👉🏾👉🏾👉🏾“Behold, the #virgin shall #conceive and #bear a #Son, and shall call His name Emmanuel.”
(#Isaiah 7:14)
Dear followers of the Orthodox teachings on John's Repentance website .we greet you with the peace of the Lord.Today , based on the topic mentioned above, we present to you the following important lesson.We encourage everyone to read it carefully and learn from it.
Why Did Our Lord Become Man?
1. The Fall of Adam and the Promise of Salvation
Man was created in goodness and honor. However, when Adam and Eve disobeyed the command of God and ate from the tree which the Lord had forbidden, they were expelled from Paradise.
After the fall, Adam lived in deep repentance. According to the teaching handed down in the Church,Adam mourned bitterly for his sin, crying and repenting for many years, saying:
“I have sinned by eating from the tree which my Creator commanded me not to eat,” wept bitterly in repentance for fourteen weeks and ninety-eight years because of his sin.
Yet in the midst of judgment, God proclaimed hope and salvation, saying:
“I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her Seed.”
(Genesis 3:15)
✍🏾This was the first promise of redemption. At that very moment, God confirmed His mercy and revealed the mystery of the Incarnation. According to the teaching handed down in the Church, He emphasized this promise, saying:
👉🏾“With My perfect forgiveness and My complete mercy, after five and a half days, I will forgive you. I will come down to your dwelling and remain in your nature. O Adam, for your sake I will be born as a child; for your sake I will walk among men; for your sake I will fast forty days and forty nights; for your sake I will patiently accept suffering and the Cross; and for your sake I will be crucified upon the wood.”(cf. Book of Clement; 3 Maccabees 4:23–24; Ezekiel 4:1; Sirach 24:6; Galatians 4:4)
✍🏾This divine promise reveals the boundless love of God, who chose to become man in order to restore fallen humanity and grant salvation to Adam and all his descendants.
Adam first thought that the promise of five and a half days referred to a short period of time.
Later, however, he understood that it signified five thousand five hundred (5500) years.
✍🏾From that moment, Adam lived with hope preserved in his heart.
Just as a merchant carries provisions on a journey, eating from them and saying, “This will sustain me from here to there,” so Adam lived sustained by hope. While he was still in body and soul , he continually prayed, saying, “My Creator has spoken this to me; have mercy on me.”
✍🏾Adam did not keep this hope to himself. He handed it down to his children. As one generation was buried and another was born, the mystery was gradually revealed to them:
👉🏾that the Word would truly take flesh
👉🏾be born of the Holy Virgin Mary,
👉🏾be crucified upon the Cross,and save the world.
✍🏾Therefore, the righteous of the generations lived in expectation. They prophesied, taught, and counted the times until the completion of the 5500 years, when the promise would be fulfilled.(Matt. 13:17, John 5:46, John 8:56, Heb. 1:1-2, 1 John 1:1-2)
✍🏾The period of 5550 years explained as follows:
👉🏾From Adam to Noah’s Ark – 2256 years
👉🏾From Noah’s Ark to the Tabernacle – 1852 years
👉🏾From the Tabernacle to Solomon’s Temple – 480 years
👉🏾From Solomon’s Temple to Zerubbabel’s Temple – 510 years
👉🏾From Zerubbabel’s Temple to the Birth of Christ – 403 years
✍🏾Total: 5501 years
👉🏾This period is known as Amete fida Amete Kunene .
✍🏾The prophecies concerning the Messiah were revealed by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. The four major prophets and the twelve minor prophets proclaimed the Incarnation of the Son of God.
✍🏾The prophecies written in the Old Testament by the prophets of our forefathers were fulfilled by our Lord. The New Testament also testifies that He would be born of our Holy Lady, the Virgin Mary, as it is written:(Genesis 3:15; Matthew 1:20; Galatians 4.4)
Continues 👇🏾