Chapter 3. The Restoration of Fallen Man by God

Through the incarnation of the Son of God, mankind has been shown mercy, has been reborn, renewed, sanctified, forgiven, delivered from corruption, deified, established: sensible, grateful, and God-fearing people have recognized and felt this priceless gift of God, and have made use of it for their own salvation and that of others, and have inherited eternal blessedness; while the senseless, attached to the world and the flesh, perish continually in their sins, and even boast of their sins.

Glory to Your incarnation, O Lord!

Glory to the Virgin Mother who bore You in the flesh, the Intercessor of the human race, of the Christian race!

The Lord God ought always to be loved more than father and mother, or a sincere friend, because He has loved us beyond measure, and because it is He who has implanted in parents their love for their children, and in friends their mutual love, and in every animal a love for its own kind. It is foreign even to the nature of unreasoning creatures not to love their own kind; how much wilder still would it be in the rational and reasoning nature of man not to love God Himself with his whole heart, for we are His own likeness. But, as a consequence of man’s fall, and the blindness and wildness of his manifold passions, he often, often loves neither God nor the offspring of his own body, or loves them perversely… and himself instills moral and physical corruption into his own children—as happens especially among the falsely learned, adulterers, drunkards, gamblers, the greedy for gain, and the miserly. The love of the Lord God for people surpasses all understanding—for He, after man’s willful fall, which brought him under a curse and cast him down into corruption and ruin, employed an extraordinary means for his salvation: the incarnation and becoming man of His only-begotten Son, His own life, His own personal teaching, His inhuman sufferings and death, to deliver us from the curse and from death and to grant us once more blessing and eternal life—and He planted on earth His own Church, this wondrous, holy, divine, all-saving institution—a School, an Infirmary, a Nourisher, a Renewer of the human race. Such is the love of God for us, mankind, surpassing every mind, every understanding. Every man ought to understand this love of Christ, which surpasses understanding, says the Apostle Paul (Eph 3:19).

Human nature, from the very beginning of its creation by God, and even now, in the state of a person’s amendment and virtue, is so beautiful and perfect that the Creator Himself, God the Word, did not disdain to take upon Himself, into the unity of His own Hypostasis, the whole of man, sin excepted, and remains with it forever, unto endless ages. How, then, ought man to value this mercy of God, this condescension of the Lord toward us; how ought he to guard himself from every sin; how ought he to live righteously, that he may reign eternally with Christ; how ought he to struggle, warring against sin and against visible and invisible enemies; with what effort ought he to attain virtue and perfection, with the help of the grace of Jesus Christ, granted abundantly in the Church, by the Word of God and the holy Mysteries, under the guidance of consecrated shepherds.

It was not we who drew near, but the kingdom of heaven that drew near to us. The Lord Himself drew near to us, when we ourselves neither wished nor were able to draw near to Him, because of our habituation to sin. «Since the children have partaken of flesh and blood, He Himself likewise shared in the same» (Hebr 2:14).

In proportion to the infinite goodness and mercy of God, shown and continually being shown to us, let us show forth the fruits of repentance and of good deeds, making progress in meekness, humility, freedom from malice, self-restraint, mercy, chastity, honesty, faithfulness, and goodwill toward all. The Lord came down from heaven for our sake; let us follow Him into heaven, and begin to set our minds on the things above!

Sin, like a poisonous, fearsome rust, has penetrated the whole of human nature—soul and body—and has given birth in it to countless passions and sicknesses, sorrows, deformities, defects, and, at the last, the fearsome form of death. The Lord, for our redemption, brings into the midst of mankind His own self, takes upon Himself our whole nature, sin excepted, fulfills the whole law for us, takes upon Himself the sins of mankind, fulfills for us all righteousness, suffers for our unrighteousness, dies for us, conquering our death, and rises from the dead, raising with Himself the whole of mankind. O goodness, wisdom, righteousness, and almighty power of God! O well-being and blessedness of man!

2) The redemption of the world lying in evil through the sacrifice of the Son of God on the Cross

To redeem me from the righteous curse for my sins, and from the eternal torment prepared for sinners, my Redeemer had to fulfill, for me, in His humanity, all righteousness, and to suffer for all my own unrighteousness and that of the whole human race; and, to deliver me and mankind from death, and to grant a resurrection from the dead, He had to suffer in the flesh upon the cross, to taste death upon the cross, the most shameful and tormenting of deaths, to conquer, by His own death, our death, and to rise from the dead, granting, as the crown of the whole work of redemption, a resurrection from the dead to all. And now, I, a sinner, need, every day and every hour, the merits of my Savior, His infinite righteousness fulfilled for me, His cross and death and resurrection, that I may draw from them the mercy of justification, of redemption, of the forgiveness of sins, of deliverance from the sorrows and afflictions that are the inseparable companions of sin, of rightness, of peace, of freedom, of boldness. And I have recourse to Him, my Redeemer, without ceasing, every day and every hour, and receive the riches of His mercies—forgiveness and justification, for the sake of my faith in Him and my repentance—and I receive peace, freedom, renewal, strength, and vigor of soul and body.

