The goal of every Orthodox Christian’s earthly life is to save his soul from death. Achieving eternal life and bliss is what every believer dreams of. To get to Paradise, which was lost for people after the fall of the ancestors Adam and Eve, and then regained after the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, is the ultimate dream of a Christian.
Who was the first person who found himself in the Garden of Eden after the atoning sacrifice of Christ? Who was the first to enter the gate guarded by a cherub with a flaming sword?
And he drove out Adam, and placed a cherubim and a flaming sword that turned around in the east of the Garden of Eden to guard the way to the tree of life. (Genesis 3:24)
Imaginary righteous
The fact is that, by and large, we are all sinners in approximately the same quantity and size, if we conditionally weigh our sins on scales. Earthly life can be considered like the first grade at school, or, more accurately, the preparatory group in kindergarten. Of course, in the first grade there are excellent students and C students, there are even future D students, but if you look at these first-graders from the height of the graduating class, then they are all nice children, their knowledge and sins (that is, ignorance) are still insignificant and therefore easily corrected. The main result of primary education should be the desire of children to study further - this, in fact, is the main task of teachers at the first stage of education - not to discourage children from going to school and learning.
Approximately the same thing happens to a person in earthly life, but the main thing that should come to him at a certain stage, at the stage of his spiritual maturation, is the desire to live further without sins, honestly and purely, without a stone in his bosom, that is, deep repentance with an uncontrollable desire to improve and correct the consequences of one’s earthly sins.
Often people in worldly life consider themselves not very sinful and therefore the feeling of repentance is not even familiar to them. They die like righteous people: they judge and condemn everyone, they set their righteous and successful life as an example to everyone. You are probably familiar with these. It is easy to guess where the Lord will place them for correction. With a robber the situation is completely different.
Old Testament stories for children. The first people in heaven.
Chapter Two: The First People in Paradise.
CREATION OF ADAM
The Lord created the first man on the sixth day. Before this, He had already created heaven and earth, separated dry land from water, planted the earth with green grass and trees, created fish, birds and animals. And finally, God creates man.
If you have a little brother or sister, you know that before he comes into your home, mom and dad prepared him a crib, a stroller, bought new diapers, baby vests, colorful rattles, and a bath. They tried to ensure that the house had everything that the baby could need so that he could grow up faster.
So the Lord first prepares this world and then creates man.
So God said: Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.
He took a handful of earth and breathed the breath of life into it, and then a man with a living soul appeared. And God named the man Adam. This name means "earth" or "red clay" because man was created from earth.
Do you remember what else God created from the earth? That's right, animals!
Animals are closest to man, but man is higher than them, because he alone is created in the Image and Likeness of God.
FIRST COMMANDMENT God planted a beautiful garden with wonderful plants so that man would live in this garden and take care of it. This garden was called Eden. Various trees and herbs grew there. And in the middle was the tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil. This tree, as you might imagine, was special. God said to man: Eat the fruit of every tree in the garden, but do not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The day you eat the fruit from it, you will die. This is what God said to Adam, and this was the first commandment given by God to man.
What is a commandment, my friend, do you know? A commandment is a special rule of conduct. Tell me why do we need rules of conduct? Of course! We need rules of behavior in order to know how to behave in different situations, in different places, with different people. For example, we must know for sure that the road can only be crossed on a pedestrian path and only when the green man is on fire. If we don't follow this rule, we risk getting run over, right? This means that we need rules to make our lives safe and joyful, right? So, God gives commandments to man to teach him to live according to his conscience, in love and harmony with God and other people. God ordered Adam not to eat fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, so that Adam would learn to hear and obey Him. It is very important for a person to be able to listen to the voice of God. And each of us has the voice of God even now - it is our conscience. The first commandment was very simple, and at first the person easily fulfilled it.
NAMING OF ANIMALS The Lord wanted man to become a master in this world, so that he would joyfully live among the beauty of nature, and so that he would enjoy friendship with living beings. Therefore, God brought animals and birds to Adam. And Adam gave his name to every living soul. Tell me please, do you have a cat? When I was five or six years old, I had a cat. I loved him very much. I played with him, pulled him by the tail, put him to sleep in his crib. He heroically endured all this all day, but when my mother returned from work and barely audibly opened the door in the hallway, the cat rushed headlong towards her, and did not leave my mother until the evening. Because his mother was his owner, she looked after him, fed him, and it was she who came up with the idea to name him Tisha. After all, the right to give a name, to name someone, is also the responsibility to be the owner of this creature. Adam in paradise named every animal and every bird on this earth, he gave each his own unique name. And, you know, many of these names still survive. And even in different languages, a cat, for example, sounds very similar (Cat (eng), chat (fr), gatto (it), kater (de)). Thus, Adam became the master of all animals and birds.
