Вера и дела

“Repent and believe in the Gospel” (Mark 1:15), the Gospel exhorts us. This exhortation is simple, truly, holy: one must repent, leave a sinful life, in order to become able to begin the Gospel. To accept the Gospel, you must believe in it. The Holy Apostle Paul concluded the essence of the entire sermon in the preaching of repentance and faith. He proclaimed to everyone, both Jews and Greeks, “repentance and faith toward God, even toward our Lord Jesus Christ” (Acts 20:21). The Gospel, as the Revelation of God, who surpasses all comprehension, is inaccessible to the fallen human mind. The vast mind of God is embraced by faith: because faith can accept everything, both incomprehensible to reason and contrary to reason. Only that soul is capable of faith which, with decisive will, has rejected sin and has directed with all its will and strength towards Divine good. “I have come as a light into the world” (John 12:46), the Lord said about himself. This Light stood before the Jews, clothed in flesh; He is before us, clothed in the Gospel. This Light stands before us, “so that whoever believes in Him will not perish, but will have eternal life. He who believes in Him will not be condemned: but he who does not believe is already condemned” (John 3:16, 18). Who doesn't believe in the Son of God? – Not only the one who openly and decisively rejects Him, but also the one who, calling himself a Christian, leads a sinful life, chasing carnal pleasures; the one whose god is his belly; the one whose god is silver and gold; the one whose god is earthly glory; the one who honored earthly wisdom, hostile to God, as if he were a god. “Everyone who does evil hates the Light, and does not come to the Light, lest his deeds be exposed, for they are evil; But if he does the truth, he will come to the Light, so that his works may be revealed... as in God the work was done” (John 3:20–21). Without self-denial, a person is incapable of faith; his fallen mind opposes faith, boldly demanding an account from God of His actions and evidence of the truths He reveals to man; a fallen heart wants to live the life of fall, to the mortification of which faith strives: flesh and blood, despite the grave that is approaching them hourly, also want to live their own life, the life of corruption and sin. That is why the Lord announced to everyone who wanted to be numbered with Him and follow Him with living faith: “If anyone wants to walk after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and come after Me. If anyone wants to save his soul, he will destroy it; and if anyone destroys his soul for My sake, he will find it” (Matthew 16:24-25). The fall has been so internalized by the entire human being that the rejection of this fall has become a rejection, as it were, of life. Without this rejection it is impossible to acquire faith - the guarantee of eternal, blissful, spiritual life; whoever wants to revive the passions of the heart or body, to enjoy them, wants to revive his fallen mind, falls away from “faith.” “Living faith” is a procession into the spiritual world, into the world of God. It cannot abide in one who is nailed to the world below, where flesh and sin reign. “Faith” is the door to God. There is no other door to Him: “without faith it is impossible to please God” (Heb. 11:6). This door gradually opens to those who purify themselves by constant repentance; it is wide open to a pure heart; it is closed to the sinner. Only by “faith” can one approach Christ; Only by “faith” can one follow Christ. “Faith” is a natural property of the human soul, planted in it by the merciful God at its creation 503. This natural property was chosen by God at redemption, like a branch from the branches of a tree, for the grafting of grace into it. God rightly chose “faith” as an instrument for the salvation of people: we perished by believing the flattering words of God’s and our enemy. There was once a sound of words from the lips of a villain in paradise, our forefathers listened to them, believed them - and were expelled from paradise; now, in the vale of exile, the voice of the Word of God - the Gospel - is heard for their descendants, and those who listen and “believe the Gospel” again enter paradise. Unbelieving! turn from your unbelief. Sinner! turn from your sinful life. Sage! turn from your false wisdom! Contact us! By your kindness and lack of guile, become like children; with childlike simplicity, believe in the Gospel. Dead faith, the recognition of Christ with one involuntary mental conviction, may also be the property of demons! such faith will only serve the believer to greater condemnation at the judgment of Christ. “Leave what to us and to You, Jesus of Nazareth?” - the unclean spirit cried out to the Lord: “Thou art come to destroy us: I know Thee who art thou, the Holy One of God” (Mark 1:24). “Faith” in the Gospel must be “living”; one must “believe” with the mind and heart, “profess faith” with the lips, “express, prove it” with life. “Show