The truth shall make you free

(analysis)

Jesus is the truth. “If Jesus (the Son) makes you free, you shall be free indeed.” (Jn 8:36) However, the Lord adds a condition and that is: to abide in His Word. “If you abide in My word… you shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free.” (Jn 8:31-32) In order to abide in God’s Word, first we have to receive Jesus and His word. If we have received Jesus and if we abide in Him, we are God’s children. So it holds true: “To all who received Him He gave power to become children of God.” (Jn 1:12) What should we do to abide in Christ and in His word? The Apostle gives the response: “As therefore you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so live in Him, rooted and built up in Him.” (Col 2:6-7) What are we to do next? “Put off the old man with his practices, and put on the new man.” (Col 3:9-10) The old man in us is Eve with the inheritance of the law of sin. The new man is the new Eve – the Mother of Jesus, whom Jesus gave to us on Golgotha by words: “Behold, your mother.” If we fulfilled Jesus’ testament and received Her like the Apostle into ourselves (Gr.: eis ta idia – Jn 19:27), then She is, in truth, “the mother of us all” (Gal 4:26). “So, brethren, we are not children of the slave (Eve) but of the free woman” (the woman free from sin) – Mary – the new Eve (see Gal 4:31). Through the obedience of faith of the Virgin Mary and through the Holy Spirit the Word became Flesh and thus God became man. Through the Virgin Mary and the Holy Spirit you also are to be transformed into Christ. There is a difference between receiving Christ and being transformed into Him. The following words are true of Jesus’ Mother: “My little children, for whom I labour in birth again until Christ is formed in you.” (Gal 4:19) That we may abide in His word, first it is necessary that the Word become incarnate in us. This happened for the first time through Jesus’ Mother and the Holy Spirit. And it happens even nowadays. This is a biblical model.

Then we are to become rooted in Christ, to follow Him and to present to Him time and again our will as a living sacrifice (Rom 12:1) whereby our old man is crucified and Christ may live in us (cf. Gal 2:20; Rom 6:6) – and this is the true freedom. “Christ has truly made us free.” (Gal 5:1) The way of being transformed into Christ is a way of change – repentance. If the process of healing and liberation is to be realized, our person, our “I” in Christ has to separate itself from other “I’s” that are in unity with the old man that opens himself to the system of lie and destruction. These dark and strange forces intruded themselves upon our nature. Throughout the years, or decades, they forced upon us Christians their false and destructive character. As long as in our mind and in our attitudes we believe a lie, we cannot be made free.

For example, a man who believed that once he would get rich on slot machines became a slave instead. In the root of every bad habit as well as of every kind of dependence there is a belief in a lie. Similarly, the one who does not want to forgive and has believed the lie of his feelings more than what God’s Word says about forgiveness is held in the bonds of darkness. Why? Because one cooperates with lie and shares its false values. Therefore these attitudes must be removed – our mind must be transformed (Mk 1:15).

Belief in God’s Word

The most important means to healing and liberation in Christ is the belief in God’s Word. The first sin was that Eve did not believe God’s directions and assurances and instead of it opened herself to lie and united with the spirit of lie. The main sin of the mankind is that they do not believe in Jesus Christ as in the Son of God and the Redeemer. This sin of unbelief is systematically enforced upon all future priests and religious during the study of theology through so-called historic-critical method (HCT). “When He (the Holy Spirit) has come, He will convict the world of sin… Of sin, because they do not believe in Me (in Jesus).” (Jn 16:8-9) HCT believes neither in Christ, nor in the inspiration of the Scripture, nor in the miracles. The Word of God, which we receive by faith, shows us above all two fundamental truths, our sinfulness and our Redeemer – Jesus. God’s Word reveals to us that if we abide in sin, we are slaves of lie and of the liar and our end is eternal condemnation. Further it reveals that in Jesus our sins are forgiven, cleansed by His blood on Golgotha. But God’s Word also points out our identity in Christ, that we are God’s children (cf. Jn 1:12), heirs of God’s kingdom (cf. Rom 8:17, Gal 4:7), that in Christ we have all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge (cf. Col 2:3), that in Him we have eternal life (cf. Jn 3:36; 6:40; 1Jn 5:11), that we have His Spirit (cf. 1Cor 3:16), that though together with Him we will suffer, then we will also reign with Him forever (cf. 2Tim 2:12). To believe actually means to take what God offers in His Word. God offers us new identity which in many places of the Scripture is precisely described. Therefore we are to look in the mirror of God’s Word for so long until we fully receive our new identity in Christ. This is a process – the way of repentance, that means leaving our corrupted sinful identity (the old man) and through Jesus’ death entering the Father’s arms (cf. Lk 23:46). If through faith we receive Jesus and all He made for us, we also receive His righteousness. Then we not only have God’s righteousness, but we have at the same time become the righteousness of God (cf. 2Cor 5:21) and we are thus delivered from the power of the enemy (cf. Col 1:13).

