9. Вечная жизнь
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The starting point of the Gospel teaching about eternal life, as well as its other sections, is Old Testament Jewish terminology.
In the Old Testament usage of the word life, exclusively life here, earthly, temporary, visible, and sensory was called. There was a difference between true and untrue life: true life is a happy, prosperous and long-lasting life. The concept of true life also necessarily included pleasing to God and communion with God. True life is acquired by a person through fulfilling the law, the will of God: this is a righteous life - it is both the reward and the goal of righteousness. From the book of Daniel, the religious worldview of the Jews is enriched by the eschatological concept of eternal life, 902 which from that time remains an integral element of the Jewish religion. In biblical Greek, starting with the LXX translation, the concept of eternal life is conveyed by the words ζωὴαἰώνιος or simply ζωή, with βίος being used to refer to visible animal life. In the Jewish concept of eternal life, first of all, it is not the infinity of existence that is thought of, but the belonging of life to the future age: eternal life is the life of the coming age, life after the resurrection.
This future life was presented to the Jews in a sensual form.
The Gospel retains the Jewish term of eternal life (ζωὴαἰώνιος), as the life of the coming age 903. In this eschatological sense, the expressions “inherit eternal life” 904, “go into eternal life” 905 or simply “enter into life” 906 and even “live” 907 are used. A whole series of ideas closer to the resurrection and future bliss passed into the Gospel from Judaism, such as the resurrection of the righteous (ἀνάστασις τῶν δικαίων) 908, rebirth (παλινγενεσία ) 909, meal in the kingdom of heaven (τράπεξα ἐντ ῇ βασιλει ᾳ) 910, reclining with the forefathers 911, equal angels (ἰσάγγελοι) 912. The future life and the bliss of the righteous are contrasted with the destruction 913 or the torment of sinners 914.
However, the Gospel does not stop at the Judeo-eschatological concept of eternal life, nor does it return to Old Testament realism. In the Gospel, the concepts of true life and death are applied to the present time, and real life is assessed from the point of view of eternal life: this establishes an uncrossable line between the Old Testament Jewish worldview and Christianity. In the Gospel, eternal life is understood spiritually and in this sense is brought within the limits of earthly existence. Without the benefits of eternal life, earthly existence is presented in the Gospel as a dead kingdom, and the acquisition of these benefits is a transition from death to life. When Christ looked at the funeral, it seemed to Him that “the dead were burying their dead” 915. The parable says about the dissolute son who returned to his parents’ house: “he was dead and came to life again” 916. According to the Gospel, therefore, life is not exhausted by animal existence and is not limited to the afterlife: and within the limits of temporary existence one can distinguish between death, as life at a distance from God, and true life in communion with the Heavenly Father.
And with visible life one can be either dead or alive - true life does not coincide with visible existence, although it is accessible to man “at this time.” The concept of eternal life, as accessible to the conditions of temporary existence, is revealed especially persistently in the fourth Gospel. Here again the eschatological starting point 917 is obvious, but the eschatological concept of life in the Gospel of John is decisively obscured by spiritual understanding. The life that Christ gives, true eternal life, is made the property of believers now 918. Likewise, death here is not called the “sleep” of physical dying, but this temporary life, since it lacks spiritual benefits. The resurrection “at the last day” 919 gives way to the facts of the visible resurrection of the dead, and these facts of gospel history serve as symbols of the spiritual resurrection of believers. Those who listen to the Son of God and believe in Him pass from death to life - the dead listen to His voice and those who hear from them come to life 920.
This idea is more directly and undisguisedly expressed in the letter of John: Christians pass from death to life because they assimilate divine love - those without love remain in death 921. With such a spiritual understanding of eternal life, its eschatological character takes on a different meaning than in Jewish aspirations. Eternal life is necessarily characterized by the sign of continuity, indestructibility, eternity, but this is not the eternity of an afterlife existence, life in the future century, but the eternity of true life - not that eternity that requires an uninterrupted century, endless time, but that eternity that can be contained in one moment of time, is not measured by time, centuries, internal eternity, entirely given in the concept of absolute being. The relation of this eternity to inevitable physical death is that true life is not affected by death, is elusive to it, invulnerable 922. Death for one who has eternal life is the same as sleep, an appearance that does not affect the inner life.
If we recognize it as death, then we can say that he who has eternal life, although he dies, comes to life, but it is still better to say that he does not die 923.
What is eternal life in its essence - real, genuine, true life, deserving the name of life itself (ἡζωή)?
First of all, this is divine life, God's life. True, i.e. in all its fullness, in independent bliss and in inexhaustible power, God alone lives 924. And eternal life, like true life, comes from God 925. Eternal life, which was first given to the world in Christ, in His power, in His feelings and works, is the revelation or manifestation of the divine life, the Father's life 926. In the language of the Old Testament, divine life is called spiritual, or spirit, and human flesh, which signifies divine strength and power in contrast to human weakness. The Gospel also speaks this language. It says not only that God has a spirit, but it says that God is a spirit 927. The spirit is the life-giving, active principle, the flesh is the beginning of weakness, powerlessness 928. In the Old Testament, the divine spirit was considered the beginning of natural-historical life, and spontaneous inspiration was mainly attributed to it.
In the Gospel, the divine-spiritual principle is revealed as an absolute force, heavenly, unearthly, decisively different from the natural-historical flow; even spontaneous inspiration here only symbolizes heavenly spirituality. Eternal divine life is spiritual life, divine-spiritual. The Gospel teaches that a person can, even in conditions of temporary existence, live a divine-spiritual life - and this is the true and eternal life of a person 929.
The divine-spiritual nature of eternal life casts new light on Christian eschatology, which we must point out before entering into a further disclosure of the concept of eternal life in its content. The Gospel is equally far from the Jewish sensual concept of life after the resurrection, and from the pagan spiritualistic concept of immortality. According to the gospel teaching, true life crosses the threshold of death, but what turns out to be immortal is not some part of human nature - the spirit or soul, in contrast to the mortal body, as in pagan philosophical beliefs, but the divine life in man. Immortal spiritual life is divine life. And although, at the same time, the sensual concept of resurrection, characteristic of the Jewish religion, is decisively rejected, and the future life is called angelic, alien to earthly interests 930, nevertheless, the concept of spiritual eternity is different from pagan immortality and is combined with the idea of resurrection.
The Gospel concept of eternity is composed of two points - firstly, victory over death through the power of divine spiritual life and, secondly, the availability of divine spiritual life to man in conditions of temporary existence.
In what way is divine-spiritual life manifested in man, in what real forces is it revealed?
God reveals himself in love, in absolute love 931. According to the clear teaching of the Gospel, love alone gives a person communion with God, grants him eternal life: to truly live means to love God and neighbor 932. This teaching is clearly and harmoniously revealed in the epistle of John. God is love 933, and therefore he who abides in love 934 abides in God. God is love, and therefore he who lives by love truly lives 935. Eternal life in love. Likewise, the Apostle Paul teaches that the first fruit of the divine spirit is love 936.
Evangelical love is believing love, and therefore faith, God’s faith, is also included in the content of divinely spiritual life: eternal life belongs to the believer 937.
Believing love becomes the principle of the entire breadth of human activity, revealing itself in the New Testament law of absolute action and in God's filial independence from everything external: New Testament righteousness also forms one of the elements of spiritual eternal life 938. Love and faith give a person knowledge of the truth, which is the most important sign of eternal life 939. Of course, in this case it is not theoretical, rational knowledge, but an experienced experience of divine life, communication with God 940.
Knowledge of Christian truth makes a person free in relation to all elements and external forces 941, and faith gives him victorious power over the world 942.
The blessings of love, faith, communion with God, knowledge of God, freedom - all these blessings are embraced in the concept of eternal life. Eternal life gives people indestructible bliss and inexhaustible joy. This is bliss from the completeness of satisfaction, from the overflowing content of inner life, from the comprehensive meaningfulness of existence. The water of eternal life, accepted by the believer, quenches his thirst forever and becomes in him an inexhaustible spring of creative productivity 943. The heavenly bread of spiritual good completely satisfies the soul 944. The good news of Christian freedom leads man to the unfading pasture of abundant life 945. This abundant life is absolute, limitless spiritual life. He who lives such a life ceases to be a simple man, he becomes a man from heaven, a man of God.
The prospect of boundless perfection 946 opens before him, not running away from him as a distant ideal, but being realized in the boundless love that inspires him, which never stops, covers everything, believes everything, hopes everything, endures everything. Together with selfless love, divine absoluteness takes root in the very heart of man and fills it with a blissful feeling of freedom and religious anthropocentrism. This is freedom from “vanity and worry” about many things 947, from worries about tomorrow, from gnawing anxiety about what to drink and what to eat, what to wear 948. Self-sacrifice of love is illuminated by the faith that everything is possible for the sons of the Heavenly Father 949. In boundless devotion to the “one” and by the power of God’s faith, those chosen by the Heavenly Father are freed from the duality and inconsistency of serving God and mammon 950, from painful doubts of the heart 951, from cowardly uncertainty: a world of immense space, a world of undaunted faith, settles in their hearts 952.