me your faith by your works” (James 2:18), says the Apostle to the one who boasts of one dead faith, one bare knowledge of the existence of God. “Faith,” said the Monk Simeon, the New Theologian, “in the broad meaning of this word, contains all the Divine Commandments of Christ: it is imprinted with the conviction that there is not a single feature in the Commandments that does not matter, that everything in them, to the last iota, is life and the reason for eternal life” 504. “Believe” in the dogmas preached by the Gospel, understand and confess them according to the exact teaching of the Orthodox Eastern Church, which alone contains the Gospel teaching, in all its purity and correctness. “Believe” the sacraments established in the Church by the Lord Himself, preserved by the Eastern Church in their entirety. “Believe” the holy, life-giving Gospel commandments, the correct fulfillment of which is possible only in the bosom of the true Church, the fulfillment of which constitutes, what the Holy Fathers call, the active “faith of a Christian” 505. In dogmas - theology taught by God Himself. In the rejection of dogmas there is blasphemy, called unbelief; in the distortion of dogmas - blasphemy, called heresy. When the mind, not yet purified by repentance, still wandering in the region and darkness of fall, not yet enlightened and not led by the Holy Spirit, dares of itself, with its own painful forces, out of the darkness of pride, to reason about God: then it will certainly fall into error. Such delusion is blasphemy. We can only know about God what He, in His great mercy, revealed to us. By the sacraments of the Christian Church, the believer is brought into union with the Divine, in which there is essential salvation, the sealing of “faith” by the deed of “faith,” and hence the acceptance of the guarantee of eternal blessings. He who renounces the devil, sin and the world, for “faith” in Christ, dies to the life of the fallen nature, which he lived hitherto in unbelief and sinfulness; immersed in the baptismal font, he is buried for this life; he comes out of the font already born for a new life, life in Christ. By Baptism a Christian is united to Christ, clothed in Christ; through communion of the Holy Mysteries of Christ one is united with Christ. Thus, through the sacraments, he becomes all of Christ. He who is baptized into Christ no longer lives as an original being, but as one who borrows the fullness of life from another being - from Christ. “Bring your own,” says the Apostle to Christians: you bought them at a natural price. Your bodies are the essence of Christ. Glorify God in all your bodies, and in your souls, which are God” (1 Cor. 6:19-20, 15). The fulfillment of the life-giving commandments of the Gospel supports the union of a Christian with Christ (John 15:10). Otherwise, a member of Christ cannot remain in unity with Christ, except by acting from His will, from His mind. Both the will and mind of Christ are depicted in the Gospel commandments. It is common for every being to act, inside and outside itself, in accordance with its nature. Likewise, the new person clothed in Christ tends to think, feel, and act as Christ thinks, feels, and acts. To be carried away by the thoughts and feelings of an old person, even if outwardly good, is unnatural for him. The leader of a Christian must be the Holy Spirit, just as the leaders of the old man are flesh, blood and the evil spirit. “The first man Adam was a living soul, the last Adam was a life-giving Spirit” (1 Cor. 15:45). All thoughts, feelings, and actions of a Christian must flow from the Holy Spirit, and not be their own, spiritual, according to the nature of the old Adam. You will achieve this when you completely arrange your life according to the commandments of the Gospel, according to its most holy words: “The words that I spoke to you,” says the Lord, “are the Spirit and the life” (John 6:63). “Orthodox faith” in Christ, sealed by the sacrament of baptism, alone is sufficient for salvation, without works, when a person does not have time to do them: because “faith” replaces a person with Christ, and good human deeds with the merits of Christ. But as we continue our earthly life, work is certainly required. Only those deeds in a Christian are recognized as good deeds, which serve as the fulfillment of the Gospel commandments, with which his “faith” is nourished and lives, with which his life in Christ is supported: because the only agent in a Christian must be Christ. A baptized person does not have the right to act according to the attraction of heartfelt feelings, depending on the influence of flesh and blood on the heart, no matter how good these feelings may seem: only those good deeds are accepted from him to the commission of which the Spirit of God and the Word of God excite the heart, which belong to the nature renewed by Christ. “The righteous shall live by faith” (Heb. 10:38). True faith in Christ is the only means of salvation, but “faith” is living, expressed