It’s completely and entirely necessary that a writing like this should be made, a writing which serves both to give knowledge to ignorant people and correct people with truth who are in error. The Christian religion has suffered innumerable attacks from its main opponent, the devil, through the means of false teachers who have now spawned thousands of denominations for the purpose of confusing the common man, and the devil’s hope is that because of all this confusion it will discourage the common man from making any valiant effort toward his salvation because he wants that common man to believe it is impossible to discern from all the errors and find the one truth which was once for all delivered to the saints.
It’s important to first address why this post must be made; first, anyone who is completely ignorant of the truth is greatly benefited from being introduced to it because it awakens them to the purpose of life and directs their next steps for the better. Second, anyone who desires to be a part of the Christian religion, but is hindered from the errors created by Satan, will have the opportunity to be once for all free of these errors by finally rejecting them and uniting himself to the truth. It has to be stressed that the devil is humanity’s greatest enemy, being the author of all evil and sin, a roaring lion roaming the earth seeking to devour all living things, who has endeavored to deceive humanity with lies and errors which lead them to death since the very beginning.
If there is a man who currently desires to be a Christian but rejects the importance of truth, because he is in error, he should learn that just as Satan deceived the first man causing the first death, Satan likewise currently seeks to deceive the Christian with the hope of causing that potentially renewed man’s second death. Satan is very cunning and his snares aren’t limited to ungodly people and sinners, because he already has a firm hold on these people, but his most clever traps are reserved for the people who have any desire whatsoever to leave his kingdom. Knowing all this, we must avoid his lies, which lead to damnation, and pursue the truth, which leads to salvation. But even apart from Satan and his lies the value and worth of truth stands firm in its own right; even if there were no deception in the world, and only an ignorance of truth, it would still obviously be to everyone’s eternal advantage that they become acquainted with the truth because of all the benefits that come from it.
With that being said, although we’ve devoted a portion of time to the rebuking of error and heresy in general, we will not mention any heretical doctrine or interpretation in this post, because by simply stating the truth it refutes the lie, even if the lie isn’t mentioned once, because the truth leaves no room for the lie since the lie is at odds with the truth. But since we intend to explain much more than the commands of righteous living, but to also explain the history of the world, the future things which haven’t yet happened, and also the sacraments, it might as well be answered now how these things truly relate to salvation and why they’re important to both God and to us (in case anyone accused anything mentioned of being superfluous).
Concerning the history of the world and why it is beneficial to know what formerly happened before our time, this can be shown by a few examples; first, it is good to know that man fell and became mortal because this teaches us why we as creatures currently inhabit a mortal body of flesh with an inclination toward evil and sin that’s in desperate need of a savior. Second, it is good to know that Satan was the one who initiated our fall by deceiving us because this teaches us that we shouldn’t allow him to fool us again but instead be wary and cautious of his deceit. Third, it is good to know that we were first created perfect and good in paradise before the fall which was caused by disobedience because this teaches us about who God is and that He didn’t create us as fallen creatures, but always intended a good and pleasant existence for his creation. It’s imperative that we know our past so that we know exactly why and how we arrived at our present state of existence. And concerning the future things we’ll speak of, which haven’t yet happened, any reasonable man will admit that it’s always to his advantage to know as much as he can about the future, for the purpose of being the most prepared for it. Then, concerning the importance of teaching the sacraments in relation to salvation, the reason this matters to us and God is because the sacraments are the activities He appointed for us to perform, in faith, to access the gifts that He has offered to mankind. Furthermore, it’s so important to recognize the fact that the Bible was written with purpose by God, which was to lead men to truth and salvation. God isn’t an author of confusion and any heresies which have arisen from reading the Bible are not God’s fault but are the inventions of Satan. And so, for the same reason that an honest man will admit there’s no such thing as a murderous pacifist, but knows that a man is either a violent murderer or a peaceful pacifist, we Christians don’t acknowledge a man who sets himself at odds with what the Bible teaches regardless of whether or not he refers to himself as a Christian. The Christian religion can’t be treated as something open for individual interpretation, something intentionally vague and uncertain which can never be objectively understood, but instead a religion clearly defined by its statutes and judgments which are from God.
Since man is a living creature who’s made up of both soul and flesh; he’s fully capable of committing evil by both his soul and his flesh, and is in desperate need of both being healed. To be pure in flesh means to restrain the flesh from all shameful and unrighteous deeds, and to be pure in soul means to keep faith towards God entirely, not adding or diminishing from the truth. Godliness is obscured and dulled by soiling and staining the flesh, and is broken and polluted by allowing falsehood to enter the soul. But perfection is attained when truth is constant in the soul and purity in the flesh. What do you expect to gain if you know the truth in words, but pollute the flesh by performing wicked actions? And likewise, what do you expect to gain if you were to keep your flesh pure but reject truth from abiding in your soul? You’ll see the very great importance of the two and how they rejoice with each other, and are united and allied to bring man face to face with God.
