Now let us say something about the quote, taken out of context (and filled with deadly poison) by pagans from the Gospel Icon of John the Theologian: “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13). Such a quote-slogan is used by religious ideologists, priests-sacrificers when addressing (without it, there is no speech, with rare exceptions) soldiers and the military. And immediately all soldiers are enrolled in the ranks of Christians who have reached high levels of perfection, who have received the special Grace of the Holy Spirit!? Therefore, if we follow the logic of the priests-sacrificers, then in order to be saved, to acquire God’s Love (the GREATEST, that is, Christ’s, Divine) it is necessary to go to the army and wait for the opportunity to fight in a holy war!?? But this commandment does not speak about what needs to be done to acquire love, but about the signs of the presence of love, about the fruit of great love, in which a person who lays down his own life for others abides! The Apostle of Love, the Great Paul, speaks by the Holy Spirit: “if I give my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.” Now tell me, do soldiers go to lay down their lives in war?! Do they go to die?! They go to kill!!! To win, not to lose the war; to destroy the enemy (“pious” people say: carriers of evil!?), to kill people who “do not know what they are doing” (Christ did not do this, He Himself was crucified for such people, “who do not know what they are doing”)! Therefore, the commandment even in form: to lay down one’s own life for friends, in no way applies to war – killing (laying on the altar of freedom and happiness) OTHER “lives” (laying down the lives of other people for the happiness of others!??)! Satan and his servants interpret Scripture as it suits them! But it is sad not because the devil distorts the Scripture to the ruin of the ignorant and unestablished (see Part I), but because no one hears the voice of the Holy Spirit and does not expose this satanic madness (the devil in the guise of an angel of light). Until the fourth century, the fathers fought against this evil (St. Basil still wrote in the rules about penance for soldiers, thus emphasizing that war is a catastrophe for everyone), and later priests-sacrificers already serve solemn Liturgies with the communion of all the culprits of the celebration of the victory over the enemy, including soldiers (killers)!?
The love described in John (15:13) can be iconically depicted in other words – Love your enemies: Bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, pray for those who persecute you! The Lord Himself did so and commanded all Christians – gave the Holy Spirit so that they too might live in this way! The Lord did not kill anyone with love, as pious pagans say (that you can kill with love!?)! He did not lay down the lives of His enemies, but His own life for His friends, that is, they are not His enemies, but friends (alter ego – another self) – sinful, blind, insane, but friends!!! Christians have no enemies! For them, all people (Christians and pagans) are brothers and sisters who have known God and who have not yet known God, and all the efforts of Christians are directed to one thing: that all people know God by the Holy Spirit! The only one who could kill someone with love on earth is the Lord Jesus Christ, the very hypostatic Love! But the Lord did not kill anyone (was there no one to defend, or save in the flesh from an oppressor who kills “the body”?), although He could, and had more enemies than anyone on earth! And Christians do not kill, but, having the Spirit of Christ, in this world share the fate of their Lord, who is crucified in this world! “If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you!” The Lord “fulfilled” the commandment: laid down His life (HIS own, not another’s!!!) for His friends, for all, for the whole Adam!!! I will say again: this commandment (John 15:13) was given by the Lord, and He Himself showed how to fulfill it (I repeat again: laid down HIS life for His friends, not the lives of others (“enemies”) for His friends)!!! More precisely, there are no commandments in the New Testament, because all who have become members of the Church are taught and learn by the Holy Spirit, and have no need for word-prompts through the ear. Love cannot be commanded: love! One can say what needs to be done to receive love (the gift of the Holy Spirit), but to command to love is absurd! Therefore, John 15:13 is a fruit of love (life in the Holy Spirit), not an Old Testament commandment about what to do to receive something! Therefore, one can go to lay down one’s life without love (not having love, as the apostle Paul says; and what is Love? It is not emotions, not preferences, not tastes, not feelings… It is a hypostatic state of being, unrelated to the subject or object of love, it is an unconditional state of absolute freedom, not caused by anything external, sensory or intellectual, but the cause of it is the Living Water, the Holy Spirit, which flows from the core of a person, from the very depths of the image of God, the unique personality, the true “I,” and waters, washes everyone and everything without exception (“God sends rain (the Water of Grace) on the righteous and the unrighteous, shines the Light of the Hypostatic Sun on all – both the holy and the sinful…”; see about Love in Parts I and II), and even heroically die in battle and be a hero in the eyes of this world, the Church says – this person gains nothing, only harm for their soul, and a delay in the revelation of the Kingdom of God, which has already come (see Part II)!!! Therefore, heroes (fallen warriors) need to be prayed for, and not deceive ourselves that they are already in the Kingdom of God because they achieved great love by “laying down their lives for their friends.”