by the whole being of a person. The holy Apostle James demands this “living faith” from a Christian when he proclaims that faith without works is dead, that faith is made perfect by works (James 2:17, 22). The opposition of works to “faith” exposes other beliefs that secretly and criminally nest in the human heart. Praising the work of the patriarch Abraham, Saint James praises the work of his “faith” - the sacrifice of his son at the command of God, a work directly opposite to the properties of the fallen nature, called good. “Faith” gave the power to accomplish this deed, and the deed expressed the power of “faith”: this explains the essence of Abraham’s act, interpreted by the two Apostles, James and Paul (James 2:21–23; Rom.4:1, 3). Those who give an important price to the so-called good deeds of the fallen nature are blind. These deeds have their praise, their value, in time, among people, but not before God, before Whom “all have fallen away, and have become useless” (Rom. 3:12). Those who trust in the good deeds of a fallen nature have not known Christ, have not understood the mystery of redemption, and are getting bogged down in the nets of their own false thinking, raising an absurd objection against their half-dead and wavering faith: “Is God really so unjust that he will not reward good deeds committed by idolaters and heretics with eternal salvation”? These judges transfer the incorrectness and weakness of their judgment to the judgment of God. If good deeds, according to the feelings of the heart, brought salvation, then the coming of Christ would be unnecessary, the redemption of humanity through the sufferings and death on the cross of the God-man would be unnecessary, the commandments of the Gospel would not be necessary. It is obvious that those who recognize salvation as possible only through the works of a fallen nature destroy the meaning of Christ and reject Christ. The Jews unlawfully armed themselves against the faith, demanding that believers fulfill the ritual decrees of the old law; the lawless sons of a world hostile to God, alien to the mysterious and at the same time essential knowledge of Christ, demand from believers in Christ good deeds according to the mind and feelings of the fallen nature. A believer in Christ has the sword of Christ drawn against the feelings of his heart, and he rapes his heart, cutting with the sword of obedience to Christ not only obvious evil aspirations, but also those aspirations that, apparently, seem good, but in fact contradict the Gospel commandments. And such is all human activity, directed according to the desires of the fallen nature. Imaginary good deeds, due to the attraction of fallen nature, grow the “I” in a person, destroy faith in Christ, and are hostile to God; works of “faith” mortify selfishness in a person, grow “faith” in him, and magnify Christ in him. “If you confess the Lord Jesus with your mouth,” the Apostle teaches, “and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, having been saved. For with the heart he believes in the truth, but with his lips he confesses for salvation” (Rom. 10:9-10). True living faith, only a person confesses it with his lips, brings him salvation. She brought salvation to the thief on the cross; She brought salvation, through repentance, to many sinners in the last, dying minutes of their lives. It is so important and necessary for salvation to “confess with the lips of faith” of the heart and spiritual conviction that the holy martyrs of all centuries of Christianity, starting with the very Apostles of Christ, agreed better to endure terrible and prolonged suffering, to shed their blood like water, than to utter a renunciation of Christ, even only feignedly, with their lips alone, without the participation of the heart. God requires from man one “living, true faith” for his salvation. She, as a guarantee of salvation and eternal bliss, should be dearer to a Christian than his earthly life. Martyrdom was the fruit of true knowledge of God, bestowed by faith. Martyrdom was a matter of "faith". This work has been blasphemed and blasphemed by those who highly value the deeds of fallen human nature: they, in their blindness, call this magnanimous, most holy feat, given to humanity by God, a consequence of insanity. So important is every thought of the God-given dogmas that the holy confessors, like martyrs, sealed the Orthodox confession of the dogmas with agonizing suffering and streams of blood. According to the importance of faith in the matter of salvation, and sins against it have a special weight on the scales of God’s justice: they are all mortal, that is, the death of the soul is associated with them, and eternal destruction will follow them, eternal torment in the abysses of hell. The mortal sin is “unbelief”: it rejects the only means of salvation – faith in Christ. Mortal sin is “denial of Christ”: it deprives the renunciant of living faith in Christ, manifested and contained by confession of the mouth. Mortal