1. Paradise
Rev. John of Damascus writes about a man in paradise:God prepared for him, as it were, some kind of palace where he lived, he would have spent a blissful and contented life. This was the divine paradise, planted by the hands of God in Eden, a repository of joy and all joy, for the word Eden means pleasure. He was in the east, towering over the whole earth. There was the most perfect goodness in him. The finest and purest air surrounded him; ever-blooming plants decorated it. It was saturated with incense, filled with light and surpassed any idea of sensual charm and beauty. It was a truly divine country and a worthy home for those created in the image of God. ...Some imagined heaven as sensual, others as spiritual. It seems to me that, in accordance with how man was created both sensual and spiritual, so his most sacred destiny was both sensual and spiritual, and had two sides; for with his body man, as we said, lived in a most divine and most beautiful place, but with his soul he lived in a place incomparably higher and incomparably more beautiful, having as his dwelling place God who dwelt in him and putting on Him as in a bright robe... Thus, I think that the divine paradise was twofold, and therefore the God-bearing fathers taught equally correctly - both those who held one view and those who held the other.
St. Ignatius (Brianchaninov) writes about heaven:
"Taught by the Holy Scriptures and the Holy Fathers, we recognize paradise - this place of immaculate pleasure in which Adam was placed, in which many souls of righteous people are now placed, in which many saints of God will be placed with their bodies after the resurrection - appropriate and in accordance with its nature to its inhabitants. Paradise is material, but its substance is subtle, how subtle are the souls, how subtle was the body of Adam before he was clothed in leather garments, how subtle will be the resurrected bodies of the righteous in the image of the glorified body of our Lord Jesus Christ. “Paradise,” says Blessed Theophylact of Bulgaria, “is a village of spiritual peace.” Paradise, according to the legend of this Teacher of the Church, was sensual; Adam saw him and ate the fruits of the trees of paradise; had fun there spiritually. The thief who confessed the Lord on the cross was elevated to this paradise, the ancient heritage and fatherland of man. Saint Macarius the Great says: “The worldly and heavenly Jerusalem, where is paradise” (Conversation XXV, chapter 7).”
Rev. Macarius the Great talks about what Adam was like before the Fall:
The enemy, having seduced Adam, and thus, having dominated over him, took away his power, and himself was called the prince of this age. In the beginning, the Lord made man the prince of this age and the ruler of what is visible. Neither the fire overcame him, nor the water drowned him, nor the beast harmed him, nor the poison-bearing animal could have its effect on him.
St. Athanasius the Great:
“Being sinless, Adam could communicate directly with God, look at His ineffable perfections, for he was created to behold God and be illuminated and enlightened by Him.” (Contra gent.7; t.25, col.16B; comp.ibid.33 et 34).
Rev. Justin (Popovich):
Impassive, for he was the likeness of the impassive God, man, in the words of St. Gregory of Nyssa, “enjoyed the Epiphany face to face.”
Rev. Seraphim of Sarov said:
Adam was created not subject to action from any of the elements created by God, neither water could drown him, nor fire could burn him, nor could the earth devour him in its abysses, nor could the air harm him by any of its actions. Everything was submitted to him, as the favorite of God, as the king and owner of creation...
About the life of Adam and Eve in paradise St. Justin (Popovich) writes:
Dwelling in paradise in indescribable harmony with the will of God, the first people grew from good to good, from God-vision to God-vision, from perfection to perfection, from joy to joy, ascended from bliss to bliss, constantly rising and heading with their God-oriented being to the Top of all peaks , to the Trisun God and Lord.
Rev. Macarius the Great writes that the first people in paradise were clothed as with a robe with the glory of God:
"Question. Did Adam have the sensation and communication of the Spirit?
Answer. The Word itself, abiding in him, was everything to him: knowledge, sensation, heritage, and teaching. And what does John say about the Word? “In the beginning was the Word” (John 1:1). You see that the Word was everything. And if and the glory from without rested on Adam; then let us not be tempted by this, for it is said: “besta is naked” (Gen. 2:25), and they did not see each other, and only after breaking the commandment did they see that they were naked and were ashamed.
Question. Consequently, before the crime, instead of a covering, people were clothed with God’s glory?
Answer. Just as the Spirit acted in the Prophets, and taught them, and was inside them, and appeared to them from the outside: so in Adam, the Spirit, when it wanted, abided with him, taught and inspired: “say this and name.” For the Word was everything to him; and Adam, as long as he kept the commandment, was a friend of God."
St. Gregory Palamas also writes:
"...Born and nurtured in Christ... will shine like the sun in the Kingdom of their Father.
Adam, having previously been a participant in the crime, was of the same divine radiance and luminosity. as if, truly, dressed in the solemn robe of glory, was not naked and was not ashamed that he was naked, but was much more, so that it is impossible to express, decorated than those who now wear tiaras, adorned with much gold and precious stones. This our nature, shamefully exposed as a result of crime, this divine radiance and luminosity, the Word of God, having mercy and out of love for mankind, showed on Tabor... again and to an even stronger degree clothed in this divine luminosity... and clearly presented what We who believe in Him and are made perfect in Him will be in the age to come" (Omilia XVI).
Holy John Chrysostom:
“The reason why the first people were not ashamed of nakedness was that they were clothed with immortality, clothed with glory. Glory did not allow them to see themselves naked; it covered their nakedness.”
“The whole earth was given to Adam, but Paradise was his chosen dwelling. He could walk outside of Paradise, but the earth located outside of Paradise was not intended for habitation by man, but by dumb animals, four-legged animals, beasts, and reptiles. A royal and sovereign dwelling for man "was paradise. That is why God brought the animals to Adam, because they were separated from him. Slaves do not always stand before the master, but only when there is a need for them. The animals were named and immediately removed from paradise; only Adam remained in paradise." .
Rev. John of Damascus writes that this is heaven
“A divine place, and a dwelling worthy of one who is created in the image of God; not one of the dumb creatures dwelt in it, but only man, the creation of Divine hands.”
Obviously, the purpose of man’s dwelling in paradise was not simply satisfaction with the pleasures of this wonderful place, but the desire for something higher and achievement for the sake of it; the very presence of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and the commandment not to eat from it indicates the challenge and test that a person must endure in order to ascend higher.
Thus, heaven - and all earthly life man - was created by God, according to Saint Basil the Great, as “mainly a school and place of education of human souls.”
Nellas Panagiotis writes about the purpose of man, or about the work that lay ahead of him in heaven:
“... our guide will be the Monk Maxim. He considers the main property of man in his natural state to be relative, or more precisely, potential unity. Man is called "through the right use of his natural powers" to transform this potential unity into the actual complete unity of himself and all creation in God.
Potential unity already exists between the material creation and human body, between body and soul, between soul and God. Rev. Maxim writes that “the soul is placed between God and matter and has forces that unite it with both.” Adam had to, by correctly using these connecting forces, bring potential unity to fruition, overcoming and thereby destroying the four main divisions of the universe: man - into male and female sexes, earth - into paradise and the rest of the earth (the universe in Epifanovich, p. 76), of all visible creation - to earth and heaven; of the entire created world - to the intelligent and sensual. Finally, he had to overcome the fifth division - the highest and ineffable - between the creature and the Creator.
... the soul, correctly using the senses, is not only capable of “using its inherent powers” to order the world and rule it, while at the same time not mixing with it, but also - what is more significant - has the power to “wisely comprehend the visible creation, in which God is hidden and preached in silence."
This is how... virtues are formed... So, St. Petersburg sums up. Maxim, the soul... unites its powers... with the virtues and divine logos hidden in them; for virtues are not simply human, but Divine-human states. The spiritual mind, hidden in the pre-divine logoi, in all this motivates the soul and “exalts the whole to the entire Divinity. And God embraces the whole of the soul, together with the body inherent in it, and gives them the likeness of Himself, as He Himself knows.”
Thus, the multiplicity of creation, “concentrating around the single nature of man,” can be gathered together, and the Creator of all appears as One, “reigning over creation through the human race,” and so “God Himself becomes all in all, embracing all and giving existence to all.” To yourself."
This is the natural state of man in the image of God; such is its natural purpose, doing and purpose.”
In the beginning, man was presented with the path of ascension from strength to strength, glory to glory, from paradise to the position of a spiritual inhabitant of heaven, through the exercises and trials that the Lord would send him, beginning with the commandment not to eat of the only tree of the knowledge of good and evil. After the Fall, people were expelled from paradise, and, darkened by sin, lost the opportunity to see it. However, there are many descriptions of heaven by people who were caught up into it by the power of the Holy Spirit and saw it.
The Apostle Paul “was caught up into paradise and heard unspeakable words, which it is impossible for man to utter” (2 Cor. 12:3).
St. Euphrosynus, St. Theodora, St. Gregory of Sinai, St. Euphrosyne of Suzdal, St. Simeon the Divnogorets, St. Andrew the Fool-for-Christ and some other saints were, like the Apostle Paul, “caught up to the third heaven” (2 Cor. 12:2) and contemplated heavenly bliss.
This is what Saint Andrew (10th century) says about paradise: “I saw myself in a beautiful and amazing paradise and, admiring the spirit, thought: “What is this?.. how did I end up here?..” Rejoicing at this beauty, marveling at the mind and with my heart the indescribable beauty of God's paradise, I walked around it and had fun. There were many gardens with tall trees: they swayed with their tops and amused the eyes, a great fragrance emanated from their branches... It is impossible to compare those trees to any earthly tree: God’s hand, and not man’s, planted them. There were countless birds in these gardens... I saw a great river flowing in the middle (of the gardens) and filling them. On the other bank of the river there was a vineyard... Quiet and fragrant winds breathed there from four sides; from their breath the gardens shook and made a wonderful noise with their leaves... After that we entered into a wonderful flame, which did not scorch us, but only enlightened us. I began to be horrified, and again the one who guided me (the angel) turned to me and gave me his hand, saying: “We must ascend even higher.” With this word we found ourselves above the third heaven, where I saw and heard many heavenly powers singing and praising God... (Rising even higher), I saw my Lord, like Isaiah the prophet once, sitting on a high and exalted throne, surrounded Seraphim. He was clothed in a scarlet robe, His face shone with an indescribable light, and He turned His eyes towards me with love. Seeing Him, I fell on my face before Him... What joy then came over me from the vision of His face is impossible to express, so even now, remembering this vision, I am filled with indescribable sweetness.”
Venerable Theodora I saw in paradise “beautiful villages and numerous abodes prepared for those who love God,” and heard “the voice of joy and spiritual gladness.”
From the lives of saints and righteous men, a number of cases are known when those who were raptured into paradise were brought real fruits from there - for example, the apples that St. Euphrosynus, and which were consumed by the pious as a kind of shrine, possessing a nature completely different from the nature of ordinary earthly fruits (Lives of the Saints, September 11).
Rev. Gregory Sinait, the holy father of the highest spiritual life, who was in paradise in the same state of Divine rapture as the Apostle Paul, tells about paradise:
“Eden, a place in which God has planted all kinds of fragrant plants. He is neither completely incorruptible nor completely corruptible. Placed in the middle of corruption and incorruption, it is always abundant in fruits and blooming with flowers, both ripe and unripe. Falling trees and ripe fruits turn into fragrant earth, which does not emit the smell of decay, like the trees of this world. This is because of the abundance of the grace of sanctification, always spilling there.”
In all descriptions of paradise, it is emphasized that earthly words can only to a small extent depict heavenly beauty, since it is “inexpressible” and surpasses human comprehension.
Apostle Paul, raptured to the third Heaven, says, repeating the words of the prophet Isaiah:
The eye has not seen, the ear has not heard, and what God has prepared for those who love Him has not entered into the heart of man. (Isa. 64:4; 1 Cor. 2:9).
Saint Mark of Ephesus writes:
"We affirm that neither righteous They have not yet fully accepted their destiny and that blissful state for which they prepared themselves here through deeds; - neither sinners, after death, were relegated to eternal punishment, in which they will suffer forever; but both must be necessary after that last day of Judgment and resurrection of all; now, both of them are in their proper places: the first are in perfect peace and free in heaven with the Angels and before God Himself, and already, as it were, in paradise from which Adam fell, but the prudent thief entered before the others - and they often visit us in those churches where they are revered, and listen to those who call on them and pray to God for them, having received this considerable gift from Him, and through their relics they work miracles, and enjoy the contemplation of God and the illumination sent from there, more completely and more purely than before when they were alive; the latter, in turn, imprisoned in hell, are “in the darkness and the shadow of death, in the pit of the grave,” as David says [Ps. 87, 7], and then Job: “Into a dark and gloomy land, into a land of eternal darkness, where there is no light, below the belly of man can be seen” [Job. 10, 22]. AND the first ones abide in all joy and gladness, already expecting and only not yet having in his hands the promised Kingdom and unspeakable blessings; and the latter, on the contrary, remain in all sorts of cramped conditions and inconsolable suffering, like some condemned people awaiting the Judge’s verdict and foreseeing such torment. And neither the first have yet accepted the inheritance of the Kingdom and those blessings, “for which no eye has seen, nor an ear heard, nor has the heart of man sighed,” nor the second have yet been given over to eternal torment and burning in an unquenchable fire. And we have this teaching handed down from our Fathers from ancient times and can easily imagine from the Divine Scriptures themselves." (Second word about cleansing fire)
Orthodox Confession of Faith of the Catholic and Apostolic Church of the East speaks of heaven:
"Question 67. What place is actually assigned for the souls of those people who die with the grace of God?
Answer. The souls of those people who depart from this world with the grace of God and with repentance for their sins have their place in the hands of God. For the Holy Scripture says this: “But the souls of the righteous are in the hand of God, and torment will not touch them” (Wisdom 3:1). Their place is also called paradise as Christ the Lord said on the cross to the thief: “Truly I say to you, today you will be with Me in Paradise” (Luke 23:43). It's called and Abraham's bosom, as it is written: “The beggar died and was carried by the angels to Abraham’s bosom” (Luke 16:22), and the Kingdom of Heaven, according to the word of the Lord: “I tell you that many will come from the east and the west and will lie down with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the Kingdom of Heaven” (Matthew 8:11). Therefore, no matter what name anyone from among those mentioned by us calls this place, he will not sin: if only he knows that souls abide in the grace of God in the Kingdom of Heaven, and, as the Church songs say, in heaven.”
2. Where is heaven?
The geographical location of the Garden of Eden is currently very difficult to determine with accuracy. Pointing to it, the Holy Scripture speaks of a river that flowed from Eden to irrigate paradise and then divided into four rivers, namely: Pison, Gihon (Geon), Heddekel (Tigris) and Euphrates (Gen. 2, 10-14). Obviously, the country of Eden and paradise were located in an area lying near the Tigris and Euphrates rivers.
Hieromonk Seraphim Rose writes about the location of heaven:
"Talking about paradise where Adam lived before the Fall, we come to a subtle and mysterious subject, which at the same time is a necessary key to understanding the entire Christian teaching. This paradise, as we will see, is not simply what existed before the Fall; it is also (in a slightly different form) the goal of our entire earthly life - a blessed state to which we strive to return and which we will fully enjoy (if we find ourselves among the saved) with the end of this fallen world.
