The Hidden Man of the Heart (1 Peter 3:4): The Cultivation of the Heart in Orthodox Christian Anthropology by Archimandrite Zacharias Zacharou

Author:Archimandrite Zacharias Zacharou [Zacharou, Archimandrite Zacharias]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Mount Thabor Publishing
Published: 2013-08-19T04:00:00+00:00

Moreover, by repentance and confession, the Christian demonstrates his faith in God’s power to save, and shows that his hope is not in man, nor in an angel, but in Christ alone Who purchased him by the Blood of His sacrifice.

Finally, repentance and confession are the cross taken up by the believer for his salvation and justification. It consists of the shame suffered in disclosing his sins to God in the presence of a minister of the Church. By doing this, he puts himself in the way of the Lord, and the Lord comes to accept his shame, however great or small, as a sacrificial offering of thanks, and in return He grants him grace which restores him. Whoever places himself in the Lord’s way through voluntary shame will find that the Lord is his companion, since He said that He is the Way, the Way of both Truth and Life. Therefore, both grace and the life of the great Fellow-Traveller Himself are accorded to the believer who humbly desires the company of the Lord. In a word, by voluntarily accepting shame in confession, one not only escapes involuntary shame at the Last Judgment, but one also receives God’s eternal recognition.

But grace is received in all fullness when man repents for all mankind. As soon as man’s personal repentance bears fruit, God shows him the entire fallen race of Adam, and man then makes his prayer and repentance the cry of the whole earth. One often sees this in the righteous of the Old Testament. A characteristic example is that of the Three Holy Children who stood in the furnace unharmed as they repented of Israel’s apostasy in Babylon, taking it upon themselves. They accepted the hellish flame of the furnace as just retribution from God for the sin of their people (Dan. 3:5–7). We also see such examples in the lives of the saints: the Holy Apostle Paul wished to be anathema for his people (cf. Rom. 9:3); Moses prayed for his people, and asked God to blot him out of His Book unless his whole people be saved (cf. Exod. 32:32). And in our own time, St. Silouan raises up to God a prayer of repentance for the whole world.16

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.