A Homily on the Various States of Human Nature in Relation to Good and Evil (Part 2)

The cause of God’s permission for the ascetic to be tempted by spirits of evil and sin consists in the necessity for man to know precisely and in detail his fall, without which he cannot, as he should, know and receive the Redeemer. It is necessary to know one’s fallen nature, its inclinations, the activity proper to it, so that subsequently, upon receiving the grace of the Holy Spirit provided by the Redeemer, one not use it for evil, not attribute its actions to oneself, but be a worthy vessel and instrument of it. The holy Gregory of Sinai says: “If a man is not abandoned and overcome and possessed, having enslaved himself to every passion and thought, and is defeated by a spirit, finding no help from deeds or from God or from anyone else, from which he comes almost to despair, being tempted from everywhere, then he cannot come to a breaking of the spirit, to counting himself less than all, last, and servant of all, more enslaved than the demons themselves, as if tortured and defeated by them. This is (providentially) permitted humility and chastening humility, after which is given by God a second, higher humility, which is Divine power, acting through God and accomplishing all things through Him; (man) sees it in himself as a tool, and with this tool accomplishes God’s wonders.” Thus is explained that marvelous sight which the holy ones of God present:[1] they, being vessels of the Holy Spirit, at the same time saw, recognized, and confessed themselves the greatest sinners, worthy of temporal and eternal punishment. They thoroughly knew and studied their fallen nature in which nothing is undefiled, and therefore all the good that was accomplished through them by the indwelling Divine grace they attributed to it with complete conviction and constantly trembled lest some thought or feeling arising from fallen nature be offensive to the Holy Spirit. It is not beneficial for man to make a quick transition from the state of warfare to the state of spiritual freedom.[2] The holy Macarius the Great observes that “not infrequently souls, being already partakers of Divine grace, being filled with heavenly sweetness and enjoying the peace of spirit, but not testified by scourges, not tried by sorrows inflicted by evil spirits, remain in infancy, and so to speak, are not fit for the heavenly kingdom. ‘If you endure discipline, God treats you as children’ (Heb. 12:8), says the Divine Apostle. ‘Therefore temptations and sorrows are sent to man for his benefit, so that the soul tested by them becomes stronger and more honored before the Lord. If it endures to the end with hope in the Lord, it is impossible for it not to receive the good promised by the Holy Spirit and complete deliverance from the malice of passions.’ For this reason, with the exception of a few cases, as a result of special Divine providence, the followers of Christ pass a significant part of their earthly sojourn in bitter battle with sin, under the yoke of a merciless pharaoh.[3] Upon going out from Egypt—the land of brickmaking and surfeit of flesh, by which is depicted the carnal state—the servants of the true God plunder the Egyptians; that is, they carry away with them the wealth of active reason, which is acquired in battle with sin and spirits of evil. Such is the Divine ordinance of the spiritual law (Ex. 3:21–22). The holy Isaac the Syrian recounts the following account: “One of the holy ones said: there was a hermit, an old man worthy of honor. Once I went to him because sorrow from afflicting temptations was oppressing me. At the time the old man was sick, was lying. I greeted him, sat near him and said: Father! Pray for me, because I am greatly grieved by demonic temptations. He opened his eyes, looked at me attentively and said: Son! You are young: God does not permit you temptations. I answered him: True, I am young, but I am tempted by the temptations of strong men. He said again: If so, then God wishes to make you wise. I said: How will God make me wise when I taste death daily? Again he: God loves you: be silent. God will give you His grace, and added: Know, son, that I struggled with demons for the course of thirty years. Having spent twenty years in struggle, I felt no relief. In the twenty-fifth year I began to feel rest. As time went on, rest increased. After the passage of twenty-seven years, in the twenty-eighth year, rest began to increase especially. At the end of the thirtieth year, already toward its end, rest became so established (which means that before, rest wavered, coming and going) that I no longer know even the measure to which it has progressed…” Behold what rest was born from much labor and long practice (struggle).”[4]

Having placed our hope in our all-powerful and all-good God, let us strive, through true monastic life, through the cloud, smoke, and storm of thoughts continually arising in us, to descend to our soul, captured and slain by sin, stinking, disfigured, lying in the grave of the fall. There, in the abyss of the heart, we will see also the serpent that has slain our soul.[5] Deep and precise knowledge of human fall is very important for the follower of Christ: only from this knowledge, as it were from hell itself, can he prayerfully, in true breaking of the spirit, cry out to the Lord, according to the instruction of the holy Symeon the New Theologian: “O God and Lord of all! Having power over all breath and soul, You alone able to heal me, hear the prayer of me miserable, and by the breath of the All-holy and Life-giving Spirit slay the serpent nesting in me, and destroy it.” In the state of fall, sin and the devil so force man that he has no ability to resist them, but is unwillingly drawn away by them, not into mortal sins, as we said above, but chiefly into mental suggestions.[6] In earnest ascetics, internal disturbance is very rarely permitted to manifest itself even in word, much less in deed.[7][8]

5. Concerning the State After Man’s Redemption

By redemption human nature has been renewed. The God-man renewed it by Himself and in Himself. This nature, renewed by the Lord, is grafted, as it were, to fallen nature through Baptism. Baptism, while not annihilating nature, annihilates its fallen condition; without changing nature itself, it changes its condition, uniting human nature to divine nature (2 Pet. 1:4).