Freedom of eternal life is, further, the freedom of the sons of God from the yoke of external responsibilities of remote and ritual service to God 953, from the slavish fear of defilement, from the humiliating and embittering fear of legal accounts with God. In Old Testament times, the consciousness of the ethical helplessness of a person who did not have the opportunity to be pure and righteous 954 lay heavily. The son of the covenant looked around with fear, saw uncleanness everywhere, was embarrassed on all sides by the oppressive fence of rules and regulations, which did not protect him from uncleanness and blocked his path to a calm conscience. We still hear this convulsive cry of a slave under the law, who “did what he hated” and saw no way to “get rid of the mortal body” 955. In the New Testament gospel this deliverance is given: nothing external can defile a person without his will, no chains lie on him, no legal judgment with God threatens him. In his hands is the means to sanctify everything in himself and around him: the purity that sanctifies everything comes from his own heart 956.
The power of the sons of God extends to heaven itself: by forgiving others, a person prepares for himself undoubted forgiveness in heaven 957. Freeing ourselves from anxious everyday worries, from bodily fear, from the power of the elements and from debts to God, we disentangle ourselves from the networks of temptation and get rid of the power of evil 958.
The freedom of the boundless expanse of eternal life is not the same as the boundless emptiness, and its bliss is not diffused into the negative goodness of undisturbed peace. Eternal life has a positive content, and it gives the positive benefit of knowledge of God, communion with God, and heavenly joy. Evangelical knowledge of God is the knowledge that God is the Father. If we take a look at the entire pre-Christian history of religion, as the history of the gradual liberation of people from religious fear, then we will see that only the Gospel in the image of the Heavenly Father gives man the highest degree of freedom from the horror of the world's mystery, not the negative freedom of unbelief, but the freedom of love, which has no fear. Freedom of unbelief leads to loneliness and complacency; she must experience a crash. On the contrary, the freedom of faith in the paternal love of God raises the fallen, raises up the oppressed, restores the humiliated, gives strength to the insignificant and vigor to the weak.
This is knowledge hidden from the wise and revealed to babes; this is a consolation for the humiliated and burdened; this is rest for the meek and lowly in heart; this is a good yoke and a light burden 959. The Gospel is joyful news to publicans and sinners, the poor and outcast, to all that is lost, despised, and lost 960. Christian bliss is based on the consciousness that in heaven there is joy for one repentant sinner, that everyone who repents is accepted by the Heavenly Father with “pity, kisses and joy” 961, that all small and insignificant ones have their angels standing and interceding for them before the throne of the Most High, and that it is not the will of the Heavenly Father that even one of these little ones should perish 962. This joy of heaven, this heavenly joy, fills the human heart in love for all the persecuted and oppressed, in the love of all-forgiveness, in selfless love for enemies, haters and persecutors. Christian joy does not isolate a person, but connects him with inextricable bonds with the whole world, touches his soul before every creature, makes the grass of the field and the playful bird dear to him 963.
In such love, which knows neither the limits of insignificance nor the boundaries of sin, heavenly joy takes root in the human heart: he loves and rejoices in heavenly ways. Through one’s own joy of love, knowledge of God becomes contemplation for a person. God, and here the joy of the gospel reaches the highest degree of bliss 964. His soul becomes the abode of the continuous presence of God, becomes dear to Him, and from the consciousness of this his joy reaches fullness and perfection 965.
The bliss of eternal life, the bliss of the kingdom of God, is eternal bliss, standing above the boundaries of time, accessible “now, in this time,” real bliss. There is no word hope in the entire Gospel. The entire sermon of Christ is filled with joy; it is the real Gospel, good, joyful news. His time is the joyful time of the wedding feast. His disciples are participants in the wedding feast who cannot fast 966. His words and deeds made everyone who heard and saw them blessed: these were words and deeds for which the human heart has yearned for centuries 967 .
The benefit of eternal spiritual life is presented in the Gospel not only as real, but also as the greatest, incomparable in its value with any external benefits. According to the value of the good of eternal life, the kingdom of heaven is likened in the Gospel to a treasure hidden in a field, which a man hid when he found it, and out of joy over it he goes and sells everything he has and buys the field - it is likened to a merchant looking for good pearls, who, having found one precious pearl, went and sold everything he had and bought it 968. In these parables, the good of the Gospel is portrayed as something sought after, the goal to which people strive: they cannot rest until they find it, not because they knew in advance what they were looking for, but because everything they find on earth does not satisfy their hunger and thirst. In other gospel similarities, this unknownness of what is sought, its novelty, is exposed. From this side, a positive attraction to it is possible only in those who have tasted it. The Gospel likens the one who has tasted spiritual blessings to a person who has tasted good wine.
The presentation of good wine cannot captivate someone who does not know its taste; but he who has tasted the best wine will not immediately want the worst. So the one who has comprehended the blessing of eternal life loses the taste for external blessings 969. On the other hand, this loss of earthly attachments is compared with the death of bodily organs through which earthly goods act on a person. This makes it clear that in the hands of a person there is a negative means of inducing spiritual hunger and thirst in oneself: this is the cutting off of tempting organs, the removal of earthly attachments 970.
The bliss of spiritual life is not external bliss. How eternal life transcends the boundaries of time, since it is both accessible to the conditions of present existence, and is not destroyed with death, is not affected by it; so the bliss of eternal life is internal, spiritual bliss, independent of the availability of external goods and achievable among bodily suffering and visible humiliation. The unearthly power of the gospel beatitude lies in the fact that it overcomes external suffering, that it is the beatitude of the poor, the hungry, the meek, the reviled and persecuted 971. The bliss of eternal life is not expressed even by strictly religious external benefits, since it does not consist in the joy of the disciples of the Gospel about miraculous power, but in their joy that “their names are written in heaven” 972, in the inner joy of possessing spiritual life. In this regard, the divinity of spiritual life also turns out to be psychological spirituality, in the modern sense of the word, i.e. this is internal life, and not external, bodily, visible.
When the Gospel talks about treasure in heaven, about a heavenly reward or from the Heavenly Father, then this jointly expresses both the divine and inner spirituality of eternal life.
Eternal spiritual life, considered from the point of view of its origin, is, like mental-physical life, a gift of God, a planting of the Heavenly Father, 973 so that a person is born spiritually. But since spiritual life is a new life that is born in a person already living, and this is precisely divine, or heavenly life, its birth is called a new birth of man, rebirth, or birth from above, from heaven, from God 974. Christ revealed the doctrine of spiritual birth in a conversation with Nicodemus, to whom He said: “unless someone is born again, born again, 975 he cannot see the kingdom of God.” When Nicodemus doubted the possibility of a person being born again, Christ explained to him that this is a spiritual birth that renews a person, just as the body is cleansed by water 976 or, in another comparison, by fire 977. This doctrine of the new birth is not only the property of the fourth Gospel; it is also characteristic of the weather forecasters, who in this case represent a remarkable parallel to the Gospel of John.
We understand the famous words of Christ: “unless you are converted (μὴστραφῆτε) and become like children (γένησθε ὡ ςτὰ παιδία – you do not become newborns), then you will not enter the kingdom of heaven” 978. – A person’s new spiritual birth takes place unnoticed by him. Like the wind blowing where it wants, and you hear it, but you don’t know what place it came from and where it goes; this happens to everyone who is spiritually born 979. This is a wonderful image. Just as someone who is physically born does not notice his birth, but sees himself as already born; so the one born of the spirit does not know at what time a new life began in him, where his spirit comes from, but he sees himself as a new person, a newborn. New thoughts, new feelings, new desires. A person listens with joy to his spirit, just as a mother listens to the life emerging in her 980. And again, these thoughts are not limited to the pages of the fourth Gospel; We also meet them among weather forecasters.
Here the kingdom of God is likened to a seed thrown into the ground, and the earth itself produces greenery, ears and grain, and man does not know how the seed grows and does not take part in it until the fruit ripens and the harvest comes 981. When spiritual life matures, then it simultaneously becomes noticeable to a person and at the same time no longer reflected in its demands. What is remarkable about spiritual life is that initially, in its idea, it seems insignificant compared to other spiritual forces and completely unnoticeable, like a mustard seed, which is “smaller than all seeds”; and, however, having entered the human heart and growing here, it overpowers all spiritual life, like a mustard seed, growing, it is larger than all the grains and becomes a tree. The seed of spiritual life takes possession of the entire soul, regenerates thoughts, feelings, and will, renews the entire heart, like leaven from which the whole dough is leavened 982.
This rebirth is so significant that, according to the explanation of the Apostle Paul, a reborn - spiritual person and unregenerated - spiritual people no longer understand each other, as if they were speaking different languages 983. Due to the relationship of spiritual life to mental and physical existence, according to which the first is a new shoot, and the second is the environment for its development, spiritual life is called a seed that is thrown into the soil and which bears fruit, and not only does the fruiting vary depending on the individual characteristics of the soil, but also the fate of the seed is varied. In others, the word about the kingdom of heaven meets with conscious and stubborn resistance. In others who accept it with hasty joy, it is eradicated by sorrow or persecution. Otherwise, it is drowned out by everyday worries and the seduction of wealth. And only some have a heart that turns out to be good soil for words and becomes fruitful, so that some bear fruit a hundredfold, another sixty, and another thirty 984 .
This dependence of the growth of spiritual life on the soil of the heart inspires the idea that eternal life, being on the one hand a gift of God, on the other hand turns out to be the fruit of man’s moral efforts, at least in the sense that on the part of man there must be some conditions under which his heart becomes good soil for the word of the kingdom.
