My beloved spiritual children in Our Lord Jesus Christ Our Only True God and Our Only True Savior,CHRIST IS RISEN! TRULY HE IS RISEN!

THE RESURRECTION OF OUR LORD AND SAVIOR JESUS CHRIST THE SAVING FRUITS OF THE RESURRECTION OF CHRIST

The Resurrection of Christ is "the foundation and the crown of ourT Orthodox Christian Faith." The Resurrection of Christ is the first and most important, great truth, with the proclamation of which the most Holy Apostles began their preaching of the Gospel after the descent of the Holy Spirit. Just as by the death of Christ on the Cross our Redemption was accomplished, so by His Resurrection "eternal life was given to us." Therefore, the Resurrection of Christ is the object of the Church's constant triumph, its unceasing rejoicing, which reaches its summit in the Feast of the Holy Christian Pascha--"today all creation is glad and rejoices, for Christ has Risen" (Canon of Pascha, Canticle 9).

The saving fruits of the Resurrection of Christ are:

(a) the victory over hell and death;

(b) the blessedness of the Saints in heaven and the beginning of the existence of the Heavenly Church (Church Triumphant);

A. The Victory Over Hell and Death

Human existence after the loss of Paradise has two forms: a) the eathly, bodily life; and b) the life after death.

Earthly life ends with the death of the body. The soul preserves its existence after bodily death also, but its condition after death, according to the word of God and the teaching of the Holy Fathers of the Church, is diverse. Until the coming to earth of the Son of God, and until His Resurrection from the dead, the souls of the dead were in a condition of rejection, being far away from God, in darkness, in hell, in the underworld (the Hebrew "Sheol," Genesis 37:35, Septuagint). To be in hell was like spiritual death, as is expressed in the words of the Old Testament Psalm, "In hades who will confess Thee?" (Psalm 6:6). In hell, there were imprisoned also the souls of the Old Testament Righteous ones. These Righteous ones lived on earth with faith in the coming Savior, as the holy Apostle Paul explains in the 11th Chapter of his Epistle (Letter) to the Hebrews, and after death, they languished in expectation of their redemption and deliverance. Thus it continued until the Resurrection of Christ, until the coming of the New Testament: "And these all, having obtained a good report through faith, received not the promise, God having provided some better thing for us, that they without us should not be made perfect" (Hebrews 11:39-40). Our deliverance was also their deliverance.

Christ, after His death on the Cross, descended in His soul and in His Divinity into hell, at the same time that His body remained in the grave. He preached salvation to the captives of hell and brought up from there all the Old Testament Righteous ones into the bright mansions of the Kingdom of Heaven. Concerning this raising up of the Righteous Ones from hell, we read in the Epistle (Letter) of Saint Peter: "For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit; by which also He went and preached unto the spirits in prison" (1 Peter 3:18-19). And in the same place we read further: "For this cause was the Gospel preached also to them that are dead, that they might be judged according to men in the flesh, but live according to God in the spirit" (1 Peter 4:6). Saint Paul speaks of the same thing: quoting the verse of the Psalm, "When He ascended up on high, He led captivity captive, and gave gifts unto men," the Apostle continues: "Now that He ascended what is it but that He also descended first into the lower parts of the earth? He that descended is the same also that ascended up far above all the heavens, that He might fill all things" (Ephesians 4:8-10).

To use the words of Saint John Chrysostom, "Hell was taken captive by the Lord Who descended into it. It was laid waste, it was mocked, it was put to death, it was overthrown, it was bound" (Homily on Pascha).

With the destruction of the bolts of hell (see holy icon of the Resurrection at church) that is, the inescapability of hell, the power of death also was annihilated. First of all, death for righteous men became only a transition from the world below to the world above, to a better life, to life in the light of the Kingdom of God; secondly, bodily death itself became only a temporary phenomenon, for by the Resurrection of Christ the way to to the general resurrection was opened to us. "Now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the first-fruits of them that slept" (1 Corinthians 15:20). The Resurrection of Christ is the pledge of our resurrection: "For as Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive; but every man is his own order: Christ the first-fruits: afterward they that are Christ's at His coming" (1 Corinthians 15:22-23). After this, death will be utterly annihilated. “The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death" (1 Corinthians 15:26).

The Troparion (hymn) of Holy Pascha proclaims to us with special joy the victory over hell and death: "Christ is risen from the dead, trampling down death by death, and on those in the tombs bestowing life.” “Christ ascended up far above all heavens, that He might fill all things” (Ephesians 4:10). (Orthodox Dogmatic Theology by Father Michael Pomazansky)

(To be continued)

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"Glory Be To GOD For All Things!" - Saint John Chrysostom

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With sincere agape in Our Risen Lord and Savior,

The sinner and unworthy servant of God

+ Father George

CHRIST IS RISEN! TRULY HE IS RISEN!