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!

In addition to these, there were also extraordinary means. Before Abraham they were common to the whole human race, and after Abraham some actually belonged to the Jews, and others to the Gentiles. In the times before Abraham, these means, then common to the entire human race, generally consisted in revelations and in certain particular actions of the power of God. We find three main revelations in Moses at that time: 1) in the comforting words spoken by God to Adam; 2) in the blessings of Noah Shem; 3) in the blessing of Abraham's descendants. In these three declarations of God, the plan of salvation is indicated in general and indefinite features. But it must not be inferred from this that the leaders of the people of that time knew so little as is contained in these passages. It can be said with all reason that they knew more than Moses preserved in his history. Many reasons make you think so. For example, we have never seen in Moses that Abraham saw the day of Jesus and rejoice; but Jesus Christ is clear about it. This already leads to the idea that Moses did not say everything, and that, consequently, the patriarchs knew more than how much he (Moses - ed.) says.

On the other hand, the pagans have left traces of the expectation of the Messiah, much clearer than those that can be found on the basis of the Mosaic narrative. Meanwhile, if these expectations had been affirmed in the story of Moses, they would have been weaker. And this should also lead to the fact that these expectations are not the consequences of small, fragmentary Mosaic legends, but are the remnants of much more complete concepts, which spread among people when they constituted, as it were, one family. This circumstance must always be remembered in order to avoid the perplexities that arise during the reading of the Pentateuch. Reading it, they usually say: how little the patriarchs knew! For this purpose, contrary to hermeneutics, the meaning of the words of Moses is strengthened, ascribing to them more than how much they contain. Hence the stretches in the explanations, which lead to suspicion of theological hermeneutics and give the frivolous a reason for ridicule.

In addition to promises and revelations, some extraordinary actions of this time must be attributed to the supernatural means of preparation. For example, the rapture of Enoch into heaven: this was important for religion, because through such rapture of him into heaven, the barrier between the spiritual and bodily worlds was as it were broken; therefore, a strong sense of faith could be born from this.

What is the thought in the first revelation given to Adam in Paradise? God says to him, "You have fallen, but you will be restored by the seed that will come from the woman; man will participate in his restoration, but God will be the head of all this; for he says, I will put enmity... (Gen. 3:26). Consequently, there are three main ideas in this promise: 1) a restorer is promised to fallen man; 2) this restorer will mainly be God; 3) but this restoration will be accomplished through man. What is the Seed of the Woman? Let us interpret it as it is in itself. Simply - it means offspring; now we know that Christ is understood by this seed, but we already know when the Apostle Paul explained it to us (Gal., ch. 3); and that our first parents understood the same thing by seed, this cannot be asserted.

Thus, this promise is very vague - it does not say how the human race will be restored, when and by whom, and therefore it is itself like the seed of all subsequent promises. Well, was it not enough for Adam? No, very satisfied... This might have protected him from despair and stirred him up to repentance, and the vagueness of this promise might have sought an explanation and a more precise definition, which in all probability he had found. Moses, having described the fall of Adam, abandoned and, as it were, despised everything else related to his life. But during the nine hundred years of Adam's life, did not his powers develop, did not God, who appeared to him when he was in spite of all his sin, not appear when his sin had already been somewhat washed away by repentance? We see that Adam's children, Cain and Abel, offer sacrifices. However one may judge of all this, it must be assumed that they were taught this from above, either from the angels, or from God Himself: for the essence and power of all sacrifices depends on the one that was offered for the sins of the whole world, Jesus Christ. It cannot be that Adam and his children, not knowing about this great sacrifice, approached the sacrifice. Thus, it must be admitted with all reason that Adam and the patriarchs knew more than how much the first promise of Moses contains. The same assumption must be made about the other patriarchs.

For example, it is said of Enos and Enoch that they walked with God. Although it is possible to understand here the moral walk, it is impossible to eliminate the physical, which must consist of the Manifestations of God. But Moses says nothing about this, and therefore it constitutes a new confirmation of our truth. Noah also had several Theophany; but Moses does not speak of them. In general, the patriarchs of the antediluvian had much more concepts than Moses tells us. The memory of this remained with the Jews and served as the basis for fake books: "On the Wisdom of Adam", "On the Prophecy of Enoch", "On the Laws of Noah" and others. All these legends are disfigured, but for all this they are an echo of the antediluvian world, from which the pagans originated and their expectations.

For without admitting this, how can we explain what is said in the ancient Persian book about Ormuzd, who is to appear in the form of a man to fight with Ahriman? This face is presented from two sides - from the glorious and the suffering side; hence some represented him in two persons, like the Jews, who recognized two Messiahs. A remnant of this doctrine is not only found among the Persians, who, having remained in the place of the first residence of men, could conveniently preserve it, but also among the Indians and the Romans in the predictions of their Sibyls, according to which a great man must be born for the return of the golden age. Virgil also speaks of him in one of his eclogues. These expectations could not be the fruit of a brief Mosaic story, but are the remnants of complete and more definite oral stories. True, one could call them degenerates of religious instinct, that is, the product of the mute, unconscious self-action of our forces; on this the following saying is affirmed: "The voice of the people is the voice of God." But although it cannot be denied that mute consciousness did not act in this case, for it was also used by Providence as a means to prepare the human race, that is, nature itself demanded Christianity with effort; However, it is impossible to produce everything that is in these expectations from this one source, but it is necessary to recognize their historical origin. For, in the first place, these expectations have been very strong and clear since the remotest antiquity; whereas if they were born of instinct, they would at first be weaker and darker; secondly, they are connected with the fall of man and with stories like the historical stories of Moses; therefore, they are drawn from the same source from which Moses borrowed them, that is, from primitive revelations.