Man sentenced God to death; by His Resurrection, He
sentenced man to immortality. In return for a beating, He gives an embrace; for
abuse, a blessing; for death, immortality. Man never showed so much hate for
God as when he crucified Him; and God never showed more love for man than when
He arose. Man even wanted to reduce God to a mortal, but God by His
Resurrection made man immortal. The crucified God is Risen and has killed
death. Death is no more. Immortality has surrounded man and all the world.
By
the Resurrection of the God-Man, human nature has been led irreversibly onto
the path of immortality, and has become dreadful to death itself. For before
the Resurrection of Christ, death was dreadful to man, but after the
Resurrection of Christ, man has become more dreadful to death. When man lives
by faith in the Risen God-Man, he lives above death, out of its reach; it is a
footstool for his feet:
“O
Death, where is thy sting? O Hades, where is thy victory?” (I Cor. 15:55).
When
a man belonging to Christ dies, he simply sets aside his body like clothing, in
which he will again be vested on the day of Dread Judgement.
Before
the Resurrection of the God-Man, death was the second nature of man: life
first, death second. But by His Resurrection, the Lord has changed everything:
immortality has become the second nature of man, it has become natural for man;
and death – unnatural. As before the Resurrection of Christ, it was natural for
men to be mortal, so after the Resurrection of Christ, it was natural for men
to be immortal.
. . .
Source: Pravoslavie.Ru,
http://www.pravoslavie.ru/english/46200.htm,
posted 29 April 2011, accessed 11 April 2015
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