My beloved spiritual children in Christ Our Only True God and Our Only True Savior,
CHRIST IS IN OUR MIDST! HE WAS, IS, AND EVER SHALL BE.
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GOD AND SALVATION
The Human Nature of the Lord Jesus Christ
Being perfect God, Christ the Savior is at the same time also perfect Man.
As Man, Christ was born when for Mary, His mother, "the days were accomplished that she should be delivered" (Luke 2:6). He gradually "grew, and waxed strong in spirit" (Luke 2:40). As Mary's son, He "was subject unto her and her spouse" (Luke 2:51). As Man, He was baptized by John in the Jordan; He went about the cities and villages with the preaching of salvation; not once before His Resurrection did he encounter a need to prove His humanity to anyone. He experienced hunger and thirst, the need for rest and sleep, and He suffered painful feelings and physical sufferings.
Living the physical life natural to a man, the Lord also lived the life of the soul as a man. He strengthened His spiritual powers with fasting and prayer. He experienced human feelings: joy, anger, sorrow. He expressed them outwardly: He "was troubled in spirit" (John 13:21), showed dissatisfaction, shed tears--for example, at the death of Lazarus. The Gospels reveal to us a powerful spiritual battle in the garden of Gethsemane on the night before He was taken under guard: "My soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even unto death" (Matthew 26:38)--thus did the Lord describe the state of His soul to His disciples.
The rational, conscious human will of Jesus Christ unfailingly placed all human striving in submission to the Divine Will in Himself. A strikingly evident image of this is given in the Passion of the Lord, which began in the garden of Gethsemane: "O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless, not as I will, but as Thu wilt" (Matthew 26:39). "Not my will, but Thine, be done" (Luke 22:42).
Concerning the Truth of the Savior's fully human nature, the Holy Fathers of the Church speak thus:
Saint Cyril of Alexandria: "If the nature which He received had not had a human mind, then the one who entered into battle with the devil was God Himself; and it was, therefore, God Who gained the victory. But if God was victorious, then I, who did not participate in this victory at all, do not receive any benefit from it. Therefore, I cannot rejoice over it, for I would then be boasting of someone else's trophies."
Saint Cyril of Jerusalem: "If the becoming man was a phantom, the salvation is a dream." Other Holy Fathers expressed themselves similarly.
The One Worship of Christ
To the Lord Jesus Christ as to one person, as the God-man, it is fitting to give a single inseparable worship, both according to Divinity and according to Humanity, precisely because both natures are inseparably united in Him. The decree of the Holy Fathers of the Fifth Ecumenical Council (The Ninth Canon against Heretics) reads: "If anyone shall take the expression, Christ ought to be worshipped in His two natures, in the sense that he wishes to introduce thus two adorations, the one in special relation to God the Logos/Word and the other as pertaining to the Man ... and does not venerate, by one adoration, God the Logos/Word made man, together with His flesh, as the Holy Church has taught from the beginning: Let him be anathema" Eerdmans, Seven Ecumenical Councils, p. 314). (Orthodox Dogmatic Theology by Father Michael Pomazansky)
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"Glory Be To GOD For All Things!" - Saint John Chrysostomos
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With sincere agape in His Holy Diakonia (Ministry)
The sinner and unworthy servant of God
+Father George