Icon of Christ carrying His cross, Church of Panagia Dexia,Thessaloniki, Greece
God is merciful! But human beings have an insatiable desire for
justice. Fr Stephen Freeman talks about the solution to this
problem. Please click to listen below;
Justice Enough - Glory to God - Ancient Faith Radio
complements Fr Stephen's podcast.
The Prodigal Son’s brother?
Now if anyone is perplexed and
does not understand how it
is possible for God’s love to render anyone
pitifully
wretched and miserable and even burning as it were in flames,
let him consider the elder brother of the prodigal son. Was he
not in
his father’s estate? Did not everything in it belong to
him? Did he not
have his father’s love? Did his father
not come himself to entreat and
beseech him to come and take
part in the joyous banquet?
What rendered him miserable and
burned him with inner
bitterness and hate? Who refused him anything? Why
was
he not joyous at his brother’s return? Why did he not have
love either
toward his father or toward his brother? Was it
not because of his wicked,
inner disposition? Did he not
remain in hell because of that? And what was
this hell?
Was it any separate place? Were there any instruments
of torture?
Did he not continue to live in his father’s house?
What separated him from all the
joyous people in the house
if not his own hate and his own bitterness? Did
his father,
or even his brother, stop loving him? Was it not precisely
this
very love which hardened his heart more and more?
Was it not the joy that
made him sad? Was not hatred
burning in his heart, hatred for his father and
his brother,
hatred for the love of his father toward his brother and
for
the love of his brother toward his father?
This is hell: the negation
of love; the return of hate for love;
bitterness at seeing innocent joy; to be
surrounded by love
and to have hate in one’s heart. This is the eternal
condition
of all the damned. They are all dearly loved. They are all
invited to
the joyous banquet. They are all living in God’s
Kingdom, in the New Earth
and the New Heavens. No one
expels them. Even if they wanted to go away
they could
not flee from God’s New Creation, nor hide from God’s
tenderly
loving omnipresence. Their only alternative
would be, perhaps, to go away
from their brothers and
search for a bitter isolation from them, but they could
never
depart from God and His love.
And what is more terrible is
that in this eternal life, in this
New Creation, God is everything to His
creatures. As Saint
Gregory of Nyssa says, “In the present life the things
we
have relations with are numerous, for instance: time, air,
locality,
food and drink, clothing, sunlight, lamplight, and
other necessities of life,
none of which, many though they
be, are God; that blessed state which we hope
for is in
need of none of these things, but the Divine Being will
become all,
and in the stead of all to us, distributing Himself
proportionately to
every need of that existence. It is plain,
too, from the Holy
Scriptures that God becomes to those
who deserve it, locality and home and
clothing and food
and drink and light and riches and kingdom, and
everything that can be thought of and named that goes to
See note 46
In the new eternal life, God
will be everything to His
creatures, not only to the good but also to the
wicked,
not only to those who love Him, but likewise to those who
hate
Him. But how will those who hate Him endure to
have everything from the hands
of Him Whom they
detest? Oh, what an eternal torment is this, what an
eternal fire, what a gnashing of teeth!
Depart from Me, ye cursed,
into the everlasting inner
fire of hatred,” (see note47) saith the Lord,
because I was
thirsty for your love and you did not give it to Me, I was
hungry for your blessedness and you did not offer it to Me,
I was imprisoned in
My human nature and you did not
come to visit Me in My church; you are
free to go where
your wicked desire wishes, away from Me, in the torturing
hatred
of your hearts which is foreign to My loving heart
which knows no hatred
for anyone. Depart freely from love
to the everlasting torture of hate, unknown
and foreign to
Me and to those who are with Me, but prepared by
freedom
for the devil, from the days I created My free,
rational creatures. But
wherever you go in the darkness
of your hating hearts, My love will follow
you like a river
of fire, because no matter what your heart has chosen,
you are
and you will eternally continue to be, My children.
Amen.
Notes:
46 “‘I am father, I
am brother, I am bridegroom, I am
dwelling place, I am food, I am raiment, I am
root, I am
foundation, all whatsoever thou willest, I am.’ ‘Be thou
in
need of nothing, I will be even a servant, for I came to
minister, not to be
ministered unto; I am friend, and
member, and head, and brother, and
sister, and mother;
I am all; only cling thou closely to me. I was poor for
thee,
and a wanderer for thee, on the Cross for thee, in the
tomb for
thee, above I intercede for thee to the Father;
on earth I am come for thy sake
an ambassador from
my Father. Thou art all things to me, brother, and
joint
heir, and friend, and member.’ What wouldest thou more?”
St. John
Chrysostom, Homily 76 on the Gospel of Matthew
(PG 58. 700).
47 “ ‘The end of the world’
signifies not the annihilation of
the world, but its transformation. Everything
will be
transformed suddenly, in the twinkling of an eye…. And
the Lord
will appear in glory on the clouds. Trumpets will
sound, and loud, with power!
They will sound in the soul
and conscience! All will become clear to the
human
conscience.
The Prophet Daniel, speaking of the Last Judgment,
relates
how the Ancient of Days, the Judge, sits on His
throne, and before Him is
a fiery stream
(Dan. 7:9-10).
Fire is a purifying element; it burns sins. Woe
to a man if
sin has become a part of his nature: then the fire will burn
the man himself. This fire will be kindled within a man;
seeing the Cross, some
will rejoice, but others will fall
into confusion, terror, and despair.
Thus will men be
divided instantly. The very state of a man’s soul casts him
to
one side or the other, to right or to left.
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