothing is impossible 1177. He who believes in Christ has the power to do the works that Christ did, and even greater things; in the latter result, it is not Christ who intercedes for them before the Father, but the Father Himself loves them 1178. This evangelical call to omnipotent faith receives a special shade in the rays of the evangelical teaching about complete Christian self-denial, with which evangelical faith is inextricably linked, and about the symbolic meaning of Christ's miracles, since their history serves as a shell of spiritual blessings and is crowned with the spiritual freedom of believers. From here the disciples of Christ are convinced not to rejoice in the gift of miraculous power, but to rejoice in the inner blessings of spiritual life 1179. At the same time, the possession of the omnipotent power of Christ - prophecy, casting out demons and other miracles in His name - do not provide a guarantee for the salvation of man, since those who possess the miraculous power of Christ, but do not have His spiritual eternal life, are severely cast out from the kingdom of God 1180. Thus, all paths to bypassing the only gift that is offered by the Gospel are cut off, the gift of sonship with God and eternal spiritual life. There is no way to interpret the Gospel in the sense of arbitrary heavenly mercy, which can be used according to the conditional measure of everyday considerations. Christ had one task, which was indicated to Him by His own heart, His own self-consciousness - to grant people the benefits of His sonship with God, to spiritually indwell them. Since He actually fulfilled this task, realized His sonship of God in the conditions of actual human life, He is the Son of man. The very fact that Christ alone is called both the Son of God and the Son of Man indicates the inseparability of these names. The latter is directly noted on the pages of the Gospel. Peter’s confession, so important in the course of gospel history: “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God,” was uttered by him in response to Christ’s expressive question: “Who do you say that (Me) the Son of Man is?” 1181 Confession, which formed the cornerstone of the gospel building, the saving work of Christ, was the recognition of the Son of God in the Son of Man. The image of the Son of Man clothes the divine-son essence, carries it within itself and reveals it to the world. If the name of Christ, the Son of God, denotes His spiritual essence, the very reality of His inner personal life, including the natural-spiritual first-born from the Father, then the name Son of Man embraces His individual historical work, His historical service to the salvation of the human race, His external historical appearance. The name Son of Man most closely indicates the saving humiliation of Christ, the revelation of divine glory in conditions of human humiliation. The relationship between the images of the Son of God and the Son of Man can be expressed by the patristic formula: “The Son of God became the Son of Man so that we would become sons of God.” This formula, found among the fathers who were least dependent on pagan philosophy, has an evangelical basis. And that, emerging from His obscurity, from His solitude into public service, Christ truly became the Son of man, clothed in the humiliation of this image, His stay in the desert, where He rejected the temptation of external divine glory, external God's chosenness, and heavenly favor, convinces us of this. The indisputable reality of these temptations of Christ and the continuous series of sayings, mainly dedicated to the name Son of Man, in which the idea of ​​the saving revelation of glory in humiliation and suffering, in self-denial of love is explained, put beyond doubt that we meet here the voluntary and conscious work of Christ. And the extent to which this idea is not accidental in the Gospel is proven by the fact that Christ most often called Himself the Son of Man. Before Christ, the name Son of Man was used either in the Jewish sense of transcendental-eschatological apocalypticism or in the prophetic sense of a servant of God, a suffering righteous man. In the gospel image of the Son of Man we encounter both features, and they merge together, and this new combination of glory with humiliation and suffering reveals the original gospel idea. Traces of Jewish apocalypticism in the Gospel image of the Son of Man are striking. This includes numerous sayings about the coming 1182, or revelation (ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρ ώ που ἀπο καλύπτεται) 1183 of the Son of man, in his day 1184, in his glory and his Father 1185 or in his kingdom 1186, about the procession of the Son of man on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory, about the sign of the Son of man in heaven, about his sitting on the throne of his glory, or at the right hand of power, about the sending of angels with a loud trumpet 1187, about the resurrection of the Son of man 1188. One must think that Christ’s speeches about His heavenly glory had a real meaning for Him, that He really expected glorification from the Heavenly Father. Nevertheless, the specific forms of Jewish apocalypticism, in which He expressed His religious truth, cannot but be recognized as a symbolic shell of inner experiences. It should be taken into account that these specific forms are taken from Jewish apocalypticism without any changes. It is not difficult to see that, by analogy with other old forms of religious thought, this evangelical borrowing had the meaning of a well-trodden path along which new content was imperceptibly introduced into the religious field, rather than the assimilation of old forms into new religious content. In this case, the new content is marked by the connection, unusual for Jewish religious contemplation, between the heavenly glory of the Son of Man and his humiliation, suffering and death. There are direct indications for this in the Gospel of 1189, but the chronological terms of the coming of the Son of Man also receive meaning. It falls during the time of Christ's suffering. In the last days of His life He said: “The hour has come that the Son of man should be glorified,” and he expressively explained that He meant the glory of His atoning death 1190. He began his farewell conversation with his disciples with the words: “now the Son of man is glorified, and God is glorified in him” 1191. Also at the beginning of the high