Why did Christ come? Why did our Lord Jesus Christ come to earth? Why did Jesus come to earth.

Scripture Evidence of God's Son

The Bible teaches us that the One true God who created this world has a Son, and that Son is Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is the Messiah, the Anointed King, spoken of in the Hebrew Scriptures of the Old Testament. Jesus Christ is the Only Begotten Son of God, born first of all creation, who came in the flesh to this world for the salvation of mankind.

Let's look at some Scriptures that talk about this. And let's start from the Scriptures of the Old Testament, which speak about the Son of God, that God has a Son.

Proverbs 30:4 “Who ascended to heaven and came down? who gathered the wind into his fistfuls? who put water in his clothes? WHO SET ALL THE LIMITS OF THE EARTH? what is his name? AND WHAT IS THE NAME OF HIS SON? Do you know?".

It turns out that God, who set all the boundaries of the earth, has a Son. And from other places in Scripture we know that the name of the Son of God is Jesus Christ. But let's continue quoting the Old Testament:

The Solemn Entry of Jesus Christ into Jerusalem, its purpose and meaning

The news of the return of Jesus Christ to Bethany immediately reached Jerusalem and awakened in many the determination to go there in order to see Jesus as soon as possible (John 12:9). The peace of the Sabbath, stretched by the Pharisees to absurd excesses (Luke 12:15; 13:5), did not allow them to go on a journey right away. Only the Sadducees, according to the traditions of their sect, could violate it with impunity. But the next day, early in the morning, Bethany was filled with crowds of people.

THE PRICE AND PURPOSE OF JESUS ​​CHRIST'S MISSION ON EARTH We cannot fully open this topic until we establish the reason for its mystery. The fact is that people who are in darkness have so intertwined and mixed up the devil with God that it is now difficult for them to distinguish the devil from God, since they are both faceless. Which is very good for the devil. He deliberately led people into this circle, where there is no beginning and no end. And so, in order to understand this, we will not look at their faces, but we will take into account their deeds.

Let's start with the devil first. The word devil comes from the word “diavolos”, which means “slanderer”, i.e. telling a lie.

And so, let's start with this.

A lie from anyone is the greatest Evil, not only on earth, but in the entire universe. She is madness and a destructive force against which the truth and the Heavenly Father, the source of life, and all those who loved the light and hated the darkness, fight. People who are in darkness hate the light because their deeds are evil. This means that evil comes from darkness.

Easter is a strange day. The day when some people visit the temple, while others shout “Peace, labor, May.” For some, this is a reason to simply take a break from work and think about bright things; for others, it is an opportunity to do something sacred, dedicate eggs, Easter cakes, or go to an all-night vigil in church.

All this is generally not bad and even has some benefits for the body. But the main thing is to understand the essence, the meaning of Easter. And this, unfortunately, is the problem. People don't think much about what Christ's sacrifice really means and what it accomplishes.

And you know, I’ve been with the Lord for more than 10 years now, serving Him and knowing Him since I was a teenager, when He saved me during the most difficult period of my life. But the question of the real meaning of Easter is still important to me. Seriously important.

The Second Coming of Jesus ChristThe Second Coming of Jesus Christ is one of the main teachings of the Bible. In the Old Testament, God's prophets prophesied about the coming of the Messiah. The first four books of the New Testament speak of the Messiah or Christ coming to Earth as the Savior. These books tell us that He lived as a man (Jesus of Nazareth), died on the cross, rose from the dead, and returned to heaven. But the New Testament also clearly says that Jesus will come again! “He will appear the second time, not for the cleansing of sin, but for salvation for those who wait for Him” (Heb. 9:28).

Why do we believe that Jesus will come again? The Bible is the word of God (2 Tim. 3:16,17). God cannot lie (Heb. 6:18). Therefore, when the word of God says that Jesus will come again, we accept this fact in the same way that we accept the facts that He died for our sins, was buried, and rose from the dead on the third day (1 Cor. 15:3,4) . These days we often hear people talk about the second coming of Jesus.

The purpose of Jesus Christ coming to Earth. Prayer and the Word is communication with God in thoughts and words, so be careful:

1. Let not those who may hasten in their thoughts delay. You need to get used to the fact that every thought is communication with the Holy Fire. Therefore, it is shameful to have an ignorant or insignificant thought;

2. Let us be like those awaiting the Great Advent; listen to the Steps and know that our heart is presented to help the world. We will not allow confusion and denial, for these properties will turn the flames against us;

3. On the great Path it is better to be slandered than to interfere with the decision of the Lords. Let us love to be slandered, for we cannot name the fiery path without these carpets of slander;

4. Let the warriors of light not be embarrassed by the demand for struggle. Those who stand still are exposed to danger a thousand times more than those who strive. Of course, let the desire be in the Heart and in the thoughts, not just in the feet.