The subjective conditions of eternal life are indicated in the first “beatitudes” according to the Gospel of Matthew: these are spiritual poverty, crying, meekness, greed and thirst for righteousness. This state is clearly depicted in the parable of the prodigal son, who: in a foreign country, having squandered his inheritance, fell into extreme need, experienced hunger and came to the consciousness of his unworthiness before heaven and his father. But then the father accepts him with tenderness and forgiveness. Hunger and humiliation of the prodigal son is a state experienced by a person, before whose consciousness the insignificance of worldly life is revealed, in which a thirst for an ideal world, a hunger for higher freedom and absolute creativity is born - that state when a person ceases to be satisfied with bourgeois happiness, external well-being, well-fed complacency, when the earth ceases to be his homeland, becomes alien to him. Until such dissatisfaction with the present has arisen in the heart, such dissatisfaction with earthly happiness, such constraint, until then a person is not yet prepared for the word about the kingdom of God, for preaching about eternal life.
In the negative features of the state “not of this world,” accessible to clear consciousness and revealed in acute experience, there is hidden a positive predisposition to the heavenly, pre-election from the Heavenly Father, a mysterious radiance “from the truth” 985. Since the latter is absolutely not in the power of man and rather foretells what is given in rebirth than reveals what is given by nature, for clear consciousness and active will there remains a repulsion from the earth, knowledge of the vanity of earthly life and the fleetingness of its blessings. This is primarily included in the concept of that “repentance” (μετανοέω), which stands on the threshold of eternal life and the call for which the gospel sermon 986 began - repentance, not as repentance for sins, but as a general change in worldly mood, attachment to visible life, to a religious mood, to an impulse towards heavenly life.
The height of spiritual life, in connection with the conditions of its birth in man, reveals to us the Gospel view of external goods and forms of worldly life - of daily worries, of wealth, of worldly pursuits, of marriage, state and nationality.
The Gospel looks at worldly life in two ways - from a natural point of view and in relation to eternal life. In a natural sense, physical and worldly life constitutes the domain of the will of God, as this latter manifests itself in the laws of nature. From this side, it is good, but this is an external, spiritual good, which enters the heart from the outside and has no moral properties, and is not subject to ethical assessment. There is nothing unclean here, but nothing is holy either. Natural life receives an ethical form only from the moment it enters into relation to eternal life, to spiritual good. In relation to the spiritual good, worldly life becomes not in itself, not in its external features, but through the medium of the human heart, which is the only arena of their collision. A person’s attachment to worldly goods, his contentment with the forms of worldly life, his spiritual self-satisfaction, meeting the call of eternal life, acquire a negative ethical meaning, act as obstacles on the path to the kingdom of heaven and to this extent turn out to be evil.
Hence evangelical asceticism. The most characteristic thing about him is that he has no signs of natural pagan or nomistic-Jewish asceticism. In Judaism, as in paganism, asceticism served as a direct means of pleasing God and communicating with God, and was a “good deed,” a natural or external ethical value. On the contrary, for the Gospel, just as there is no natural impurity, there is no natural or external ethical value - asceticism is an ethical value only conditionally, acquiring an ethical appearance only in relation to spiritual good, as a negative condition for spiritual birth. The Gospel requires self-denial only for eternal life, for spiritual good: it is exclusively self-denial of love. And as soon as the “connection of natural-worldly life with the demands of love and faith, with the spiritual realm is broken, the entire volume of this life is freed from the sorrow of asceticism and covered with the rosy light of natural-social complacency.
The God of the Gospel has two aspects, being both the God of natural gifts, natural providence, and the God of love, requiring self-denial, but the Gospel does not know dualism. This line between the two aspects of the Christian, God and idealism marks the path along which the problem of evangelical asceticism goes - a problem of the deepest interest, but almost impossible to popularize. According to the superficial dualistic idea, one of the natural-social areas is allowed to a person, the other is not allowed, some of its benefits are allowed to him, others are not allowed, the use of it is allowed up to a certain limit, to a certain extent, so that the enjoyment of what is permitted is not ennobled by anything and the sorrow of what is not permitted is not mitigated by anything. Dualistic asceticism inevitably has a dark overtone.
On the contrary, according to the Gospel teaching, everything natural and humanitarian is permitted to man, all natural goods are allowed to him, “everything is permitted to him,” as the apostle says, 987 because all goods are given by one Heavenly Father, so there is no natural limit to the enjoyment of them, and at the same time he is required to sacrifice in the name of love every good without exception, absolutely “all of his own.” From the one Heavenly Father are all the blessings bestowed on every living soul, every person, and from Him is spiritual life, which requires self-denial to the point of death, sacrifice of every good. The joy of life from the natural side is not limited by anything, and at the same time the sacrifice of love knows no limit, because both good is from God and sacrifice is for Him. At the same time, through sacrifice, possible or actual, all pleasure is purified, and the natural integrity of the joys of life is not darkened by anything.
In the same way, the grief of the “narrow gate” 988 is indisputable and knows no boundaries, including even the cutting off of a tempting hand and the tearing out of a tempting eye, but with all this, this grief is not only secret, invisible to people, not expressed in natural social terms 989, but also not hopeless, since it is permeated with the inner bliss of absolute aspiration, the bliss of a found pearl 990. And although the Gospel knows fasting from sorrow, 991 it does not know sorrow from fasting and sacrifice. A Christian renounces good and sacrifices it not because it is evil - every good is from God, and yet he is not saddened by the sacrifice, since his sacrifice is not from an external commandment, but from an internal absolute aspiration, for the sake of the highest good. The real meaning of the two aspects of the Heavenly Father is that spiritual perfection is given to man in external humiliation and spiritual bliss in external suffering, i.e. all visible humiliation and all external suffering are overcome by the fullness and bliss of eternal life.
This is the final resolution of the actual dualism of nature and good, although, perhaps, this logical formula does not exhaust the whole mystery, which has the final basis in the fact that the work of the Son introduces a new movement into the realm of the natural-social.
So, it’s one thing to have natural blessings and everyday concerns without regard to eternal life. Physical joy, the benefit of animal existence, is, first of all, an undoubted fact of natural life. Life is good. Life is such a great blessing that no external values 992 can replace it. Life is good, and therefore in life we need to see the goodness of the Heavenly Father, who gives us everything we need for existence - food and clothing. This is the natural goodness of the Heavenly Father, covering all living and sentient things, not excluding man, who is best in nature. Birds neither sow nor reap, they are nourished by the Heavenly Father. The lilies of the field do not toil or spin; God clothes them magnificently. But man is better than birds and lilies, and the Heavenly Father knows about his need 993. Not a single bird dies without the will of Providence, and even the hairs on a person’s head are numbered 994. Therefore, it is quite possible to turn to God with prayer even for daily food 995. If life is good and God Himself provides the means for life, then the joy of life is completely natural and legitimate.
Christ himself seemed to the Pharisees, representatives of nomistic asceticism, “a man who loves to eat and drink wine, a friend of publicans and sinners” 996. According to legend, we present Christ in light clothes, carefully made by the gentle hands of a loving mother. His miracles were blessings and spread joy around Him, drove away illness and sorrow, and cast the glow of a “favorable summer” on everyone. This also includes Christ’s commandments about alms and charity: He commands to feed the hungry, give water to the thirsty, clothe the naked, visit the sick and prisoners 997, and promises a reward even for a cup of cold water given to His disciple 998. The certainty of the natural good of life, together with the certainty that human life is better than any animal life, gives good its first content 999. The benefits of physical life and human community are taken in the Gospel as a symbol of the spiritual benefits of eternal life - these are primarily images of light and feasting, especially marriage 1000.
But external goods appear in a different light when they come into actual relation to the blessings of eternal life, to the blessings of the kingdom of heaven. Eternal life necessarily and essentially requires self-denial even to the point of death and, at the very least, asceticism, i.e. renunciation of the external blessings of life. Already in the very concept of Christian love, in its absoluteness, lies the moment of external boundlessness and independence from any shackles of external good. Evangelical divine love must rise above all earthly attachments, must overcome all external constraint - it requires that the wings of the spirit be completely free and lift it to heaven without hindrance. This intimate absoluteness and inner freedom acquire specific features of abstinence and renunciation when confronted with actual suffering and actual evil that dominate the world.
If a Christian is commanded to love his neighbor as himself, if gospel love gives to everyone who asks and does not turn away from everyone who wants to borrow, then it is necessarily combined with self-restraint, with a curtailment of personal well-being for the benefit of one’s neighbor. Every needy person, every beggar and crippled person harms a Christian’s personal well-being and puts him on the path of the “narrow gate.” Enjoying natural blessings is natural and in itself not sinful, but near poverty it involuntarily loses the features of innocent complacency. The feast of the rich man, at whose gate the beggar lay, eating the crumbs from his meal, is depicted in dark colors on the pages of the Gospel. A feast with friends, brothers, relatives and rich neighbors is impossible and disgusting for a Christian who is surrounded by the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind 1001. Finally, the need for self-denial for a Christian is generated by the persecution of the world, its hatred of the teachings of Christ. The disciple of the Gospel must expect everything from this hatred, even to death 1002.
