What prompted the Divinity to save the human race? That He is the Godhead is the fullness of love. For this reason, the Holy Scriptures place love as the foundation of the Son of God's sending into the world. For thus God loved the world... (John 3; 16. Gal. 2; 20. Rome. 5; 5). What is the plan of this great work? Its plan consists in the fact that the Second Person of the Holy Trinity decides to take the form of a man and, by fulfilling the will of God, satisfy God's justice and deserve God's mercy for man – in this way to destroy death and gain life. In order to better see this plan, let us pay attention to the following: 1) on the Face of the Redeemer - Who is He? 2) On His condition and actions - what did He do? 3) His relationship to the human race and our relationship to Him.

But before we begin to consider these points, let us cast a glance at other means that God used to correct the human race.

The goodness of God, stirred up by love for the human race and having changed the punishment of eternal death to only temporary exile, found within itself the means for the restoration of man. She determined to save the human race through the second Person of the Holy Trinity. Human wisdom did not know this plan and would never have known it. If it had been left to the human race to draw up this plan, it would probably have wished to concentrate all power in its Restorer, it would have wished to see Him glorious, that is, it would have done what the Jews did, who were waiting for a glorious and powerful king in the Messiah. Many would like to see extraordinary wisdom in Him. This, no doubt, would be desired by all the sages. But that He should suffer and suffer - even this did not occur to poets. Meanwhile, the wisdom of God found this the best means. She ordained the Restorer of the world to appear in a state of slavery - humiliated. Here is her plan! She determined to fulfill it as follows:

1) that this Restorer would not appear suddenly, but after 5508 years;

2) to leave Him on earth in a humiliated state for a very short time, but, in the meantime, to lay a solid foundation during this time;

3) that He would then ascend from earth to heaven and from there rule the Church, until all His enemies would be placed at His footstool, and the Church would become a bride, having no defilement and blemish;

(4) that at last all the effects of reconciliation should be revealed, and all the power of death and the merits of the Redeemer; Then a new world and new people will appear.

These are the features of the plan of redemption! Its focus is the Person of the Intercessor, Who must appear twice: in a humiliated form in order to begin, and in a glorified form in order to finish the great work of redemption; more particularly: the focus of all this work, the center on which everything in it depends, consists in one minute – in the death of the God-Man. His death has a twofold effect, the reverse - backward, and the progressive - forward; The limit of this action is temporal life, but the limit is not final, for restoration extends into eternity, and there it acts on people in their past and future state, acts on the present and future worlds. That this is so, that redemption embraces everything back and forth, both visible and invisible, is clear from the words of the Apostle Peter, who says (1 Pet. 3:18-20) that Christ descended into hell and there preached to the sinners of Noah's time.

Having shown the main features of this plan, let us now look at them separately.

Why is the Person of the God-Man not destined to appear suddenly? Why is the enemy of the human race given so much time to exalt himself with the success of his unpunished crime? That in the matter of redemption the times are strictly distributed, this is very often indicated in the Holy Scriptures, and most of all in the Apocalypse, where the years, days, and hours are determined. And judging in general from the idea of the most perfect Being, the Author of redemption, it is impossible not to admit that the time of the coming of the Redeemer must be wisely managed. Why was such a postponement made? The reason for this is revealed by the Apostle Paul when he speaks of the law, that for the Jews he was a pestilent in Christ (Gal. 3:24); the natural law was just as much a nurture for the Gentiles: for the understanding of God was manifest in them (Rom. 1:19). Therefore, the reason for the late coming of the Savior was the need to prepare people. His appearance and religion should constitute noon in the human race, and noon is always preceded by dawn and morning. In addition (the second reason) it was necessary that man should feel his poverty and powerlessness to get out of it, to free himself from temporary and transient evils. Moreover, (the third reason) mankind, as we have seen, was created in a kind of spiritual infancy, so it needs the development of strength to accept a mature religion. Thus, the reasons for the postponement of the Savior's coming until the age of 5508 are as follows; first, in the need to prepare people to receive Him; secondly, in the necessity of being aware of one's own impotence, and, thirdly, in the quality of revealed religion, inconsistent with the spirit and abilities of infant humanity.