Now, it’s not only practically impossible to explain everything there is to explain about the Christian religion in this writing alone but even doing such a thing would be unprofitable and unwise; instead the aim here is to make a reference video which efficiently introduces one to the Christian religion acting as a manual of essentials (if you will), firmly establishing the foundation of the faith so that by learning just a little you can attain to much. Now, the gospel given in this post shouldn’t be confused with the counterfeit gospel which has recently been contrived by liberal minded fools who will try to pass themselves off as Christians. But instead, keeping God’s words in mind which He spoke through His prophet Jeremiah, “Stand by the ways and see and ask for the ancient paths, Where the good way is, and walk in it; Then you will find a resting place for your souls,” we submit ourselves to the ancient doctrines of the church, rather than entertaining new and novel inventions which suit either the time or region we happen to dwell in, but this is the authentic gospel which was preached by the apostles to the world and preserved by their disciples. Those disciples being the very saints who were instructed by the apostles and approved as teachers by them, to watch over the church in their absence, men who the world wasn’t worthy of. Men like Polycarp, Clement of Rome, Ignatius, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, and Cyprian who preserved the ancient teachings of the apostles even if it was at the cost of their own lives. If you have any doubts about whether or not this article accurately represents their teaching on the Christian faith, I invite you to take some initiative and actually read their writings.
The first point of the Christian faith is the belief in the one true God who is without any beginning, who isn’t made, who isn’t at all material but completely invisible, the only God and the source of everything that exists, and it’s for this reason that we call Him Father.
The second point is the Word of God, the Son of God, Christ Jesus our Lord. He is the firstborn of all creation, the only-begotten Son of God, God from God, light from light, the exact image of His God and Father: through the Son, under the instruction of the Father, everything that was ever made was made; who also in this final age was made man among men, visible and tangible, in order to abolish death and grant eternal life, and to produce a community of union between God and man.
And the third point is: The Holy Spirit, through whom the prophets made their prophecies, and the ancients learned the things of God, and the righteous were instructed in the ways of righteousness; and who in this final age was poured out in a new way upon mankind in all the earth, renewing man to God.
The Father, who is the one and only unbegotten God, made all things in this world out of nothing through His only begotten Son, who we Christians refer to as the Word (Logos); in the same way that a word is generated from within a man for the purpose of conveying and accomplishing his will, we find it fitting to refer to the only begotten God who is generated from the one true God as the Word, who possesses all the fullness of His Father’s deity.
God said, “Let there be light,” and His Word accomplished it. By this same reasoning we find the Son commonly referred to as the Angel of the Lord, which is to say, “the messenger of the Lord”. By God’s Word all things came into being, and by His Holy Spirit He adorned all things, “By the Word of the Lord the heavens were established, and by His Spirit all their power.” The creation of all existing things was accomplished by the Holy Trinity, and conceived by the mind of God the Father.
We Christians believe everything in creation was created by the mind of God with a special purpose and a view to the future, and that nothing that was created was created by mistake or without intention. Through His Word God created the Heavens, the angels, the celestial bodies, the earth, and all creatures and plants that are in existence. And then to finalize the creation we believe God told His perfectly obedient Son to form a creature that would reflect their Image, and this very special and chief creature was mankind. He had created man for incorruption and as an image of His own eternity. Although God had only begotten one Son from His own essence, He nevertheless intended for His Son to be the first of many brothers. It was the very gracious God’s intention that man himself would be a god and son of the Highest, sharing in the wonderful inheritance reserved for the only begotten Son. “The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, heirs also, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ.”
The very first man, Adam, was appointed by God to rule over everything that had been created, and was given the task of naming each and every animal. And so this world was given to man along with the servants of God, who were the angels. However, while the angels were already in their perfection; the lord, that is, man, was small; he was like a child; and it was necessary that he should grow into his perfection. God prepared Adam a place better than this world, excelling in air, beauty, light, food, plants, fruit, water, and all other necessities of life, and that place was called Paradise. And so fair and good was this Paradise, that the Word of God continually lived there with the man, walking and talking with him.
Now, out of everything that was created we can place each thing in one of two camps; the things which are moved by necessity and the things which are moved by free-will. For example, the sun and moon would both belong in the group of things which are moved by necessity. The sun and moon fulfill their regularly scheduled motions and cycles which they are obliged to perform forever by nature. On the other hand, man voluntarily dictates the course of his own actions. So, in creation there are many things which can do nothing other than what has been assigned to them, but there are other things which possess a free will to do whatever they please.
When the very first man was created by God his body was made from the earth. God put a spirit inside the man’s body that would give him a sense of God’s own wisdom and justice and rationality. God also put a soul inside the man’s body which gave him the power to observe and consider the choices that were presented to him. The human body was made to serve as a temple and instrument of action for both the man’s spirit and soul to reside. And so man was given a threefold nature of sorts; the spirit would suggest, the soul would decide, and the body would perform the actions. Man was created as an embodied spirit in this particular way, capable of doing one thing or the other, so that he could prove himself worthy of the great honor and high place in creation designated to him by the Creator, since there can’t be any true goodness without liberty. It was the Father’s will that Adam should be created already good, but that after this point it would be Adam’s responsibility to maintain the good character.