In the permitting of sin among moral beings and in the world, in the temporal reign of sin, in the resistance to sin by believing people, in the defense, intercession, and salvation of them, in the ruin of unbelieving, lazy, and proud people, in the eternal reward and eternal blessedness of the righteous—in all this lies the greatest goodness, wisdom, and righteousness of God, a manifestation of the boundless love of God for the world. «For God so loved the world that He gave even His Only-begotten Son, that everyone who believes in Him should not perish but have life eternal» (Jn 3:16). For in the redemption of man, God gave to redeemed, chosen, struggling mankind more than He gave in creation. We have become children of God, members of His Body from His flesh and from His bones (Eph 5:30), His brethren—«He is not ashamed to call them brethren» (Hebr 2:11); we have become gods by grace: «I said: you are gods, and sons of the Most High, all of you» (Ps 81:6). «Oh, the depth of the riches, both of the wisdom and knowledge of God!» (Rom 11:33).

Wondrous is the all-conquering mercy of God, which prevails over our countless sins through the all-reconciling sacrifice of the Son of God upon the cross; the boundless sea of our own soul, storm-tossed by countless passions, is ceaselessly, daily, and hourly stilled by faith in the Lord, through the prayer of repentance, and especially through partaking, with faith and a contrite heart, of the most pure Body, broken for us, and the most pure Blood, shed for us for the remission of sins—and I, every day, sing to my God a song of victory, and cry out, and call, and say: holy, holy, holy, Lord God of hosts, heaven and earth are full of Your glory—of the glory of Your grace, Your righteousness, and Your mercy; every day and every hour, by this victory, every work of the devil is destroyed within me, every snare of sin, all the malice of cunning, every trick and device of the cunning one.

Almost all people are captives of sin, of every rank, calling, and condition; there are few who from their youth have devoted themselves to God and continually serve Him and who have not been defiled by sin. «If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us», says the Apostle (1Jn 1:8). The so-called great men of the civil or political world, or of the military, the learned, the artistic world, were almost all slaves of sin; celebrated writers, philosophers, poets, generals, artists, and others did not escape captivity to their own passions, and sometimes were distinguished only by a greater and more refined surfeit in them; few great men were strugglers in virtue: Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, a few princes, kings, emperors, generals—Suvorov and others. What, then, is this monster, sin, what giant is it that has taken hold of everyone, that has taken almost all captive? This monster, this great and mighty giant, this many-headed, fearsome hydra of sin, is the great fallen angel, once the Morning Star, and afterward Satan, the serpent of the whole abyss, deceiving the whole universe, with a countless host of all-cunning spirits like himself, who were once angels. No man had strength to rise up against this figurative Goliath; the Son of God Himself, having been pleased to become incarnate and to become a sinless Man, became our Defender, our Victor, our Deliverer, and our Savior from this fearsome giant, this all-destroyer, conquering him by His own Cross, by His own sufferings and death for us. He was pleased to go out to single combat for us against this infernal Goliath, and to conquer him completely; He gave us, too, a weapon against him—His own Cross, and the Life-giving Mysteries, and His own Flesh and Blood as food and drink, for our cleansing, sanctifying, renewal, and strengthening in the spiritual warfare against this serpent—for the devil has been given a certain freedom to tempt us, to incline us to sin, so that we, with the help of Christ God, might zealously resist him, and be spurred on and strengthened in faith and virtue, in holiness, righteousness, and love for Christ, the Author of our contest, and might merit shining crowns and be counted worthy of the greatest blessedness. So struggled the holy Apostles, who labored in preaching the Gospel, and the martyrs, who suffered even unto blood, tormented with countless torments, and the venerable ones, who conquered the serpent through fasting, vigil, prayer, repentance, and progress in every virtue. We too, sinners, must imitate them according to our own strength, and overcome the enemies of righteousness and truth and of our own salvation. They were the true wise men in the struggle against sin and in the fulfillment of God’s righteousness; they pleased God perfectly, and are the adornment of the human race and the pillars of the Church of God, and pray for us without ceasing—for our salvation and for our victory over sin.

To the question: how could man, created in the image and likeness of God, fall so deeply—the answer is this: God alone is a perfect Being, and He alone could never fall; but created beings, being limited and finite, were, at the beginning of their existence, not free from the possibility of falling, and could fall, as, indeed, part of the angels fell, with a fearsome fall, through self-conceit and disobedience; but the angels who remained faithful, and who successfully withstood the trial of their faithfulness and devotion to the Creator, remained eternally faithful and holy, having been established unshakably in holiness and love. A trial lay before mankind too; it had to be endured victoriously, and all the more so because a definite and easy commandment was given for the testing; they were deceived by the promise, given by the devil-tempter, of divine omniscience, wished to be as gods themselves, and became entangled in the enemy’s net, ungratefully and boldly betrayed God, fell away from Him, and clung to the enemy. And yet they fell through deception, and were therefore counted worthy of God’s compassion and condescension; they were promised a wondrous, supernatural redemption, through the Seed of the woman, through the Son of God, who would become the Son of the Virgin Theotokos, would fulfill all righteousness, as Man and God, would teach people righteousness, and would suffer for unrighteous mankind; would be called the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world, would suffer on the cross, to deliver believers from eternal torment; would taste death, to conquer and tear apart death, and would rise from the dead, to grant resurrection to all; would found on earth His own Church, as a fellowship of those saved by His grace, truth, faith, teaching, Mysteries, and spiritual governance. See how many means and helps have been given by God for the restoration and salvation of the fallen human race. Our duty is to hold firmly to faith in Christ, His commandments and His whole teaching, His holy and saving Church, its divine worship and its established Mysteries—baptism, chrismation, repentance, Communion, priesthood, and the rest—and to keep holy all the institutions of the Church, established for our salvation and our progress in faith and piety, such as, for instance, the feasts, the fasts, and the rest.