In this relation to eternal life, external goods do not have any positive meaning and, on the contrary, receive a negative meaning from two sides. Apart from the decisive absence of a heavenly spark, apart from that lukewarmness which is completely devoid of ethical energy and constitutes the true domain of the evil one 1003 , the word of God is drowned out in the human heart either by inconstancy and the temptation of sorrow or by the worries of this age and the deception of wealth 1004 . Lack of root in oneself and inconstancy are produced by worry about tomorrow, cowardly worry about what to drink, eat and what to wear. Everyday care is completely natural and legal for a person, but this is a natural legality and naturalness characteristic of pagans 1005, from which it is necessary to free oneself in order to enter the kingdom of God. It is natural for a pagan and not sinful from a natural point of view; but when she encounters the word of the kingdom of God, she becomes sinful. It fetters a person hand and foot, hangs heavily on his soul, and prevents him from rising above the ground.
Cowardly concern for tomorrow blocks his path to self-denial of love, prevents him from aspiring to heaven, makes him incapable of fighting worldly untruth. Therefore, the Gospel requires freedom from everyday worries and from fear of those who kill the body. We already know that evangelical carelessness comes through self-denial. The very prayer to the Heavenly Father for bread is based on self-denial, since a Christian prays only for daily bread 1006, without worrying about tomorrow 1007.
If the fear of bodily suffering and cowardly daily worries do not allow a person to reach the doors of the kingdom of God, then the same effect is produced by the deception of wealth. Prosperity and abundance have innumerable beneficial consequences in utilitarian terms, in the matter of cultural progress. The development of science and art, the flourishing of industry and trade - all this is possible only with wealth. And all this is an undoubted natural good. But the Gospel judges wealth only in one relation to eternal life. Wealth is an excess of natural goods. It has a negative attitude towards eternal life to the extent that it captivates the heart and fills it. It gives a person contentment, self-satisfaction, and thereby makes him incapable of eternal life, eliminates the possibility of the emergence of greed and spiritual thirst in him. The rich man does not need heaven, because he is happy on earth 1008.
Since our heart inclines to where our treasure is 1009, the heart of the rich man, who makes a treasure for himself out of wealth, who collects wealth, turns out to be chained to the earth, and wealth secludes a person from God 1010. The evil of wealth is that it dominates man, while dominion over our hearts should belong to God alone. The evil of wealth is revealed precisely when God calls a person: then wealth challenges God’s power over man 1011. The evil of wealth lies in nothing other than the fact that it is difficult for those who hope for wealth to enter the kingdom of God - and on the threshold of the kingdom of God the whole burden of earthly acquisitions is felt 1012. To the self-satisfaction that separates a person from God, and to the arrogance that keeps him from entering the kingdom of God, wealth adds a possible abundance of pleasures that deprive a person of spiritual alertness 1013. In view of all this, the Gospel looks at wealth as an obstacle to preaching about the kingdom of God, and at poverty as a condition for its success.
According to the teachings of Christ, preaching the gospel to the poor was the content of His Gospel and the purpose of His activity, along with healing the sick, calming the broken-hearted and tormented, giving freedom to the captives and sight of sight to the blind 1014. The Gospel of Christ is the Gospel to the poor and sinners. This view of wealth and poverty is conveyed with particular clarity in the Gospel of Luke. Here, wealth and poverty are assessed as if in themselves and, moreover, from a legal point of view: the kingdom of God is promised to the poor, satiation to those who hunger and joy to those who weep, on the contrary, grief is announced to the rich, for they have already received their consolation 1015, to those who are satiated with hunger and weeping to those who laugh 1016. But undoubtedly, just as it is not wealth itself that stands as an obstacle on the path to eternal life, but the complacency and arrogance of wealth, so it is not poverty itself that paves the way to the kingdom of God, but because it is accompanied by aspiration to heaven.
The royal feast was filled with all sorts of rabble, the poor, the maimed, the lame and the blind, since those invited were not worthy 1017; but nevertheless, one of them who was not in wedding clothes was expelled 1018. Therefore, it is necessary to recognize the reading according to the Gospel of Matthew as more reliable, in which the poor in spirit, those who mourn, the meek, those who hunger and thirst for righteousness are blessed. Spiritual poverty is that poverty that is combined with heartfelt contrition, with a thirst for heavenly blessings, which leads the soul from earth to heaven.
The seduction of wealth is that it breeds complacency in those who “hope for wealth.” But no other hope for wealth is as harmful in a religious and ethical sense as that which is created by the wide possibility of charity, not to mention the pomp of religious rites and liturgical sacrifices. According to the legal Jewish view, alms had a redemptive value; it covered all kinds of sins, including the sin of acquiring and possessing wealth. The Gospel speaks of nothing else so often as of almsgiving. Understanding ritual impurity, it even says in the language of Judaism that alms make everything clean 1019. But this does not change the basic view of the Gospel on wealth. The fact is that evangelical charity is absolute in nature. According to the Gospel, to do charity means to give away all one’s possessions. “Sell your possessions and give alms” 1020: this is the gospel commandment.
Therefore, the more wealth someone has, the more difficult it is for him to fulfill the Gospel commandment about alms, under the most favorable conditions. Even the young man, who fulfilled all the commandments of the law and fell in love with Christ, left Him with sadness and embarrassment when Christ demanded that he sell all his great acquisitions and distribute them to the poor 1021. And this gospel demand cannot be looked at as exceptional, having significance only for this young man, and one cannot hide behind the conditional desire to “be perfect”: the Gospel addresses this demand to everyone who wants to live according to the Gospel, who comes to Christ, who knocks on the doors of the kingdom of heaven, although it does not set external demands on anyone, does not impose the desire to be perfect. The Gospel does not in the least affect the pagan attitude to wealth, but its own demand is only this absolute demand. And this requirement is easier to fulfill, the less a person has. The poor widow gave only two mites to the church, and she had already “put in all her food that she had” 1022.
This is difficult for a rich man to do, and so much so that a camel would rather go through the eye of a needle than a rich man would enter the kingdom of God 1023. According to the Gospel, the salvation of a rich man is a matter beyond human strength. It is possible only for God 1024. This means that a person’s freedom from the seduction of wealth becomes possible only when eternal life has already been born in him, when he has already risen to the height of divine absoluteness, when divine love has taken possession of him. In any case, wealth can be used in a Christian way only by completely distributing it, and a rich man can achieve Christian perfection only by ceasing to be a rich man. Judaism greatly valued charity; the influent Pharisee gave away a tenth of everything he acquired 1025. This is a very broad charity, and the society where such charity is practiced should be considered well-organized. But still, between the charity of the Jews and the Gospel, “a great abyss has been established.”
The Jew considered wealth a good thing even in religious terms; according to the Gospel, the only religious use of wealth is its complete distribution, the only salvation of a rich man is to become poor. Wealth serves the Gospel by disappearing, melting away, and therefore wealth for the Gospel is “the mammon of unrighteousness.” With wealth a person can make friends for himself, as the “unfaithful steward” did; but the steward made friends for himself by his disloyalty to the interests of the estate to which he was assigned, so a truly rich man can earn Christian salvation for himself by betraying his wealth - to the end, to the complete distribution of it, to poverty 1026. The unfaithfulness of a steward (ὁ οἰκονόμος τῆςἀδικίας) is the same as the unrighteousness of wealth (μαμων ᾶ ςτῆςἀδικίας), i.e. consumption of wealth, destroying it. Only such economic worldly unfaithfulness is faithfulness in the eyes of God.
The pagan philosopher called charity not from interest, but from capital itself, absurdity, because in this case a person, through acts of charity, deprives himself of the opportunity to do charity in the future. The Gospel teaches something completely different.
The Gospel judges wealth solely from the point of view of eternal life, in relation to the blessings of the heavenly kingdom. At the same time, evangelical asceticism does not have the slightest touch on issues of social economy, on those issues that have created the socialist movement in our days. The Gospel does not know the objective, social, question of wealth and poverty 1027. It does not teach how wealth should be distributed in society. In the Gospel we will also find no basis for that industrial inactivity that is chosen as a way of life, for that professional poverty that actually degenerates into parasites and parasitism. This religious beggary forgets the essential difference between leaving one's property for the sake of God's work and abstaining from labor and production as an external form of life.
Christian socialism and soul-saving idleness equally do not have a foothold in the Gospel, since the Gospel does not affect either the economic structure of society or the external way of human life, but discusses wealth and poverty in their sole relation to eternal life, to personal-religious absoluteness.
In this same connection, the relationship of the Gospel to worldly pursuits is also revealed. And the latter for the Gospel receive an ethical assessment in the only case when they are faced with eternal life: they are condemned only to the extent that they distract from eternal life, and are rejected solely for the specific calling of the kingdom of God. So, according to the parable, those invited to the feast did not appear, excusing one by purchasing land, another by acquiring oxen, the third by marriage 1028 And Christ took His disciples away from fishing, but only in order to make them fishers of men 1029. Essentially, worldly activities and eternal life are incommensurable, and therefore eternal life does not create new activities and does not replace universal human activities. In Christianity, worldly activities do not have religious sanctification and are not abolished for the general motive of soul salvation.
This gospel principle appears even more clearly in relation to the family, state and nation.
Family, kinship, friendship are an undoubted natural good. It is good to love those who love, to greet brothers, to treat friends and neighbors. Fortunately, this is fully recognized by the Gospel. In relationships of marriage and kinship, it recognizes the original law of God 1030, and in duties towards parents it sees the irremovable commandment of God 1031. However, for the Gospel, unions of marriage, kinship and friendship are natural unions that express the will of God, revealed in the laws of nature, and stand above all human laws, but do not form the highest shrine, the last will of God. Kindred and friendly love is natural, has nothing naturally unclean in it, but also does not constitute a sacred thing 1032. The Gospel knows higher blessings, the blessings of eternal life, the kingdom of God. Only in relation to eternal life do these natural unions acquire a moral character.