So, after having given mankind free will, the very good God gave mankind a law that they may prove themselves to be truly good. He set them in His own Paradise under the condition that they would observe a commandment, and if they successfully guarded the grace and retained the loveliness of their original innocence, then the life of paradise would be theirs, without sorrow, pain or care, and after it the assurance of immortality in heaven. But if they went astray and became vile, throwing away their birthright of beauty, then they would come under the natural law of death and live no longer in paradise, but, dying outside of it, continue in death and in corruption. This is what Holy Scripture tells us, proclaiming the command of God, “You may eat food from every tree in the garden; but from the tree of knowledge of good and evil you may not eat; if you eat from it you shall die by death.” Not Just die, but to remain in a state of death and corruption. If the God-like creature, man, chose to sin, by doing this he would introduce a mortal and physical corruption into his nature. In the case of mankind; death was the natural and organic consequence of sin. And so when God said to the man, “if you eat from it you shall die by death,” this was meant more as a cautionary warning. The creature made in the image of God was intended to be righteous and good in the same way that God is righteous and good, but when the creature made in the image of God rejected the reason in his spirit, and his body was used to commit the evil conceived in his soul, this would bring the man into a state of corruption, and all his descendants following him.
Now, returning again to the subject of creatures which possess free will, we do believe there is another creature, other than man, which possesses the power of free will; the angels. Every created thing was known by God before it even entered into a state of existence, and this is equally true of that evil angel who was named Lucifer. The good God knew before it even happened that this particular angel would be overcome by jealousy and rebel against God and plot against mankind, and nevertheless God allowed this angel to come into existence to fulfill a function in the grand scheme of things; to test man’s allegiance. It couldn’t be that God Himself would tempt His creation, but He instead allowed this vessel of evil to exist temporarily so long as it fulfilled the function of testing the man’s heart. While the devil fulfills this function in nature, by tempting men to reveal their hearts, any good that comes from it is God’s credit. It’s the foreknowledge and wisdom of God that for the limited time evil is permitted to exist it exists with a function and purpose; for example, the evil in Judas’ heart was used to mankind’s advantage when He betrayed the savior, because by this means the power in the Passion and Resurrection was displayed to mankind by the savior.
And so, scripture tells us, “God created man for incorruption and as an image of His own eternity; but by envy of the devil death entered into the world.” Man was a child, not yet having his understanding perfected; and he allowed himself to be led astray by the evil angel. After having been tempted by the devil mankind chose to break the commandment and disobey God, allowing himself to be deceived by the angel who was jealous and envious of the great destiny God had in store for the human race. From doing all of this that angel became the author and originator of sin, and by scheming successfully caused mankind to be removed from Paradise. Because Lucifer rebelled and departed from God, he was afterward called Satan, according to the Hebrew word; which means “Apostate.”
After they sinned, men began to die, and corruption ran riot among them and held sway over them to an even more than natural degree, as God had forewarned Adam before he even broke the commandment. Mankind quickly surpassed all limits when it came to sin; they had gone on gradually from bad to worse, not stopping at any one kind of evil, but continually, as with insatiable appetite, devising new kinds of sins. What started as the mere eating of a forbidden fruit graduated to adulteries and thefts which were being committed everywhere constantly, murder and looting filled the earth, law was disregarded in corruption and injustice, all kinds of iniquities were perpetrated by all, both by individuals and large groups of men. Cities were warring with cities, nations were rising against nations, and the whole earth was rent with factions and battles, while each strove to outdo the other in wickedness. Even crimes contrary to nature were not unknown, but like the apostle of Christ says: “Their women changed the natural use into that which is against nature; and the men also, leaving the natural use of the woman, flamed out in lust towards each other, perpetrating shameless acts with their own sex, and receiving in their own persons the due recompense of their pervertedness.”
And by sinning the very nature of mankind was entirely changed, no longer an immortal creature but plagued by the disease of death. By sin Adam’s nature was changed from pure and immortal to corrupt and mortal, and the sickness of death entered into his body afterwards which he then passed on to all of his descendants. And not only was man’s nature now different, but as a consequence God changed the rest of nature to reflect the fallen state of the man. Just as we rebelled against God and became completely irrational, likewise the animals in creation also became irrational and rebelled against their master, mankind, who was God’s image. Now, our former servants had to be tamed, or at least the ones that were capable of being tamed. And the earth too, which formerly produced an abundance of beautiful fruit, would now at certain times and places produce thorns, thistles, unhealthy or poisoned fruit, or sometimes no fruit at all. Likewise, the woman that God had given man wouldn’t give birth to children with ease and comfort anymore, but instead would only manage to give birth through much pain and suffering. You’ll see that these curses from God on us were a reflection of what we had already done to him. We were his peaceful servants that had been reduced to irrationality and viscousness. We were fruitful in righteousness before, but afterwards we produced thorns and thistles of sin, or wicked works disguised as good works, or else we were slothful and produced no works at all. And never again would it be a comfortable or relaxed process to make a man a faithful servant and son of God, but only through the pain and labor of instructing that man to abandon all of his sinful habits and learn to do good, so that he may enter through the narrow gate into the kingdom of heaven.