Every minute we need the perfect righteousness of Christ, to amend, to cleanse, to destroy our own unrighteousness; every minute we need the cross of Christ—this sign of the sufferings and death of the Son of God for us—that by the Lord’s cross we might spur on our own passions, warring against us, or be set free, be cleansed from them, once they have already been admitted by us into our own soul, and shake, trouble, burn, oppress, and put it to shame, depriving it of boldness before God and men. So necessary is the cross for us, at every hour, for the restoration of union and peace with God, for a return to the path of God’s righteousness, and for a departure from the path of sin and unrighteousness. O cross of Christ, O desired and sweetest merits of the cross-sufferings of Christ our God! O Lamb of God, who fulfilled all righteousness for us, and took upon Himself all our unrighteousness! Glory and thanksgiving to You forever! Glory to Your cross, and to Your all-saving and life-bearing sufferings, undergone by You, O Christ, for our sake!

O earthborn men, created with a rational and immortal soul, be filled, if you can, with love for Him who was crucified for you upon the cross; kindle your hearts with it toward Him, as He burns with His own love for you even amid His own sufferings on the cross; be intoxicated, without end, with this most holy love, as God Himself is without end, and be not indifferent, ungrateful, cold, unbelieving, unreasonable, and thoughtless. For you is all this wealth of compassion and love; for you is this sacrifice of redemption and salvation. Tear yourselves away, come to sobriety, from worldly vanity and the passions; lay aside all earthly cares, that you may lift up, in your own hearts, the King of all, invisibly escorted by the ranks of Angels.

Our soul and body, like some wondrous musical instrument, devised and constructed by a most wise Master, having been damaged by our own thoughtlessness and by careless, frivolous, and perverse handling, can no longer be set right and tuned by anyone else than that same skillful Maker, God. And therefore the amendment of our own being, extremely disordered by us through sin, and fearfully perishing, and, even now, perishing on account of our unbelief, our negligence, and our disobedience to our all-good Creator, Redeemer, and Savior, can be accomplished in no other way than by that same Savior, by His goodness, His wisdom, His power, through His own establishment on earth—an Infirmary, His all-loving and undefiled Church, and her living organs, her priests, and the Mysteries performed by them, and her instruction. We ourselves can easily put our own wondrous instrument out of tune, through disobedience, but we can by no means tune and repair it ourselves—first, because it is most wisely constructed, and, second, because we are extremely weak, limited, blinded by our sins.

From what a fearsome fall has human nature been restored, from what monstrousness and corruption has it been delivered; how has it been cleansed, brightened, adorned, strengthened, immortalized, glorified by the Son of God and the Holy Spirit, by the will of God the Father, and seated upon the Father’s throne in the heavens! And shall we still cling to earthly, passing pleasures, beauties, treasures, which have brought us so much harm, defilement, corruption, and every misfortune and sickness, on account of our own attachment to them and our neglect of God, His commandments, and eternal blessedness! The saints serve us as an example of Christian good conduct, of perfect obedience to God, and of a perfect freedom from passion toward the flesh and the world.

3) Salvation in Christ and through Christ the God-Man

It is finished! The Eternal Counsel has been accomplished. The will of God for the salvation of the human race has been accomplished. The counsel of the man-slaying serpent, for the ruin of the whole human race, and the works of the devil, have been destroyed. Man is saved! The blessed being he once had was lost, and a new, more blessed, better being has been given—in the heavens; a rebirth unto deification has been given. Man, who at the beginning desired to be God, did not become so, but lost even what he had; God became man, that He might make Adam a god. O wondrous counsels and ineffable works of God! Now it depends on the will of man himself, whether he is saved or perishes.

We need Christ and His cross every minute of our life, for without Christ and the cross it is impossible to be saved, to be delivered from any sin we commit; only Christ saves us, by His own cross, from the sorrow and anguish of sin, and from the unrighteousness of sin, and from condemnation, and from punishment for sin, for only Christ fulfilled all righteousness for us, offering Himself as a sacrifice for all to His own righteous Father, and He alone justifies us, guilty and repentant, by His own blood, by His own sufferings, endured for us. Has malice against a neighbor wounded you—you need Christ, you need the cross; do envy, pride, lustful thoughts wound you—you need faith in Christ, you need repentance, you need the cross of Christ. Only Christ, by His own cross, can save you; no one and nothing else.

