The Church is Paradise on Earth

Icon of the Holy Liturgy, Michael Damaskenos, from the 16th century Cretan school

Icon of the Holy Liturgy, Michael Damaskenos, from the 16th century Cretan school

With the worship of God you live in Paradise. If you know and love Christ, you live in Paradise. Christ is Paradise. Paradise begins here. The Church is Paradise on earth, exactly the same as Paradise in heaven. The same Paradise as is in heaven is here on earth. There all souls are one, just as the Holy Trinity is three persons, but they are united and constitute one.

Our chief concern is to devote ourselves to Christ, to unite ourselves to the Church. If we enter into the love of God, we enter into the Church. If we don’t enter into the Church, if we do not become with the earthly Church here and now, we are in danger of losing the heavenly Church here and now, we are in danger of losing the heavenly Church too. And when we say ‘heavenly’ don’t imagine that in the other life we will find gardens with flowers, mountains, streams and birds. The earthly beauties do not exist there; there is something else, something very exalted. But in order for us to go on to this something else we must pass through these earthly images and beauties.

Whoever experiences Christ becomes one with Him, with His Church. He experiences a mad delight. This life is different from the life of other people. It is joy, it is light, it is exultation, it is exaltation. This is the life of the Church, the life of the Gospel, the Kingdom of God. ‘The Kingdom of God is within us.’ Christ comes within us and we are within Him. This occurs just in the way a piece of iron placed int he fire becomes fire and light; once it is removed from the fire it becomes iron again, black and dark.

In the Church a divine intercourse occurs, we become infused with God. When we are with Christ we are in the light; and when we live in the light there is no darkness. The light, however, is not constant; it depends on us. It is just like the iron which becomes dark when removed from the fire. Darkness and light are incompatible. We can never have darkness and light at the same time. Either light or darkness. When you switch on the light, darkness vanishes.

Elder Porphyrious, Wounded by Love, pp. 90-91

The Salvation Story in Icons

These icons are highly instructive for us and for our salvation. They describe in pictorial form not only why our salvation was necessary, but the means by which it was accomplished.

Expulsion of Adam and Eve from Paradise

Expulsion of Adam and Eve from Paradise

We see here our Lord gently going with Adam and Eve as they are expelled from Paradise. This is before he clothed them in animal skins to replace the glory with which they had been clothed in the Garden.

The Holy Theophany, also known as the Baptism of Our Lord

The Holy Theophany

We could have begun with the icon of the Nativity of our Lord, but instead we have here the icon of the Holy Theophany, otherwise known as the baptism of Our Lord. This is important for two reasons. First, because it was the first direct revelation of the Triune God, where the Holy Spirit descends upon the God-man, and the Father speaks from heaven. And second, because when John baptised Our Lord, Our Lord baptised all of creation. the two tiny figures mounted on the bottom represent the Jordan river and the Sea, both fleeing from one greater than themselves. The angels look on in amazement; meanwhile, we see the axe “laid unto the root of the trees”, spoken of by Jesus in Matt 3:10 and Luk 3:9.

Metropolitan Nahum of Strumica writes:

He Himself did not have the need either of Baptism, or Transfiguration, or of the Mystical Supper, or of Crucifixion, or of death and Burial, or of Resurrection on the third day, or Ascension! Thus, naturally, the question logically imposes itself: Why then does this whole Divine Economy (Dispensation) take place, this divine intervention among people in the world and time? The answer is the same as we read in the Creed: “For us and for our salvation”…! Out of love we are created, and out of love, after the fall, we are saved. (Metropolitan Nahum of Strumica (2013-02-22). NEITHER WILL I TELL YOU… (Kindle Locations 3022-3026). Monastery of the Entry of the Most Holy Theotokos Eleusa. Kindle Edition.)

The Crucifixion of Christ

The Crucifixion of Christ

The icon of the Crucifixion of Christ is interesting for a number of reasons. First, Christ still has his halo; he is still God, even while dead on the cross. The heretics sometimes say that only the humanity of Christ suffered death, but for death to be defeated, it had to be by the God-man who could not be held by death. We see here the angels collecting in a chalice the blood and water that pours from his pierced side, by which we are to led to an understanding of the sacraments of Baptism and the Eucharist — the washing of regeneration, and the medicine of immortality. We also see a skull beneath the earth; this is Adam, the first man, upon whom Jesus own blood is flowing. By the death of Christ, we are all baptised into his death and raised to newness of life; death has no more dominion upon us.

Metropolitan Nahum of Strumica writes:

 

The consequences of the fall, in human nature, could not have been healed if it had not become the nature of the Son of God, too, and if in this manner it had not passed the entire human road of life— from birth, through suffering, up to death itself, and resurrection. Christ the Godman adopted even death itself in order to destroy it with His Resurrection. Nonetheless, Christ assumed only the incorruptible passions of human nature, consequences of Adam’s sin and fall: hunger, thirst, fatigue, effort, suffering, tears, fear prior to death and death itself, and all the others that by nature appertain to every human being. The Godman took on Him all except for sin, that is, susceptibility to sin.(Metropolitan Nahum of Strumica (2013-02-22). NEITHER WILL I TELL YOU… (Kindle Locations 3026-3031). Monastery of the Entry of the Most Holy Theotokos Eleusa. Kindle Edition.)

