LAWTON CHURCH OF GOD, LAWTON,
OKLAHOMA
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HOMILY 30
1.
Those who hear the word should give witness to the working of the Word in their
own souls. The word of God is not an idle word, but it has its own work upon the
soul. For this reason it is called a “work” so that the work may be found in
those who hear it. May the Lord, therefore, grant the work of truth in the
hearers so that the Word may be found fruitful in us. For just as the shadow
precedes the body, but reveals it, so also, while the truth is the body itself,
the Word is like a shadow of the truth of Christ. Thus the Word precedes the
truth. Fathers on earth beget children of their own nature from their body and
soul, and when they are born fathers educate them carefully with every attention
since they are their own children until they become full grown men and
successors and heirs. For the aim and every striving of fathers from the
beginning is to beget children and have heirs. And if they had not had any
children, they would have suffered the greatest sorrow and grief, while having
had children, they had joy. Also their relatives and neighbors rejoice. 2.
In the same way also our Lord, Jesus Christ, was concerned with humanity’s
salvation. He exercised from the beginning every providential planning and
diligence through the fathers, the patriarchs, through the Law and the prophets.
Finally he himself came and suffered the ignominy of the cross and endured
death. And all this labor and diligence of his was done so that he might beget
from himself and his very own nature children from his Spirit. He was pleased
that they were to be born from above, of his own Godhead. And just as those
fathers, if they have no offspring, are saddened, so also the Lord who loved
man- 190- kind as his own image wished them to be born from his seed of the
Godhead. If any of them, therefore, do not wish to come to such a birth and to
be born of the womb of the Spirit of the Godhead, Christ receives great sorrow,
suffering on their behalf and enduring so much in order to save them. 3.
For the Lord wishes all to be considered worthy of this birth. For he died on
behalf of all and he has called all to life. Indeed this life is the birth from
above of God. Without this one cannot live as the Lord says: “Unless one will
be born from above, he cannot see the Kingdom of God” (John 3:3). And so, on
the contrary, as many as believe the Lord and come to be deemed worthy of
receiving this birth, they bring joy and great happiness in Heaven to the
parents that gave them birth. And all the angels and holy powers rejoice over a
person who is born of the Spirit and has become spirit. For this body is a
likeness to the soul and the soul is an image of the Spirit. And as the body
without the soul is dead, and cannot do anything whatsoever, so without the
heavenly soul, that is, without the divine Spirit, the soul is reckoned dead as
far as the kingdom goes, being unable to do any of the things of God without the
Spirit. 4.
Just as the portrait painter is attentive to the face of the king as he paints,
and, when the face of the king is directly opposite, face to face, then he
paints the portrait easily and well. But when he turns his face away, then the
painter cannot paint because the face of the subject is not looking at the
painter. In a similar way the good portrait painter, Christ, for those who
believe in him and gaze continually toward him, at once paints according to his
own image a heavenly man. Out of his Spirit, out of the substance of the light
itself, ineffable light, he paints a heavenly image and presents to it its noble
and good Spouse. If
anyone, therefore, does not continually gaze at him, overlooking all else, the
Lord will not paint his image with his own light. It is necessary that we gaze
on him, believing and loving him, casting aside all else and attending to him so
that he may paint his own heavenly image and send it into our souls. And thus
carrying Christ, we may receive eternal life and even here, filled with
confidence, we may be at rest. 5.
Just as in the case of the golden coin, if it does not receive the imprint of
the king’s image, it does not reach the marketplace nor is it stored up in the
royal treasuries, but it is discarded, so also the soul, if it does not have the
image of the heavenly Spirit in the ineffable light, namely, Christ, stamped on
it, it is not useful for the treasuries above and is cast out by the merchants
of the kingdom, the Apostles. For also he who was invited and yet did not wear
the wedding garment was cast out as a stranger into the alien darkness for not
wearing the heavenly image. This is the mark and sign of the Lord stamped upon
souls, being the Spirit of the ineffable light. And as a cadaver is useless and
completely of no good to those of a given place, and so they carry it outside
the city and bury it, so also the soul which does not bear the heavenly image of
the divine light, the life of the soul, is rejected and completely cast off. For
a dead soul is of no profit to that city of the saints, since it does not bear
the radiant and divine Spirit. For just as in the world the soul is the life of
the body, so also in the eternal and heavenly world the life of the soul is the
Spirit of the Godhead. 6.