priestly prayer, He said: “Father! the hour has come, glorify Your Son, so that the Son may glorify You” 1192. To His judges, on the eve of His death, He answered: “from now on you will see the Son of man sitting at the right hand of power and coming on the clouds of heaven” 1193. The general gospel teaching about the reward from the Heavenly Father, which is given to the believer amid the sufferings of temporary life and does not have the nature of external glorification, completely coincides with His speeches about the glory of the Son of Man. As connected with suffering and death, it is only symbolically covered up with specific images of Jewish apocalypticism. The foretold resurrection of the Son of Man does not change anything in this case, since it, more than any other aspect of the heavenly glory of the Son of Man, is essentially connected with death and, by virtue of this connection, must be interpreted spiritually. Here again one cannot help but recall the Gospel teaching about eternal life. Therefore, recognizing that the resurrection of Christ in the Gospel replaces the Judeo-apocalyptic image of the Son of Man, we must agree that this is the replacement of external images of heavenly glory with a spiritual understanding of them. There is no reason to see in the resurrection of Christ new soil on which the old fruits of the Jewish apocalypticism could be transplanted. The close connection of the heavenly glory of the Son of Man with his humiliation, suffering and death draws our attention to the prophetic features of the servant of God in the image of the Son of Man. The Gospel passages related here are numerous. Almost all of Christ’s speeches and sayings about His humiliation, suffering and death are attached to the image of the Son of Man 1194. When discussing the humiliation and suffering of the Son of Man, it is necessary to keep in mind their messianic meaning: they were voluntarily accepted by Christ 1195, in fulfillment of the will of God 1196, for the salvation of people. The Son of Man came to seek and save the lost 1197, to save the world 1198. The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many 1199. The social activity of Christ is the activity of the Son of man: he who sows the good seed, the sons of the kingdom, is the Son of man 1200. In particular, the humiliation and deprivation manifested in the life of Christ are caused by the purposes of His ministry: He has nowhere to lay His head as a wandering teacher 1201; He is a friend of publicans and sinners, seeking their shameful company, because he came to seek what was lost and lost 1202. Especially the death of the Son of Man is his messianic work: Christ went to meet it with a clear consciousness of its salvation for man. This explains the remarkable circumstance that He began to openly speak to His disciples about His death from a certain moment in His activity - from the time when the disciples, under Caesarea Philippi, confessed Him as Christ, the Son of the living God 1203. With the expressiveness and relief of thought that one could wish for, it is put into perspective that Christ, as the groomed Messiah, must walk the way of the cross, that the external glory of the Son of Man, the glory of miracles and radiance, is the initial path to the last act of atoning death 1204. In the humiliation and suffering voluntarily accepted by Christ for the sake of God’s work, the prophetic image of the Son of Man, the servant of God, was fully fulfilled. But this fulfillment of the prophetic image was accompanied by the inevitable introduction of a new current into it. The prophetic servant of God waited for external justification, the Gospel Son of Man bears divine glory within himself. And just as the element of suffering the Gospel introduced a new, transforming principle into the apocalyptic image of the Son of Man, so the element of divine glory introduces a transformative principle into the prophetic image of the Son of Man, so that the features of both images harmoniously merge into one picture. The Gospel Son of Man bears within himself the divine glory that justifies humiliation and suffering. The glory of the Son of Man is the same glory of the Son of God, but only manifested, confirmed in the conditions of human life, communicated to other people: the glory of the Son of Man in granting people the benefits of sonship with God. A very eloquent and meaningful fact of the gospel history is that all aspects of God's son's good are repeated in the image of the Son, the human: The Son of man gives eternal life to people 1205, The Son of man is he who sows the good seed, the sons of the kingdom, in the field of the world 1206, The Son of man came to seek and save what was lost 1207, The Son of man came to give his life as a ransom for many 1208, The Son man is the lord of the Sabbath 1209, the Son of man has authority to execute judgment 1210, the Son of man has authority on earth to forgive sins 1211. Briefly put, the Son of man is the same Son of God, revealed in the living movement of historical activity. The blessings of the Son of God become historical blessings in the self-denial and suffering of the Son of Man; the eternal glory of the Son of God becomes real glory in the humiliation of the Son of man 1212. Judgment, which essentially belongs to the Son of God, is revealed by Him in reality, since He acts as the Son of man 1213. The Son of God has life in Himself, but the Son of Man gives people the food of eternal life, for God sealed him 1214. The Son of God is glorified in the Son of Man in reality because through the humiliation and suffering of the Son of Man, the Divine glory becomes the property of people 1215. In this case, we must also remember that the Son of Man is philologically the same as man 1216, so that the power of the Son of Man over the Sabbath is the power of man over it 1217 and the power of the Son of Man to forgive sins on earth is the power given from God to men 1218. That the son of man philologically means the same as man, this does not mean that Christ was one of the sons of men; He was ὁυἱὸς τοῦἀνθρώπου. The historical peculiarity of His work corresponds to the originality of His sonship with God. Both embrace in the name Christ, giving it real content. But this suggests that in the very exclusivity of His historical work, the universality of the goal is conceived: He became the Son of Man in order to make everyone sons of God. For Him, an exceptional