We see this clearly in our last icon.

The Harrowing of Hades, fresco in the parecclesion of the Chora Church, Istanbul

The Harrowing of Hell. This representation of Christ’s descent into Hell shows Him breaking down the gates of hell and restoring Adam and Eve to Paradise.

In this icon we see Christ breaking down the gates of hell, and restoring the Old Testament saints to paradise. This is represented by Christ drawing Adam and Eve from their coffins, all the while trampling on death and the devil. In this icon we see not Christ as the suffering servant, but Christ the victor over sin, death, and the devil, for us and for our salvation.

The Harrowing of Hell is problematic for some Protestant Christians — not because it cannot be supported by the Sacred Scriptures, but because it doesn’t fit with their theology of salvation. That Christ descended to Hell is supported, but the meaning of leading captivity captive, and of preaching to the spirits in prison is unclear. Some believe that Christ descended to Hell to preach to the fallen angels, telling them they had been beaten. Some believe that Christ actually suffered in Hell until He was resurrected on the third day. They have difficulty seeing this for the victory it is.

The Second Coming of the Lord Jesus Christ on the clouds with the saints and  angels

The Second Coming of the Lord Jesus Christ on the clouds with the saints and angels

In this icon we see the risen and glorified Christ returning in glory with his saints and angels, and we see the praises of the saints on earth. What we don’t see is the so-called ‘secret rapture’ of the church, a doctrine which not only of recent origin, but of highly doubtful provenance. All those who died in the faith, as well as those who are prepared for and awaiting His coming, are all together rejoicing with the cherubim and seraphim. The already and the not yet of the kingdom are now one and the same. He who sits upon the throne will rule, and His kingdom shall have no end.

Maranatha. Even so come, Lord Jesus.

Clothed with the Glory of God

Painting of a man, hands raised , all aflame.

Clothed with the Glory of God


Abba Lot went to see Abba Joseph and said to him, ‘Abba as far as I can I say my little office, I fast a little, I pray and meditate, I live in peace and as far as I can, I purify my thoughts. What else can I do?’ then the old man stood up and stretched his hands towards heaven. His fingers became like ten lamps of fire and he said to him, ‘If you will, you can become all flame.’


In the communion of persons, first evidenced in the persons of Adam and Eve, we are presented with a sign[i] and symbol of the communion the trinity has with itself. This helps us to understand what the scriptures mean when they speak of Adam and Even being naked, and not ashamed (Ge 2:25). (John Paul II 2006, 163) By nature the man and the woman were in full communion with each other, and full communion with God (Ge 2:8). The fathers of the church believed Adam and Eve were thereby clothed with the glory of God.

The obvious question is whether the idea of the original and prototypical humanity being clothed with the glory of God has any scriptural foundation. In the introduction to Robert Alter’s translation of Psalms, he notes the way the language of Psalms presents the idea of light’s being a mythological property of deity, of God wearing light as a garment, and of God stretching out the heavens as a garment.

God, as we noted in a verse quoted from Psalm 27[ii], is associated with light — in that instance, because light, archetypically, means safety and rescue to those plunged in fearful darkness, but also because radiance is a mythological property of deities and monarchs. Psalm 104 is a magnificent celebration of God as king of the vast panorama of creation. It begins by imagining God in the act of putting on royal raiment: “Grandeur and glory you don” (hod wehadar lavashta). The psalmist then goes on: “Wrapped in light like a cloak, / stretching out the heavens like a tentcloth” (verse 2). What makes the familiar figure of light for the divinity so effective is its fusion with the metaphor of clothing. The poet, having represented God donning regalia, envisages Him wrapping Himself in a garment of pure light (the Hebrew verb used here is actually in the active mode, “wrapping”). Then, associatively continuing the metaphor of fabrics, he has God “stretching out the heavens like a tent-cloth,” the bright sky above becoming an extension of the radiance that envelopes God. (Alter 2007, xxviii)

The association of God with light is the source for the phrase describing Jesus Christ as “light from light” in the Nicene Creed. Since Sacred Scripture speaks of God being clothed in light, and of spreading out the heavens like a tentcloth, it is only natural to extend that idea to original and prototypical humanity. Ephrem the Syrian writes: “God clothed Adam in glory”; and again: “It was because of the glory with which they were clothed that they were not ashamed. It was when this glory was stripped from them after they had transgressed the commandment that they were ashamed because they were naked” (St Ephrem the Syrian n.d., 99, 106) In like manner, Chrysostom writes: “[W]hile sin and disobedience had not yet come on the scene, they were clad in that glory from above which caused them no shame. But after the breaking of the law, then entered the scene both shame and awareness of their nakedness.” (Louth, Conti and Oden, Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture: Old Testament I, Genesis 1-11 2001, 72)

