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The Founder of
the Christian religion is our Lord Jesus Christ. Christianity teaches and
demands of its followers, faith in the one true God, the Holy Trinity.
Christians believe that Jesus Christ is the Second Person of the Holy
Trinity, the Only-begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all
ages, who for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven and was
incarnate (that is he became flesh) of the Holy Ghost and the Virgin Mary
and was made man. Thus Jesus Christ is both God and man. He is one Person
with two natures, the Divine and the human. But how by becoming man does
God save mankind? Why in the first place did mankind need saving? To
answer these and other similar questions one must first understand how God
created man, for in the beginning, Adam’s nature was different from the
nature he past down to his descendants.
ADAM AND ORIGINAL SIN
When God
created Adam, He made him according to His image and likeness. What do we
understand by this? We understand that the image is man’s spirit, the
soul, which is endowed with intelligence, with thought, wisdom and
prudence, so as to be able to discern good from evil. It is man’s
sovereign state and free will to choose his own destination: to choose
between knowing and having communion with God, or to separate himself from
God. To be in the likeness of God is the ability to acquire the grace of
God: to be deified by the Holy Spirit and become a god. In other words, to
be united to God through our own free will by accepting God’s will and
making it ours. We acquire this likeness through God’s help and by our own
efforts. If we make proper use of our free will, we can reach the ultimate
aim for which man was created, to be a god by grace.
Adam was
created immortal, that is to say, as long as he lived in God’s will and
likeness, he would live forever. He was as yet innocent and sinless, one
can say almost perfect, except for his knowledge, which was only
theoretical. We say theoretical because by nature, Adam possessed
theoretical knowledge of good and evil, i.e. it was innate and natural to
him. This knowledge was included in the “according to the image”, which
was his wisdom and prudence, his gift of discernment. “Adam could discern
both these things [good and evil]”, says St. John Chrysostom, and “it was
impossible for him not to know what was good and what was bad”, for “God
from the very beginning in creating man placed within him natural law”.
Thus, man knew from the moment of his creation what was good and what was
evil; what was beneficial and salutary and what was harmful and
destructive. But this knowledge was theoretical. He possessed knowledge
but not experience. He knew that his aim was to reach perfection and union
with God, but perfection could only be achieved through practical and
experiential knowledge.
God placed
Adam in the Garden of Eden and gave him Eve, whom He created from Adam’s
rib, to be a companion for him. God gave them a commandment that they may
eat of all the fruit of the trees except of the tree of knowledge of good
and evil, and on the day they eat of it, they would surely die. Many
people speculate on what this forbidden fruit might have been. In truth,
it doesn’t matter what the fruit was. The reason for the commandment was
not to deprive them of the fruits of paradise, but to give them the
opportunity to exercise their free will, either to follow God’s will or to
reject it. It was a simple command, which gave them the opportunity to
practice and advance in obedience, virtue and sanctity, an opportunity to
gain the much-desired experiential knowledge. The Devil, appearing in the
guise of a serpent told Eve that if they eat of the tree “ye shall not
surely die. For God knew that in whatever day ye should eat of it your
eyes would be opened, and ye would be as gods, knowing good and evil”
(Gen. 3: 4-5). Eve was guileless and innocent, and did not immediately
recognize that the serpent, the most cunning of all the beasts on the
earth, was evil. She struck up conversation with the serpent and with
great trust, she listened to the Evil one slander God and allowed herself
to be led to the precipice of evil. Indeed Eve was as St. John Chrysostom
says, “puffed up with the hope of becoming equal to God and imagined great
things for herself”. Thus, the tree, which she had seen many times before
and only identified it with God’s commandment, suddenly looked very
different. She looked upon it as for the first time and saw that the tree
was good for food and that it was pleasant to the eyes to look upon and
beautiful to contemplate. Believing therefore the serpent, she ate of the
fruit and gave to Adam also with her, and they ate. At first glance, one
might say that their intention was good because their one desire was to
reach perfection, but they sinned because they disobeyed God’s commandment
[not to eat of the fruit]. They freely chose not to follow God’s will and
this destroyed or distorted in them the likeness of God.
