The Need for the #Incarnation and the #nativity period
Beloved and respected members who follow the orthodox education and spiritual service that we convey on John's Repentance page, we send you this writing about the nativity of Jesus Christ and the need for incarnation written by Bishop Youssef of the Coptic Orthodox Church because it is important to understand the need for incarnation, so we entrust you to read it and learn from it.
The birth of our Lord Jesus Christ has become a turning point in the history of mankind; making it feasible to classify incidents into pre and post Nativity. It has also marked the birth of humanity; for in the Nativity was the Incarnation, and in the Incarnation was Salvation and through Salvation we received adoption becoming heirs to the Kingdom.
The Imminence and the Indispensability of Salvation
The Incarnation basically means that God became man; taking a body from the Virgin Mary by the Holy Spirit. "Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and shall call His name Immanuel" (Isaiah 7:14). The most important reason for the Incarnation was to resolve the redemption issue bringing man back to his first rank of which he had fallen off because of sin. God had created Adam and placed him in the garden of Eden commanding him to not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, warning him that the day he would disobey, he would die "but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die" (Genesis 2:17). Through his wickedness, Satan enticed Eve to eat from the forbidden fruit. In doing so, Adam and Eve disobeyed God and broke the law. Consequently Adam had to die and perish in order to satisfy and fulfill God’s justice; otherwise God would breach his own claim of justice and credibility.
However, Adam’s death would have caused a number of ramifications, and would have been:
Against God’s Mercy. Adam was the victim of Satan’s enticing and tempting.
Against God’s Dignity. God created man in His own image and made him ruler over all his creatures. How then would God’s image be torn up so easily?
Against God’s Wisdom. God created man with wisdom to enjoy His love, blessings and sonship. How dare Satan deprive man of these free gifts? St. Athanasuis contemplates on this saying; "it was better for man if he was not created than to be created to face this fate."
Against God’s Power. God had not created man to desert him and leave him without protection against Satan; for the power is God’s and not the devils; "Thine is the power" (the Lord’s Prayer).
Thus, it is only through the unity of the Divinity with the Humanity that all the specifications required from a redeemer would get to be fulfilled. These specifications are:
Divinity: Through His divinity and infinite righteousness, the redeemer would pay off the punishment for our infinite sin.
Humanity: Through His humanity, the redeemer would represent man who had sinned and had been sentenced to die in order to pay the price which is death itself. "And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifested in the flesh" (1 Timothy 3:16).
Redemption Resided in the Incarnation
Because man sinned against the infinite God; his sin was limitless demanding limitless punishment which could not be atoned for through man’s limited capacity for repentance. Man’s nature had become corrupted by sin; and so required a limitless atonement. Who is limitless except God Himself? God Himself had to take upon Himself the redeeming and atoning act in order to rescue man from this eternal death.
Terms of Redemption
God’s justice demands that the redeemer be:
About the mystery of the #Trinity
Beloved and respected, all our members who follow the orthodox education that we convey on John's Repentance website; we send you the following basic lesson on the mistery of the Trinity because today is the yearly feast of the Holy Trinity, so we entrust you all to read and learn from it.
👉 Mystery
The basis and center of religious education is the acceptance of God. Next questions: Who is God? How his character revealed? Does it have a body? etc., are answered with the list of religious education; and this education is called a mystery because it is understood only by faith. So, mystery in this lesson mean spiritual, subtle, invisible, unknown, admirable and understood only by faith. Because either it is revealed by the extent of faith; but for those who do not believe, it is a hidden secret. Because, it cannot be reached through physical knowledge and scientific wisdom. Or, even if we say that we know and understand it, it is said that it is impossible to know the full extent of the mystery, except that we might understand only to the extent that it is enough for the survival of the soul .
👉 Trinity
Trinity is a noun derived from the Geez verb that means three. This is the lesson we learn about the trinity of God's body. Trinity is very different from three. For three speaks of three different things, and trinity speaks of three things in one thing. Therefore, when talking about trinity, it is necessary to talk about unity.
Therefore, in the mystery of the Trinity, we learn not only about the threeness of God's body, but also about the unity of his character. In short, Trinity is the teaching that God is one and three.
Their trinity is:- in name, in task, and in body.
Their unity is :- in character, in divinity, in power, in rulling, in will, in creating this world from non-existence to existence, as well as in feeding creation, protecting it, and in suspending this world.
Trinity means: Father has perfect form, perfect face, perfect body. And the Son has a perfect form, a perfect face and a perfect body. The Holy Spirit has a perfect form, a perfect face and a perfect body. The Father's body is always the Father's. The Son's body is always the Son's; The body of the Holy Spirit is always the Holy Spirit. That is, the bodies do not change, do not exchange, do not absorb. In their position, in their appearance and in their name, they will remain forever on their own. The names by which the bodies are called also remain unchanged for their bodies. Therefore, just as we say that the Trinity is three in body, so we say three in their name as well; and these Trinity Names are: Father, Son, Holy Spirit, (Matthew 28:19 ; Psalm 33:14, 118:73, Isaiah 66:1, Genesis 18:1-4 Matthew 3:16)
(የግብር ሦስትነት ስንል፦ አብ ወላዲ አስራጺ ነው፤ ወልድ ተወላዲ ነው፤ መንፈስ ቅዱስ ሰራጺ ነው። )
Let's look at what the Bible says about the unity and trinity of the Mystery of the Trinity:
In the Old Testament
1. "God said: let us make man in our image, after our likeness" (Genesis 1:26) Here: "God said" indicates unity, while "let us create man in our image" describes being more than one.
2. "The Lord God said, Adam became as one of us to know good and evil" (Genesis 3:22). Here, "God said" refers to oneness, while "as one of us" refers to more than one.