The Holy Apostle and Evangelist John the Theologian, the beloved disciple of the Lord, is above all an example and a teacher of love. Love breathes through his gospel, lessons about love fill his epistles and his life serves as a striking example of love.
He expounded on all the mysteries of love - its source, its movement in deeds, and its culmination - and where it leads all that follow it, to the heights. In this subject of love St. John is especially well known, and no matter who would begin to muse, about love he would immediately bring to mind St. John as the model of love and turn to him as to a teacher of love.
Now let us examine how contemporary wise men have made use of this teaching. They possess a special kind of vain wisdom called "Indifferentism" by which they reason say: believe as you like, it makes no difference - just love everyone like brothers, be charitable to them, and have a good influence on them. They point out that the Evangelist John the Theologian writes only about love. For him love is light and life and all perfection. According to his words the person who does not love walks in darkness, abides in death, and is a murderer. It is well known that when St. John grew old and was unable to walk they carried him to church. There he only admonished, "Brethren! let us love one another." Thus he so valued love. They tell us that we also should love like that and only love, believing any way we wish.
I myself have had to listen to such "wisdom." Perhaps you have also had to listen to or will hear something similar to this. Let us contrast their false teaching with the true teaching of St. John the Theologian and then protect our thoughts from wavering from the fundamentals of Christian good sense into the vain wisdom of the "indifferent ones." These so-called "wise" people desire to build everything without God - their external welfare and their morality. From this they strive wherever possible to craftily weave a school of thought where there is no need to talk about God. And they beat their drums about love. They tell us to love one another and here there is nothing to think about God. It is especially on this point where the Holy Evangelist routs them. Although St John continuously, and exactingly reminds us to love one another, he also places love in such a close bound with God, with love for God and the knowledge of God, that it is impossible to separate them. Behold where St. John's love originates, Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. And he adds, Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another. (I John 4:10, 11). According to his reasoning, our mutual love must be built up by the action of faith in the Lord, Who came to save us, and consequently it is not all right to believe as you want. Further he teaches, Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; (John 4:7) If we love one another, God dwelleth in us ... (I John 4:12) God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God and God in him. (I John 4:16). You see, he does not say a word about love without speaking about God and the Saviour. Love is from God and leads to God. Thus he who says that he loves his brother, and does not know and love God and the Saviour, is a liar and the truth is not in him cf. (John 4:20,2:4). Therefore it is possible to summarize the entire teaching of the Holy Evangelist on love in the following words: in order to love your neighbor you must love God, and in order to love God, you must, of course come to know Him within yourself and especially in His salvific activity on us. We must know and believe. What does the will of God consist of? In faith and love: thus the commandment says: That we should believe on the name of His Son Jesus Christ, and love one another. (I John 3:23). It does not only command us to love but to believe in the Lord, and in such a way that faith is the source of love. If one were to gather into one all the places where St. John the Evangelist speaks only of love, one could still not confirm his teaching by the false reasoning: only love and believe as you want.
Besides his teaching on love he also speaks of faith, independent of the law of love. Behold how he categorically rejects those who say, believe as you want. What does he preach about from the very first verses: That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looketh upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life; For the life was manifested, and we have seen it, and bear witness, and show unto you that eternal life, which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us; That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us: and truly our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ. (I John 1:1-3). The most important point with St. John and all the apostles is the teaching about communion with God though the Lord Jesus Christ, from which proceeds communion of the faithful with one another. How can we have the one without the other. Further St. John asks the question: who is a liar? and answers thus: Who is a liar but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ? He is antichrist, that denieth the Father and the Son. Whosoever denieth the Son, the same hath not the Father... Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son o f God, God dwelleth in him, and he in God. (I John 2:22, 23. 4:15). The whole matter is summed up in confessing the Lord Jesus Christ to be the Son of God and to be God. How then could one possibly say, "Believe any way you want"?
Then there follows the warning: Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world. Herein know ye the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God: And every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is that spirit of antichrist. (I John 4:1-3) He who says, "Believe as you want" does not confess Jesus Christ, for if he did confess Christ he would not speak thus. Therefore he cannot be from God. Where then is he from? - truly from the antichrist.
Finally, the Holy Evangelist describes the whole essence of Christianity thus: And this is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life. (I John 5:11-12). Who possesses the Son of God? Those who believe in His name. Therefore he says, and writes: unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God, that ye may know that ye have eternal life ... (I John 5:13). Consequently, he who does not believe in the Son of God, has not eternal life. Could it possibly make no difference how one wants to believe? No. We know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us light and understanding, that we may know the true God, and that we may be in Him that is true, even in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God, and eternal life. (I John 5:20).