And after a life spent inventing evil and rebelling against God the life of each man would end by the sickness of death. Death is the separation of the soul from the body which every descendant of Adam has inherited from him. And as our body, the temple of our soul, was created from the earth when we die the body goes back into the earth and a state of non-existence. This leaves our soul in a state of impotence, incapable of doing anything without the body. Just like it’s written in a Psalm, “You are gods, and all of you are sons of the Most High. Nevertheless you will die like men, and fall like one of the princes.” After death, the separation of soul from the body, all souls are taken to a place referred to as Hades. Hades is the holding ground of all souls which are waiting for the judgment of God which will happen in the very end. We have also always believed that on Judgment Day all souls, summoned for trial, will have received their bodies back in the event called the Resurrection. Just like when a vessel is found to have some flaw after having been molded, and the vessel then needs to be remolded or remade, the same is true of the human body. When all souls are summoned on Judgment Day the souls who are found guilty will be punished by being sent to a place called the Lake of Fire, this place is also reserved for the Devil and his traitor angels, while the souls who are found innocent will be rewarded with being restored to their former glory before the fall, becoming the brothers of the Son and children of the Father. This is what’s recorded in a Psalm when it says, “God takes His position in His assembly; He judges in the midst of the gods.”
Although man had continually distanced himself from God by sinning, alienating himself from God and losing the close relationship he formerly had, God still called to man from the distance, pleading the man to come back into service, and if the man would willingly come back to serve the one true God he would forgive the man, not remembering the sins that were committed like men do, but ready to restore the relationship back to the fullest. It’s the great reward for the pure in heart to see God, but part of the punishment for the impure in heart to never see God; God has no relationship with evil, and light isn’t a friend to darkness.
Now, God would regularly provide remedies to His diseased creation, but as they continued to advance in evil the less potent the remedy became. God had already given mankind a rational mind and made Himself and His will apparent in His creation. All of creation, every celestial body, plant, animal, and everything observed in creation was made to be a physical reflection of a spiritual truth. For example, every animal was created to represent a type of person, and some of these animals possess good habits which are to be imitated while some of these animals possess evil habits which are to be avoided.
But when the rational mind and the examples given in nature were no longer enough, but entirely ignored, God eventually sent angels to police the earth and keep man in check, but the angels and the humans together conspired and invented all sorts of atrocities; inventing new weapons in warfare, making women a magnet of lust with the creation of makeup, they even committed the first acts of cannibalism, and many other crimes against God. The state of humanity became so wicked at this point in time that the Son of God regretted ever even creating the human race, and so he wiped them out with a flood (only preserving a small number who were righteous).
One would have hoped that this clean slate would have been enough to set the human race back on the right track, but they quickly returned to evil within a few generations. And not only that, but those angels who were sent to watch over the human race had at that time procreated with their women, which created the race of the Giants, or as we call them; the Nephilim. Now, after the flood had subsided, these sub-human’s spirits were left without any place or purpose until the Devil conceived of a use for them; it was the Devil’s desire to keep the spirits of the Nephilim here in the land of the living, with the function of tormenting men and driving them mad with evil. However, God in His mercy restricted the Devil to only being capable of afflicting men with these evil spirits if they were already steeped in sin, and after this time these spirits were called Demons.
After the clean slate that came with the flood, when men returned to evil in the following generations, they were poisoned with these demons and began imagining false gods, worshiping things that were created (like stone and wood) rather than the creator. The human race was quick to replace the true God with false gods that suited their own desires.
Later, God would deal with certain men directly and reveal Himself to them through His Son, who would act as His ambassador and emissary. He gave men righteous commands, eternal wisdom and revealed the will of His Father to them. He would send various prophets for the benefit of the world, so that they would learn to obey God. And when the spoken word of these men became insufficient; he gave the human race books which would last forever. These books which contained the divine instruction from the Father, inspired by His Holy Spirit, were called “holy scriptures”. Any man who believed God’s scriptures and fulfilled the commandments contained in them would be righteous, just like it says in those scriptures, “The keeping of His laws is the assurance of incorruption.” (Wisdom 6:18) God taught the human race that above all else, they should love Him and also that they should love their fellow man; all of morality hangs on these two core principles.
The Holy Scriptures contained God’s first written Law, which was composed of many rules and commandments to lead men to the Father, and He did this through a very wise and powerful prophet named Moses. Moses was the first Lawgiver to humanity. He would regularly climb up a high mountain by himself, and here he would speak with God and receive the commandments, after receiving the commandments he would descend from this high mountain to the people and give them the commandments so that they could learn to obey God.
However, despite this first Law from God being very good, it was nevertheless imperfect because it was given to people who were imperfect at the time. The first Law was a stepping stone, a tutor that would lead men out of their depravity and closer to perfection. In humanity’s infancy, before depravity had reached its peak, there were still righteous men who served God, and they weren’t in need of a Law because this first Law wasn’t created for righteous men, but afterwards when righteousness and love of God had passed into oblivion and became extinct, God gave the first Law. And to remind men that they should look at creation with spiritual eyes and not carnal eyes, He gave them a commandment to only eat animals considered clean and to avoid the eating of animals that were considered dirty or unclean. The clean animals were symbolic of good men and good habits, which were acceptable to associate with, while the unclean animals were symbolic of evil men and evil habits, which were unacceptable to associate with. The animal with a divided hoof for example is a picture of stability, correctly dividing God’s word in every step of life, and the animal that chews the cud (or digests its food slowly) is a picture of the righteous man who carefully meditates on God’s commands. He told these violent men that if they were going to take vengeance, it wouldn’t extend beyond what was already done to them; if a man cut out another man’s eye he couldn’t cut out both of the man’s eyes in retaliation, but only an ‘eye for an eye’. He told them to stop breaking their vows and promises, but that they should fulfill every vow and promise they made. He gave them a command to dedicate an entire day in every week to God, a day where they weren’t allowed to distract themselves with worldly things, and this was called the Sabbath. The Sabbath was made for men after they had proven to have much more interest in worldly affairs than dedicating their time to righteousness and God.