Many times, every day, the Lord mercifully saves me, as I call upon His holy name, delivering my soul from the wounds of sin and of the invisible enemies who war ceaselessly against it, passion-ridden as it is. «I have set the Lord always before me; He is at my right hand, that I may not be moved» (Ps 15:8). «I have lifted up my eyes to the hills, from whence my help shall come» (Ps 120:1).

Attend, O Christian soul: the Lord has honored you with the greatest love and honor: He has betrothed you to Himself, as a bride to a Bridegroom, with a betrothal incorruptible, spiritual, undefiled, eternal, blessed, and you must remain faithful to Him every day and every hour, to your last breath on earth; and there, in eternity, you will remain forever safe, unfailing, and steadfast. This present age is short; by it eternity is purchased. Do not slumber, do not grow slack, do not betray God, do not defile yourself with earthly, fleshly passions. Pray, fast, do good deeds.

As many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ (Gal 3:27). Just as the true Christian clothes himself entirely in Christ, in His virtues and His merits, so the unbeliever, or the wrongly believing, clothes himself in the enemy, the devil, by inheritance from Adam and Eve.

With Christ I am alive, at peace, joyful, content; without Christ I am troubled, sorrowful, content with nothing, dead in spirit. With Him I do righteousness and holiness; without Him I sin without ceasing, my steps are unsteady.

The Lord is worthy of our whole, undivided love of heart: He is the source of our life, He is the fullness of every good, He is perfection, goodness, strength, blessedness, beauty, reason, and wisdom, eternal joy and eternal blessedness, eternal rest, great glory. He is our protection, our deliverance, our salvation, our justification, our renewal; He is eternal truth and righteousness. In Him are all the promises of God: yes and Amen (2Cor 1:20).

What good thing, what blessing, is not in God? Every good thing is in Him in overflowing abundance. Do you seek sweetness? In Him is a sweetness infinite, incomparable. Do you seek beauty? He is beauty beyond words, and adorns those who love Him with an eternal, incorruptible beauty. Do you seek light? He is the Light that never sets, a thousand thousand times more beautiful than the light of the sun, and He will make the righteous shine like the sun in His own kingdom. Do you desire life? He is life infinite and most sweet. Do you seek incorruption and unending life? He will grant infinite life to all who love Him. Do you seek renewal? He is our renewal. Do you seek riches? He is our inexhaustible riches, which cannot be stolen, which abide forever without end. But earthly goods are short-lived, coarse, perishable, deceptive, and do not satisfy our soul, created for God.

Sinners! Do not forget what Christ our God has done for your salvation, and make diligent use of the means of salvation given to us by Him: His boundless righteousness and mercy, the gift of repentance, of all-forgiveness, of Communion of the Holy Mysteries, of the service of the Church.

Can the pagans please God, or the Jews, the Mohammedans, if they do not come to believe in Christ? They cannot. They must come to believe in Christ, the only One who has the power, and be born of water and the Spirit. «For as many as have sinned without the law will also perish without the law, and as many as have sinned in the law will be judged by the law» (Rom 2:12). Here is Scripture’s answer to the question: will all the pagans truly perish?

I will add to every praise of my Lord, who wondrously saves me every day, and many times a day. Glory to You, treasure of my salvation; glory to You, treasure and fountain of my peace and my boldness; glory to You, my breadth in my own sorrows and afflictions; glory to You, who, through Communion of the Holy Mysteries, take up Your dwelling in my heart, and abide within me, and wondrously draw to me all the pious; glory to You, my good success in all things and in every way; glory to You, the stronghold of my own life and of Your own priests, among whom You have counted me, unworthy as I am; glory to You, glory to Your holy Church, which You have built upon the rock of faith and established unshakably; glory to You, who turn back those who go astray; glory to You, who shake and root out heresies, sects, and schisms, and judge the consciences of cunning teachers; glory to You, who inspire our Emperor with zeal for the faith and for Your Church, and, through him, expose false and harmful teachings. Amen.

I am weak and sinful, more sinful than all men, corrupted by every kind of sinful fall in the depths of my own being, subject to falls, secret and open, every day and every hour, having a ceaseless need for the mercy and protection of God. And how many times, every day, have I been counted worthy, and am I counted worthy, of this mercy and help of God, on account of the multitude of my sins and my sincere, deep repentance—there is no numbering them. The mercy of God has multiplied toward me more than the sand of the sea! And from what fierce sorrows, anguish, confusion, and wretchedness has the Lord saved me, for my own secret, repentant supplications, bowing down in His own boundless compassion! I must, without ceasing, thank, praise, and exalt my Lord, who delivers me continually from the arrows and wounds of the serpent, for the peace and the enlargement of my heart, for the victory over my invisible enemies. I will, with the Cherubim and Seraphim, sing without ceasing a song of victory to God my Savior: holy, holy, holy, Lord of hosts, who continually saves and has mercy on me.

In accordance with God’s greatest care for the salvation of our souls, made manifest with such evidence in the sending down to earth of our promised Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, do we ourselves take care for our own souls? In accordance with the boundless love of the Savior for us, do we love one another? Do we bear with one another? Do we forgive one another? Do we care for one another? Do we respect one another?

