357. Беседа в день Благовещения Пресвятой Богородицы

(Spoken at the Chudov Monastery on March 25; printed in the Works of the Holy Father in 1859 and in the collection of 1861) The first man is from the earth, a ring: the second man, the Lord is from heaven (1 Cor. 15:47). I propose for reflection the saying of the Holy Apostle Paul about the first and second man, and why I propose it now can be seen from the reflection itself. “The first man is from the earth, he is ringed: the second man, the Lord is from heaven.” Who is meant by the name of the first person? – It is natural to understand the forefather Adam. He, in body, was taken from the earthly dust by God the Creator: and although at the same time he was spiritual, because God from His mouth breathed into his face the breath of life, but then his spirituality was darkened and weakened by sin, constrained, suppressed and covered by the flesh; and therefore he lost the right to be called spiritual, and rightly suffered the derogatory name “earthly.” Who is meant by the name of the second person? – In the order of creation, the second person was Eve: but, obviously, the saying of the Apostle cannot apply to her. It is not from heaven, but from Adam’s rib, and was created not for domination, but to help and obey Adam; and because she dominated him for a moment and drew him into sin, she was even given over to him as a commanding possession. Do you want to look for a second person in order of natural descent from the first person? - Go through centuries and millennia, review thousands and millions of people, look closely at the chosen ones and the high ones among them: you will not find a second person whom the Apostle contemplates and wants to show us; there is no “man of the Lord from heaven” between them. It seemed to the Prophet that he had found such people: but he soon saw that they were ghosts. “Az reh: you are gods, and you are all sons of the Most High: but you die like men” (Ps. 82:6-7). What are these thousands and millions of sons of Adam? - All of them are branches of the first man, therefore, all of the same nature with him, all, like him, are earthly, all, like him, are infected with the ulcer of sin, all, like him, must pay “tax” to sin (Rom. 6:23) by bodily death, temporary, and spiritual death, which can become eternal. Here we encounter a formidable question: what should happen to the first earthly man and all his branches, to which we all belong? Can man, can the human race heal itself from the deadly infection of sin that has penetrated into nature itself? - It can’t. You can break or chop a tree at the root; it will wither and dry up: but then you can no longer make it green, blooming, fruitful; This requires creative power. Likewise, the tree of the human race, broken at the root by sin, cannot bear the flower and fruit of true, spiritual life: creative power is required to produce this. That is why one of the best sons of the earthy Adam cried out to God: “Create a clean heart in me, O God, and renew a right spirit in my womb” (Ps. 50:12). That is: I am aware of the impurity of my heart; but I don’t have enough strength to make it clean; it requires not only correction, but also re-creation: You again “create a pure heart in me,” God! I admit myself guilty of sin: and I do not find in myself the means to restore the lost righteousness: You, boundless in truth and mercy, “renew the spirit of righteousness” in my insides. The prayer of the Prophet David for the restoration of the heart and for the inner renewal of the spirit should be the universal prayer of the sons of the earthly Adam, since they superficially recognize themselves and the deep damage of their nature and its activities. But none of them, without a special revelation of God, could comprehend how this prayer could be fulfilled, how grace-filled life and holiness could be introduced into a person not only infected and defiled by sin, but also mortified, how someone condemned forever by eternal justice could be delivered from this condemnation without offending eternal justice, how a person, with the influx of creative power, could become “a new creation.” "(2 Cor. 5:17), being one and the same person. This, as the Apostle says, is “a mystery hidden from ages in God” (Eph. 3:9), “a mystery hidden from ages and generations” (Col. 1:26). But the Apostle also proclaims the revelation of a secret hidden in God for centuries. “Now,” he says, “he has appeared to His saints” (Col. 1:26). And this day, borrowing a word from the Apostle, solemnly sings in the church: “the day of our salvation is the main thing, and, from time immemorial, the manifestation of the sacrament: the Son of God is the Son of the Virgin” 878. And this is “the second man, the Lord from heaven,” put by the Apostle in correspondence with “the first man from the earth,” complementing and resolving his fate, and turning a calamitous fate into a blessed one. Jesus Christ is a “man”, by human nature, received from the Most Holy Virgin, purified by the Holy Spirit; and together there is “the Lord from heaven,” according to Divine nature, as the only begotten Son of God, consubstantial and co-throne with the Father, who came down from heaven to appear on earth as the God-man, and to reveal in Himself the living reconciling union of the Divine with humanity. He is the “second man”, bypassing millions of people who are not in accordance with the first man standing on the descending ladder of natural births, not free from sin, - a “second man” without subsequent ones, because he is the only one among the human race who is in accordance with the “first man”, coming from God directly, miraculously, inviolable to sin, revealing in himself a new source of grace-filled birth for the human race. “The Lord from heaven,” having become “man,” introduces into humanity through faith the grace-filled divine life of spirit, light, purity, and holiness, before which the dark carnal life of sin weakens and dies. Having taken upon himself everything that belonged to the first man, except sin, He accepts both his guilt and his mortal condemnation, and with three days of death on the cross, which, by the co-presence of the Divine, no less than eternity, he satisfies for the guilty person to eternal justice; and with the cross he removes the fiery weapon that was blocking man’s entrance to heaven. Just as sin, having deeply damaged the nature of man, making him old, corruptible, even dead, could not, however, destroy his being and personality: then the Lord, by influxing from heaven onto this being, onto this personality, His creative power, His Spirit, just as over the water of the first creation, floating over the water of baptism, revives the old man into a new creation, into the image of God, from the carnal makes him spiritual, from earthly capable of heavenly life. Considering in this way the features of the first man, dusty from the earth, and the second man, the Lord from heaven, we cannot help but see, brethren, how disastrous the fate of the first would have been if the second had not come to his aid. Let us think that we are all natural branches of man, dusty from the earth, and that, consequently, his disastrous fate is also our inevitable fate, if we do not resort and completely surrender ourselves to the Lord who came to earth to save us from heaven; if we do not cleave to Him by faith in Him, love for Him, following His teaching and example, and fulfilling His commandments. Let us not be seduced by the brilliant ghosts of Adam’s carnal, sensual, passionate life. The ghosts will soon disappear: the disappointment of the seduced will be bitter: and if we do not come to our senses in time, we will fall not from heaven to earth for a while, but from earth into the abyss of hell forever. Let us love the truth of Christ; seeking life in Christ. If it is not without sorrow at the beginning, then it is joyful and blissful indefinitely. “As we have put on the image of earth, let us also be clothed in the image of heaven” (1 Cor. 15:49). Amen. You might be interested in: