Daily Journey Through the Great Fast With the Early ChurchНамуна

I’m the type of person that likes to take roots where I am - I really love to visit new places and travel but the thought of moving elsewhere doesn’t really appeal to me. I always thought there can’t be anything better than what I’m doing right now, nowhere better than where I live. When I was younger I was afraid of dying, not because I would be leaving my family behind but because I couldn’t understand the concept of eternity...for me, eternity was way too long, too long in a place I had no concept of, no idea of, no knowledge of. I asked so many questions about heaven growing up and wanted to know where this next place was, what it looked like, what I’d be doing there - it was so scary not knowing.

Imagine living in the time of the Old Testament and the thought of dying - where would you go when you died? There was no means of salvation...at best you would bring a blood sacrifice for the covering of your sins, but covering is a far cry from the freeing and releasing of your sins (John 20:23). That’s a really scary thought; not knowing where you were going after you died. Thankfully though, as I grew up, I began to read the word of God more and more and began to realize - our original home is heaven and this life that we are living here on Earth is just our temporary home, our temporary life (1 John 2:15-17). The more and more I read the more I wanted to go to heaven!

But heaven is not the goal of life! Our life here is not to be lived just to make it to heaven...our life on Earth is meant to be lived with God here, and by doing so, when we go to heaven it will be a continuation of the life with God we had on Earth. But how can I really be sure that when I am forgiven that I am really forgiven by God? The Old Testament didn’t have the immediate assurance, they just had the covering of sins - there were prophecies of a salvation to come but many did not live in the flesh to see that day. When Jesus Christ died on the Cross, He put an end to the bonds that sin had on us. See, when you died before the time of the Cross of Christ, you’d went to Hades and there you waited...until one day, when Jesus Christ died on the Cross, Satan thought he won, only for Him to show up to the doors of Hades to take all those righteous ones to Paradise with Him.

What about us living after the time of the Cross of Christ? When He rose, His Resurrection became our Resurrection - St. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15:21-22, “For since by man (Adam) came death, by Man (Jesus Christ) also came the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ all shall be made alive.” We have been given a promise that after the believers of God depart from this world, in Christ, we are all made alive. “He is not the God of the dead, but the God of the living” [Mark 12:27]. The believers will not taste death but will depart from this life to be with the Lord, whereas those that do not believe, will live in their deadness with Satan...the former shall be made alive in Him and the latter will live in their death with him!

“For the sake of all he tasted death. Although by nature he was life and was himself the resurrection, he surrendered his own body to death. By his ineffable power he trampled upon death in his own flesh that he might become the firstborn from the dead and the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep… . Even if the resurrection of the dead may be said to be through a man, the man we know it is through is the Word begotten of God. The power of death has been destroyed through him.” [St. Cyril of Alexandria, 5th century Patriarch of Alexandria, theologian known as the “Pillar of Faith” and a “doctor of the Church”]

“No human enters into death except through Adam and no one into eternal life except through Christ. This is the meaning of that repeated phrase “all”, because as all men belong to Adam through their first or carnal birth, so all men who belong to Christ come to the second or spiritual birth. Therefore, he says “all” in both places because as all who die die only in Adam, so all who will be made alive will not be made alive except in Christ...Man indeed brought death to himself and to the Son of Man. But the Son of Man, by dying and rising again, brought life to man.” [St. Augustine of Hippo, 4th century theologian]