Which is The True God?
Everybody talks about "God" and "Jesus." But it is in how they define these words that reveal whether their ideas actually match the True God revealed and declared in the full Tradition of the Church.
The truth is you will never develop or mature beyond your idea of who and what God is. The old gods of the pagans were little more than really powerful humans, and it seemed the whole point of worshiping these gods was to get them to “like” you so they would either leave you alone or give you a prize! All those ideas crumbled when the Christian Faith upended the pagan world.
Christianity posits a different view of God. The God of the Christian Faith is Personal, Peaceful, Loving, and quick to forgive. The God of the Christian Faith isn’t Someone Who needs to be appeased with gifts and obedient behavior as much as He is the Creator Who so loves His creatures that He invited them to enter into a real and life-changing relationship with Him so that His creatures can become “like” Him by grace!
This view of God is so radically different than how other gods have been described in different cultures and religions that when Christianity is brought into close proximity to these false ideas about God, the false ideas fall! That is, of course, until the authentic Christian Faith is abandoned or lost because we failed to pay attention or remain faithful.
This revolutionary view of God is built through centuries of God dealing with His people and shaping them to be witnesses to this radical rediscovery of God’s True Self. This message of the True God changes the world forever.
St. Paul helps us with this today. Look at our lesson in Romans 4:13-25:
Brethren, the promise to Abraham and his descendants, that they should inherit the world, did not come through the law but through the righteousness of faith. If it is the adherents of the law who are to be the heirs, faith is null and the promise is void. For the law brings wrath, but where there is no law there is no transgression. That is why it depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all his descendants — not only to the adherents of the law but also to those who share the faith of Abraham, for he is the father of us all, as it is written, “I have made you the father of many nations” — in the presence of the God in whom he believed, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist. In hope he believed against hope, that he should become the father of many nations; as he had been told, “So shall your descendants be.” He did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was as good as dead because he was about a hundred years old, or when he considered the barrenness of Sarah’s womb. No distrust made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised. That is why his faith was “reckoned to him as righteousness.” But the words, “it was reckoned to him,” were written not for his sake alone, but for ours also. It will be reckoned to us who believe in him that raised from the dead Jesus our Lord, who was put to death for our trespasses and raised for our justification.
St. Paul uses only the Old Testament scriptures to discern the wisdom of God in Christ. His readers of Romans are treated to his reading of Jewish Scripture and how it already pointed them to Faith in Jesus Christ.
Paul takes the great saint and Patriarch Abraham, whom the Jews hold as their founder and father of their whole nation, as the example of what God always intended to do in coming in the flesh. St. Paul insists that Christ came for the whole world and not just for the “chosen tribe” of people. In fact, he re-emphasizes what the Old Testament already taught that the “chosen people” were “chosen” so that they could be a light to the rest of the people on the earth, not reduced to some exclusive “special” race that God treats better than everyone else!
He even reminds these “chosen people” that their very Law, given to them by St. Moses, was never intended to be reduced to simply “following the rules” but to PROVE to everyone that we humans are simply too weak to always follow the rules. We need to be taught this because of our stubborn pride, so God, in His love for us, gives us the Law to teach us of our desperate need for grace.
We need to have our inner lives transformed into ones of gratitude for God’s mercy so that when we obey and do the faith, our motive is gratitude, not one of expecting to be “paid” for “doing” what we should. That significant transformation comes when we embrace a deep love for God and see how He always treats us as a loving Father.
St. Hyacinth was the chamberlain ( the servant that manages the household of the king) of the pagan Roman emperor Trajan in the early part of the 2nd Century. It is significant that, by this time, the Christian Faith had spread so far and fast in the great Roman Empire that there were Christians in the household of the Emperors. But, then again, the Faith spread rapidly among the servants and slaves of the Empire precisely because it was the Christian message that lifted the downtrodden and the dispossessed. By this time, it had also begun to spread among the intelligentsia because of the power of the message of the Resurrection and the peace of God that transformed people into “new” creatures in Christ. St. Hyacinth refused when Emperor Trajan insisted he partake of the sacrifices offered to the pagan gods. This was often used by the powerful to root out Christians and to discourage others from becoming Christians. When St. Hyacinth refused, he was thrown into prison and starved to death in the year 108 AD.
So, today, are you doing religious things so that God will bless you or so that God won’t “send” you to Hell? That’s the wrong way to think about Faith. God has already given you everything for your salvation. And now, when you respond to His mercy and grace with gratitude, you will find yourself embracing God's true view, which changes you into a Normal Orthodox Christian!
P.S. Like a fragrant hyacinth, thou ever sheddest the sweet savor and delight of everlasting truth for us, who with our whole soul cry unto you: Rejoice, you glory of Martyrs, brave Hyacinth.
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