Why We Must Return to the Word

Who, then, who can declare the Father by number, so as to discover the powers of his Word? For just as he is the Father’s Word and Wisdom, so too, stooping down to created things, he becomes the very Radiance and the very Life of the one who begot him, to give them knowledge and understanding of the Father. He becomes the Door, and the Shepherd, and the Way, King and Governor and Savior over all, Light, Giver of Life, and Providence over all. Having, then, such a Son, begotten of himself, good, and the Creator, the Father did not hide him out of the sight of his creatures. Even day by day he reveals him to all through the ordering and the life of all things, which is his work. [a]

And in him and through him the Father reveals himself as well, as the Savior says, “I in the Father and the Father in me.” So it follows that the Word is in the one who begot him, and that the one who is begotten lives eternally with the Father. This being so, with nothing outside him, but heaven and earth and all that is in them depending on him, people in their folly have still set aside the knowledge and service of him. They have honored things that are not instead of things that are. Instead of the real and true God they have made gods of things that were not, “serving the creature rather than the Creator,” and so they have entangled themselves in folly and ungodliness.

It is just as if someone admired the works more than the workman: as if, struck with awe at the public buildings of a city, he made light of their builder, or as if he praised a musical instrument but despised the man who made it and tuned it. How foolish, and how sadly weak of sight! For how else would they have known the building, or the ship, or the lyre, had the shipbuilder not made it, the architect built it, or the musician fashioned it? As, then, whoever reasons like this is mad, beyond all madness, so, I think, are those in the same state of mind who do not recognize God or worship his Word, our Lord Jesus Christ, the Savior of all. Through him the Father orders and holds together all things and exercises providence over the universe.

With faith and godliness toward him, my Christ-loving friend, take heart and be of good hope. For immortality and the kingdom of heaven are the fruit of faith and devotion toward him, provided only that the soul is adorned according to his laws. For just as the prize for those who walk after his example is everlasting life, so for those who walk the opposite way, and not the way of virtue, there is great shame, and danger beyond pardon on the day of judgment, because though they knew the way of truth, their deeds were contrary to what they knew.