This is not just a spiritual phenomenon... it is also part of earthly history. Scripture and St. The Fathers teach that in the beginning, before the fall of man, heaven was right here on earth.
The present “place” of paradise, which has remained unchanged in its essence, is in the higher Kingdom, which still seems to correspond in the literal sense to “exaltation” above the earth; in fact, some St. the fathers claim that even before the Fall, paradise was located in some elevated place, being “above all the earth” (St. John of Damascus, Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, II, 11, p. 75; see also St. Ephraim the Syrian, Commentary on the book Genesis, chapter 2, p. 231).
What poses a great difficulty to our modern mind-set, shaped by literalistic science, is how the fathers can speak without distinguishing between heaven as a geographical place (before the Fall) and heaven as the spiritual abode of the righteous (now). Yes, holy. John Chrysostom says in the treatise just quoted that the river of paradise was so full because it was also prepared for the Patriarchs, Prophets and other saints (starting with the Prudent Thief - Luke 23:43).
Holy John Chrysostom writes:
For this purpose, blessed Moses wrote down the name of this place (Eden), so that those who love idle talk could not deceive ordinary listeners and say that paradise was not on earth, but in heaven, and rave about such mythologies... ... believe that paradise was definitely created and in the very place where Scripture appointed...
Rev. Ephraim Sirin understands the connection between paradise and earth so literally that in his “Commentary on the Book of Genesis” he precisely determines that, being a place where trees grow, paradise was created on the third day along with other vegetation and creatures.
He writes in his essay “On Paradise”:
When did Adam sin? God expelled him from paradise, and in His goodness gave him a home outside the boundaries of paradise, settling him in a valley below paradise.”
Bishop Alexander Mileant writes about the location of heaven:
“Still, it would be wrong to consider Heaven and hell only as different states: they are two different places, although they cannot be described geographically. Angels and souls of the dead can only be in one specific place, be it Heaven, hell or earth. We cannot designate the place of the spiritual world, because it is located outside the “coordinates" of our space-time system. That space of a different kind, which, starting here, extends in a new direction, imperceptible to us.
Numerous cases from the lives of saints show how this other kind of space “breaks through” into the space of our world. Thus, the inhabitants of Elovy Island saw the soul of Saint Herman of Alaska ascending in a pillar of fire, and Elder Seraphim Glinsky saw the ascending soul of Seraphim of Sarov. The prophet Elisha saw how the prophet Elijah was taken to heaven in a chariot of fire. No matter how much we want to penetrate “there” with our thoughts, it is limited by the fact that those “places” are outside our three-dimensional space.”
Hieromonk Seraphim (Rose):
"What is the sky? Where is it? Does it occupy any place? Is it at the top?...
It so happens that the question of the location of Heaven (and hell) has become one of the questions that is widely misunderstood in our time. Not so long ago, Khrushchev mocked religious people who still believed in Heaven - he, you see, sent cosmonauts into space, and they did not meet Him!
No thinking Christian, of course, believes in the atheistic caricature of a heaven in the clouds, although there are some naive Protestants who are ready to locate Heaven in a distant galaxy or constellation; the entire visible creation is fallen and corrupted, and there is nowhere in it any place for God’s invisible Heaven, which is a spiritual reality, not a material one. But many Christians, in order to avoid the ridicule of unbelievers and not to fall into materialism, rushed to the other extreme and declared that “Heaven is nowhere.” Among Roman Catholics and Protestants there are sophisticated apologies that claim that Heaven is a state, not a place, that “above” is only a metaphor, that the Ascension of Christ (Luke 24, 50-51; Acts 1, 9-11 ) was not actually an "ascension", but only a change of state. As a result of such apologies, Heaven and Hell became very vague and indefinite concepts.
All Orthodox sources - the Holy Scriptures, divine services, lives of saints, the works of the holy fathers - speak of heaven and Heaven as being “above”, and of hell as being “below”, underground.
Therefore, it is certain that Heaven is a place and is higher than any point on earth, and hell is below, in the interior of the earth; but people cannot see these places and their inhabitants until their spiritual eyes are opened... In addition, these places are outside the coordinates of our space-time system; An airliner does not fly invisibly through heaven, and the Earth's satellite does not fly through the third Heaven, and with the help of drilling it is impossible to reach the souls awaiting the Last Judgment in hell. They are not there, but in a different kind of space, starting right here but extending in a different direction.
Our curiosity should not extend beyond the general knowledge that Heaven and Hell are indeed “places,” but not places in this world, in our space-time system. These "places" are so different from our earthly concepts of "place" that we would be hopelessly confused if we tried to piece together their "geography."
(Hieromonk Seraphim (Rose). The soul after death. Chapter Eight. The authentic Christian experience of Heaven. 1.)
Rev. Paisiy Svyatogorets told the story of one monk who was given admonition that heaven and hell is not an abstract concept:
“In the almshouse of the monastery of St. Paul, one monk, a little simple-minded, but very good-natured, looked after the elders.
He himself told me how about thirty years ago, when he was serving in the almshouse of the monastery, one brother gave him a bunch of grapes for blessing. Out of his kindness, he did not eat it himself, but divided it into small parts and distributed it to the elders. One old man, out of a feeling of gratitude to him, because the grapes were not yet ripe and he tasted them for the first time that year, repeated many times: “Have a wonderful paradise for you! Have a wonderful paradise!” (in Greece it is customary to say such a wish to monks - transl.) He, in his simplicity, jokingly answered him: “Eat grapes. Heaven and hell are here on earth."
Despite the fact that he himself did not believe in it, but said it only as a joke, and besides, his simplicity was a mitigating circumstance, the following happened to him.
At night he had a terrible dream, which seemed like a reality to him. He dreams of a fiery sea, and opposite - a beautiful bay with crystal palaces.
On the shore he saw a certain venerable old man, surrounded by radiance, so that even his beard seemed silken. On the same bank he saw a brother from his monastery, who had died three years before, and asked him what these beautiful palaces were and who this venerable old man was.
The brother answers him: “This is Abraham, and this beautiful bay with crystal palaces is “Abraham’s bosom,” on which the souls of the righteous rest” (in Greek, the words “bay” and “bosom” are homonyms - transl.).
After such stern words heard from Patriarch Abraham, Father Gregory turned to quickly leave. And suddenly he felt that he was burned by a tongue of flame escaping from the fiery sea, and he woke up from pain. And what does he see? The leg that was burned was covered in blisters and burns. She was sick continuously for twenty days, until the wounds healed under the influence of various ointments and healing herbs.
He repented of his words and from then on he was very careful about everything he said."
3. Resurrection of people and heaven
Holy Apostle John the Theologian describes what awaits the world at the end of time:And I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the former heaven and the former earth had already passed away, and the sea was no longer there. And I, John, saw the holy city Jerusalem, new, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from heaven, saying: Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, they will be His people, and God Himself with them will be their God. And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and there will be no more death: neither crying, nor crying, nor pain will be any more, for the former things have passed away. And He who sat on the throne said: Behold, I am creating all things new... I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end; to the thirsty I will give freely from the fountain of living water... And the angel lifted me up in the spirit to great and high mountain, and showed me the great city, holy Jerusalem, which came down from heaven from God. He had the glory of God... But I did not see a temple in him, for the Lord God Almighty is his temple, and the Lamb. And the city has no need of either the sun or the moon for its illumination; for the glory of God has illuminated it, and its lamp is the Lamb. The saved nations will walk in its light... And nothing unclean will enter into it, and no one devoted to abomination and lies, but only those who are written in the Lamb's book of life.
(Rev. 21:1-6, 10, 22-24, 27).
All the dead will be resurrected in new bodies, and the living will be changed. The Apostle Paul writes:
I tell you a secret: we will not all die, but we will all change suddenly, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet; For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will rise incorruptible, and we will be changed.
For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality (1 Cor. 15:51-53).
People's bodies will become spiritual; they will apparently reflect the state of their spirit.
The Lord Jesus Christ said about the resurrection of the saints: “then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father” (Matthew 13:43).
St. Apostle Paul says: “the body is sown in humiliation, but is raised in glory” (1 Cor. 15:43), “there is another glory of the sun, another glory of the moon, another of the stars; and star differs from star in glory. So it is with the resurrection of the dead" (1 Cor. 15:41-42).
St. Macarius the Great writes about the bodies in which people will be resurrected:
“...according to the Holy Scriptures, Christ will come from heaven and resurrect all the tribes of Adam, all who have died from eternity, and will divide them into two parts, and who have His own sign, that is, the seal of the Spirit, those, declaring them to be His own, He will place at His right hand . For he says: My sheep hear My voice (John 10:27); and I know My, and they know My Me (14). Then their bodies will be clothed with divine glory for their good deeds, and they themselves will be filled with that spiritual glory that they still had in their souls. And thus, glorified by the divine light and caught up into heaven to meet the Lord in the air, according to what is written, we will always be with the Lord (1 Sol. 4:17), reigning with Him for endless ages of ages. For to the extent that each person, for his faith and diligence, is worthy to become a partaker of the Holy Spirit, to the same extent will his body be glorified on that day.
The resurrection of slain souls is still happening today, and the resurrection of bodies will take place on that day. But just as the stars established in the sky are not all equal, and one differs from the other in brightness and size, so in spiritual success the same Spirit occurs according to the measure of faith, and one turns out to be richer than the other.
And just as the kingdom of darkness and sin are hidden in the soul until the day of resurrection, when the darkness now hidden in the soul covers the very body of sinners: so the kingdom of light and the heavenly image - Jesus Christ now mysteriously illuminates the soul and reigns in the soul of the saints; but, remaining hidden from human eyes, with the sole eyes of our soul we truly see Christ until the day of resurrection, when the body itself will be covered and glorified by that light of the Lord, which is still now in the human soul, so that then the body itself will reign together with the soul, even now accepting the kingdom of Christ into herself, resting and illuminated by eternal light.
For to the extent that each person, for his faith and diligence, is worthy to become a partaker of the Holy Spirit, to the same extent will his body be glorified on that day. What the soul has now collected into its inner treasury will then be revealed and appear outside the body.
... the time of resurrection, in which their bodies will be glorified by the inexpressible light, still hidden in them, that is, by the power of the Spirit, which will then be their clothing, food, drink, joy, joy, peace, clothing, immortal life. For then the Spirit of the Divine, which they have now been vouchsafed to receive into themselves, will become for them all the glory of the lightness and beauty of heaven.”
One day Venerable Simeon the New Theologian was so illuminated by the Holy Spirit that he exclaimed: “Oh, Lord! Probably there is nothing higher in the world than this bliss!” And I received the answer: “What even the saints experience here on earth, in the flesh, in comparison with the future heavenly bliss, is like the sun drawn with charcoal on paper, in comparison with the sun shining in the sky!”
In the life of the next century, the condition of the righteous will be different degrees of bliss, according to the moral dignity of everyone, which can be concluded from the words of Holy Scripture: “In My Father’s house are many mansions” (John 14:2); “Everyone will receive his reward according to his own labor” (1 Cor. 3:8).
St. Ephraim the Syrian says:
Just as everyone enjoys the rays of the sensual sun according to the purity of visual power and impression, and just as from one lamp illuminating a house, each ray has its own place, while the light is not divided into many lamps, so in the next century all the righteous will dwell inseparably in one joy , but each, in its own way, will be illuminated by a single mental sun and, according to the degree of dignity, will draw joy and more cheerfulness, as if in one air and place.
St. rights John of Kronstadt:
“The moral law of God constantly operates in the world, according to which every good is rewarded internally, and every evil is punished; evil is accompanied by sorrow and tightness of the heart, and good is accompanied by peace, joy and space of the heart.
The current state of our souls prefigures the future. The future will be a continuation of the present internal state, only in a modified form relative to its degree."
Rev. Parthenius of Kyiv:
Just as in heaven there is heaven on earth, there is also hell, only invisible, since God is in heaven and He is also on earth; only here everything is invisible, but there everything is visible: God, heaven, and hell.
Rev. Ephraim the Syrian:
“The soul is superior in dignity to the body, above it is the spirit, and above its spirit is the hidden Divinity. But at the end, the flesh will be clothed in the beauty of the soul, the soul in the radiance of the spirit, and the spirit will be likened to the greatness of God...
He, the Lord of all, is the treasury of everything. To each, according to his strength, as if through a small hole, He shows the beauty of His hidden Being and the radiance of His greatness. And His radiance illumines everyone with love: the small with a faint flicker, the perfect with rays of light. Only He who is born of Him beholds His full glory.
To the extent that someone has cleansed his eye here, to that extent will he be able to contemplate the glory of Him who is above all. To the extent that one opens his ears here, to that extent will he partake of His wisdom there. To the extent that he has prepared his bosom here, to the same extent he will receive from His treasures there..."
Saint Basil the Great:
Some (God) will honor with great honors, others with less, because “star differs from star in glory” (1 Cor. 15:41). And since the Father has “many abodes,” he will rest some in a more excellent and higher state, and others in a lower state.
Rev. Maxim the Confessor:
For in the host of saved gods, God will stand in the midst of them (Ps. 81.1), giving to each his measure of heavenly bliss, and there will be no gap in space between Him and the worthy. And some say that the Kingdom of Heaven will be the residence in heaven of those who are worthy; others - that they will have an angel-like state of those saved; and still others - that this will be a contemplation of the very beauty of the Divine and those who have carried within themselves the image of the heavenly will find it. In my opinion, all three opinions agree with the truth. After all, everyone will be given grace according to how and how righteous he was.
Rev. Ephraim the Syrian:
The Artist who created them diversified and multiplied the beauties of paradise: for the lower ones He appointed the lowest part of paradise, for the middle ones - the middle one, and for the highest ones - the very height.
When the righteous ascend to the degrees assigned to them as an inheritance, then each, according to his deeds, will be elevated to the very degree to which he is worthy and to which he should remain. As great is the number and difference of degrees, so is the number and difference in the dignity of those pardoned: the first degree is assigned to those who have repented, the middle to the righteous, the height to the victors. The palace of the Divine is exalted above everything.
There I saw the tabernacles of the righteous, pouring out fragrance, decorated with flowers, crowned with delicious fruits. Each booth is decorated in proportion to his exploits: one is lower with its decoration, the other shines with beauty; one is less visible, the other shines with glory.
4. God will supply what is missing.
Holy Scripture testifies to heaven that
“No unclean thing will enter into it, and no one devoted to abomination and lies” (Rev. 21:27).
Avva Dorotheus says:
Believe me, brethren, that if someone has even one passion turned into a skill, then he is subject to torment, and it happens that someone does ten good deeds and has one evil habit, and this one, coming from an evil habit, overcomes ten good deeds . An eagle, if it is completely outside the net, but gets entangled in it with one claw, then through this smallness all its strength is overthrown; for is he not already in the net, although he is entirely outside it, when he is held in it by one claw? Couldn't the hunter grab him if he wanted to? So it is with the soul: even if it turns only one passion into a habit, then the enemy, whenever he wants, overthrows it, for it is in his hands because of that passion.