In the true Christian, everything ought to be different, in spirit, in body, and in life: different thoughts—spiritual, holy; different desires—heavenly, spiritual; a different will—right, holy, meek, good; a different imagination—pure, holy; a different memory, a different gaze—pure, simple, holy, without cunning; different speech—chaste, pure, measured, meek; in a word, the Christian must be a different man, a heavenly, new, holy man, living, thinking, feeling, speaking, and acting divinely by the Spirit of God. Such were the holy servants of God. Read their lives, listen, learn, and imitate.

Rejoice, and thank the Lord, that it falls to you every day to serve Christ God, our Savior, every day—in the person of the sick, the poor, the unfortunate, and every other kind of person, especially to give them Communion of the Holy Mysteries of Christ, and to prove your own faith, your own humility, obedience, and love for God and neighbor.

1) God’s providence in the economy of our salvation

II. The Wisdom of God in the Restoration of Fallen Man (the Lord as Creator and Provider)

God’s sustaining of every creature is a ceaseless miracle of His goodness, His almighty power, His wisdom. For just as everything created was brought from nonbeing into being by the almighty word of God, so it is sustained in being, and in a wondrous order, well-being, splendor, and beauty, by that same word of God. «You turn Your face away, and they are troubled; You take away their breath, and they die and return to their dust. You send forth Your Spirit, and they are created, and You renew the face of the earth. O Lord, how great are Your works; in wisdom You have made them all» (Ps 103:29-30,24). And I myself still exist, in well-being, only by the all-good and almighty providence of God concerning me, by His own dominion, His goodness, and His long-suffering. Glory to You, O Lord!

In the incarnation, the earthly life and teaching of our Lord Jesus Christ, in His sufferings and death, and, in general, in God’s whole dispensation for our salvation, all the goodness, righteousness, wisdom, and almighty power of God found tangible expression: in the reconciliation of sinful man with God, in the Lord’s victory over the enemies of our salvation, in the abolition of the righteous curse of the heavenly Father, once pronounced upon our forefathers and all mankind; in the granting of blessing and of every power for life and godliness, in the founding of the Church and the victory of her sons and daughters over all the wiles of hell, which has been permitted by God, for a time, to wage war against the members of the kingdom of God—in the wondrous, countless, and fearsome saving powers of God, strengthening the martyrs, male and female, and all the assemblies of the venerable, in the accomplishing of their salvation and glorification, in the accomplishing of this same salvation even to this day—and in the wondrous, all-powerful victories of the grace of God over the powers of hell warring against man, in the wondrous long-suffering and mercy of God toward mankind, drowning in sin, in the gracious cleansing, sanctifying, strengthening, and renewal of it in the holy Mysteries of the one, sole-saving Church. Hell still wars against heaven, by the permission of God’s righteousness, which is long-suffering, and crowns strugglers and victors; but a time will come when the enemies, visible and invisible, will be finally overcome, and all placed beneath the feet of the Savior and God and of His faithful servants, and the last enemy will be abolished—death. Glory to the goodness, the righteousness, the wisdom, and the almighty, re-creating and renewing power of God over mankind!

Why did God permit the fall of man, His own beloved creation and the crown of all earthly creatures? To this question one must answer thus: that if man had not been permitted to fall, he need not have been created in the image and likeness of God, nor given a free will, which is an inalienable feature of the image of God, but could have been subjected to the law of necessity, like the soulless creatures—the sky, the sun, the stars, the circle of the earth, and all the elements, or like unreasoning animals; but then there would have been no king of earthly creatures on earth, no rational singer of God’s majesty, of God’s goodness, wisdom, creative almighty power, and providence; then man could have proved nothing of his own faithfulness and devotion to the Creator, of his own self-denying love; then there would have been no struggles, no merits and imperishable crowns for victory, and no eternal blessedness, which is the reward for faithfulness and devotion to God, and the eternal rest after the labors and struggles of our earthly pilgrimage.

See what the Creator makes from the humus of manure! What fragrant plants, adorning the earth! And your own soul too, decaying and rotting spiritually through the passions, the Lord can heal, renew, strengthen, adorn, make fragrant. An example: the holy servants of God.

