“God is born on earth, and moreover He is born as a man: perfect God and perfect man – the unique God-man.”
“…another name for Orthodoxy is God-manhood.”
“Why is the God-man the fundamental truth of Orthodoxy? Because He answered all the questions that torture the human spirit: the question of life and death, the question of good and evil, the question of earth and heaven, the question of truth and falsehood, the question of love and hate, the question of justice and injustice. In brief: the question of man and God.”
“Only in Him, in the all-merciful Lord Jesus, does man, tormented by earthly tragedies find the God who can truly give comfort in every misfortune and sorrow, the Defender who can truly defend from every evil, the Savior who can truly save from death and sin, the Teacher Who can truly teach eternal Truth and Justice.”
“In order to acquire spiritual knowledge, a man must first be freed from natural knowledge.”
“The more a man devotes himself to natural knowledge, the more he is seized on by fear and the less he can free himself from it. But if he follows faith, he is immediately freed and “as a Son of God, has the power to make free use of all things….Faith can often ‘bring forth all things out of nothing,’ while knowledge can do nothing, ‘without the help of matter.’ Knowledge has no power over nature, but faith has such power. Armed with faith, men have entered into the fire and quenched the flames being untouched by them. Others have walked on the waters as on dry land. All these things are ‘beyond nature’….He who has faith will ‘lack nothing’….”
Quotations from Man and the God-Man, by Fr Justin Popovich
“In order to acquire spiritual knowledge, a man must first be freed from natural knowledge.”
ReplyDeleteI'm thankful for "natural knowledge" things like books and computers and air conditioners, but Fr. Justin Popovich is correct. We tend to be enslaved by our natural knowledge. We "know" that bad people don't change, that eleven uneducated men won't change the world, that there won't be a huge response to the gospel among people groups that have been resistant for centuries. Yet these things are precisely what the Lord has done.
We must pause and praise the God-man Jesus.
Amen, brother, amen, to your comments, and thanks for leaving them.
ReplyDeleteYes, we must pause, selah, and praise the God-Man, Jesus.