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What We Believe About In this session we do not go on further in the creed because more remains to be said before we can proceed. I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible; And in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Only-begotten, Begotten of the Father before all worlds, Light of Light, Very God of Very God, Begotten, not made, of one essence with the Father, by whom all things were made: Who for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven, and was incarnate of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary, and was made man; And was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate and suffered and was buried; And the third day He arose again, according to the Scriptures; And ascended into heaven, and sitteth at the right hand of the Father; And He shall come again with glory to judge the living and the dead, Whose kingdom shall have no end. And I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and Giver of Life, Who proceedeth from the Father, Who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and glorified, who spake by the prophets; And I believe in one Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church. I acknowledge one Baptism for the remission of sins. I look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. Amen. We were not able to speak in sufficient detail regarding the immaterial creation in the last session. God, before he called into being those things which we see first created a whole array of spiritual, immaterial beings who are, first of all, creatures. Their lives are not material in any way. When they appear to human beings they assume an appearance of visibility for the occasion, but it’s not part of their being. They are rational beings. Like man, they have reason, intellect, and free will. It has pleased God to leave them much in mystery. We don’t know all that much about how the angels live. Their presence in the experience of God’s people is very important. From one end of the Bible to the other the angels are there. The visible and invisible worlds intersect from time to time. God uses angels as messengers to bring His news, to be a sign of His protection. Scriptural terms referring to the immaterial beings include
Michael (like God) Gabriel (strength of God) Rafael (healing of God)
It’s not for us to understand precisely the nature of each of these ranks. We know that the angels bring God’s messages to us when He so wills it. We know that the Archangels bring great messages (e.g., Gabriel brings the announcement to Mary that she is to conceive the Son of God). The Cherubim and the Seraphim, sometimes spoken of as the highest of the heavenly powers, worship God. The "six -winged" Cherubim and the "many -eyed" Seraphim continually fall down before God worshipping Him, crying, "Holy! Holy! Holy!" with mouths that do not grow tired. The ranks of the heavenly host together are a world of their own. They are a spiritual world which comes into contact with the physical world when God wills it. Based on the testimony of Jesus ("See that you do not despise one of these little ones, for I say to you, that their angels in heaven continually behold the face of My Father who is in heaven." Matt 18:10) and the experience of the saints of the Church, it is the understanding in the Church that each human being is given by God a guardian angel to help, guide, guard from evil, etc. We will speak more of the angelic world later because both it and the visible world were tragically involved in and affected by the Fall. But before we can speak about the Fall it is necessary to speak of one more aspect of the human creation which is a reflection of the image and likeness of God. In the teaching of the Church the maleness and femaleness of the human beings is more than something merely biological. Everything about us in our special human condition, including sexuality, is a reflection of the special image and likeness of God. The male and female complement each other perfectly in God’s plan. They are necessary for each other. Genesis describes the woman as being taken from the rib of the man, his very substance, the heart of the being of the man, and she is created by God as a necessary complement. On the human level the male and the female complement and perfect each other as a reflection of how, on the divine level, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, the three persons of the One god, live together in perfect communion. This is not to say that you can confuse the two. Human creation is human creation and God is God. The male and female within human creation is a reflection of the fullness of communion that God intends for us.
It is out task tonight to discuss what happens to creation, both visible and invisible, once it is called from non-existence in to being. The rational creatures, both the heavenly hosts and the human beings, were created by God with the gifts of intellect and free will. We will focus on free will – what it is and why God created us with it - because everything that we talk about after this in relation to what God does for His creation depends on how we understand free will. We don’t come into existence programmed to do good or to love. God has decided in the mystery of His knowledge to make a human creature that is not merely instinctive. We have to choose to do it. For a creature to be called to the indescribably high destiny of having life and communion with God it would be absurd for him to come into existence already set up to do that. There has to be the choice there. Man has to choose to remain in communion with God. Speaking in human terms, God "takes a risk" in creating man this way – the risk being the creatures may abuse their free will, turning away from God. In creating beings with free will, God necessarily allowed for the possibility of evil. We have to face that. All the evil that has existed exists because God created angels and men with free will. God allows evil to exist. God’s permission for evil to exist does not mean that God is the cause or author of evil. God is light and in Him there is no darkness. He cannot be the author of evil. God is, in His love for creation, grieved by evil and He does not turn away from His creation. This Fall, this abuse of free will, its use to not remain in communion with God but to turn away from God, happens in both realms of creation. First, it occurs in the invisible realm with the Fall of Lucifer (who becomes Satan) and the rebellious angels and then the Fall is repeated on the level of visible creation with the Fall of the first parents. One of the first intersections of the spiritual world with the material world is the involvement of the former in the Fall of the latter. In the world of the spiritual beings there occurred a revolt against God by one of the principal archangels, Lucifer. Lucifer means the light bearer, the radiant one. There was a war in heaven because Lucifer wanted to be worshipped as God was worshipped. He did not want to worship God but wanted to be worshipped himself as an independent God. Central to this first sin, to the entry of evil into the created order, was the pride of Lucifer. The archangel Michael ("Who is like God?") was the great adversary of Lucifer in this heavenly battle and he and the holy angels prevailed against Lucifer (who became Satan – the adversary, or the accuser) and Satan and the fallen angels were cast out of heaven. They lost their place because in the application of their free will, they voluntarily turned away from God. The refusal of Satan to worhship God and to instead insist on the worhsip of self is, in the end, the essence of all sin. There was also in Satan great jealousy or envy. What was Satan jealous of? The answer is that he was jealous and envious of human beings. The Wisdom of Solomon tells us