But he also adds:
That is why I always tell you: do not allow any passion to turn into a skill for you, but strive and pray to God day and night so as not to fall into temptation. If we are defeated as humans and fall into sin, then we will try to immediately rise up, repent of it, weep before the goodness of God, we will watch and strive. And God, seeing our good will, our humility and contrition, will give us a helping hand and show us mercy.
Also Rev. Macarius the Great writes that
“What a person loves in the world burdens his mind, takes possession of it and does not allow him to gather his strength. Balance, inclination, and the predominance of vice depend on this... What binds someone to the world, whether small or great, is what holds him back and does not allow him to gather his strength. With whatever passion a person does not fight courageously, he loves it, and it possesses him, and burdens him, and becomes a fetter for him and an obstacle to his mind to turn to God, to please Him, and, having served Him alone, to become useful for the kingdom and gain eternal life….
And if he loves the Lord and His commandments; then in this he finds help and relief for himself... as soon as the soul has loved the Lord, it is snatched from these nets by its own faith and great diligence, and together with help from above it is made worthy of the eternal kingdom, and having truly loved it, of its own will and with the help the Lord, will no longer be deprived of eternal life.”
If a Christian struggled with passions, repented and fought against them with good deeds, then the Lord will fill what is missing in such a soul. In paradise there will no longer be any sin, no uncleanness, the saints will be changed by the grace of God and will be reluctant to sin, their will will become completely one with the holy will of God.
The Word of God states:
He who sows iniquity will reap disaster, and the reed of his wrath will be no more. A person who gives willingly is loved by God, and his lack of works will be filled (Prov. 22:8).
St. Ignatius (Brianchaninov) teaches:
"Immutability in goodness- belonging to the future century."
Venerable Barsanuphius of Optina speaks:
People who struggle with passions, like all of us, are sometimes overcome by them, sometimes conquered by them. Those who fight will be saved, the Lord will not despise their labors and efforts and will send them a Christian death. Carnal people, who do not think at all about the salvation of their souls, will perish, unless, of course, they bring repentance before death.
Venerable Macarius the Great claims that even saints do not achieve a state of perfection in their earthly life. The monk writes about this in his works like this:
“To this day I do not know a single Christian person who is perfect or free. On the contrary, even if someone rests in grace, reaches the mysteries and revelations, and reaches the feeling of great grace-filled sweetness, then sin also remains within him.”
Therefore, salvation is always the mercy and gift of God for a person. This is also evidenced by Carthage Cathedral: “This is also determined: if anyone says that the saints in the Lord’s prayer: forgive us our debts, they are not speaking about themselves, since they no longer need this petition, but about other sinners who are among their people, and that each of them does not say saints especially: forgive me my debts, - but: forgive us our debts, - so that this petition of the righteous is understood about others more than about himself - let such be anathema" (Rules of the Council of Carthage. Rule 129).
Archimandrite Raphael (Karelin):
"The word “holiness” is much deeper in its meaning. We have not found a single synonym for it, since, indeed, holiness is not a quality; holiness is what makes a person a new creation, the creative Divine power. A saint is a person in whom abides and grace acts. A saint is one who has given a place in his heart to the Holy Spirit; this is a ray shining from the Tabor light. Here on earth, grace can be gained and lost. The life of even great ascetics is a series of constantly changing relationships between grace and human will, between holiness and sin, this is a process that ascetics call invisible warfare. In eternity, when the time of trials is behind us, the grace of God will fill what is missing and unite with the human soul inseparably, inseparably, forever; and after the resurrection it will transform and spiritualize the bodies of the saints. Moreover, holiness in eternal life is not static, but an eternal approach to the Divine, an eternal ascent along spiritual steps, an eternal illumination by Divine light (what in the language of ascetics is called deification) of ever greater strength and intensity. In this light, a person is transformed and becomes more and more capable of contemplating Divine beauty, becoming more and more beautiful from this, like a crystal in which the rays of the rising sun are reflected and play."
Rev. Ephraim Sirin writes:
Be patient, you who mourn: you will enter heaven. Its dew will wash away your uncleanness; his refuge will make you glad. His supper will put an end to your labors: it will offer to the hungry consolation, which cleanses those who partake of it, and to those who are thirsty, heavenly drink, which makes wise those who drink it.
There are no dark spots in the inhabitants of paradise, because they are pure from sin; there is no anger in them, because they are free from all irritability; there is no mockery, because they are unfamiliar with any deceit. They do not harm each other, they do not harbor enmity, because envy does not exist for them; no one is judged there, because there are no hard feelings there.
There the sons of men see themselves in glory; They themselves wonder why their nature has become calm and pure, why outwardly they shine with beauty, but internally with purity: visible is the body, but invisible is the soul.
The bodies, containing blood and moisture, achieve there a purity equal to the soul itself. The wings of the soul, burdened here, become much purer there and become like the mind. The mind itself, which is incessantly restless here, is serene there like the greatness of God.
St. Theophan the Recluse writes:
When a person became a transgressor of the law, he could not otherwise hope to achieve his goal (i.e., communication with God) other than through assimilating someone else’s righteousness. This internalized righteousness makes up for the lack of legality in our lives., and gives us the opportunity to be close to God.
5. Bliss of the righteous
The Holy Fathers write this way about the future bliss of the righteous:
Saint Tikhon of Zadonsk:
Believe me, beloved, that a person would want to suffer all his life if there was a need, just so as not to lose eternal bliss if he saw even a particle of it. It is so great, so beautiful, so sweet!
Saint John Chrysostom:
“What we are promised exceeds all human understanding and surpasses all reasoning.
There is the same difference between present and future glory as there is between a dream and reality."
When St. A certain brother asked Abba Dorotheus about himself, why he fell into carelessness in his cell, the elder told him: “Because you did not recognize either the expected peace or future torment. For if you knew this for sure, then at least your cell would be full of worms, so that you would stand in them up to your neck, you would endure this without relaxing.”
Rev. Ambrose Optinsky:
You write that now, both from a painful state and from the mood of your soul, you often cry and most of all pray to God that in your future life you will not be deprived of the sight of Christ; and you ask if this is not a proud thought? No. Only you do not understand this idea correctly, because all those who have received mercy from the Lord will be granted the sight of Christ; and the Kingdom of Heaven is nothing other than joy in Christ the Savior, from the sight of Him. So, on the contrary, those excommunicated from Christ will be deprived of the Kingdom of Heaven and sent to torment. And Saint Chrysostom says that to be excommunicated from Christ is worse than Gehenna and more painful than any torment. The Monk Theognostus in the last chapter says: “if anyone does not hope to be where the Holy Trinity is, let him try not to be deprived of seeing the incarnate Christ.” And Saint Climacus in the 29th Degree in the 14th chapter writes that those who have achieved dispassion will be where the Trinity is. On average, those who are present will have different abodes. And those who have received forgiveness of sins will be honored to be inside the paradise fence, and the latter should not be deprived of the sight of Christ.
Venerable Seraphim of Sarov:
Ah, if you knew what joy, what sweetness awaits the soul of the righteous in heaven, then you would decide in your temporary life to endure all kinds of sorrows, persecution and slander with thanksgiving. If this very cell of ours were full of worms and if these worms ate our flesh throughout our entire temporary life, then we would have to agree to this with every desire, so as not to lose that heavenly joy that God has prepared for those who love him.
“Adam, the father of the universe, in paradise knew the sweetness of God’s love,” writes St. Silouan of Athos. - The Holy Spirit is love and sweetness of the soul, mind and body. And those who know God through the Holy Spirit are insatiably eager day and night for the living God.”
In the future kingdom everything will be spiritual, immortal and holy. Death will have no power in the kingdom of glory. “The last enemy that will be destroyed is death... then the word that is written will come true: “Death is swallowed up in victory”” (1 Cor. 15, 26 and 54) and “there will be no more time” (Rev. 10, 6).
For righteous people, eternal life will be so joyful and blissful that we cannot even imagine or depict it in the present. Such bliss of the righteous will come from contemplating God in light and glory and from union with Him.
For everyone, his “abode” will be the highest fullness of bliss available to him - in accordance with how close he is to God in earthly life. All the saints who are in paradise will see and know one another, and Christ will see and fill everyone, says St. Simeon the New Theologian. In the Kingdom of Heaven, the righteous will become like God (1 John 3:2) and come to know Him (1 Cor. 13:12).
The main thing is that those who have achieved the future blessed life and become “partakers of the Divine nature” (2 Pet. 1:4) will be participants in that most perfect life, the source of which is in God alone. In particular, future members of the kingdom of God will be honored, like the angels, to behold God (Matthew 5:8), they will contemplate His glory not as through a glass darkly, not fortune-telling, but face to face - and not only contemplate, but also participate themselves in her, shining like the sun in the kingdom of their Father (Matthew 13:43).
Rev. Ephraim Sirin writes:
“Who can list the beauties of paradise? Its structure is wonderful, every part of it is brilliant; Paradise is vast for those who dwell in it. His palaces are bright; its springs delight with their fragrance...
With its beauty it fills with joy and attracts those walking towards it, illuminates them with the brilliance of its rays, and delights them with its fragrance.
It is impossible to mentally imagine the image of this majestic and exalted garden, on the top of which dwells the glory of the Lord. What mind will be able to have an eye to examine it, will have the strength to examine it, and the vigilance to even reach it with its gaze? His wealth is incomprehensible."
The bliss of the righteous in paradise will be complete, nothing will darken it.
“And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and there will be no more death; neither will there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”
(Rev. 21:4).
Among the instructions Rev. Ambrose of Optina we read:
“Father,” someone asked, “surely one whose close relatives will suffer in hell cannot feel complete bliss in the future life?” The elder replied: “No, this feeling will no longer be there; then you will forget about everyone. It’s the same as during an exam. When you go to an exam, it’s still scary, and all sorts of thoughts are crowding around; but when you came, you took a ticket, and you forgot about everything.” When the heart clings to earthly things, then we must remember that earthly things will not go with us to the Kingdom of Heaven.
St. Theophan the Recluse writes about this:
“You also have it written: “How will the righteous enjoy undisturbed happiness, in the knowledge that somewhere living beings are suffering and will certainly suffer? If they are able to be happy, then they will cease to be righteous, and such indifference to their neighbors would lead to them into the same Gehenna from which they got rid of by practicing compassion and love for those suffering on earth." This is a purely lawyerly technique - to show off with sophistry. If the righteous are condemned to hell for lack of compassion for the outcast, then where is the condemner of God?! - You all forget that hell is not a human invention, but was established by God, and by God’s judgment it will be filled. This is what He revealed to us in His Word. If so, then, therefore, such an action is not contrary to God and does not violate, let’s say, the internal harmony of divine properties, but, on the contrary, is required by it. If this is so in God, then how can this upset the blissful mood of the righteous, when they are one spirit with the Lord? What the Lord considers right and proper, then so do they. If the Lord deems it necessary to send the unrepentant to hell, they will also be aware of this. And there is no place for compassion here. For those rejected by God will be rejected by them too; the feeling of affinity with them will be suppressed. And on earth, spiritual kinship is completely different from natural, and as soon as the latter does not agree with the former, it cools and completely disappears: relatives become alien to each other by blood. The Lord suggested this when He said: Who is My mother and brother? And he answered: He who does the will of My Father. If this is so on earth, then in heaven it will be revealed in extreme force, and especially after the last Judgment."
Venerable Anatoly of Optina:
And most importantly, I wish you to enter that summer where there are no winters, the sun never sets, and the Sun of that summer is Jesus, forever shining with the glory of His Father - God, where there will be no sorrows, no illnesses, no darkness, not even shadows , but everything will be light, joy, peace, every mind that surpasses all minds and joy unspeakable. And the gates of Heavenly Jerusalem will open that summer and never close.
Several times I have begun to compile a brochure on the Christian life that would present in a concise, comprehensive, and encouraging form the essential things that a Christian needs to know and do. Although many parts of this topic were thought out and developed, I could not combine everything into a general plan and satisfactorily present it. And so, recently I came across the book “Indicating the Path to the Kingdom of Heaven,” written by the “Apostle of Alaska” - St. Innocent [Veniaminov]. After reading it, I realized that I could not write better. Everything about it is wonderful: the content, the plan, and the form of presentation. Therefore, I am happy to republish his sermon, making some abbreviations and minor stylistic corrections.
Saint Innocent (in the world Ivan Popov-Veniaminov) was born in 1797 in the Anchinsky village of the Irkutsk province (in Siberia). Having lost his father as a child, he grew up under the special care of God. Having independently learned to read and write, at the age of 7 he perfectly read the Psalter and the Apostle during the Liturgy. The parishioners of the temple where he attended persuaded his mother to send her son to study, and Innokenty was admitted to the Irkutsk Seminary at public expense, from which he graduated with honors. Having married in 1821, Innocent was ordained a priest. In 1823, he was sent to Alaska as a missionary, where he arrived with his wife. Here he preached the teachings of Christ among the wild Aleuts with great dedication and success. He compiled the alphabet and the first grammar of the Aleut language, translated several books of the Holy Scriptures, a number of sermons and services into the Aleut language. A few years later, Innocent went to St. Petersburg to receive help from the Synod for his missionary work. Having learned here about the death of his wife, he became a monk. In 1840, he was ordained a bishop and appointed Bishop of Kamchatka, Kuril and Aleutian, thanks to this missionary activity expanded even more. Twenty-eight years later he was transferred to the Moscow See as Metropolitan. He died in 1879. The canonization of St. Innocent [Veniaminov] is due to take place soon.
Bishop Alexander Mileant
Introduction
People were not created to live only here on earth, like animals that disappear after their death; but with the sole purpose of living with God and living not for a hundred or a thousand years, but forever.
Every person strives for happiness. This desire was implanted in us by the Creator Himself, and therefore it is not a sin. But you need to know that here, in this temporary life, it is impossible to find complete happiness, because it is in God, and outside of God it cannot be found. Only He Who is the highest Good and the source of life can completely quench the thirst of our soul and give us the highest joy.
As for material goods, they cannot completely satisfy us. It is known that we like every thing we desire only as long as we do not yet own it; when we get it, we soon become bored with it. The most striking example of this is King Solomon, who was so rich that all the household utensils in his palaces were made of pure gold. He was so wise that kings and famous people from distant countries came to listen to him. He was so glorious that his enemies trembled at his name. He could easily satisfy any of his whims, and it seemed that there was no such thing and no such pleasure that he did not have or could not get. And with all this, Solomon could not find complete satisfaction until the end of his life. He described his long-term search for happiness and continuous disappointments in the book of Ecclesiastes, which he concluded with the following famous phrase: “Everything in the world is vanity and vexation of spirit!”
Many other sages and lucky people in life came to a similar conviction. Apparently, in the depths of our subconscious, something reminds us that we are strangers on earth and that our true bliss is not here, but there, in another and better world, called paradise or the Kingdom of Heaven. Let man take possession of the whole world and everything in it; but even then it will occupy him, one might say, only for a while, and the immortal soul, thirsting for personal communication with God, will remain unsatisfied.