THE CREATION OF THE WIFE While naming names, Adam saw that each animal had its own pair. A lion has a lioness, a bull has a cow, and a hare has a hare. And he suddenly realized that he, a man, did not have his own mate. Adam felt lonely. Have you ever experienced a feeling of loneliness? It's a sad feeling. This happens when suddenly you find yourself, for example, alone among a group of adults. They have their own conversations, their own affairs, and you are not interested in them, you are lonely, you want your friend to be nearby, someone with whom you can play, chat, and maybe even fool around a little. This is how Adam felt. And God saw that Adam became sad. And He decided to help him. God said: it is not good for man to be alone; Let us create for him a helper suitable for him. And the Lord caused the man to fall into a deep sleep. And when Adam fell asleep, God took one rib from him. And from a rib he created a wife, that is, a woman. And when Adam woke up, God brought his wife to him. And Adam exclaimed: Behold, this is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she will be called woman, for she was taken from man. Can you imagine, when the Lord created the wife, Adam was sleeping, he did not see what she was made of. However, when he saw his wife, he immediately guessed and felt in his heart that she was a part of himself. This is how the first family appeared.
THE FIRST FAMILY IN PARADISE You now know how the first husband and wife were created. God created the husband from the earth and breathed a living soul into him. And God created the wife from the rib of the husband - from the bone that is located above the very heart of a person. God wanted the husband, Adam, to own all the earth and all living things. To cultivate and protect the Garden of Eden, care for animals, and learn to listen to and trust God. And the wife was created to become a helper and companion to her husband. She had to help him in everything, take care of him and listen to him. And so it was. The first people lived very happily in their garden. And God was among them.
(To be continued…)
How is a robber better than an externally good man?
The robber certainly has no justification for himself, like, for example, people who naively consider themselves generally good and kind, but with small sins. The robber is completely wrong and does not even dare to think about heaven.
He repented of absolutely everything, he regrets his sinful earthly life as much as any imaginary righteous man, secretly thinking about eternal life in bliss, whose repentance is not even close to the repentance of the thief who has lost all hope of forgiveness of sins.
If you take a closer look, it turns out that there are almost no righteous people in real life, but there are so many pretending to be righteous. People have learned to observe public decency and external decency so well that they themselves have believed in their deception and now live in sins, considering this the norm of life, justifying themselves with the herd instinct: everyone lives like this... Self-justification does not give them the opportunity to repent, but any Correcting your brain, thoughts, and aspirations begins with admitting your mistakes and sins.
As long as criminal thoughts live in a person, he is a criminal, and it does not matter whether he committed a crime or not. The thief on the cross banished thoughts of criminal gain from himself forever and purified himself, probably, in a way that no supposed righteous person can cleanse his soul and head from criminal thoughts. Where do you think the robber should have been located?
The story of a prudent robber
Every evangelist, when describing Golgotha, talks about two thieves who were crucified at the same time as Christ. To the left and right of the Savior there were two more crosses, Gestas and Dismas hung on them.
The story of Dismas, which in ancient Russian tradition is called Rakh, is sad. Born into a family of robbers, he lived on the way to Egypt, did not hear the preaching of Jesus Christ, did not see any of God's miracles: healings, multiplication of loaves.
There is a legend that Rach saved the lives of the Holy Family on the way to Egypt. Robbers attacked travelers who were fleeing from Herod. Only the unusual beauty of the Infant God struck the leader. He ordered his comrades to release the fugitives and heard the prophecy of the Blessed Virgin that in years to come the Child would reward his rescuer, the robber.
Only this word also means “rebel, terrorist,” and in the first century theft was not punishable by crucifixion. Church theologians suggest that the Jews, hanging next to the Lord, waged an armed struggle against the occupiers - the Romans . They were more partisans, rebelling against the Roman Empire, rather than stealing and robbing civilians.
Creation of Eve
However, the man needed a friend and helper. Therefore, God took one of Adam’s ribs while he was sleeping and created a woman from it - Eve, the mother of all people (Genesis 2:21-23). The creation of woman from Adam's rib is interpreted both literally and allegorically. Moreover, both of these interpretations in the Orthodox consciousness do not contradict each other, but complement each other. In a figurative sense, the edge is interpreted as a facet, a side of human nature. Thus, woman was taken from Adam as another hypostasis of man. Metropolitan Hilarion (Alfeev) in his book “The Sacrament of Faith” points out that man is one in his hypostases, like the consubstantial and trinitarian God.
"Eve" means "living", "giving life". However, in paradise the first woman was nameless; Adam called her “wife.” Eve received her name after the Fall and expulsion from paradise, when she gave birth to Adam’s first child. The Creator commanded man and woman to be fruitful and populate the earth. Blessed by God to be together, Adam and Eve became the first family and the ancestors of all mankind. By creating Eve from Adam, God showed us that we all come from one beginning. Therefore, we must love and take care of each other.
The Fall of Adam and Eve
God allowed Adam and Eve to eat the fruits of all the trees in the Garden of Eden. With the exception of one thing - the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. God warned the people that the consequence of breaking this commandment would be death (Gen. 2:16-17). Satan, in the form of a serpent, appeared to Eve and cunningly convinced her to try the fruits of the forbidden tree. The devil told her that by doing this, a person would not only not die, but would become equal to God. Eve succumbed to temptation and transgressed God’s commandment, after which she gave the fruit to Adam to try (Gen. 3:1-6).
All that Adam and Eve felt after their crime was shame before each other and fear of God. They began to cover their naked bodies with leaves and, when they heard the voice of the Creator, they tried to hide from him. The Almighty asked Adam and Eve accusatory questions and expected them to repent, but they began to justify themselves. Adam blamed Eve for the temptation, who, in turn, said that she was tempted by the serpent. By this stubbornness, people only worsened their falling away from God.