Do you not know that the saints will judge the World? (Cor. 6:2.).

God loves man and wishes him only happiness.

What is happiness? What kind of person can be called happy?

Happy can be called a person who is joyful, who feels good, who is loved, who is protected...

A person is happy when he is in love, joy and protection. A happy person is also called blessed. God strives to give man the happiness and bliss that He Himself possesses. For this reason, He (God) became a man and came to earth to people.

The word “happiness” comes from the word “part”, otherwise it can be pronounced as “participation”, i.e. doing something together, together. God, having become man, became part of humanity, one of the people. He thus gave Himself to people so that they could see and hear God the Creator, learn from Him goodness, joy, love - what is necessary for happiness.

Having become a man, the Lord acquired human properties, including his own human appearance.

Alena asks
Answered by Viktor Belousov, 08.12.2008

Peace to you, Alena!

This time was predicted in advance by the prophet Daniel:

“Know therefore and understand: from the time the commandment goes out to restore Jerusalem until Christ the Master there are seven weeks and sixty-two weeks; and the people will return and streets and walls will be built, but in difficult times. And after the sixty-two weeks they will be put to death Christ, and it will not be; but the city and the sanctuary will be destroyed by the people of the leader who comes, and its end will be like a flood, and there will be desolations until the end of the war."
()

When studying prophecies, the principle of day for year is used () Daniel precisely indicated the starting date of the period of 490 years - this is the release of the “command to restore Jerusalem.” In 457 BC. e. the Persian king Artaxerxes issued such a decree (). From this decree “until Christ the Lord” there will pass “seven weeks and sixty-two weeks,” or 69 weeks (483 years).

After his baptism in the Jordan River, Jesus was anointed with the Holy Spirit, and God publicly declared him the Messiah (Sovereign), or Anointed One, for the first time. This happened in 27 AD. e., i.e. exactly 483 after 457 BC. From that time on, Jesus began the ministry entrusted to Him. Jesus was born in 6-7 BC. (!), because the incorrect dating of the year of Christ’s birth by the monk Dionysius has long been known to the scientific world. Mention of this error can also be found on Wikipedia.

During “one week” (seven years), God established the covenant of salvation with the Jews through His shed blood. But “in the middle of the week” He stopped “sacrifice and offering.” All the offerings and sacrifices of the Jews pointed to the perfect sacrifice made by Christ on Calvary for the sins of the whole world. After the death of Christ “at half the week,” or 3.5 years after His baptism in the Jordan River and anointing, the prototype found its embodiment in reality, and invisible hands tore the veil in the Jerusalem Temple from top to bottom ().

There is a book written in fairly simple language on this topic.

Blessings,
Victor

Read more on the topic “Jesus Christ, His Life”:

25 Mar

The ancient prophets spoke about the coming of Christ. The Persian sages-magi saw His star in the east and went to worship Him. On Christmas night the sky opened and the Angel said to the shepherds:

-…I proclaim to you great joy that will come to all people! (Luke 2:10).

Every year we celebrate Christmas. The Lord comes to earth.

-For what? - I ask Archpriest Georgy BREEV, rector of the Church of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Krylatskoye.

Hearing the question, the priest smiles:

-The word “why” sounds in our language with some kind of internal claim - to events, history, even to the Gospel itself: what is all this for?

-Yes, yes, there is such a shade! But we need to figure out what prompts God to be condescending to people?

-Talk about His appearance in our world?

-Of course, about a phenomenon - mysterious, mysterious.

-As soon as a person thinks about something, begins to look for an answer to some question - and the Holy Scriptures immediately explain everything to him. So it is here.

Christmas is the point that we define as the coming of the Lord into our world. He came quietly, although Heaven testified about Him, the Angels sang, and the wise men and the shepherds hurried to Him. The whole earth rejoiced.

But even before the birth of the Baby, the great prophet of God Isaiah announced His coming: “Behold, a virgin will be with child and give birth to a Son, and they will call His name Immanuel” (Is. 7:14).

-What does it mean - “God is with us”.

-Archangel Gabriel in the Annunciation of the Most Holy Theotokos said: “The Holy Spirit will come upon You, and the power of the Most High will overshadow You: therefore the Holy One who is to be born will be called the Son of God” (Luke 1:35). This is how the Gospel precedes the Nativity of Christ, indicating directly what will happen.

