Magyar Egyház, 2010 (89. évfolyam, 1-4. szám)
2010-10-01 / 4. szám
MAGYAR EGYHÁZ 5. oldal The reason the Word of God became man from the treatise of Irenaeus, 130-200 A.D. For this reason the Word of God became man and the Son of God became the son of man in order that man, being mingled with the Word of God and being granted adoption should become the son of God. In no other way could we have received incorruptibility and immortality, without ourselves first being united to them. How could we be made one with incorruptibility and mortality by immortality and so enable us to receive adoption as sons. This same Son of God, therefore, who is our Lord and the existing Word of the Father is also son of man. He was bom like other men, bom of Mary, who was herself of human stock and a member of the human race, and so he became the son of man. It was for this reason that the Lord gave a sign here below and in heaven above that man had not asked for. Man had neither hoped that a virgin could be with child and bear a son, although she was a virgin; nor that this child would be God with us, coming down to the earth below in search of the sheep that was lost (which he himself had made) and once again ascending on high and offering in trust to the Father the man he had found. This same Lord himself became the first-fruits of the resurrection of man, so that the resurrection of the head should mean the resurrection of the rest of the body, and that every man alive should rise again on completion of the time of the punishment, which his disobedience had earned. For the body in its varied joints and ligaments grows up and is strengthened by God’s aid, and each of the members has its appropriate fitting place in the body. The Father has many mansions in the same way as there are many members in the body. When, therefore, man fell, God was geneours in mercy, since he foresaw the victory which would be his through the agency of the Word. For because his power was made perfect in weakness, he displayed the kindness of God and the greatness of his power. God’s Promises Are Held Out to Us by His Son from a discourse on the Psalms by Augustine, bishop, 354-430 A.D. God established a time for his promises and a time for their fulfillment. The time for promises was in the time of the prophets, until John the Baptist; from John until the end is the time of fulfillment. God, who is faithful, put himself in our debt, not by receiving anything but by promising so much. A promise was not sufficient for him; he chose to commit himself in writing as well, as it were making a contract of his promises. He wanted us to be able to see the way in which his promises were redeemed when he began to discharge them. And so the time of the prophets was, as we have often said, the foretelling of the promises. He promised eternal salvation, everlasting happiness with the angels, an immortal inheritance, endless glory, the joyful vision of his face, his holy dwelling in heaven, and after resurrection from the dead no further fear of dying. This is as it were his final promise, the goal of all our striving. When we reach it, we shall ask for nothing more. But as to the way in which we are to arrive at our final goal, he has revealed this also, by promise and prophecy. He has promised men divinity, mortals immortality, sinners justification, the poor a rising to glory. But, brethren, because God’s promises seemed impossible to men - equality with the angels in exchange for mortality, corruption, poverty, weakness, dust and ashes - God not only made a written contract with men, to win their belief but also established a mediator of his good faith, nor a prince or angel or archangel, but his only Son. He wanted, through his Son, to show us and give us the way he would lead us to the goal he has promised. It was not enough for God to make his son our guide to the way; he made him the way itself, that you might travel with him as leader, and by him as the way. Therefore, the only Son of God was to come among men, to take the nature of men, and in this nature to be bom as a man. He was to die, to rise again, to ascend into heaven, to sit at the right hand of the Father, and to fulfill his promises among the nations, and after that to come again, to exact now what he had asked for before, to separate those deserving his anger form those deserving his mercy, to execute his threats against the wicked, and to reward the just as he had promises. All this had therefore to be prophesied, foretold, and impressed on us as an event in the future, in order that we might wait for it in faith, not find it a sudden and dreadful reality. When Christ comes, God will be seen by men From a treatise Against Heresies by Irenaeus, 130-200 A.D. There is one God, who by his word and wisdom created all things and set them in order. His word is our Lord Jesus Christ, who in this last age became man among men to unite end and beginning, that is, man and God. The prophets, receiving the gift of prophecy from this same Word, foretold his coming in the flesh, which brought about the union and communion between God and man ordained by the Father. From the beginning the word of God prophesied that God would be seen by men and would live among them on earth; he would speak with his own creation and be present to it, bringing it salvation and being visible to it. He would free us from the hands of all who hate us, that is, form the universal spirit of sin, and enable us to serve him in holiness and justice all our days. Man was to receive the Spirit of God and so to attain to the glory of the Father. The prophets, foretold that God would be seen by men. As the Lord himself says: Blessed are the clean of heart, for they shall see God. In his greatness and inexpressible glory no one can see God and live, for the Father is beyond our comprehension. But in his love and generosity and omnipotence he allows even this to those who love him, that is, even to see God, as the prophets foretold. For what is impossible to men is possible to God. By his own powers man cannot see God; yet God will be seen by