The
significance of their action has a much deeper meaning for by doing what
the seducer suggested, man appeared to be saying to God: I have no need of
You. I shall live by myself, self-sufficient and independent. I don’t need
Your guidance and protection. I’m able by myself to live and to achieve
great things. Indeed man’s original sin revealed his unbelief in God, his
egoistic rebellion against the Divine Majesty, his thanklessness and
ingratitude toward the beneficent Creator and Father, his contempt, insult
and blasphemy against the Holy and Heavenly King.
Because Adam
did not conceive and discover evil by himself, but was tempted from
without by the devil and thus led into sin, God gave them the opportunity
to repent and ask for forgiveness. He first approached and asked Adam what
he had done, and Adam replied: “The woman whom Thou gavest to be with me,
she gave me of the tree and I did eat” (Gen. 3: 12). Adam did not accept
that he had made a mistake, but passed on the blame to God for giving him
the woman. God then approached Eve and she replied: “The serpent beguiled
me and I did eat” (Gen. 3: 13). Like Adam, Eve was too proud to accept her
mistake and ask for forgiveness and passed on the blame onto someone else,
in this case the serpent. The first sin therefore was disobedience to
God’s will and this immediately produced an offspring in pride, and
subsequently a long chain of other sins.
The fact that
God gave them the opportunity to repent does not necessarily mean that if
they had taken this path, they would have regained the likeness of God.
God never lies; He said that on the day they eat of the tree of knowledge
of good and evil, they would surely die. This did not mean that they would
undergo an immediate physical death. Eternal life can only be lived as
long as it is lived in the likeness of God. They freely chose to separate
themselves from God’s likeness by following their own free will. This
separation from God set in motion a slow deterioration of their bodies,
which had undergone a transformation. In Genesis 3:21, we read: “Unto Adam
also and to his wife did the Lord God make coats of skins, and clothed
them”. It is easy to come to the presumption that these skins were animal
skins in which God clothed them to hide their nakedness, but the Church
understands this as something completely different. The skins in question
are the skins of our bodies. It was the transformation from the immortal
bodies into mortal bodies. This drastic change was necessary for man’s
salvation, otherwise sin would have reigned in Adam’s immortal body and
union with God would have been eternally impossible.
This change
was in fact their death, because they had lost immortality. They were in a
state of death and subject to cold, hunger, illness, diseases, pain,
suffering and ageing bodies, which eventually would bring about their
death. God did not create evil or death. Evil is the state of the free
will that is opposed to God’s will, and death is the consequence of this
evil state. A free will choosing not to follow God’s will, follows its own
destination and destruction. God could not force Adam not to sin because
that would have put a restriction on Adam’s free will and therefore he
would no longer be in the image of God: he would become a form of
mechanical robot or android, programmed in what to do and say.
SALVATION
Separated from
God and eternal life, man freely accepted communion with the devil and so
fell under his jurisdiction and became a slave to sin and death. Man
abandoned God, but God did not abandon man. He made it possible for man to
recreate and regenerate life by having children, therefore although a man
dies, he passes on his human nature to another person. If man did not die,
sin and death would have become immortal and reigned forever and so union
with God would have been impossible. But this process of regeneration,
made it possible that man’s nature did not die completely: it delayed the
inevitable and final moment of man’s final destruction, until God could
put into motion His plan to save him from death, man’s last enemy.
We inherit the
original sin of Adam because he is our father and so he passes on to all
his children, the fallen state of his human nature. All of Adam’s
descendants, until the coming of Christ, had lost the likeness of God and
therefore lost the ability to achieve union with God. The only way to save
man from death and to unite him with God and eternal life, was to have
someone break the chain of inherited original sin. To do this God, had to
create a new Adam that would not inherit original sin, but at the same
time, he would have to have a common link with the rest of humanity. Man
is conceived through the seed of man and original sin is passed on through
this process, so how did God solve this problem. God willed that He would
himself become a man and live as one of us. This He did by taking flesh
from the Virgin Mary. Mary was born from a line of ancestors who were
prepared by God until the right person was found who could give Him birth.
Whatever preparation was needed, this in no way affected their free will:
they could accept or reject God’s will at any time.
Mary, born of
the seed of man, became the common link with the rest of humanity, right
back to Adam. She lived without sin, choosing from her birth to be guided
by the Holy Spirit, until God chose the right time for His incarnation.