Jesus Christ, the Son of God, came into this world to restore to us the lost immortal life and true happiness. He revealed to people that all their evil is in their sins and that no one can overcome the evil in themselves and come closer to God through their own efforts. Sin, entrenched in our nature, like a high wall, stands between us and God. If the Son of God, in His mercy, had not come to us, taken human flesh, and conquered sin by His death, then all people would have perished irrevocably. Now, thanks to Him, anyone who wants can be cleansed from evil, return to God and find eternal bliss in the Kingdom of Heaven. We want to talk about this in more detail now and consider:
- What blessings did the Lord Jesus Christ give us?
- How Jesus Christ lived on earth and suffered for us.
- Which path leads to the Kingdom of Heaven.
- How Jesus Christ helps us walk the path of salvation.
What blessings did the Lord Jesus Christ give us?
To appreciate the benefits given to us by the Lord Jesus Christ, let us first remember what benefits the first man Adam had while he was sinless, and how many disasters befell him and all of humanity after his fall.
The first man, being created in the image and likeness of his Creator, had the most vivid and intimate communication with Him and therefore enjoyed complete happiness. Being immortal, God also included Adam in His immortality; being all-righteous, God created Adam sinless and pure; being eternally blessed, God made Adam blessed too, and this blessedness was to increase day by day.
As the book of Genesis tells, Adam lived in a most beautiful garden (Eden, or paradise), planted by God, and there he enjoyed all the benefits. He knew neither illness nor suffering, was not afraid of anything, and all the animals obeyed him as their ruler. Adam experienced neither cold nor heat; and although he worked to tend the plants of paradise, he did it with pleasure. His soul was filled with the knowledge of God and love for Him. He was always calm, cheerful and knew no troubles, no worries. All his desires were pure, righteous and orderly; memory, reason and all other mental faculties were perfect. Being innocent and pure, he always stayed with God and talked with Him as with a Father, and God loved him as His dear son. In short, Adam was in heaven, and heaven was in him.
If Adam had not sinned, he would have remained blessed forever, and all his descendants would have enjoyed bliss. This is why the Lord created man. But Adam, listening to the devil-tempter, transgressed the Creator’s commandment and ate the forbidden fruit. When the Lord appeared to sinner Adam, instead of repenting and promising to continue to observe all His commandments, he began to justify himself and blame his wife. The wife placed all the blame on the serpent. Not only was the violation of the commandment terrible, but also the fact that the sin they committed deeply damaged the moral nature of man, because of which the previous living communication with the Creator was interrupted, and with this bliss was lost. Having lost paradise within himself, Adam turned out to be unworthy of external paradise and was expelled from it.
After the Fall, Adam's soul became darkened, his thoughts and desires became confused, his imagination and memory began to fade. Instead of joy and peace of mind, he began to experience sorrow, anxiety and various troubles. I had to become familiar with hard work, poverty, hunger and thirst. After many years of constant worry, painful old age began to depress him and death began to approach. But what is most terrible is that the devil, the author of all evil, thanks to sin, gained the opportunity to influence Adam and lead him even further away from God.
The elements of nature - air, fire and others, which previously served Adam as means of pleasure, now became hostile to him. Adam and his descendants began to suffer from cold and heat, from changing winds and bad weather. The animals became ferocious towards people and began to look at them as their enemies or prey. Adam's descendants began to suffer from external and internal diseases, which became more diverse and more severe over time. People forgot that they were brothers and began to quarrel with each other, hate, deceive, attack each other, torture and kill. And finally, after all sorts of bitter labors and worries, they were doomed to die and, like sinners, had to go to hell and suffer there forever.
No person, not even the most brilliant and powerful, nor all people collectively could and will never be able to return what Adam lost when he sinned in Eden. And what would have happened to us and to the entire human race if Jesus Christ, in His mercy, had not come to save us? The Heavenly Father, who takes pity on us and loves us much more than we are capable of loving ourselves, sent His Son Jesus Christ to us in order to save us from sin and the power of the devil and bring us to the Kingdom of Heaven.
Jesus Christ, with His teaching, dispersed the darkness of ignorance and all kinds of misconceptions and enlightened the world with the light of the Gospel. Now anyone who wants can learn the will of God and the path to the Kingdom of Heaven. With His life He showed us an example of how to move towards salvation, and He constantly helps us on our way.
Jesus Christ washed away our sins with His pure blood, and made us, former slaves of the devil and passions, children of God. Those torments that we, as criminals of God’s will, had to endure, He endured for us and by His death delivered us from eternal death.
Jesus Christ, by His resurrection, destroyed hell, took away power from the devil, defeated death and opened the entrance to heaven for everyone. Therefore, from the moment of His resurrection, death ceased to be a terrible tragedy, but became for believers a transition from vanity and sorrow to a bright and joyful life. By His ascension to Heaven, He glorified human nature and honored it with immortality.
All these great blessings that the Lord has prepared for us cannot be described or imagined. Let us only say that all who follow His commandments will be worthy of living in paradise with the angels, the righteous and the saints and will see God there face to face. They will rejoice in pure, unceasing and eternal joy, knowing neither languor, nor sadness, nor anxiety.
And Jesus Christ gives all these benefits not to just a select few, but to everyone who wants to receive them. The path to salvation is shown, arranged and, as much as possible, smoothed out and equalized. Moreover, Jesus Christ helps us to follow this path and, so to speak, Himself leads us by the hand. All we have to do is not resist Him, not persist, but surrender to His will. Look, you see how much Jesus Christ loves us and what great benefits He gives us!
Now let’s think if Jesus Christ suddenly appeared before us and asked us: “My children! Do you love Me for everything I have done for you, and do you appreciate the benefits that I give you? Who among us would not answer Him: “Yes, Lord! I love You and thank You!” If we really, and not in words, only love Jesus Christ and are grateful to Him, then shouldn’t we do what He commands you? Because when a person truly loves his benefactor, he expresses his gratitude by doing everything that pleases him.
How Jesus Christ lived on earth and suffered for us
Life should be based on love: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, with all thy mind, and with all thy strength … Loveyour neighbor as yourself.” But due to the sinful depravity of human nature, there has never yet been a person who was capable of loving God and his neighbors completely and at all times. Only the Lord Jesus Christ had such perfect love.
His boundless love was revealed in His every word and deed. Being the Son of the Creator and true God, Jesus Christ, out of pity for us, came down from Heaven and took upon Himself the body and soul of man, becoming similar to us in everything, except for sin. Being the Lord of the Universe, before Whom the Angels stand in awe, He deigned to take the form of an ordinary man; possessing all the treasures of the world, He agreed to be born in extremely poor conditions, to lie in a manger in a dark and damp cave.
Being the Supreme Lawgiver, Jesus Christ humbly fulfilled all the regulations of the Law of Moses during His earthly life. So, on the eighth day after His birth, He received circumcision, and on the fortieth day, His Mother brought Him to the temple and there paid the due fee for Him, the Ruler of the Universe. Having become a youth, and then a young man, He always obeyed His earthly Mother and helped His imaginary father, the elderly Joseph. Having matured, He treated the Jewish elders and leaders, as well as the Roman rulers, with respect and paid the established fees. He voluntarily lived in poverty, and when he went out preaching, he often had no place to lay his head. Jesus Christ, Whom all creation obeys, Himself served people and even washed the feet of His disciples, simple fishermen.
Jesus Christ constantly prayed to His Heavenly Father, even at night when other people were sleeping. On Saturdays He took part in general prayer and reading the word of God in the local synagogue, and on holidays he went to the Jerusalem Temple.
Jesus Christ, with all zeal and love, carried out the work for which His Heavenly Father sent Him, and directed everything towards His glory. He pitied every person, wished well to everyone, refused help to no one and was ready to endure everything to help the suffering. With the greatest meekness, He endured all kinds of insults and insults from the crowd, and was not angry with His enemies, who reviled Him and plotted against Him. Some ill-wishers called Him a sinner and a lawbreaker, others - a carpenter's son and an empty man, others - a companion of drunkards and morally degenerate people. Several times the mob attempted to stone him or throw him off the mountain. The Jewish scribes called His divine teaching a deception, and when He healed the sick, raised the dead, or drove out demons, they explained these miracles as the action of an evil spirit. Some openly called Christ possessed. Being the omnipotent God, the Lord Jesus Christ could instantly destroy them all with one word. Instead, he pitied them as spiritually blind, wished them well and prayed for their salvation.
In short, Jesus Christ from birth until His death, constantly doing good to people, often suffered all kinds of grief instead of gratitude. He was especially hated by the Jewish leaders - the high priests and scribes - people whose mission was to teach people good and lead them to faith. Instead, they did their best to prevent people from believing in Christ and maliciously distorted the meaning of the prophecies that predicted His coming. Everything He said or did, they explained to the people in a negative sense. Jesus grieved not so much because they were at enmity against Him, but because they were blindly rushing towards destruction and dragging the common people with them.
Shortly before His death, Jesus Christ performed the greatest miracle: He raised Lazarus, who had already been lying in a tomb for four days and was beginning to decompose. This miracle happened in front of Lazarus’s family and in front of a huge crowd of people. The impression was amazing, and many Jews, who had hitherto distrusted Christ, believed in Him as the Messiah. Then the high priests and scribes, jealous of His glory, urgently gathered and decided to immediately put to death both Christ and Lazarus, whom He had resurrected.
Knowing that the days of His earthly life were numbered, Jesus Christ gathered His disciples in the Zion Upper Room on Last Supper where he taught them Holy Communion and said goodbye to Them. After this, going with his disciples to the Garden of Gethsemane, the Lord Jesus Christ endured His most severe internal suffering here. This suffering was so great that during prayer, sweat flowed from His face like large drops of blood. At this time, the soul of the Savior was covered with incredible darkness and horror from the unbearable burden of human sins, which He took upon Himself in order to wash them away with His pure blood - for all the countless crimes of billions of people, starting from Adam and including all future generations. Dejected by the oppression of world evil, Jesus Christ exclaimed: “My soul grieves unto death!”
No one can say what exactly she experienced in Garden of Gethsemane the purest soul of the God-man, one can only partially guess that at that time all the abomination of human sins was revealed before His inner gaze. Christ knew that His great suffering and endless love would only be appreciated and accepted by a few, while most people would turn away indifferently, and some would even hate His teaching and cruelly persecute those who believed in Him; that among His followers there will be hypocrites who will turn faith into a means of profit; that false teachers will appear who will distort the purity of His teaching and, out of pride and self-interest, will entice believers into their sects; that false shepherds will appear who, because of their ambitions, will cause schisms and church unrest; Christ knew that many Christians would not only not strive to love God and live righteously, but would indulge in terrible vices, so that they would surpass even the pagans in their sins, because of which the Christian faith would be humiliated.
During these most difficult experiences, on the one hand, a sense of justice and devotion to God the Father demanded that Christ destroy the human race as ungrateful and criminal; and on the other hand, pity for the perishing people prompted Him to suffer for them and thereby save them from the power of the devil and eternal death.
At this time, a noisy crowd with torches and sticks bursts into the garden, and with it soldiers sent by the Jewish leaders. They bind Jesus Christ and, like a villain, drag him to trial. The apostles, whom He loved so much and brought close to Him, cowardly leave Him and scatter. Then the Jewish leaders - the entire Sanhedrin, urgently gathered in the house of the high priest, leveled many of the most absurd accusations against Christ. None of them, however, were sufficient to impose a death sentence. Then the high priest demands that Jesus Christ openly declare under oath who He is. After answering that He is the Son of God and the promised Messiah, the Sanhedrin accuses Christ of blasphemy, pronounces a death sentence and immediately, surrounding Him on all sides, beats and abuses Him.
But the Romans deprived the Sanhedrin of the right to execute anyone. Therefore, the next morning, on Friday before the Jewish Passover, the Jewish leaders lead Jesus Christ to a new trial before the Roman governor Pilate, so that he would approve their decision. Pilate, realizing that Christ was being accused out of envy, wanted to let Him go. But the high priests threatened him that they would complain about him to the Roman emperor. Not wanting to jeopardize his career, Pilate decided to address the people gathered here. Reminding people of the custom of releasing a prisoner on Easter, Pilate asked them which of the two he should release: Barabbas or Christ (Barabbas was a robber who was in prison for some crime). While the people were consulting among themselves, the Jewish leaders convinced most of them to ask for the release of Barabbas, and for Jesus to demand crucifixion! The mob forgot the countless benefits of Christ: how many of them He freed from demons, how many He healed from leprosy, blindness, paralysis, etc., how many He turned from a depraved life to the path of good, to how many who despaired He restored hope. Meanwhile, the Roman soldiers subject Jesus Christ to cruel scourging and abuse, at the end of which they put a purple robe on him and place a crown of thorns on his head. When Jesus Christ, all wounded, was brought out to the crowd, people began to frantically shout: “Crucify, crucify Him!” Then Pilate cowardly washed his hands as a sign of his non-involvement in the condemnation of an innocent man, released Barabbas, and placed Jesus Christ at the disposal of the Jewish leaders.
Then the soldiers put a wooden cross on Christ, on which they were to crucify Him, and force Him to carry the cross to the place of execution, called Golgotha (which means “skull”). There they take off Christ outerwear and nailed to the cross, crucifying two thieves on either side of Him. So in a shameful place, as a great villain, they execute the One who dispersed the darkness of error with the light of Divine teaching, who conquered anger with love! My God, how blind and cruel people can become!
But the haters of Christ cannot satiate their anger: they shower the already dying Sufferer with new curses and mockingly demand a miracle. When He asked for a drink, instead of water they brought Him vinegar on a sponge. So, abandoned by everyone, all wounded, bleeding and choking, tormented by an unbearable thirst, He who once breathed the breath of life into the first man dies the most painful death! Even soulless nature was horrified by such a crime: the sun was eclipsed and the earth shook.
For whom did the Savior of the world suffer so much? He suffered for all people - for enemies and tormentors, for those who, having received many benefits from Him, forgot to thank Him. He also suffered for each of us, stubborn sinners, who daily insult Him with our indifference, ingratitude, malice, untruths and nasty deeds, and thereby, as it were, crucify Him a second time.
In order to more deeply feel and realize how boundless the love of Jesus Christ is for us and how great His sacrifice, we will try to compare and understand how great He is and how insignificant we are. Jesus Christ is true God, equal to the Father and the Holy Spirit. He abides in unapproachable light, the almighty Creator of the universe, the immortal King, before whom countless hosts of angels stand in awe, the inexhaustible source of Life, the Lord over everything visible and invisible, the terrible Judge of the living and the dead - and this Jesus Christ deigned to suffer for us , wayward and ungrateful creatures. Who can comprehend and adequately appreciate this mystery of Divine Love?
The Path to the Kingdom of Heaven
The path to the Kingdom of Heaven was paved by the Lord Jesus Christ. Only those who follow Him will reach the Kingdom of Heaven. How can you follow Him? - Listen to what the Savior Himself says about this: “Whoever wants to come after Me must deny himself (deny himself, take up his cross and follow Me.”
Words " who wants”mean that Jesus Christ does not force anyone to follow Him. He does not need slaves, He wants each person to freely decide whether he wants to follow His path and be with Him. Consequently, only those who voluntarily chose the path indicated by the Savior enter the Kingdom of Heaven.
