Orthodox readings for 17 July 2011

King James Version (en)

Romans, Chapter 10, verses 1-10

⁵ The Scripture showeth the difference betwixt the righteousness of the Law, and this of faith

¹Brethren, my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is, that they might be saved.

²For I bear them record that they have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge.

³For they being ignorant of God's righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God.

⁴For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth.

⁵For Moses describeth the righteousness which is of the law, That the man which doeth those things shall live by them.

⁶But the righteousness which is of faith speaketh on this wise, Say not in thine heart, Who shall ascend into heaven? (that is, to bring Christ down from above:)

⁷Or, Who shall descend into the deep? (that is, to bring up Christ again from the dead.)

⁸But what saith it? The word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth, and in thy heart: that is, the word of faith, which we preach;

⁹That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.

¹⁰For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.

Matthew, Chapter 8, verses 28-34

²³ stilleth the tempest on the sea, driveth the devils out of two men possessed, ³¹ and suffereth them to go in the swine

²⁸And when he was come to the other side into the country of the Gergesenes, there met him two possessed with devils, coming out of the tombs, exceeding fierce, so that no man might pass by that way.

²⁹And, behold, they cried out, saying, What have we to do with thee, Jesus, thou Son of God? art thou come hither to torment us before the time?

³⁰And there was a good way off from them an herd of many swine feeding.

³¹So the devils besought him, saying, If thou cast us out, suffer us to go away into the herd of swine.

³²And he said unto them, Go. And when they were come out, they went into the herd of swine: and, behold, the whole herd of swine ran violently down a steep place into the sea, and perished in the waters.

³³And they that kept them fled, and went their ways into the city, and told every thing, and what was befallen to the possessed of the devils.

³⁴And, behold, the whole city came out to meet Jesus: and when they saw him, they besought him that he would depart out of their coasts.

Matthew, Chapter 9, verse 1

¹And he entered into a ship, and passed over, and came into his own city.

NOTES

Sometimes there is no strength to begin some task, no strength to reassess one's position - civic, religious, whatever it may be - and simply no strength to get up. There is no strength because we...

Much has been said and written about the world's reaction to Jesus' witness to the Kingdom that He brought into the world, just as much has been said and written about its reaction to Him Himself. And yet the brightest illustrations of this reaction are precisely the Gospel stories, despite the brevity often characteristic of them...

Such is also the story of Jesus' healing of the possessed man. In itself, from a spiritual point of view, such a healing was an outstanding event, even apart from the fate of the particular person freed from the burdensome power of the dark forces over him. But the inhabitants of those places were pagans, and in those times this meant practical irreligion. It is hard to say what they thought about the possessed man living not far from them, but in any case his healing, it appears, did not impress them very much. Something else impressed them instead: the loss of an entire, and probably rather large, herd of pigs.

Of course, the first reaction of anyone reading the Gospel to such indifference will be surprise, and perhaps indignation. But if one thinks about it, the reaction of the inhabitants of a typical pagan city was completely natural for pagans. Pagans are simply people who live by the laws of the untransformed world and know, or do not wish to know, any others. And in the untransformed world, inertia, worldview stereotypes, and behavioral patterns play an enormous role. People who live by its laws feel truly comfortable in it, and it never occurs to them that this comfort is deficient by definition.

The abnormality of the situation is emphasized by the constant presence beside the inhabitants of the city of a herd of pigs: from the point of view of the Torah, pigs are unclean animals, defiling the place where they live and the people who come into contact with them. Accordingly, the pagans in the Gospel story live in a state of uncleanness that is normal for them, just as it is generally normal for the fallen world. And all their behavior, all their reactions are "tuned" to this fallen world. The spiritual dimension in the proper sense of the word does not exist for them, while they understand very well what material loss is. And therefore the presence of Jesus frightens them.