To Righteous Joseph, the Archangel answered his doubts in a dream: “Joseph, son of David! Do not be afraid to accept Mary,... for what is born in Her is of the Holy Spirit; and she will give birth to a Son, and you will call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins” (Matthew 1:20-21).

-Here Christ has a different name.

-What does it consist of? From two Hebrew words that mean: "God who saves."

-In Russian it sounds victorious: Savior.

-God is coming to save the world. And not even a prophet, but the Archangel of God preaches this to righteous Joseph!

-Yes, amazing.

-And it is immediately clear for what purpose the Lord came into our world. Just as a huge tree grows from a grain, so from the short gospels, the testimonies of the Holy Scriptures, the answer to our question arises.

Christ the Savior Himself reveals: He was sent by God the Father to earth to fulfill His will. And the Gospel of John the Theologian says: “...God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life” (3.16).

This not only explains why the Savior comes, but shows Divine will.

-Yes, yes.

-We sing in the Christmas irmos: “First of all ages from the Father to the incorruptible Son begotten, and last from the Virgin to Christ God incarnate without seed, let us cry out: Our lifted up horn, holy art thou, O Lord!”

-Translated, the final words mean: “Let us exclaim to Christ God: Thou who has exalted our dignity, holy art Thou, O Lord!”

-God's will was manifested before our world was created. It is difficult for us to understand this truth, but it is the basis: God has determined that His Only Begotten Son will come here. The Lord understood what His creation was like: He created the earth out of nothing. And the prophets comprehended the idea that man is a fragile vessel. Moreover, it is so fragile that it will slightly hit the ground, a stone, or a corner - and it can completely break. However, God has placed great power in our weak physical nature.

-The Apostle Paul wrote: “We have this treasure in earthen vessels” (2 Cor. 4:7).

-When Christ began to preach the Gospel, He said that He came to save not the righteous, but repentant sinners (see Luke 5:32).

-To seek and save what was lost (Matthew 18:11).

- This is a direct answer to us. But how amazing is the Holy Scripture! Not a single deviation from the straight path. From the prophets to the Gospel there is a clear line, because the Word of God does not change, the world was created by Him. And the Lord says: not one jot of the law, of His commandments will be lost (Matthew 5:17). In the Spirit of God everything is in agreement, there are no discrepancies.

-But we understand this differently.

-And we bring our conjectures into Divine Wisdom. This is where it can get absurd. And the real answer is organic, amazing. It contains the fullness of truth. It was only out of love for the human race that the Savior came to earth - to give us an abundance of life. That is why it is said that God gives His grace not in measure, but in abundance (see John 3:34). He came so that this would become the property of all people.

-You spoke about repentant sinners. Does the Lord save only them?

-Repentance is a change in a person. A person cannot always behave the same way, express his natural powers in the same way. By night they dry up, darkness covers the earth - and we need to rest. In the morning the sun appears and people wake up and change. Things and responsibilities await them. There's a lot to do.

-A lot of things!

-The coming of Christ helps us to change our spiritual activity, to understand: no matter what we do, our activity takes on meaning and authenticity if, within our weak, weak nature, we want to connect it with Eternity. And maybe even dedicate it to Eternity.

Earthly reality eludes us. Today there is - tomorrow there is no. The appearance of the planet changes, countries appear and disappear, cities grow and collapse. But spirituality is constant. It is consonant with Eternity - and through it Eternity itself, as in a mirror, is reflected in time.

-How does it flow into time?

-And then a person is not subjected to toil, because life is only tortuous in the physiological sense. We are struggling, it’s hard for us. People come to confession and repeat: “Oh, father, we repent! All life is in vanity."

That's right, in the bustle. And “in vain” means in vain. We run and run, but we don’t achieve our goal. We do, we do - and we are left with nothing.

The Lord came to give us knowledge, knowledge, the Divine example of the God-man. Every word of Him is a Source of Life for us. We are becoming impoverished, and this Source is already ready to support us, strengthen us, and enlighten us.

-And to console, which is also important.

-We are preparing from afar to celebrate the Feast of the Nativity of Christ - and we feel how important it is for us to come into contact with this immeasurable wisdom, goodness, and ineffable love of God. He became Man in order to make man a god. For the saints of ancient centuries, this sounds like a leitmotif: the Lord came to earth, humbled himself, and became available to us in order to elevate and deify people to Himself.

