Main news for 31 March 2024

In the apostolic letters one often meets the expression "to die to the world." Paul also uses it, in particular in his letter to the Colossians. Usually this expression is interpreted in an ethical or anthropological sense. It is assumed that a person who has died to the world lives by a completely different system of values compared with people of "this world."

Of course, this is also important: the Savior Himself spoke of the fact that it is impossible to serve two masters. But if the issue were only a system of values, practical ethics, even what philosophers call an existential choice, we would still remain within the boundaries and framework of "this world."

Paul, however, speaks of more. He speaks of new life, the life that does not exist for the world. A presentiment of this other life was in the world even before the coming of Christ, and not only among the biblical prophets. The prophets sensed the breath of this other life quite clearly, though from afar. Those who in the pagan world happened to catch glimpses of this other life often described it as the absence of the habitual life of "this world."

Something like what the Buddha did, when he described the Kingdom with its life, slightly opened to him for a moment, as the absence of life in its familiar earthly forms. This life, slightly and briefly opened to him, was too unlike what we are accustomed to call life. From the point of view of the fallen world, the life of the Kingdom cannot be called life. Perhaps that is why the New Testament books so often speak of death to the world.

Christ brought the Kingdom into the world, and therefore, if we are Christians, we are dead to the world; nothing of its life remains in us. But the life of the Kingdom, which is in Christ, is ours. It is hidden in Him just as the entire fullness of the Kingdom was hidden in Him until the time. But of course this hiddenness is only for a time, otherwise there would have been no reason for Him to come into our world. This means that what was hidden will one day be revealed. In all fullness.