sin is “heresy”: it contains blasphemy and makes those infected by it alien to the true faith in Christ. The mortal sin is “despair”: it is the rejection of active, living faith in Christ. Healing from all these deadly sins: holy, true, living “faith” in Christ. Confession of the mouth is essential in matters of faith: the great legislator of the Israelites, Moses the Seer of God, had just uttered, in a matter of faith, a word with some sign of doubt, when he was deprived of entry into the Promised Land (Num. 20:10–12). A disciple of a certain Egyptian desert dweller, in a conversation with a Jew, barely uttered, in his simplicity, an ambiguous word about the Christian faith, and the grace of baptism immediately departed from him 506. Church history tells that in the first times of Christianity, during times of persecution, some pagans feignedly, in jest and mockery, uttered an oral confession of Christ, and suddenly the grace of God overshadowed them: they were instantly transformed from inveterate pagans into zealous Christians, and sealed with blood the confession that was first pronounced as blasphemy 507 . Suffering and death for the commandments of the Gospel are also a matter of living faith in Christ, also martyrdom 508. And this martyrdom primarily belongs to the “holy monks.” Inspired by a living faith, the holy monks, like Abraham, left their fatherland and their parents' home; like Moses, they preferred suffering in Christ to earthly pleasures; like Elijah, half naked, they chose deserts and dens as their place of residence; with the eyes of faith they looked at heavenly rewards. In their deserts, far from people, far from entertainment and corruptible activities, they entered into a feat against sin, cast it out of their actions, from their thoughts, from their feelings, and the Holy Spirit descended into their pure souls and filled them with grace-filled gifts. Living faith in Christ and the Gospel gave the saints the strength to endure the struggle against sin and made them vessels of the Holy Spirit. “Faith” is the mother of patience, the mother of courage, the power of prayer, the guide to humility, the giver of hope, the ladder to the throne of love. “Faith” in Christ, manifested and confessed visibly and invisibly by the fulfillment of Christ’s commandments, contains an intact guarantee of salvation, and brings Christian perfection to those who have left the world in order to devote themselves entirely to evangelical activities. In those who have achieved Christian perfection, strengthened faith, through the action of the Holy Spirit, looks with special clarity at the promises of God, as if seeing, as if touching, eternal blessings. And it happens, according to the teachings of the Apostle, in the full sense of “a revelation of things hoped for, a revelation of things unseen” (Heb. 11:1). Those who have been enriched by a living faith in Christ change in their attitude towards the visible world and earthly life: the law and sentence of decay, change and end in the corruptible objects of the visible world becomes obvious to their pure eyes; earthly advantages, as short-lived, are insignificant before these pure eyes. Those who have been enriched by a living faith in Christ fly like winged creatures through all sorrows, through all the most difficult circumstances. Intoxicated with faith in the omnipotent God, they do not see labor in work, and do not feel illness in illness. They recognize God as the only actor in the universe; they have made Him “theirs” through living faith in Him. A believer in Christ, even if he dies a sinful death, will live again through repentance (John 11:25). And we see many of the saints who fell from the heights of holiness into the abyss of grave sins, then, with the help of faith and the repentance inspired by it, freed from the stinking and dark abyss, ascending again to the heights of purity and holiness. Despair is the accuser of unbelief and selfishness that precedes in the heart: he who believes in himself and trusts in himself will not rise from sin by repentance; the believer in Christ, the all-powerful Redeemer and Physician, will arise for them. “Faith comes by hearing” (Rom. 10:17): listen to the Gospel speaking to you and the Holy Fathers explaining the Gospel; listen to them carefully, and, little by little, a “living faith” will take root in you, which will require you to fulfill the Gospel commandments, and for this fulfillment will reward you with the hope of undoubted salvation. She will make you a follower of Christ on earth, a joint heir with Him in heaven. Amen. Venerable Simeon, New Theologian, Word on Faith, Philokalia, part 1. Word III, countries. 42. Edition of Optina Pustyn 1852. Saints Callistus and Ignatius Xanthopoulos, ch. 16, Philokalia, part 2. Life of St. Paisius the Great. Chet'i-Minei, June 19th. The suffering of the holy martyr Philemon. Cheti-Minei, December 14 days. Venerable Simeon, New Theologian, ch. 1. Philokalia, part 1. You might be interested in: