Main news for 1 August 2023

In essence, for Paul this is a kind of cry from the heart. For the surrounding world, what the apostle writes about is hardly respectable, but still normal. But the Church belongs to Heaven; it is an enclave of the heavenly Kingdom surrounded by the kingdoms of this world. Therefore he writes with such sorrow that it is impossible to be a member of the Church and not observe the moral norms of the Kingdom of Heaven. For Christians there is always a temptation to follow the much more indulgent moral views of their time, whether the first century or the twenty-first, and to feel "righteous enough." In our time people say, "I am not a sinner because I do not do anything like that; I live like everyone else." So the apostle writes that in the Church this "like everyone else" is not worth a broken penny. Here the norms are different.

Co1 5:1-2

NOTES

In his letter to the Corinthian church, Paul mentions very serious sins committed by some of its members. At the same time, the apostle considers it necessary to "deliver the one who has done such a thing to Satan." Such a proposal can sound strange, but only at first glance. If one sees the Church as Paul sees it, everything falls into place. For the apostle, the Church is not an organization and not even a religious community, but the body of Christ.

It is above all a spiritual reality, the manifestation of the Kingdom on earth, in our world, which is being transformed but has not yet been transformed to the end. And if a person is deprived of fellowship with the Church, if he is separated from the Kingdom, the consequences for him can be most serious: he has already shared in the life of the Kingdom, and rejecting it means spiritual death for him. Of course, one could say that many people know nothing at all about the Kingdom and live the life of this world without experiencing, as it appears, any special inconvenience. But these people have never known anything except that imitation of life in this world which they mistakenly consider real life.

Their souls and bodies have adapted to such a half-alive existence and function somehow in the corresponding mode, not allowing their owners to die completely. But if someone manages to live differently, then he is still living not only by the life of this world, but also in part by the life of the Kingdom, catching its breath. Now that it has drawn near, according to the Savior's word, it has become much easier to feel and catch this breath than it was before, before Christ's coming.

But for a person who has already tasted the full life of the Kingdom as part of the body of Christ, falling back means an almost inevitable spiritual, and even not only spiritual, catastrophe. Yet in the case of deliberate sin it is impossible to act otherwise. One thing is sin over which the sinner grieves and of which he repents, understanding that he has done something incompatible with his Christian life: here forgiveness and a return to the former state are possible. In the end, God wants the sinner's salvation, not his destruction.

But to save means first of all to deliver a person from everything that prevents him from living the life of the Kingdom, and therefore first of all from sin. If a person does not want to be delivered from anything, considering his sin the norm, then the Kingdom is closed to him. Not because God does not love him, but because he himself loves his sin more than himself, at least more than his true self, created in the image and likeness of God. And here nothing more can be done: a person is free and chooses for himself what is dearer to him. And he bears all the consequences of his choice.

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