The Sunday After Theophany (32nd) (Eph. 4:7–13; Mt. 4:12–17)

Yesterday the Apostle armed the Christian who has set out on the path of salvation with the full spiritual armor, and today he points out the guides on this battle-march and the final bright goal of it all—to inspire courage amid the hardships. The guides are the pastors and teachers whom the Lord gave to the Church and through whose lips He Himself utters whatever direction each person needs, as soon as someone turns to them with faith and with prayer directed to the Lord. Those who are walking the Lord’s path selflessly and fighting the enemies of salvation without sparing themselves know this truth. In their pastors they always find help and illumination even where, from the outside, one would not have expected it. For they come not to men but to the Lord, who is ever ready to guide and illuminate through these men everyone who sincerely and with faith seeks His help. The final, radiant goal is ”the measure of the full stature of Christ” — the stature of ”a perfect man” (Eph. 4:13). What a perfect man is in the ordinary sense everyone knows, and one would be hard put to find a person who did not wish to attain such perfection. But what a man perfect in the Lord is, no one knows except those who have entered into that stature. Yet this should not cool anyone’s zeal to attain such a stature for himself; on the contrary, it should inflame it still more—because the unknowability comes from the height of that spiritual perfection which is called the mature age in the life according to God. The Apostle defined it as the reception of the fullness of the perfections revealed in the Lord and Savior. Every person can see that there is something for which to apply ”all diligence” (2 Pet. 1:5) to our calling.