Notes for  30 November 2024

If we are indeed saved "not by works of righteousness," does this mean that righteousness is irrelevant to our salvation? Or does the apostle mean something else? The key word here is still probably "works." After all, in the final analysis, what is human righteousness? Even before the coming of Christ, many understood that fallen man cannot be righteous. Human righteousness was always perceived as a reflection of God's righteousness, while only God Himself was considered righteous in the full sense of the word. And then it turned out that righteousness is a divine-human matter, that a person does not walk the path of righteousness by himself, not by his own strength, but that God leads him along this path, while from the person only complete trust in God and faithfulness to Him are required. And a person cannot "earn" anything before God. He can only refrain from spoiling what God is doing with his hands. And the Kingdom is given to the seeker not for works of righteousness, which he does not have and cannot have, but for the very readiness to remain faithful despite his own sinfulness and to follow the One who can deliver from any sin if only He is allowed to do so and asked for deliverance. Here God's mercy is manifested: mercy, as the authors of the biblical books understood it, implied precisely readiness to do for another what that other in no way deserves and what no one is obliged to do for him. Only such mercy can open the path to the Kingdom for us.

The joyful call to praise the Lord uses few words, but by listening closely we can not only share the feelings that overflow the singer, but also see that those feelings neither deprive him of reason nor prevent him in any way from understanding the meaning of what he sings. First of all, he invites us to praise God for His attributes: holiness, strength, power, and majesty; only then does he name the instruments with which praise may be offered. And after the call addressed to the crown of creation—to human beings—the call is addressed to everything that breathes, to the natural world over which God has placed humanity.

Neither the joyful acceptance of God and the world He created, nor a reasoned understanding of God's wisdom manifested in creation, contradicts the other. For reason is a gift from God.