Christian! Salvation or destruction is entirely in your hands. The Lord in His mercy has given you freedom of choice, and He will never take away the precious gift of freedom from you. So, if you decide to follow Jesus Christ, He will show you the way and help you every step of the way. If you don’t want to go, it’s your choice. But take care, beware of neglecting the mercy of God. Jesus Christ, taking pity on you, can knock on the door of your heart for a long, long time, waiting for you to finally want to save yourself. But woe to you if He, tired of waiting, turns away from you as from a hopeless son of perdition. Then no one, neither the righteous nor the angel, will be able to help you!
Therefore, it is extremely important to create within yourself the right desire and make a firm decision to take the path of salvation. And in order for us to have this desire and strengthen our determination, we need to learn in more detail where the path indicated by Christ leads, and how to follow this path. This question is so important that it is necessary to talk about it in more detail.
1. First, a Christian must thoroughly study the foundations of the Christian faith. To do this, you need to start regularly reading and re-reading the books of Holy Scripture, especially the Gospels and the Apostolic Epistles. We need to find out not only their content, but also ask where they came from, who wrote them and when, how they were preserved and passed on to us, and why they are called divine and sacred. We must study the sacred books in simplicity of heart, without prejudice and excessive inquisitiveness, without trying to penetrate into what is hidden from us by the wisdom of God, but to delve into what relates to our correction. Everything we need to know for salvation is presented in Scripture very clearly and thoroughly.
A Christian needs to study his faith more thoroughly because anyone who does not know his faith is cold towards it and may fall under the influence of some heresy or non-Christian religion. And how many Orthodox Christians die simply because they are not interested in the content of their faith! Having access to light, they wander in darkness. Such people become easy prey for all sorts of false teachers.
At the same time, the study of faith must be consistent with the knowledge and abilities of a person. So, for example, it is useful for a scientist to become acquainted with the works of the holy fathers of the Church, as well as with historical and theological books written by Orthodox authors. These books will help him to understand his faith deeper and more thoroughly, which in turn will give him the opportunity to confirm others in the Orthodox faith for whom these books are not available.
2. When you are convinced that our Orthodox faith is based on the Holy Scripture, and not on the inventions of people, and that the Holy Scripture is the true word of God, communicated to us by the Holy Spirit through the prophets and apostles, then accept it with all your trusting heart. Believe without doubt and without philosophizing everything that the Holy Scripture teaches, without listening to heretical interpretations. And if you humbly accept Christ’s truth, then your faith will be sound and will be credited to you for salvation.
3. And finally, try hard. warm up your zeal follow what the Scriptures teach. If you do not have this zeal, then fall to our Savior Jesus Christ and in warm prayer ask Him to send you an ardent desire to live according to His commandments. When the grace of God begins to lead you along the path of salvation, follow it, courageously repelling the machinations of the evil one, who will try to lead you astray from the path of salvation.
Let us illustrate what has been said here about the path to the Kingdom of Heaven with the following example. Imagine that, beyond all expectations, you suddenly find yourself the only heir to your wealthy distant relative. Before his death, this relative bequeathed to you his luxurious dacha on the top of a picturesque mountain. Loving solitude, this relative did not build a road to his dacha, but himself got to it along the path. To help you take possession of the dacha, he left you a map of the mountain, marking the desired path on it. There are many other paths on the mountain, but they do not reach the dacha, but either end in a dead end or lead to ravines. Thus, in order to get to the bequeathed dacha, you need to follow exactly the path that was marked by the relative who loved you.
Prudence dictates that before setting off on such a journey, you need to study a map of the mountain, stock up on everything necessary for the climb and even overnight stay. It’s good to find out from the forester what you need to watch out for on the mountain and what signs to follow so as not to stray from the right path. And, undoubtedly, every sane person will make all the necessary preparations before setting out on a new path.
Something similar must be done for us who want to reach the heavenly abode prepared for us by the Lord Jesus Christ. You need to know well which path leads to it, how not to go astray, what you should be careful of, etc. Our map is the Holy Scriptures and Orthodox books; Foresters are shepherds of the Church, whose duty is to help believers and lead them towards heaven. Provisions are the grace of God, strengthening our spiritual strength. It is possible that in some places the path leading to paradise will be narrow, overgrown with bushes and difficult to travel, while other paths will seem wider and more comfortable. But it's better not to trust what it seems. The Lord Jesus Christ and His Apostles repeatedly warned that only one path, which is indicated in the Gospel, reaches the Kingdom of Heaven. Still, other paths lead nowhere, and the wide and easy path leads to death.
Now let's take a closer look at the very path that the Lord Jesus Christ showed us. He said: “Who wants to come after Me,
1. deny yourself,
2. take up your cross and
3. follow me.
Therefore, a follower of Jesus Christ must begin with “self-denial.” This means that you have to give up all your bad habits, remove from the heart attachment to material wealth (money, luxury, worldly fame, power, etc.), do not harbor bad desires, suppress bad thoughts, avoid cases leading to sin, do nothing out of stubbornness or pride , but do everything out of love for God and for the glory of His holy name. In a word, to deny oneself means, according to the Apostle Paul, to be dead to sin and alive to God.
Then the disciple and follower of Jesus Christ must take up your cross. The cross refers to various difficulties associated with Christian life, as well as the inevitable sorrows in life. Crosses can be external and internal. To take up our cross means to endure without complaint whatever unpleasant thing happens to us. And therefore, whether someone offends you, whether someone laughs at you, or annoys you, or you helped someone, and instead of gratitude he plots against you, or you want to do something good, but you fail. Whether some misfortune happens to you, or someone in your family gets sick, or with all your activity and tireless work you suffer failures, or something else that depresses you - endure all this without anger or grumbling. Do not consider yourself offended, but endure everything with devotion to God and with hope in Him.
Carry your cross- means not only to patiently endure the difficulties that befall us due to circumstances beyond our control, but also to impose upon ourselves a feasible feat, in accordance with the word of the Lord and necessary for our spiritual improvement. So, for example, one can and should do something useful for one’s neighbors, such as: working at the temple, visiting the sick and prisoners, helping the needy, collecting funds for the needy, helping to spread spiritual enlightenment. In a word, we must look for cases that contribute to the salvation and good of our neighbors, and then, with patience and meekness, act in the direction we have begun: in deed, in word, in prayer, and in advice.
If at the same time a proud thought arises in you that you are better or smarter than others, then in every possible way drive such a thought away from yourself, because it will destroy all your virtues. Blessed is the one who bears his cross with prudence and humility, because the Lord will not allow such a person to perish, but will give him the Holy Spirit, who will instruct and strengthen him.
When following Jesus Christ, it is not enough to bear only an external cross. After all, such crosses are borne not only by Christians, but by all people, because there is no person who would not suffer from one or another sorrow. But whoever wants to become a true disciple of Jesus Christ must also bear his own inner cross.
Inner cross can be found rather externally. One has only, in a repentant feeling, to direct one’s mental gaze inward and examine one’s soul, and immediately many crosses will appear. Think, for example, how did you come to be and why do you exist in this world? Do you live as the Christian faith teaches? Pay due attention to this - and you will quickly understand that you were created by God in order to promote the spread of goodness with all your deeds, life and whole being and thereby glorify the holy name of God. You not only do not glorify Him, but, on the contrary, you even insult Him with your sins. Then think about what awaits you beyond the grave and which side will you be on during the Last Judgment: with the righteous or with sinners? And if you think about this, you will involuntarily become embarrassed and begin to regret many things you have done and said, and this will be the beginning of your inner cross. And if you examine yourself even more carefully, you will find other internal crosses. For example, hell, which you very rarely and with indifference thought about, will then begin to appear to you in all its horror. The paradise that the Lord has prepared for you and about which you have only briefly thought will then vividly appear to you for what it is, i.e. a place of pure and eternal joys, which you deprive yourself of by your frivolity and sins.
And if you, despite the internal suffering generated by such thoughts, firmly decide to repent and correct yourself, and not entertain yourself with worldly pleasures, and you diligently pray to the Lord for your salvation and surrender all of yourself to His will, then the Lord will begin to show you your sick state more clearly your soul so that you may be completely healed. The fact is that our internal illness is hidden from our sight under the thick crust of our pride and passions; and what we sometimes manage to notice thanks to our conscience are only the largest and most obvious sinful ulcers. The enemy of our salvation, the devil, knowing how saving it is for us to understand our moral illness, uses all his tricks to prevent us from doing this and convince us that everything is in order.
And when the devil sees that a person is seriously concerned about his correction and God's help already begins to recover, then he uses another even more insidious means: he reveals to a person his internal illness in such a terrible and hopeless form that he becomes numb in horror and throws away all hope of correction. And if the Lord allowed the devil to use this last resort, then few of us would resist despair. The Lord, like an experienced doctor, shows us our mental ulcers gradually and encourages us as we recover.
So, when the Lord enlightens your spiritual gaze, you will begin to realize more clearly that your heart is corrupted and that your passions are preventing you from approaching God. You will also begin to understand that what little good there is in you is damaged by self-esteem and pride. Then you will certainly grieve and you will be overcome by fear and sadness. Fear that you are in danger of dying forever; sadness that for so long you have turned your ears away from the gentle voice of the Lord, calling you to the Kingdom of Heaven, and you have done so little good.
Although the inner cross seems heavy, do not despair and do not think that the Lord has abandoned you. No! He is always with you and invisibly strengthens you even when you forget about Him. He will not allow you to be tested beyond your strength. Do not be afraid of anything, but with complete humility and devotion endure and pray. After all, He is our kindest Father that one could wish for. If He sometimes allows a person devoted to Him to fall into temptation, then only in order to more clearly show him his own powerlessness and completely cleanse his heart, in which He intends to dwell with His Son and His Holy Spirit.
During times of grief, do not seek comfort from people. Unspiritual people are inexperienced in matters of salvation and are poor advisers. Make the Lord your helper, comforter and mentor, and ask Him alone for help. A hundred times blessed is the man to whom the Lord sends sorrows, because they heal his soul. By enduring sorrows, a Christian becomes like Jesus Christ, and, therefore, sorrows are a special mercy of the Lord and a sign of His concern for the salvation of man.
If you carry your cross with devotion to the will of the Lord and do not seek consolation anywhere except the Lord, then He, by His mercy, will not leave you without consolation, but will touch your heart and impart to you the gifts of the Holy Spirit. Then you will feel an inexplicable sweetness, wonderful calmness and joy that you have never experienced before, and at the same time you will feel an influx of spiritual strength and ease in prayer, and strong faith. Then your heart will light up with love for God and your neighbor. And all this is a gift of the Holy Spirit.
When the Lord honors you with such a gift, do not at all consider it a reward for your labors and do not think that you have achieved holiness. Such thoughts are generated by pride, which has penetrated so deeply into our soul that it can manifest itself even when a person is capable of performing miracles. These consolations and touches of the Holy Spirit are not a reward, but a mercy. The Lord gives you a foretaste of the good things that God has prepared for those who love Him, so that you will seek heavenly things with even greater zeal.
Finally, a disciple of Jesus Christ must follow Him. This means that in all our deeds and actions we must try to imitate the deeds and actions of Jesus Christ. As Jesus Christ lived and acted, so we should live and act. For example, Jesus Christ often thanked His Heavenly Father and prayed to Him constantly. Likewise, in all circumstances of life, successful or difficult, we must thank God and pray to Him. Jesus Christ revered His Most Pure Mother and obeyed his superiors. Likewise, we must honor our parents and educators, we must respect our superiors and obey the authorities in matters that do not contradict the Law of the Most High.
Jesus Christ carried out with zeal and love the work for which He came into the world. Likewise, we must conscientiously and diligently fulfill our duties that God and the state impose on us.
Jesus Christ loved every person and did good to everyone. So we must love our neighbors and, as much as possible, do good to them in deed, word, and thought. Jesus Christ gave all His strength to the salvation of people. Likewise, in order to do good to our neighbors, we should not spare either our labors or our health.
Jesus Christ willingly suffered and died for us. Therefore, we should not grumble when any troubles befall us, but must endure them with humility and devotion to God. Jesus Christ forgave His enemies everything they did to Him and wished them well. Likewise, we must forgive our enemies, repay them with good for evil, and bless those who scold us.
Jesus Christ, the King of heaven and earth, lived in poverty and through His labors earned himself the necessities of life. Likewise, we must be hardworking and be content with what God has sent us, without striving to get rich, because, according to the word of the Savior, “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven.”
Jesus Christ, being meek and humble in heart, never sought praise, but directed everything to the glory of His Father. Likewise, we should not expose ourselves to others. For example, whether you help your neighbors, give alms, live more piously than the people around you, or are more intelligent and learned than your friends, or are generally superior to others in some way - do not be proud of this, either in front of others or in front of yourself, because everything whatever good and praiseworthy thing you have is not yours, but the gift of God; yours are only sins and weaknesses.
Follow Jesus Christ- means accepting with faith and fulfilling everything that Jesus Christ said, without philosophizing and in simplicity of heart. He who listens to the word of Jesus Christ is His disciple, and he who fulfills what He says with perfect devotion is His true and beloved follower.
So, this is what it means to deny yourself, take up your cross and follow Jesus Christ. This is the only and direct path to the Kingdom of Heaven. This is the path Jesus Christ walked, and this is the path we must follow! There was and will not be any other way but this. For beginners, this path seems narrow and steep. But this is not because he really is like that, but because our concepts of good and happiness have been distorted. We perceive bitter as sweet, and sweet as bitter. However, as we draw closer to God, many things that previously seemed difficult to us will turn out to be easy and pleasant, and that which previously made us happy will seem boring and painful.
But there will, of course, be difficult periods when the path of ascent to God will seem especially difficult to you. Then let’s think that for every step you take, thousands of rewards are prepared for you. The suffering on this path is momentary, but the reward for it is endless. So, do not be afraid of the path of Christ, for the smooth and wide path leads to hell, and the thorny and narrow path leads to Heaven.
But why didn’t God make the path to the Kingdom of Heaven easy and pleasant? - It was so pleasing to Him! God, knowing everything and being infinitely wise, sees what is best for us. We, being below, see only a small part of our life, but He from above sees our life in terms of eternity. In addition, we take into account the following circumstances:
1. The Kingdom of Heaven is the highest bliss and inexhaustible wealth. If obtaining small earthly wealth requires great work and care, then how is it possible to obtain such a treasure without any personal effort?
2. The Kingdom of Heaven is the most desirable reward. Where are they rewarded for free and for nothing? Therefore, if you have to work hard to receive a temporary reward, then even more so to receive an eternal reward.
3. We must bear our cross because we want to be with Christ and share in His glory. If Jesus Christ, our Teacher and Head, gained heavenly glory through suffering, then won’t we be ashamed to share His glory with Him, when we cowardly avoided all exploits and sorrows?
4. The cross of life is not the lot of Christians alone. Everyone has their own cross - both Christian and non-Christian, both believer and pagan. The difference is that for one the cross serves as a means to obtain the Kingdom of Heaven, while for another it does not bring any benefit. For one, the cross from time to time becomes lighter and more joyful, and for another, it becomes heavier and more sorrowful. But why is this so? Because one bears his cross with faith and devotion to God, and the other with grumbling and bitterness.