Living without sin does not exempt someone from original sin. The Roman
Catholic Church believes in the dogma of the “Immaculate Conception”. In
other words it believes that Mary was born without original sin. This is
ludicrous and blasphemous because then Mary would no longer belong to the
human race and in fact would be God incarnate. Joachim would not have been
her father and Anna, her mother, would have been the Mother of God. God
himself would not have needed to become man to save us, because if Mary
was born outside of original sin, she would have been a perfect human
being, thus not needing to be saved and we could all find salvation
through her. On the other hand, the Orthodox Church believes that Mary was
born with original sin, but was cleansed of this the moment she accepted
to become the Mother of God. How this was possible is not for us to ask,
but remains one of the mysteries of salvation. One can try to explain this
cleansing of original sin with the Mystery of Baptism. When we are
baptized, we are immersed into the water, which signifies the death of the
Old Adam, the death of the body that inherited original sin. When we are
raised from the water, we are joined to the Resurrection Body of Christ.
In a similar manner, with the annunciation story where the angel Gabriel
tells Mary that the Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the
Highest shall overshadow thee, one can interpret this as a form of baptism
that cleansed Mary from original sin and prepared her to receive God in
her womb. What is definite is that God could not have taken His abode in
Mary’s womb if her body still had the scars of original sin, because God
can have no part with sin.
Christ is
therefore the New Adam, He is God become man, but He was not subject to
original sin. He was not created like the rest of mankind, but in a way
that has already been explained. From His birth to His Crucifixion, death
and Resurrection, we learn all we need to know of His life as a man, in
the Holy Gospels.
Death can only
have a hold on someone if that person inherits of falls into sin, because
death is the consequence of sin. Christ was free from all sin and so when
he was crucified and laid dead in the tomb, death had no legal claim over
Him, and so His body was resurrected and ascended into heaven. Christ’s
human nature, free from sin, had broken the barrier that separated us from
God. The New Adam had pulled down the middle wall of partition that had
been erected by the fall of the Old Adam. In the same that we are all one
and share in the fallen human nature of the Old Adam, we can now become
one with the renewed and deified human nature of Christ, the New Adam.
JOINING CHRIST
But how does
someone join and become one with Christ? Is it enough to say that I
believe in Christ therefore I am saved? Christ Himself said: “Not every
one that saith unto me Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven”
(Matth. 7:21). Here the Lord is saying that not everyone who prays to me
shall be saved precisely because prayer is not enough. The Gospels speak
very clearly on what we must do to be saved. They are not only a
historical account of Christ’s life on earth, but also His teaching in
words and deeds, His commandments and His promise to all that follow Him.
The New Testament is the instructions handbook for eternal life and all
Christians would do well to continually read from it all their life, but
for someone wishing to join Christ and His Church, it is the first step in
coming to know what the Christian faith teaches. Christ Himself set the
order of things after His Resurrection when He said to His disciples: “Go
ye therefore and teach all nations, baptizing them in the Name of the
Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: teaching them to observe
all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you always,
even unto the end of the world. Amen” (Matth. 28: 19-20). You see that He
says to His disciples to teach first and then to baptize. Again He says
“He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth
not shall be damned” (Mark 16:16). For salvation then it is not enough to
believe, one must also be baptized. But even Baptism is not enough by
itself to guarantee us eternal life. Jesus said: Truly, I say unto you,
Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no
life in you. Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal
life; and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is meat
indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. He that eateth my flesh, and
drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me, and I in him .(John 6: 53-55) The Jews
were rather puzzled and said: How can this man give us his flesh to eat?
But we know that we can do this when we attend the Divine Liturgy and
partake of His precious Body and Blood in the Sacrament of Holy Communion.
Through Holy Communion, we join and become one with Christ. But again,
this does not mean that if we partake of this Holy Sacrament once, that
this is enough to save us and therefore continue to live a life of leisure
as it pleases us. God opened the way to salvation, but He cannot save an
individual without the conscious effort of that person taking part in his
own salvation by accepting God’s will as his own. Man still has a free
will and continues to sin, but this time, one man’s sin does not set up a
universal barrier that separates everyone from God. In the beginning,
Adam, the first man, set up the wall of partition through his one and only
will, but now we are myriads of people, each one possessing his own free
will. Each person that falls into sin, builds his own personal barrier
which he can pull down with the help of the sacraments of Confession and
Holy Communion, and by striving to be with God and making God’s will his
own. No matter how many times a person falls into sin and sets up a wall
separating himself from eternal life, God has given him the means through
the Church to tear it down and start again.
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