These excerpts should be enough, I suppose, in order to show the Indifferentists that in vain do they seek to find support for their lie in the teaching of St. John the Theologian. It is more than likely that they make such claims without having ever read St. John's holy and divinely inspired writings, but rather quote him based on rumors about his overflowing love. Let them even now find something else besides the above argument, to defend their teaching to us believers. One word alone from the beloved disciple is sufficient to discredit their teaching and without any doubt to confirm our belief explicitly in that which was given to us by the Lord through the Holy Apostles and preserved by the Church.
I would only add the following consideration to the decisive words of the Apostle and Evangelist John: having estranged themselves in their minds from the Lord, these unbelievers grasp at acts of charity whose source and support are precisely love. They act in this way only to be founded on something without the assurance that they have found a solid basis. If only they had a clear understanding of how it is indeed possible for man to act in a fruitful way, they would never remain fixed on their teaching. The essence of the matter is - that we are not in the proper state. Therefore we cannot act in the right way. In order for us to act in the correct way we must enter into the right state. By our own powers we are not capable of doing this. The Lord, having come to the earth, lifted up man to the right state. He did not lead man into this state for His own sake but rather that man would accept from Him renewed humanness and thus gain the possibility of acting properly. We obtain this state through Holy Baptism, for those who are baptized into Christ have put on Christ. From the time of Baptism we become one with the Lord and begin to live His life and act by His power. Those who would claim love or the right action (for love is the fullness of the law) should first accept all the premises of Christianity in order to be able to walk rightly and deny their own falseness (lie). This is impossible without faith, for faith is the root of Christianity and beginning of everything. The Lord Himself says this: Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except ye abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in Me. I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in Me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without Me ye can do nothing. If a man abide not in Me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and men gather them and cast them into the fire, and they are burned. (John 15: 4-6)
When someone begins to expound to you about love or fruitful action independent of true belief, tell him: Wait, first believe correctly. By faith acquire all the salvific precepts of Christianity. Through them be united with the Lord, make your life and strength depend on Him like you would on an injection for your health and then you will begin to act in a fruitful way. It is a fact that the witness to a righteous life is fruitful activity in love, but in order to attain it and to remain in it one must accept all of God's Truth with faith and pass through all of God's sanctifying actions [on one's self]. Only under these conditions, i.e., by abiding in True Love, may we grow up into Him in all things, Who is the head, even Christ (Eph. 4,15). We could summarize thus: he who does not have the right Faith cannot enter into the proper state, and he who does not enter into the right state cannot properly act. Now do you see how one cannot say: Believe as you wish, only love"?
Faith is not only the image of the knowledge of God and of our relationship to Him; it also includes all the salvific institutions [not just the Church as establishment but all that is contained within the Church for salvation] given by God. These salvific institutions maintain active faith. Our so-called wise men might not actually be opposed to Christian teaching, but, more than anything else, they are repulsed by Christian institutions. Since these institutions are nothing more than faith in reality and in action, then their main sin is that they do not want to act in the spirit of the Faith. One is only amazed at how these people so persistently expound about deeds and labors but remove themselves from activity in the realm of holy Faith. There is something amiss here. Surely they are acquainted with the laws of logical thought. There is such duplicity here that one must assume that they are not in fact doers, but are acted upon - they are the tools of a foreign spirit, and such a spirit that is itself foreign to Truth.
Brethren, having understood this, let us guard ourselves from the evil reasoning of this world. Only those who have never tasted the Truth can waver in it. Let us fulfill with humility and in the spirit of truth all that our holy Faith demands. Then we will have, and carry within, a witness which will bring to naught all false arguments from without. May the Lord illumine us by His Truth. Amen.
--On Truth and Love in the Writings of St. John the Evangelist
If, when they [the self-reliant] grieve at their downfall, reproaching and abusing themselves for it, they think: 'I shall do this and that, the consequences of my downfall will be effaced and all will be well once more,' this is a sure sign that before the downfall they trusted themselves, instead of trusting God. . . . If a man does not rely on himself but puts his trust in God, when he falls he is not greatly surprised and is not overcome with excessive grief, for he knows that it is the result of his own impotence, and, above all, of the weakness of his trust in God. So his downfall increases his distrust of himself and makes him try all the harder to increase and deepen his humble trust in God. . . .
