Often baptized pagans (“Christians”) say, hiding behind others: “this is what the church teaches,” or “this is what the church has decided”! I ask: where is that church, who is that church? Is it a synod, a council? Where is the Church, who is the Church? Baptized pagans (for example, heretics of the synagogue) hide behind some abstraction, behind some church that no one can point out, show and only insist: the church has decided, the church has made a decision, this is what the church teaches, and so on. And the answer in the Church is very simple and specific: every Christian is the Church, every Spirit-bearer (= Christian) is the Church (“Where the Holy Spirit is – there is the Catholic Church”), everyone who is clothed in Christ is the Church (“Where Christ is – there is the Catholic Church”). The apostle Paul testifies about himself: “It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me,” and in Christ, the entire Holy Trinity and all the Saints (“I in You, and You in Me, We in them (created hypostases), and they in Us” (see John 17)). So what does the Catholic Church – the apostle Paul – lack, what is he missing?! “He who loves Me will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him… But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you” (see John 14:23, 26). These words are said about every Christian who in baptism becomes the temple of the Holy Spirit, the abode of the Holy Trinity! Therefore, every Christian is the Church. And therefore, Christians, when testifying to the Truth, do not hide behind texts (Scripture: as it says in the Bible or as the Holy Fathers say), nor behind other people’s backs (they say, I have nothing to do with it – the church decided… – see the blasphemy of heretics in III ch.), but in the Holy Spirit testify to the Truth they know, being members of the Body of Christ, taught directly by God the Holy Spirit! So, every Christian = Church; two or three Christians = Church; parish = Church; Diocese = Church; all local churches together = Church! So, when we say Church (testifies, speaks, announces, etc.), we always mean specific Christians (Spirit-bearers)! Whoever has ears to hear, let him understand!
We often say: deny yourself, die to yourself, lose your soul, etc. How to understand this: how can I deny myself? What does it mean? We said that a person has two wills: hypostatic and natural. Hypostatic will – the will of choosing, free, conscious will; natural will – the will that acts out of necessity, unconscious, it is the energy of the essence that stands out by itself, it is a blind desire, it is the proposal of the essence (for example, to eat, drink, sleep, read, get angry, envy, hate, reproduce…). Animals do not have a hypostatic free will (only a natural will, instinct; for example, a squirrel cannot decide not to collect nuts for the winter…). Since my will (the desire-wanting of my essence) is selfish, evil and unrighteous (the whole world lies in evil), it must be denied (“deny yourself”), mortified (“lose your soul, your desire for the sake of God-Love”). My nature is this world, the essence of which is lust, pride, greed, in my essence there are diseases-desires-passions-desires – sinful selfish lusts for my glory, pleasure for myself, wealth for myself. This world (my nature, which lies in evil-selfishness-pride) – the flesh that opposes the Spirit, the Truth and cannot accept the Holy Spirit (see Gen. 8; 1 Cor.). By incarnating, the Lord Jesus Christ healed (= saved) in Himself, in His Hypostasis, human nature, resurrected, deified it (in Christ human nature (remaining unchanged from Divine Nature, unchanged created) acquired Divine Hypostatic properties, characteristics). Therefore, the resurrection of the created hypostasis takes place in the Hypostasis of Jesus Christ. In the person of Jesus Christ, the healing of nature takes place, more precisely the acquisition of a new nature, a new heaven and earth. The Hypostasis acquires a new content – the nature of the Church, the Body of Christ. The Hypostasis voluntarily dies in baptism to life (existence) according to the flesh (which lies in evil-sin), and is born-resurrected to life in a new Body (the Body of hypostatic personal communication-perichoresis being – the Catholic Resurrected Body of the Church, the Body of Christ). God in Christ created a new world, a new heaven, and a new earth – the Church! From now on, we live in the reality of the existence of two worlds – the old and the New. Christians are citizens of the Kingdom of God, who, still being in leather garments, in the old world, in this world, already live in heaven, already live eternal life (by the Holy Spirit). More and more spiritualized, transition from knowledge to knowledge, from strength to strength (“the outer man perishes, but the inner man is renewed day by day”), until God becomes all in all!