Think of Christ as God

Brothers and sisters, this is how we have to think about Jesus Christ: as we would think about God, as about the Judge of the living and the dead. And we must not think small thoughts about our salvation. When we think small of him, what we hope to get from him is small too. Those who listen to these things as though they were small matters are doing wrong — and we are doing wrong ourselves, because we do not know where we were called from, or by whom, or to what place, or how much Jesus Christ endured and suffered for our sake. What return, then, will we give him? What fruit, worth what he gave us? And how many holy debts we owe him! He gave us light as a gift. As a father he called us sons. He saved us when we were perishing. What praise, then, will we give him, or what payment in return for what we received? [a]

We were crippled in our thinking, bowing down to stones and wood and gold and silver and bronze — things people had made — and our whole life was nothing but death. We were wrapped in a blur, our eyes full of fog; and then we looked up and laid aside the cloud that was wrapped around us, and it was his will that did it. He had mercy on us. His heart went out to us and he saved us. He had seen how much straying and ruin there was in us, and that we had no hope of salvation except the hope that came from him. He called us when we did not exist, and it was his will that out of nothing we should come to be.

“Be glad, you who are barren and bear no children. Break out and shout, you who are not in labor. For the deserted woman has many more children than the woman who has a husband.” When he said, “Be glad, you who are barren and bear no children,” he was speaking about us, because our church was barren before children were given to her. And when he said, “Shout, you who are not in labor,” he means this: that we should offer our prayers up to God simply, and not grow weary the way women in labor do. And when he said, “The deserted woman has many more children than the woman who has a husband,” he means that our people looked as though God had deserted them; but now, having come to believe, we have become more than those who seem to have God. And another scripture says: “I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners.” This means that those who are perishing have to be saved. It is a great and astonishing thing to prop up not what is standing but what is falling. In the same way Christ willed to save what was perishing, and he did save many, coming and calling us when we were already on our way to ruin. [f]

He has shown us mercy on this scale — first of all in this, that we who are alive do not sacrifice to dead gods and do not bow down to them, but through him have come to know the Father of truth. And what is the knowledge that goes toward him, if not refusing to deny the one through whom we came to know him? He says so himself: “Whoever confesses me in front of people, I will confess him in front of my Father.” So this is our reward — if we confess the one through whom we were saved. And how do we confess him? By doing what he says and not disobeying his commands; by honoring him not with our lips only, but with our whole heart and our whole mind. He also says in Isaiah: “This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far away from me.” [j] So let us not merely call him Lord; that will not save us. For he says: “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will be saved, but the one who does what is right.” So then, brothers and sisters, let us confess him in what we do: in loving one another, in not committing adultery, not speaking against one another, not being jealous, but being self-controlled, merciful, good. We owe it to one another to feel one another’s pain, and not to love money. Let us confess him by these actions and not by their opposites. And we must not be more afraid of people than of God. That is why the Lord said, of you doing such things: “Even if you are gathered with me, held against my chest, and do not keep my commands, I will throw you out and say to you: Get away from me, I do not know you or where you are from, you workers of lawlessness.” [l]

So then, brothers and sisters, let us leave behind our stay in this world as strangers and do the will of the one who called us, and let us not be afraid to go out of this world. For the Lord says: “You will be like lambs among wolves.” Peter answered him, “What if the wolves tear the lambs apart?” Jesus said to Peter: “Once the lambs are dead, let them not be afraid of the wolves. And you: do not be afraid of those who kill you and then can do nothing more to you. Be afraid of the one who, after you are dead, has authority over soul and body to throw them into the fire of Gehenna.” Understand, brothers and sisters: the stay of this flesh in the world is short and lasts only a little while, but the promise of Christ is great and astonishing — rest in the kingdom that is coming, and eternal life. What must we do, then, to get hold of it? Live in holiness and in what is right, treat the things of this world as belonging to someone else, and not crave them. For the moment we crave to own them, we fall off the righteous road. [o]

