🤝 Let Us Become Like Christ, Since Christ Became Like Us 👑 Yesterday I was crucified with Him; today I am glorified with Him; yesterday I died with Him; today I am quickened with Him; yesterday I was buried with Him; today I rise with Him. But let us offer to Him Who died and rose again for us—you will think perhaps that I am going to say gold, or silver, or woven work or transparent and costly stones, the mere passing material of earth.... Let us offer ourselves, the possession most precious to God, and most akin.... Let us become like Christ, since Christ became like us. Let us become gods for His sake, since He for ours became Man. He assumed the worse that He might give us the better; He became poor that we through His poverty might be rich (2Cor 8:9); He took upon Him the form of a servant that we might receive back our liberty; He came down that we might be exalted; He was tempted that we might conquer; He was dishonoured that He might glorify us; He died that He might save us; He ascended that He might draw to Himself us, who were lying low in the Fall of sin. Let us give all, offer all, to Him Who gave Himself a Ransom and a Reconciliation for us. But one can give nothing like oneself, understanding the Mystery, and becoming for His sake all that He became for ours. St. Gregory Nazianzen, Oration I, on Easter; NPNF, 2nd Ser.; Vol. VII, p. 203. #Theosis #Deification #UnionWithChrist #EasterSermon #ChristianLife

⚰️ O Death, Where Is Your Victory? 🏆 Now that the Saviour has raised His body, death is no longer terrible; for all who believe in Christ tread him under as nought, and choose rather to die than to deny their faith in Christ. For they verily know that when they die they are not destroyed, but actually [begin to] live, and become incorruptible through the Resurrection. … Their contempt for death is so great that they even eagerly rush upon it, and become witnesses for the Resurrection the Saviour has accomplished against it. … And so, death having been conquered and exposed by the Saviour on the Cross, and bound hand and foot, all they who are in Christ, as they pass by, trample on him, and witnessing to Christ scoff at death, jesting at him, and saying what has been written against him of old: “O death, where is thy victory? O grave, where is thy sting?” St. Athanasius, Incarnation of the Word, 27 NPNF, 2nd Ser., Vol. IV, p. 51. #Resurrection #VictoryOverDeath #Pascha #Easter #OnTheIncarnation #ChristianHope

😔 “My God, My God, Why Have You Forsaken Me?” 🙏 What does He mean then by saying “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” We say that when Adam our first father trampled the commandment given him and ignored the divine laws, human nature, in a way, was forsaken by God; rather for that reason it was cursed deserving death. When the Word the Only-begotten of God dwelt in the afflicted body so as to renew it and took hold of Abraham’s offspring to resemble to His brethren (Heb 2: 16-17), He had to set a limit to this forsaking that had befallen human nature and bring to an end the old curse and the evil within us. For that reason as one of the forsaken having participated with us resembling us in flesh and blood He said: “Why have You forsaken Me?” These are the words of someone who actually annuls the forsaking that befell us, inclining the Father to Himself, asking Him to accept us, as if asking Him to first accept Himself. For Christ became for us a beginning and source for all blessings. Whenever it is said that He receives, in his capacity as human, something from the Father, it is to convey it to our own nature. As for Himself, He is perfect and does not need anything whatsoever, as He is God. #HolyWeek #CryOfDereliction #Atonement #Christology #Incarnation #Theology

💭 How Do We Understand Death and Resurrection? (3) 🙌 So how can man return to God without God? For God, who alone is the source of existence, life, and sanctification, is the one who bestows. Grace is a loan, a divine loan, meaning it has no connection to created nature. Man was required to deal with his fundamental issues: death, sin, and the devil, using his own abilities. But a cure was impossible. Death brought about a tremendous change in human nature, a change in the very essence of man himself, which only the Creator could alter. Sin made human nature inclined toward evil, unable to understand God properly, prone to passions and lusts, and corrupted man's ability. As for the devil, he had dominion over man because of the passions and evil that made the devil's power to enslave man possible, indeed a bitter reality. Here we see very clearly that when the Son became incarnate, He gathered all of humanity within Himself when He took a human nature from us. Therefore, in Him we receive the fruits of union. Even those humans who do not believe in Christ will rise because of the resurrection of the incarnate Son, but how great is the difference between the resurrection of glory and mere resurrection. Here we see that grace is offered to all, but it works only in those who believe. These rise in glory, those merely live: "The dead will be raised imperishable, but not all will be raised in glory" (1 Cor 15:42). #Theology #Death #Resurrection #Incarnation #Salvation #Grace #Glory #1Corinthians