Baptism is at once mortification and vivification, at once burial and birth. Into the baptismal font is immersed, in it is buried and dies the sinful corruption of fallen nature, and from the font arises renewed nature; into the font is immersed the son of the old Adam, from the font emerges the son of the New Adam. This is testified by the Lord, who said: “If anyone is not born of water and Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God; what is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit” (Jn. 3:5–6). From these words it is evident that the Holy Spirit, receiving into the baptismal font the earthly man as man became through the fall, draws forth from the font that same man, now spiritual, having slain in him the sinful fleshly condition and given birth to the spiritual. At baptism the original sin, inherited from the forefathers, and one’s own sins committed before baptism are forgiven.[9] At baptism spiritual freedom is granted to man: he is no longer compelled by sin, but by his own will can choose good or evil. At baptism, Satan, who dwells in every man of fallen nature, is cast out of man; it is left to the will of the baptized man either to remain a temple of God and be free from Satan, or to cast out God from himself and again become a dwelling-place of Satan (Mt. 12:43–45[10]). At baptism man is clothed in Christ (Gal. 3:27). At baptism all men receive equality, because the dignity of each Christian is one and the same. It is Christ. This dignity is infinitely great; in it every earthly distinction among men is annihilated (Gal. 3:28). Great as it is, this distinction, in its outward aspect, was not taken away during Christ’s earthly life, and persisting, even more clearly manifests its insignificance. Thus a corpse, when the soul is torn from it, is recognized as dead, even though it has not yet decayed. At baptism the grace of the All-holy Spirit is poured out abundantly upon man, a grace that departed from him who transgressed God’s commandment in paradise, who followed the sinful understanding and will of the fallen angel.[11] Grace approaches again the one redeemed by the blood of the God-man, the one reconciling himself with God, the one renouncing his own understanding and will, the one burying in the baptismal font the inclinations of fallen nature, its life—the cause of death. “Christ, being perfect God,” said the Venerable Mark the Ascetic, “granted to those baptized the perfect grace of the Holy Spirit, which admits no addition from us, but reveals itself and appears to us in the measure of our fulfillment of the commandments.” The baptized man, doing good belonging to renewed nature, develops in himself the grace of the All-holy Spirit received at baptism, which, though unchangeable in itself, shines more brightly in man in the measure of the good of Christ he performs: thus the unchangeable sunbeam shines more brightly in the measure that the sky is freer from clouds. On the contrary, doing evil after baptism, giving activity to fallen nature, reviving it, man loses more or less spiritual freedom: sin again gains violent power over man; the devil again enters man, becomes his master and guide. Delivered from the grievous and heavy bondage by the almighty hand of God, he appears again in chains, in captivity, in prison, in hell, by his own choice. Such misfortune befalls man, to a greater or lesser degree, corresponding to those sins which he allows himself, and corresponding to the habit which he has acquired for sinful life. Sin, living within man and compelling him, is called a passion. A passion does not always manifest itself obviously: it can live secretly in man and destroy him. Spiritual freedom is completely lost also if the baptized man allows himself to live according to the understanding and will of fallen nature: because the baptized man has renounced his nature and has bound himself in all actions, words, thoughts, and feelings to manifest only renewed nature, renewed by the God-man, that is, to live solely according to the will and understanding of the Lord Jesus Christ, in other words, according to the Gospel commandments and teaching. Following one’s fallen nature, following its understanding and will, is active rejection of Christ and of the renewal granted by Him at Baptism. Reviving in oneself fallen nature is complete return to eternal death, complete establishment and development of it in oneself. Why have the Jews and Greeks perished and do they perish? From love of fallen nature. Some wish to maintain dignity by the righteousness of fallen nature, by its good; others by its understanding: both become estranged from Christ, the one Righteousness, the sole treasury of understanding (Col. 2:3; Rom. 5:19). It is impossible for one who has not renounced nature, who has not acknowledged it, because of the fall, to be in all respects foul and abominable, to approach and be united with Christ, or, even having been united, to remain in that union.