deed was that He became one of many, a deed that had the character of a feat, a saving deed. And if we said that the idea of ​​salvation, its motives and method essentially flowed from the God-son self-consciousness of Christ, then we do not yet say that the work of Christ was detached from historical reality. On the contrary, just as the divinely filial love of Christ embraced the whole world 1219, so in its results His work turns out to be a religious-historical event. We must only deny any historical accident in this matter, we must deduce all its meaning and everything essential in it from the one sonship of Christ, from the properties of His personal spiritual life, from His personal creativity; but the world-historical result is already included in the essence of His sonship with God. The image of the Son of Man inevitably grows from the image of the Son of God. The sonship of Christ is “completed” in the humiliation and suffering of the Son of Man. The place of Christianity in history, its world-historical significance most reveal to us the soul of Christ, the depths of His self-awareness. When Christ said: “I am the Son of God,” then this moment was the moment of a decisive revolution in the religious and historical destinies of mankind: from that time on, God really became the Father of man. If already the religious insight of One of the sons of men cannot be forgotten; then the actual sonship of one gives him the significance of the second Adam. But sonship with God, on internal grounds, leads to the rebirth of others, to its historical realization. And this is not like playing out a predetermined plan with guaranteed success: the work of the Son of Man was a religious-historical problem with all the weight of a living feat. And to what extent in the fact of one’s own sonship with God all the grounds for the saving work were given and not the slightest possibility of doubt remained; in the same way, the very work of the Son of Man involved him in the religious-historical struggle of man with God, and transferred the entire burden of religious faith to him. In the image of the Son of Man we see a set religious-historical task - the task of faith in the sonship of God of a humiliated person. We know that in the gospel history this problem was solved: the disciples of Christ believed in the sonship of God of the humiliated Son of Man. And this decision has not only the indelibility of insight, but also the real power of heartfelt rebirth, which has been experienced by Christian humanity. Just as pre-Christian humanity organically could not recognize God's chosen one in a despised slave, in a disgraced criminal, in a crippled and beggar, just as it could not break between heavenly favor and between the glory of the chosen nation, royal origin, wealth, honor, etc. Good luck; Thus, for Christian humanity, the most undoubted conviction is the independence of the divine spiritual life from external glory. And this insight, this rebirth of the human heart took place within the confines of the gospel story: then the problem of faith was solved. But doesn’t the greatness and power of the result suggest a corresponding greatness of its culprit? Should we not recognize a higher consciousness in Him who bore the image of the Son of man? Wasn’t a problem so majestic in its religious and historical results posed with a clear consciousness of its importance and solved with all the weight of a living feat? No amount of philology or history will give us a solution to all the questions raised by the Gospel teaching about the Son of Man, unless we penetrate into the area of ​​the real psychology of Christ, His real experiences. We must imagine the Teacher of Nazareth with the secret of the Son of Man deeply hidden in his heart. He alone knew and knew clearly and firmly the religious task being resolved in His work. He said to His disciples: “Now you cannot comprehend all My words, now you do not know what I am doing, now you cannot follow Me; after you will comprehend My word, after you will understand, after you will follow Me - remember everything and understand, so you will have nothing to ask about, there will be no parables or riddles for you” 1220. And when He went to death, He knew that He was leaving His disciples the greatest temptation of death 1221 - and He knew that the entire success of His cause, the solution to the religious-world question, depended on their victory over this temptation. This whole mystery, in all the brightness of the problem posed, in all the gravity of the faith in man associated with it, is hidden in the name Son of Man. This mystery makes itself felt in the fact that Christ, according to the testimony of all four Gospels, usually spoke of the Son of Man in the third person. Calling God: “My Heavenly Father” and preaching in the end: “I am the Son of God” 1222, Christ did not say: “I am the Son of man,” but spoke about the Son of man: “The Son of man has nowhere to lay his head... The Son of man gives you eternal life... The Son of man will come in glory”... This expresses a strong and lasting thought that in Christ, the Son of man, the problem of the divinely filial faith received a historical objectivity. And another remarkable fact is that only Christ Himself called Himself the Son of man, that from the death of Christ this name disappears from the Christian language, that it is no longer found in the Apostle Paul and the later fathers of the church - this fact also finds a sufficient explanation in the fact that with the death of Christ, when His disciples experienced the final collapse of their Jewish expectations and when they defeated the extreme temptation to humiliate Christ by faith in His sonship of God - with the death of Christ the problem of the Son of humanity found a real solution, the question was answered, the mystery was solved, and therefore there is no longer any basis for the question, for the parable, for the symbolic image of the Son of Man 1223. This name was appropriate when one could talk about shame for the one who bore this name. “Who will be ashamed of Me” 1224: these words emanate such realism, such unimaginable truth, that the tormented heart of the Son of Man seems to be laid bare before us, as if a living gospel drama, a living historical case, is unfolding. All these questions are interesting to us because the personal religious life of Christ, His psychology, contains the origin of Christianity. The Gospel