So, Christian, not only do not avoid your life’s cross, but, on the contrary, thank Jesus Christ for the fact that He has made you worthy to follow Him and imitate Him. If Jesus Christ had not suffered and died, then none of us, no matter how much we suffered, would never have entered the Kingdom of Heaven. Because then we would have to suffer as criminals of God’s will, and suffer without hope. Now we suffer for salvation. Oh, merciful Lord! How great is Your love for us! How great are Your blessings to us! You turn even the most evil into our benefit and salvation.
Christian! Gratitude alone to Jesus Christ, your Benefactor, obliges you to follow Him. Jesus Christ came to earth for you; would you really prefer anything worldly to Him? Jesus Christ drank the full cup of suffering for you; will you really refuse to suffer a little for Him?
5. Jesus Christ redeemed us by His death, and therefore we belong to Him by right of redemption. Therefore, we must do whatever He commands. But Jesus Christ wants one thing: that we reach the Kingdom of Heaven.
6. Finally, we cannot avoid the narrow path to the Kingdom of Heaven, because in every person there is sin, and sin is such an ulcer that cannot be cured on its own without strong medicine. Suffering is the medicine with which the Lord heals our souls. When a person is sick with something, no matter where he is, even in the most magnificent palaces, he will suffer everywhere. So it is with a sinner: wherever you place him, even in heaven itself, he will suffer there too, because hell is inside him. Likewise, a righteous person can rejoice in a poor hut as in a palace. After all, when the heart is filled with the Holy Spirit, wherever a person is, there will be joy everywhere, because heaven is within him.
So, brothers, if we want to achieve salvation, then we cannot avoid the path that Jesus Christ walked, and behind Him the prophets, apostles, martyrs, saints and countless other righteous people: everyone walked one way and there is no other.
Some may object: where can we, sinful and weak people, imitate the saints! We live in the world, have families, have different responsibilities... Ah, brothers! This is a crafty excuse and an insult to our Creator. To justify one’s negligence with such reasons means to reproach the Creator for not being able to create us. After all, the saints, like us, were not sinless at first, and they were engaged in worldly affairs, worked, had various responsibilities, and had families. But with all this, they did not forget the most important thing, and, living in the same conditions as us, they directed their path to the Kingdom of Heaven. Therefore, if we really want, we can be useful citizens, faithful spouses, loving fathers and at the same time good Christians. Our faith will not hinder anything good, but, on the contrary, will still contribute to the success of every good undertaking. The essence of Christianity is pure and selfless love, which is given by the Holy Spirit.
So, brothers, if you want to reach the Kingdom of Heaven, then follow the path that Jesus Christ walked. There is no other way!
How Jesus Christ helps us on our way to the Kingdom of Heaven
Walking the path of Christ, you cannot rely on your own strength alone. If Jesus Christ, our great Benefactor, had not helped us at every step, no one could achieve salvation. Even the Apostles, when left to their own devices, could not follow Jesus Christ, but cowardly fled. When, on the day of Pentecost, they received help from above, then they joyfully followed His path, and neither dangers, nor difficulties, nor even death itself frightened them.
What is the help that Jesus Christ gives to those who follow Him? This help is the grace of the Holy Spirit. The grace of God surrounds us on all sides, and with it the Lord draws us to Himself. Anyone who wants can receive this Divine help and be strengthened by it.
The Holy Spirit, being God along with the Father and the Son, gives life and strength to everything. He gives believers wisdom, inner peace and encouragement - not because of their merits, but for the sake of Jesus Christ. What exactly the Holy Spirit helps us with and how to attract the grace of the Holy Spirit to ourselves, we will now explain this, based on the word of God.
1. The Holy Spirit, moving into a person, gives him faith and light. Without the Holy Spirit, no one can have true living faith, and without His enlightenment, even the greatest scientist in the affairs of God is completely blind. And on the contrary, the Holy Spirit can make even the most simpleton wise and reveal to him the great mysteries of God.
2. The Holy Spirit, moving into a person, brings with Him true love, which warms his heart. This love inspires a person to do good deeds, so that nothing is difficult or scary for him; and the commandments of God, which previously seemed difficult to him, now become easy. Faith and love, given by the Holy Spirit, are such powerful means that those who have them can easily and joyfully follow the path that Jesus Christ walked.
3. The Holy Spirit corrects the worldview and mood, so that a person ceases to be seduced by temporary blessings. Using with gratitude what God has given, a Christian does not attach his heart to anything, but feels like a guest in this world and most of all desires communication with God. A person who does not have the Holy Spirit, with all his learning and great abilities, always remains a worshiper of the world and a slave of his flesh.
4. The Holy Spirit makes a person wise. This is especially clearly seen in the example of the holy Apostles. By origin they were the most simple and unlearned people, and after the Holy Spirit descended on them on the day of Pentecost, they received such wisdom and power of speech that even philosophers and rhetoricians could not resist them. The Holy Spirit always instructs a person: what, when and how he should do. So, for example, a person who has the Holy Spirit within him will always find the means and time to save his soul. And among the noise of the world and with all his busyness, he will be able to maintain inner composure, go deep into himself and pray to God; while an unspiritual person, even in the temple of God, cannot concentrate and pray heartily.
5. The Holy Spirit gives genuine joy and is unshakable world. A person who does not have the Holy Spirit within him can never truly rejoice or find peace of mind. When he has fun, his fun is momentary, always empty and pitiful, sometimes even sinful. After fun, a person is overcome by even more painful boredom. Similarly, when an unspiritual person feels calm, it is not true spiritual peace, but a kind of drowsiness or apathy. And woe to man if he does not wake up in time and begin to take care of the salvation of his soul!
6. The Holy Spirit gives true humility. Even the most intelligent person, if he does not have the Holy Spirit, cannot know himself well enough, because this internal illness and spiritual poverty are hidden from him. When he does good or acts honestly, he becomes arrogant and begins to look down on others, and even condemn those who, in his opinion, are worse than him. Due to their blindness, many self-righteous, self-righteous people did not ask the Holy Spirit for guidance and help, and therefore they died. But the Holy Spirit always comes to the aid of a person asking for guidance and help. Just as a bright ray of sun, penetrating into a dark room, reveals the smallest details of everything that is in it, so the Holy Spirit, having moved into a person, reveals to him all the wretchedness and corruption of his soul. Illuminated by heavenly light, a person can no longer pay attention to his small virtues when his soul needs healing from so many ulcers. Realizing himself as the worst of people, a person humbles himself, begins to truly repent and decides to live more carefully. In relation to good deeds, he stops relying on his own strength and asks God to instruct and help him.
7. The Holy Spirit gives true fervent prayer. No one, until he receives the Holy Spirit, can pray a prayer that is completely pleasing to God, because his thoughts and feelings are scattered in different directions. A person in whom the Holy Spirit dwells vividly feels the presence of God, his prayer flows smoothly, and he knows how and what to ask God for. In such a state, the person praying can ask God for everything, even what is impossible according to human concepts.
Here is a short list of the gifts of the Holy Spirit. Thus, without the assistance of the Holy Spirit it is impossible not only to enter the Kingdom of Heaven, but even to approach it. Therefore, we need to diligently ask the Holy Spirit to abide in us and help us, as He helped the holy Apostles. In order for the Holy Spirit to propitiate us, descend and dwell in us, it is important to know what attracts Him to us and what removes Him. We'll talk about this now.
Jesus Christ said that “The Holy Spirit breathes where He wants, and You hear His voice, but you do not know where it comes from and where it goes.” This means that a person is able to feel the touch of the Holy Spirit on the heart, but cannot predict the time when this will happen. So, for example, from the book of Acts we see that the holy Apostles and Christians always received the gifts of the Holy Spirit unexpectedly. He does not descend on those who ask instantly, as soon as anyone wants, but when it pleases Him, as God pleases. Consequently, no one dares to predict when and what gifts of grace he will receive, and whether he will receive anything at all, because who dares to consider himself worthy! The grace of the Holy Spirit is a gift of His infinite mercy! Gifts are distributed exactly when it pleases the giver, and only what pleases the benefactor. He established in the Church grace-filled means for distributing His gifts to the believers - these are the Holy Sacraments and the divine services of the Church. Therefore, non-Orthodox Christians are very mistaken when they claim that they can always, whenever they want, receive the Holy Spirit using well-known methods (which, by the way, are also used in spiritualistic séances and in pagan mysteries); and those of them who come up with these techniques and dare to use them will not only not receive gifts of grace, but will commit a terrible sin against the Holy Spirit.
Anyone who intends to ask the Holy Spirit for gifts of grace must know that these gifts are intended only for those who believe correctly. Indeed, the Lord first enlightened the Apostles with the true teaching, and therefore already taught them the Holy Spirit. Likewise, the Apostles did not immediately give gifts of grace to the newly baptized, but only after a certain period of testing and confirmation in true faith. For this reason the Lord called the Holy Spirit Spirit of Truth, and the Church, this grace-filled society of believers, must be “the pillar and foundation of the truth.”
So, when a person accepted the faith of Christ in all its purity, humbly and obediently, without any amendments or reservations, then these are the means that the Lord gave him to receive the gifts of the Holy Spirit:
1. Purity of heart and chastity.
2. Humility.
3. Listening to the voice of God.
4. Prayer.
5. Selflessness.
6. Reading the Holy Scriptures.
7. The sacraments of the Church and especially Holy Communion.
To receive the gifts of the Holy Spirit, you must first cleanse your heart from sins, selfishness and pride. The Holy Spirit always surrounds us on all sides; He wants to fill us, but the evil nesting within us, like a wall, blocks His path. Every sin removes the Holy Spirit, but bodily uncleanness and pride are especially disgusting to Him. Therefore, if we want the Holy Spirit, Whom we received at Baptism, not to move away from us, or if we have removed Him from ourselves through a sinful life and want Him to return to us, then we must:
1. Purify yourself by repentance, and after repentance, avoid sinful thoughts and desires. Due to the terrible licentiousness modern society, a Christian must in every possible way protect himself from everything that defiles the soul, and not allow his body to become involved in fornication. After all, our body is designed to be a temple of the Holy Spirit. When a person is clean internally and externally, then the Holy Spirit dwells in him. With chastity, the only thing that can prevent the Holy Spirit from dwelling in a person is if he prides himself on his righteousness and counts on the gifts of the Holy Spirit as a due reward. If, through misfortune, you have defiled yourself with carnal sin, then stop sinning and repent. With a contrite heart, regret that you have offended God, your loving Father, and begin to live with more caution. Then you too can receive the Holy Spirit.
2. One of the most reliable means of attracting the Holy Spirit is humility. Even if you were an honest, kind, just and merciful person - in a word, even if you combined many virtues, still continue to consider yourself an unfit servant of God and His insignificant instrument. Indeed, if we take a closer look at our good deeds, we will see that none of them are completely flawless. How often, for example, when giving alms or helping our neighbors, we mixed in this with vainglorious thoughts, grief, pride, condemnation and other unkind feelings. Of course, a good deed always remains a good deed, and you continue to do and multiply good deeds. After all, gold, even unrefined, has some price. You just have to put it in the hands of an experienced craftsman, and it will receive its full price. So you entrust your good deeds to the Heavenly Master, and He will make them valuable.
Therefore, if you want your virtues to please God, do not boast about them. You are not a master, but only an apprentice. Art gives a price to gold, and virtues are given a price by pure and selfless Christian love, which comes from the Holy Spirit. Everything that is done without Christian love, i.e. Without the Holy Spirit, there is still no full-fledged virtue. And therefore, a person who does not have the Holy Spirit within himself, despite all his virtues, remains poor and pitiful.
In addition to the awareness of one’s unworthiness, humility also consists in enduring various life sorrows and misfortunes with patience and resignation, considering them deserved and sent for our benefit. Don't say: “How unhappy I am!” But say: “I deserve even greater punishment for my sins!” And don’t so much ask God to deliver you from disasters as to give you patience and strength to endure them.
3. You can receive the Holy Spirit by listening to the voice of God. The Lord speaks to us both with the inner voice of conscience and with external life circumstances. It is very important to develop sensitivity in yourself in order to hear more clearly everything that God inspires in us. He takes care of you like the most loving Father. He daily calls you to Himself, warns and admonishes you. So, for example: whether you are sad, whether someone has offended you, whether a misfortune has happened to you, or whether you are sick - in this you can hear the voice of God, calling you to repent and become better. During times of sorrow, instead of looking for help from people or entertaining yourself with various amusements, turn to God and ask Him alone for help.
Or, let’s say that you are prosperous, live in abundance and everything is going well for you. This is also the voice of God. Here the Lord calls you to be merciful to those in need, as He is merciful to you. It is sinful and dangerous to be deaf to the voice of God: not to repent and not improve during times of trouble, or not to thank God and not to help others during periods of success. It is even more destructive to act contrary to what the Lord is leading us to: to grumble and become embittered in difficult circumstances, or forget God and live only for pleasure in favorable conditions. Then it may turn out that God, after repeated admonitions, will turn away from us as stubborn children and allows us to do whatever we please. Then passions will easily take possession of us, our mind and conscience will become darkened, and we can reach the point where we begin to justify even our most terrible sins as the inevitable weakness of human nature. To avoid such a fall, we must learn to listen to the voice of God and follow what he inspires in us.
4. You can receive the Holy Spirit prayer. Prayer is the simplest, most reliable and accessible means to everyone to receive the Holy Spirit. Since a person consists of soul and body, prayer can be internal and external. The main thing in prayer is concentration and sincerity, which is achieved through internal effort. However, the body should not remain indifferent: it can and should help the soul pray. Prayer is facilitated by favorable external conditions: solitude and silence, icons with a burning lamp, bows, raising of hands, reading prayers out loud, and when a person is in church: church painting and architecture, harmonious quiet singing, magnificent worship, etc.
Focusing on prayer and turning your heart to God is no small task. To do this, you need to regularly devote a certain time to prayer (for example, in the morning and evening), you need constancy and patience. We must constantly fight haste, absent-mindedness, coldness, and insincerity; we must try to warm our hearts with love for God. It takes a lot of effort to learn to pray correctly, and, as we know, holy people learned the art of prayer all their lives. At the same time, personal efforts alone are not enough. For prayer to be fervent and come from the depths of the heart, the help of the Holy Spirit is necessary. Only He gives perfect prayer.
Sincere prayer always brings comfort and peace to the heart. The saints knew this well, who stood for whole days and nights in prayer and, in sweet delight, ceased to notice the time. Here they received the closest and most vivid illumination from the Holy Spirit. Therefore, you too pray, despite the fact that, due to your sinfulness and inability, your prayer will be imperfect at first. Pray diligently and with zeal, accustom yourself to a sincere conversation with God. So little by little you will learn to pray and begin to feel sweet consolation. And if you show constancy in your prayer work, the Holy Spirit will take pity on you and begin to dwell in you.