And the Gospel, from the height of the blessings of eternal life, pronounces, along with the commandments about the indissolubility of the marriage union and the inviolability of children's duties, the commandments about unconditional chastity and hatred of family and relatives 1033. The New Testament Teacher himself considered himself free from the usual claims of his mother and brothers and called those who fulfill the will of the Heavenly Father 1034 his relatives. Apparently, here are the foundations for the popular understanding of asceticism, for the recognition of celibacy above married life. And, however, popular asceticism, heavily inclined towards pagan dualism and Jewish nomism, is a crude symbol of evangelical absoluteness and even a distortion of evangelical thought. He distinguishes two kinds of life - married and celibate, and recognizes the path of celibacy and freedom from family ties as more suitable for achieving the kingdom of God. It is assumed that carnal joys, in general, and marriage, in particular, are unclean, and the path of celibacy and freedom from worldly activities is in itself the path of eternal life.
Possible incorporeality is identified with divine-absolute spirituality. But the Gospel does not know two kinds of natural life; it knows only one natural life, which is formed by marriage and kinship unions, and it recognizes this life as an indisputable natural good. The Gospel commands renunciation of this good, not because it knows another kind of life, a higher one, but because eternal life requires renunciation of even the greatest of the blessings of natural life. The Gospel sacrifice would be insignificant if natural life were recognized in the Gospel as naturally unclean and unworthy of man; but it is all the higher because, according to the Gospel, marriage and kinship relations belong to the category of benefits bestowed by the one Heavenly Father 1035. The Gospel does not know two kinds of natural life, but it preaches that, in addition to natural life, there is eternal, divine, spiritual life, representing an incomparably higher good, for which it is necessary to sacrifice the benefits of natural life.
The Gospel requires asceticism only for eternal life, but eternal life does not form another visible kind of life, since there is only one visible natural life. Spiritual life requires this sacrifice and is realized in it, but sacrifice does not constitute a kind of life and does not replace external life. This is, in particular, the attitude of the Gospel to marriage. The fact that, according to the Gospel, marriage is indissoluble and chastity is absolute, does not provide a basis for their mutual relationship; this relationship is understood only from the heights of eternal life. In the Gospel speech about eunuchs, the emphasis is on the words “for the kingdom of heaven”: just as there are eunuchs for whom married life is absolutely impossible, so some people do not choose another kind of life, but deprive themselves of married life, sacrificing it for the kingdom of heaven. Understanding absolute chastity and skopchestvo in a legalistic sense, in the sense of an external way of life, leads to a hopeless situation, just like the legalistic understanding of marital indissolubility. In the case of mandatory indissolubility of marriage, it is better not to marry (οὐσυμφέρει γαμῆσαι) 1036.
But chastity in the Gospel is understood absolutely, so that the right to a celibate life is taken away by the slightest movement of lust and remains only for freaks - and in the sense of obligatory celibacy, it is better to get married than to get married (κρεῖττονἐστιν γαμῆν ἢ πυροῦσθαι) 1037. There is complete hopelessness. And the only way to get past it is to understand the Gospel skopchestvo not as a celibate kind of life, but as a abandonment of family life, a sacrifice of it for the kingdom of God. This will be an evangelical sacrifice when its connection with eternal life is clearly recognized, when married life is incompatible with the requirements of the Gospel, when it becomes an obstacle on the path to eternal life, that is, when either Christ calls a person to some kind of challenge that cannot be accomplished within the narrow confines of family life, or a degraded family begins to vulgarize a person. And in no case does the Gospel provide grounds for a celibate life based on general motives of soul salvation.
In the same way, the commandment about hatred of relatives in general is required by the Gospel not as a special kind of life, as a hermit, but as a sacrifice for the good of kinship, as a cross for the sake of the kingdom of heaven 1038. This sacrifice is required by the Gospel not for abstract considerations regarding one kind of life or another, but for the factual basis and under the real condition that family ties become an obstacle on the path to eternal life. The basis for this commandment is that the Gospel, adopted by a person and regenerating him, produces enmity between him and his relatives 1039. This enmity is a sign of the effectiveness of the gospel preaching 1040, and its detection is desirable 1041. If objectively the fire of this enmity is a sign of the coming of the kingdom of God, then subjectively, for every disciple of Christ, it provides an opportunity to actively manifest their spiritual life and confess Christ.
Thus, love for Christ collides in the human heart with love for relatives, and for a Christian it is necessary to choose between renunciation of Christ and family ties, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, confession of Christ and hatred of relatives 1042. General considerations about the salvific nature of this or that kind of life are completely inappropriate here, but the whole point is in the actual clash of love for family and love for the Gospel 1043. To change the natural feeling of love for those who love to hatred for relatives, a real attraction to eternal life and a religious calling, incompatible with natural passions, is necessary; a person must have the consciousness that his own fingers are beginning to choke him, that his native mud is drawing him in 1044. Just as it is certain that Christ did not tolerate the slightest compromise and demanded the most decisive and irrevocable following of Him, it is equally indisputable that the severance of natural family ties is justified from the gospel point of view only by the presence of work in the name of eternal life.
The Gospel is not a code of social relations, but a principle of personal life.
Also, in the Gospel, religion and the state are completely separated, as heterogeneous areas - spiritual and worldly. This includes Christ’s answer to the tempting question of the Pharisees and Herodians, whether it is permissible to give taxes to Caesar. Christ told them: “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and to God the things that are God’s” 1045. Until the state and faith collide, these are two disparate areas, one completely natural and the other completely spiritual. If Caesar asks for what belongs to God, then the disciple of Christ can only respond to his demand with disobedience, without fear of those who kill the body, and in this case he is left with the only path of achievement, martyrdom. But the Gospel could not say a single word about the order of the political system. It does not sanction state order, does not look at state affairs religiously; it places it in the category of “earthly” human affairs. Nevertheless, it could determine the forms of state life.
In its own sphere, from the inside, spiritual life has no contact with the state structure: there is no place in it for domination, slavery, serfdom, it is determined by a different law, the law of love, the service of the greater to the lesser 1046. But, of course, this “different” order cannot replace the state system, which in any case remains “pagan” for a Christian, i.e. natural. The Gospel neither sanctifies nor abolishes the state.
State power was given for Christ and His compatriots as external, pagan; in contrast, He deeply felt national feeling. Christ loved His people and desired their salvation. In the last days of His life, He wept over Jerusalem, which did not heed His preaching 1047. Nevertheless, He threateningly rejected this people, who did not want to accept Him 1048. And here, in the question of patriotism, we once again encounter the application of the general gospel principle, which determines the relationship between the worldly and spiritual areas. Patriotism is a completely natural feeling, nationality is a natural good; but this feeling acquires ethical value only when it collides with the demands of eternal life, for which it is necessary to sacrifice all natural goods. The effectiveness of eternal life is reflected in the sacrifice of natural goods and, in particular, nationality. This is not something like indifference to national and other benefits, recognition of them as insignificant; but it is the sacrifice of these benefits that makes eternal life a real power.
The most characteristic thing for the Gospel, in its historical appearance, is that it is the transition of religion from national limitations to universal unconditionality. This is not a transition from patriotism to cosmopolitanism, but it is a sacrifice of patriotism in the name of religion. Patriotism for a Christian is only a natural feeling, nationality is a natural good, above which is spiritual life: the Gospel does not preach cosmopolitanism, but it does not sanctify nationality and patriotism. There cannot be a Christian-holy people, God’s chosen people, just as there cannot be a Christian-holy state or marriage. Such holiness is only where religion is limited.
The gospel story presents two phases in Christ's relationship with the Jewish people: the initial restriction of preaching to Israel and the subsequent rejection of Israel. It was in this dual relationship that the degeneration of Jewish nationalism into Christian universalism began. The rejection of the Jewish people led Christ to death. Likewise, a disciple of Christ must be prepared for exile and torment 1049. These torments complete Christian asceticism. Its first steps are freedom from daily worries and from the seductions of wealth, then family and kindred enmity, and the last steps are the crown of martyrdom from the people and the authorities. This amounts to a Christian cross of 1050. The Gospel requires complete and irrevocable self-denial, self-denial to the point of death 1051. But even at its last stages, Christian asceticism has nothing in common either with the pagan path of self-mortification and self-torture, or with the Judeo-legal assessment of sacrifice.
Christian self-denial is required solely by the motives of eternal life, absolute love, and the Christian cross is erected solely by the hostility of the world to the Gospel. The hatred of the world is a necessary presupposition of the gospel doctrine of self-denial and the cross 1052. And in its results, Christian self-denial does not disappear into the emptiness of nirvana: it is inextricably linked with the martyr’s action on the world, with the confession of the Gospel 1053. Thus, the cross from people turns out to be suffering for people - and Christian self-denial, both in its initial stages and in the final moment, is a work of love 1054.