God’s mercy has vividly depicted in visible nature many mysterious teachings of Christianity. The reviving of all growing things in spring serves as an image of the resurrection of men; the action of certain medicines, which at first reveal diseases and seem to intensify them, but then heal, serves as an image of spiritual struggle, which first exposes hidden passions in man, sets them in motion, and then gradually destroys them (Ps. 91:8[12]). Sinners, sprouting as grass, are passionate thoughts, like weak grass lacking strength. Thus, when passionate thoughts sprout in the soul, then are revealed—that is, exposed—“all those working iniquity,” that is, the passions, “that they may be destroyed forever”: for when passions become manifest to those struggling, they are destroyed by them. “Consider the order of exposition: first passionate thoughts sprout, thus passions are revealed, and then are destroyed.” —Abba Dorotheos, Instruction 13, On Enduring Temptations. The action of Baptism upon man also has its striking likeness. Let us go into an orchard and see what a gardener does with apple trees in order to give them the capacity to bear tasty fruit. Every apple tree that has grown from a seed taken even from the finest apple can bear only sour, bitter, and harmful fruit, unfit for use: for this reason every apple tree that has grown from seed is called wild. Our fallen nature is like a wild apple tree. It can bear only bitter, harmful fruit: good mixed with evil and poisoned by evil, destroying the one who recognizes this good, made evil by the mixture, as good worthy of God and man. The gardener, to transform a wild apple tree into a noble one, pitilessly cuts off all its branches, leaving only the trunk. To the remaining trunk he grafts a shoot from a noble apple tree; this shoot grows together with the trunk and roots, begins to send out branches in all directions, branches replace the cut-off branches; the natural tree is replaced by an artificial, grafted tree; the grafted tree holds, however, to the natural trunk, draws sap from the earth through natural roots—in short, its life is indissolubly joined to the life of the natural tree. Such a tree begins to bear excellent fruit, which belong to the natural tree, yet are entirely different from the fruit borne by the natural tree in its wild state. Then, throughout the whole existence of the tree in the orchard, the gardener carefully watches so that no shoots from the trunk and roots belonging to the natural tree emerge, for these again will bear their worthless fruit, and drawing sap to themselves, will rob the grafted branches of it, will rob these branches of the power to bear their beautiful fruit, will dry them out, will destroy them. For the tree to preserve its dignity, health, and strength, it is necessary that all its branches grow solely from the grafted shoot. Similar to the practice of grafting a noble shoot to a wild apple tree is what takes place in the sacrament of Baptism with the baptized person; similar to the conduct of the gardener toward the grafted apple tree should be conducted toward the baptized man. In baptism our being is not cut off—that being which has its beginning in conception in iniquities and birth in sins: the body of sin is cut off, the fleshly and soulish condition of nature is cut off, which can produce good only in mixture with evil; to being, to life, to the existence of man is grafted the nature of man renewed by the God-man. All thoughts, feelings, words, and deeds of the baptized should belong to renewed nature, as the Venerable Mark the Ascetic said: “Good cannot be believed in or performed except in Christ Jesus and the Holy Spirit.” The baptized should by no means allow the action of fallen nature in himself, should immediately reject every inclination and impulse of it, even though they may appear outwardly good; he should fulfill solely the Gospel commandments in thoughts, feelings, words, and deeds. To such a manner of thinking lead the instructions given by the Lord to His disciples and followers: “Abide in Me, and I in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it remains in the vine, so neither can you unless you remain in Me. I am the vine; you are the branches. The one who remains in Me and I in him bears much fruit, because apart from Me you are able to do nothing. If anyone does not remain in Me, he is thrown out like a branch and dries up; and they gather them and throw them into the fire, and they burn. Remain in My love. If you keep My commandments, you will remain in My love.”