Lessons from the deeds and words of the Lord God and our Savior Jesus Christ

Contents A) Lessons from the deeds and words of the Lord God and our Savior Jesus Christ B) The theology of St. John the Theologian about the Divinity of the Lord Savior and the economy of our salvation 1) Christ is risen! “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was to God, and God was the Word” (John 1:1) 2) “All things were made by Him, and without Him nothing came into being” (John 1:3) 3) The Lord is the Provider of all 4) “And life was the light of man” (John 1:4) 5) “And the light shines in darkness, and darkness does not comprehend it” (John 1:5) 6) The darkness of the fall is sinful darkness C) The meaning of St. John the Baptist of the Lord D) Characteristics of true light A) Lessons from the deeds and words of the Lord God and our Savior Jesus Christ We are created in the image and likeness of God. The image is in our spiritual nature, in consciousness, free activity and immortality; similarity is in the reflection of Divine perfections. Be... perfect, - the Lord commands, - as your Father in heaven is perfect (Matthew 5:48). In another place He also points out one of the features of God’s perfection for imitation: be... merciful, as... Your Father is merciful (Luke 6:36). Mercy, therefore, is placed at the head, while further features of obligatory godlikeness: holiness, righteousness, wisdom, etc. are left to us to complete ourselves. But God’s all-perfection is limitless; and a pure mind is not able to embrace them even to the extent that they are comprehensible to us, much less is it possible for us to do this after the eyes of our mind have been clouded with darkness due to the fall. Meanwhile, this powerlessness of the mind does not take away the strength of the obligation to likeness to God, which is posited in the structure of our very spiritual nature. Therefore, the Restorer of the fallen, Who is the radiance of glory and the image of His hypostasis (Heb. 1:3), who deigned to appear on earth through the incarnation and arrange here the work of our salvation, among other needs of restoration, satisfied this one. He personified in Himself all the perfections of God, as they can be assimilated by the forces of human nature, in the life characteristic of all people. After this, the obligatory likeness to God and the imitation of God is fulfilled by the likeness of Christ and the imitation of Christ. Be imitators of me, says the Apostle Paul, as you were of Christ (1 Cor. 11:1). And the Lord Himself commanded: whoever wants to follow Me, let him follow (Luke 9:23), doing as He did, and faithfully fulfilling His commandments. He explained this when, concluding His earthly stay, He said: “I have given you an image, that as I have created for you, you should do likewise” (John 13:15). Although this concerned one action of the Lord (John 13:1–14); but this action is of such a nature that it embraces everything. Just imitate this, and you will imitate the Lord in everything, for here the spirit of life in Christ Jesus is expressed. That is why the Apostle Paul was primarily concerned that Christ should be “imagined” in all believers (Gal. 4:19), so that, having truly believed in Christ, they would carry His image within themselves constantly and reflect this image in life, so that, having put on Christ in baptism, they would reveal Christ in themselves to everyone who sees them, walking lightly “in newness of life” (Rom. 6:4), in the likeness of the lightness of the risen One. Gentlemen. We are the fragrance of Christ, says Saint Paul for all the Apostles (2 Cor. 2:15): but this is not the advantage of the Apostles alone, but the duty of all Christians. Just as a fragrant flower, spilling its fragrance around, makes everyone aware of its presence, so every Christian, living Christ-like and tuning inwardly, should spread the fragrance of Christ’s perfections around him, so that everyone, with its appearance, will feel the presence of the spirit of Christ. This should have happened as if naturally, because everyone, in baptism by faith, graciously receives into himself the spirit of life in Christ Jesus (Rom. 8:2). The spirit of life in Christ Jesus, revealing itself in deeds, should itself produce a Christ-like life. But human life is not the same as plant life. Here, a person throws a seed into the ground, and it automatically produces roots, stems and grains. Man is distinguished by consciousness and freedom, and his life is not a chain of phenomena, one necessarily flowing from the other, but a series of actions, consciously undertaken and spontaneously accomplished. He plans a way of life for himself and then carries it out. And only in this form is his life a truly human life, rationally free. A Christian, a Christ-imitator by rank, does not need to tire his head outlining his way of life. He has before him the image of the life of the Lord Christ. Everyone look at it and live according to it. How a painter looks at the original and transfers line by line onto the finished canvas; Likewise, a Christian needs to look at the features of the Lord’s life and transfer them into his life. The true life of Christ Jesus is depicted in the Gospel, in the deeds and words of our Lord Jesus Christ. Read, listen and learn to live according to Christ, imitating His works and following His teaching. The Holy Church guides you to this work, offering you a short reading from the Gospel every day. Therefore, every day there are many lessons that you can learn either from what the Lord did or from what He said. Follow everything, and Christ will be mentally imagined in you; It will then be up to you to display Him in life. The following reflections are offered as a guide to this. They are the fruit of one soul; others may see something different in the same legends. However, not only many, but also all together will not exhaust everything that is contained in the Gospel. Why are these reflections offered not as a completed task, but only as an experience, as a stimulant of the self-indulgent wisdom that sleeps in all, so that everyone himself ascends to the contemplation of Christ, as he exactly needs, and imitates Him in a way that is possible for him, according to the structure and course of his life. To find out with what disposition one should begin to read the Gospel and understand its lessons, you need to see with what disposition Saint Luke began to write the Gospel. Just as he was disposed to write, so we should be disposed to study what is written. 1) It is your will,” says Saint Luke, “to me too (Luke 1:3). The will is the beginning of the matter. Where there is no will, things either don’t work out at all, or they go unsuccessfully, being done out of captivity. You must know the Gospel, but begin to fulfill this duty, not as if drawn by a rope, but self-willingly, with warm desire and love; for is there anything on earth higher than that of which the Holy Gospel speaks? They rush into stories filled with empty dreams that tickle only the taste, without giving anything significant; and here is one truth, and a truth so precious to you. God appeared in the flesh (1 Tim. 3:16) to teach you, redeem you, and open your entrance to His Kingdom of Heaven. Even if this wonderful event had not concerned you, you would not have been able to resist being curious about how it all happened, how it began, proceeded and how it ended. But when all this has been done for you, not to have warm zeal to study such a comforting legend means to reveal the senseless deadness of the spirit; for only the dead are not interested in what essentially concerns him. Saint Luke assures that the Gospel contains events that were then known to all Christians. Everyone knew the Holy Gospel, both old and young, both noble and not, both busy with business and having a lot of free time. Why is this so? Because everyone loved to do it and preferred talking about it to any other intelligence work. And not only then, but at all times, the fear of God and piety attracted the Christian to the Gospel in order to feed his spirit with it. And now many do this - many, both in monasticism, and in the clergy, and in the nobility, and in the middle and lower class. Will it not be ashamed, after this, to lag behind the host of true Christians? And it would be good if the work was great; It is not intricately woven wisdom that is offered, but a simple legend, understandable even to children. Just open your eyes to read or your ears to hear and pay a little attention, and you will understand everything. The inexhaustible wealth of vision will be drawn, and the indescribable sweetness will be tasted; 2) position yourself for this activity in such a way that you can always approach it with the same desire with which a hungry person rushes to the table and a thirsty person rushes to cool water. Do not forget, however, to remove all questioning. Approach with simplicity of heart, with faith that everything contained in the Gospel is the undoubted most perfect truth. “These,” says Saint Luke, “are known (taught with convincing evidence and accepted with full conviction of the truth) things (Luke 1:1). “For,” says Theophylact (Bulgarian), “what relates to Christ is not just known, according to unfounded tradition, but is true, completely true and completely demonstrative” (Interpretation of the Gospel of Luke.1). Why is this so? Because these were handed over to us by those who, from the very beginning of the appearance of the incarnate God of the Word to the world, were eyewitnesses and servants of Him (Luke 1:2). The Holy Apostles retold to the believers everything that they saw in the Lord and from the Lord and that they heard from His mouth. The believers accepted it with an open soul, and it was the true Gospel written in their hearts. What was written on the charter came later, when the holy Apostles decided to convey what was written in their hearts in writing for the safest perpetuation. Two of the twelve wrote it, and the other two under their direction. Many others also wrote, but all those gospels were rejected by the Apostles themselves as not containing pure truth. The pure truth is only in our four Gospels. This is how the holy Apostles conveyed it to the Church, and this is how the Church has maintained it to this day. Nowadays other self-invented gospels are also heard: but just as the Church did not accept false gospels then, so now it rejects the gospels invented by the spirit of the age. Close your ear to them and do not want to know any other gospel than the one that is read in the Church, and accept everything contained in it with faith, as the Holy Church accepts and understands it. You cannot build buildings on unsteady ground: you cannot build spiritually if you allow your spirit to be wavered by superstition and perplexity and seek solutions for them. Leave this external work to others, but yourself, going inside both yourself and the Gospel and not being distracted by extraneous considerations, drink the water of spiritual life hidden here; 3) the bee finds the color without difficulty, but uses labor to extract honey particles from it. It is not difficult for someone with meaning and a simple heart to understand what almost every text of the Gospel says: but it is impossible without difficulty to extract everything hidden in it, to assimilate it and put it into practice. The evangelist