-On Christmas night the angels sang: “...and on earth there is peace” (Luke 2.14) What kind of peace does Christ bring?

-Our land is full of events that excite us.

-Yes, in the country, family, parish, team.

-You want to relax, but you turn on the TV and hear shots. Your nerves get tense, you involuntarily say: “Lord, why is this? For what? From what?"

There used to be two words for “peace”, and they differed in spelling: m i p -Universe and m v r - Divine, when it comes to the state of unity with God, because everything that the human spirit, thoughts and heart lives with comes from God.

The Apostle Paul said it well: Christ is our peace (see Eph. 2:14). This is the peace of God, which is above us and in us: “The kingdom of God is within you” (Luke 17:21). What is the Kingdom of God? According to the words of the Apostle Paul, this is love, hope, faith, those gifts of grace that make a person happy, spiritually healthy, and elevate (see 1 Cor. 13:13).

-And all this - together.

-God never left the earth with His providence. But then Christ was born in a cave - and the Angels saw: the Lord entered into the fabric of the world. They began to preach this gospel.

The Baby lies in the manger - and the whole earth is surprised. There are Christmas stichera in which even the melody itself amazingly subtly conveys this spirit of inner peace, silence, and peace. And even the frost - the frost of the night, when the whole earth fell asleep. You look at her now - she is sleeping peacefully, waiting to wake up. And on Christmas night, in silence, “our Savior from above, the East of Easts” visited her.

I really love this festive luminary and always ask the choir: “Perform it!” The melody shimmers, in it breadth, depth, heaven and earth unite. And in the heart of everything is the Child, our world, Christ God. And all nature froze. The animals leaned towards the manger. The Magi froze in a bow. The star is shining. Wonderful picture!

If God did not love us, He would not have come to earth...

Interviewed by Natalia GOLDOVSKAYA

Two great events illuminate our earthly path with joyful light: Christmas and the Resurrection of Christ. The first of them testifies to God’s love and compassion for us, the second – to His victory over death.

The purpose of the coming of the Son of God into the world is figuratively and vividly spoken of by the parable of the lost sheep. The good shepherd leaves the ninety-nine sheep, by which is meant the angelic world, and goes to the mountains to find
his lost sheep - the human race perishing in sins.

The Shepherd's great love for the perishing sheep is visible not only in the fact that he personally went to look for it, but especially in the fact that, having found it, he took it on his shoulders and carried it back.

The word “back” suggests that the incarnate Christ returns to man that innocence, holiness and bliss that he lost by falling away from God. And to carry on one’s shoulders means what the ancient prophet expressed in the following words: “He (Christ) took upon himself our infirmities and bore our sicknesses” (Isa. 53).The Nativity of Christ is not only a great historical event, it contains the deep mystery of human salvation. People have written and are writing a lot about the meaning of the Nativity of Christ, but often the main purpose of the incarnation of Christ remains unexplained. Christ became man not only in order to teach us the truth or give a good example, but, mainly, in order to unite us with Himself - to introduce our damaged and morally exhausted nature to His Nature and thereby pour into us the life-giving stream of His Divine strength. With His coming into the world, the purpose of our existence was not only relocation to better conditions of heavenly life, but the complete revival and transformation of our being by the power of almighty God. The holiday of the Nativity of Christ reminds us of this.

This communion of the believer with the Divine-Human nature of Christ is accomplished in the sacrament of the Eucharist, when the one who receives His most pure Body and Blood is united with Him in a mysterious way. Heterodox Christians who do not believe in the reality of the miracle of Communion interpret the words of the Savior “He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him” (John 6:56) allegorically, thinking that here we are talking only about spiritual communication with Him. But in this case, the incarnation of the Son of God would be unnecessary. After all, even before the Nativity of Christ, the righteous were awarded grace-filled communication with God, nevertheless, paradise remained closed to them, because their nature had not yet been renewed by Christ.

No, a person is sick not only spiritually, but also physically. Sin has damaged our nature deeply and in many ways. Therefore, Christ needed to heal the whole person, and not just his spiritual part.

In order to remove any doubts about the need for complete communion with Himself, the Lord Jesus Christ in His conversation about the Bread of Life says this: “Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you will not have life in you: everyone who eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day” (John 6:53-55). Thus, the resurrection of the body is placed in inextricable connection with the union with the God-Man.

A little later, in a conversation about the vine, Christ explains to His disciples that it is in close union with Him that a person receives the necessary strength for spiritual development and improvement: “Just as a branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it is on the vine, so you if you are not in Me. I am the Vine and you are the branches. He who abides in Me and I in him bears much fruit, for without Me you can do nothing” (John 15:4-6).