Of course, trouble can be expected from Him, especially if the trouble is the very presence of the spiritual dimension in one's own life. And the townspeople honestly, with all the frankness characteristic of man, ask Him to leave. And He leaves: the Kingdom is not imposed by force; it can be accepted only by free will.

It is no accident that there are so many stories of healing in the Gospel: every healing is a witness to the Kingdom. But, as can be seen, not everyone understands the essence of what is happening, even when everything happens right before his eyes. Hence the displeasure of the Pharisees around Jesus: Jesus speaks of the forgiveness of sins, and who can forgive a person's sins except God?

Yet even from the point of view of the ideas generally accepted in those days, the situation in this regard was not so unambiguous. The fact is that the question of a person's forgiveness of sins was connected above all with the day of Judgment and the day of the Messiah's coming, which in the Judaism of the Gospel era coincided. And the Messiah took a certain, though not fully defined, part in God's judgment, testifying for or against the accused; His testimony could become decisive. Then, depending on the outcome of the Judgment, a person received, or did not receive, the right to enter the messianic Kingdom.

Jesus, however, somewhat corrects these familiar ideas: He speaks of the Kingdom entering the world, giving everyone the opportunity to begin with a clean slate. He speaks of the forgiveness of sins with reference not to the Judgment, nor even to the judgments a person may pass through before the day of the final Judgment. He speaks of the fact that the sins of everyone who touches the Kingdom and shares in its life are forgiven precisely because that person begins a new life in the Kingdom, leaving the old one behind. And every healing is an act of faith, faith as trust in God and in the One who brought the Kingdom into the world. That is why Jesus says to the healed man: "...your sins are forgiven."

For the Pharisees, as can be seen, what is happening has no relation to the Kingdom. At best they see simply a miracle, an action of God which by itself gives the One through whom it is performed no right to substitute Himself for God, or His own determinations for God's judgment. Here passes the boundary between the world and the Kingdom, the very boundary that is so clearly visible from the Kingdom and often completely invisible from the world.

FAQ

Some believe that Jehovah God is the only Person who claims worship and trust, and that Jesus is the Son of God, also a Person, but does not claim worship, because Jesus is a creation of Jehovah; moreover, Jesus is not God, since He Himself often prayed to His Heavenly Father (He could not, after all, pray to Himself). The Holy Spirit is impersonal, an expression of the will of Jehovah God; the impersonality of the Holy Spirit is confirmed by the fact that during Pentecost, He descended upon those present, dividing into many flames. The point is that the Holy Spirit divided into many... but can a person divide and be considered the same person? Personally, I believe that judging the nature of God, considering that He is a Trinity or considering that the situation is as described above, is generally wrong. Who can comprehend the nature of God?

Who can comprehend the nature of God? Of course, only God Himself...

Who can comprehend the nature of God? Of course, only God Himself. But what is essentially important for our salvation, He reveals to us. Therefore, the Church has always tried to be precise in comprehending this Revelation, so it is necessary to clearly envision what is important for our coming to God.

The idea of the created nature of Jesus Christ was first expressed by the Alexandrian priest Arius at the beginning of the 4th century AD. The Church quite unanimously rejected this opinion as erroneous, because if it was not God who shared our life and our death with us, then there is no salvation from sin and death for us. Likewise, if the Holy Spirit is a faceless force (a sort of semolina porridge, God forgive me), then communion with a Personal God is impossible for us. In this case, again, there is no salvation, because the entire biblical faith collapses. After all, the Holy Spirit is precisely the One Who pours life into our hearts, and not in some Hellenistic "afterlife existence" (which is a non-biblical idea), but here and now. Thus, the Church believes that Jesus is the God-Man, consubstantial with the Father in His Divinity and consubstantial with us in His humanity, and the Holy Spirit is a Person, God, whom we worship together with the Father and the Son.