The good of eternal life, or the absoluteness of divine love, has a predetermined entanglement with death, which it inevitably conquers. The duty of free death for a Christian is inscribed in the Gospel in indelible and vivid words: the grain of wheat of divine spirituality must die in order to bear much fruit and be preserved into eternal life 1055. The divine boundlessness of spiritual love and its reality as love for the world make this duty of death quite understandable. However, this debt is completely alien to its external legal character. One must penetrate into the very essence of spiritual life in order to see why it is fully assimilated only in death and fully revealed only in victory over death. The deeply felt good of spiritual life extinguishes the need for a long existence and causes “detachment” from the earth - it takes on the features of transmundaneity and transtemporality: for one seized by inspired love, it is sweet to die, despite all the physical disgustingness of death.
And every requirement of spiritual life can be realized only at the moment of death, or in readiness for it. Substitute to any side of the Gospel principle the irreducible duration of existence, the obligatory bypass of death, add to any Gospel requirement the clause “not until death”, and for you all the Gospel words will sound false and hypocrisy. In the system of evangelical teaching, only one point deals with the idea of death, but it is presupposed by all other points. A disciple of Christ can only “lay down his life” for people once, but readiness for a mortal sacrifice is a necessary assumption of the entire Christian life. In the language of the Gospel, love and eternal life are the same as love and death: gospel love is love before death and eternal life in victory over death. This illuminates another aspect of the eschatological perspective of eternal life.
Not equal to pagan spiritualistic immortality and Jewish sensual resurrection, gospel eternal life has the immortality of divine spirituality, as inaccessible to death, and at the same time it is resurrection and victory over death. According to the Gospel teaching, not only are everyone alive with God 1056, not only those who have received the word of life do not see death, do not taste it 1057, but the sons of God are necessarily sons of the resurrection 1058.
The Gospel teaching about sin forms part of the teaching about eternal life, i.e. The Gospel judges this subject from the point of view of eternal life.
Christ met a certain Jewish concept of righteousness, as the fulfillment of the law, and sin, as the violation of the law and, subsequently, the covenant. For the Jew, not only were righteousness and sin legally clear concepts, but also the righteous and the sinner were for him clearly distinguishable persons.
How did the Gospel respond to this moral classification? The Gospel fully accepts this classification, this terminology, but evaluates this and that ethical group differently - according to how both, righteous and sinners, reacted to the Gospel preaching. The righteous accepted the preaching of eternal life with the same reluctance as the rich, and sinners with the same disposition as the poor, sick, and simpletons, and this happened all the more inevitably because the nomistic righteous were money-loving and rich, while the poor and simpletons turned out to be sinners. A remarkable fact of the gospel history is that tax collectors and harlots preceded the righteous on the way to the kingdom of God 1059. This is explained by the fact that nomistic righteousness and sinfulness completely coincided in a person with the consciousness of his righteousness or his sinfulness. Every legalistic-righteous deed filled the human heart with self-satisfaction, and every sin slavishly pressed down on a person, instilling in him feelings of fear, loss, destruction, and insignificance.
This circumstance is fully noted in the Gospel, which presents the righteous as having no need for repentance, confident in their righteousness, exalting themselves, demonstrating their righteousness 1060, and sinners as sick, feeling unwell, in need of a doctor, humiliating themselves, repenting 1061. Here we especially recall the tributary images of the Pharisee and the tax collector praying in the church, and two sons. Due to this circumstance, the righteous, precisely as righteous people, turned out to be enemies of the Gospel, the possession of righteousness blocked their path to eternal life, self-righteousness closed their hearts to the Gospel; on the contrary, sinners warmly responded to the gospel call to eternal life. This disposition towards the eternal life of the dregs of society corresponded to the deepest motives of the gospel of Christ - His pity for everything that is burdened and humiliated, for the despised and lost, for the lost and scattered.
Thus, legalistic righteousness and sinfulness from the evangelical point of view received a different assessment than in nomism, and in any case, they were reduced from the stronghold of the religious objective dimension to the level of historical and psychological conditions for the spread of the kingdom of God. This was also consistent with the fact that the Gospel, in its content, brought healing to the tormented, liberation to the captives, saturation to those hungry and thirsty for righteousness: it dispelled the mirage of an ancient burden, proclaimed new values, a new easy yoke.
However, artificial consistency and logical one-sidedness of the philosophical system are alien to the Gospel. There is absolutely no place for frozen formulas on its pages. Apart from the only immovable center - the absolute good of eternal life, it does not know a single immovable point. It, like life itself, recognizes constant movement, continuous evolution. Thus, while pleasing the poor, it promises them satiation, without fixing poverty as a continuous good. Likewise, recognizing the advantage of sinners over the righteous in the direction to eternal life, it nevertheless calls sinners to repentance and declares to them forgiveness of sins as the first benefit of eternal life 1062.
In this regard, the Gospel was taken into account with the actual consciousness of sinners 1063. Another support for this attitude of the Gospel towards sinners was the connection of sins with illnesses, as a consequence of 1064, although in the Gospel of course the connection is experimental, natural, and it rejects the Jewish view of illnesses and disasters as a religious-legal punishment for every sin, the view of all illnesses and disasters as punishment for certain sins. Finally, for the Gospel, these nomistic sins of those under the law fell into the broader channel of that duty to God, which embraces all people and makes the path of repentance inevitable for everyone.
Along with the nomistic classification of righteousness and sinfulness, the Gospel sets forth other ethical standards. In the Gospel, a person’s incompatibility with his ethical calling is determined from two sides - in content and in form. In terms of content, a person’s mood, which does not correspond to the will of God, is designated by the concept of anger 1065, in contrast to the fact that ethical good is defined from the side of volitional content by the concept of goodness, kindness. The legalistic distinction between the righteous and sinners is replaced by the distinction between the good man (ὁ ἀγαθόςἄνθρωπος) and the evil man (ὁ πονηρὸς ἄνθρωπος). According to the evangelical view, divine life is characterized as goodness and love 1066; therefore, by the nature of anger, a person finds himself in the most decisive opposition to God, with all the consequences of this alienation from God. It is human nature to be evil, God – to be good 1067. Anger is entirely a property of the heart, and in this direction of the heart the Gospel places the very essence of man’s alienation from God.
The Gospel does not judge a person legally by his actions; it sees his dignity or unworthiness solely in the mood of the heart, dignity - in goodness, unworthiness - in anger 1068. All ethical actions of a person serve only as the revelation of the heart’s treasure, its discovery, its fruits, and therefore they only have epistemological significance: by them, as by the fruits of a tree, one can judge the heart 1069. All human actions flow from the heart and receive ethical value from it 1070. A person’s ethical actions and words, as well as his secret thoughts, equally come from the heart, as from the root 1071. A person is therefore responsible not only for actions, but even for words and thoughts 1072; however, this is not a legal responsibility that can be redeemed by works and sacrifices: the point of application of evangelical responsibility is in the heart. A person's main attention should be paid to where his heart is directed, to heaven or to earth, to what treasure it is attached 1073.
The Gospel stands entirely on the basis of Old Testament psychology; but it absolutely definitely reduces the difference in the ethical direction of the heart to goodness and evil. Evangelical amartology is established on the same foundations as evangelical ethics. As a principle of spiritual righteousness is the application of absolute love to the whole breadth of life; Likewise, everything that does not correspond to the divine will in human life, whether it be actions, or words, or thoughts, turns out, according to the Gospel teaching, to be a revelation of evil: the Gospel condemns evil deeds, evil words, evil thoughts. Every deed or word worthy of condemnation has its cause in an evil movement of the heart 1074; but every badness of the heart is essentially evil, the opposite of goodness or love: all bad deeds and words reveal one or another evil thought 1075. Just as, according to the Gospel, there is no need to know the law, to cope with codes in order to please God, but it is enough to love, to love without end, to love to death, to love according to the divine; So you don’t need to be afraid of any actions, you need to be afraid of only one thing - anger.
There can be no evil in actions and words, man is the master of his affairs; but evil, in the anger that fills the heart and is revealed in words and deeds. According to the nomistic view, there was evil in lawless deeds, firstly, because such deeds violated the law and were condemned by God, and, secondly, because they violated social welfare: this was a legal-utilitarian view of evil. But the Gospel looks at evil differently. Evil is in anger. The evil of anger is not that evil actions are legally condemned and harmful to social life, but in it itself, just as eternal life has its reward in itself. How eternal life gives inner bliss, communion with God, knowledge of God; so anger is a state of death and destruction, alienation from God, ignorance of God, internal imbalance, lack of peace, slavery 1076.
What is evil in a religious-formal sense? It is not actually sin, as a legal concept. It is unworthiness before God, as the dissolute son said to his father: “I am not worthy to be called your son” 1077 - it is a duty before God, as he taught us to pray. Christ: “forgive us our debts” 1078. Love is our duty to God 1079 because divine life, true life for us, ideal, is given in love, and the will of God is revealed in the requirement to be merciful like the Heavenly Father. The peculiarity of this debt is that one can never get rid of it, since divine love is limitless, but alienation from love and eternal life makes everyone without exception debtors, so that its area is limitless. The New Testament concept of sin is the concept of duty, due. And all the inferential concepts that in the Old Testament legal worldview were combined with the concept of sin, such as the concepts of atonement, atoning sacrifice, retribution, are inapplicable to the gospel concept of duty.
Anger is a debt of love, and this debt can be fulfilled only in one way - love, eternal life, its actual assimilation on the part of the debtor, his internal rebirth. From the evangelical point of view, the attitude of the religious doge to nature and its historical development are presented differently.