For you, O man, are heaven and earth, for it is said in Scripture: our homeland is in the heavens, from whence also we await the Savior, our Lord Jesus Christ (Phil 3:20); for you is paradise; for you are the desired gardens; for you are the elements—that is, chiefly for you, for the animals too make use of them, but they, in their turn, were created for you as well; for you are the sun, the moon, the stars; for you is all the variety of fruits of trees, bushes, grain, herbs, and the rest; for you the elements were transformed, as in the time of Moses; for you are the countless miracles of the Old and New Testaments; for you the bed of the sea is dried up; for you the rocks pour forth streams of sweetness; for you is the manna from heaven; for you the rivers turn back, or form a dry bed for your own journey; for you the raging fire is turned into a cool dew, while remaining, in its own essence, an all-consuming fire for the impious; for you the sun stands still, and stays its course, until the victory over the enemy is accomplished; for you are teachers and tutors, patriarchs, prophets, apostles, hierarchs, bishops, martyrs; for you is the height of God’s mercy, and the miracle of miracles: the Son of God came to earth in the flesh, entered into kinship with you, became your brother according to the flesh, to save you, to renew you through faith, repentance, amendment, through the Mysteries; for you the Church has been built on earth, which even the gates of hell will not overcome; for you a fearsome and wondrous, life-giving food has been prepared—the Body and Blood of the Lord Himself. What more was there to do for you, for your own salvation, that has not been done? And what have you yourself done, and what do you do, for your own salvation? What do you bring to your own Lord? What praise, what thanksgiving, what sacrifice? For you, not infrequently, make yourself into a senseless beast, and even a beast is tamer than you, more grateful than you, for the ox knows its owner, and the donkey its master’s manger, but you are unwilling to know your own Creator, Savior, Benefactor, Nourisher, and Judge; you have become a stranger to Him, have grown wild, like a fierce beast, and roar, and belch out blasphemies against your own Maker, like Leo Tolstoy with his own barking followers. What, then, awaits you at the last, if you do not come to your senses? Eternal rejection awaits you, the curse of God, eternal torments together with the evil spirits. «Depart from Me, you cursed, into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels» (Mt. 25:41).

The all-seeing Lord, in a single act of divine vision, sees all ages and all people, their whole life, with all their thoughts, feelings, intentions, deeds, and words. O fearsome Eye, from whom nothing can be hidden, enlighten my own heart’s eye! Take from it every impurity, every unclean way of seeing! Amen.

O all-good Eye, all-meek Eye, all-seeing Eye, most simple Eye, guileless Eye, look upon me with favor, with indulgence, with mercy, all-forgiving, all-renewing, all-quickening!

I thank You, O Lord, that by Your own all-good providence You keep and save me from day to day, every day, morning, evening, and night, and raise me up every morning, watchful and renewed. Grant me, through You and in You, to be renewed entirely in my own spirit, and to cast off the corruption of the passions!

I believe in a good future for Russia and her Orthodoxy, on the basis, first, of the general concept of God’s providence over His own Church, and, second, in particular, on the basis of the prophecy of Daniel, spoken on the occasion of his interpretation of Nebuchadnezzar’s dream—the enormous statue made up of different metals. Wondrous is this vision, and wondrous its interpretation; wondrous, all-wise, all-good, and all-foreseeing is God’s providence over the world and over the earthly kingdoms, and especially over His own Church on earth!

2) God’s wise guidance of man on the path to salvation

The Lord God serves you every day, O man, bringing forth for you the all-illuminating and all-warming sun by day, and the moon and stars by night, causing manifold, tasty, and healthful fruits to grow for your own nourishment and enjoyment; He has established for you a saving Church, with divine teaching and Mysteries. He is bringing you up, without ceasing, for His own kingdom. You too must serve your own Creator diligently, for your own well-being and that of your neighbors, and submit yourself entirely to His all-good, all-wise, and righteous laws. The blessings of the life to come, promised you, exceed all your expectations—so great are they; will you not, then, for the sake of your own eternal blessedness, renounce fleshly, coarse, harmful, and unclean pleasures, and devote yourself entirely to the service of God? Remember all the saints: how they loved God, how they struggled, how they pleased God, and how the Lord rewarded them—and imitate them according to your own strength.

Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you; before you came forth from the womb, I sanctified you, I appointed you a prophet to the nations. Who says this? The Lord, the Creator of the human race, the Eternal One, who made all things by His own word and sustains all things by the power of His word. He said this to the prophet Jeremiah, sending him to preach to the Jewish people. So, beloved brothers and sisters, the Lord knows each one of us before we are conceived in our mother’s womb, and before we come forth from our mother’s body. Each of us is appointed by the Creator to his own place of service, for He alone knows perfectly our powers and abilities and our place of service in society. This divine appointment and destiny applies especially to prophets, apostles, hierarchs, priests, to sovereigns, especially of Orthodox peoples, to the closest servants of His own all-ruling providence.

It pleased our Creator and the Author of our contest to determine, from the beginning, that the time of our earthly life should be a time of preparation for eternity, a time of training, a time of struggle and contest, a time of spiritual warfare, and not a time of idleness, of leisure, and of vanity; and that our future, immortal state should be a state of recompense: either of glory and eternal blessedness, or a state of eternal dishonor and fearsome torment, for idleness, laziness, negligence, and countless sins.

I thank the Lord for the daily abundance of spiritual and bodily light—the Light of the Holy Spirit and the light of the sun; for the abundance of pure, elemental air, and of the immaterial air for the soul, which is the Holy Spirit—God!

Thank God that He gives you occasions and the means to serve Him in the person of the poor, the sick, and various unfortunate people; for, in serving them, you serve Christ Himself. «Inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me» (Mt. 25:40).