The arguments you write about do not seem convincing. Of course, Jesus prays—how else can a man (and God incarnate in a man as well) communicate with the Father? The manner of communion between the Father, the Son, and the Spirit in the Trinity is incomprehensible to us; but the God-Man Jesus Christ is humbled for our sake to such an extent that He also shares our manner of communion with the Father. As for the worship of Jesus Christ, the Holy Scripture says that it is precisely the belief that He is Lord that gives a person salvation. The Apostle Paul in his Epistles to the Romans ( 10:9), to the Philippians ( 2:6-11), and to the Colossians says that the will of God regarding our salvation is that we worship God in Jesus Christ, since "in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily" ( 2:9). Obviously, the opinion of Arius regarding the created nature of the Son of God radically contradicts these last words of the apostle.

The Holy Spirit, of course, can act in every person, and in many people at once, for He is Almighty! And the "divided tongues, as of fire" are only visible signs of His coming, not He Himself. Ultimately, I reply to letters from many people—does my personality thereby divide into separate pieces of paper?

It is truly important for us to know and accept what is expressed in the dogmatic teaching of the seven Ecumenical Councils, including the concept of the Trinity, first explicitly formulated by St. Theophilus of Antioch in the second half of the 2nd century. The Triunity of God means for us that He a) is not like us; b) transcends us and our understanding; c) has life in Himself; d) gives us the opportunity to share with Him the fullness of His life. This is in brief, of course. The Church's teaching on the Triune God is profound and significant enough to become acquainted with it through the Bible itself and specialized sources.

Everyone, of course, is free to choose their own confession. But it is important for Christians to remember that every dogmatic assertion has consequences in practical spiritual life, and these consequences must be seen and evaluated by their fruits.

Why did the people of Israel leave their homeland, and can this be regarded as a punishment for this nation, sent by God because they did not accept His Son and the New Covenant?

You are almost right, with the exception of the word "punishment." It does not reflect the essence of the matter, and indeed the Lord, through the prophets, rejects such a way of reasoning...

You are almost right, with the exception of the word "punishment." It does not reflect the essence of the matter, and indeed the Lord, through the prophets, rejects such a way of reasoning. The Gospels quite definitively link the destruction of Jerusalem and the subsequent wave of the dispersion with the rejection of Christ. However, this was not a purposeful retribution for what the Jews had done; rather, I would call it the result of rejecting the Lord Jesus. It is highly significant that the Lord Himself speaks of this with tears, thereby setting an example for all His disciples for all time. The Jews themselves (non-Christians) of the second half of the 1st century AD associated the destruction of Jerusalem with the murder of James the Just, the brother of the Lord, the first bishop of Jerusalem.

The entire history of biblical faith (both Old Testament and New Testament) testifies that the betrayal of Christ's love and the substitution of faith with lesser things always leads people to disaster. So it was in the days of the fall of Samaria and the first destruction of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar; so it was in the 1st century AD; and so it has been in the history of the Church. The issue, in fact, is not about punishment... Simply put, if we are not with God, we are defenseless against the evil that reigns in this world, and we ourselves only multiply it. However, two important points must be noted. On the one hand, the Bible tells us that the Lord judges each person individually, and not entire groups and nations. On the other hand, His relationship with the chosen people, judging by the words of the Apostle Paul, remains special, comparable (though not identical) only to the relationship between God and the Church. As far as the Apostle Paul can be understood, in his view the conversion of Israel will be the final, culminating moment of Salvation History, and through this the chosen people continue to serve God and other people.

Finally, the traditional notion that the Jews did not accept Christ is highly biased. After all, the Most Holy Virgin and Joseph the Betrothed, John the Baptist and all the apostles, and the majority of the early Christians were Jews. A portion of the Jews accepted Christ, and a portion did not; but was this not the case with everyone else as well? And to accept the New Covenant "collectively," as a nation, is fundamentally impossible; the Lord establishes it with each person individually.

If the way to God is through Christ, what will happen to Israel?

Unlike the Old Covenant, the New Covenant is made with each person individually, regardless of a person's origin...

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