began writing the Gospel after careful research (Luke 1:3). You begin to read and study the Gospel and teach yourself about it with the desire to carefully delve into everything that is written. Don’t just read haphazardly just to complete your assigned lesson for the day by reading from the beginning; but read diligently in order to assimilate what you read and feed your soul with it. It is better to read one or several poems with benefit than to skim through entire chapters without edifying the soul. The general law here is to occupy the whole soul with what is being read: a) the mind - by understanding and decomposing the thoughts hidden in what is understood; b) heart - by arousing sympathy for the power of truths; and c) will - the willingness to follow the lessons that follow from them. When you have carried the poem along this entire path, move on to another and, having done the same with it, proceed to the third and so on. The soul will be satisfied, and that’s enough. This is the essence and measure of the soul-saving reading of the Holy Gospel! This cannot be done without a struggle; for our mind suffers either from laziness and immobility, or from theft of thoughts, the heart from weakness, the will from stubbornness. He is attentive, imbued with the fear of God, and easily overcomes these domestic enemies. Let the mind be wasted in light daydreams and constantly run away from serious work: each time bring it back and put it back to work abandoned. Do not arbitrarily indulge in dreams; stop the involuntary ones immediately, as you notice, without being embarrassed by the fact that they are frequent, and without getting tired of the labor of gathering attention. Idle thoughts are a disease of a fallen mind. Pray that the Lord will heal him. When your attention is focused, good thoughts will naturally flow from what you read and think about. Now keep your heart open under them and force it to perceive them with a warm feeling. Just as sparks from flint, falling on a flammable substance, ignite it, so holy truths, falling on the heart, will then penetrate into it, arouse sympathy for oneself and extract it from the environment of personal feelings and created impressions that cool it. When the truth is accepted by the heart and loved, it becomes ours, assimilated, and only from this moment does the soul-saving benefit of reading and spiritual reflection begin. The brightest thoughts are fruitless until the heart is touched by them. One word that penetrates the heart is more valuable to life than a whole cloud and not empty thoughts floating in the head without any impact on the heart. Truth, assimilated by the heart, always appeals to everyone in the way that it can be applied to his particular life. Such is the law that all deeds of truth always pass through the heart. They are translated by the fear of God, under the influence of which the will makes its decisions on matters indicated by truths understood by the mind and assimilated by the heart. Here internal acts of good deeds are performed by deciding to do this and that or constantly do; but these inner impulses for deeds pleasing to God must be given a place in real life, so that they do not remain empty flowers. By decreeing and accepting rules for one’s outer behavior and for organizing one’s inner life, with determination to immediately begin and implement them, even on the same day, the hardworking and reasonable reading of the Holy Gospel ends; 4) the fruit of such reading will be an understanding of how solid everything that is taught to us in the Gospel about the Person of the Lord Jesus Christ and about the work of salvation that He accomplished. Read in order to achieve the same thing for which the Holy Gospel was written: that you understand, you have learned the same words about them (Luke 1:4). In the initial education, in childhood, we receive, in general outlines, knowledge about the works, miracles, teachings, suffering, death and resurrection of the Lord; but when you begin to study the Gospel in the manner shown, you will receive detailed and complete knowledge about all this. When we collect together the stories of all four evangelists, we bring them into the possible order and sequence, and discuss them properly; then all the circumstances of each gospel event will become clear to us - time, place, occasion, and everything, as a whole, will be imagined as one harmonious, majestic picture. Clarity and completeness of knowledge spreads joy; the recognized harmony of the whole imparts firmness to knowledge; and all together creates the spirit, helping it to develop freely in its own sphere, just as a flower blooms magnificently under the beneficial rays of the sun. Along with this fullness will come the depth of knowledge of the Gospel, or its deepening in the heart. For, if for every day we take one event or one conversation of the Lord, dwell on it alone, delve into it with all our attention, embrace it from all sides, comprehend its place as a whole, arousing at the same time the corresponding feelings and dispositions - in a word, exhaust from it everything that is essential for us and our life - then what wondrous things will be revealed to us in the simplest apparently cases and words, what sympathy is formed from this for everything that is in the Gospel, even one that, during ordinary reading, always passed without any particular trace - what appreciation will be felt by every, at first insignificant, particular! This deepening into the Gospel will transfer the Gospel into the heart, surrounding it there with a deep conviction of how sublime, Divine, close to us and dear to our heart everything is. When this happens, then a conviction will come, as firm as life, that everything in the Gospel is immutable and true. How firmly stands a tree that has taken deep roots into the ground; Thus, the tree of faith becomes steadfast against the wind of any doubts when the entire Gospel is accepted by the heart and brought into life. He who has tasted the truth of truth by deed cannot accommodate the bewilderment in it, even if the whole world gathers to outrage him. He will have one answer to everything: I know in my heart that everything is as it is written in the Gospel. How can you convince someone that such food is bitter when, when he eats it, he feels that it is sweet? So it is here. In response to all the wrong rumors, the heart will say: everything here is holy, everything is Divine; None of the people can do this or say this. These are the words and deeds of truly God incarnate. And no one can write about all this, done and spoken, as it is written, except the one who is guided by the Spirit of God. These are not human writings, but Divine ones. What human writing combines such grandeur and simplicity? What human writing, offering the most sublime truths, preserves artlessness in language, turns of phrase and in the combination of the whole, and at the same time is distinguished by strength and dignity, inimitable for human writings? On the forehead of the Gospel lies the stamp of immutable truth and its Divine origin. There is no art or passion in him. And the very words and events contained in it represent the character of the Divine Lordship, proclaiming the Divinity of the One who created some and spoke others. Thus, if you want to properly teach yourself the Gospel, then kindle in yourself zeal for this activity and continue it with faith and hardworking diligence, and you will receive fruit - confirmation in the truth of everything contained in the Gospel, and confirmation of all its truths in your heart and life. When starting to write or study history, the first one lets you know, and the other wants to know who the person is about. So, those who begin to understand the Gospel and teach themselves through it must first have a clear understanding of Him whose deeds and words are depicted in the Holy Gospel. The Holy Prophet, foreseeing His appearance, exclaimed: Who can confess His generation? (Isa.53:8). And the people who saw Him appear on earth wondered who He was and where He came from? The Holy Gospel resolves the confusion by definitively saying who He is, where He came from and how He came? The Evangelist Matthew, presenting His genealogy, makes it clear that He is a descendant of David and Abraham (Matthew 1:1). But Saint Luke ascends further along the series of holy patriarchs and reaches the most primordial; without stopping, however, even on it, he goes beyond the boundaries of creatures and ascends to God Himself, saying that He is God’s (Luke 3:38). What does this mean of God, explains Saint John the Theologian in his lofty (high) theology about God the Word. He is God’s not like other creatures, but as God the Word, beginningless and consubstantial, like the Only Begotten Son of God incarnate (John 1:14,18). And this is who the Holy Gospel preaches about! God in the flesh, or in human nature, true God and true man in one Person. Saint Matthew and Luke in their genealogy say how He is a man (Matthew 1:1-17, Luke 3:23-38); and Saint John teaches how He is God (John 1:1–4,14,18). But just as those do not stop at humanity alone, but ascend to His Divinity, concluding the genealogy with evidence that He is God’s, so this one does not only contemplate the Divinity, but descends to His appearance into the world by incarnation, revealing, as the eternal Word, existing with the Father, the flesh became and dwelt in us (John 1:14). Those testify that He is not only a man, but also God; and this one suggests that He is not only God, but also man: He is all one and the same, both God and man. Confession of this constitutes the essence of faith about the Face of Jesus Christ, so that neither humanity is swallowed up by the Divinity, nor the Divinity is denied for the sake of humanity, but both are contemplated united in one thing only - our Savior. This confession is the stone on which the Lord created His Holy Church, which therefore, without hesitation, rejected everything contrary to this norm of belief. She rejected Arius, who belittled the Divinity in the Savior, and the Docetes (sect), who did not know humanity, and Nestorius, who did not understand the wondrous combination of Divinity and humanity in the one Person of Jesus Christ. Such is more fitting for us (Heb.7:26) Savior and Restorer of the fallen! Uniting in Himself both Divinity and humanity, He, as God the Son, consubstantial with the Father, is one with Him and, as the Son of Man, consubstantial with men, He is one with them - He is one and the same. And He thus became a mediator, reuniting fallen humanity with God in Himself. All believers, by the power of the sacraments established by Him, become one with Him, and through Him and in Him they are united with God, in communion with Whom, living and essential, people are destined to be in creation itself. And the predetermined combination into one, or the predetermined integrity of everything created, is realized, upset by the fall. It was as if one link had fallen from God, but it was the one on which everything else was held together. One man fell, but disorder through his fall was introduced into all creation, both material and spiritual, and there was no harmonious wholeness. Saint Paul tells us how in God incarnate all things, both earthly and heavenly, are again presided over, and the harmony ordained from the ages is introduced into all things (Eph. 1:10). How could Jesus Christ manifest such an action if He were not God? Such is His power in the wholeness of all things. In relation to us, humans, He showed the power to reunite us who had fallen with God, by reconciling us with Him, because, as the infinite God, having made an infinitely valuable sacrifice to the infinite God, He satisfied His infinite righteousness and thus opened through Himself to everyone access to God the Father, in Whom is our true life (Eph. 2:18). We would either cease to exist completely after the fall, or if we existed, we would exist as if dead, having no true life in ourselves. But from the moment of the first promise in paradise (Gen. 3:15), He became our intercessor, and we continued and continue to live by virtue of this intercessory mediation, by virtue of the fact that from Him Divine life comes to us, reviving us. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ” (Eph. 1:3). Yes, you believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God and God; for only by believing in this way will we be worthy to receive true life... in His name (John 20:31). This is the eternal determination of God that only he who believes in the Son of God as God can have life (John 6:40). Over those who do not believe in Him as God and Redeemer, the wrath of God remains extended, the power of which is eternal destruction. Let us take refuge under this canopy of confession of the Divinity of Jesus Christ; for otherwise the wrath of God will not pass by. Whoever confesses this is God’s; and whoever does not confess is the Antichrist (1 John 4:3). Nowadays there are many people filled with the spirit of Antichrist; Let us close our ears to their pernicious speeches. They magnify themselves in wisdom; in fact, they only reveal their own foolishness; For seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear: the heart of these people has grown dull (coarse). We, in the light of the Face of God incarnate, will go, so that we may rejoice in Your name forever (Ps. 89:16-17). B) Theology of Saint John the Theologian about the Divinity of the Lord Savior and about the economy of our salvation The most sublime thought that the human mind can reach is the thought of God. It elevates the mind itself, and with the mind the whole soul, and, finally, the whole nature of man. And it is such not because the mind can grasp anything in God, but because of one, so to speak, contact of the mind with God, one of its aspiration into the realm of the Divine with renunciation from all created things. In God, everything is incomprehensible - the nature of God, the Trinity, the properties of the Divine, and His actions. The first sound thought of the mind about God is the consciousness of His all-round incomprehensibility, with an unshakable conviction in His existence, all-perfection and all-action in general in creatures and especially in man. He cannot help but confess the latter, but how all this exists in God and in what outlines he is not able to comprehend. Comprehension of incomprehensibility in everything, even what is confessed about God, is the most sublime act of the mind, is a true expression of its humble and reverent worship of God. God is incomprehensible. But since without knowledge of God it is impossible for a person who is destined for communion with God, and, moreover, to ascend to this consciously and intelligently; then God was pleased to reveal to him about Himself, as far as he can understand, for even in the revealed there remains much that is incomprehensible; only what and how much he must confess to achieve his final goal is open. Thank the Lord! Although at the same time everything is almost contemplated, as if with a faint flickering of light, as if in a fog; but the totality of the knowledge given to us is such that it is sufficient to guide a person to his destiny. Even in this form it is a luminary shining in a dark place. The essence of everything revealed to us about God and Divine things is set out by Saint John the Theologian in a few verses at the beginning of his Gospel. He begins with the mystery of the Most Holy Trinity, moves on to creation, points to the primitive state of the ancestors and their fall, to the preparation of the fallen to receive the Deliverer and the appearance of the Forerunner. Next, he depicts the appearance on earth of God the Word in the incarnation and how it was not accepted by some, but accepted by others, and what fruit those who accepted Him had and have, and concludes by indicating the superiority of the Revelation given by the Son of God over all those that preceded it, or the completion in Him of Divine Revelations to us: for, after the Son of God, who else can give us the most perfect Revelation about God? The essence of all this Revelation and the entire content of our confession can be expressed in the following few words: God, worshiped in the Trinity, saves us fallen in the Lord Jesus Christ, His only begotten Son. The true God is God worshiped in the Trinity, and there is no other God except the Trinitarian God. There is one true God, and this God is Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The Holy Church depicts the entire confession of the Most Holy Trinity, in the words of St. Athanasius the Great, in the following provisions: “the universal faith consists in our honoring the One God in Trinity and the Trinity in Unity, without merging the hypostases and without dividing the essence. For there is another hypostasis of the Father, another hypostasis of the Son, another of the Holy Spirit. But the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are one Divinity, the glory is equal and the greatness is coeternal. Like the Father, like the Son, like the Holy Spirit. The Father was not created, and the Son was not created, and the Holy Spirit was not created. The Father is incomprehensible, and the Son is incomprehensible, and the Holy Spirit is incomprehensible. The Father is eternal, and the Son is eternal, and the Holy Spirit is eternal. However, not three eternal, but One eternal; as well as not three uncreated, and not three incomprehensible, but One uncreated, One incomprehensible. Like this. The Father is Almighty, the Son is Almighty, the Holy Spirit is Almighty; however, not three Almighties, but One Almighty. So, the Father is God, the Son is God, the Holy Spirit is God; however, there are not three Gods, but One God. And also the Father is Lord, the Son is Lord, the Holy Spirit is Lord; however, there are not three Lords, but One Lord. For just as Christian truth encourages us to confess each hypostasis separately as God and Lord, so universal piety forbids us to say that there are three Gods and three Lords. The Father is not created, not created, not begotten from anyone. The Son from one Father is not created, not made, but begotten. The Holy Spirit is not created, created, or begotten from the Father, but proceeds. And in this Trinity there is no first or last, no greater or lesser, but the three hypostases are completely coeternal and equal to each other; so that, according to what was said before, in everything one should give worship to the Trinity in Unity, and to Unity in Trinity. This is how everyone who wants to be saved should understand about the Holy Trinity” (Psalter with Ascension). Recreate this confession in your mind as you begin to understand the teaching of Saint John the Theologian about the Divinity of the Son of God, so that the thought does not somehow occur to you that the Holy Spirit is excluded here. Everything that is said here about God the Son can and should be applied to God the Holy Spirit. Saint John does not remember Him for the sake of introducing us into the contemplation primarily of the Only Begotten Son of God, about Whom the entire Gospel is. God the Trinitarian is indivisible in Himself despite the separateness of Persons; but our weak thought requires that it interpret the essence of the confession about each Person separately, in order to then ascend to the contemplation of Their inseparability in the One Divinity. 1) Christ is risen! “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was to God, and God was the Word” (John 1:1) At the beginning - at what beginning? At the beginning of every beginning. Whatever beginning you come up with, the Word already existed before this beginning; Therefore, don’t bother inventing the beginning of the Word. It is beginningless, just as the Father and the Holy Spirit are beginningless. It is impossible to say that first there was the Father, then the Son was born and the Holy Spirit came out: but as soon as there is a Father, there is also a Son, there is also a Holy Spirit. Just as the Father is without beginning, He and the Father are without beginning, so are both birth and procession. The Son is born without beginning, and the Holy Spirit proceeds without beginning. This is the image of the existence of the true God, that in Him from the beginning there is the unbegotten and unproceeding Father, the begotten Son and the emanating Holy Spirit. Unbornness, birth and originality - the personal properties of the hypostases of the Most Holy Trinity express their eternal, incomprehensible relationships with each other; but they do not give the idea that there was a moment when the Son and the Holy Spirit began to be. Just think, maybe this does not deny the very birth of the Son and the procession of the Holy Spirit? Both are denied, if you mean by them acts that had a beginning. If you admit this, then you will have to admit at the same time that God is not from the beginning as He is - Father, Son and Holy Spirit - but entered into the fullness of His being through separate acts of self-revelation. And if this is allowed, then the concept of God will be distorted. God who reveals himself is not God. The True God, without beginning, is Trinity in Persons, with the Unity of Nature - Father, Son and Holy Spirit, unmerged and indivisible. Birth and procession, of course, are the best terms for expressing the relationship of the Persons of the Most Holy Trinity in human language and for people; It’s true that they, better than any other words, correspond to the essence of those relationships when the Holy Spirit was pleased to choose them and not others. But one cannot think that they express them completely as they are, much less can one apply them to the Divine completely in the sense in which they are used when expressing created relations. We cannot even say definitively how the birth of the Son differs from the procession of the Holy Spirit. It is best of all, recognizing our own powerlessness and ignorance in this regard, to always limit ourselves to the exact confession of the word of God taught to us and interpreted by the Holy Church, that birth and non-birth are only the subtlest distinguishing features of the hypostases in the Unity of the Divine, so strong, however, that they block any attempt to merge these hypostases. So Saint John, in the words: in the beginning was the Word, said that the Word is without beginning, “without beginning the Father and the Spirit.” But so that, when you hear about beginninglessness, you do not think that the beginningless, therefore in itself, is a special being, a special God, separate from God the Father, and so that you do not fall, thus, into twotheism, and if the same reasoning is applied to the Holy