Romans 15:7-16 (Epistle)
7 Therefore receive one another, just as Christ also received us, to the
glory of God. 8 Now I say that Jesus Christ has become a servant to the circumcision for
the truth of God, to confirm the promises made to the fathers, 9 and that the Gentiles might glorify God for His mercy, as it is written:
“For this reason I will confess to You among the Gentiles, And sing to Your
name.” 10 And again he says: “Rejoice, O Gentiles, with His people!” 11 And again: “Praise the LORD, all you Gentiles! Laud Him, all you peoples!” 12 And again, Isaiah says: “There shall be a root of Jesse; And He who shall
rise to reign over the Gentiles, In Him the Gentiles shall hope.”
13 Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that
you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. 14 Now I myself am confident concerning you, my brethren, that you also are
full of goodness, filled with all knowledge, able also to admonish one another.
15 Nevertheless, brethren, I have written more boldly to you on some points,
as reminding you, because of the grace given to me by God, 16 that I might be a minister of Jesus Christ to the Gentiles, ministering the
gospel of God, that the offering of the Gentiles might be acceptable, sanctified
by the Holy Spirit.
Homily on Romans 14
When then he calls Him "a
Minister of the circumcision," he means this, that by having come and
fulfilled the Law, and been circumcised, and born of the seed of Abraham, He
undid the curse, stayed the anger of God, made also those that were to receive
the promises fit for them, as being once for all freed from their alienation.
To prevent then these accused persons from saying, How then came Christ to be
circumcised and to keep the whole Law? He turns their argument to the opposite
conclusion. For it was not that the Law might continue, but that He might put
an end to it, and free thee from the curse thereof, and set thee entirely at
liberty from the dominion of that Law. For it was because thou had transgressed
the Law, that He fulfilled it, not that thou might fulfill it, but that He
might confirm to thee the promises made unto the fathers, which the Law had
caused to be suspended, by showing thee to have offended, and to be unworthy of
the inheritance. And so thou also art saved by grace, since thou was cast off… So
for this let us give thanks to God, and let us have our treasure always in
hand, "that by patience and comfort of the Scriptures we may have
hope" (Rom. xv. 4), and enjoy the good things to come. Which God grant
that we may all attain, by the grace and love toward man of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Matthew
12:38-45 (Gospel)
38 Then some of the scribes and Pharisees answered, saying, “Teacher, we want
to see a sign from You.” 39 But He answered and said to them, “An evil and adulterous generation seeks
after a sign, and no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet
Jonah. 40 For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great
fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the
earth. 41 The men of Nineveh
43 When an unclean spirit goes out of a man, he goes through dry places,
seeking rest, and finds none. 44 Then he says, ‘I will return to my house from which I came.’ And when he
comes, he finds it empty, swept, and put in order. 45 Then he goes and takes with him seven other spirits more wicked than
himself, and they enter and dwell there; and the last state of that man is
worse than the first. So shall it also be with this wicked generation.
On The Spiritual World
In the present question the foundation is:
We believe in the Church. The Church is the heavenly and earthly Body of
Christ, pre-designated for the moral perfection of the members of its earthly
part and for the blessed, joyful, but always active life of its ranks in its
heavenly realm. The Church on earth glorifies God, unites believers, and
educates them morally so that by this means it might ennoble and exalt earthly
life itself — both the personal life of its own children, and the life of
mankind. Its chief aim is to help them in the attainment of eternal life in
God, the attainment of sanctity, without which no man shall see the Lord
(Heb. 12:14).
Thus, it is essential that there be constant
communion between those in the Church on earth and the heavenly Church. In the
Body of Christ all its members are interactive. In the Lord, the Shepherd of
the Church, there are, as it were, two flocks: the heavenly and the earthly
(Epistle of the Eastern Patriarchs, 17th century). "Whether one member
suffer, all the members suffer with it; or one member be honored, all the
members rejoice with it" (1 Cor. 12:26). The heavenly Church rejoices,
but at the same time it sympathizes with its fellow members on earth. St.
Gregory the Theologian gave to the earthly Church of his time the name of
"suffering Orthodoxy"; and thus it has remained until now. This
interaction is valuable and indispensible for the common aim that "we
may grow up into Him in all things ... from Whom the whole body fitly joined
together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the
effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body
unto the building of itself in love" (Eph. 4:15-16).
Protopresbyter Michael Pomazansky
COMMENTARY
ReplyDeleteThe union of the 2 passages above and the respective commentaries by the two men beloved of the church seem to present us with one united thought; "salvation is is a cosmic endeavor".
Not only did this salvation begin in pre-historic times with promises made to holy persons and thus spanning the ages, but then to a nation, and then to the world at large. There are those however, who would prefer to make God, and the spiritual reality subject to themselves, as if they alone were the universe.
For this sickness, there is indeed a medicine, however, it is dpendant upon a choice. The choice to look out at a universe where both spirit and flesh live and have lived together in inter-communion. Once we choose to look into that world, inumerable mysteries open up.
However, great caution is also waranted, not all spirits are of the Lord. Union to the church (Christ's body) is essential for spiritual survival.