Holy Scripture teaches: “Pray without ceasing.” Is this possible for people living in the world? If you pray all the time, then how can you fulfill your other duties? The advice to pray continuously refers not to external, but to internal prayer. If desired, it is possible to internally turn to God not only in solitude, but also among various activities. Only those who do not want to pray do not find time to pray.
Prayer is facilitated by fasting and acts of mercy. One of the saints advised: “If you want your prayer to fly to God, then give it two wings: fasting and almsgiving.”
5. What is fasting and why is it needed? Fast- this is a voluntary restriction of oneself in food, drink and pleasures. The purpose of fasting is to pacify and lighten the body, to make it obedient to the soul. Sated flesh requires bliss and peace, encourages laziness, and prevents thoughts of God. She, like an unbridled servant, rebels against her master, the soul, and wants to rule over it. During fasting, it is necessary to limit the quality of food (i.e., do not eat dairy and meat foods, avoid the pleasures of the larynx), as well as the quantity of food, being content with the minimum need of the body. At the same time, it is necessary to curb various sinful desires of the flesh. Then your fast will be true.
While fasting outwardly, one must fast also internally: keep your tongue from sinful and idle conversations, moderate your desires and anger, drive away unkind thoughts and dreams. Experience shows that there is nothing more difficult than stopping the wandering of thoughts and directing your mind to thoughts of God and prayer. This is like taming wild horses that have long and stubbornly gone on rampage under their rider.
An unspiritual person does not even realize how difficult it is to control his thoughts. Being engaged only in everyday affairs, he believes that his thoughts are always occupied with useful things. If he begins to strive for a spiritual lifestyle and tries to think about spiritual topics, then his thoughts will begin to become clouded. There is something like the water of a shallow lake. If you do not disturb its surface, it will remain clean, but if you rub it, the silt rising from the bottom will make the water in the lake cloudy. In the same way, at the bottom of our heart there are various passions that, like mud, darken the soul when a person begins to identify them and fight them. The Holy Fathers explain that the devil certainly tries to disturb the soul with unkind thoughts and feelings in order to confuse a person who wants to be saved and divert him from a good intention. But do not succumb to his wiles and do not leave the path of salvation. It is useful to know that it is impossible for a person to think about two objects at the same time. If you occupy your mind with good thoughts (for example, reading spiritual books or studying some useful subject), then bad thoughts will not be able to linger in your mind. Therefore, read more Holy Scripture and soul-helping books; inspired by them, reflect on spiritual topics, pray and ask God to enlighten you. Then the Holy Spirit, seeing your efforts, will dwell in you and cleanse your heart.
Love certainly reveals itself in deeds mercy. Works of mercy include: feeding the hungry, giving drink to the thirsty, clothing the naked, visiting and helping the sick or imprisoned, sheltering the homeless, taking care of the orphan - and similar activities. All this must be done out of a desire to help your neighbor, without boasting or expecting gratitude. The Savior teaches that when doing a good deed, one must try to “The left hand didn’t know what the right hand was doing. Then the Heavenly Father, who sees in secret, will reward you openly.”
6. The Holy Spirit can be received by reverently reading the Holy Scriptures. Being the word of God, it contains treasures of spiritual light and wisdom. The Holy Scriptures are one of the greatest blessings of God, which can be used by anyone who wants to. Saving truths are presented in such an accessible form that even the most simple and inexperienced person in science can understand them. From church history and the lives of saints, there are many cases where the simplest people, studying Scripture, became wise, became pious and received abundant gifts of the Holy Spirit. There were, of course, some, even among scientists, who, while reading the Scriptures, got lost and fell into heresy. The difference was that some read Scripture in simplicity of heart, seeking spiritual guidance in it, while others approached it with worldly inquisitiveness and tried to penetrate into the hidden. Thinking that they understood everything, they fell into pride and became false teachers. Know that heavenly wisdom cannot be contained by our small human mind. But God makes people with a pure and kind heart wise. He makes them understand what is for their benefit and the benefit of those who communicate with them. Therefore, when you read the Holy Scripture, put aside all worldly wisdom, submit to the word and will of the One who speaks to you through the Holy Scripture, and ask Jesus Christ to make you wise for salvation.
In addition to the Holy Scriptures, there are many books useful for a Christian: the works of the holy fathers, lives of saints, soul-helping stories, sermons, theological works of Orthodox authors. From the books available to you, read those that are based on the Holy Scriptures and agree with the teachings Orthodox Church. Beware of the rest, as if they are poisoned by spiritual poison.
7. Regarding Communion, Jesus Christ said: “He who eats My body and blood drinker Mine abides in Me, and I in him. He has eternal life in him, and I will raise him up at the last day.” Thus, a person who partakes of the Body and Blood of Christ is mysteriously united with Him and joins His divine life. Therefore, one must approach Communion with faith, having cleansed the soul through repentance, with the consciousness of one’s unworthiness and with hope for God’s mercy. By accepting Christ into his heart, the believer accepts both the Holy Spirit and the Heavenly Father, because God is one and indivisible. Thus, the believer is honored to be a living temple of the one God, worshiped in the Trinity. Whoever receives communion unworthily, i.e. with an unclean soul, with a heart filled with malice, selfishness or other passions, he not only does not receive the Holy Spirit, but becomes like Judas the traitor.
Christians of the first centuries, realizing the importance and benefit of the Holy Mysteries, took communion every Sunday. Undoubtedly for this reason they had, as the book of the Acts of the Holy Apostles narrates, one heart and one soul. But, my God, what a difference between them and us! How many of us are there who rarely and sometimes do not receive communion for several years, and how many are there who approach the cup without preparation and without fear of God!
So, for the sake of your salvation, try more often , at least once a year, partake of the Holy Mysteries. The Body and Blood of Christ is the true cure for all mental and physical ailments. Which of us is completely healthy? Who wouldn't want help and relief? The Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ is food that strengthens us on the path to the Kingdom of Heaven. Is it possible to make a long and difficult journey without any reinforcements? The Body and Blood of Jesus Christ is a shrine given to us by Jesus Christ Himself for our sanctification. And who would refuse to be a participant in such a Shrine? Therefore, do not be lazy in approaching the Cup of life, but approach it with the fear of God and faith. And whoever neglects this does not love Jesus Christ and will not receive the Holy Spirit, and, therefore, will not enter the Kingdom of Heaven.
So, here are the means for receiving the Holy Spirit: purity of heart and immaculate life, humility, attention to the voice of God, prayer accompanied by fasting and almsgiving, reading the word of God and communion of the Body and Blood of Christ. Of course, each of these means is valid for receiving the Holy Spirit, but it is best to resort to all of these saving means. To what has been said, it must be added that if anyone from those who are worthy to receive the Holy Spirit falls for some reason and sins, and thereby alienates the Holy Spirit from himself, let him not despair and do not think that he has irretrievably lost grace, but let him quickly fall to God with deep repentance and prayer, and the all-merciful Holy Spirit will return to him again.
Conclusion
So, no one without faith in Jesus Christ can return to God and enter the Kingdom of Heaven. No one, even if he believed in Jesus Christ, if he does not act as Jesus Christ did, can be called His disciple, therefore, cannot share with Him His glory in Heaven. No one can follow Jesus Christ without the help of the Holy Spirit. Whoever wants to receive the Holy Spirit must take advantage of the means given by the Lord.
It is important to remember that the path to the Kingdom of Heaven, opened to us by Jesus Christ, is the only one, and there has not been and will not be another path except the one that Jesus Christ showed us. This path is difficult at times, but it surely leads to the goal. Moreover, a Christian will encounter on this path such consolations and pleasures that cannot be found in worldly goods. The Lord Jesus Christ helps us to walk this path; gives us the Holy Spirit, sends His Angel to protect us, gives us mentors and leaders, and even Himself takes us by the hand and leads us to salvation.
If the path to the Kingdom of Heaven is difficult, then eternal torment in fiery hell is incomparably more terrible. If the path to heavenly bliss is difficult, then the path to earthly happiness is no easier. Look how hard those who collect earthly treasures work, how many sorrows, sleepless nights and deprivations they suffer. Or remember how much work you have done, how much trouble and money some empty and fleeting pleasure costs you! And what? Instead of the expected pleasure, you were left disappointed and tired. And therefore, if we take a closer look at the essence of the matter, it is clear that we are shying away from the Kingdom of Heaven, not because this path there was really more difficult than the paths of this world, but because it seems so to us. It is the devil, a skillful deceiver, who presents to us the path of salvation as difficult and the path of destruction as easy, and therefore many destroy their souls.
Therefore, brothers, in order to avoid eternal destruction, we certainly need take care of your future. We know that there, beyond the grave, one of two things awaits people: either the Kingdom of Heaven, or utter hell - there is no middle state - or eternal bliss, or eternal torment. Just as there are only two states beyond the grave, so there are only two paths in this life. One of them is wide and seems light - most people suit it, and the other is narrow and thorny - few people suit it. And the one who follows the narrow path is a hundred times happier. Brothers, if we follow the broad path and die unexpectedly, what will happen to us? Who will we resort to there? To the Lord? But we did not want to listen to Him, so He will not listen to us. Now He is a merciful Father to us, and there He will be a righteous Judge. And who will protect us from His just wrath? Oh, brothers! It's scary to fall into the hands of the living God! So, take care of the salvation of your soul while you have a favorable time.
Work hard to save yours while it is still day, because night will come when it will be impossible to change anything. Strive for the Kingdom of Heaven while you can go. Walk at least a little, even crawling, but in the right direction. Then in eternity you will rejoice for every step you take. May the all-merciful Lord help us in this! To him be glory and thanksgiving forever and ever. Amen.
We are now living in a difficult time, which is written in the Word of God that it is the last. And God gives us also the last warnings, for soon the time of grace will end and sorrow will come, also the last. We must survive this crisis, resist, in order to be among the saved. Everything is coming to an end very quickly, and we are scared of what is happening in the world and what will still happen.
Christ said that people would die of fear and anticipation of disasters coming to the world (Luke 21, 26), which is what is happening now.
But the Word of God not only describes the horrors to come, not only warns, but also consoles, strengthens, gives hope, strengthens faith and promises great reward those who love God and keep His word. It gives peace, peace in the heart and joy, which those who do not love God do not know. “The eye has not seen, the ear has not heard, and the things that God has prepared have not entered into the heart of man.” loving Him" (1 Cor. 2:9).
To console His despondent disciples, Christ promises them to return and take them to Himself in the abode of the Father. “I’m going to prepare a place for you. And when I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and take you to Myself, so that where I am you also may be.” (John 14:2-3)
It was a long time ago. The time of return is near. So what has God got in store? Let's look at everything in order, from the very beginning.
“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth...” (Genesis 1:1). The Lord created a beautiful planet, decorated it with forests, rivers, hills, and planted a beautiful garden. Amazingly beautiful flowers bloomed everywhere, beautiful birds sang beautiful songs, and unafraid animals walked around. Everything was quite good. And everything was prepared for man. Man was the crown of God's creation - holy, beautiful, endowed with intelligence - he was created in the image and likeness of God. Everything was placed under his authority. “And God blessed them, and God said to them: “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” (Genesis 1:28).
But not only that. Man was given free will so that he could make a choice: voluntarily, out of love for God, serve Him, or choose his own path away from God. And since a person could make any choice, it was necessary to protect him in case of a wrong choice. And God has prepared something else grandiose, “which the angels desire to penetrate” (1 Peter 1:12) - a plan for the salvation of man. The center of this plan, its main character, was Jesus Christ - the Son of God, Who was to become the Savior of mankind, a substitutionary sacrifice for sin, a Mediator and Intercessor for man before God. “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” (John 3, 16).
The man nevertheless made the wrong choice, and thereby sinned, violating the will of God. And then immediately the rescue plan came into effect. Sin denied man access to heaven, and eternity was lost. The wages of sin is death. But weren't God's plans destined to come true? Oh no. God knew the end from the beginning. But God did not deprive man of hope, did not leave him in a hopeless state. The Lord gave man the promise of the Messiah, who would come and save them from sin. He will come to die for man and give him the opportunity to return home to God. In the meantime, the first animal died, and man was given the law of sacrifice, which constantly reminded man of the coming Messiah. These sacrifices pointed to the Lamb whom God Himself prepared as a sacrifice for fallen man - the Son of God Jesus Christ.
We talk about what God has in store loving His. So, those who loved God, sought Him, gratefully accepted this typical ministry, because... by faith they looked to Christ. They thanked God for His great mercy that God did not let them die forever. And those who did not love God, opposed Him, said that God was cruel. They did not believe in Him and did not understand His ways, because “the god of this age had blinded their minds, lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of the invisible God, should shine upon them.” (Cor. 4:4).
So, God prepared everything on His part to save man. People were waiting for the Messiah. And now the time has come. The Apostle Paul writes with inspiration about this event: “But when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth his only begotten Son, who was born of a woman, made subject to the law, to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive adoption as sons.” (Gal.4, 4-5). Oh, how great is the love of God! It truly surpasses all understanding. God, the Creator of the universe, humbled himself, diminished himself in order to enter this microscopic world in order to save it.
Evangelist Luke describes this event, the first coming of Christ, His birth.
“In that country there were shepherds in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. Suddenly an Angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them; and they were afraid with great fear. And the Angel said to them: “Do not be afraid, I bring you great joy that will come to all people“For today a Savior has been born to you in the city of David, who is Christ the Lord.” (Luke 2:8-11).
God has prepared great joy for all people. The Savior was born for all people. But not everyone rejoiced, but only those who loved and waited for Him. And this joyful, good news was announced to them in open text. And God even gave them a sign by which they could recognize the Savior, so that their joy would be complete.
How can we learn that they loved God and were looking forward to the coming of Christ? From their behavior, their reaction to this news. Probably, sitting by the fire at night, they thought about this among themselves, lamenting that the people of Israel were again enslaved for their sins, now by the Romans, and still there was no Savior. Has God really abandoned them completely? And so God sends His Angel to them with good news. He did not forget His promise, did not abandon His people, but sent them great consolation. It was like an urgent telegram from God, a telegram like lightning.
And now we see their reaction. “When the Angels departed from them into heaven, the shepherds said to each other: “Let us go to Bethlehem and see what happened there, which the Lord told us about.” AND, hastened, came and found Mary and Joseph, and the Child lying in a manger... And the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for everything that they had heard and seen, as they had been told.” (Luke 15-16, 20). Why were they so happy and praised God? Yes, because God gave them a direct answer to their expectation. Their joy was fulfilled.
And if they did not expect the Messiah, did not think about Him, but thought about how they would sell their sheep and oxen and make a profit, and how not to sell themselves cheap, because... The dollar exchange rate rose and prices rose. Would they rejoice when they received news of His birth? Don't think.
Just imagine that someone else’s telegram was brought to you by mistake, informing you that a son was born, height, weight, everything is fine, don’t worry. Will you be happy with such a telegram? No. You will just think with bewilderment that the post office has the wrong address. And somewhere there lives a man who is waiting for this telegram. Maybe grandparents are waiting for the birth of a grandchild. Knowing that this should already happen, they are worried, why is there no telegram, is everything okay? And so you bring them their telegram. Oh, how glad they are, how they thank you. You are like an angel of God to them. And all because they expected. But we can be sure that God never gives the wrong address. He knows exactly who is waiting for His “telegram” and who will glorify Him.