💭 How Do We Understand Death and Resurrection? (2) 🌿 Thus, humanity inherited death. The inheritance of death here originated from humanity being born without communion with God. This is what is meant by the fall of Adam and the first sin. It is only within this framework that we must understand the clear contrast between man and the law in the writings of St. Paul the Apostle. After Adam's fall, human nature came under the penalty of death and the curse of the law because of the fall. "For when man sinned, he fell under the curse of the law, which God established with the force of a curse for all who transgress the law" (Rom 7:6). Death was not only a natural result of losing communion with God, but now, because of Adam's sin, it also resulted from the law and was linked to it as the curse of transgression. Along with this, a new element also entered: the subjection of human nature to the devil and the dominion of evil spirits over man (John 14:30-31). Therefore, death consists of three main elements: 1. The loss of the grace that comes from God, which grants him life. 2. The falling of man under the judgment of the curse stemming from transgressing the law, thus giving the law the power of death. 3. The subjection of man to the devil because of his participation in the temptation. (to be continued...) #Theology #Death #Resurrection #Sin #Law #Curse #Satan #HumanNature

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💭 How Do We Understand Death and Resurrection? (1) ⚰️ Death is the loss of grace, the absence of the Holy Spirit's indwelling in man, and consequently, man remains in his natural state without grace. Death thus becomes a very natural phenomenon; because human nature is incapable of remaining in supernatural life, and loses its ability to endure due to the loss of grace. When Adam fell, his fall meant he returned to being a being within the limits of nature that was created from nothing. The curse became clear: man's return to the natural state he was from, "For dust you are, and to dust you shall return." This curse means that human nature no longer enjoyed communion with God; otherwise, how could it return to dust? Thus, the decisive point in Adam's fall is that "Adam, and with him the entire human race which was in him, was condemned to death and corruption." When the Holy Spirit departed from man, man was left alone facing the law and its associated curse. Thus, the curse of death became the force that returned man to a natural life devoid of grace, "and those who transgress the law receive the punishment determined by the law." Thus, life became subject to the power of death due to the absence of the Holy Spirit, and everyone born of Adam is born subject to death, i.e., without communion with God through the Holy Spirit. With Adam's fall, "the whole of human nature became sick with the disease of death, and humanity began to be born dead." (to be continued...) #Theology #Death #Resurrection #Adam #Fall #OriginalSin #HolySpirit #Grace

❤️ The Cross: Proof of the Greatest Love ✝️ Does not St. Paul on every occasion show us that the death [of Christ] is the greatest proof of his love for us? He thus says: “God shows his love for us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom 5:8). Also, for this reason, does not he take pride and yearn all the more, nay, even leap for joy and flutter his wings, as it were, when he writes to the Galatians: “far be it from me to glory except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Gal 6:14)? Even Christ himself, who endured these sufferings calls them his Glory (John 17:1)! And when he wished to show us his love, what did he mention? His signs or miracles or wonders? Never! He but laid his cross in the middle saying: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son” (John 3:16). And so did St Paul say: “He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, will he not also gave us all things with him?” (Rom 8:32). And when he exhorts to love, he raises this same type in the middle saying: “Love one another, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God” (cf. Eph 5:2). _St. John Chrysostom, Homily on Divine Providence 17:1-7. #TheCross #DivineLove #Sacrifice #Salvation #GodsLove

🛡️ Externally Tempted, Internally Filled with the Godhead ✨ As the Lord put on the body, leaving behind every principality and power, in a similar way Christians put on the Holy Spirit and are at peace. Even if war starts externally and Satan attacks, still they are fortified interiorly by the Lord’s power and are not anxious about Satan. As he tempted the Lord in the desert for forty days, what harm did he inflict on Him by attacking Him externally in His body? For interiorly He was God. So also Christians, granted they may be tempted exteriorly, nevertheless, interiorly they are filled with the Godhead and suffer no injury. If one has reached this degree, he has arrived at the perfect love of Christ and the fullness of the Godhead. But one, who is not of this type, still wages an interior war. For a certain hour he delights in prayer, but at another time he is bombarded by affliction and at war. _St. Macarius the Great, Spiritual Homilies, 26, 15. #SpiritualWarfare #InnerPeace #HolySpirit #Temptation #FullnessOfGod

❤️ A Prayer to Jesus 🙇 O my Lord Jesus, Your love rebukes me and Your tenderness disciplines my heart. Your humility judges me with mercy, because I am weak in love. Your condescension heals my fear of judgment, because You judged judgment itself, when You condemned death and abolished corruption. Your mercy gladdens my soul, because You saved me from death, abolished the power of sin, and lifted the sentence of death forever. In the garden You wept and sought life for us, in my distance from You, my tears console my soul, because the seed of love You planted did not die. O Lord, my prayer is Your delight, and You, according to Your dispensation, save me, and care for me with Your mercies until the days of my exile end in peace, because You alone are the Savior. O Lord, I am Yours, so save me. Hallelujah. #PrayerToJesus #DivineMercy #Salvation #LoveOfChrist #Repentance #Hallelujah