For by thinking that they [the self-reliant] are something important they undertake too much, hoping to deal with it by themselves. When the experience of their downfall shows them how weak they are, they are astounded, like people, who meet with something unexpected, and they are cast into turmoil and grow faint-hearted. For they see, fallen and prone on the ground, that graven image which is themselves, upon which they put all their hopes and expectations. This does not happen to a humble man who trusts in God alone, expecting nothing good from himself. Therefore, when he falls into some transgression, he also feels the weight of it and grieves, but is not cast into turmoil and is not perplexed, for he knows that it happened through his own impotence, to experience which in downfalls is nothing unexpected or new to him.
[Unseen Warfare, pp. 87, 88]
[T]he greatest and most perfect thing a man may desire to attain is to come near to God and dwell in union with Him.
There are many who say that the perfection of Christian life consists in fasts, vigils, genuflexions, sleeping on bare earth and other similar austerities of the body. Others say that it consists in saying many prayers at home and in attending long services in Church. And there are others who think that our perfection consists entirely in mental prayer, solitude, seclusion and silence. But the majority limit perfection to a strict observance of all the rules and practices laid down by the statutes, falling into no excess or deficiency, but preserving a golden moderation. Yet all these virtues do not by themselves constitute the Christian perfection we are seeking, but are only means and methods for acquiring it. . . . .
Now, having seen clearly and definitely that spiritual life and perfection do not only consist in these visible virtues, of which we have spoken, you must also learn that it consists in nothing but coming near to God and union with Him.
[Unseen Warfare, pp. 77-78, 79.]
That you devote a little time in the morning to the reading of spiritual books is a very good thing. . . . This reading with prayer preceding strengthens the soul and gives it strength for the entire day. Doctors say you should not leave the house on an empty stomach. With respect to the soul, this is fullfilled by morning prayer and reading. The soul is fed by them, and sets out on the business of the day nourished.
. . . Get a notebook, and in it write down the thoughts that come to you as your ead the Gospel and other books in this manner: "The Lord says such and such in the Gospel; from this it is obvious that we must act in such and such a way; for me this is feasible in such and such instances; I will act thus; Lord help me!" This does not require much effort, but how much benefit comes from it! Act in this way. Your thought will come into focus and become inspired. The Spirit, moving in the Scriptures, will enter into your heart and heal it.
--The Spiritual Life and How to be Attuned to It, p. 146
[A]lthough we must not despair of the possibility for our conversion and salvation no matter how weak [because previously ignored] is the call for conversion to a virtuous life, we must always think timidly and fearfully of our weak condition. Might we have sunk so far that we have reached the final opportunity to receive a grace-filled awakening? Could we have barred all inroads that divine grace, ever desiring our salvation, might take to act upon us? Is this the last time that grace may be drawing nigh unto us with the aim of bringing us to our senses and putting a stop to our disgraceful condition? Thus, as weak as such a call may be, we must ever more speedily rush to make use of it with all firmness of intention, though this may require more discernment, and intensify it to the fullest extent of human freedom. Obviously, such intensification is nothing other than the opening up of ourselves to this seeking and sought-for grace. We must open up, for through our falls we have become more and more hardened and closed to grace, in first one and then another respect.
--The Path to Salvation, p. 125
Thus the thought has come to correct your life and morality. Having cast off procrastination, humble and lighten your flesh with physical ascetical struggle. Remove yourself from cares and distractions by ceasing your usual business and by solitude, and then, concentrating your attention on various salvific thoughts, force yourself to cast out all blindness, insensitivity and indolence by reasoning with yourself, or discussing with yourself, alternating this with prayer and placing yourself under the influence of such occasions as divine grace has chosen to act upon the souls of sinners.
Labor, force yourself, search--and you will find; knock and it will be opened to you. Do not relax and do not despair. But all the while remember that these labors only comprise the experience of our struggle to attract grace; they are not the grace itself, which we do not yet have. We have not yet acquired the main thing: grace-filled awakening. . . . Therefore do not content yourself with your efforts alone, as though they were what you were supposed to seek. This is a dangerous mistake! It is equally dangerous to think that there is a reward due for these labors, and grace should be automatically sent down to you. Absolutely not! This only prepares you to receive it, but the gift itself is entirely dependent upon the Giver. Thus, making assiduous use of all the prescribed methods, the seeker should go on, awaiting God's visitation, which, by the way, does not come with discernment, but when it comes no one will know from whence it came.