However, this Law (as good as it was), was like a glass of water which is only half full. And Moses, the Prophet, being aware of this told everyone that a future prophet, like himself, would have to come and finish what he had started, the Law needed to be perfected, the glass of water needed to be filled full.
And in this way God and the Devil warred over the souls of mankind. The Devil, hating the true God, could never destroy God, and so he had to settle with destroying those creatures which are specially made in His image. Satan beckons men to himself to corrupt them, while God beckons men to Himself to perfect them. But men continued to allow themselves to become weaker and weaker, and so Satan gained a stronger hold over the human race. Mankind became slaves to Satan, and he became a master over the nations.
However, just as the first remedies we spoke of lost their force over time as men became evil, likewise that nation, that God had preserved from the rest of the world and given His holy scriptures and commandments to, allowed itself to become corrupt. That nation, which was called Israel, was set apart to be especially holy by God Himself through His Word, but this nation became stiff necked and rebellious towards Him. They threw His law and His words behind them, they perverted the meaning of His holy commandments, they invented twisted interpretations of His scriptures, they pretended to be righteous when they weren’t, they murdered the prophets that God had sent them, and blasphemed the good God’s name to the rest of the world.
Although God had provided numerous remedies to the human race, which was sick with sin and death, each remedy quickly lost its power. Now, if man didn’t have any free will at all and God was the only agent of action involved, His first remedy would have most definitely worked, and beyond that; there wouldn’t have even been a need for any kind of remedy in the first place, because we would have never sinned otherwise. However, with each remedy that was provided, there was required a cooperation on the part of man with God, but while God stood ready to meet the demands, men continuously fell short. This cooperation was entirely necessary on the part of men because although God could have at any time restored us in the past, taking away our corruption with a simple nod, it wouldn’t have accomplished anything because men would have immediately returned to corruption. Instead of this, God has decided to wait until the very end to restore men to incorruption, and this present time, in this life, is the opportunity to amend our evil habits and replace them with God-like behavior so that when we put on the new skin of incorruption it will fit our soul, but the people who are not God-like and blaspheme the image of God will be punished.
The Son of God said that “no one puts a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment; because the patch pulls away from the garment, and a worse tear results. And neither do men put new wine into old wineskins; otherwise the wineskins burst, and the wine pours out and the wineskins are ruined; but they put new wine into fresh wineskins, and both are preserved.” And so you see how important man’s cooperation in the remedy was, but time and time again mankind fell short of the glory of God.
From Adam, the first man, mankind only knew sin, corruption, and death, this was all Adam, their father, had taught them and left for them by his example. Mankind was in desperate need of a new Adam to descend from, who didn’t teach them sin but righteousness instead, and who didn’t teach them death but life instead. Man needed to be reformed, a new race of men had to be created.
Following all of this, in a final and ultimate display of His mercy, God sent His only begotten Son to the human race. The Word of God Himself was the final and ultimate remedy. He is humanity’s great Physician. In order to lead the human race, which had become so irrational, back to the worship of the one true Invisible God, He sent His own Son who is His exact image. As the Son of God said to one of His disciples, “Anyone who has seen Me has seen the Father.” There was no one more fitting to be sent by God to redeem and recreate the human race than the very one who had created it in the beginning. He alone, being the Word of God, served as the best candidate to deliver God’s message to the human race. The incorporeal and incorruptible and immaterial Word of God entered our world.
Now, although in one sense, He was not far from it before, since no part of creation had ever been without Him Who fills all things that are. But now He entered the world in a new way, stooping to our level in His love and revealed himself to us. He saw the reasonable race, the race of men that, like Himself, expressed the Father’s Mind, wasting out of existence, and death reigning over all in corruption. He saw that corruption held us all the closer, because it was the penalty for the Transgression; He also saw how unthinkable it would be for the law to be repealed before it was fulfilled. He saw how unseemly it was that the very things of which He Himself was the Artificer should be disappearing. He saw how the surpassing wickedness of men was mounting up against them; He saw also their universal liability to death. All this He saw and, pitying our race, moved with compassion for our limitation, unable to endure that death should have the mastery, rather than that His creatures should perish and the work of His Father for us men be for nothing, He took on a human body, a human body even as our own. He took our body, and not only so, but He took it directly from a spotless, stainless virgin. He, the Mighty One, the Artificer of all, prepared this body in the virgin as a temple for Himself, and took it for Himself as the instrument through which He would be known to the world. God the Father was in His Son Jesus Christ, reconciling the world to Himself.
It was the Word of God, Who sees everything inside man and moves all things in creation, Who alone could meet the needs of the situation. It was His part and His alone, Whose ordering of the universe reveals the Father, to renew the same teaching. After men had neglected to consider the heavens, and were now looking in the opposite direction, desiring to do good to men, as a man the Son came, taking on a human body like the rest; and through His actions done in that body, making Himself on the same level as mankind, He teaches those who would not learn by other means to know Himself, the Word of God, and through Him the Father.