Spirit, then into tremors, Saint John added: and the Word was not to God, or was with God. The Son does not exist separately, but exists with God. As they say among people: a son does not live in a special house, but lives with his father, and they have everything in common; So John says about the Word: It was with the Father in order to make it clear that They are inseparable and that They have everything in common: not one creation and the government of the world, which began to be, were common, but before the beginning of every creature there was everything common - common, that is, the Divine nature; for there was nothing then except the Divinity. So: the Word was with God - that means it was in communion of the same Divine nature with the Father. For the Divine nature, numerically speaking, is one, one and the same in the Father, and in the Son, and in the Holy Spirit; therefore They are consubstantial. In words: The Word was from God - the same thing is said below in other words: the Only Begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father (John 1:18); or that the Lord Himself said: I and the Father are one (John 10:30); and again: I am in the Father, and the Father is in Me (John 14:10); or what the Apostle suggests about the Holy Spirit, that He is the Spirit living in God and leading all things of God (1 Cor. 2:11). By the position: The Word was with God - Saint John affirms the inseparability of the nature of the Son with the nature of the Father, and by the way of expression he suggests the unmergence of the hypostases, for, saying: The Word was to God, he makes it clear that It relates to the Father as a Person to a Person, that It is the hypostatic Word, and not any power or property of the Divine. Not being satisfied, however, with this indication, from which you could yourself draw an inference (conclusion) about the peculiarity of the hypostasis of the Son before the Face of the Father, and fearing that, although you could do this, you might not do it, he considered it necessary to say directly: God is the Word. It is not some property of the Divine, wisdom, for example, or creative and providential power, but God, the Word God. Everything that you confess about God applies to Him. In Him there is everything that is included in the concept of God. God is living and self-existent; Such is the Word, or the Son (such is the Holy Spirit). God is beginningless, unchanging, immeasurable; Such is the Son (such is the Holy Spirit). God is omnipresent, omniscient, omnipotent, omnigood, omnirighteous; Such is the Son (such is the Holy Spirit). God is the Creator and Provider; Such is the Son (such is the Holy Spirit). With such an understanding of the Son and the Spirit, who would dare to merge them in the single hypostasis of the Father? They have a common nature; it is the same for everyone, but the hypostasis is separate. Saint John seemed to have foreseen Paul of Samosata and Sabellius, who did not understand the separateness of Persons in the One God. The first said: that in our soul there is mind, will and heart; then in the Godhead the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit; these are, as it were, different forces of the Divine individual nature. The second taught that the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are not Persons of the Most Holy Trinity, but different appearances and revelations of one and the same one-hypostatic God. Such, far from the truth, wisdom was prevented by Saint John with one saying: God is the Word (we lead: and the Holy Spirit). If the Word is God and the Holy Spirit is God, then they are no longer impersonal Divine powers, but separate Persons in the One Godhead; not the appearance or revelation of the One God, but separate hypostases, separately revealed, while being inseparable by nature or preserving the consubstantiality of the Divine. Regarding such concepts, the Persons of the Most Holy Trinity could again seem too separate - and someone else could move from the separateness of the Persons to the thought of the separateness of nature. Therefore, Saint John added: This one from time immemorial is to God (John 1:2), meaning that the Word, while personally separate from the Father, as God, was from beginnings in communion of one nature with the Father. Here the holy evangelist meekly combines in one position all the previous truths - about originlessness, hypostasis and consubstantiality, in order to more deeply imprint these concepts in the minds and hearts of believers. One might, however, think that Saint John wanted to prevent another wrongdoing with this provision. Hearing that the Word was God, another might think: God is God, but not without beginning, not God in Himself, but according to His power and significance in creatures. Thus did Arius, and even more after him the Arians. Their Son was God, but not uncreated. He is their first created essence, from which everything then came into existence and by which everything is governed. Everything in creatures is produced through Him; but He Himself is not consubstantial with the Father, is not one with Him, but was produced by God the Father out of nothing. Against this, Saint John, or, more precisely, the Holy Spirit who guided him, put the last word: This one from time immemorial to God. The Aryan Son received the beginning from God the Father, although before any other creature; but the true Son of God, God the Word, was without beginning with the Father, in communion of the one Divine nature with the Father, or without beginning was and is consubstantial with the Father. Therefore, it is wicked to think that He received the beginning and exists from nothing. Then He is not God, and whoever bows to Him will bow not to God, but to a creature, and therefore will not be a true worshiper of the true God. Thus, Saint John combined in a few words the entire theology about the sacrament of the Most Holy Trinity. His whole concern, as you see, was to avert reasons for dividing nature and merging hypostases. For this purpose, he selected word by word, both with restraint from the confusing verbosity, and with sufficient completeness, in order to let everyone understand that God should be confessed as Trinitarian, “lower merging the hypostases, lower dividing the being.” This is what the Lord our Savior is in the sacrament of the Most Holy Trinity! The only begotten Son of God, without beginning, the hypostatic Word, consubstantial with the Father, and God. 2) “All things were made by Him, and without Him nothing came into being” (John 1:3) Having depicted the Divine nature of the Word as it exists in the Most Holy Trinity, Saint John also points to His Creativity and transfers us from the contemplation of the beginningless Trinity Deity to the contemplation of how all creatures received their beginning from the Beginning. All the same. This says the same thing as the Apostle Paul: for in Him all things were created, both in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones, whether dominions, whether principalities, whether powers, all kinds of things were created in Him also (Col. 1:16). Or in another place: You, Lord, founded the earth, and the works of Your hand are the heavens (Heb. 1:10). Or again: but for us... there is one Lord Jesus Christ, in whom are all things (1 Cor. 8:6). Only He who, by nature, is Himself, can create and give being—God, beginningless and infinite. But so as not to again give a reason to separate Him from the Father and the Holy Spirit, Saint John, deepening the thought about the Divinity of the Word, adds: and without Him nothing would have happened. Not a single creature received existence without Him, apart from Him, without His participation (St. Hilary in his treatise on the Trinity). The Son of God is the Creator, not separately from the other hypostases of the Divine, but at one with Them. God the Word created everything in communion of the one Divine creative nature with the Father and the Holy Spirit. The external actions of the Divine are the inseparable actions of the three hypostases. Therefore, the Creator Father, the Creator Son, the Creator Holy Spirit, and not three Creators, but there is one Creator, according to the single creative action of the Divine. Depicting this in one saying, the prophet David sings: By the word of the Lord the heavens were established, and by the spirit of his mouth was all their strength (Ps. 32:6). Our weak thought, contemplating omnipotence in creatures, is ready to attribute it to God the Father, contemplating wisdom, is ready to attribute it to God the Son, contemplating vitality, is ready to attribute it to God the Spirit: but a sound confession does not dare to distinguish in the matter of creation the special acts of the Divine hypostases, but believes that creation is the work of God, worshiped in the Trinity, inseparable. The Son and the Holy Spirit are not co-operators of the Father in creation, but inseparable co-actors with Him. By a single act of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, the creation of everything was accomplished. Therefore, in creation there are no traces that would reflect the special actions of the hypostases: but there is a sharp trace pointing to the Trinity. This is everywhere, passing through all degrees of creatures, trinity. Three world forces: light, warmth, heaviness; three planetary: electricity, magnetism, chemistry; three elemental seats of these forces: air, water, earth - and three departments of bodies of the inorganic kingdom; three functions in plants and their three main divisions; three functions in animal organisms, on top of three plant ones; three parts in a person: spirit, soul and body, and three functions in each; and about the Angels it is known that they have three main degrees, each of which is again divided into three. Isn’t this triplicity evidence of the Trinity of God the Creator? What prompted God to create? God the Trinitarian, as the fullness of being and perfection, is all-satisfied with Himself and all-blessed; He cannot have any need for anything, because He has everything. If He moved to create the world and everything in it, then He did it not out of any necessity, but according to His completely free will, according to the good pleasure of His will (Eph. 1:5). There can be no question of external coercion here. If there were any internal necessity, in the nature of any need of the Divine nature, so that Creativity was an inalienable essential property of the Divine, then the act of creation would have to be recognized as beginningless or everlastingly active in God, and creation as coeternal and coeternal with God, which cannot be allowed. By the creation of this world, immense for us, nothing was added to the Divine fullness and nothing was taken away from it. Meanwhile, however, the world is not alien to God, but His own. The benevolence of goodness, which gave rise to the world, underlies the continuation of His existence. The expression of this is all kinds of blissfulness of creatures, which constitutes the main idea of ​​​​the structure of the world and the main tone of the movement of the phenomena of world existence, from its physical and moral side. This is the goal of God’s providential actions, which is indicated by faith and to the clairvoyance of which, although so far unsuccessfully, the mind strives, without, however, losing hope of success. To do this, you need to see through the visible into the invisible; what is visible stops and blocks the path of vision, and that is why everything is dark. Only faith firmly believes that everything will finally appear in the light of complete perfection and bliss. She, combining this expected end with the beginning, sees the destiny of all that exists and happens in the original plan of the world. When and how everything temporal was destined in the eternal and then came to fruition, this is the mystery of God. But it was predestined, and what now exists and happens is and happens according to that predestination. This is the wisdom of God. The wisdom of God itself speaks about itself from the Wise One: The Lord acquired me the beginning of His ways in His works, before the ages was the foundation of me, in the beginning, before He created the earth; and then he adds: when you prepared the heavens, you were with Him, when... the strong one created the foundations of the earth, you built them with Him. I began to rejoice over her..., always rejoicing, having completed the whole world (Proverbs 8:22–23,27, 29–31). Thus, the beginning, the continuation, and the completion of creation are all according to the wise destiny laid down before the ages. When, having completed creation, God said: “This is very good” (Gen. 1:31) - this meant that everything was fully consistent with the wise plan and intentions of God. The time has not yet come to put this seal of approval on everything that happens or on the movement of world existence. Only the all-seeing eye of God sees how everything is directed towards such that at the end of the entire movement it will be said: this is great, so that it will be seen and confessed by everyone - and it will be. How the mind would like to comprehend all this and definitely express it! But this is not given to him. There are no words in human language to express this. And Revelation is silent, saying little from this hiddenness of the mysteries of God. Accept this wholeheartedly and, being content with this now, expect complete clarification in the future. Having considered everything we know about the beginning of the world and from the beginning of the world until now, we can confidently say that the material world is intended to be a field for the development of rationally free creatures, subject to transformation, along with their elevation to the highest degrees of perfection. Reasonably free creatures are destined for godlike perfection and, as a result, for living communion with God and all-round bliss; but in such a way that this purpose must be achieved through struggle with trials on the way to this goal. Limited rational freedom cannot be established at the beginning of godly goodness except through experiences of struggle with what can deviate from them. Struggle is a means; but as it stands in front, it becomes the nearest goal, behind which the further, the last is seen. And we can say that this struggle served as the norm for the organization of the world and world governance. Everything is aimed at ensuring that rationally free creatures can resist in the fight against opposition. It is not the will of God that there should be no opposition to created freedom, but that it should be able to resist them, no matter how strong they may be. And now there is a struggle throughout the entire space of the world, in the current period of world existence. And the primordial ones, soon after creation, encounter struggle, and in the world of spirits it was there before. From then on until the end of the world everything will be a struggle. Its final act is indicated in the following words: to the one who overcomes I will give to sit with Me, to the one who overcomes I will give... a crown (Rev. 3:21, 2:10) - and so on and so forth. Fight, not dreaming of peace, while the breath of life is in you, looking at the great reward. Our ancestors, as soon as they were brought into life and began to act, they immediately met with abuse and struggle. They could not resist; but even if they had resisted, the fighting would not have stopped, but would have accompanied them step by step, and would have accompanied their offspring. After the fall, only the image of warfare changed, and extraordinary Divine actions and institutions were required to help those who were fighting; the essence of life or the task of human life remains the same: fight. Fight all the more willingly and zealously because, for your success in this battle, the Son of God became incarnate and suffered. According to the Apostle, even before the foundation of the world you were chosen for this, because you were chosen for holiness and integrity, inconceivable without struggle (Eph. 1:4). So, everything you have is from the Lord: you were created by Him, and redeemed, and adopted, and called to eternal bliss, and equipped with ways to achieve it. Love Him and surrender to Him with all your soul, with all your thoughts and with all your heart, and work for Him, not sparing your life. 3) The Lord is the Provider of all In Him there was life, and life was light by man (John 1:4). If the words: “life” and “light” refer only to people, then it is like this: in Tom, life is a man, and this life is light as a man; then in this text there will be only the thought that God the Word is only for people. But the structure of speech makes it necessary to distinguish between the thoughts contained in these two provisions of the verse. There would be no reason to repeat the word “belly” in the second position, if in the first “belly” did not have objects other than humans that are animated by it. Then it would be said: in Tom there is life and... light by man. And since it is said separately: in Tom there is life, and life is light by man, then it is necessary to understand different objects; Thus, in the first there will be: in God the Word the life of all, the being and life of all creation, and in the second: in Him is the light of men. In Tom belly. The life here is in Him not in the sense that the Son has life in Himself, like the Father (John 5:26), for the holy evangelist already spoke about this when he confessed Him as God, and not in the sense that everything that exists and lives from Him received being and life; for this was also just said in the previous verse: everything was created by Him, but in the fact that everything that received existence from Him is contained, preserved, and governed by Him. The existence and life of everything in Him has a foundation, an all-powerful and all-preserving power. This is what Saint Chrysostom says: “Having said about the creation of everything by the Son, he now moves on to depict His providence for everything, saying: in Him was life. Saint John says here the same as the Apostle Paul; according to him, the Lord Savior bears all things by the word of His power (Heb. 1:3), and all things will take place in Him (Col. 1:17). The same is said about God the Father, that He gives life and breath and everything to everyone, and that in Him we live and move and are (Acts 17:25,28). And the Holy Spirit is the life-giving Spirit, creating and renewing everything (Ps. 103:30)! Divine providential actions are the inseparable actions of God in the Trinity. Providence is neither the exclusive nor the primary action of one hypostasis, but is the work of the One Trihypostatic God. The Father is no more a Provider than the Son and the Holy Spirit; and the Son is no less than the Father and the Holy Spirit; and the Holy Spirit - no less than the Father and the Son. Almighty Father, Almighty Son, Almighty Holy Spirit: but not three Almighty, but one Almighty. Saint John writes here about God the Word and speaks of Him in this verse as the Provider, without excluding, however, God the Father and God the Holy Spirit, as before he spoke of His Creativity, not excluding the Creativity of the Father and the Spirit. The words said there: without Him there was nothing, can be meant here like this: without Him nothing has life, that is, without His participation nothing has life, movement and being. Everything will take place in Him or is carried by Him, but not exclusively, but in the communion of the one Divine omnipotence and providence with the Father and the Holy Spirit. God's providential omnipotence is expressed in the fact that the Lord preserves everything that exists, promotes everything and controls everything, or directs everything to its destined end. The laws by which everything is done are hidden in the will of God; they are incomprehensible to us and cannot be comprehended, even if they were open, due to the immensity of everything that exists and the immense extent of movement in what happens. Therefore, do not bother to investigate: it is none of your business. Your job is one thing: to bring about the salvation of the soul. Everything else is in the hands of God - faithful and strong. That God contains everything, firmly believe this, and you will thus render Divine worship to the almighty, all-wise and all-good sovereignty of God. A creature that does not have existence within itself, but is called to existence from nothing, cannot continue being by itself, but hangs over the abyss of nothingness, at every moment ready to swallow it up. She is held above this abyss by the omnipotent will of the Trinitarian God, which called her into existence. God wanted - and creatures appeared; and creatures continue to exist because God wants them to continue to exist. The continuation of the existence of creatures is their continuous creation. The will of God for the continuation of the existence of creatures is the basis of their life: everything is established on it. The action of God in creatures is not limited to the preservation of their existence. The Lord said: My Father works hitherto, and I work (John 5:17), thereby signifying God’s immediate care for creatures and God’s never-ending actions in them, in the arrangement of their well-being. The world is beautifully structured, its parts are harmoniously combined, and in the vast whole, and in the parts, and everywhere, simple but powerful laws are laid down, holding everything in order, according to the will of God. God preserves this order, and the world flows where it is directed. But among this, flowing from the will of God, the unchangeable, once forever established order of the world, and the creatures that compose it, God deigns to reveal His special actions, immediate, not having a source in the powers and laws of the world, but in the immediate will of God. The need for this attraction of the direct actions of God into the environment of the phenomena of the world is caused by the limited freedom of rational creatures. If everything were a mechanism in the world, then only unchanging laws would be enough; but since there is a circle of free actions in the world, then in order to organize them, free influence on them is necessary. The spiritual world, consisting of rationally free but limited beings, can take false and perverse directions. If the purpose of the material world is in the spiritual; it is obvious that in the granting of freedom there is an opportunity to evade such intentions of God, which embrace the whole world. Therefore, at that moment, as God destined for rationally free creatures, He at the same time destined to be special, providential His actions, with which