Some Holy Fathers rightly likened Communion to the mysterious Tree of Life, given to our first parents in Eden (Gen. 2:9, 3:22), and now prepared in Heaven “for the healing of the nations” (Ap. 2:7 and 22:2). Truly, in Communion, a Christian joins the immortal life of Him who lives forever and ever (Apoc. 4:9)!

Thus, the spiritual and physical rebirth of man is the goal of the incarnation of the Son of God. Spiritual renewal occurs throughout the life of a Christian. The renewal of his physical nature will be completed on the day of the general resurrection of the dead, when “the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father” (Matthew 13:43). Communion does not diminish the significance of a Christian’s personal faith and deeds or his good deeds. After all, without faith a person cannot know God and the path of spiritual life. Feats strengthen the human will to do good. Good deeds are a natural manifestation of a person’s faith. They are the fruits of sincere, healthy faith. Faith, deeds and good deeds mutually strengthen each other, but the rebirth of man is accomplished by God. Every believer needs to clearly understand this fact.

The modern sectarian Christian lacks the hallmark of the lost sheep of the gospel: obedience to God and humility. Even when he sincerely longs for salvation, he wants to be saved in his own way, and not as Christ taught. Whoever truly strives for rebirth will receive it by eating from the “Tree of Life.” And for him, the Nativity of Christ is not only an important event of the past, but today’s miracle of man’s communion with the overabundant life of the incarnate Son of God.

The remarkable thing is that by uniting with Christ in Communion, through Him we are united with each other into one Church (Eph. 1:10) - this great heavenly-earthly family, this universal organization, this impregnable rock, against which, according to the promise, all the fierce attacks of the hordes of hell will be crushed (Matt. 16:18)!

Bishop Alexander of Buenos Aires and South America

The word “rebirth” or “birth” (in the spiritual sense) is a New Testament word, and it practically does not appear in the Old Testament, but in the New Testament it is used many times, and for the first time its mysterious spiritual content is revealed in the conversation of Christ with Nicodemus (John. 3:3-6): “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a person is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.<...>unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God<...>That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.”

This mystical theology of rebirth in the Sacrament of Baptism is mentioned more than once by the Apostle Paul (see Titus 3:5; Eph. 5:26), but its meaning is revealed in particular detail in the 6th chapter of the Epistle to the Romans: “We were buried with Him through baptism in death, so that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. For if we are united with Him in the likeness of His death, we must also be united in the likeness of His resurrection” (Rom. 6:4-5). This mystical renewal is also realized in moral rebirth.

It is clear that the word “rebirth” spoken by Christ cannot be defined within the framework of physical and biological empirics. In the spiritual and moral sense, rebirth takes place in the Sacrament of Baptism, where a “new creation” is born with grace; at the same time, the regenerated “new creation” receives liberation from the deadness of sin, and then, in fact, life begins. In more detail, but also most mysteriously, Jesus Christ Himself speaks about this in a conversation with the Samaritan woman: “If you knew the gift of God, and Who says to you: “Give me a drink,” then you yourself would ask Him, and He would give you water live<...>everyone who drinks this water [from the well] will thirst again; and whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never thirst; but the water that I will give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into eternal life<...>The time will come, and has already come, when true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is looking for such worshipers for Himself” (John 4:10-23).

The “living water” that Christ speaks of can be understood in many ways. This is the water of holy Baptism, and the grace-filled New Testament teaching, and, finally, the direct influence of the holy Person of the God-Man who spoke to the Samaritan woman. In any case, the regenerating influence of the personality of Jesus was felt immediately (which is seen more than once in the Gospel). By the end of this conversation with Jesus, the Samaritan woman becomes different than at the beginning.

The regenerating power of God, this “living water,” turns out to be ineffective if it encounters resistance or at least indifference. Then a period of languid, unclear waiting turns out to be necessary. The soul sometimes vaguely, sometimes definitely experiences its deadness. And when reviving grace touches it, the soul learns that this is what it has been waiting for all its life.

