Main news for 5 April 2026

The image of the two ways of which the apostle speaks, the way of salvation and the way of destruction, has roots that go deep into the Yahwist and then Jewish tradition. The way of righteousness, both in the Torah and in other biblical books, is regarded as the way of salvation, and the way of sin as the way of ruin. And yet the picture turns out not to be so simple.

Already in the pre-Christian and even pre-biblical period, many wondered why the righteous person suffers from the evil in which the world lies, and why his righteousness is not rewarded according to its merits. This theme sounds especially sharply in the biblical books, which is not surprising: the God of the Bible is a good God, who gave His people the Torah and calls them to the path of righteousness. Why then does He so often leave His people at the mercy of the evil with which the world is full?

The Savior's death on the Cross is the answer to this question. Of course, for fallen man with the best intentions it would be simpler to imagine an ideal world where righteousness would be immediately rewarded and evil just as immediately punished. But in such a world no one would have any chance of salvation, for there are no sinless people on earth. Jesus could have entered the world as a triumphant victor, but then He would have had to remain alone in the Kingdom. And His Father's will was not for this. Such a triumph of the Kingdom would not have left the slightest chance to any human being. The will of the Father, expressed through one of the prophets several centuries before Christ's coming into the world, is that the sinner should not die, but turn and remain alive.

That is precisely why the Kingdom enters the world as if unnoticed, not imposing itself on anyone by force and not hanging over anyone as a threat of immediate punishment for the slightest sin. That is why all attempts to create on earth a kingdom of universal justice, whether on a religious or anti-religious basis, have always ended in grand bloodshed having nothing to do with any justice. And Paul points to the way of the Kingdom as the only way on which the triumph of righteousness is possible. A triumph leading not to destruction, but to salvation.