What is faith in Jesus Christ?
My friends, when we read the Old Testament, everywhere we hear the call of Jehovah God through the prophets sent by Him to worship and believe Him as the only, true and living God, Who sees and hears man.
“Faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen. The ancients are attested to it” (Heb. 11.1-2).
How precisely the Apostle Paul formulated the meaning of this human property, the property of his spirit. When we believe in God, we first of all expect from Him the fulfillment of our desires - kindness, love, mercy towards ourselves and our loved ones, our people and, in the full sense of the word, towards all humanity; so that He gives us faith, strength of spirit, delivers us from fear, illness, wars, etc. We pray to Him, which means we ask Him to fulfill our desires. We believe that only the invisible God will fulfill our desires in the present and future. That. By believing in the invisible God, who will fulfill the invisible desires of our spirit in real and subsequent life, we become bearers and possessors of this faith. And we see this in the history of all Israel, Jehovah God, who raised this people from infancy, repeatedly fulfilled their desires, especially when they obeyed Him and fulfilled His laws and prepared them for the coming of Christ the Lord, through whom He wants to save, heal all humanity and give eternal life. Jesus Christ is called in Scripture the Son of God, the Image of the invisible God, the Savior, the Lord.
If Jesus Christ is the Only Begotten Son of God, then he came from God, was born of God, and His nature is divine (like any only begotten son of man, the nature is also human), in a word, one born of man is a man, and one born of God is God, only here everything is much more complex and grandiose - God Himself is present in His Son - therefore Jesus Christ is unquestionably God Himself. Therefore, we must believe in Jesus Christ as God, because God is in him, the same Jehovah God who created everything and everyone. At first glance, such an interpretation looks illogical and even absurd, but remember, my friends, that what is illogical and unwise among people is logical with God. This is exactly how we need to understand the Gospel and faith in Christ, otherwise many individual religious movements, I would call them pseudo-Christian (like Jehovah's Witnesses) present faith in Jesus Christ as a statement of facts: they say - yes, we believe that Christ has come, we believe that he preached the Kingdom of God, we believe that he was betrayed by the Jews and crucified, and was resurrected, ascended to heaven and then descended to earth, appeared to the disciples, and instructed them to preach the good news about the Kingdom of God. That is they say that they believe in what Christ said, and not in Him, not in His name. According to their teaching, God saves man through the atoning sacrifice of a perfect man, who became the Archangel Michael, whom Jehovah God transferred as a spiritual creature into the womb of the Virgin Mary, so that he would be born a man and set an example of serving Jehovah and give his life for people. Those. salvation of a person occurs through ransom. In this case, answer me, what prevented the Archangel Michael from coming in the form of a man, like the High Priest Melchizedek, to preach the Gospel and also die for people? You say that the prophecy about the coming of the Savior had to be fulfilled, right, then answer why God spoke through the prophets about the act of the birth of the Savior? Why did the Almighty choose this method?
Because God was pleased to be born and become a man, one of us, in order to go through the entire human journey from beginning to end, to sanctify the human body, to heal and change his nature, to die and be resurrected in order to destroy the power of death. It was necessary to incarnate God into flesh, into man, and the equivalence and inseparability of God and the Word of God was written to us by the Apostle John: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. It was with God in the beginning" (Evangel. John 1.1)
And now, let's carefully read the Gospels, Jesus Christ repeatedly calls on the Jews to believe in Him, the Son of God:
“Whoever believes in Me, as the Scripture says, out of his belly will flow rivers of living water” (Evangel. John 7.38),
and he also emphasizes about those who believe Him:
“Jesus cried out and said: He who believes in Me does not believe in Me, but in him who sent Me, and he who sees Me sees Him who sent me” (Evangel. John 12.44-45). This passage from Scripture very accurately characterizes the unity of God with the Son, that this is One Person.
Therefore it is also said:
“He who believes in him is not condemned, but he who does not believe is already condemned, because he has not believed in the name of the Only Begotten Son of God” (Evangel. John 3.18)
And further:
“And this is His commandment, that we believe on the name of His Son Jesus Christ and love one another, as He commanded us” (1 John 3.23)
For those who do not believe in Jesus Christ as God, I would advise you to first understand and fulfill the will of God the Father, Who gave everything into the hands of His Son, both this world and judgment:
“This is the will of the Father who sent Me, that of all that He has given Me I should not destroy anything, but should raise it all up on the last day.