that by the envy of the devil death entered into the world. Satan and the fallen angels, after the Fall, continually try to destroy and poison the material creation. Their hatred is especially aimed at the human beings. Perhaps Satan understood partially that God had made the human being to be the apex of His creation. Satan spends all of his evil energy in trying to destroy the human creation and turn the human beings against God. That’s why the presence of Satan in the Fall of the first parents is central. It is the desire of Satan to bring death into the world. He sees that there is a material being created by God to be immortal and he wants to spoil it. When we speak about the Devil and his legions of demons we have to be very clear, first of all, that they are personal beings. They are not an evil force opposite to, and equal to, God. The Devil is not the opposite of God. He is a creature who chose to reject God. Moving to the material level, human beings also have the gift of free will. They are created in the image and likeness of God. Human beings do not come into existence absolutely perfect with no growth required. If they are to remain in the image and likeness in which they are created, if they are going to grow in communion with God (which is His desire for them), they have to choose to use their free will to love and obey Him. This is the central to the story recounted in Genesis chapter 3. God set the first parents in a paradise of delight where they are to be immortal, where they are to be the king and queen of creation. But there is one tree which man is not to touch. God warns Adam and Eve that if they disobey him with regard to the tree, "You will die." And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, "From any tree of the garden you may eat freely; but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you shall surely die." Gen 2:16-17 God does not say, "I will kill you." It’s not about what God will do. It’s about what man will choose to do. It’s all based on man’s exercise of his free will. Satan then enters the picture. Now the serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said to the woman, "Indeed, has God said, 'You shall not eat from any tree of the garden'?" And the woman said to the serpent, "From the fruit of the trees of the garden we may eat; but from the fruit of the tree which is in the middle of the garden, God has said, 'You shall not eat from it or touch it, lest you die.'" And the serpent said to the woman, "You surely shall not die! "For God knows that in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." Gen 3:1-5 In his hatred of God and man, Satan succeeds in his deception as man chooses "to be like God" rather than worship the true God. When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desirable to make one wise, she took from its fruit and ate; and she gave also to her husband with her, and he ate. Gen 3:6 The word "sin" in Greek is amartia. The middle section of the word, mart, comes from the same root as the English word, mark. The prefix a is a negative prefix so to sin is "to miss the mark," to use something for which it is not intended. In this original sin Adam and Eve choose to consume this fruit independently of God, to become like God in and of themselves. God, through His communion with them, intended to raise them higher and higher to the immortal image and likeness that He had destined for them. But man said, "No! I will do that myself. I will be a private god, an individual independent god." At the core of every sin committed, from the first to the most recent, is this abuse of the free will by man, desiring to become his own private god apart from God. The result of the original sin was a catastrophe, the tragedy of tragedies. Man - who was created to be the immortal king of creation and never die - dies! He becomes mortal. Central to Orthodox Christianity, to any Christian being able to really respond to the gospel, is to grasp in the heart of the being as well as the mind this understanding that we were not created by God to die. It is the exact opposite of what should have happened to us. It remains until the last human being coming into the world a terrible, terrible tragedy. The results of the Fall include:
Since then the children share in flesh and blood, He Himself likewise also partook of the same, that through death He might render powerless him who had the power of death, that is, the devil; and might deliver those who through fear of death were subject to slavery all their lives. Heb 2:14-15 It is the fear of dearth that subjects the human being to bondage and makes him sin. We became subjected to sin because we had united with something that is our opposite – death. We were locked in a repeating cycle of sin and death. Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because (in death) all sinned-- Rom 5:12 Seeking to find an escape from an inescapable prison, man has created all sorts of idolatries, false gods. The essence of sin is to take what is not God and turn it into god. That is what Lucifer did with himself, that’s what Adan and Eve did with themselves, that’s what we do with ourselves. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all shall be made alive. But each in his own order: Christ the first fruits, after that those who are Christ's at His coming, then comes the end, when He delivers up the kingdom to the God and Father, when He has abolished all rule and all authority and power. For He must reign until He has put all His enemies under His feet. The last enemy that will be abolished is death. 1 Cor 15:22-26 The last enemy to be destroyed is death. Death is our enemy. Death is what imprisons us in frustration, darkness, meaninglessness, sickness, corruption, and sin. For there to be salvation there has to be release from death. It is important to note that immediately after the first sin there is a promise of God relating to our future deliverer. And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; He shall bruise you on the head, and you shall bruise him on the heel." Gen 3:15 What is man’s condition following the Fall and his expulsion from Paradise? Man was not cut off entirely from God. Nor did man lose the image and likeness of God in which they were created. Nor did they cease to become good. The creation that God has created as an overflowing of His love remains very good. But the possibility for the human creation to attain the destiny that God wants for it has now, on man’s side, been broken so God must restore it. The Orthodox Church does not believe or teach that because of the Fall everything good in man has been lost (i.e., the Calvinist doctrine of "total depravity"). Man remains good, in the image and likeness of God. The image and likeness has been covered with all sorts of corruption and is imprisoned in death and can’t reach the potential God wants for it - but it is still there. Even the fallen man remains capable of doing good (as is constantly witnessed all through the Old Testament). How does Orthodoxy address the central religious question that most people ask, "How does a good God permit evil?" He permits it because in His Divine mind, which is impossible for us to completely fathom, He knew from the beginning how it would be in the end. He knew everything He would do to save this world and these creatures that He made and loves. Our faith is that, from the point of view of God’s eternal mind, even though there is such great evil, yet the good that will be made possible by what God does (who does not cut Himself off from His creation) will be immeasurably greater than the evil. God’s answer to the question, "Why evil?" is not an answer of words primarily, but an answer of deeds. God did something in response to the evil that entered His creation. We’ll talk about that next time when we begin to speak about the, "one Lord, Jesus Christ." |