Before continuing our further acquaintance with the medicinal thoughts of our pharmacy, let us complete the task we began yesterday (in Chapter IV) before the closing of our pharmacy – let us arrange the medicinal thoughts from the basket in their respective places (on corresponding shelves-themes). There turned out to be so many thoughts that we decided to arrange what we didn’t manage to do yesterday today. And that is for the best (“everything is good!”), as we will also recall what we discussed in previous parts! And our “grandmothers” have such short memories that repeated reiteration (up to a hundred times of the same thought) is only beneficial.

So, let’s see what we have here in the basket… Here’s a thought-truth for the shelf titled “Sacraments. Announcements. Baptism.” But before saying a few more words about Baptism (both with water – the formality of the Sacrament, and with the Holy Spirit – the Sacrament itself), we will answer the question: why was the death of the Son of God necessary for the salvation of humanity from the catastrophe and consequences of Adam’s fall?

One of the laws of our existence is that any damage, any catastrophic situation – whether organic, natural, psychological, moral, social, political, or military – requires the exertion of force (e.g., the miracle of healing the hemorrhaging woman: the Lord Jesus felt within Himself that power had gone out from Him (Mark 5:30)), suffering, and sometimes even the sacrifice of life to be normalized. This same law operates in the spiritual sphere of human life. Therefore, to heal human nature from the original damage (from the disease of sin and its consequences), the sufferings of the God-Man were necessary. The Apostle testifies to this in his letter to the Hebrews: “For it was fitting that He, for whom and by whom all things exist, in bringing many sons to glory, should make the leader of their salvation (Jesus Christ) perfect through suffering” (Hebrews 2:10). Here the Apostle says that our Leader (Guide) perfected the human nature He took on through suffering, meaning He healed, resurrected it from mortality, decay, and passion (from the word “to suffer”). St. Maximus the Confessor writes about this: “The unchangeable will in Christ restored to this nature through the Resurrection impassibility, incorruptibility, and immortality (i.e., the divine hypostatic mode of existence as Triune Personal Love).”

“Redemption renews human nature – the God-Man renews it in Himself and through Himself.” Through Redemption, i.e., the act, the Cross, through suffering unto death, the God-Man renews human nature in Himself and through Himself, and not by an effortless act of His omnipotence did He heal human nature “in Himself” (St. Athanasius the Great; for more on sin(s) and salvation-healing, see parts I and II). Thus was accomplished (John 19:30) the great work of salvation. All who saw the risen Christ, who became the progenitor of the new humanity – the second Adam – witnessed this. What does this mean?

Christ’s Resurrection opened a fundamentally new era in the life of humanity. (The Kingdom of God has come, the Holy Spirit has been poured out on all flesh! God entered into a New Covenant with man in Jesus Christ, the covenant of the Freedom of the Holy Spirit, as opposed to the Old Covenant (which will remain relevant until the end of this age, until the Parousia: “not one jot or tittle shall pass from the law…” – see Matthew 5:18-19), the covenant of the flesh, the Law). This era is fundamentally (absolutely) new (unprecedented: “no eye has seen, no ear has heard, and the mind has not conceived such ‘madness of the Cross’”), especially because if the ordinary (biological) birth (and conception) of a person occurs according to the laws of the “lower” (living by instincts, not hypostatically) nature – unconsciously, without the will of the one being born (conceived), then the birth (conception) of a new person (Ephesians 4:24) from the Risen One takes place according to the laws of Spiritual nature (according to the laws of hypostatic existence) – only consciously, voluntarily! God, according to the unanimous teaching-testimony of the Holy Fathers, cannot save a person without the will (desire) of the person themselves, without their faith-trust in Him. This birth (conception) from Christ happens in the Sacrament of Baptism (by the Holy Spirit!) with everyone who believes in Him and consciously embarks on His path of life (renounces themselves, takes up their cross, and follows Christ, lives in His name, for Him), as the Lord said: whoever believes and is baptized will be saved (healed, united with God in Christ by the Holy Spirit)! “…When the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, He saved us (= united us with Himself) not because of righteous things we had done, but because of His mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit (= through Baptism by the Holy Spirit), whom He poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior…” (see Titus 3:3-7). God “saved us… through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit,” i.e., through the Sacrament of Baptism by the Holy Spirit! But God cannot save us (baptize us by the Holy Spirit) without us (our personal faith in Jesus Christ)!!! (We will repeat this simple truth again and again, which the “Orthodox” (foolish and blind leaders (priests of various ranks, “theologians,” “spiritual elite”) and those whom these blind people lead!) cannot comprehend!).