The Lord says: “No household slave can serve two masters.” So if we want to serve both God and mammon, it does us no good. “For what good is it if someone gains the whole world but forfeits his soul?” This present age and the age to come are two enemies. This one talks of adultery and corruption and love of money and deceit; that one says goodbye to all of it. We cannot be friends of both. We have to say goodbye to this one and take up with that one. We think it is better to hate what is here, since it is small and short-lived and perishable, and to love what is there, the good things that do not perish. If we do the will of Christ we will find rest; if not, nothing will rescue us from eternal punishment, once we have disobeyed his commands. And the scripture says in Ezekiel: “Even if Noah and Job and Daniel rose up, they would not rescue their own children in the captivity.” If even righteous men like these cannot rescue their children by their own righteousness, what confidence can we have that we will enter the royal house of God, unless we keep our baptism pure and undefiled? Or who will speak for us, if we are not found to have works that are holy and right? [r]

So then, my brothers and sisters, let us compete, knowing that the contest is right here in our hands, and that many sail in for the perishable contests — but not all of them are crowned, only those who have worked hard and competed well. So let us compete, so that we may all be crowned. Let us run the straight course, the imperishable contest; let many of us sail in for it and compete, so that we too may be crowned. And if we cannot all be crowned, let us at least come close to the crown. We have to know this: a man competing in the perishable contest, if he is caught cheating, is flogged, hauled off, and thrown out of the stadium. What do you think, then? What will happen to the one who cheats in the contest for what does not perish? Of those who have not kept the seal, he says: “Their worm will not die and their fire will not be put out, and they will be a sight for all flesh to look at.” [v]

So, as long as we are on earth, let us repent. We are clay in the craftsman’s hand. When the potter is making a pot and it goes crooked or breaks apart in his hands, he shapes it over again; but if he has already put it into the fiery kiln, there is nothing more he can do for it. It is the same with us: while we are in this world, let us repent with our whole heart of the evil things we did in the flesh, so that we may be saved by the Lord while we still have time to repent. Once we have gone out of the world, we can no longer confess there, or repent. So, brothers and sisters, if we do the will of the Father and keep the flesh pure and guard the Lord’s commands, we will receive eternal life. For the Lord says in the Gospel: “If you did not keep what was small, who will give you what is great? For I tell you, whoever is faithful in the smallest thing is faithful in much as well.” So this is what he means: “Keep the flesh pure and the seal unstained, so that we may receive eternal life.” [x]

And let none of you say that this flesh is not judged and does not rise. Think: in what were you saved? In what did you get your sight back, if not while you were in this flesh? So we have to guard the flesh as God’s temple. Just as you were called in the flesh, in the flesh you will come. If Christ, the Lord who saved us, was spirit at first and became flesh, and called us that way, then we too will get our reward in this flesh. So let us love one another, so that we may all come into the kingdom of God. While we still have time to be healed, let us hand ourselves over to God, who is healing us, and pay him back. Pay him back with what? With repentance from an honest heart. He knows everything in advance and knows what is in our hearts. So let us give him praise, not from the mouth only but from the heart, so that he may take us in as sons. For the Lord said: “These are my brothers: the ones who do the will of my Father.” [z]

So, my brothers and sisters, let us do the will of the Father who called us, so that we may live; and let us chase after virtue instead, and leave malice behind, since it is what walks ahead of our sins. Let us run from godlessness, so that evils do not overtake us. If we are eager to do good, peace will chase after us. This is why people cannot find it: they bring in fears of what other people can do, and they choose the enjoyment that is here over the promise that is coming. They do not know how much torture the enjoyment here brings with it, or what delight there is in the promise that is coming. If they were only doing these things themselves, it would be bearable; but they keep on teaching evil to souls that have done nothing wrong, not knowing that they will get a double judgment, both they and the ones who listen to them. [ac]