He deigns to enter into the events of the world, to show free creatures the proper paths, to return them to these paths, in cases of deviating from them, or to put them within such limits in which they could not act destructively for others. God could have arranged the world in such a way that it would flow by itself towards its end, according to the forces, laws and orders given to him, just as if someone had arranged a watch that did not need to be wound or repaired. And then His goodness would appear in the preservation of everything as it was originally arranged - in an approving view of how everything flows expediently, and in the benevolence of love for creatures, according to their degrees. But He was pleased to arrange things differently, because then it would be necessary to exclude from the entire wholeness of creation the rationally free creatures, the upper links in the chain of creatures, the crown of creation. Having thus chosen the best and allowing the possibility of disturbance of the moral order, and for its sake also the physical, God remains not a resting contemplator of the bright flow of the world, but a benevolent all-actor, directing creatures to their final goals. This was His holy and wise will. Free creatures, step by step, move toward their predetermined perfection, falling and rising, deviating from the right paths and entering them again, moving away from God and clinging to Him again. And while the world flows according to the established order, Divine direct actions enter into this, always almost discordant, area, in the enlightenment, strengthening and establishment of saving orders, attracting, when necessary, phenomena in the physical world into the service of these moral goals. Reasonable creatures are in struggle, under God's protection, help and guidance. Therefore, as soon as a person was born, God Himself, immediately, before he encountered a struggle, made an order about the type of life set before him and about the threatening dangers. After the fall, God again determines the character of the unhappy life of the guilty and indicates the grounds for trust in the hope of better days. After that, a series of Divine direct actions did not stop in humanity. 4) “And the life was the light of man” (John 1:4) The omnipotent actions of God the Word in the totality of creatures are only life: in Him they live, move and are (Acts 17:28). In rational creatures, these actions are not only life, but also light - only the Lord does not preserve their life and existence, but enlightens them, instructs them, guides them. In other creatures He acts with His omnipotence: He commands, and everything is directed according to His will; He enlightens rational creatures, giving His will to consciousness, so that they themselves then freely walk according to its instructions. He gave them freedom and does not force it, but, prescribing the commandments as a law, leaves it to everyone’s free decision to follow them or not. He convinces them, represents the extreme need to follow His will, depicts the bitter consequences of disobedience, even combines external events in such a way as to direct freedom along the path of His will, but does not bind anyone’s will. Whether the Lord inwardly inspires something, sends an Angel, or gives a word into the mouth of the elect, the meaning of His commands to people is always the same: behold, fire and water are set before you; Wherever you want, stretch out your hand. Then the Lord does this in such a way that He expects from everyone self-willing service to Himself, in the fulfillment of His will. God laid the foundation for this order of action in the structure of the very spiritual nature of man. Material forces are dark forces; The life of plants and animals is like the flickering of light under the stars and the moon. The image of human spiritual life is the clear radiance of the sun. She is given internal self-illumination, with the illumination of all contacts, and it is in self-consciousness that a person, conscious of himself, is aware of his Supreme Creator and Master, while feeling his all-round dependence on Him and the duty to serve Him with all the strength of his being, in the hope of being in His eternal favor, - he is also aware of his external relationships to those like himself and to all creatures, - he is aware of how he should behave, and then, does he behave as he should? This is the inner light of man, poured into him in his creation in the image and likeness of God. The Lord, acting with His omnipotence and preserving the spiritual nature of man, preserves this light and is, for that very reason, already light for him. But He is more light because He deigns to add His Divine Light to all the rays of the natural light of the human spirit, through the influence of which the personal light of man becomes light itself - true, definite and determining everything, revealing all objects in their exact outlines. This attraction of spiritual light into man (and all spiritual creatures higher than him) is so necessary for him that, according to Revelation, we do not see that man, called to existence, would spend even a minute without it. Having opened his eyes for the first time, he already saw God before him, who explained to him what he is and how he should live and act. These definitions of God put a stamp on the aspirations of the consciousness of the human spirit, which in themselves would remain vague and, therefore, dimly light. They never left this certainty; but they have been and are being kept in humanity until now, and will be kept forever. The rays of this light are: the fear of God - with a feeling of complete dependence and duty to serve God; conscience - with confidence to be pleasing to God through the fulfillment of its requirements; dissatisfaction with anything created - with the hope of a comprehensively satisfactory well-being in eternity. He who lives according to these instructions of the Divine Light abides in the likeness of God, for which he was created, and therefore is in the closest relationship to the Son of God, Who is the radiance of the glory of the Father and the image of His hypostasis (Heb. 1:3). The Almighty Word of God is the light of man (John 1:4): a light that enlightens with the knowledge of the truths about God and the works of God; light, indicating to the conscience what is good and what is evil, and inspiring the creation of one and removal from the other; a light that fills the immaculate heart with joy from the feeling of God’s favor and the hope of all-round bliss in Him. From all eternity He has been the truth, the way and the life for people. He who receives this light stands at his goal and, filled with light, becomes all-blessed. Such was the heavenly state of the first created. It was bright because of the clarity of vision and knowledge of God, because of the purity of conscience and the equanimity of all relationships, because of the great joy of an immaculate and all-satisfied life. The fall upset everything. Darkness fell on the spiritual sphere of man. 5) “And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness cannot comprehend it” (John 1:5) With this brief statement, Saint John outlines the state of humanity before the appearance of the Lord Savior in the world. There was darkness with the fall, but it did not suppress the light: it shone and continues to shine in the darkness. Natural light still remained, but no longer in the lightness that it had before, and it could no longer maintain the same character as it had in the original dispensation. Consciousness and conscience suggested that the previous image of human spiritual relations could no longer take place; new orders and institutions were required. What exactly was needed could not have been invented by a person. God Himself appeared and arranged everything. The external order of life was changed, in accordance with the internal mood, for the worse and became, as it were, a penance for the penitent. To streamline spiritual disorder and disperse internal darkness, the promise of salvation in the seed of a woman (Gen. 3:15), with the corresponding institutions, was given to consciousness and conscience. With the word of this promise, a light shone in the darkness of the fall, which did not go out, but spread wider and wider and became lighter and brighter, through the continuous influx of new rays of the Revelation of God. At first, all humanity was equally involved in this light. Before people were scattered across the face of the earth, God's revelations and guiding rules were communicated to everyone inseparably. With their dispersion, the universality of revelations ceased. But the scattered generations took with them everything that God had previously revealed, and lived in that light until the appearance of the Lord, and many still live. This light was not preserved in their completeness and purity; but was eclipsed by the clouds of superstitious additions to the original Revelation later invented by the peoples themselves. However, even though it was eclipsed, it did not completely go out. Its flickers are visible in the basic beliefs common to all peoples. So that the light kindled by the promise of salvation would not completely go out on earth, the Lord was pleased to choose a special people, in which he continued to keep this promise in force and multiply its light with detailed revelations about everything related to its fulfillment. The prophetic writings are full of such instructions, which Saint Peter rightly called a luminary shining in a dark place. Imams, - he says, - the most famous prophetic word, heeding him like a shining light in a dark place, do good until the day brightens, and the morning star shines in your hearts (2 Pet. 1:19). These words give the best interpretation of what St. John means by the light that shone in the darkness, and how it shone. The light shone in the darkness of the fall, and the light shone in the dark place of the exile of the fallen, among the people of Israel through the prophetic word, and among other nations through natural light and those revelations that they took with them when scattered throughout the earth - and which, in the end, began to come to them from Israel. This light was concentrated in the face of the Savior and emanated from Him, illuminating everything. He is always the light for those who have fallen into spiritual darkness and are held by it. That the light shone in the darkness is the work of God. What is the matter with people? It is to accept the light and use its luminosity. Was it so? The "Darkened Senses" did not understand him; dark aspirations opposed him; The dark forces resisted him and tried in every possible way to extinguish him. But this unkind attitude of the darkened towards the light did not take away the power of illumination from the light and the possibility of enlightening with it those who were looking for light and were ready to accept it and use it savingly. The darkness did not embrace the light... Both Israel and other nations had those who thirsted for light and looked forward to it from above. They immediately opened as soon as the meaning of the time of the coming of the Lord became clear, and especially when the Forerunner announced that the sun of righteousness itself - Christ the Lord - would soon appear. Then the preaching of the holy Apostles gathered them all, scattered across the face of the earth, and formed from them the Church of the saints, which, in turn, became a luminary shining in the dark place of this world, not about itself, but by the power of the Lord, who headed everything. 