“This is the will of Him who sent Me, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in Him may have eternal life: and I will raise him up at the last day” (Evangel. John 6.39-40).
And then the Lord will help you, you will feel it, how you will be filled with humility and love in your heart, and when humility comes, then glory will come, as the Scripture says.
The Apostle Paul said:
“However, having learned that a person is not justified by the works of the law, but only by faith in Jesus Christ, we also believed in Christ Jesus, so that we might be justified by faith in Christ , and not by the works of the law; For by the works of the law no flesh will be justified” (Gal. 2.16). What prevented the Apostle Paul from writing “by faith alone in God the Father or by faith only in Jehovah” to emphasize the difference between Jehovah God the Father and the Son of God Jesus Christ? The Apostle Paul did not separate them, he knew that this is one God Almighty, Who contains many things:
“And write to the angel of the Sardis church: Thus says He who has the seven spirits of God and the seven stars;” (Revelation John 3.1).
Often such teachings as SI, etc. and their followers try on God with their carnal mind, for them the characteristics of the very concept of “Personality of Man” and “Personality of God” are the same, while man is one spirit, gifted by the Creator , and God is the One who has the seven spirits of God, the Assembly of Spirits, each of which is endowed with the properties of a Person and can represent God - this is God’s word, the Holy Spirit and many things that we do not know and cannot imagine. God gives us through the Scriptures an approximate idea of Himself, not because He hides Himself from man, but His Essence is higher than our nature, therefore it is impossible for man to fully know Him. As it is said that we are the product of His hands, a pot in the hands of the potter, how can a product fully know its Creator? The most difficult thing in God’s creations is the creation of personalities, such as angels, humans and then everything else material, so now imagine what a Grandiose Meganess it is! God, I think, is more than the Trinity, but Orthodox Christians have come closest to understanding the essence of the Most High God. Therefore, the interpretation of the Orthodox Church is generally correct. Holy Scripture tells us this:
“And God said: Let us make man in our image, after our likeness...”
(Gen. 1.26),
and more about Jesus Christ at the eternal council:
“…..predestined before the creation of the world, but which was revealed in the last times for you” (1 Peter 20)”
“But we preach the secret, hidden wisdom of God, which God ordained before the ages for our glory” (1 Cor. 2.7)
If Jesus is not God, (I write in madness) then He would have said differently in the indicated places in the Gospel, without emphasizing faith in Him; Christ can hardly be accused of wanting to confuse people. Whoever wants to see and hear this, he sees and hears. Only by believing in Jesus Christ as Savior, God and Lord can you receive salvation on the day of His coming.
Glory to God and our Lord Jesus Christ. May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be upon you. Amen.
Conditions for entering the Kingdom of God
Saint Seraphim of Sarov was born in 1759 in Kursk from pious parents. At holy baptism the boy was given the name Prokhor. As a three-year-old child, Prokhor lost his father and was left in the care of his mother. Such a case is known from his early childhood. A temple was being built in Kursk; Prokhor's mother, who supervised the construction of the temple after the death of her husband, took her son with her to the very top of the bell tower under construction on one of her regular inspections. Here a seven-year-old boy lost sight of his mother and inadvertently fell to the ground. The mother ran away from the bell tower in terrible fright, thinking to find the boy dead; but she found him standing on his feet, unharmed. Realizing that this could not have happened without God’s obvious help, she thanked God with tears for saving her son.
When the boy began to grow up, they began to teach him to trade, but he did not like this activity; he wanted to be a monk. With such thoughts, he went to the Kiev-Pechersk Monastery and there from the pious monk Dosifei received a blessing to settle in the Sarov Monastery (Tambov province). After this, Prokhor went home again for a while; then, saying goodbye to his mother, 19-year-old Prokhor went to the Sarov Monastery. At parting, Prokhor's mother blessed him with a small copper cross, which he accepted as a gift from God and, reverently putting it on himself, wore it on his chest over his clothes throughout his life until his death.
