God’s Relationship with Man and Man’s Fall
Main idea
His Holiness Pope Shenouda III explains that God created the times, nature, the angels and man, and man is distinguished by his dual nature (material and spiritual) and by freedom and reason; therefore he can sin and fall.
The nature of the fall and error
The fall began in the angels and the devil appeared, then man fell into sin and lost intimate fellowship with God. Sin produced a separation between man and God and formed a barrier and left effects: the earth’s rebellion, pain, toil, and death in its various forms.
Types of death and consequences
The lecture distinguishes between bodily death, spiritual death (the soul’s separation from God), moral death (loss of the divine image) and eternal death. Adam’s eating from the tree introduced these stages but did not destroy them all at once — salvation came later.
The Lord’s justice and mercy together
The talk affirms that God’s love does not cancel His justice, and that God’s attributes are interwoven: mercy full of justice and justice full of mercy. Therefore divine punishments appeared but within a divine love that leads to instruction and salvation.
God’s initiatives and the story of salvation
God began initiatives of salvation by choosing agents on earth (Noah, the fathers, the priests, the prophets) and setting covenants and symbols (the rainbow, circumcision, sacrifices, the tabernacle) to teach the people and prepare them for the coming salvation.
Symbols and rites as instruction
The burnt offerings, blood, fire and oil were symbols of God’s justice and the work of the Holy Spirit, and the passage from the flood and from the Red Sea and circumcision are all symbols of baptism and the salvation given by faith and ecclesiastical guardianship.
A call to repentance and steadfastness
The spiritual conclusion: despite error and punishment, God remains the initiator of salvation, calling people to repentance and return to fellowship with Him through the means He established—the covenants, symbols, and priesthood—until the final harvest when God separates the remaining from the erring.
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العلاقة
Relationship
الخلاص
Salvation