[13] (Jn. 15:4–10). What could be clearer, more definite? Only the one who observes the Gospel commandments with all diligence, as is fitting in fulfilling commandments given by God, can remain in love toward God—not the love that belongs to fallen nature, but the love that is the gift of the Holy Spirit, which is poured out upon the renewed man by the action of the Holy Spirit (Rom. 5:5), and unites man with God. The one who neglects the commandments, who follows the inclinations of fallen nature, violates love, tears asunder the union. Calling the people together with His disciples, as the Gospel recounts, the Lord declared to them: “Whoever wants to come after Me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow Me. For whoever wants to save his soul will lose it; but whoever loses his soul because of Me and the Gospel will save it.” (Mk. 8:34–35). It is evident that here what is required is not rejection of being, but rejection of fallen nature, its will, its understanding, its righteousness. Sin and the condition of falling have so become ours, have so merged with our existence, that renunciation of them has become renunciation of ourselves, loss of our soul. For the salvation of the soul it has become an absolute necessity to lose the soul, for the salvation of ourselves it has become an absolute necessity to renounce ourselves, our fallen “self”, not conscious of falling. As long as this “self” exists, Christ cannot bring us any benefit. “Whoever does not hate his own soul cannot be My disciple.” (Lk. 14:26). “Whoever does not take up his cross and come after Me is not worthy of Me. Whoever finds his soul will lose it; and whoever loses his soul because of Me will find it.” (Mt. 10:38–39), testified the Lord. He commanded the loss of soul not only for His sake, but also for the Gospel’s, explaining the latter by the former. The loss of soul for the sake of the Lord is rejection of the understanding, righteousness, and will belonging to fallen nature, for the fulfillment of the will and righteousness of God depicted in the Gospel, for following the understanding of God shining from the Gospel. All who have compelled themselves to fulfill the Gospel teaching know by experience how opposed and hostile to the Gospel are the understanding, righteousness, and will of fallen nature. Reconciliation and agreement are impossible. Rejection of fallen nature is an unavoidable, tangible necessity of salvation. The one who ceaselessly studies the Gospel and strives to revive it in himself through all his activity accomplishes this rejection. The Gospel is the teaching of Christ. The teaching of Christ, as the teaching of God, is law. Exact fulfillment of the law spoken by God, Creator and Redeemer, is an indispensable duty of redeemed creatures. Neglect of the study and fulfillment of the law is rejection of the Lawgiver. The Holy Apostle Paul said: “As many as have been baptized in Christ have put on Christ.” (Gal. 3:27). This means: those baptized in Christ received at Baptism, in Baptism itself, a gift from the Holy Spirit, which acted upon them: a living sense of Christ, a sense of His qualities. But the freedom to choose voluntarily the old or the new has not been taken from the baptized, just as it was not taken from Adam in paradise—the freedom to keep God’s commandment or break it. The Apostle says to believers and the baptized: “Night has passed and day has drawn near. So let us cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light. Let us walk properly as in the daytime, not in carousing and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and promiscuity, not in quarreling and jealousy: but put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and do not make provision for the desires of the flesh.” (Rom. 13:12–14). Having the freedom of choice, the baptized is invited by the Holy Spirit to maintain union with the Redeemer, to maintain in himself renewed nature, to maintain the spiritual condition granted by Baptism, to abstain from gratifying the lusts of the flesh, that is, from deviating to follow the inclinations of fleshly, soulish thinking. The words of the Apostle have similar meaning: “The first man was from the earth, made of dust; the second Man is the Lord from heaven. As is the earthly man, so are those who are earthly; and as is the heavenly Man, so are those who are heavenly; and just as we have borne the image of the earthly man”—for we are all born in original sin and with all the infirmities attached to our nature as a result of the fall, which were revealed in Adam after his falling—“we shall also bear the image of the heavenly Man” through Baptism, which grants us this image, and careful observance of Gospel commandments, which preserve this image whole in its perfection and divine beauty (1 Cor. 15:47–49). To put on the image of the Heavenly Man, to put on the Lord Jesus Christ, always to carry in the body the death of the Lord Jesus Christ (2 Cor. 4:10), means nothing else than to constantly mortify in ourselves the fleshly condition through constant dwelling in Gospel commandments. Thus did the holy Apostle Paul put on and remain clothed in the God-man, for which reason he could boldly say of himself: “It is no longer I who live, but Christ living in me.” (Gal. 2:20[14]). The same he requires of all believers. “Or do you not know yourselves,”—he says—“that Jesus Christ is in you? Unless indeed you are disqualified.” (2 Cor. 13:5). A just requirement and a just accusation! By holy Baptism the fallen nature is cut off in each baptized man, to man is grafted the nature renewed by the God-man. For this reason Baptism is called in Holy Scripture “the bath of rebirth,” and life after baptism—“rebirth” (Tit. 3:5; Mt. 19:28). The renewed nature, each baptized man is obliged to show forth and develop in himself: this is—to show forth in himself the Lord Jesus Christ dwelling, speaking, and acting. A Christian who has not done this is not what he ought to be.