By Bishop Theophilos of Campania
1. Apology WIPES OUT POST-BAPTISMAL SINS
Nonphysical MASTER: O my child, we were reborn with holy launch, we were armed with the gifts of the Pious Basis down in the dumps Chrismation and the divine grace of the Pious Myrrh. We were sacred with the Communion of the Chart and Blood of Christ, and we would feature been recuperate saints, had we remained such, without sins. Hitherto, since we are self-determined, "i.e." endowed with free mettle, and on the one hand we make bad choices and on the other hand we do not decide on to make ineffective the devil who tempts us, the Making, the Flesh and a variety of other causes hoodwink us, and we fall trendy sins, really nice and mean, with events, with words and with our thoughts, and it is unfeasible to be rebaptized in order to feature our sins washed shown.
In the function of Christ a minute ago in imitation of was crucified, died, was secret and rose once more, for this conference Pious Designation takes place a minute ago in imitation of, and whoever is rebaptized crucifies Christ once more and blasphemes v the Benefit. Control of this in brute expressions. Whoever gets sickly, is not reborn in order to be healed, but is healed in uncommon way and with the use of curative remedies. This is why God who loves civilization and knows how inconsistent possible beings are, provided us with uncommon curative true for our sins, the Benefit of Apology, down in the dumps which the sinner who repents can colorant shown his sins. As St. Gregory of Nyssa says: "One gash is like to a clean, and one low voice of irritation brings back the grace which had a record sooner than passed away."
2. Apology IS AN Historic AND Promise Internal
The Benefit of Apology seems to feature been rumored by God in the Law and from of old," i.e." not a minute ago for the Hebrews, but also for the Gentiles, in order to put to adulterate the Hebrews who did not repent. The Gentile Ninevites sinned and God sent them the Forewarning Jonah, who preached to them that they were about to be lost. They quickly fasted, popular sackcloth, putting embers on their top, and mourn, and God forgave them, not since they did all these, but since they all repented and abandoned their from the past bad life and their evil ways. As Scripture says, "In the same way as God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil ways, God repented of the evil which he had believed he would do to them, and he did not do it" (Jonah 3:10). You see, they were forgiven, since they repented, and actually performed the events which get the message true trepidation, "i.e." fasting, coming off shed tears, sighs, and craft upon God with all their center.
3. In the same way as Razor-sharp Apology IS
Apology, next, consists in a set of spirit from what is evil to what is good, and of events of passions to events of healing. Consequently, as incontinence, gluttony, gluttony and a unshielded and flaccid life practice a supreme piquant place of duty in the creature that makes it commit indecent events, so shame, continence, distress and spiritual contests support in it impassibility and lead to it from a piquant way of life to impassioned amity. The definition of Apology is as follows: "Apology is the return from what is fake to what is natural, from the devil to God." Christ came for the sinners, to bring them back to what is good. As He Himself says in the Gospel, "I did not come to contact the solitary but the sinners to trepidation" (Matthew 9:13), and banned, "Bestow is really nice joy in heaven for every sinner who repents" (Luke 15:10).
4. THE Saving Skill OF Apology
The Benefit of Apology has a really nice power. In the function of we crush from blamelessness and holiness down in the dumps our sin, we can be restored to our from the past glory down in the dumps trepidation and in no time from sin, and become what we were in the future. In the same way as the Galileans were killed by Pilate, Christ believed to live in who were roundabouts there: "Do you stake that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans, since they suffered thus? I counsel you, No; but unless you repent, you mettle all anyway withdraw" (Luke 13:2-3). He pull your leg the same of the eighteen on whom the increase in Siloam crush and killed them, "Do you stake that they were worse offenders than all the others who dwelt in Jerusalem? I counsel you No; but unless you repent, you mettle all anyway withdraw" (Luke 13:4-5). What's more, the fable of the become emaciated fig tree refers metaphorically to trepidation ("Cf." Luke 13:6-9). This is why in the Acts of the Apostles it says: "As well as to the Gentiles also God has arranged trepidation unto life" (Acts 11:18). It is pertinently believed of him who repents the backup saying: "You feature this day designated God to be your God, to cadge in all His ways, and to care for His policy for honesty, and His judgments, and to harken to His about. And the Peer of the realm has this day designated you to become a odd club to Him" (Deuteronomy 26:17-18). It is also charge recalling close to the backup saying of St. Augustine: "God finished man without man, but he does not forbid man without man, since if man wishes, God wishes as well."
5. EXAMPLES FROM THE OLD Shrine
Bestow were two really nice sins that David unfaltering, fornication and murder; but down in the dumps sorrowful and whaling out of really nice trepidation, he received forgiveness and regained his seer glamor. Just as, Sovereign Manasseh not a minute ago killed a variety of prophets and sawed Isaiah in half, but turned to idolatry and infuriated God and was full of activity detained to Babylon; but he wept unpleasantly for all this, and not a minute ago was he forgiven but regained his declare. Uncommunicative dealings occurred to the son of Manasseh. His other son Amon, immobile, since he unfaltering sin and was contemptuous of God, saying, "My create on the breadline the law and sinned while he was young, but afterwards repented and regained his declare, for this conference God lawful that he be delivered to a horrible death, since such an depravity was roasting" (C"f." 2 Kings 33). Let us wonder about, next what we drive also yield if we sin with correspondence pretenses.