Rebirth is accomplished by God, and as a result, those reborn become “children of God” (John 1:12). The process of revival itself is diverse and humanly incomprehensible. Sometimes it happens slowly and in the mysterious depths of the soul. “The Kingdom of God is like if a man throws a seed into the ground, and sleeps and rises night and day, and how the seed sprouts and grows, he does not know; for the earth itself produces first greenery, then an ear, then a full grain in the ear” (Mark 4:26-28). In other cases, like the conversion of the Apostle Paul on the road to Damascus (see Acts 9:3-7) or like one of the thieves on the cross (see Luke 23:40-42), this happens instantly, although , apparently, and at the same time a mysterious preparation of the soul occurs. But one way or another, a person who was previously a “child of the flesh” becomes a “child of God,” and this is another birth, a rebirth. Folklore works, fairy tales about “living and dead water” fantasyally reflect this real act; in fact, it sometimes consists of two stages. The first is liberation from the forces that direct the personality to a false life, that is, ultimately to death; and the second is the actual infusion of forces into the purified soul, directing it to life and light. The trouble is when the matter is limited to the first stage. Then a story similar to the one told by the Savior about the seven unclean spirits can happen to a person: when an unclean spirit, having left a person, returns again and, finding the house of his soul “unoccupied, swept and tidied up,” enters there with seven comrades who are more evil than him. “And the last thing for that person is worse than the first” (Matthew 12:44-45). But the regenerating power of God, this “living water,” turns out to be ineffective if it encounters resistance or at least indifference. Then a period of languid, unclear waiting turns out to be necessary. The soul sometimes vaguely, sometimes definitely experiences its deadness. And when reviving grace touches it, the soul learns that this is what it has been waiting for all its life. For example, the word of God can have such a regenerating effect, as the Apostle writes: “He begat us with the word of truth” (James 1:18).

But, of course, the initial moment of rebirth is not enough; regeneration must operate continuously. From the objective side, this is impossible without the Communion of the Body and Blood of Christ, for then the life of Christ flows, as it were, from Christ to His participants, as is clear from the lofty comparison of Jesus Himself: “I am the vine, and you are the branches” (John 15:5); and even more definitely: “He who eats My Flesh and drinks My Blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day” (John 6:54). Revived by the Resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead (see 1 Pet. 1:3), the new creation possesses some features of true life, which are at the same time distinctive signs of a regenerated person.

The first and main one is a new type of moral being, which the word of God calls doing righteousness: “Everyone who does righteousness is born of Him” (God - 1 John 2:29), because he who is reborn by the word of God cannot live otherwise. Doing the truth is organic to authentic living. But, of course, this organic nature is incompatible with a once and for all given program; this is the organic nature of another being, having different personal properties, first of all, a different mind. “We have the mind of Christ,” writes the Apostle Paul (1 Cor. 2:16). Having the mind of Christ does not mean having a different structure of thinking than all people, or, for example, never being mistaken or thinking about something different. According to the context of the message of the Apostle Paul, the “mind of Christ” is the mind of a spiritual person, in contrast to the spiritual, that is, earthly, which considers everything from the standpoint of its own psychology, distorted by sin. A spiritual person has true knowledge coming from God, and therefore can correctly judge everything and knows everything. Thus, the mind of Christ is the mind of a whole, undivided, i.e., regenerated personality.

Such a person reborn from God becomes alive for God, but thereby dead to the former way of life, to sin (see Rom. 6:11). This “deadness to sin” or, in another expression of the Apostle, “crucifixion of oneself” to the sinful world, and the world to oneself (see Gal. 6:14) is, on the one hand, a real manifestation of the moral result of an individual’s life, and on the other hand - a necessary condition for its revival.

The fullness of an integral, moral, regenerated personality, while simple, can at the same time be considered in various aspects in accordance with various categories of New Testament moral experience, such as faith, hope, love, Christian joy, repentance, peace, goodness, obedience. But not in themselves these various moral values ​​are dear and important, but because in their unity a person reborn in Christ is revealed, organically and completely aware of himself - both in his personal uniqueness, and in the unity of love with brothers and sisters, and in indissoluble communion with Jesus Christ.

And self-consciousness itself then represents something more than just a rationalistic, intuitive or generally any psychological process, even the most perfect one. The reborn personality reveals the spiritual content of self-awareness, in which the “I” turns out to be significantly more significant than just an individual phenomenon - both in its own experience and in connection with other similar “I”. A person perceives his spiritual nature not imaginatively, but in those real spiritual contexts that are revealed by God. In other words, this knowledge is Divine and given by God Himself. At the same time, the personality, while maintaining its uniqueness, only perceives this knowledge, but not passively, but in continuous moral action.