He deals with them as a good teacher with his pupils, coming down to their level and using simple means. Men had turned from the contemplation of God above, and were looking for Him in the opposite direction, down among created things and physical things of sense. The Savior of us all, the Word of God, in His great love took to Himself a body and moved as Man among men, meeting their senses, so to speak, half way. He became an object for the senses, so that those who were seeking God in sensible things might apprehend the Father through the works which He, the Word of God, did in the body. So, however human-minded men were, when they looked in the physical world they would find the truth taught to them.
If they were awe-stricken by creation; they saw it confessing Christ as Lord. If their minds tend to regard men as Gods; the uniqueness of the Savior’s works marked Him alone as the Son of God. If they were drawn to evil spirits; they saw them driven out by the Lord and learned that the Word of God alone was God and that the evil spirits were not gods at all. If they were inclined to hero-worship and the cult of the dead; then the fact that the Savior had risen from the dead showed them how false these other deities were, and that the Word of the Father is the one true Lord, the Lord even of death. He did these things to recall men from all the paths of error to finally know the Father. As He says Himself, “I came to seek and to save that which was lost.” Both by the example of His perfect and blameless life in a human body and by the wonderful teachings He gave, He inspired all men to stop being evil and instead do the will of God. Man was previously emptied of the divine inspiration and was filled with carnal desires that Satan had infused in mankind. So, the Father sent His Son as an ambassador to men so that He could turn them from their unholy practices to the knowledge and worship of the true God. The Father sent His Son to turn their minds from foolishness to wisdom, and from evil works to good works. The Son of God is the embodiment of virtue, righteousness, truth, rationality, and all goodness. Accordingly, He descended from Heaven so that He could teach these things and mold the character of man; God became man so that man might become god.
The Son of God fulfilled that Law that Moses the Prophet had left half-full, bringing it to its completion. Where He had previously told the ancients to avoid eating unclean animals and only eat clean animals, He clarified that a man isn’t defiled by eating unclean animals, but redirected their thoughts to the spirit of the law, which was that they should avoid evil behaviors and instead embrace good behaviors. Where He had previously told the ancients to only take vengeance an equal measure on fellow men with ‘an eye for an eye, He now told men to stop taking vengeance all together, but instead forgive men for personal offenses, and leave vengeance to God (its rightful owner). Where He had previously told the ancients to keep the vows and promises they made, He now told men to not take any oaths at all, because they’re incapable of truly promising anything in their condition as men, instead keep their ‘yes’ as simple as ‘yes’ and their ‘no’ as simple as ‘no’. Where He had previously told the ancients to keep the Sabbath, He now told men to live every day in service to God. He spoke these and such like things to the nation of Israel, to awaken them to the spirit of the Law from Moses for the sake of leading them to ultimate righteousness, but many of them repeatedly spurned His offer of peace. He said to that previous nation, who He had given the Law through Moses to, that He would abandon them until they recognized Him, the blessed man who had come in the name of God.
However, this first appearance of Christ didn’t simply end with the perfect example that He set by His life or with the righteous teachings He gave, but as a natural consequence of entering as a man into the world which Satan had gained control over, He was constantly attacked by Satan’s subjects. The Devil couldn’t tolerate the Son of God taking flesh to thwart his reign over flesh, and so the Son of God was viewed as an invader who had to be dealt with to secure the Devil’s power over the human race. As Christ Himself said, “The world cannot hate you, but it hates me because I testify that its works are evil.”
At first, the Devil tried to kill Him when He was only an infant, but this had no success. And later, when He found the Savior as a grown man, he had first hoped that he could tempt him into sin just like he had tempted the first man to sin, but the obedient Son of God resisted his temptations and succeeded where the first man failed. When it became clear to the Devil that the Christ would not commit sin he attacked Christ through mobs which served him, and these same mobs were made up of the Israelites who had been given the Law and were warned about His future coming, but Christ, being above all, couldn’t be killed by the Devil, but would evade him every time. Only Christ was capable of laying His own life down, there was no one that could do anything to Him that He wouldn’t allow. However, while He certainly had already accomplished a great deal in diminishing Satan’s hold over mankind, there was still the great and terrible fear of death that the human race had; the fear and expectation of death, which held every man as its slave.
In His love for the human race, Christ fulfilled every aspect of how to live a perfect life even at the moment of death, teaching us how we should approach and treat death. Christ stripped away any appearance of power that death had by allowing the Devil to publicly crucify him to the point of death. The Lord laid down His life for His friends and brothers, His own creation, that by His example we would no longer fear death, as He told us, “Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but are unable to kill the soul; but rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.” The spotless and sinless Son of God heroically laid His life down for our sake, because of sin and death, so that we could be cleansed by His blood. Like a parent who pushes a child out of the way of an incoming bullet, Christ heroically was willing to come to earth and save the human race from sin at the cost of His own life, and this was pleasing to His Father, the one true God. After He had mocked and made a fool out of Satan, living a perfect life and teaching others to do the same, He suffered the Devil’s attack in front of everyone. Previously men were alienated and enemies of God by wicked works, but the Son of God reconciled men to God in the body of His flesh through death. The death of Christ weakened the powers that are at war with the human race, and it set the life of each believer free from sin through a power beyond our words. He takes away sin until every enemy is destroyed, and death last of all, in order that the whole world may be free from sin. He’s the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.