According to the teaching of the Gospel, man, in the unregenerate state of his nature, i.e. Those who are not born again, or spiritually, are characterized by evil, and therefore human nature naturally does not correspond to the height of the divine requirement: people are naturally evil just as God is naturally good 1080 . Such were the Jews, as those who did not have the love of God within them 1081 , and mainly the pagans, usually presented in the Gospel as typical representatives of the unregenerate state 1082 . What kind of condition is this ethically? What is this natural anger? Pagan people, being evil, know how to give good gifts to their children, love those who love them, greet brothers, do good to friends, treat neighbors 1083. This, obviously, is a state of natural morality, utilitarian community life - what constitutes worldly life with its complex relations of power and subjects, trade and mutual services, family and kinship.
Christ says about this state that one cannot expect reward, gratitude and praise for it, although it is not responsible: it is natural for a person, but has nothing to do with the divine spiritual life, with the religious area 1084. Natural worldly love, earthly, limited, partial, is anger in comparison with divinely absolute self-sacrificing love, not to mention those painfully monstrous degenerations of human anger, manifested in family cruelty, in state despotism, in treachery, which are condemned from the point of view of natural morality itself. To anger, which gives a vivid imprint to the natural state, is added weakness, the weakness of powerlessness and the weakness of ignorance, which also separates human life from divine life, making human nature flesh in contrast to divine spirituality 1085. The flesh, when a person meets divine demands, acts on him with temptation 1086.
The powerlessness of the flesh is mainly reflected in the fear of death, as well as in the fear of daily need and human persecution. The weakness of the flesh provides the basis for the practice of prayerful vigil and fasting. Along with the impotence of fear, the weakness of the flesh is revealed in ignorance 1087... It is not difficult to see that in this wide channel of natural human malice, weakness and ignorance fits that weakness and that ignorance of the Old Testament sinners who followed the failure to fulfill the law and formed one stream in this channel.
How does the gospel judge the natural state of wickedness, weakness, and ignorance? It teaches that this natural state does not give a person the benefits of religious life, does not lead him to praise and gratitude, but at the same time it does not impute guilt to a person. Every sin is forgiven to man 1088: this is the gospel judgment about human debts before God. As much as anyone is given, so much is required from him; as much as is entrusted, so much is collected. It is not asked of those who do not know; the blind have no sin on themselves 1089. However, in this regard, too, the Gospel is alien to frozen formulas. It is not indifferent to the natural pagan malice of people, it does not ignore man’s natural debts to God: it forgives them. Although it does not condemn a person for these debts, in forgiveness itself there is a moment of condemnation, which, together with forgiveness, is removed. Moreover, it even sets conditions for a person to receive forgiveness from people - their faith, mutual forgiveness to each other and love 1090.
Moreover, it refuses forgiveness if a person does not fulfill these conditions; but here we are already translating to a different point of view, here, of course, is man’s attitude to eternal life, to the revealed gospel sermon, to the shining light.
The Gospel does not stop at the statics of human nature, it reveals the dynamics of human evil. Just as eternal life is given to a person in movement, in his rebirth, so evil has its own history. Evil, as a state of nature, becomes extremely evil when it encounters eternal life and consciously, persistently defends its existence, asserts itself in opposition to good 1091. This is what in the language of the Gospel is called blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, as opposed to blasphemy against the Son of man, that sin that is not forgiven to a person either in this century or in the future 1092, otherwise, as the Apostle puts it, mortal sin 1093. Blasphemy against the Son of Man is a sin of ignorance, the sin of those who see in Christ a simple man, and blasphemy against the spirit is the sin of those who reject the principle of spiritual life preached by Christ in the name of the principles of an evil heart 1094. So the Jews did not accept Christ because God was not their father, but they followed the murderous lusts of the devil 1095: the good brought by Christ, they took for deception 1096.
If the natural state is characterized by the absence of love for God and God’s love for all people, the presence of love only for one’s own, then in their hatred of Christ the Jews showed not only dislike for God, but also hatred for Him 1097 . This hatred was not born again in them, but natural anger, upon meeting the light 1098, became extreme religious anger, extremely conscious and sinful. In particular, the ignorance of God, characteristic of the unregenerate state, becomes sinful when it persists against the revealed truth 1099.
Thus, the concept of sin, expelled from the gospel system in its Old Testament sense, reappears in it. But the strength of the gospel sin against the Holy Spirit, the sin of stubborn resistance to eternal life, is not in legal condemnation, but in its immediate destruction: it bears its punishment in itself, just as eternal life, or spiritual righteousness, has its reward in its own bliss. Not accepting the Gospel and eternal life means remaining in death, not having life and bliss, and remaining in destruction. This is no longer a natural state of anger: illuminated by the light of eternal life, it now increases to the highest degree of torment. The first bearers of such torments of malice, such spiritual death, were the enemies of Christ, as the Gospel story depicts them to us, with their duality in relation to the Gospel and consciousness of resistance to the will of God.
In the Gospel teaching about sin, it is also important that it is not a sin of nature that met the Gospel preaching, but a sin caused, on the basis of natural anger, by the Gospel preaching itself - a sin to which unbelievers were condemned by Christ. He not only forgave the sins and debts that people suffered before Him, not only gave them eternal life and was their savior, but He was also a judge of people, so that from His preaching those who did not see became seeing, and those who saw became blind 1100. This new sin, which became reality only with the preaching of the Gospel, which is solely recognized by the Gospel as sin and which carries the entire abyss of destruction in itself, is the sin of unbelief in the Son of God 1101. The Gospel divided people into two opposing parts - into the children of God born of the truth and into the children of the devil who loved darkness 1102. This new ethical classification has the character of universality, essentially the revealed absolute principle of eternal life: no one can pass by this division.
Again, this is not the first time that unbelievers have become children of the devil, but there is no doubt that they have become worse. The Gospel drove out the evil spirit from the hearts of people, but the unbelievers again gave it a place in themselves, and the latter became worse for them than the first 1103: the unbelievers became worse than the Sodomites, they revealed themselves to be faithful sons of the devil 1104.
In the Gospel, in close connection with the teaching about sin is the teaching about the sinful world, mainly revealed in the Gospel of John. In accordance with the twofold relationship of the Gospel in general to natural and social life - to property, occupations, kinship, state, nationality, the Gospel judges the world in two ways. First of all, the world is the entire created cosmos 1105, in its natural beauty and riches 1106, in a more intimate sense, the world is the entire human race 1107 in its natural state, predominantly the pagan world (τὰ ἔθνη τοῦκόσμον), with its concerns about food and clothing 1108, with its social structure, power, servants, army 1109. In this sense, there is no ethical judgment attached to the world. This is so not only in those places where we are talking about the beginning of the world 1110, about its riches 1111, but even in those places where the people of this world are presented in caring for daily needs; with its social structure.
Although the sons of God must be internally free from these worries and although the internal structure of the kingdom of God is not at all worldly 1112; however, it does not follow from this that these concerns and this system are worthy of condemnation within the confines of the pagan world itself. Moreover, God, who sends rain and sunshine to the good and the evil, loves the whole world, the entire human race, and desires eternal life for it, as the highest good, giving His beloved Son for its salvation 1113. However, this saving love of God for the world also testifies to the fact that without eternal divine life, without faith in Christ, the world perishes, dies in its sins 1114. However, we know that worldly sins and natural debts of a person become extremely sinful and truly disastrous, painful, from the confrontation of eternal life, that in speeches about the destruction of the world in its sins, there is already a light that has come into the world and judges it, illuminating and condemning its darkness 1115. The collision of the world with eternal life, its confrontation with the word of spiritual life, gives it ethical illumination.
The Gospel ethically judges the world exclusively from the point of view of eternal life, in relation to the preaching of Christ. The world ethically discussed and condemned by the Gospel is a world of daily concerns, kinship and government, since it opposes the Gospel of eternal life in the name of the principles of natural evil. This is a world that does not accept the spirit of Christ and does not believe in Christ and in God, does not know God, hates the disciples of Christ, a world submissive to its prince, enslaved to sin 1116. The sinful world is the world that rebelled against Christ, did not believe in Him, and hated Him: the world became sinful as a result of a negative attitude towards the preaching of Christ. Not believing in Christ, the world sinned, became a slave of sin, came under the power of the devil, although the devil was condemned and defeated by Christ. As the evil principle of life rejected by Christ, the devil became the ruler of the world that did not believe in Christ, but was expelled from the hearts of believers. Therefore, people who believe in Christ come out from under the power of the evil one 1117.
There is an inevitable duality in the fact that Christ does not judge the world, saves it, and the devil, defeated by Him, fell like lightning from heaven - however, the non-believing world has already been condemned, and the power of the devil over it has become stronger than ever before.
MP. X, 30; Luke, XVIII, 30.
Matt. XVIII, 8. 9; MP. IX, 43. 45.
Bow. X, 25 “to inherit eternal life” = 28 “to live.”
Bow. XIV, 14. But John. V, 29 general resurrection - some to life, others to condemnation.
Bow. XXII, 30; Mf. XXVI, 29; MP. XIV, 25.
Bow. XX, 36. Even for XX, 38 “all are alive with God” cf. 4 Macc. XVI, 25.
Matt. VII, 13. 14; John III, 16.
Matt. XVIII, 8.9; XXV, 46; MP. IX, 43 ff.
Matt. VIII, 11; Bow. XIII, 29; XVI, 23.
Matthew VIII, 22: Luke IX, 60.
John III, 36; V, 24; VI, 47; X, 10. 28.
John XI, 24. Also VI, 39. 40. 44.