If we obediently let our mind, consciousness as well as our whole being be filled with God’s Word, then we are walking on the way of following of Christ, on the way of true freedom. On this way the most important thing is to be led to true repentance.

Two ways

In principle, every man faces two ways: 1) the true one, that is Jesus; 2) the false one, without Christ, the way of so-called self-redemption. (For example, if someone falls ill and uses homoeopathy or another form of alternative medicine /acupuncture or other pagan practices/, such Christian has already gone astray from the way which is Jesus. This also refers to those who are involved in martial arts, Oriental philosophies and meditations or to those who in their crises seek help with diviners or occult healers.)

The majority of Christians do not know at all what is the substance of Christianity, it does not even occur to them that someone should follow Jesus. It does not occur to them to confront their life with Jesus as with the Eternal Truth. Everyone has his own truth, his own experience, his own good. That Jesus is to be my way in life is of no concern to the present-day Christians. They follow their own ways of self-redemption and therefore upon this false basis they want to perform, or they even perform globalization with the spirit of this world. The prophet Isaiah calls: “All we have sinned; we have turned everyone to his own way.” (cf. Isa 53:6), and following one’s own way is a sin. I thereby refuse God’s way which God gave to me and this way is Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who died for me on the cross.

The thinking of man who follows his own ways is attached to the corrupted root in us. This thinking is fully influenced by the spirit of this world. It moves only in the dimensions of deceit and darkness. It does not reckon with the most important things – namely with death, with God’s Judgement and with eternal life or eternal condemnation.

Spiritual battle – the strategy

The way of repentance, the way of following Christ, is connected with spiritual battle. God’s Word says: “We do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against (demonic) powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age.” (Eph 6:12)

When an army is going to occupy a particular territory, it does not position men – soldiers – in the forefront. The attack is launched with artillery fire, grenades, aeroplanes and guided missiles. The last come the foot-soldiers, that means military units comprised of men. First fall the missiles and only then come the people. One comes across similar phenomena in common life, in the sphere of politics or social confrontations. Whenever a particular person or a particular political, spiritual or moral system is to be removed, the aggressor, as a rule, first uses false ideas through which he seeks to influence the public opinion by means of press, radio, television. This is followed by complaints, accusations, slanders and public defamation of personalities representing a certain spirit. Today these methods are used to kill God’s Spirit and life in the Church. The sheep and true shepherds are being morally killed and liquidated through so-called obedience to the Church authority. This authority takes responsibility for spiritual death inside the Church. Therefore it must be judged and condemned. God’s authority has been abused by people who are enemies of Christ and His Church. Therefore the greatest duty of the Pope is to withdraw false servants and in their place to install men who belong to Christ, have His Spirit and bear the fruit of repentance. The key posts have been occupied by people who do not repent and who do not have the Spirit of God but the spirit of the world. These Church officials walk their own ways of intrigues and godlessness. They are the greatest enemies of Christ and of the Church, the same as the Church hierarchy and unconverted theologians (Sadducees...) in the times of Christ. They neither go in the kingdom of God themselves, nor do they allow those who are entering to go in (cf. Mt 23:13).