Every eye observed His lack of fear for the Devil, not resisting the evil one at all but counting every attack as nothing and only temporary. This manner of death, the crucifixion, was necessary for a few reasons that we will mention; in the first place, it served as an example to His followers that they shouldn’t fear any kind of torture or death at the hands of Satan in this present life on Earth, we are servants of Christ and no servant is above the master, if Christ will lay down His life then we’re willing to lay down ours as well. In the second place, the death was so gruesome and so public that it made it clear to everyone that He was most definitely dead. He didn’t die peacefully in His sleep, or die by some illness or sickness which could be potentially questioned by the skeptically minded, but He instead was killed in front of everyone, in the air, bruised and beaten so badly to the point He didn’t resemble a man. There was no question He was dead. And thirdly, crucifixion requires that one’s limbs be nailed down and fastened to a cross, so that the person no longer moves as they please, which symbolically represents our entire life, as followers of Christ, taking up our own crosses and dying to our flesh daily, denying the flesh its sinful desires. Crucifixion is an image of self-control to the believer.
And so, when Christ had died and was separated from His body, the Lord descended into the regions beneath the earth, and He visited the rest of the dead in Hades, preaching His appearance and purpose there in order to rescue and save them. And after 3 days had passed from His death, He once for all destroyed the power of Satan and death forever by His own Resurrection. It pleased the Father to bring His Son back on the third day, with an entirely perfected and glorified body, a body even greater and much more improved than the one before. Although it was the same body, it was the best possible version of that body. And He appeared to His disciples alive for 40 days, and spent that time teaching them the Kingdom of God. When the 40 days were spent the Resurrected and Perfected Son of God ascended back up to Heaven from where He originally came, at the right hand of His Father.
It was at that point the responsibility of those disciples, who were taught by Him, to spread the good news of the Kingdom of God to the rest of the world. These men boldly spread the Kingdom of Heaven to every man from every country, and everyone who obeyed Christ was called a Christian. And the following generations of Christians were charged with preserving those holy teachings which were given to them by Christ and His disciples. As scripture states, “the faith had once for all been delivered to the saints.”
Now, we are called Christians because we imitate Christ, and so as a group we can also be referred to as the Body of Christ. And it was Christ who taught us that this collective body of believers is His church. He gave the Christian the commandment that they weren’t to worship the one true invisible God as a statue or in a specially reserved holy location or building, but that we should instead worship God, who is spirit, in truth and in spirit. We Christians don’t count any statue or painting as divine, any space of land as holy, or any building as sacred. We see God with our mind in prayer, and every believer’s body serves as a holy temple.
The Kingdom of God which the Christ established is not a physical or worldly kingdom, there is no fixed border with the Kingdom of Heaven. The God of the Kingdom of Heaven is the Father, the King of this Kingdom is the Son. For this reason we Christians pay no special interest in politics or the affairs of the world, we are like strangers visiting another country for as long as we live on this earth, and our true allegiance is to our King who is the Son of God, Jesus Christ. We will respect the laws of human governments so long as they don’t contradict the laws we Christians have been given by the Son of God, we would rather be imprisoned or die than break His commandments. Before Christ, we were soldiers of Satan warring with God, but God sent His messenger to the enemy with terms of peace, and if we soldiers would lay down our weapons and submit to the true God we would not be destroyed by the army that’s coming our way, but the true God would instead have mercy on us.
The Son of God left a sacrament behind for the apostles to teach the rest of the world; if any man desires to join the Kingdom of God he must be baptized. Jesus Christ left a mysterious act for us to perform, in faith, in the way of baptism; by being baptized in the name of the Holy Trinity, you will be forgiven for all the sins you have previously committed (being given a clean slate), in the same way that the flood had washed the world of its evil and renewed it, likewise baptism now saves you. Baptism is the opportunity for the rebirth, and unless a man is born of water he can’t enter the Kingdom of God. At last, by means of the new man, Christ, all who have been cleansed and washed of sin and death, can come to the life of God. Through baptism one will be entered into the Kingdom of Heaven, receiving the gift of adoption from God as Father, and he will be given the Holy Spirit. After the washing of regeneration, we are charged to keep our baptism holy and undefiled. If we continue to walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and are cleansed by Christ from all sin. Our Lord tells us, “Hold on to what you have until I return. To the one who overcomes, and the one who keeps My deeds until the end, I will give him authority over the nations.”
The second sacrament that the Lord left for His church to perform is what’s referred to as the Eucharist or Communion. In this sacrament we Christians will regularly get together and eat a meal of bread and wine, and we bless the food, recognizing the bread as the body of Christ and the cup the blood of Christ. When the Lord had first instituted this sacrament, He explained it to His disciples when He told them, “If I do not wash you, you have no place with Me,” (John 13:8) and, “He who has bathed needs only to wash his feet; otherwise he is completely clean.” (John 13:10) Now, here the Lord is speaking in a parable, and is saying that anyone who has already been baptized, that is “washed”, only has need of their feet being washed. Now, what is meant here is that there is no second baptism for the remission of sins, but if sins are contracted in this life on earth, as the feet pick up dirt as they’re walking, then you can still be washed clean by the sacrament of Communion, which is the Lord’s Supper. As He said to His disciples in the same part, “What I am doing, you do not realize right now, but you will understand later.” We Christians practice this mysterious sacrament for the remission of any sins past the point of baptism, to remain in the body of Christ, to retain the Holy Spirit, and for the preservation of piety. The Lord tells us if we don’t eat his flesh in the bread or drink his blood in the wine then we have no life in us, and so we practice this sacrament regularly since it’s the medicine of immortality. Through this sacrament we participate in the divine nature beyond human understanding, mysteriously binding us to the Second Adam.