It is remarkable that many sicknesses and sores lead to a renewal of the organism, or of certain parts or extremities of it—for instance, boils and abscesses, skin eruptions and rashes, cleanse the blood, and so forth. Three fingers of my right hand were sick—inflamed, badly festering—they hurt for two weeks; at the end of it all came a complete restoration of my inward health, an excellent sense of well-being, a lightness of my whole body. But two weeks before that—nervousness, irritation throughout my whole body, an extreme sensitivity and pain in the extremities of my hands. Glory to God, who chastises and shows mercy, who puts to death in order to bring to life. «It does not come to life unless it dies» (1Cor 15:36). A certain part of my fingers died, through the abscesses and the pus—and in its place, a renewed part, new skin, a renewed finger.

III. The Long-Suffering and Righteousness of God in the Restoration of Fallen Man (the Lord as Judge and Rewarder)

One of God’s many perfections is His long-suffering, extending to all sinful rational creatures—to the fallen angels and to the fallen human race. One cannot cease to marvel at this quality of God—so great is it, so meek, so wise, so saving, and, at the same time, so fearsome, so terrible in its consequences, when it is abused. I say one cannot cease to marvel, when one remembers, at the same time, the boundless holiness and righteousness of God, to whom even a single unrighteous thought is repugnant, a single momentary feeling of malice in rational creatures—when one remembers the all-wise, wondrous harmony and boundless beauty of every creature, visible and invisible: the beauty of heaven, of the sun, the moon, and the stars—the beauty of all earthly nature, of every earthly creature, animate and inanimate, rational and irrational—especially the summit of God’s creations on earth, man, a being both spiritual and sensible, adorned with a rational, immortal, and free soul and a fitting, well-formed, beautiful body. Picturing to oneself all this harmony and beauty of creation, the unchanging order in the being and life of everything created, one is perplexed and astonished at the thought of how the all-perfect, almighty, all-wise, righteous Creator, the Triune God, endures the monstrous, senseless, disordered life of people, so harmful to so many, many others, a life lived, in their deeds, contrary to their own Maker and to their own reason, conscience, feeling, and to the all-wise will of the Creator, people who cause countless evil to a multitude of others like themselves, and bring confusion and groaning even into inanimate nature itself, not to mention the people themselves, whose calamities and groans are heard everywhere, and whose blood flows in rivers. But how saving are the consequences of this long-suffering and mercy for sensible, thoughtful, and repentant sinners, confessing the Christian, the Gospel faith! How many have been, and are being, saved, thanks to this long-suffering! How many repentant sinners, men and women, forgiven for their faith and repentance, have entered paradise! How many times has each of us, man and woman, been saved, and are being saved, from the righteous wrath of God, from sorrow and anguish, and from the eternal torment that lies before us—how many have been saved, for their faith and repentance! O, what wondrous qualities these are in God—mercy and long-suffering! How they encourage and revive every repentant sinner! Behold, the thief came down from the cross straight into paradise, for his faith in the Crucified One and for a single hour’s repentance! Behold, the harlot, known throughout the whole city, was cleansed of the defilement of sin by the tears of repentance, and became chaste, and entered paradise; behold, the repentant tax collector was shown mercy and counted worthy of eternal life, with his whole household; behold, Lazarus, poor and sick, is carried by Angels, after death, into Abraham’s bosom, for his sins were cleansed by his sickness and suffering; how many, across the whole span of Christian history, have been shown mercy—sinners known and unknown, repentant sinners! Only the unrepentant have perished, and do perish—like Judas, Herodias, Annas and Caiaphas, the Neros, the Decii, the Caligulas, the Julians, the Domitians, and the other inhuman persecutors of Christianity, just as the godless perish even now—the likes of Tolstoy and his own followers; murderers and suicides, hardened and unrepentant, drowning to the end in the impurity of adultery, or the proud Pharisees of our own day, hardhearted rich men, laying up treasure for themselves, and not growing rich toward God, thieves and plunderers, building up their own wealth and riches on the misfortune of their neighbors; those who begin and continue bloody wars for the sake of power and wealth. Truly one cannot cease to marvel at the mercy and long-suffering of God—so dear, so moving is it, and, for many, many, so saving! Behold, now is the time of fasting and repentance! How many great and greatest of sinners receive from God the forgiveness of their sins unto life, and mercy, and a renewal of life—for their faith and sincere repentance, and for the sake of an unto-condemnation-free Communion of the most pure Mysteries of the Body and Blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, for «His Blood cleanses us», in the Apostle’s words, «from every sin» (1Jn 1:7). Only the cold, the unfeeling, the unbelieving, the unrepentant, and «those who despise the Blood of the Covenant» (Hebr 10:29) perish. I glorify You, O Lord, long-suffering and all-merciful! Do not let me too perish for my own countless sins, but bear with me still further, and grant me to please You, and to save my own soul, and the souls of many, many repentant sinners. So be it!