The powers of spiritual darkness use the following against us: 1) false thoughts, 2) works of darkness.

ad 1) If we start to occupy our mind with these thoughts, open ourselves to them, sympathize with them and admire them, we thus consciously choose untruth, the way of sin and dependence on it and on those that are behind it. The thoughts may be envoys of demonic powers that are to prepare their way into our inward.

ad 2) These thoughts – fiery shots of the enemy – are aimed at animating the old man in us that he may take up the rule in place of Christ again. If the victim concerned returns into the old dependences, e.g. alcoholism, fornication, depression, unbelief…, these very deeds then drive Jesus away from the soul and hold it through dependence in the power of sin and slavery. Unless one humbles oneself and truly repents in good time, there is a danger of total openness to sin and to demonic powers which enslave man through that particular sin.

“If anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not His” (Rom 8:9)

Behind false thoughts is the spirit of lie and behind the works of darkness is its slavery and death. In essence, spiritual battle is aimed at assuming the power. The Church and the Christians today have no spiritual power. Why? Because they do not fight with lie and sin and have opened themselves to the spirit of the world. If we have the spirit of the world, we do not have the Spirit of Christ and we no longer belong to Him. It actually makes no matter what we speak or do but what spirit we have. If we have the spirit of the world, then even if we held the highest posts in the Church, we are enemies of Christ. However, if we have the Spirit of God and are guided by Him, Christ lives in us and His power works through us, even if we were hard invalids.

How does the enemy fight for the Spirit? How is he deceiving us and what means does he use? He suggests such thoughts which emphasize only our own good, but in false light. We then put in the first place our own interests, our own claims, our own right, our own attitude… something that we adopt and abandon Jesus therefor. Unconverted people cannot perceive it at all, they live their own lives and God is a mere theory to them. But the one who really decides to walk the way of the truth will soon know the intensity of spiritual battle. What is the sense of repentance in that all? Man is deceived many times a day, he starts to seek his own good, but this good is not Jesus, he realizes his own interests, but these interests are not in harmony with God’s will, he claims his own right, but thus he gets out of God’s guidance and so on. However, by that all he automatically pursues a different aim than Jesus and therefore he also receives a different spirit and quenches the Spirit of God. This is right where the craftiness and latency of the spiritual battle lie: the enemy fights through us against us. The Lord Jesus knows very well the character of our corrupted nature which, having lost God – the source of love, is tied to and clings to all creation and becomes a slave of people, of things and of itself. Therefore it holds true: “If anyone does not leave his father and mother… yes, and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple.” (cf. Lk 14:26)

If at least two people want to make unity in Christ and jointly to enforce God’s interests, it is connected with an abnormally intensive spiritual battle. If each of them is going for what he himself sees as good and does not have the willingness to forsake this good for the sake of Jesus, very quickly they will hurt one another and will be unable to carry on, and that is why repentance is so much important. The fact is that when there arises a conflict, one retreats into isolation with one’s own truth and is no longer able to make unity with the other one. One has thousands of arguments why to hold this seeming truth and thus to make unity with another spirit which is behind it. In such case mutual unity is absolutely impossible. In families this ends up with divorces, in monasteries with leaving the religious life, and all that just because we do not repent. And, in fact, but so little is needed – to stand in the truth, in the light and in this light to see where each of us believed a lie, where each preferred his own truth. Then it is necessary to confess it truthfully and the spirit of lie and separation will leave. Here is that deep sense of repentance – for little willingness to truthfulness we obtain great deliverance. Joy and peace are coming back and mutual love is deepening. Life without repentance is a life in the slavery of the spirits of lie hiding behind the possession of all which our corrupted nature – old man – identifies with. Repentance relieves us of all darkness and returns us back to the loving Father’s arms. The Apostle calls: “Now this I say and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds. They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart. They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practise every kind of impurity.” (Eph 4:17-19) And what are we to do? “Put off your old man, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and put on the new man.” (Eph 4:22-24)

Fr. Markian V. Hitiuk ThLic. OSBM

Fr. Eliáš A. Dohnal ThD. OSBM

Fr. Metod?j R. Špi?ík ThD. OSBM

Fr. Cyril J. Špi?ík ThD. Ing. OSBM

Pidhirtsi 2nd December 2007

Address: Monastery OSBM, 80660 Pidhirtsi, Brody district, Lvov region, Ukraine

www.community.org.ua