Let's look at another example from the Gospel of Matthew. We will see exactly these two categories of people. When the wise men from the east came to Jerusalem to see the newborn King, they said: “... for we saw His star in the east and came to worship Him” (Matt. 2:2). The Magi are called "magos" in the original. These were magicians, astrologers, or astrologers, in general, sages who in those days were in the service of the kings. We know that they were in Egypt under the pharaohs, in Babylon under Nebuchadnezzar, etc. That is, they had their own kings whom they served. There is another version that these wise men themselves were kings from the east. And so they see a star, which was a supernatural phenomenon, and they understand that some kind of great king, King of Kings. They leave everything and go on a long journey to worship this King and express their respect to Him by offering rich gifts. And now they are at their goal. They came to Jerusalem, believing that the King was to be born in the palace. The news of this spread throughout the city and reached King Herod. Then we see different reactions of different people to the same event.
Matt.2, 3 – When King Herod heard this, he was alarmed, and all Jerusalem with him.
Quite a strange reaction from the residents of Jerusalem. They were not happy, but worried. For thousands of years they waited for this event, the birth of the King-Savior, but when it happened, they were not happy. But the interesting thing is that Herod, Rome’s protege, immediately realized who he was talking about, because. addressed the high priests and scribes with the question “Where should Christ be born?” Did he expect Him, no. But since this is the Tsar, it means he will have to give up his place on the throne, and he did not want this. He draws up a cunning plan to destroy the Baby, realizing that he is raising his hand against the Messiah, the Son of God.
What about the high priests and scribes? Having learned that the long-awaited Messiah had finally been born, they rejoiced and told the wise men that they would show them the way and go with them to worship Him? No. Having heard the news that the greatest long-awaited prophecy has been fulfilled before their eyes, they do not move from their place. The whole city learned about this news, God prepared joy for all people, but the Word of God does not mention a single soul who would go with the Magi to worship the King. The Scriptures mention various people who believed God, who sought Him, and nameless wise men, and nameless shepherds, and a nameless thief on the cross, and even the despised harlot Mary Magdalene, then even if some homeless person sleeping near the walls of Jerusalem, who would wished to go with the Magi to worship the King, probably would not have been forgotten by God on the pages of the Holy Scriptures. The chief priests and scribes, boasting of the law and loving to interpret it, the servants of God, received this message with indifference. Their answer was correct - “In Bethlehem of Judea, for so it is written by the prophets.” They knew the Scriptures, but they did not know God. They didn't love Him. They loved themselves. Christ said about them: “hypocrites.” They love to wear long robes, preside over meetings, sit in the first seats, pray for a long time for show, and be called “teacher, teacher.” But there is no God in the heart; there is one’s own “I” on the throne. If then they would have gone with the wise men to Bethlehem and worshiped Jesus, then they would have known Him, for the Angel said about Him that He is Christ the Lord, then they would not then have demanded proof from Him and would not have crucified Him.
But we see that the Magi came on their own and went on, and their only guide was the star. God Himself led those who came to Him.
"When you see a star, they rejoiced with exceeding great joy. And entering the house, they saw the Child with Mary, His Mother, and, falling, they worshiped Him, and, opening their treasures, they brought Him gifts: gold, frankincense and myrrh. (Matt.2, 10-11) . Their joy was also fulfilled. Although this joy was offered to all people, not everyone accepted it.
It’s the same now. God has prepared the Kingdom for us from the foundation of the world. He invites everyone into this Kingdom, but will everyone benefit from the good news? No. “Who believed what they heard from us?” And although it is written that the eye did not see, the ear did not hear, and the heart of man did not come to what God had prepared, He still slightly lifts the veil of the future and allows us to see it, as the prophets to whom God revealed the future saw it, and as they wrote down their visions in a book.
The Apostle John sees a new heaven and a new earth, a new city of Jerusalem, the splendor of which surpasses the wildest imagination. And the last two chapters of the book of Revelation are devoted to the description of the new earth, the new life that awaits the saved. God is all in all, He is the beginning and the end. The Bible begins with a description of creation - the first two chapters, and ends with a description of the new creation - the last two chapters. “And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and there will be no more death, nor mourning, nor crying, nor pain, for the former things have passed away. And He who sat on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” And he says to me: “Write, for these words are true and true.” And he said to me: “It is finished! I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end...” (Rev. 21: 4-6). The Lord Himself says that these words are true, and they will soon be fulfilled.
The prophet Isaiah also describes life on the new earth, and we can also see this with him and rejoice with very great joy. “Then the wolf will live with the lamb, and the leopard will lie down with the kid, and the young lion and the ox will be together, and a little child will lead them. And the cow will feed with the she-bear, and their cubs will lie down together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox. And the child will play over the asp's hole, and the child will stretch out his hand into the snake's nest. They will not do evil or harm in all My holy mountain, for the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea.” (Is.11:6-9). “Then the eyes of the blind will be opened and the ears of the deaf will be unstopped. Then the lame will leap up like a deer, and the tongue of the dumb will sing; For waters will break out in the desert, and streams in the desert. And the ghost of waters will turn into a lake, and the thirsty land into springs of water...” (Is.35:5-7). “And not one of the inhabitants will say: “I am sick,” and the people living there will have their sins forgiven (Is. 33, 24).
Our Lord will recreate everything, He will correct everything affected by sin - both animals and vegetable world, and man. There will be no more deserts, barren salt marshes and swamps on earth. Mirages will not deceive travelers, but there will be sources of water. Everything will bloom and triumph. We are awaiting the end of the age-old struggle between Christ and Satan, and we even know the outcome of this struggle, and we know that the time is very close, almost all the prophecies have been fulfilled. Christ returns. He has prepared mansions, everything is ready for His saved ones, and soon, very soon He Himself will come to take His own. And then He will say to those who love and await His coming and fulfill His word: “Come, you blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world” (Matt. 25:34). And if we remain faithful to Christ, we will be among the saved, our joy will also be fulfilled and will be perfect.
God has prepared all this for those who love Him. And even all of the above is only a weak description of what we will see with our own eyes. “Now we see through a glass darkly, but then we see face to face” (1 Cor. 13:12).
Let us always be grateful to God for His love and for everything He has done for us. Let the love of God fill our hearts with the joy of His soon return, and then all this will be ours.
Elena Volodchenkova
Today's Sunday after the feast of Holy Pascha is called the week of the paralytic. We have heard the Gospel story about how there was such a sheep font in Jerusalem, it was called Bethesda. Sick and infirm people gathered near this font, because once a year the Angel of the Lord descended into this font. And when he went down there, the water became indignant and whoever was the first to plunge into this font received healing from any illness. And near this font there was a paralyzed man (in our opinion, a paralyzed man), who had been near this font for thirty-eight years and did not manage to be the first to go down there. The Lord, passing by, seeing this relaxed man, asks him, and he explains that “... there is no person who would help me get down there, when I get there, they are already ahead of me.” And out of His love for mankind, the Lord heals this paralytic, saying to him: “Get up, take your bed and go.” After which the paralytic, who had not known feelings in his limbs for thirty-eight years, suddenly feels them, gets to his feet, takes up the bed on which he was lying and walks. The Jews, seeing this, especially the Pharisees, began to reproach him because it was on the Sabbath. To which the paralytic responds to the Jews: “He who healed me told me to do it.” And the paralytic did not know who healed him, since the Lord immediately left. And then on another day the paralytic accidentally meets Christ, the Lord says to him: “You have been healed, go and sin no more, so that nothing worse happens to you.”
Here we, brothers and sisters, see that our physical ailments are often connected with our spiritual ailments. After all, you and I are people created by God both spiritually and physically. Both our soul and body are equally called to salvation, and with soul and body we either glorify God or sin against Him, with soul and body we will rejoice in heaven or suffer in hell after the Last Judgment of God, the Second Coming of Christ. Soul and body are connected together. When a person’s soul is damaged, when a person’s soul hurts, his body inevitably begins to hurt. Many of us have seen examples in our lives and in the lives of our loved ones, when a person neglects his health. For example, a drunkard. It can be seen from the outside as well. His illness, primarily mental, inevitably affects his health. But there are not so obvious connections between sin and illness.
And sometimes, by illness, the Lord prevents a person from committing a great sin, a great atrocity in his life. It happens that a person does not walk, lies relaxed, or the temperature strikes for a week and the person cannot get out of bed. Is this God's punishment for any sins or not? It happens that it is not a punishment at all, but maybe even a reward, in some sense. After all, the Lord, with this disease, protects us from something worse, greater evil. Either we could somehow sin, or find even greater sorrows.
The paralytic, who lay for thirty-eight years, was healed, despite the fact that such things cannot be done on the Sabbath and that the Pharisees reproach him, nevertheless he rejoices and carries his bed. After healing, he does not remember the sorrow that he endured for 38 years, his entire life, he rejoices. Likewise, we, brothers and sisters, despite the fact that we are often painful and sorrowful in our lives, let us remember that the main thing is not to sin, so that nothing worse happens. The saints say, if you want something good to stay with you, constantly thank God for it. If you want the sorrowful thing to go away quickly, thank God for it. And St. John Chrysostom also says: “If you learn to thank God in illness, you will become a saint.”
Despite how long our sorrows may be in our lives, we clearly remember the words of the Apostle Paul: “Eye has not seen and ear has not heard; and the things that the Lord has prepared for those who love Him have not entered into the heart of man.” What kind of joy will be the reward for patience and faithfulness to God, we do not know, we can only guess, but we must definitely understand that when we are worthy of this joy, those sorrows, sufferings and illnesses that we encountered in our earthly life will seem completely insignificant to us and our sorrow will certainly leave us. For our faithfulness, the Lord will cleanse our souls and bodies from sins and grant us a blessed life.
Door to the Kingdom of Heaven Beloved brothers and sisters! I want to talk with you about repentance and how we should move towards repentance. “Repentance is the renewal of baptism. Repentance is a covenant with God to correct life. Repentance is a drop of humility” (St. John Climacus). You see, beloved, that repentance is based on humility and contrition of the heart for sins: you need to ask the Lord for mercy. Even though we undergo great deeds in our lives, if we have not acquired a painful heart for sins, then they are all feigned and vain. Beloved brothers and sisters, on our part there must be a covenant with God about the correction of life, and then humility - contrition of the heart for sins. If we don’t have this, then repentance is false. “Without humility there cannot be true repentance, but there is feigned and false repentance, which is only on the lips and not in the heart” (St. Tikhon of Zadonsk). You see, beloved brothers and sisters, that repentance is based on humility, and God requires from us the will of our hearts to rebel against sinful passions. We must have a desire for prayer, fasting and good deeds. But for the most part, good deeds are done not out of pure love, but with greed and reproaches, with laziness and negligence. with vanity and people-pleasing, hypocrisy. And God accepts sacrifices and good deeds from us only out of pure love. Here humility and covers all our shortcomings . “If through the passion of pride alone, without any other passion, Satan fell from heaven, then is it not possible to ascend to heaven through humility alone?” (Saint John Climacus). There are many paths to salvation, but without humility no one will be saved, all good deeds must be based on humility, and without humility all good deeds are nothing. The great universal teacher John Chrysostom says: “If there is no foundation for humility, then even if someone exalts his life to heaven, all this will easily be destroyed and will have a bad end, even if you were distinguished by fasting and prayer, almsgiving and chastity, or some other virtue, without humility, all this will collapse and perish" (Conversation on the Gospel of Matthew, 25). “Humility without deeds earns forgiveness for many sins; and deeds without it, on the contrary, are not useful. Humility is like salt for food, so is humility for any virtue, and it can crush the strength of many sins. Therefore, one must take care of it in the soul unceasingly, with humiliation our understanding; and if we acquire it, it will make us sons of God and without good deeds will introduce us to God, and without it all our deeds, all virtues and all work are in vain. It alone is enough to present us without outside help before the face of God and talking about us is profitable." “I did not fast, I did not keep a vigil, I did not sleep on the bare ground, but I humbled myself, most of all seeking to blame myself for anything, and soon the Lord saved me” (St. John Climacus). “The foundation of all virtues is humility. If there is such a person who does not like to endure reproof, does not like to endure and hear bad things about himself, does not like ridicule, caustic words, lies, slander and all kinds of dishonor, then at least he seems pious seemed to be distinguished by his exploits, all his exploits and labors were in vain.” “Perfect humility consists in joyfully accepting a false accusation” (St. Tikhon of Zadonsk). “Many call themselves sinners, perhaps they actually think so about themselves, but their hearts are tempted by humiliation from others” (St. John of the Climacus). “It is not the one who degrades himself who shows humility, but the one who, being reproached by another, does not diminish his love for him.” “When you hear that your neighbor or friend has reproached you for your absence or presence, then show love and praise him” (St. John Climacus). “St. John Colov was sitting at the church, and the brethren surrounded him and asked about his thoughts. One of the elders saw this and, overcome by envy, said to him: “John, your cup is overflowing with enchantments.” John answered: “Exactly so, Abba, you he said this, seeing only the outside; what would you say if you saw the inside? "(Fatherland, Ignatius Brianchaninov). We think of ourselves that we are humble, as long as we are not touched - this is not humility. When they humiliate, insult, then say to yourself: “I am worth this for my sins.” “He who rejects reproof reveals the passion of pride, and whoever accepts reproof will be freed from its bonds" (St. John Climacus). Pride is the loss of wealth and labor. God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble. Once St. Abba John was sitting in a monastery, and the brethren surrounded him , asking about his thoughts. One of the elders saw him and, overcome by envy, said to him: “John, you are like a harlot who surrounds herself and multiplies the number of her lovers.” John hugged him and said: “You speak the truth, my father!” (Fatherland, Ignatius Brianchaninov.) “There are many spiritual fathers of Christians who bow deeply, speak beautiful sermons, strictly observe fasts, firmly perform church rituals, but if their hearts are irritated, worried when bad words are said about them, then all these spiritual fathers work in vain, and if they do not strive to find humility, then they will not achieve the Kingdom of Heaven. Humility is the key with which the doors to the Kingdom of Heaven are unlocked." "Many bow low, others speak quietly, others cover themselves with a black cassock, but they cannot cover their hearts with humility" (St. Tikhon of Zadonsk). St. John Kolov, mentor of St. Arseny The Great, said: “The gate to God is humility, and our fathers, through many sorrows, rejoicing, entered the city of God" (ancient Patericon). Anthony the Great told about himself: “I saw all the nets of the devil spread throughout the whole earth; saw this, sighed and said: “Woe to the human race, who can free us from these snares?” To this it was said to me: “Humility will save!” (Fatherland, Ignatius Brianchaninov). “When I came of age, the rich gentleman called me to him and said: “Behold, I offer you two friends; choose one of your own free will, and he will be your guide in your life.” I see that the name of one friend - humility, and the other - pride. So I voluntarily took “pride” as my adviser and planted it deep, in the recesses of my soul, and locked it with a heavy padlock, and without the friend of “pride” I did nothing, but everything with