💧 With Christ in Baptism and Temptation ⚔️ If after baptism the persecutor and tempter of the light assail you (for he assailed even the Word my God through the veil), you have the means to conquer him. Fear not the conflict; defend yourself with the Water; defend yourself with the Spirit, by Which all the fiery darts of the wicked shall be quenched. ... If he wrestle against you to a fall through avarice, showing you all the Kingdoms at one instant and in the twinkling of an eye, as belonging to himself, and demand your worship, despise him as a beggar. Say to him relying on the Seal, “I am myself the Image of God; ... I have put on Christ; I have been transformed into Christ by Baptism; worship you me.” Well do I know that he will depart, defeated and put to shame by this; as he did from Christ the first Light, so he will from those who are illumined by Christ. ... Let us then be baptized that we may win the victory. _St Gregory Nazianzen, Oration 40, 10-11; NPNF 2nd Ser, Vol VII, p 362-363. #Baptism #Temptation #SpiritualWarfare #ImageOfGod #VictoryInChrist

⚠️ What Are the Signs of Separation from God, and Are They Spiritual Death? ⚰️ The signs of separation are: First: Man's ignorance of his Creator, especially His goodness and love. Second: The ignorance and presumption latent in the heart that man is the source of his own life, and that food is the source of his existence, which the Lord Jesus warned us against when He forbade us from being anxious about what we eat, or what we wear, and other matters we think are the source of our life (Matthew 6:26-32). And when He directed the heart's gaze towards God's care for all creatures like the lilies of the field and the birds of the air, He was revealing man's ignorance of God, which is the first sign of spiritual death; because this false immortality is the source of pride. If God is the source of our life, why do we become arrogant? And what is the authority within us that makes us decide the destinies of other humans? Third: The presumption that "transgression" leads us to a better existence and a better life that is given growth. Fourth: Doubting the wisdom of God's commandments, considering them weakness and ignorance, and that the good man determines for himself is better than the good that comes from communion. While choosing good and evil according to the desires and vanity of the heart is "transgression." Do you want, beloved, to know more than that? I tell you briefly, in one phrase: Spiritual death is Hell, and Hell is a human life captured for disparate and scattered purposes, that does not grow, does not see, and does not taste what is beyond the body, or beyond these scattered purposes that tear apart the human being. #SpiritualDeath #SeparationFromGod #SignsOfSeparation #Pride #Transgression #Hell #SpiritualAwakening

✝️ The Cross: The Beginning of Prayer 🙏 Prayer that begins with the Cross—not only by making the sign of the cross, but by seeking to cling to the Cross—cannot turn into a path of evil. I say this with certainty; for he who asks to be with the crucified Jesus cannot pray against his enemies, or seek evil for those who hate him, or pray for success in carrying out evil deeds. Let us stand at the Cross to learn from the crucified Jesus how to surrender everything to the Father: mind, will, feelings, soul, body, and all matters pertaining to the present life; for when we do this—with love—we draw near to the knowledge of things to come. The Cross is the window to the coming life, that which was created by forgiveness and made divine love, whose essence is love and giving. #Cross #Prayer #Surrender #CrucifiedChrist #DivineLove #Forgiveness #SpiritualLife

🕊️ The Purpose of His Coming ✨ – I should like to learn what was the purpose of His coming among us; what was the mode of His incarnation, and the reason for it. … – Is it not quite obvious and unambiguous to everyone, that the Only-begotten became like us, that is a complete man, that He might free our earthly body from the corruption which had been brought into it? … By becoming the Flesh of the Word, who gives life to all things, this Flesh triumphs over the power of death and destruction. In the same way, no doubt, the soul, since it has become the soul of Him who had no experience of doing wrong, has its state secured, immutable in all good, and incomparably stronger than the sin which before exercised domination. For Christ is the first man who committed no sin and was convicted of no dishonesty. He is, so to speak, the root and the first fruits of those who are restored in the Spirit to newness of life, to immortality of the body, to certainty and security of divinity, so that He may transmit this condition to the whole of humanity by participation, and as an act of grace. _St Cyril the Great, Dialogue on the Incarnation of the Only-begotten #Incarnation #PurposeOfChrist #Salvation #Corruption #NewLife #Grace

💀 Is Spiritual Death Separation from God? 🤔 Man's existence contradicts the purpose of his creation; because there is no being in the heavens or on earth that has life in itself, alive by its own power and will, and capable of remaining by its own capabilities. God alone is eternally alive, and He is, as the Holy Scriptures say, "He who is," while we have the image of this Being. Therefore, separation is only from our side, it began from us and remains in us by rejecting the commandments and seeking power that does not know love and is not moved by humility, namely the life of Satan whose life died when he wanted to become like God without God. Here we must realize that separation is only from our side, and that God did not separate His life from us, but preserved for us the grace of existence, and according to the Apostle's phrase, "In Him we live and move and have our being" (Acts 17:28), awaiting the time of renewal. We must not err in understanding this matter so as not to fall into despair; because God did not abandon us, but sent prophets for us, gave the Law, and revealed His righteousness to humanity by leaving the internal law to move them to seek God their Creator, which we see even in the worship of idols, which is an expression of searching and seeking the Creator, although this search is covered by the corruption of perception. #SpiritualDeath #SeparationFromGod #DivinePresence #PurposeOfCreation #Idolatry #Hope #Despair