When this grace-filled awakening arrives, only then will real inner changes of life and morals begin. Without this you cannot expect any progress, only unsuccessful attempts. . . . Labor in expectancy and the hope of faith. Grace will come and arrange everything.
--The Path to Salvation, pp. 145-146, 147
At the very onset of even a slight sense of your sinfulness and the danger of remaining in it, delve ever deeper into yourself, and with even greater force of thought conquer yourself with threats and sobering ideas; using them, shake up and soften your insensitive heart, as a heavy hammer softens a rough stone.
Remember your fate. Say to yourself: "Alas, soon will come death." . . . Do not estrange yourself from this hour of death. . . . Then imagine clearly what will happen to you at the time of death and afterwards. . . . Your secret sins will be reproached before all the angels and saints. There, before everyone's face, you will stand alone with your deeds. . . . Feel all this vividly and force yourself to remain in it until you are filled with fear and trembling.
Then turn to God and place yourself, defiled and weighed down by many sins, before the face of Him, the omnipotent, omniscient, all-gracious and long-suffering! . . . [H]asten to awaken and strengthen within yourself godly pity and sorrow.
Remember that you are a Christian redeemed by the blood of Christ, cleansed with the water of Baptism. You have received the gift of the Holy Spirit; you have sat at the table of the Lord and are nourished by His Body and Blood. And you have flouted all this for the sake of sin that destroys you! Ascend in thought upon Golgotha, and understand what your sins have cost. Will you really still wound the head of the Lord with the thorns of your sins? Will you still nail Him to the Cross, pierce His side and mock His long-suffering? Or perhaps you do not see that by sinning you participate in tormenting the Saviour, and thereby share a part in the tormentors' lot. But if you abandon sin and repent you will partake of the power of His death. Choose one or the other: either crucify Him, then perish eternally--or crucify yourself, and inherit eternal life with Him.
Consider further what that sin you cling to is. It is an evil more disastrous than all evils. It separates you from God, wreaks havoc on your soul and body, torments your conscience, brings upon you God's punishment in life and at death; and after death it sends you to hell, closing Paradise to you forever. What a monster it is to people! Bring to your sense all the evil of sin, and force yourself to abhor it and reject it.
Finally, look at sin from the point of view of the devil, who was its first creator and propagator, and see for whom you work by sinning. God has done and will do everything for you, but you do not want to please Him. The devil has done nothing for you, only tryannizes you with sin, but you willingly and indefatigably work for him. You befriend him through sin, and he does evil to you through it. He entices you to sin by promising its sweetness, but those who fall into sin he torments and tortures. . . . Realize all this and arouse yourself to hatred for this man-hater and all his works.
--The Path to Salvation, pp. 137-139
[A] characteristic trait of sinful life is, in its disregard for salvation, the care and trouble about many things (cf. Lk 10:41).
The nuances and distinctions of this care and trouble about many things depends on the kinds of emptiness that have formed in the soul. There is the emptiness of the mind that has forgotten the One Who is everything; this gives rise to care and trouble about learnedness, inquisitiveness, questioning and curiosity. There is the emptiness of the will that has been deprived of possession by the One Who is everything; this creates desire for many things, the longing to possess many things, so that everything is in our control, in our hands; this is self-interest. There is the emptiness of the heart that has been deprived of the enjoyment of the One Who is everything; this forms a thirst for the satisfaction of many and various things, or a search for an infinite number of objects in which we hope to find pleasure for our sense, both internal and external. Thus, the sinner is continually troubled about learnedness, the possession of many things and the desire for many pleasures. He amuses himself, he possesses, he questions. He goes around in circles his entire life. Curiosity beckons, the heart hopes to taste sweet things, and he is enticed by the will. Anyone can convince himself of this if he observes the movements of his soul over the course of only a single day.
If left alone, the sinner will continue going in circles, because this is our nature when it is enslaved to sin.
--The Path to Salvation, pp. 96-97
The true Christian life is one of grace. The self-made life, no matter how beautiful it is in appearance or how close it is to the form of Christian life, will never be Christian.
The origin of the Christian life is in arousal [from the slumber of sin] by grace.