6) The darkness of the fall is sinful darkness Sin, having arrived, brings with it darkness into the soul, darkening its consciousness and conscience and bringing all its actions into confusion and disorder. The consciousness of the Divine departs, or not that it departs, but is driven away; at the same time, the fear of God, if it does not disappear, then weakens to the point of powerlessness to determine the will. The voice of conscience becomes vague and indistinct, and affairs begin to be conducted at random; a man gropes as if at night. Taste develops towards things that do not satisfy, but only irritate various needs that cross each other and constantly trouble the heart; how it holds a person in a whirlwind of dust or a blizzard. This darkness of disorder and confusion of thoughts, feelings and desires, having begun with the fall, does not cease to be on earth and covers all those living in sin. But the light of God, born in this darkness, with the first words of the promise of salvation, does not fade in sinful suffering. The hope of salvation always lives in the heart of a sinner until he falls into despair and from there into despair. No matter how sinful someone is, everyone thinks that all is not lost, there is still an outcome and an opportunity to get better. This aspiration also supports the intention of correction. Although its implementation is postponed day by day, the thought of it does not disappear at all, but comes and goes. And here is the light shining in the darkness of sin—the hope of salvation, and the thought—today and tomorrow to give up sin. This weak light is sometimes joined by rays that strengthen it from the remnants of the original light, which is placed in human nature and never fades. Then the fear of God will visit you, from an accidental or intentional consciousness of the unwashed (impartial, impartial) truth and indescribable goodness of God; then conscience will become irritated and raise its voice, clearly presenting the ugliness of the deeds and punishing them with its incorruptible judgment; then tastelessness and aversion to the vanities and pleasures that fed sin will fall, due to the feeling of unreliability of the supports on which a comfortable life rests, or it will breathe the joy of life free from all these bonds, which require a lot and give nothing. Then there is a lot of light in the soul, and all its darkness caused by sin is sufficiently illuminated. For all that, this light is no more than the light that shone in the darkness of the fall for the pagans. His instructions are vague. He only denounces what is wrong, without precisely defining what is right and without indicating the outcome from the disastrous state of sin. He receives this certainty when the word of the Gospel comes to him, just as the light that fell to the pagans received certainty from the word of the prophet. The word of the Gospel, living and active, completes the inner illumination and completely drives away the darkness of sin. Those who listen to the first light do good; but only under the condition that they are not satisfied with it alone, but only accept it as a stimulus to diligently seeking so that the day of Christ will be illuminated, and the day of saving faith in Christ will shine in their hearts. This is a preparatory action, but the acceptance of the word of the Gospel is a complete action. This is the forerunner, and this is Christ Himself. C) The meaning of St. John the Baptist of the Lord There was a man sent from God, his name was John (John 1:6). It was said above that the light of promise shone in darkened humanity, supported and expanded by the providential decree of the Lord Himself. For all that, it was a light that gave faint illumination of the Divine order of things. With the last onslaught of darkness and the proliferation of false lights, the spiritual state before the appearance of the Lord cannot but be called gloomy. In addition, 500 years before the birth of Christ, prophecies ceased. In the midst of such darkness, the sudden appearance of light would blind everyone, even those capable of accepting it. And so John is sent before Him, like a star before the sun, shining with borrowed light, in order to gradually facilitate the acceptance of true light. This one has come as a testimony, that he may testify of the Light (John 1:7). The Prophets from afar pointed out the Promised One: but since Israel was raised on the Prophets, there had to be a nearby Prophet, a nearby pointer who would give tangible confirmation that this is the One who is promised and Whom everyone is looking forward to. This was necessary for the sake of the greatness of the matter and for the sake of the great danger from lack of recognition. Without recognizing the unspecified, they could construct an apology: now there is no apology. John is a mirror that collected all the rays of prophetic light and directed them towards Christ the Savior. Only stubbornness and blindness can go against it. How important John’s testimony was in the chain of God’s testimonies, this was demonstrated by the Lord Himself, Who repeatedly turned His speech to John, especially when, in his last conversation with the Jews in the church, he wanted to enlighten the blinded; and the experts (experts) of the Old Testament law could not say anything against it (Matthew 21:23–27; Mark 11:27–33; Luke 20:1–8). Let all have faith in him (John 1:7). The immediate instruction of the Promised One was all the more necessary because the Promised One had to appear under a very great cover of humility. Those who had sound eyes, like Simeon and others, could themselves see Him and understand (Luke 2:25-32). Those who were blinded had nothing to say: they remained blinded and under the testimony of John. But the majority of immature and weak-sighted souls, themselves unable to recognize the Promised One, could follow Him according to an undoubted indication and become finally convinced of the truth through communication with Him. For them, John was a necessary leader. Even the Apostles were from this class, followed by all the others. The first class includes the chosen ones, very few. Do not be without light, but let it testify to the Light (John 1:8). When the end of summer was approaching, there were also in Israel longing for deliverance, and among the pagans there were many who thirsted for true enlightenment, as they witnessed by accepting the Old Testament Revelation. Therefore, when the sent John appeared, those who sensed the proximity of spiritual revival perked up and flowed to John, hoping to meet in him the hoped-for deliverance from darkness and the comforting enlightenment of God’s Light. But he was not what they thought he was in haste; He was not light, but was only sent before Him, as His harbinger and Forerunner. As a servant of truth, sent from the true God, he himself testified to this without hesitation and on his own behalf led everyone to the true light. The souls that thirsted for light were the same as brides; and he, as a friend of the grooms, escorted them to this Bridegroom. God was pleased to establish such an order for the manifestation of the true light, so that there would be a Forerunner, a signifier of It. And in this order - evidence of truth; This is evidence that John is from God; and since it is from God, it is from God and testified from Him. A lie could not have such an order. Neither the false messiah could withstand the Forerunner without suspicion and embarrassment; no false forerunner could stand in his false forerunner without appropriating to himself the highest title. This is the truth that the Forerunner, so lofty, humbly rejects the highest title, saying that the One for whom everyone is waiting is not he, but the One who follows him is the One whom he indicates and Whom he actually indicated. This is the significance of John in the economy (economy) of arranging the path of salvation for us poor! But this order, once begun, does not stop. John, sent from God as a witness, did not leave the stage and will not leave until the end of the age. True light is in the Lord. But no one comes to him without witnesses. John was succeeded by the Apostles, and after them by shepherds and teachers - and in the Church there is always evidence pointing to the true light in the Lord. If the soul is troubled by its conscience and seeks a reconciliator, the shepherd shows Him to it on the Cross and in the Sacrament of Repentance reconciles it with God and pacifies it within itself. If she becomes exhausted in the struggle and seeks reinforcement, the shepherd shows her the source of life-giving forces in the sacrament of the Body and Blood of the Lord and feeds her with them, uniting her with the Lord through Communion. How many people need guidance and interpretation of the truth! The Shepherd shows them this truth in the voice of the Church, which is an echo of the voice of its Head Himself, and pacifies restless and troubled doubts. The shepherd is the leader of souls; That is why woe to the shepherds who stop the souls that turn to them. The organ of the pastoral word is prophetic and apostolic verbs; and therefore woe to the shepherds who invent their own images of verbs! And woe to the souls who, instead of these grateful signs, are content either with their own unreliable discretion, or with the instructions of self-appointed leaders! D) Characteristics of true light So John was not an inaccurate light. True, he too was a lamp, burning and shining (John 5:35), like all God-enlightened luminaries: but all of their light was not their own light, but borrowed; they were not sources of light... The source of light was outside and above them. How the planets send the observer to the Sun to explain their lordship; Thus, all God-enlightened people point to the beginning of their light in God and the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the true Light, the real and only light that enlightens every person who comes into the world (John 1:9). Thus, the characteristic feature of true light is the enlightenment of all. This does not mean that everyone has already been enlightened - no, many remain unenlightened by him - but that if anyone is enlightened, then he is enlightened only by Him. Whoever is not enlightened by Him shows only the ghost of enlightenment, no matter how one calls him enlightened. Outside the Lord Jesus there is no light, but everything is darkness and thick darkness. The enlightenment given by Jesus Christ is spiritual enlightenment. Spiritual darkness is composed of ignorance of God and His good intentions for us, due to the lack of fear, from confusion of conscience and sinful impurities with negligence and carelessness, and from the tightness of the heart, tormented by passions and not satisfied with anything with spiritual tastelessness and insensibility. The Lord, and only the Lord, takes away this triple darkness and fills the soul with all-round light. From Him comes the fear of God, aroused by the word of truth, delivered by Him, about God and our complete dependence on Him; from Him - pacification of conscience, through the remission of sins by virtue of