in its psychological basis and salvific revelation is for us nothing more than the historical birth of that spiritual and religious life, which now constitutes the inalienable property of Christian humanity. And how one cannot penetrate into this revelation without the congeniality of personal experience; and, conversely, it is impossible to understand the early Christian monuments and early Christian history apart from the psychology of Christ. This determines the position of Evangelical Christology in the system of Evangelical teaching. In the midst of all the humiliation and in the midst of all the sufferings of Christ, the saving power is predominantly attributed to His death at the hands of sinners. The hour of death is “His” hour at which “He came,” predetermined by Him from the Father 1225. When He spoke about that coming brink, until which the disciples did not comprehend everything from His words, could not follow His path, and after which they had to understand everything, then He meant the hour of His death 1226. The chronology of the coming of the Son of man and His glorification revolves around His death. Everything that was due to Christ, written about Him, most closely related to His mortal humiliation, to mortal suffering 1227. He saves souls, saves the world, giving His soul as a ransom for many, laying down His life for friends, dedicating Himself for people 1228, giving His flesh and blood 1229. The death of Christ in its saving significance is explained both by the essence of His spiritual life, His divinely filial love, and by the historical form of its revelation, and this form is not historically accidental, but we observe a decisive coincidence of the essential revelation of His spiritual life and the historical method of His work. The essence of love is in sacrifice and the essence of absolute God-filial love is in boundless self-devotion, in self-sacrifice to death. Not only death is the “end” of love, before which it cannot stop 1230, i.e. represents the inevitable path to the infinity of love, to its highest degree 1231, not only in the formal absoluteness of spiritual-divine love lies its striving for death, for mortal sacrifice, but this striving is also predetermined by its divinely filial content. If the work of the Son of God, who possessed the glory of miracles and the authority of a single teacher, was to replace external and exclusive glory with a spiritual glory available to every person, and to put in the place of authority the perfect freedom of His friends, to dwell in the hearts of men and make His Father the Father of every believer; then the humiliation and suffering of the Son of Man could not stop in its growth before death, since only death extinguishes the last hope for external glory, leads to the collapse of all dreams of God's chosenness, all hopes for heavenly favor, only the death of the Son of Man established the spiritual communion of Christ the Son of God with believers. To this essential basis of the atoning death of Christ is added a historical basis. As the bearer of spiritual life, as the one who brought love and light into the world, Christ was inevitably not only a savior, but also a judge of the world 1232. His work was salvation for believers and judgment over the unbelieving world, over its malice, over its evil principle. The world was presented to Christ by the Jewish people, and His judgment on the world was a historically real judgment on Israel, to which He was sent, on its theocratic nationalism, on the national limitations of religion. The birth of Christianity is the historical moment of the transition of a nationally limited religion into a personal-absolute religion. This degeneration of religion necessarily presupposes the judgment of Christ over the Jewish people, i.e. His coming to Israel, the limitation of the gospel preaching to the Jewish people, then His death from the Jews and their final rejection. This was a judgment against a people who did not seek the glory of God, who beat the prophets of God, from whom it was necessary to exact their blood 1233. The judgment consisted in the fact that the stiff-necked people completed the measure of their fathers 1234. Christ was the master's son, sent to the vinedressers after they killed his servants 1235. The vinedressers also killed their son-heir, which revealed their irrevocable abandonment. So the Jews, having crucified Christ, revealed their hatred of God and showed that God was not their father 1236. So, the scope of Christ’s work included that He should be delivered into the hands of sinners 1237, accept death at the hands of men 1238, from Jews 1239 and pagans 1240. In the final result of His work, Christ was the savior of some, or many, and the judge of the world, and above all, of God's chosen people. But in its outcome His work was one for those who were saved and those who were condemned. The judgment consisted in the fact that in His person the light came into the world, which those who loved darkness could not bear, 1241 in the fact that His word created a division between the sons of light and the sons of darkness. He came to save, not to judge 1242, but the life He gives to the world is a life-giving spirit for believers and fire for unbelievers 1243. Therefore, the divine work of love, by which the Son of God was given for the salvation of the world 1244, is interspersed with the atrocity of sinful human hands. However, the saving intention also reaches here: the judgment of the Jewish people, of the sinful world, was the historical form in which the eternal life of Christ was revealed to the world. Condemnation of the world and rejection of religious nationalism were inevitable conditions for the spiritual birth of believers. In His death at the hands of sinners, Christ was revealed to be the Son of God 1245. He gave His flesh for the life of the world (ὑπὲρ τῆς τοῦ κ ό σμου ζωῆς), laid down His soul for the sheep 1246. In these actual relations of Christ to believers, the world, and sinners, the support is given for the application of the Old Testament language to the saving work of Christ. There are mainly two texts here: a) Matt. XX, 28; MP. X, 45 The Son of Man came to give His soul (life) as a ransom for many (δοῦναι τὴν ψυχὴν αὐτοῦ λύτρον ἀντὶ πολλῶν) and b) the words spoken by Christ at the Last Supper over bread and wine Matthew XXVI, 26. 28; Matt. XIV, 22. 24; Onion. XXII, 19. 