--The Path to Salvation, p. 105
[Repentance] is a decisive change for the better, a breaking away from sin and a turning to God, or a kindling of the fire of zeal for exclusively God-pleasing things, with renunciation of the self and everything else. It is above all characterized by an extreme breaking of the will. If a person has acquired evil habits, he must now rend himself. If he has offended God, he must now grieve in the fire of just judgment. . . . With the repentant person there is first fear, then the lightness of hope; sorrow, then comfort; terror to the point of despair, then the breath of the consolation of mercy. . . .
It is something painful, but it saves. It is therefore inevitable that whoever has not experienced such a painful break has not yet begun to live through repentance. It is impossible for a person to begin cleansing himself in everything without having gone through this crucible. Decisive and active resistance to sin comes only from hatred of it. Hatred of sin comes only from a sense of evil from it; the sense of evil from it is experienced in all its force in this painful break within repentance. . . . Without this painful experience, even if he begins cleansing himself in some other way, he will be able to cleanse himself only slightly, more outwardly than inwardly, more in actions than in disposition. . . .
Such change is brought about in the human heart by divine grace. This alone can inspire a man to raise his hand to himself and bring himself to God in sacrifice.
--The Path to Salvation, pp. 92, 93
Christian life is zeal and the strength to remain in communion with God by means of an active fulfillment of His holy will, according to our faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, and with the help of the grace of God, to the glory of His most holy name.
The essence of Christian life consists in communion with God, in Christ Jesus our Lord--in a communion with God which in the beginning is usually hidden not only from others, but also from oneself. The testimony of this life that is visible or can be felt within us is the ardor of active zeal to praise God alone in a Christian manner, with total self-sacrifice and hatred of everything which is opposed to this. And so, when this ardor of zeal begins, Christian life has its beginning. The person in whom this ardor is constantly active is one who is living in a Christian way. . . .
Just as salt, penetrating decomposable matter, preserves it from decomposition, so also the spirit of zeal, penetrating our whole being, banishes the sin which corrupts our nature both in soul and body; it banishes it even from the least of the places where it has settled in us, and thus it saves us from moral vice and corruption. . . .
[I]n Christian life the result of the fervor of zeal is a certain quickness and liveliness of spirit, with which people undertake God-pleasing works, trampling upon oneself and willingly offering as a sacrifice to God every kind of labor, without sparing oneself.
Having a firm basis in such an understanding, one may easily conclude that a cold fulfillment of the rules of the Church, just like routine in business, which is established by our calculating mind, or like correct and dignified behavior and honesty in conduct, is not a decisive indicator that the true Christian life is present in us. . . .
Only true zeal both wishes to do good in all fulness and purity, and persecutes sin in its smallest forms.
--The Path to Salvation, pp. 27-28, 29
It is necessary for us to live as God created us, and when someone does not live this way, I may confidently state that he does not live at all.
--The Spiritual Life and How to Be Attuned to It, p. 39
In a Christian [growth] is a battle with oneself involving much labor, intense and sorrowful, and he must dispose his faculties for something for which they have no inclination. Like a soldier, he must take every step of land, even his own, from his enemies by means of warfare, with the double-edged sword of forcing himself and opposing himself. Finally, after long labors and exertions, the Christian principles appear victorious, reigning without opposition; they penetrate the whole composition of human nature, dislodging from it demands and inclinations hostile to themselves, and place in it a state of passionlessness and purity, making it worthy of the blessedness of the pure in heart--to see God in themselves in sincerest communion with Him.
Such is the place in us of the Christian life. This life has three stages which may be called: 1) Turning to God; 2) Purification or self-amendment; 3) Sanctification.
--The Path to Salvation, p. 23
As for the intellectual and physical parts [of a man], they are, as we have already noted, in and of themselves, sinless, and natural to us; but the man who has been shaped by the intellectual or even worse, by the carnal [i. e., the physical], is not sinless. He is guilty of granting supremacy within himself to something that was not meant for supremacy, and that is supposed to be in a subordinate position. It turns out that although the intellectual is natural for a man to be intellectual is unnatural; in the same way carnality is natural, but for a man to be carnal is unnatural. . . .
From this you see that according to natural purpose, man must live in the spirit, subordinate everything to the spirit, be penetrated by the spirit in all that is of the soul, and even more so in all that is physical--and beyond these, in the outward things, too, that is, family and social life. This is the norm!
The Spiritual Life and How to Be Attuned to It, pp. 74, 75