Wondrous is the long-suffering of God toward the demons and toward sinful people; countless, most vile, fearsome, ruinous acts of lawlessness have been done, and are ceaselessly being done, by them on earth, to the offense of the all-good and almighty Master, God; and He is long-suffering, even now, toward the kingdom of Satan, He endures, does not destroy the lawless, even grants sinful people health, wealth, beauty, prosperity, glory, the bearing of children; does not destroy them by flood, by famine, by pestilence, by wars, by earthquakes, but spares them, spares them by every means, awaiting their admonition, their conversion, their repentance, their salvation—but if they will not be admonished, and will not repent, they will be subject to a still greater and heavier punishment. «He who is unjust, let him be unjust still; he who is filthy, let him be filthy still; and he who is holy, let him be holy still. And behold, I am coming quickly, and My reward is with Me, to give to every one according to his work (Apok 22:11-12).

«A bruised reed He will not break» (the repentant person), «and smoking flax» (through the fire of contrition and spiritual grace) «He will not quench, till He sends forth justice to victory» (Mt 12:20) (until He makes us conquerors of sin). Glory to You, O Lord, Shepherd and Visitor of our souls, who are long-suffering toward us sinners! I am this bruised reed, I am this smoking flax (through faith and repentance). I have not yet been destroyed, not yet broken by righteous wrath; I still burn, and am not yet quenched. In giving us, for food and drink, His own most pure Body and life-giving Blood, the Lord has exalted our nature beyond measure, through union and deification, and prepares us for a most perfect union with Himself, on the unending day of His own kingdom.

As often as you fall again, arise, and you will be saved. What boundless goodness in the Lord! What infinite mercy! What ease of salvation! The Master does not reject the sinner until his very last breath. The Lord knows our weakness, our proneness to every sin from our very infancy; He knows too the evil cunning of the bodiless enemies, who tempt us to sin, and He is long-suffering toward us, awaiting our repentance, our struggle, our amendment, and our good deeds. Be not slothful!

Great is my own sinfulness, countless are my own secret falls, but great is God’s long-suffering toward me—countless is the mercy of the Lord toward me, forgiving me all my lawlessness for my faith and repentance, renewing me, defending and saving me every day and every hour. I thank the Lord without ceasing. All my hope is in the mercy of God alone, and in the boundless merits, before the righteousness of the heavenly Father, of my Lord Jesus Christ. «Behold, I believe: save me, for You are my God and my Maker. Let faith be reckoned to me, my God, in place of works» (Eighth Morning Prayer).

Ineffably merciful and long-suffering toward me is the Lord! Without number I sin every day, and without number the Lord forgives me my sins, for my repentance. My own sins never overcome His goodness. He has mercy, He forgives, He cleanses, He brings peace.

How many times, every day, do I die through sin, and how many times do I rise from the dead each day, through faith, repentance, and secret prayer! How great are the mercies of my Lord, His compassion and long-suffering, which I see in myself every day and every hour! O goodness of God, beyond words, surpassing mind and speech! Amen.

O righteous and rightful winnowing shovel of God! How much will You gather, and separate the chaff from the wheat? What a countless multitude of this chaff there is!

Orthodox Christians! Do you know, do you believe, do you understand, that the Lord God looks upon us without ceasing—upon our own thoughts, desires, intentions, and deeds—and judges every person righteously? Do you remember that our own conscience is the sign of the righteousness of God, which tests and guides us, and that by conscience we will be judged, on the day of judgment, and by the Lord’s Gospel? Do you remember these words, so often repeated by the prophet-king David: «the Lord comes to judge the earth in righteousness, and the peoples with equity»? If you do not remember, then I remind you (Ps 97:9).

We live and labor before the most radiant eyes of the all-seeing God, who values, and will value, all our desires, our secret intentions, our thoughts, our words, and our deeds, and those who sincerely labor in the fulfillment of His holy and blessed commandments will be rewarded in abundance.

IV. The Almighty Power of God in the Restoration of Fallen Man (the Lord as King and Victor)

Great is the evil sown, and still being sown, in the world by Satan and his host, but the good given and sown by God and His holy Angels, His holy Church and faithful people, is greater, more victorious, more fruitful—and, at the last, all the enemies will be conquered by the Lord and His faithful people; «for He must reign, till He has put all enemies under His feet; the last enemy that will be destroyed is death» (1Cor 15:25,26). «Be bold, then, be bold, O people of God, for He will conquer the enemies, for He is all-powerful» (First Dogmatikon).

To create a world so great, so varied, and so boundless, it was enough for God merely to speak the word—and everything came into being in every wondrous order and beauty. «He spoke, and they were made; He commanded, and they were created» (Ps 32:9); and, just as truly, to break it apart, and to destroy it, is the work of a single word: He will speak—and it will be no more; He will command—and everything will be destroyed. Before Him, the whole boundlessness of the worlds, their existence, with everything that is in them and upon them, is as nothing; before Him all people are like locusts, in the prophet Isaiah’s own word. «All the elements», says the Apostle, «will melt with fervent heat and be destroyed; the earth and the works that are in it will be burned up» (2Pet 3:10).

The resurrection of Christ from the dead, and its annual, solemn, all-joyous celebration, and its weekly one, assures everyone plainly, and, so to speak, tangibly, of the life to come, of the life of our own souls after death, and of the future general resurrection of our own bodies from the dust of the earth, and of their wondrous transfiguration, after the image of the risen Body of Christ. «Now we see God as though in a mirror, dimly; but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known» (1Cor 13:12).