20, especially noteworthy in the transmission of Matthew: this cup is My blood of the (new) testament, which is poured out for many for the remission of sins (τὸ α ἷ μά μου τῆς – καινῆς – διαθ ή κης τὸ περὶ πολλῶν ἐκχυνν ό μενον εἰς ἄφεσιν ἁ μαρτιῶν ). In these sayings we hear echoes of the Old Testament ideas about the religious slavery in which the Jews were under Jehovah, about religious sins that required an atoning sacrifice, about the atoning significance of the righteous, the servants of God 1247 and, finally, about a renewed or new covenant with Jehovah 1248. And all these ideas in their general outlines were realized in the saving ministry of Christ. That Christ sacrificed His life for the salvation of man, that He, having endured humiliation and death at the hands of sinners, took upon Himself the infirmities and illnesses of sinners, bore their sins 1249 that He preached liberation and called under His good yoke and light burden 1250 that He established a new attitude of people towards God, all this is suggested by every line of the Gospel. However, we can interpret these sayings only in the sense of the actual relations of Christ to believers, sinners and the world, in the sense of the real self-awareness of Christ, His actual experiences. He suffered death from sinners so that believers could have eternal life. By His self-sacrifice and granting people the blessings of eternal life, He redeemed believers from the state of legalistic slavery and natural anger, especially from the misery of that sin into which the world fell as a result of unbelief in Christ, from the state of slavery to this sin, from the destruction that it entailed. The redemption accomplished by Christ is that liberation that is bestowed by the Son in the actual benefits of eternal life: Christ transferred believers from under the banner of the worldly principle of life, from under the power of darkness and destruction, under His yoke, under the banner of the Heavenly Father. He redeemed believers for God, for His kingdom. On the contrary, there is no justification for the Gnostic theory of atonement, which goes beyond the actual relations of Christ, His real self-consciousness, and is constructed exclusively from Old Testament data. We understand the theory that Christ offered Himself as a sacrifice to divine wrath to propitiate the sins of people and to deliver them from death. It must be remembered that Gnostic concepts are generally alien to the Gospel; abstract considerations of the human mind on religious issues pass by the content of the gospel sermon. The Old Testament data also does not help here. Given the inescapable connection between the Gospel teaching and the Old Testament, not a single point of the Gospel system represents a simple repetition of Old Testament concepts. Invariably throughout the Gospel we observe how new content is inserted into the Old Testament words and images, growing out of new religious experience. It would be an irreparable betrayal of this evangelical method to extract, in particular, the New Testament teaching on atonement from a philological and historical analysis of the corresponding Old Testament terms and concepts. At this point, as in others, we can limit ourselves to only the essential and massive aspects of the Old Testament religion, as the starting points of the Gospel preaching. In addition, the Gnostic theory of atonement cannot rely on the Old Testament sacrificial cult, since, according to Old Testament ideas, no sacrifice frees one from the severity of mortal sins. On the other hand, the Gospel reveals a new look at nomistic sins, a new assessment of nomistic sinfulness and righteousness; The very fact that Christ considered all old sins forgivable and by His power absolved them until His death 1251 is of great importance. Nor does the Old Testament concept of religious slavery, enshrined in the legalistic regime, serve as a reliable refuge for this theory, since the shackles of Old Testament slavery fall away by the very essence of the Gospel's filial freedom. The prophetic image of the innocent suffering of the righteous, which was given redemptive significance, comes closer to the spirit of the Gospel. However, the gospel experience in this respect goes beyond the Old Testament image, in that the most filial humiliation in itself bears the divine glory that justifies it, while the Old Testament unjust suffering referred to subsequent external justification. Not to mention the fact that from this side the Old Testament image of the suffering righteous man was inextricably intertwined with the religious and legal Old Testament worldview, what is especially important is the difference between the prophetic and New Testament images of the Son of Man, that in the Old Testament the suffering and death of the righteous freed others from the punishment for sins with suffering and death, while the New Testament Son of man, standing above any need for external justification, based on the all-conquering the bliss of love and self-sacrifice, commands His humiliation and His death to the disciples as an image for them. This was the meaning of the disciples’ participation in the sacrament of bread and wine. And Christ’s closest disciples accepted His death not as a replacement for the death of themselves and all people, but as an example that they should follow 1252. Just as Christ died at the hands of sinners in order to indwell spiritually in believers, so Christ’s disciples must die with Him in order to have His spiritual life within them 1253. Victory over death is given in this, but it is not in freedom from death and not in its abolition, but in the power of spiritual eternal life, which is revealed in voluntary death. Thus, λῦτρον ἀντὶ πολλῶν loses the Old Testament meaning of atonement for sin and replacing one with another before heavenly justice. The Gospel knows only the real benefit of eternal life, which is given to the one who actually assimilates it, knows only that forgiveness of sins and remission of debts, which is realized in the assimilation of love 1254, knows one sacrifice of love, which serves as an example for those being saved and in its good bears all its reward. Perhaps at no other point do the Old Testament words pass through as they do here, around the Gospel teaching, and pale before its new reality. This must also be said about the concept of covenant. That the last Passover supper of Christ with his disciples reproduces the pattern of establishing the