“God is angry, rejoices, envies, is jealous, hides, has mercy when asked, turns away from sinners, walks on clouds, sleeps, can be entreated, moved to mercy, that he is just and gives everyone according to their deeds” and other pedagogical, adapted to the extreme incapacity of the listeners words of Scripture, to somehow bring the subject closer to understanding, then if I take them in the literal sense and build my dogmatic theology on them, as a life map – I will perish if I do not repent and do not build my life on Personality, Hypostatic being, which means that God is Love and only Love (Who said it? To whom? When? The goal? The reason? – V.A.). What is good and healthy (useful – V.A.) for one may be deadly for another. Virtues, inappropriate (unfit – V.A.) to our spiritual level, which we force ourselves to acquire before those who are the cause of them (by the immutable law of spiritual life: every virtue becomes “mother” and begets another virtue, “daughter”; when we, leaving “mother”, force ourselves to acquire “daughter”, then illegally acquired [mother has not yet been born, but her daughter already exists], and being inappropriate to us, it becomes deadly poison to the owner… – V.A.), become for us a deadly poison – if we do not spit it out, we will perish. That is, if we do not stop doing such “good” – we will perish. (For example, ascetic prayer has three degrees (conditional division): attention, mentally-heartfelt, heartfelt, grace-filled, contemplation, hesychia… If a beginner starts from the end, i.e., from heartfelt prayer – will harm his physical heart, the mind if does not come to his senses and does not depart from the practice he started and does not start from the beginning – focusing attention (mind) on the words of the prayer. That is, to reflect on the words of the prayer at the level of the mind, not immediately at the level of sensations… More about prayer, order, degrees with illustrations in the second part – V.A.)
The letter kills the one who stops at it and does not break through to the spirit of Scripture, and even crucifies God on the Cross by those who literally understood and applied God’s Commandments. “According to the Scripture, He must die…” The spirit gives life, that is, when we recognize by the word a call to co-communion, to communication of hypostases in one personality. And this is possible when we prudently, with the salt of all virtues, reach the essence, the spirit, when we read the hypostasis, when the word is a call to co-communion, when behind the word we read (see – V.A.) a unique experience of a unique personality, which is a call to communication… And in rational understanding to reach the spirit, the principle, the essence means to answer the questions: who said; to whom is the word addressed; what cultural context was the word born in; what is the goal of the said; what prompted the interlocutor to give flesh to that which should actually have been silent about, etc.
And we often, stopping at words, melodies, lines, gestures, forms, all efforts apply to know them as a goal, and their knowledge (rational, translational – V.A.) call true knowledge, while they are only a call to co-communion, to communication, to personal being in Love regardless of nature (and words among them – V.A.).
We all quote Scripture (which is about one thing – about God incarnate, Jesus Christ, by Whom and through Whom and in Whom by the Holy Spirit we know, see God the Father; It aims to call for Communion with God in the Eucharist – V.A.), and live as Apostle Paul says: “…to your shame some of you do not know God.” In our times this expression needs to be rephrased differently: “…to your shame only a few of you (true Christians not always very many – it’s always, alas, a little flock – V.A.).” We live in malice, hatred, fornication,… various passions and sins, and, quoting Scripture, we say that we know God, were at the “third heaven”, knew “the mystery of the Tomb, the Cross, and the Resurrection”, saw the Lord by the Holy Spirit… Therefore, we read the letter of Scripture, which kills, and only a few of us realize this and repent and begin with God’s help to relate correctly to Scripture (see above), as a testimony about Jesus Christ and a call to communion with Him in the Sacrament of the Church – the Eucharist. “A doctor of theology, but does not believe in Christ” – such saw Venerable Ignatius Bryanchaninov (and I saw a candidate of theology, who graduated from an Orthodox theological seminary and taught in it, and he not only does not believe in Christ – he does not believe in God; a candidate of theology, who literally knows the Bible, read the holy Fathers and how many quotes (references to Scripture) he made, and even communed fasting before Easter – and is an atheist – V.A.). Sad spectacle: when a pagan or a Christian-pagan, a nominal Christian, who does not know God, quotes, interprets the Holy Scripture of the Church. Sad spectacle…
Let us all repent! Let us be truthful with ourselves and not deceive ourselves! Let us “examine ourselves, whether we are in the faith; test ourselves”! Let’s admit that we are godless, and then the path to deification will open for us!