The 17th century mystic Jacom Böhme remarks:

Man should have walked naked upon the earth, for the heavenly [part] penetrated the outward, and was his clothing. He stood in great beauty, glory, joy and delight, in a child­like mind; he should have eaten and drunk in a magical manner; not into the body, as now, but in the mouth there was the separation; for so likewise was the fruit of Paradise. (Böhme 2009)

Such was the state of humanity in Paradise. Yet once Adam had sinned and the glory of God had departed from him, it was immediately clear to him that he no longer belonged in Paradise. St. Ephrem the Syrian, explains this in the seventh verse of his second Hymn on Paradise,:

At its boundary I saw
figs, growing in a sheltered place,
from which crowns were made that adorned
the brows of the guilty pair,
while there leaves blushed, as it were,
for him who was stripped naked:
there leaves were required for those two
who had lost their garments;
although they covered Adam,
still they made him blush with shame and repent,
because, in a place of such splendor,
a man who is naked is filled with shame. (St Ephrem the Syrian 1989, 87)

There are striking parallels between this hymn and the account of the Philistines capturing the ark — how the pregnant wife of Phineas, upon hearing this, gave birth. “And she named the child Ichabod, saying, The glory is departed from Israel” (I Sam 4:21). It is only after the fall, after the glory has departed, and after full communion of persons has been lost, that the man and the woman objectified each other as individuals rather than persons partaking of the same nature; in their fallen state they saw themselves as naked before each other and before God. (Lossky, The Creation 1989, 77)

The reader will no doubt be reminded of how the ark of the covenant was shrouded in the “thick darkness” of the Holy of Holies (I Kings 8:12); and of how in Ezekiel chapters 8-10, the prophet is given a vision of the glory of God, the defilement of the temple, and how the glory of God departed from the temple as a consequence for Israel’s sin. In this manner we come to the understanding that the glory with which Adam and Eve were clothed, or overshadowed, is natural to mankind in the state of original righteousness, a state of communion with God. We also understand that the glory of God, with which they were clothed, would quite rightly depart as a consequence of Adam’s sin. In this context, we note that after the Babylonian captivity and the rebuilding of the temple, Ezra makes no mention of the glory of God returning, filling the temple, and overshadowing the ark. Instead, the return of the Shekinah glory came at the Annunciation, when the angel Gabriel informed the blessed virgin that the Holy Ghost would come upon her and the power of the highest would overshadow her. What we see at the annunciation (and in Revelation 12), is the blessed virgin clothed with the glory of God, as was Eve in the garden — which points to the incarnation as the inauguration of God’s plan for reconciliation and recreation, for the reestablishment of that perfect communion between God and man, and between each human person.

Bibliography

Alter, Robert. The Book of Psalms: A Translation with Commentary. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2007.

Böhme, Jacom. “Mysterium Magnum (part one).” Gnosis research. October 9, 2009. http://meuser.awardspace.com/Boehme/Jacob-Boehme-Mysterium-Magnum-part-one-free-electronic-text.pdf (accessed November 15, 2010).

John Paul II. Man and Woman He Created Them: A Theology of the Body. Boston: Pauline Books & Media, 2006.

Lossky, Vladimir. “The Creation.” In Orthodox Theology: An Introduction, by Vladimir Lossky, edited by Ian Kesarcodi-Watson, & Ihita Kesarcodi-Watson, 51-78. Crestwood: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1989.

Louth, Andrew, Marco Conti, and Thomas C. Oden. Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture: Old Testament I, Genesis 1-11. Vol. 1. 28 vols. Westmont: InterVarsity Press, 2001.

St Ephrem the Syrian. “Commentary on Genesis.” Scribd.com. n.d. http://www.scribd.com/doc/56174298/St-Ephraim-the-Syrian-Commentary-on-Genesis (accessed June 9, 2013).

—. Hymns on Paradise. Translated by Sebastion Brock. Crestwood: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1989.

 


[i] On the nature of the sign and the thing signified, Karl Barth notes: “Sign and thing signified, the outward and the inward, are, as a rule, strictly distinguished in the Bible, and certainly in other connexions we cannot lay sufficient stress upon the distinction. But they are never separated in such a (“liberal”) way that according to preference the one may be easily retained without the other.” (Barth 1956, 179) In other words, the sign always points to the thing signified. However, if we believe in the thing signified, we have to accept the sign as well—as, for example, with the virgin birth being the sign of the incarnation (Isa 7:14).

[ii] The Lord is my light and my rescue.

Whom should I fear?

The Lord is my life’s stronghold.

Of whom should I be afraid?

Ps 27:1, Robert Alter’s translation (Alter 2007, xxv-xxvi; 91)