2. Also about the natural, written and spiritual law.

3. Also about how someone can come to well-being.

4. And by doing what works we can enter into the kingdom of heaven.

Since human nature lost its well-being through Adam's transgression, it is necessary for us to know what Adam was before the loss of well-being, and in what this well-being consisted, or that good and divine state which man had before the transgression. The Holy Fathers tell us that God was made man in order that through His incarnation He might again raise human nature to well-being. Why do we need to know how it is through the incarnate economy of Christ that man again comes to being?

In the beginning, when God created man, He created him holy, passionless and sinless, in His image and likeness, and man was then exactly like God, Who created him. For the holy, sinless, and impassible God also creates holy, passionless, and sinless creatures. But since immutability and immutability is a property of one beginningless and uncreated Divinity, created man was naturally changeable and changeable, although he had the means and possibility, with God's help, not to undergo change and change.

Thus was man holy, and as a saint he had no need of any law, for the righteous man does not need the law. What need is there of the law for the holy, passionless, and pure? The law commands to do good and not to do evil. But the Scriptures say that God saw all things that He had created, and behold, there was good (Gen. 1:31). And so, since everything was good, what need was there for man to learn what was good and what was not good? Since there was nothing that was not extremely good, then this divine man had no need of the law.

2. However, since it was in his power to eat of every tree of paradise, and also of the tree of life itself, he was commanded not to eat of the tree alone, so that he might know that he was changeable and changeable, and beware, and remain forever in that good and divine state. God, in the words which He said to him, when He gave him the commandment that if he tasted, he would die, gave him to understand that he was changeable and changeable.

Thus, then, in paradise, there was no need for the law, neither written nor spiritual. But after man had eaten of that forbidden tree, and had died a bitter death, that is, he had fallen away from God and had been corrupted, then, in order that he might not fall away from all good (since evil had spread greatly in the human race, and tyrannized it forcibly, because of the calamitous weakness to which he had been subjected as a result of corruption), the law was given to him, to show what is good and what is bad. For man became blind, went out of his mind, and became senseless, wherefore he had need of instruction, as it is written in the Psalms: "Open my eyes, and I will understand the wonders of Thy law" (Psalm 118:18). Enlighten me, and I shall learn by Thy commandment (73). Do you see into what a miserable state man has come, and how therefore did he have need of the written law? For after he fell, he could no longer know even this world, if he had not first been enlightened from above by God's knowledge concerning it.

That is why the Apostle Paul, having enumerated such fruits of the Holy Spirit, says at the end: "Against such there is no law" (Gal. 5:22-23), for the righteous man does not require the law. Whoever does not yet have such fruits of the Holy Spirit is not Christ's, as the Apostle says: "If anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not His" (Romans 8:9). Such a one must strive and strive to become Christ, so that he does not believe in Christ in vain, in which case Christ does not benefit him in the least. All his efforts and all his podvig must be directed to acquiring the Spirit of Christ, and thus bringing forth the fruits of the Holy Spirit, for this is the spiritual law and well-being.

3. But if human nature comes back into being, as it was originally, through the Incarnation of Christ, and there is no other way and no other power, or wisdom, or labor and podvig, that human nature should again come into being and become as it was originally created, but is only in the hand of God, Who gave it existence, and that in order to grant it well-being, and there is no other way to do this, then what need is there to labor in vain, striving for this only by one's feats, readings, sufferings, languishing oneself with hunger, thirst, and vigils? And if such and similar sufferings are in vain and useless for one who does not know this great mystery (salvation), then it is the duty of every Christian to learn it and to know it, so as not to labor in vain in those sufferings and not to allow his soul to perish (even with them), which is more miserable than any other calamity. For all such and such sufferings must be lifted up, not in order to come to well-being, but in order to preserve the well-being which we received before through holy Baptism, since this treasure is difficult to preserve, and it behooves us to heed well, that we may preserve it, as the Holy Fathers said. And in the future life the Christian will not be tested whether he has renounced the world, whether he has fasted, whether he has kept vigils, whether he has prayed, whether he has wept and other good deeds in this life, but will be carefully examined whether he has any likeness to Christ, as a son to his father, as Paul also says: "My child, by whom I am sick, until Christ is imagined in you" (Galatians 4:19). For those who are baptized into Christ put on Christ (Galatians 3:27).

4. Those who guard the gates of the kingdom of heaven, if they do not see in the Christian the likeness of Christ as a son to the father, will not open them to him in any way and will not allow him to enter. For just as Christians like the old Adam, who transgressed the commandment of God, remain outside the kingdom of heaven, although they are in no way guilty of being like the forefather Adam, so Christians like the new Adam, their Father Christ, enter the kingdom of heaven, despite the fact that being like Christ is not their own work, since it is done through faith, which they receive into Christ.

Likeness to Christ consists of truth, meekness, righteousness, and with them humility and love for mankind. Truth is seen in all words, and meekness in all contradictions; for the meek one, whether surrounded by praise or reproach, keeps himself impassible, and is not puffed up by praise, nor is he grieved by blame. Righteousness is seen in all things: for just as we determine the weight of things by means of scales, and as we know the quality of gold by rubbing it against a stone, so in no undertaking do we go beyond the bounds of righteousness, if at the same time we keep in mind those measures (methods of measurement or scales) which our Lord (commandments) has given us. Humility is, as it were, an unstolen treasury, built in that mind which bears the conviction that only by the power of grace acceptable from Christ are there in it the good qualities that are shown, that is, truth, meekness, and righteousness. Love for mankind is likeness to God, since it does good to all people, both pious and wicked, good and evil, both known and unknown, just as God Himself does good to all, the sun shines on the righteous and the unrighteous, rains on the evil and the good. Therefore those who have received these things from Christ are like Him from Him, just as a son from his father is like his father, because a son is not except from the nature of his father. For this reason God was made man, and through such a union of the Divinity with human nature, the Divinity reigns over human nature, as it is written: "Enslave, and succeed, and reign for the sake of truth, and meekness, and righteousness" (Psalm 44:5). Thus, whoever has not reigned over Christ through the virtues of which we have spoken, is not like Christ as a father, and is not worthy to enter the kingdom of heaven. Truly it is. Why are all other podvigs superfluous, if they do not happen for their sake? Let us also try, brethren, to become like Christ through those virtues, that we may be vouchsafed His kingdom. To Him be glory and dominion forever. Amen.

Third Word

1. That we must examine ourselves, whether we have the beatitudes of Christ, because they (the virtues indicated by them) are the sign of the seal (of Christ)