In the monastery, Prokhor became a monk with the name Seraphim. Soon after this, Seraphim was ordained a deacon. While serving as a deacon, Seraphim was honored in the church during the service to see the Lord Jesus Christ, surrounded by Angels and blessing those praying. After some time, Seraphim was ordained a priest. He had long wanted to live in complete solitude; finally, having asked for a blessing from the head of the monastery, he retired to a secluded place several miles from the monastery and began to live in a small cell that he had built for himself. Seraphim spent most of his time in prayer and meditation on God; the rest of the time he worked in his garden. Here, in the deep thicket, bears, wolves, foxes, hares and other animals that were in the Sarov Forest gathered at Seraphim’s cell; even lizards, snakes and snakes crawled up. The ascetic, not embarrassed by the discordant sounds they emitted and without fear of the manifestation of the wild anger of animals and snakes and without interrupting his prayer, brought them a basket of bread.
During his prayers and exploits, the evil spirit tried in every way to frighten Saint Seraphim and force him to leave his solitude. But Saint Seraphim, through prayer and God’s help, overcame these temptations. One day, three people from neighboring peasants attacked Saint Seraphim and demanded money from him. Seraphim replied that he had no money, because he did not take anything from anyone. Not believing him, the peasants beat him half to death, rushed to his cell, ransacked everything there and, not finding money, ran away. Waking up the next day, Seraphim came to the monastery with great difficulty, told the head of the monastery about everything, and convincingly asked not to look for these peasants and not to punish them.
Having returned to his solitude after recovery, Seraphim undertook a new feat: for three years he stood on a stone on his knees with his hands raised to the sky and in constant prayer to God.
At the end of this feat, he moved on to a new feat of silence: he tried not to meet people at all, and on extremely rare occasions of meeting people, he did not utter a word. This feat lasted three years. Then Seraphim, by decision of the monastery authorities, left his secluded cell and moved to live in a monastery.
Here Seraphim undertook a new feat of seclusion in his cell in the monastery. During the first five years of his retreat, Seraphim received almost no outside visitors; Rare even among the monks could see him. The fire in his cell was lit only in the lamp; the stove was never heated and the same bundle of firewood always lay next to it. The cell was illuminated by two small windows; the floor in it was almost invisible: it was littered with tails with sand and stones, which served the ascetic instead of a bed; in the entryway stood an oak coffin made by his hands, near which the ascetic often prayed, always preparing for death; a stump of a stump replaced the place of a chair in his cell. Seraphim's clothes were the same, despite their dilapidation: a white canvas robe, over which a copper cross hung on the ascetic's chest - the mother's blessing - and a black cloth cap. His meager and coarse food consisted of sauerkraut, oatmeal and water.
Why did St. Seraphim endure all these feats? – In order to prepare for serving people: in deep solitude, he studied the human soul, knew how and where sin begins in it and how to fight it; therefore, he could know the soul of every person and give him useful advice and instructions; in the feats of standing on a stone, silence and seclusion, he strengthened his will and cleansed his soul with prayer, so that, then, with his powerful will and holiness of the soul he could strongly influence the soul of another person and direct it along a good path. Therefore, when the time of preparing him for serving people was over, he, as a result of the new appearance of the Mother of God to him, ended his retreat and began to receive everyone who wanted to talk with him.
There were many who wanted to receive instructions from Seraphim: in the first years, up to ten thousand people a year, and in recent years even up to two thousand a day. Everyone who came to him was struck by his extraordinary love for people: no matter what social status anyone was, no matter how burdened someone was with sin, Seraphim received everyone with love, greeted everyone with a bow to the ground, affection in his eyes and a smile on his lips; He said to everyone: “My joy!” He himself was always kind, calm, and joyful. And after a conversation with him, everyone left calm, consoled, with love for God and people. Seraphim devoted the time remaining from numerous visitors to prayer.
By the purity and holiness of his spirit, the ascetic could know the thoughts of others and often called those who came to him by name, although he saw them for the first time, and gave them answers to their thoughts and questions, although they still did not have time to say anything to him. Saint Seraphim often predicted the future for people and performed many healings of the seriously ill.
Feeling the approach of his death, the Monk Seraphim tried to console those who came to him with the hope that he would help them even after his death. “When I am gone,” said Saint Seraphim, “you will go to my grave!” As you feel the time, you go - and the more often, the better. Everything that is in your soul, no matter what happens to you, and no matter how you grieve, come to me, and bring all the grief with you to my tomb! Crouch to the ground, tell everything like a living thing, and I will hear you, all your sorrow will fly away and pass! As you always spoke to the living, so it is here! for you I am alive and will forever!”
On January 2 (January 15), 1833, St. Seraphim died; on the morning of that day he was found in his cell kneeling before the icon of the Mother of God with his hands folded crosswise on his chest and already lifeless.