So let us serve God with a clean heart, and we will be righteous. But if we do not serve him, because we do not believe God’s promise, we will be miserable. For the prophetic word says this too: “Miserable are the double-minded, the ones who doubt in their heart, who say: ‘We heard all this long ago, back in our fathers’ time, and we have waited day after day and seen none of it.’ You fools! Compare yourselves to a tree. Take a vine: first it drops its leaves, then a shoot comes, after that an unripe grape, then a full bunch. So my people too have had upheaval and hardship; but afterward they will receive the good things.” So, my brothers and sisters, let us not be double-minded. Let us hope, and hold out, so that we may collect the reward as well. The one who promised to pay each person back for his own works is faithful. So if we do what is right in front of God, we will go into his kingdom and receive the promises that no ear has heard and no eye has seen, and that have never come up into a human heart. [ad]

So let us wait for the kingdom of God hour by hour, in love and in doing what is right, since we do not know the day when God will appear. The Lord himself was asked by someone when his kingdom would come, and he said: “When the two are one, and the outside is like the inside, and the male with the female is neither male nor female.” Now the two are one when we speak the truth to each other, and there is one soul in two bodies with nothing pretended. And “the outside like the inside” means this: he calls the soul the inside and the body the outside. So, just as your body is there to be seen, let your soul be plain to see in good works. And “the male with the female, neither male nor female” means this: that when a brother sees a sister he should think nothing female about her, and she should think nothing male about him. And he says: “When you do these things, the kingdom of my Father will come.” [af]

So, brothers and sisters, let us repent at last. Let us be sober and turn to what is good, because we are full of a great deal of foolishness and wickedness. Let us wipe our earlier sins off ourselves, and repent from the soul, and be saved. Let us not become people-pleasers. Let us not want to please only each other, but the people outside as well, by doing what is right, so that the Name is not insulted because of us. For the Lord says: “My name is insulted the whole time, among all the nations.” And again: “Woe to the man because of whom my name is insulted.” How is it insulted? “By your not doing what I want.” When the nations hear the sayings of God from our mouth, they are amazed at how beautiful and great they are. Then they find out that our works do not match the words we speak, and from that point they turn to insults, saying it is some myth and delusion. For when they hear from us that God says, “It is no credit to you if you love those who love you; it is a credit to you if you love your enemies and the people who hate you” — when they hear that, they are amazed at how far the goodness goes. But when they see that we do not love even the people who love us, let alone the ones who hate us, they laugh at us, and the Name is insulted. [ai]

So, brothers and sisters, if we do the will of God our Father, we will belong to the first church, the spiritual one, the church created before sun and moon. But if we do not do the Lord’s will, we will belong to the scripture that says: “My house has become a robbers’ cave.” So let us choose to belong to the church of life, so that we may be saved. I do not suppose you are unaware that the living church is the body of Christ. For the scripture says, “God made the human being male and female.” The male is Christ, the female is the church. And the books and the apostles say the church is not a thing of the present, but has been there from the beginning. She was spiritual, as our Jesus also was, and she was made visible in the last days so that he might save us. [al]

The church, being spiritual, was made visible in the flesh of Christ, showing us that if any of us keeps her in the flesh and does not ruin her, he will get her back in the Holy Spirit. For this flesh is the copy of the spirit, and no one who has ruined the copy will share in the original. So this is what it means, brothers and sisters: keep the flesh, so that you may share in the spirit. But if we say that the flesh is the church and the spirit is Christ, then whoever has abused the flesh has abused the church — and such a man will not share in the spirit, which is Christ. This flesh can share in so much life and imperishability, once the Holy Spirit has been joined to it, that no one can tell or say what the Lord has prepared for those he has chosen.

I do not think I have given you small advice about self-control. Anyone who acts on it will not be sorry; he will save both himself and me, who gave the advice. It is no small reward to turn a soul that is wandering and perishing back so that it may be saved. This is the payment we have to give back to God who created us: that the one who speaks and the one who listens should both speak and listen with faith and love. So let us stay with the things we believed, righteous and holy, so that we may ask openly of the God who says: “While you are still speaking, I will say: Here I am.” That word is the sign of a great promise, for the Lord says of himself that he is readier to give than the one asking is to ask. So, since we are sharing in kindness on that scale, let us not begrudge one another the getting of so many good things. For as much pleasure as these words hold for the ones who have done them, that is how much condemnation they hold for the ones who have disobeyed. [ao]