His death, and strength to withstand everything that can confuse the conscience; from Him - and the contentment of the heart, satiated by Him alone. He wipes away every tear, removes every burden and gives every rest, according to His promise: come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest (Matthew 11:28). That is why the one who only cleaves to the Lord becomes so bright that outsiders can see it in the brightness of their gaze and in the joyful state of spirit reflected in words, deeds and movements. Their inner being is filled with light. They are bright in the taste of the blessings received and the hope of accepting even better and greater ones - bright in love and kindness, bright in piety and filial fear of God. And all this is given to them by the Lord Jesus Christ, the incarnate Son of God, who taught us the truth, who suffered for us, who earned us the Spirit of grace and who opened for us the doors of the Heavenly Kingdom, where He has already entered as the Forerunner, drawing us all to Himself and expecting everyone. There are many self-proclaimed lights, but none of them drives away our gloom and gives us real lightness. May the Lord grant to all who seek enlightenment to attack the true light and not be carried away by these ghosts, which do not enlighten, but darken more and more! The second characteristic feature of true light is secrecy. He was in the world, and the world came into being through Him, and the world did not know Him (John 1:10). It does not shine in such a way that, whether you want it or not, you will be enlightened by it. In himself he is all-light, all-illuminating, all-enlightening; but only those who are his own see His light and receive its light, only those who reveal in themselves the organs of their spirit corresponding to it. Everything in the material and human world goes on as usual: and spiritual enlightenment occurs in its own hidden ways, which pass undisturbed among all the disturbances and external changes, like a ray of light through the air disturbed by the wind. It has always been so, so it is and so it will be. It pleased the Lord to establish this, first of all, according to the nature of this light, which is life-giving; the paths of life or life-giving actions and movements are everywhere hidden from the eye of the curious; and then, and in order not to throw beads before those who can spend them (Matthew 7:6), so that the brightness of the light does not bind freedom, but illuminates only those who want and seek and attracts only the worthy and fit, so that those who go to the light show some kind of initiative and have the merit of recognizing the true light. It's like parables. In parables the truth is hidden; he who has the germ or apprehension of the truth understands it, but the other does not understand anything about it: for his mentality, the rules of life and the tastes of the heart, his entire stock of experiences and concepts are completely different. The same is true here: in order to recognize and receive true spiritual light from the Lord, you must have your organ of spirit ready for it. Whoever does not have this will not recognize it and will not accept it. As soon as he who has ears to hear, he hears; So only he who has eyes to see sees. The organ for receiving the light of truth is the spirit located in our nature. Everyone has it, and no force can destroy it. You can suppress, muffle, kill it, but you cannot exterminate it. The spirit in us is the fear of God or the feeling of the Divine, with the consciousness of our dependence on Him, conscience and dissatisfaction with anything created. He who is not absorbed in the world, takes care of his conscience and keeps the fear of God, will recognize the true light in the Lord immediately as soon as it is announced to him about it. Sin suppresses our spirit, closes the organ to the knowledge and acceptance of the light - the Lord: but the consciousness of our sinfulness again opens it and makes it ready to meet the Lord. Publicans, sinners and repentant harlots - all flowed to the Lord as soon as they met Him, and everyone was enlightened. Such have known the Lord, but such have not known Him. The elders of the people almost all did not know Him and led the people astray from the path of truth. Whoever eats is of the prince who believes in Him, ... but this people (John 7:48–49). The people felt His power and clung to Him. Then they darkened him for a while: but as soon as the light of resurrection illuminated him, he again followed Him fearlessly. Even before the ascension, more than five hundred brothers see Him on the mountain; after the descent of the Holy Spirit, the 3000 immediately cleave to Him; a little later - another 5000, then the number grew and grew, and the light of Christ, having enlightened everyone capable of enlightenment in Israel, soon spread beyond its borders and shone throughout the whole world. The gospel of the gospel went out into the whole earth (Rom. 10:18), and all who were able to be enlightened by the light of Christ were and are enlightened by Him. But at all times this has been and is being done secretly, invisibly, in ways known to the one God. And among those who bear the name of Christ, not all share in His light. External inclusion in the flock of Christ is not yet true evidence of internal illumination. The worldly spirit also drives away the true light of Christ from Christians. He was in the world... and the world did not know Him (John 1:10). He was in the world through His creative and providential activity, especially through His orders preparatory to His appearance. All this was very obvious to those who had eyes to see, and, however, not the whole world knew Him, knowledge of Him was not a common property, a common feature of everyone, but only of those who understood Him. That is why when He came to His own, His own did not receive Him, for they did not recognize Him. They didn’t recognize it because they submitted to other principles, developed other needs, caring about their satisfaction, and began to feed on other hopes. This informed them of their internal structure, according to which the true light becomes inaccessible to them. And the Lord walks among His own, and many and many of His own do not accept Him. The reason for this is the prevailing spirit of the world; the world does not know Him... . The word: peace also indicates the reason for the misunderstanding. The world is people who cling to the world and think about worldly things and in a worldly way; and nothing darkens the mind so much as passionate love for the world. The spirit of the world is the spirit of God-forgetfulness, the spirit of egoism, ready to sacrifice everything to itself - even piety, conscience and faith, and the spirit of all-round consolation with power, prominent position, secular education, pomp, pleasure of the senses of hearing, sight, smell, taste and touch, and every sweet irritation of the flesh. This is a dark area. Like a thick cloud, it separates from the soul and hides the light of Christ, and not a single ray of it penetrates into it while this spirit reigns (rules) in it. The third feature of the true light is a new creation, spiritual rebirth and, as a result, a child of God. The little ones received Him, and gave them the realm to become children of God, who believe in His name (John 1:12). There was no other outcome for the fallen than either to perish, or, due to the rebellion, to become the highest degree of worship of God. The goodness of God chose the latter. Why is the sentence not fulfilled: by death... you will die (Exodus 21:16; Matthew 15:4; Mark 7:10)? Because the Son of God had already interceded for us then, and the power of His intercession began to act then. But since He, the Intercessor and Mediator, is the Son, then all those involved in His intercession are elevated to sonship. The Son of God became the Son of Man, and all sons of men who are united with Him by faith become sons of God. And this is not only due to external recognition, but due to internal change. They are all re-created again, born from God by spiritual birth. The hidden light of God's grace, penetrating inside, seeds there the germ of a new life according to God and then forms a new one, “hidden in the heart of man,” in the incorruption of a meek and silent spirit (1 Pet. 3:4). Its conception and formation are not from man, but from God; therefore he is God, a child of God. All believers have changed in a wondrous change and have the potential to be children of God, not according to their external title, but according to their internal meaning and structure. The condition for becoming a child of God is faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. To believe in His name means to confess with your heart that He is the Only Begotten Son of God and God, incarnate for the salvation of us sinners, and to recognize yourself as a sinner who is perishing and cannot otherwise avoid the trouble brought on by sin, as through the Lord Jesus Christ. A believer in the Lord Jesus Christ carries in his heart the following conviction: I have destroyed myself through sin and am saved only by the power of the Lord, who was crucified for me and who revived me with His grace. The consciousness of sinful helplessness and destructive sinfulness leads to the Lord the Savior and attracts Him, for that is why He came, to save sinners. Such and such are born from God. How they are born is known to the One God. New life in Christ is an incomprehensible mystery. Speaking about future events, the Lord said that of the two grinders, one will be eaten, and the other will be abandoned; Of the two walking through the field, one is caught, and the other is abandoned (Luke 17:35–36). This parable is exactly fulfilled in spiritual birth. One or the other is plucked from the midst of sinners and sinners and becomes new; while all others are left to go on in their decrepit ways. In what ways the light touched some, while others, existing immediately, do not feel it - no one can say this, not only from outsiders, but even from those themselves who have been touched by the light of God’s grace. The best solution to this is to be born of God (John 1:13), without torturing how and to what extent human autocracy and self-action were involved. Neither natural birth, nor position in the world, nor the degree of education, nor all other external influences mean anything here. Everything is from God... Spiritual birth is awakened by grace through His word and accomplished through the holy sacraments. The Word of God, whether externally received and internally heard or directly spoken and received internally, sheds light and power, excites and strengthens, and in the sacraments creates new things, as it was in the beginning, when God spoke the word and everything appeared to be. Therefore, all the regenerated children of God... are by the word of the living God and abiding forever (1 Pet. 1:23). How far from the truth after this are those for whom Christianity is only a certain way of looking at everything that exists and a certain system of rules of life! Seek a new birth from God, so as not only to be named, but also to become children of God, not only by virtue of His favor, but by virtue of the new life received from Him and supported, grown and fulfilled by living communication with Him. You might be interested in: