# The Fall, the Law and Freedom - Spiritual Capsule (3)

> One of the sidelined topics in our Church is, of course, talking about grace, and the reason for that is probably the dominance of the spirit of the law and the spirit of the fall, which are completely devoid of the spirit of freedom…

*2017-01-26T14:15:27Z*

![Old Coptic-style wall painting of a white dove with a golden halo and spread wings on an altar-throne topped by a cross, with a real white dove sitting in a nest on the altar below it.](/uploads/sites/1274e232-e31c-46f4-a48b-27b854406479/media/spiritual-capsule-3-fall-law-freedom.jpg?w=2048&h=1536)

One of the sidelined topics in our Church is, of course, talking about grace, and the reason for that is probably the dominance of the spirit of the law and the spirit of the fall, which are completely devoid of the spirit of freedom that the Lord Jesus promised us when He said "Therefore if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed"[^1]. The dominance of this spirit, foreign to the spirit of our Orthodox Church and the ascetic spirit of the Church in general, makes us hear a new church "heritage" with examples like "I am dust, remember, O my soul" and "I, I am the sinner"! As if we are really happy to be dust or to be sinners! And as if what the Lord Jesus did on the Cross changed nothing, except just that He died and was crucified and rose, and we are spectators who got nothing at all!

And when you ask why dust, and why do we call ourselves sinners?! They tell you, didn't Christ say: "So likewise you, when you have done all those things which you are commanded, say, 'We are unprofitable servants. We have done what was our duty to do.'"[^2] And usually they don't finish the verse, they stop at "…when you have done all those things which you are commanded, say, 'We are unprofitable servants.'…" So the verse comes across as: if you are a pious person who loves God, call yourself clay, far from our Lord, and one who hasn't arrived yet. And there is no doubt that we were influenced by the historical heritage of the Church, such as "the Synaxarium" and the terrifying book "the Garden of the Monks", which to this day we haven't been able to understand records a specific condition of certain people that can't be applied to ordinary laypeople, or even to all monks, because that was a very special case in the history of Coptic monasticism, and it records all the teachings without any theological or doctrinal review of them, just an orally transmitted record, liable to error, and not counted as doctrinal heritage nor a source from which a doctrine is drawn in any way! That is why, if we want to understand the spirit of freedom we live by, we have to understand what grace means, and how we receive it, and what benefit will come back to us when we receive it?!!

#The\_Lord\_Our\_Righteousness (An Introduction to Understanding the Work of Grace):

"In His days Judah will be saved, And Israel will dwell safely; Now this is His name by which He will be called: THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS."[^3] A slogan like that appeared in the prophecies and was used in the New Testament[^4], to make clear that the source of all righteousness is the Lord Jesus Himself, meaning that the Virgin and all the saints and the pure and the righteous all became that way because of "the righteousness of Jesus", meaning their own personal righteousness was only an attempt to reach the righteousness of Jesus but it did not succeed, but in reality what happened is that "the grace of the righteousness of Jesus" is what succeeded in them and brought them to holiness! So what does grace mean in the first place, and what does the grace of the righteousness of Jesus that brought them to holiness mean?!

Grace: the word in Greek is "χάρις," pronounced "kharis," and originally the word is taken from the Hebrew origin of the word "חֵן," pronounced "hen," and it appeared for the first time in (Gen. 6:8), the verse that says "But Noah found grace in the eyes of the LORD," and here it comes in the sense of a gift from the Lord, and what we understand about the Lord's gift is that it is surpassing and unlimited and already paid for beforehand by the sprinkling of the blood of Christ on the Cross, "free grace" in the Bible's expression[^5], and this matter of the freeness of grace was not present in the Old Testament in writing, but it appeared in the prophecies in that the Lord is our righteousness, and He is the source of righteousness and salvation, encompassing the whole world before salvation and after salvation.

#In\_summary we understand that the word grace in the Orthodox Church is a free, surpassing, unlimited gift that God gives us generously without waiting for anything in return from us

#Holiness\_and\_the\_Work\_of\_Grace:

And of course someone will come and ask (I know you 😃:D) and he will say to me, well, since it is free and without anything in return, then why should we do works? And we fall into the question of salvation by faith or by works!?

Whoever read #Spiritual\_Capsule (1) will find that I spoke about a principle called "synergia," and this is a term the Fathers used to explain the work of the Holy Spirit with the soul for the sake of the soul's salvation. The soul has a clear role that requires a strong will, and this role is receiving the work of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit works like an inner voice, calling the soul and demanding of it "metanoia"; if the soul responds, the Holy Spirit continues with the soul until He sanctifies it completely and makes it a bride for Himself, and if the soul does not respond to the Holy Spirit's inner call, the soul becomes one that refuses the work of the Spirit and holiness and therefore refuses salvation. Accordingly, the basic work of the human being is to submit to the call of the Holy Spirit, so that the Spirit can lead him in his life and thus he is transformed from a life of darkness to light, through the work of "metanoia" in the soul.

#In\_summary we understand that grace is truly free, but it respects human freedom. If the human being refuses to accept grace, the Holy Spirit becomes quiet and still within the soul, until the soul responds, and then the Spirit works with power and changes the soul by His liberating power. And makes it be in the state of holiness that befits it as a bride for the King.

Fady Mondy

25/1/2017

[^1]: See (John 8:36)
[^2]: See (Luke 17:10)
[^3]: See (Jer. 23:6)
[^4]: See (1 Cor. 6:11), (2 Pet. 1:1)
[^5]: See (Rom. 3:244)

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Source: https://abba.fadymondy.com/en/blog/spiritual-capsule-3-fall-law-freedom