This self-awareness of the regenerated personality is victorious: “everyone born of God overcomes the world” (1 John 5:4). This victory consists of freedom (as independence). A person who has conquered the world (including the reality of the world and the reality of the empirical unregenerate “I”) knows his victory not in the fact that it gives him complete independence from the conditions of existence (it is impossible, for example, not to eat at all or not to dress in the cold), but The fact is that these conditions in themselves do not have any moral value for the reborn moral personality; they are personally indifferent to her. For a reborn personality, genuine personal ideals are revealed, but not in a cold, abstract scheme, but in the living person of Jesus Christ, with whom man is connected by faith, the partaking of His Body and Blood and moral life, in which he strives to become like Christ.

God can “raise up children for Abraham from these stones” (Matthew 3:9), but usually new personalities are recreated on the material of the previous ones. And although the difference between the new and the old may be striking, still both the individual in his self-awareness and other people around him cannot help but recognize that, no matter how new, reborn, he is, in some essential sense he is the same, that is, God revives a new personality on the material and with the participation of the old one and, therefore, in the human personality there are those properties for the sake of which the God-Man was incarnate.

A person is not a bag of qualities, or even just a good mosaic pattern in which everything is superbly selected and fitted. And it is not self-satisfaction that makes a person consider himself the image of God.

We are not talking about abstract psychological characteristics, no matter how valuable they may be. The human personality does not consist of various moral, mental, intuitive and all other qualities - they only differ, are revealed, and are embodied in the personality. A person is not a bag of qualities, or even just a good mosaic pattern in which everything is superbly selected and fitted. And it is not self-satisfaction that makes a person consider himself the image of God. (Although in humanistic madness a person can put himself on the highest pedestal outside and apart from the Creator, not seeing that by doing this in his corrupted consciousness he does not elevate, but diminishes the significance of human nature and personality.)

The divinely revealed knowledge about the image of God in man was so joyfully accepted because it gave an exact answer to a person who vaguely aspired and continuously searched for his meaning and purpose; because with this understanding - and only with such an understanding - even mistakes could be correctly assessed: a person learned the price of a mistake. Moreover, knowing what the image of God is, he could guess much more thoroughly what God Himself is like, no matter how tattered this image turned out to be.

Humanity yearns for true freedom and seeks it; but this same desire enslaves the personality, making it dependent on searches, implementations, constant dissatisfaction due to the incompleteness or fallacy of these implementations

And yet, how significant are these very qualities, taken into consideration even in the abstract, and even more so in relation to the human personality! No matter how distorted a person’s freedom may be at times—only unrecognizable shreds seem to remain—but still freedom! Even in verbal abuses: political freedom, economic freedom, freedom of the press, etc. (how funny many of them are!) - you can see the desired face of true freedom. Of course, in search of these freedoms, people engage in imaginaries - imaginaries both in the real content of these quasi-freedoms and in understanding the meaning of freedom. The desire for all these freedoms is a manifestation of the fact that humanity yearns for true freedom and seeks it; but this same desire enslaves the personality, making it dependent on searches, implementations, constant dissatisfaction due to the incompleteness or error of these implementations, just as the possession of many earthly goods only at first glance frees a person from caring about them, but in fact only more binds him more to these benefits. “A certain man was rich; He dressed himself in purple and fine linen and feasted brilliantly every day. There was also a certain beggar named Lazarus, who lay at his gate covered with scabs and wanted to be fed with the crumbs falling from the rich man’s table; and the dogs came and licked his sores” (Luke 16:19-21). Of these two - a paradoxical fact - Lazarus had greater independence, in particular from living conditions.

But no matter how (consciously or unconsciously) a person limits his freedom, freedom is manifested in this very limitation, in the choice itself. In general, a person encounters a situation of choice, that is, the possibility of exercising freedom, many times every day, usually without noticing it. In any case, a person does not always see the moral side of his choice (although in some subtle way it is almost always present - as agreement with the will of God or as resistance to it). And in this unnoticed or noticeable free choice, strongly willful or almost weak-willed, deliberate or senseless, with vivid emotional intensity or insensitively dull, always standardly the same in similar situations or demonstratively varied, dependent and independent of intuitive flashes, leading to a certain purpose or obviously aimless, and more than in anything else, the personality of a person with its great gift of freedom is manifested.