6. Apology, THE Articulation OF THE Distinguish OF GOD
Whoever sins, is indebted to warn his sin and to repent as this is government department, so that he can at the appointed time find his healing. God is benign and does not decide on what very, obstruct the set of our wrong decision; and next trepidation is good, since it does not allow sin to attraction bottom and record by record become a trait that may lead the sinner to perdition. God guidelines us: "Reward at the appointed time to Me and you mettle take part in at the appointed time your healing. Yours are the sins, Mine are the healings. Yours are the problems, Mine are the remedies. I a minute ago ask you to repent, and I mettle quickly heal your wounds."
Bestow are two really nice charismas that man received from God. The one is, that while man dies and his entrap is dissolved, he mettle production once more and mettle become undying from human being consciousness. The other is, that while man sins, he mettle be regarded exemplary of forgiveness. The demons (fallen angels), immobile, even if they repent, they are not considered exemplary of forgiveness. This is the perceive of some of the divine Fathers. On the unhelpful immobile, God's benevolence and love for man is really nice.
7. Apology IN THE Historic GREEK Custom
I adore the writings of a variety of ancient (pagan) Greeks that I read and see in them a variety of smart precepts which further trepidation. They say, for reproduction, that while man does good events he is true to God and is assimilated to Him. In the same way as, immobile, he commits evil events, he is distanced from God and approaches the demons and becomes God's opposition. Definite, the Greek thinker Salustios speaks of trepidation as if he were a Christian. I throw away a variety of others and I mettle adopt a minute ago to a Pythagorean who writes to a friend who became an runaway and pervert: "If you set your spirit, I rejoice, but if not, next for me you are dead!"
8. Starkness OF Apology AND ITS Disastrous Outcome
Every one of sinner who does not repent, gives begin to himself in a glory of human being barred to repent, which machine human being abandoned by God, and in time becoming an progeny of eternal damnation. What's more, every horrible sinner who thinks that while he gets old and the time of his death is plot available, next he mettle repent and mettle discontinue evil events, is severely deceived. The conference for this is that illnesses and passions carry out differently, they hide man's clarification in the same way as the billows that hide the Sun, and remove from them their achievement to repent. Such a trepidation is a demonic and satanic vision and not amalgamated to freedom, since had he not off ill, man would not feature repented. This man resembles a old adulterer who, in feat old, cannot commit infidelity, and then thinks that he is free from this sin. He also resembles the voracious, the avid and the inexorable ancestors, who clothed in their lives deliver no alms, but while they logic that their death is practically next they try to apportion their wealth. These acts are not remedy to God, who knows the thoughts of men. Man sees the plane, but God knows the thoughts of men, and judges each of them according to their polity and free character. Esau wept, not since he repented at the back he had sold his birthrights, but since he did not take part in the blessing of his Close relative. Hence, he said: "In the same way as my Father's days come to an end, next, I mettle clear up my brother Jacob" (Gen. 27:41). Every one of sinner ought know that his death is inconsistent and that, if he dies in sin and shameless, next, give is no trepidation at the back death.
9. THE Fertility AND Necessity OF Apology
To understand the power of trepidation it would suffice to touch the backup two cases:
The put the lid on one is that which the Apostle Peter says in his preaching to live in who crucified Christ. He begins in the same way as this: "This Jesus whom you crucified..." (Acts 2:36) and next he admonishes them to repent and to be baptized and take part in the Pious Basis (Acts 2:38). O, how really nice is the power of repentance! It can forbid and bless even live in who crucified Christ.
The other reproduction is this: St. Amphilochius of Iconium relates the story that a unquestionable demon, called Zerefer, came to an Abbot who had the glamor of anticipation, saying to him that he is a devil and that he wishes to ask God to reason him. God did not catalog to the Abbot that he was now a devil, since he enviable to edify how really nice the power of trepidation is. The Abbot, standing that he had had in the future him a man and that it was his reticence that finished him accept that he was a sinner and a devil, prayed to God to reason him. As well as God revealed to the Abbot that he was now a devil, and not a man, and next assured him that he would reason him on unquestionable conditions: if he stood obdurate at a unquestionable place for three time and recurring 100 epoch every day and night "O God, feature favor on me the loathsome," and next, "O God, feature favor on me for the ancient evil turning," and next, "O God, forbid me the darkened one." In the same way as the demon heard these possessions from the Abbot, he eruption trendy conviviality, and said: "If I enviable to contact individually the loathsome and the ancient evil turning and the darkened one, I would feature done that from the beginning and I would feature been saved. But now that I am severely valued, and all tremor at me and I attraction a variety of as my birthright I mettle consequentially not do it." This what the cursed one believed outcry for joy, as he left.
Nonphysical CHILD: Definite, the Benefit of Apology is now really nice and a glint Designation.
From "The Precursor" (January - February - Rapidity 2013). Translated by Fr. George Dion Dragas; shortened by John Sanidopoulos.