Therefore, he who seeks to believe and to approach to the Lord must beg while
here on earth to receive the divine Spirit. For the Spirit is the life of the
soul, and on this account the Lord came, in order to give his Spirit to the soul
on this earth. For he says: “As long as you have the light, believe in the
light. The night comes when you can no longer work” (John 12:36, 9:4). If
anyone, therefore, while on this earth does not seek and has not received life
for his soul, namely, the divine light of the Spirit, when he departs from his
body, he is already separated into the places of darkness on the left side. He
does not come into the Kingdom of Heaven, but has his end in hell with “the
devil and his angels” (Matthew 25:41). Or
take the example of gold or silver that is thrown into the fire. It becomes
purer and more tested and nothing can make it to be otherwise, such as wood or
hay, for it devours all things that approach it, for they become also fire. For
the soul that is plunged into the fire of the Spirit and in the divine light
will suffer no harm from any of the evil spirits. Even if anything should come
near to it, it is consumed by the heavenly fire of the Spirit. Or as a bird,
when it flies up high, has no worry and does not fear the bird-catchers or the
evil beasts, for being up so high, it laughs at all below. So also the soul that
has received the wings of the Spirit. It flies up into the heights of heaven and
being higher than all else, it derides them all. 7.
Israel, the people of God according to the flesh, passed through after Moses had
divided the sea. But these, since they are the children of God, walk from above
over the sea of bitterness of the evil powers. Their body and their soul have
become the house of God. In
that day when Adam fell, God came walking in the garden. He wept, so to speak,
seeing Adam and he said: “After such good things, what evils you have chosen!
After such glory, what shame you now bear! What darkness are you now! What ugly
form you are! What corruption! From such light, what darkness has covered
you!” When Adam fell and was dead in the eyes of God, the Creator wept over
him. The angels, all the powers, the heavens, the earth and all creatures
bewailed his death and fall. For they saw him, who had been given to them as
their king, now become a servant of an opposing and evil power. Therefore,
darkness became the garment of his soul, a bitter and evil darkness, for he was
made a subject of the prince of darkness. This was the person who was wounded by
robbers and left half dead as he “was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho”
(Luke 10:30). 8.
For Lazarus also, whom the Lord raised up, exuded so fetid an odor that no one
could approach his tomb, as a symbol of Adam whose soul exuded such a great
stench and was full of blackness and darkness. But you, when you hear about Adam
and the wounded traveler and Lazarus, do not let your mind wander as it were
into the mountains, but remain inside within your soul, because you also carry
the same wounds, the same smell, the same darkness. We
are all his sons of that dark race and we all inherit the same stench.
Therefore, the passion that he suffered, all of us, who are of Adam’s seed,
suffer also. For such a suffering has hit us, as Isaiah says: “It is not a
wound, nor a bruise, nor an inflamed sore. It is impossible to apply a soothing
salve or oil or to make bandages” (Isaiah 1:6). Thus we were wounded with an
incurable wound. Only the Lord could heal it. For this he came in his own person
because no one of the ancients nor the Law itself nor the prophets were able to
heal it. He alone, when he came, healed that sore, the incurable sore of the
soul. 9.
Let us, therefore, receive God the Lord, the true healer, who alone can come to
heal our souls, after he has borne so much on our behalf. For he is always
knocking at the doors of our hearts in order that we may open up to him and that
he may enter in and take his rest in our souls, and that we may wash his feet
and he may take up his abode with us. The Lord in that passage admonishes him
who did not wash his feet (Luke 7:44). And again he says elsewhere: “Behold I
stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I
shall come in unto him” (Revelation 3:20). For this purpose he endured many
sufferings, giving his body over to death and buying our ransom from slavery so
that he, coming to our soul, might make his abode there. For
this reason the Lord says to those on the left side in the judgment, sent by him
into hell with the devil: “I was a stranger and you did not take me in. I was
hungry and you gave me not to eat. I was thirsty and you gave me not to drink”
(Matthew 25:42–43). For his food and drink and clothing and shelter and rest
are in our souls. Always, therefore, is he knocking, seeking to enter into us.
Let us receive him and lead him within ourselves, because he himself is our food
and life and drink and our eternal life. And every person who has not now
received him within and found rest, or rather found his rest in him, does not
have an inheritance in the Kingdom of Heaven nor can he enter into the heavenly
city. But you, yourself, Lord Jesus Christ, lead us into it, as we glorify your
name with the Father and the Holy Spirit forever. Amen.
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