If ever a person sought, at least in a dream, to stop the passage of time, it was in moments of particularly acute experience of love; this makes us guess that it is love that connects time and eternity

The scent of freedom is especially noticeable in love; outside of true freedom, love is something ugly; it is nothing more than a type of attraction. Free moral love constitutes the precious spiritual core of the personality. And no matter how much love is wasted, crushed and distorted in various vulgar and ugly addictions, its nature, the heart’s attraction to some center of life remains unchanged and recognizable, and, having felt it, everyone will say: this is it, love. And on the other hand, with all the unity of the nature of love and the similarity of many of its manifestations, in particular verbal ones (it is known how meager the set of words in which such a type of love as falling in love is expressed), how unique and subtle its personal manifestations are, and how These subtle experiences of love are, perhaps, where personalities are most distinguished and recognized! And writers have always understood that if ever a person strives, even in a dream, to stop the passage of time, it is in moments of particularly acute experience of love; This makes us guess that it is love that connects time and eternity; but love is not as an abstract category and not as a meaningless attraction, but as a personal, deep spiritual experience. Freedom and love give birth to the whole system of moral and other movements of the heart, its feelings; and this creates a unique moral and psychological flavor of the individual.

Life is, first of all, meetings with different people, filled with various kinds of attraction and opposition. Relationships in these meetings can vary so capriciously and changeably, focusing the movement of feelings in one way or another. And here, of course, bouquets of poisonous sinful implementations are revealed, but sometimes high-quality moral acts are carried out masterfully.

Of particular value is that great reality of the human personality, which the holy fathers called the dominant part of the soul - the mind. How diverse is the field of his activity: simple rational movements of an everyday nature, and barely perceptible trembling bursts of half-intuition and half-thought, and cold rationalistic judgments of the philosophizing machine, and great breakthroughs to heaven, and cheap little tricks that constantly fill life, and the deepest philosophical systems in which Revelation finds its perfect embodiment, and various scientific discoveries and inventions - from the greatest to the applied, and a clear ability to formulate thoughts, and extreme errors that entail dire consequences. There is not a single area of ​​existence where the mind of the human person, never forgetting about self-awareness, tries to get into and engage in its reflective activity. And how amazingly the lace of personal thought is woven into the movements of feelings, without violating the freedom of intuition and love, but only imparting to them new wealth (although sometimes not useful for the individual, because it is morally negative).

Finally, every individual, no matter how society draws her to leveling and no matter how much she agrees to this leveling herself, is given by God special artistic gifts (for independent creativity or for perception). Of these, the first should be called the gift of speech - much more than just an artistic gift. It is not for nothing that Divine Revelation calls the second Hypostasis of the Divinity God the Word, and the great teachers of the Church were called theologians. A pure, deep, living word expresses the truth of God, brings good to people, reveals the beauty of the world and itself becomes a part of this beauty. With the word, people enter into communication with God, Angels and other people; the word expresses knowledge about the world and about thought; With words, a person prays, repents, thanks, enlightens, has fun, comforts and pacifies. (But the word can carry lies, evil, ugliness and all sorts of depravity.) In the word one can always hear the imprint of the personal world, no matter how simplified and monotonous the principles to which time and society (in particular, the mass media) strive to incline the verbal uniqueness of the individual information).

A person's eyes - in visual images, his ears - in sounds, capture, and partly create, living, organized harmony; and all this is amazingly and uniquely revealed in the world of the human personality. And the more clearly a personality manifests itself, the more it (usually involuntarily) attracts some people and repels others.

Finally, in addition to the categories of freedom, mental, volitional, intuitive, psychological, emotional, verbal and aesthetic characteristics, our special consideration includes ethical characteristics, of course, vitally connected with all of the above, but, of course, having their own subject and content. They constitute the completeness of the value experience of the human soul, which considers all objects (persons, situations, etc.) from the standpoint of objective good and subjective bliss. Of course, a subjectively assessed quality (bliss) based on ordinary human sinfulness may not correspond in degree or quality to real good, but this does not destroy the fact of moral experience, which constantly enters into life, the inner world and behavioral characteristics of the individual. At the same time, any scheme drawn up with great perfection and with many living details, with all its possible “volume”, when applied to any living human personality, turns out to be insufficient. In any personality there is something elusive and inexpressible in words, which a person himself with his deep intuition cannot comprehend in himself: a certain aroma of a unique human secret that animates all these psychological, mental, aesthetic, ethical and other components of various characteristic features of a person.

However, is it always reviving in the exact sense of the word? The Fall, which brought death into the world, also brought a mysterious, incomprehensible desire for death in the human soul. And for this reason, Christ came to earth, giving us rebirth, so that the expressed and inexpressible desire for death could be turned into the desire for life - in everything, and first of all, of course, in love and in general in moral life, then in the life of the mind , intuitions, feelings, so that in this way the reborn person appears as a perfect person.