ancient covenant of Jehovah with the Jewish people and is the establishment of a “new covenant” is beyond any need for proof. The establishment of the Old Testament consisted of the following acts 1255: offering burnt offerings and peace offerings to Jehovah; sprinkling half of the sacrificial blood on the altar and the other half on the people; people eating sacrificial meat. Before sprinkling the people, Moses read to them the “book of the covenant,” i.e. terms of the treaty to which the people expressed their consent. While sprinkling the people, Moses said: “This is the blood of the covenant that Jehovah has made with you regarding all these words.” This conclusion of the covenant was preceded, as by its irrevocable assumption, by the transition of the Jewish people from Egyptian slavery to the slavery of Jehovah, and the ransom of their firstborn with the blood of the Passover lamb. The Jews' covenant with Jehovah was broken by their unfaithfulness and restored again, giving the idea of ​​a renewed or new covenant. The prophets expected that in messianic times the covenant would not only be renewed, but also renewed - from an external agreement with the people it would become an intimate covenant of Jehovah with man: His law would be inscribed in the human heart, everyone among the people would know Him, their iniquities would be forgiven and their sins would not be remembered 1256. And so Christ, at the Last Supper, during the celebration of the last Jewish Passover with His disciples, establishes a “new” covenant: here a sacrifice is also made and blood is shed, symbolized by crushed bread and a cup of wine - “the blood of the new covenant”; The disciples also take part in the sacrificial meal - they eat crushed bread and, in accordance with the Old Testament sprinkling of blood, drink from the cup. The deliberate reproduction of the Old Testament formula is not subject to dispute. This opens up the possibility of widespread use of Old Testament images, which turn out to be prototypes: the blood of the Old Testament sacrifice is replaced by the death of Christ, Who takes on the meaning of the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world 1257. The replacement of the Old Testament with the new deserves exceptional attention because the idea of ​​the covenant is of fundamental importance in the Jewish religion: the concepts of sin, sacrifice, and atonement are reduced to this idea and receive their interpretation in it. The establishment of the new covenant shows that the evangelical religion comes into contact with the Jewish religion, not in the secondary and derivative concepts of sin, sacrifice and atonement, but in the very central point on which the direction of all aspects of religion depends. If so, then the most important question for us is whether the Gospel covenant is a renewed and, at least, renewed Old Testament, or whether the Gospel is a completely new religion in which the original idea of ​​the covenant essentially has no application? The answer to this question is not given by analysis of words and terms, by exegesis of isolated texts - it is given by the entire content of the Gospel, by the entire essence of Christ’s work. This is the irresistible answer: in Christ all things are new 1258 . The New Testament, connected both mystically and historically with the Old Testament, does not retain anything covenantal, contractual, or conditional: it is filled only with absolute reality. The Gospel is not a reform or renewal of the Old Testament religion, but a new religious creativity, a new revelation - this is the replacement of the conditional with the unconditional, the contractual with divine reality. With the change in the main content, the secondary elements could not be maintained. In particular, the bearing of human sins and illnesses by the New Testament Savior should be interpreted solely in the sense of His real feat and the actual results of His spiritual work, but not in the sense of the old contractual and legal concepts with which the Gnostic theory of atonement deals. The idea of ​​sacrificial atonement for sin has no place in the gospel system. The extent to which the words of the Gospel of Matthew εἰς ἄφεσιν ἁ μαρτιῶν are not important and not essential from the point of view of the formula is clear from the fact that they are omitted in the Gospels of Mark 1259 and Luke. And it is even possible to assume that these words came into Matthew’s narrative about the establishment of the new covenant not from the Old Testament sacrificial language, but from Jeremiah’s prophecy about the new covenant. The wrong way of theology is to evaluate the death of Christ in its detachment from His spiritual life, in its legal isolation. It constitutes the ultimate revelation of His divinely filial love for man and the final revelation of His historical judgment on the world. its significance is that it realizes the work of His life: it cut off the roots of theocratic hopes for God's chosenness, for the external justification of faith, it eliminated His external mediation in the relations of His disciples to the Heavenly Father, it established their spiritual relationship with Him, the indwelling of Him and the Heavenly Father in their hearts, with it began the freedom and originality of their own God-filial life. This meaning of the death of Christ was predicted by Him in His farewell conversation with the disciples 1260. And this meaning of Christ’s death on the cross and this foreshadowing of its power will easily become clear to us in its historical truth, alien to the slightest signs of artificial composition, if we look at them in the light of the historical problem of the Son of Man. Then the speeches of Christ related here will not seem to us an artificial and unskillful fruit of abstract thought, but will reveal to us a living religious question of unparalleled depth and power of experience in world history, and since the solution to this historical problem is inextricably merged with the faith of the disciples and with their victory over the temptation of Christ’s death, this provides the basis for the inseparability of Christ’s death from His resurrection and the instillation of His spirit in the hearts of believers. In the resurrection of Christ is the power of His death. But this is not an external justification of His work, not an external glorification. The power of Christ's resurrection does not go beyond the indicated