“Christ’s divine power has granted us everything pertaining to life and godliness, through the true knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and excellence. Through these He has granted us His precious and magnificent promises, so that by them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world on account of lust.” After we Christians have been cleansed, we partake in the divine nature, communing with the glorified body and blood of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Have no fear of death then. Now that the common Savior of all has died on our behalf, we who believe in Christ no longer die, as men died aforetime, in fulfillment of the threat of the law. That condemnation has come to an end; now that corruption has been banished and done away, we are separated from our current mortal bodies, so that we may obtain a superior and perfected body in the Resurrection. When He became incarnate and was made a man, He began a new line of human beings, so the things that were lost in Adam, the first man, would be recovered by Jesus Christ, the second man. The first man is from the earth; the second man is from heaven. The people that come from the earthly one are also earthly; the people that come from the Heavenly one are also Heavenly. By a man came death, and by a man came the resurrection of the dead. In Adam all die, but in Christ all will be made alive. The first Adam was a living person, the last Adam was a life-giving spirit.
Among the scriptures recognized by Christians as inspired by the Holy Spirit, we separate them into two categories; the books that came before the first advent of Christ are called the Old Testament and the books that came after the first advent of Christ are called the New Testament. The New Testament contains the teachings and works of Christ, while the Old Testament contains the foreshadowing of Christ. When reading the Old Testament we Christians don’t approach it with a carnal mind, but we instead ascertain the spiritual meaning of the books. God, in His foreknowledge, concealed the works of His Son for everyone to see in the Old Testament stories behind a parable. For example, when we read about God rescuing His people from Pharoah in Egypt who had taken them as slaves and then leads His people into a promised land, and that while Moses started this journey, it was a man named Joshua (or in the Greek, Jesus) who finished the work and brought God’s people to the promised land; we don’t read any of this as mere history. Not that these things didn’t happen, but the accurate recording of history being entirely irrelevant to us, we recognize the chief priority of the Holy Spirit was to speak about the things that God would do through His only begotten Son. Instead, when we read we recognize God rescuing his people from Satan on Earth who had taken them as slaves and then leads His people into the Kingdom of Heaven, and that while the Law of Moses started this journey, it was a man named Jesus the Christ who finished the work and brought God’s people in the Kingdom of Heaven.
Now, Christ has forewarned His followers that the Devil will attack every person who attempts to escape from his kingdom and join the Kingdom of God, but Christ tells us to stand strong in our faith and to not be shaken. The Devil is weak and his time is short. Nevertheless, at the end of time he will attack the followers of Christ like never before, and will set up his very own christ, who we call the Antichrist. His reign of evil will be cut short when Christ returns in His glorified body and establishes His spiritual Kingdom of Heaven on earth, dethroning the Devil and locking him away. The followers of Christ will be resurrected, having perfect bodies, and they will inherit the earth. But not the present state of the earth, but a restored version of the earth; “The wolves and lambs will feed together, and the lion will eat chaff like the ox.” The Son of God will establish peace on earth as the king of all kings, and He’ll reign for a millennium. The rest of the dead will remain in Hades for the millennium, only the faithful will be resurrected at this time; this is the first resurrection.
After this, the Devil will be released from his captivity with an opportunity to deceive the nations once again. However, he will find humanity is no longer an infant, like in the case of the first man, but has finally matured in age. This will be the final test before Judgment Day, and after this the Devil and his followers will be thrown into the Lake of Fire where they will be punished forever. All souls will be summoned from Hades, and when no soul is in Hades then God will destroy Hades by throwing it into the Lake of Fire. Anyone who is found guilty on Judgment Day will also be punished in the Lake of Fire. This is the second death.
And as for the righteous ones who have been preserved and found innocent on Judgment Day, God will prepare a new heaven and a new earth for them; the first heaven and the first earth passed away. The Saints will live in a holy city, the City of Peace, which will come down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. The tabernacle of God is among the people, and He will dwell among them, and they will be His people, and God Himself will be among them, and He will wipe away every tear from their eyes; and there will no longer be any death; there will no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain; the first things have passed away. The Son of God sits on the throne of the City of Peace, He makes all things new.
He says to all of mankind, “I am the first and the last, the beginning and the end. I will give water to the thirsty from the spring of the water of life, without cost. The one who overcomes will inherit these things, and I will be his God and he will be My son. But for the cowardly, and unbelieving, and abominable, and murderers, and sexually immoral persons, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, their part will be in the lake that burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.”
At the end of all time, when all souls have received their new body in the Resurrection, there will be a judgment. The Christian “works out his own salvation with fear and trembling” and tries to serve as a source of moral light in an immoral, dark world. Every day that passes after the Resurrection of Christ is a mercy and blessing from God, and we beg all men to repent and join the Kingdom of Heaven. Any man who joins the Kingdom of Heaven and endures to the end will be spared by God on Judgment Day and will be restored to his original glory, he will be made like God. Fulfill your destiny, reject Satan and never fear death again, submit to Christ and look forward to the Resurrection. If you do this you will be saved.