Why does the essence of this plan consist in self-denial, in humility? Why is it necessary to save the world by means of Divine exhaustion? The reason for this is hidden in the sin of man: man sinned through pride, therefore, in order to destroy his sin, the opposite virtue to sin was required - humility was required. In Divine healing, two methods are combined: the method of similarity - for the Redeemer was like men in everything except sin; and the way of dissimilarity, opposite, for the human race is redeemed by self-denial, by the fulfillment of the will of God; consequently, a way of life opposite to the ordinary life that people live. The God-man – this great warrior – must have the greatness of suffering, the greatness of patience; all other greatness did not come to Him. For it behooves Him to suffer multiplied, and thus enter into the joy of God and bring in others, says the Apostle Paul in the Epistle to the Hebrews (Hebrews 9:26). But this greatness is revealed in Jesus only to the lofty eye. Jesus, the sufferer on the Cross, is an ideal better than which reason cannot invent; in His Person the creature has reached such a degree of exaltation that it cannot go further..

Why did the Savior appear for a short time and then hide Himself in heaven? Why did He perform only the office of priest on earth, and the office of king, ruler, in heaven? The Apostles nowhere speak of this; they only say that it was proper - befitting. However, the reasons for this must be sought in the state of the human race. This means that it was unseemly for Christ to reign on earth, but it was better to be King in heaven. First: in order to be able to reign on earth, it would be necessary to change the entire social structure; It would be necessary for the entire human race to be under feocratic (theocratic - ed.) rule, but many things are still incompatible with feocracy on earth. The second reason for this may be the fact that there is an insignificant part of the human race on earth; a much larger part of it is in the depths of nature and beyond the grave. Consequently, the Restorer, having appeared on earth, had to hasten to where the majority of people were, and there to be a King. The Apostle Peter has a hint of this: "For Jesus Christ," he says, "in His most precious moments, during His sojourn in the tomb, descended into hell."

Having made a general overview of the plan for our restoration, let us turn to the details. And, first of all, let us ask, how was mankind prepared for the meeting of the Lord? This preparation, even in Paradise and before the Flood, was common to the entire human race; so it was after the flood, before Abraham. But since the time of Abraham it has been divided into two kinds: one is special for the Jews, and the other is more common for the Gentiles; there it is more miraculous, and here it is more natural. Such was the course of preparation for the human race. What should cooking consist of in general? In general, and mainly, it should consist in the knowledge of the poverty of one's condition and the powerlessness to get out of it: whoever sees poverty from the physical and spiritual sides, will raise his hands and eyes to heaven, and as soon as help presents itself to him, he will gladly accept it. For this, indeed, both the pagans and the Jews were prepared.

What means were used for this? Natural and supernatural; The former can also be divided into internal and external. The first natural remedy for all peoples and at all times was conscience. As long as conscience is active in a person, then by its threats and torments it unfailingly disposes the sinner to ask for mercy. That this remedy could and did be used by the pagans is confirmed by the Apostle Paul in the first chapters of the Epistle to the Romans. Thus, conscience is the first universal and most powerful call to heaven; if it were not for him, all others would be in vain. The second natural remedy consists in the lessons of visible nature. It teaches the sinner many things; it also has its own morality, and in some of its manifestations it says the same thing as conscience. That nature is really used by God for this purpose, is indicated by the Apostle Paul, who says that God left the Gentiles to walk in their ways, but did not leave Himself untestified, giving them rain, filling their hearts with gladness, and so on. In order to see the reality of this more clearly, one has only to turn to history. In it we see how the phenomena of nature produced religious actions in nations; Thus, fruitfulness, or terrible revolutions in nature, have always forced people to offer sacrifices to the gods and turn to heaven. Although many superstitions were mixed with this, yet religion lay at the foundation of all this. Here is the second remedy, the usual one, and an external one at that!