John VI, 50. 51; VIII, 51.
John. V, 26; VI, 57; Matt. XVI, 16.
John VI, 32. 33 Wed. 1John V, 11.
John VI; 63; Mf. ΧΧ VI, 41 par.
The divine origin of spiritual life is one of those points of Christian teaching that is decisively rejected by evolutionary science. Meanwhile, reconciliation of religion and science is possible at this point. Natural-historical evolution is like ocean waves, the rhythm of which captures the surface of the ocean and does not reach its depth. Everything that is thrown into the upper waves from the depths of the ocean is picked up by them, but is not created by them, does not originate in them. Likewise, world life is deeper and more meaningful than natural-historical evolution: from the depths of life everything new appears in the natural-historical movement, and everything new in it is captured by it, but is not generated by it.
Primarily, the novelty of spiritual life, in which a person is pushed from earth to heaven, takes wings, acquires the character of unearthly absoluteness, comes at its origin from the conventional boundaries of natural-historical evolution, rises from the hidden depths of the world, descends from God, although, appearing, it necessarily enters the flow of visible evolution, clothed in natural-historical laws. Science and religion diverge irreconcilably only if the first, degenerating into metaphysics, puts the concept of evolution in the place of life, from the concept wants to explain all of life, and if the second, plunging into the fog of Gnosticism, transfers positive-logical ideas into the realm of mystery, wants to explain the whole mystery with positive knowledge. On the contrary, neither in the sphere of experience, which testifies to the heterogeneous areas of natural-historical and absolute-spiritual, revealed in time, but not exhausted by time, nor from the point of view of religious mystery, which is hidden behind a positive appearance, the conflict of religion and science is impossible.
Onion. XX, 27 ff. Mf. XXII, 23 ff. MP. XII, 18 ff.
John XIII, 34 35; XIV, 23; XV, 9. 10.
John III, 15 ff. V, 24; VI, 40. 47.
Mf. XXV, 46; also XIII, 43; XIX, 16–21 par. Wed. Rome. V, 21.
1John IV, 7. 8; also I, 2. 3; II, 20 ff. 24 – 25. 27.
John IV, 13. 14 Wed. VII, 38.
Matt. XVII, 20; MP. IX, 23.
Matt. VI, 24; Onion. XVI, 13.
John XIV, 27; Matt. VI, 34; Luke: VII, 50.
Matt. VI, 22; Onion. XI, 34.
Mf. XI, 19; Matt. II, 15 ff. Onion. VII, 37 ff. XIX, 5–10.
John XIV, 23; XV, 9–11.
Mf. IX, 15; MP. II, 19; Onion. V, 34.
Mf. XIII, 16. 17; Onion. X, 23.24; XI, 28.
Mf. V, 29.30; XVIII, 8.9; MP. IX, 49 ff.
Mf. V, 3 words. Onion. VI, 20 ff.
John I, 12. 13; 1John IV, 7.
John III, 3: ἄνωθεν means to again and above.
Mf. III, 11; Onion. XII, 49. 60.
John III, 8. A phenomenon similar to spiritual birth - Christ symbolizes His “coming” in a similar way to lightning, which is visible everywhere, but does not have a definite beginning and end, and is not confined to a specific place. Mf. XXIV, 27 par.
MP. IV. 26 – 29. However, this parable, like those indicated below, allows for another interpretation - in the sense of the relationship of the Christian spirit to the society of Christ’s disciples and the world. See below.
John VI, 44; XVII, 6.9; XVIII, 37.
Matt. VII, 13:14; Onion. XIII, 24.
Matt. VI, 25 – 32; Onion. XII, 22 – 30.
Matt. VI, 11; Onion. XI, 3.
Matt. XI, 19; Onion. VII, 34.
Matt. XXII, 2 words. XXV, Wed. XXVI, 29 Nar. The image of light appears frequently in the Gospel of John, starting with I, 4.
Bow. XIV, 12 – 14; XVI, 19 ff.
John VII, 7; Matt. X, 22. 25, etc.
Luke XII, 16 f. XVI, 19 ff.
Matt. VI, 21; Onion. XII, 34.
Matt. VI, 24; Onion. XVI. 13.
Onion. XXI, 34. 35 cp. XII. 35 – 46.
Matt. XI. 5 ; Onion. VII. 22; IV, 18.
Onion. VI, 20 – 25 cp. I. 51 – 53.
Matt. Χ II, 42 – 44; Onion. XXI, 2–4.
Onion. ХIV, 16 – 20; Matt. XXII, 1 – 5.
Matt. XIX, 3 ff. MP. X, 2 words.
Matt. XV, 4 – 6; MP. VII, 10 – 13.
Matt. V, 46. 47; Onion. VI, 32. 33.
Matt. X, 34 – 37; Onion. XII, 51 – 53; XIV, 26 – 27.
Matt. XII, 46 – 50 par. Wed. John XIX, 26. 25.
Mf. X, 34 – 37; Onion. XII, 51 – 53; XIV, 26 – 27.
Matt. X, 34 – 36; Onion. XII, 51 – 53.
Onion. IX, 57 – 62; Matt. VIII, 19–22.
Matt. XVIII, 1 – 4 par. XX, 25–28; XXIII, 11; Onion. XX, 25 – 27 ? John XIII, 4 – 15.
Matt. XXIII, 37; Onion. XIII, 34.
Matt. XXIII, 38; Onion. XIII; 35.
Mf. XVI, 25 par. John XII. 24, 25.
John XV, 18 – 20; XVII, 14; Matt. XXIV, 9; MP. XIII, 13.
Matt. X, 17. 18 par. 32. 33.
John VI, 50 51; VIII, 51.
Matt. XXI, 28 – 32; Wed Mf. VIII. 8 – 12 par. XV, 21 – 28 par. Onion. VII. 44–4.
Onion. XV, 7; XVI, 15; XVIII, 14 cp. XIV, 11; Matthew-XXIII, 12.
Mf. IX, 12 par. Luke XVIII, 14 Wed. XIV, 11; Matt. XXIII, 12.
Matt. II, 17; Onion. XV, 7; Wed VII, 47. 48.
And this was recognition of the historical merit of the Old Testament and, in particular, the legalistic regime. Wed. Rome. III, 20; IV, 15; VII and others
Mf. IX, 1 – 8 par. John, V, 14.
Matt. VII, 11; XII, 35; Luke VI, 45; XI, 13.
Matt. XIX, 17 par. Cp. 1John IV, 16.
Matt. VII, 11; Onion. XI, 13.
Mf. XII, 35; Onion. VI, 45.
Matt. VII, 16 – 18; XII, 33 – 35; Onion. VI, 43–45.
Mf. VI, 22 – 23; Onion. XI, 34.
Mf. XII, 34 – 45; Onion. VI, 45.
Mf. VI, 22 23; XII, 36 37.
Mf. V, 22 28; XII, 34; Onion. VI, 45.
Mf. XV, 19; MP. VII, 21. 22.
Mf. VIII, 22; Onion. IX, 60; XV, 24.82; XIX, 11 (Ma. XVIII, 11), etc.
Mf. VI, 12: τὰ ὀφειλ ή ματα ἡμῶν = Luke. XI, 4: τὰς ἁ μαρτ ί ας ἡμῶν. Wed. Onion. ХIII, 2: ἁ μαρτωλοὶ =XIII, 4: ὀφειλέται. Also Bow. VII, 36–50.
Mf. VII, 11; Onion. XI, 13.
Mf. V, 46. 47; Onion. VI, 32 – 34.
Mf. V, 44 – 48; Onion. VI, 32 – 36.
The Gospel stands in this case entirely on the basis of Old Testament psychology.
Matt. VI, 13; Onion. XI, 4; Mf. XXVI, 41; MP. XIV, 38; Onion. XXII, 46.
John IX, 41; Onion. XXIII, 34.
Mf. XII, 31; Matt. III, 28.
John IX, 41; Onion. XII, 47. 48; XXIII, 34.
Mf. VI, 14.15; MP. XI, 25; Mf. XVIII, 21 – 35; IX, 2–8; Onion. VI. 36 – 50; VII, 47, etc.
This historical meaning of the Gospel preaching does not exclude the similar meaning of the Old Testament law, as revealed by St. Pavel. Just as the humility and weakness of those who did not fulfill the law are absorbed by the broader gospel concept of religious duty, so in general the Old Testament law preceded gospel history in the matter of reviving sin (Rom...VII, 8.9). But the Gospel, which included nomistic weakness in the mainstream of universal human religious duty, carried out this work of reviving sin in the spirit of the absoluteness of eternal life and its universality.
Mf. XII, 31. 32; Matt. III, 28. 29.
John VII, 12; Mf. XII, 24 par.
John III, 19; VIII, 44. 47; XVIII, 37.
Matt. X, 15 par. XI, 22. 24 Nar.
Mf. XXIV, 21; XXV, 34; Onion. XI, 50; John XVII, 5.
Matt. XVI, ,26; Matt. VIII, 36; Onion. IX, 25.
John XVIII, 36; Matt. XX, 25. 26 par.
John XVII, 5; Matt. XXIV, 21; XXV, 34; Onion. XI, 50.
Matt. XVI, 26; Matt. VIII, 36; Onion. IX, 25.
John VIII, 3336; XII, 31; XIV, 17; XVII, 14. 25.
Matt. VI, 13; Onion. XI, 4.
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