meaning of His death. Therefore, Christ’s prediction about His resurrection and appearance to the disciples was entirely based on His self-awareness, on the main content of His saving work. Whatever the fact of the resurrection of Christ may appear to be when viewed externally, in the teachings of Christ His resurrection appears with the character of the spiritual triumph of His work. He spoke to His disciples about His posthumous appearance to them: “A little while longer and the world will no longer see Me, but you will see Me, because I live and you will live. On that day you will know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you” 1261. From these words it is clearly clear that Christ inextricably connected His posthumous appearance to the disciples with the revelation of eternal spiritual life in them: “You will see Me, because you will live My life; you will see Me, because you will know that I am in you.” Since eternal spiritual life primarily manifests itself in love, the appearance of Christ to the disciples is based on their assimilation of divine love 1262. That is why the resurrection of Christ is His posthumous appearance not to the world, but only to the disciples 1263. His departure to the Father entailed both His external removal from the eyes of the world and His spiritual manifestation to the disciples. “A little more, and you will not see Me, and a little more, and you will see Me,” “A little” - this means that the time of Christ’s appearances to the disciples is a sequence not of external events, but of internal experiences, a succession of sorrow and joy, with only the sorrow of parting being measured by the standards of an external event. Just as a woman notices the duration of labor pains, but when she gives birth, she no longer remembers the sorrow from joy, absorbed in love; so the joy of believers, in contrast to the sorrow of external parting with the Teacher, is such a joy that no one can take away from them, which does not depend on external events - the joy of spiritual life, the joy of direct communication with the Heavenly Father 1264. We find such ideas about the posthumous appearance of Christ not only in the Gospel of John, but also among the weather forecasters. The coming of Christ will not be such that one can say; “behold, here is Christ, or there,” but just as lightning is visible everywhere, but is not confined to any specific place, so will the coming of the Son of Man 1265. This idea of ​​​​the image of the coming of Christ is placed in the Gospel of Luke in connection with the general teaching about the internal character of the kingdom of God: “the kingdom of God will not come openly and they will not say: here it is, or there. For, behold, the kingdom of God is within you" 1266. In the same sense, one must understand the Gospel teaching about the Holy Spirit. The Evangelical Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father 1267. Therefore, the Spirit of Christ is the same Spirit of God, Who, according to His words, spoke through the mouth of David and other prophets in the Old Testament, Who acted in Christ, appearing in the power of His inspiration and miracles, especially in casting out unclean spirits 1268. Nevertheless, there are grounds to call the New Testament action of the Spirit of God the spirit of Christ, since He proceeds from the Father in the name of Christ the Son of God. The New Testament Spirit is not simply the Spirit of God, but it is the Spirit of the Heavenly Father 1269, or, what is the same, the Spirit of the Son 1270. This is not the spirit of elemental inspiration, but the spirit of the divinely filial, divinely absolute. love 1271. This character of the spirit of Christ explains that its gift to the disciples is conditioned by the death of Christ, as the last work of His love 1272. The death of Christ, since it served to give rise to spiritual life in the disciples, was at the same time a decisive moment of the rebirth of the elemental Spirit of God, who acted in His miracles, into the free spirit of love, which glorified Him in His disciples, glorifying His Father in them. The Spirit of Christ realizes His work in the disciples and in this property replaces Him, He is another intercessor for them before the Heavenly Father, Christ Himself, while He was with them, was their intercessor, as their teacher and mentor, kept them 1273. They would have remained orphans with His departure to the Father, but He sends them another intercessor, the Spirit of truth, who abides in them 1274. This is the “best” 1275 intercessor for them, because Christ was an external intercessor for them, governed them with His authority, taught them with external words, parables and images, and the Holy Spirit abides in them and gives them inalienable joy. Obviously, this indwelling of the Spirit of Christ in believers means their direct communication with the Father, the free possession of the divine life, the original experience of divine love, which makes them friends of Christ. Therefore, the Holy Spirit is the spirit of truth 1276, i.e. spiritual reality, the experiential experience of divine truth. Spiritual knowledge is not knowledge from hearing, from authority, but direct possession of truth, self-evident knowledge, although at the same time it is clear that it does not provide new content, new ideas and concepts. It does not do without hearing - it replaces the latter in the sense that it makes it no longer necessary: ​​it makes what is heard one’s own, perceived as original, it clarifies what was previously communicated and, from this side, it is, as it were, omniscience, eliminating the need for teaching 1277. Thus, with the death of Christ, which His disciples experienced, much became clear to them that they had not previously comprehended in the words of Christ: having overcome the temptation of His death, they now truly became His friends. However, in this action of the Spirit it is not difficult to see its kinship with the work of Christ: the Spirit reveals to believers His words, and only His words, recalls what was heard from Him, takes from His treasures, testifies about Him, glorifies Him 1278. And this kinship extends so far that the indwelling of the Spirit into the disciples is at the same time the coming to them of Christ himself 1279: it is His spiritual communication from the niche. The gospel teaching about the resurrection of Christ and the sending of the Holy Spirit to believers can be looked at transcendentally and gnostically, but this will not be an evangelical point of view, since this teaching of Christ, like all gospel preaching, flows from the depths of His self-awareness, His God-son experiences. This does not give us the right to rationalize the Gospel teaching, to consider the mystery of the second coming of Christ exhausted. But one thing is certain, that for us there is no other access to this secret than the Gospel experience of God. Because of this, despite all the fog with which dogmatic Gnosticism obscures our eyes, we still cannot read Christ’s farewell conversation without piercing sadness, which reflects the once-experienced grief of His disciples, who bore the burden of the world-religious issue... Bow. IX, 56; XIX, 10; Mf. XVIII, 11; John XII, 47. Matt. XII, 23; XXVI, 63. 68; MP. XIV, 61; Onion. II, 26 and many more. etc. Matt. XVI, 16 (after removal from Art. 17) par. (cf. John VI, 69; XI, 27); John IV, 25. 26 (cf. 4.2); Mf. XXIII, 8.10; XXIV, 5 (cf. 23) par. John XVII, 3; Mf. XXVI, 63. 64 par. Onion. XXIII, 2; XXIV, 26. 46. John X, 8; Mf. XXIV, 5. 23 par. Mf. I, 16; XXVII, 17. 22. Matt. IX, 27; XII, 23; XV, 22; XX, 31 par. XXI, 9. 15 (cp. Mp. XI, 10). Mf. XVIII, 23; XXII, 2; Onion. XIX, 12. Wed. Mf. XXV, 34. 40. Matt. XVI, 28; Onion. XXII, 30. Matt. III, 17 par. XVII, 5 pairs Matt. IV, 3. 6 par. Matt. III, 11; Onion. IV, 41; Matt. VIII, 29 par. (= Luke IV, 41 Christ); John I, 49; VI, 69; XI, 27; Matt. XIV, 33; XVI, 16 (= Matthew VIII, 29; Luke IX, 20 Christ); Matt. XXVI; MP. XIV, 61; Onion. ΧΧΙΙ, 70(=67 Christ); Matt. XXVII, 40. 43 (= Matthew XV, 32 Christ and Luke XXIII, 35 Christ, God's chosen); Mf. XXVII, 54 (= Luke XXIII, 47 righteous). John VI, 38; VIII, 42; XV, 28. John III, 13 Wed III, 17; VIII, 58; XVII, 5. John I, 9; XI, 27; XVI, 28. John VIII, 16.29; XVI, 32. John XII, 47; Onion. IX, 56; XIX, 10; Matt. XVIII, 11 cp. MP. XVI, 16. John V, 26; VIII, 36; Mf. XI, 27 par. XVII, 26. John III, 15. 16; V, 21.25; VI, 33. 35 48. 53; VIII, 32 36; X, 9; XII, 36; XIV, 6, etc. Mf. X, 37 – 39 par. John V, 23; XV, 4 ff. etc. All this is so clear from the Gospel point of view, with such inevitability it is given in the essence of God's sonship, God's filial self-consciousness, that all these Strauss and Renans do not understand the Gospel not because of the strength of their denial, but because of the amazing impotence of their philistine outlook. It’s just that in their vulgar hearts there is no point of support for understanding religious and ethical anthropocentrism, and they are left with only one option - to babble about all sorts of random combinations and accepted swarms. John III, 16; X, 11.17; XV, 10. 13, etc. John IV, 34; V, 30; VII, 18; VIII, 29. John V, 21 VI, 57; X, 10. John VIII, 12; IX, 5; XII, 46; XVIII, 37. Mf. VII, 21; Luke VI, 46. Mf. XXIII, 8. 10 Wed. John XIII, 18. John V, 31 – 37; VII, 18. John V, 19.30; VII, 16; VIII, 26; XII, 49 50. John VIII, 29; XIV, 6.10. Matt. XI, 27; Onion. X, 22. Matt. Χ V Π, 10–13 par. XIX, 7 – 8, etc. In Matt. XV, 26 – 28 par. a test of faith, but not its essence. John III, 2; XV, 24; Mf. VIII, 26; IX, 28; XIV, 27 par. etc. Matt. XVII, 20; XXI, 21 par. John XIV, 12; XVI, 26. 27. Matt. X, 23; XXIV, 27. 37. 39. 44; XXV, 13; Onion. XII, 40 Wed XVII, 26. 30; XXI, 36. Bow. ХVII, 24 Wed. 26.30. Mf. XVI, 27; Matt. VIII, 38; Onion. IX, 26; Matt. XXV, 31. Mf. XIII, 41; XIX, 28 (cf. Luke XXII, 29. 30); XXIV, 30. 31 par. XXV 31; XXVI, 64 par. Onion. ΧΧ II, 24 25 Wed. XXIV, 25 – 27. Mf. VIII, 20; XI, 19; XVII, 12 22. 23; XX, 19.20; XXVI, 2. 24. 45; Matt. VIII, 31; IX, 12.31; X, 33; XIV, 21. 41; Onion. VII, 34; IX, 22. 44 58; XVIII, 31; XXII, 22. 48; XXIV, 7; John III, 14; VIII, 28. Matt. XVI, 21; XXVI, 24; MP VIII, 31; IX, 12; XIV, 21; Onion. IX, 22; XVIII, 31; XXII, 22; XXIV, 7. 26. Onion. XIX, 10 (Matthew XVIII, 11; Luke IX, 56). Mf. VIII, 20; Onion. IX, 58. Mf. XI, 19; Onion. VII, 34. Onion. IX, 43. 44 Wed. John XIII, 3–5. John XII, 23 24; XVII, 1 ff. Ps. VIII, 5; Number XXIII, 19; Job. XVI, 21; XXV, 6. John XIII, 7. 36; XIV, 20 26; XVI, 4. 12 – 14. 23. 25 John X, 36; Matt. XXVII, 43 par. The mystery of the Son of Man does not exist for the method of dogmatic Gnosticism, which resolves everything into a dispassionate game of abstract metaphysical concepts, and for negative rationalism, which reduces everything to the positive plane of the historical and philological background of the Gospel story and does not want to know anything that rises above this background. Negative rationalism is not embarrassed by the fact that for it much of what is most essential in the Gospel remains incomprehensible, that it gets entangled in its own fictions in which he is looking for a way out. However, the most outrageous thing about this scientific positivism is its vulgar, philistine humiliation, its self-satisfied groveling within the narrow boundaries of common sense. From all these Neutestamentliche Theologie, Vie de Iésus, you come away with one undoubted conviction in the vulgar baseness, in the narrow-mindedness alien to any inspired uplift of all these German burghers and French bourgeois, well-fed enough to turn over the gospel bricks, but completely powerless to put them into a harmonious picture. Matt. VIII, 38; Onion. IX, 26. John VII, 30; VIII, 20; XII, 23 – 27; XVII, 1. John XIII, 33 – 38; XVI, 12. 25. Mf. XVI, 21; XXVI, 24; Matt. VIII, 31; XIV, 21; Onion. IX, 22; XVIII, 31; XXII, 22; XXIV, 7. 26. Mf. XX, 28; MP. X, 45; John X, 11; XV, 13; XVII, 19. John VI; Mf. XXVI, 28 par. Matt. XXIII. 35; Luke XI, 50. Mf. XXVI, 45; MP. XIV, 41. Wed. Onion. XIII, 33; Matthew XVI, 21 par. Onion. XIII, 33; Matt. XVI, 21 par. John VI, 51; X. 11. 15. Jer. XXXI, 31 – 34; Ezek. XXXIV, 25; XXXVII, 26; Is. LV, 3. Mf. VIII, 17 Wed. John I. 29. Mf. XI, 29.30; John VIII, 36. Mf. IX, 1 – 8 par. Onion. VII, 37 – 50; John V, 14. Rome VI, 45; 2 Cor. IV, 10; XIII, 4; Phil. III, 10. 11; Col. II, 12; 2 Tim. II, 1, etc. In Mark, the formula εἰς ἄφεσιν ἁ μαρτιῶν is found, however, applied to the baptism of John. John XIV, 12 23; XVI, 23. 25. 26 – 28, etc. Matt. XXIV, 20 – 27; Onion. XVII, 22 – 24. John XIV, 16. 26; XV, 26; XVI, 7; Onion. XI, 13. Gal. IV, 6. 7; Rome. VIII, 14. 15. John XIV, 15 16. Wed. 1John III, 23. 24; IV, 12 13. John XVI, 7 Wed. VII, 39. John XVII, 12. Wed. 1John II, 1. John XVI, 12. 13 Wed. 1 John I, 20. 27. Wed. also IV, 7. 8. 12. 13. John XIV, 26; XV, 26; XVI, 8 – 11. 14. You might be interested in: