Coptic Orthodox Answers

In the Father and the Son, the Holy Spirit, One God. Amen.

Welcome to Coptic Orthodox Answers Deep Dive. We are in John 14, about to start verse 15. We are in the middle of the Last Supper. Christ just told his disciples that He will leave them. So obviously, the disciples are worried, so, Christ is trying to comfort them asking them not to be troubled. He's trying to reassure them. And we're about to start with verse 15 right now.

So, verse 15 says:

'' 15 ''If you love Me, keep My commandments.'' '' (John 14:15)

This is a very important verse. God is saying:

- If you love me, if you want to be with me, if you want to be united with me, then keep my commandments.

- Why, God, why do I have to keep your commandments?

- Because I am the Creator. I am the source of life. I have designed you in my image. I want you to be in my likeness. For you to be in unity with Me who is the source of life, the great I Am, you have to be keeping My commandments, because a sin is something that is outside of Me, something that does not... cannot unite with Me. And therefore, if you sin by not keeping My commandments according to the design, then you will disconnect from the source of life. You will not be in unity with Me. But if you love Me, if you want to be united with Me, if you want to be one with Me in the proper sense of the word, then keep My commandments.

Often today, people act as if they are the source of morality. God is the source of the morality, because He is the Creator, He's the great I Am, again. And therefore, we ought to keep His commandments, that we may be able to find life in Him, the one who is life and the source of love as well.

So, let me give you a practical example. So, this is Christ, the Son of God. This is us before the creation. So, we are created in the image of the Son. So, we are created by Him; we look like the Son. As long as I keep God's commandments, I remain in this shape, right? I remain in His image. And therefore, I am able to unite with Him. And I'm uniting with a person who is the divine person, who is the source of life, love, purity, joy, peace, the eternal ones, not the earthly ones and so on, right?

So, as I unite with Him, all these characteristics start flowing into me and this is the kingdom of God within, right? And this is how we attain life, a spiritual life, moral life and so on. If I choose not to obey God's commandments, I deform God's image or Christ's image in me. I become deformed, right?, and I cannot connect with God anymore. Therefore, I look like this. I start to pray with my Bible, go to liturgy, whatever it is, I cannot experience Him. The experience is actually negative. It doesn't work.

So God says: Listen, you need remission of sins. I need to bring you back to the original state. And that's why we have the mysteries in the Church where God recreates us and we're able to unite with Him again. But this is the importance of following the commandments. If I don't follow the commandments and becomes like this, I don't love Him, because I cannot be with Him, so I'm willingly choosing not to be with Him. But He says: I love you, I have saved you, I have recreated you. If you love Me, keep My commandments. So, St. John Chrysostom says this:

''At all times it is works and actions that we need, not a mere show of words. It is easy for anyone to say or promise something, but it is not so easy to act on that word or promise... If you love me, Christ said, keep my commandments... I have commanded you to love one another and to do to one another as I have done to you. To love me is to obey these commands and to submit to me, your beloved.'' (St. John Chrysostom, Homilies on John)

So, Christ is saying: As I've loved you, then you ought to love one another. If you love Me, keep My commandments. Be like Me. Do like Me. You will belong to Me.

Verse 16:

'' 16 ''And I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever.'' '' (John 14:16)

Who is this other helper? Obviously, it is the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is a he, not an it, right? He is another divine person within the Trinity and all three persons share the same divine essence. That's why they are one God: so, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, right? So here, the fathers, namely St. John Chrysostom, St. Gregory the Theologian and many others have emphasized on the word another, meaning the Holy Spirit here is another helper, meaning He's equal to the Son. He's equivalent to the Son in terms of His nature, if you will. So, the Holy Spirit is not inferior. He's another divine person within the Trinity and He will abide with humanity forever.

Verse 17:

'' 17 ─ the Spirit of truth [So, who is this other helper? He is the Spirit of truth], whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him; but you know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you.'' (John 14:17)

So, this Spirit, the Christian doesn't see Him. The non-Christian doesn't see Him either. But the non-Christian does not know Him, although the Christian does know Him. There's a difference. But Christ also says here: but you know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you. There's a difference between the Holy Spirit working with me and being in me. So, the Holy Spirit, like in 1 Corinthians 12, chapter 12 discusses this briefly, how, let's say, a non- Christian can call on Christ, can become a Christian through the work of the Spirit, right? And we call Christ our Saviour through the work of this Spirit.

But that doesn't mean that the Spirit dwells in me. That means that the Holy Spirit is working with me, can guide my thoughts, push me in the right direction and so on. But after baptism, the mystery of baptism, after the mystery of chrismation, either coupled together, then the Holy Spirit dwells in me. He's in me all the time. Where I go, the Spirit is. The Spirit does not and cannot leave me, because I have been anointed with the chrismation. So there's a big difference here. As Christians, the Holy Spirit is working in us, he's in us, he's indwelling in us, and therefore, every place I go to, every action I take, everything I watch, I have to be extremely vigilant, because I understand that I am the temple of God. The Spirit is within me. That's why in John 7, verses 37 to 39, it says the following:

'' 37 On the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, saying, ''If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. 38 He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.'' [like in Ezekiel, right?, when the water comes out of the side of the temple; Christ Himself is that temple.] 39 But this He spoke concerning the Spirit, whom those believing in Him would receive [in the future]; for the Holy Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.'' (John 7:37-39)

And that's why Christ was telling them, in John 15, verse... sorry, John 14, verse 17, that the Holy Spirit, in the future, He will dwell in you. Again, there's a huge difference here between having the Holy Spirit working with me versus in me, especially that prior to the New Testament and the salvific work of Christ and our personal baptism and chrismation, the Holy Spirit could work with someone, but then the Holy Spirit would leave him, right? So again, in the Old Testament, kings, prophets and priest would have the Holy Spirit. But like King Saul, for example, when he messed up, the Holy Spirit left him.

This does not happen in the New Testament, because once I am baptized and I receive the Holy Spirit, then I receive the seal of the Spirit in the mystery of the chrismation and that means that the Holy Spirit does not leave me. So, even if I do sin today, the Holy Spirit does not leave me. And that's why when someone lives a life of sin but was already baptized, when he comes back, when he returns, he does not get baptized again, because the Holy Spirit is still within and the person only has to go through the mystery of repentance and confession, and then partake of the Eucharist, and then they're again united with God, because we're sealed. There's the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, we're one, we become again the temple of God. And in a sense, we become the presence of God. We become the light of the world. We ought to enlighten the darkness around us. Christians ought to step up today and enlighten the world around them. We need to work with the power of the Spirit working in us.

Verse 18:

'' 18 ''I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you.'' '' (John 14:18)

Again, the disciples are worried that He's leaving, so He's trying to comfort them.

'' 19 ''A little while longer and the world will see Me no more, but you will see Me...'' '' (John 14:19)

So, after the cross, there's the resurrection and during the 40 days between resurrection and Ascension, Christ appeared many times to His own disciples. So, they will see Him again, but the world will not anymore, because He does not appear to the rest of the world. He does not appear publicly to everybody, but publicly only to those that have followed Him.

Because God... there's two sides to that coin, right? So, so, some of them will be forced to believe and therefore God will cancel their will, and often enough, unfortunately, even when God appears, many people... or St. Mary appears, whomever... many people still refuse to believe and then there's an additional judgement to their case, right?, which is quite problematic. So, Christ gives this free will and He appears to those who have already chosen to love Him and be with Him. So He says:

'' 19 ''...Because I live, you will live also.'' '' (John 14:19)

So, because I will be raised from the dead, you also will be raised from the dead. Again, St. Athanasius is very clear: salvation is recreation, right? So, there's the healing of humanity there. So, Christ is raised from the dead. We are also raised from the dead. He is the first fruit, right? He creates that path and we walk in it. So, we live because He lives. Like St. Paul also says in 1 Corinthians 15 that if Christ is not raised from the dead, then our faith is futile, it's useless, because we're not raised from the dead either. So, so, the resurrection is obviously a foundational aspect of salvation.

'' 20 ''At that day you will know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you.'' '' (John 14:20)

So, you will know that I am in my Father, right? So, Me and My Father, we are two persons that share that divine essence. He is the source of life; I am also the source of life. So, as, from a human perspective, we can say that the Father raised the Son, but we can also say that the Son raised Himself, because He is divine, He is the source of life. So you will know that I am God, that I am in my Father and you in Me and I in you.

Again, so, through the mysteries, we become part of Christ. Even when we partake of the Eucharist, I eat God, so, He becomes in me. He gives life. He's the antidote to death. What is the antidote to death? The source of life itself. And through that action, I become part of his body, mystically, part of the Church. And He is the head of that body. So, I also become in Him as He becomes in Me.

'' 21 ''He who has My commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves Me. And he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and manifest Myself to him.'' '' (John 14:21)

So again, as I partake of the Eucharist, I become part of Christ who is raised from the dead and therefore, I also am raised from the dead. So, when I become... when I'm baptized, I put on Christ, right? Again, there's this unity with Him. This unity with Him, right? That unity with Him. And then, whenever He does a salvific work, automatically applies to me, because I am in Him. And if I'm not there in Him, this is when the problems start. Yeah, while on earth at least, it becomes quite problematic to live as Christ lived, because I don't have the strength to do that, because I'm not in Him. And this is the gist of these verses. So, St. Cyril says the following about those verses. He says:

''...I am in the Father, and you are in me, and I am in you. For I myself live, he says, for I am life by nature... But when you yourselves (albeit you are of a corruptible nature) also behold yourselves living in a similar way as I do, then indeed you shall know very clearly that I, being life by nature, knitted you through myself into God the Father...'' (St. Cyril of Alexandria, On the Gospel of John)

In other words, if we live like the Son, we are united with Him and, in turn, He unites us, so, the Son unites us with God the Father. That's why he says:

''...knitted you through myself into God the Father, who is also himself life by nature, [but He is the source within the Trinity, right?] making you partakers as it were and sharers in his incorruption. For I am in the Father naturally, being the fruit of his essence and its real offspring. I am life of life, and you are in me and I in you, [therefore we have life, because we are in Him, but He, Christ, is the source of life] forasmuch as I appeared as a

man myself and made you partakers of the divine nature by having my Spirit dwell in you [and therefore, all the different characteristics of that spirit]. For Christ is in us through the Spirit, [so the spirit makes Christ present within us] converting that which has a natural tendency to corruption into incorruption and transferring it from the condition of dying to that which is otherwise.'' (St. Cyril of Alexandria, On the Gospel of John)

So, in a nutshell, like the Father and the Son have this beautiful unity, real unity founded on unconditional love and humility and the same will. They each have their own will, but their wills is always aligned into one will. Similarly, if we follow God's commandments because we love Him, then that love, that Trinitarian love will also be shared with us. We will be able to love like they love and to unite with Them and therefore, have life, and therefore, move... therefore to move from incorruption, sorry, from corruption to incorruption; to move from death to life. That's, in a nutshell, what it says.

Verse 22:

'' 22 Judas (not Iscariot) said to Him, ''Lord, how is it that You will manifest Yourself to us, and not to the world?'' 23 Jesus answered and said to him, ''If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him. [Interesting!] 24 He who does not love Me does not keep My words; and the word which you hear is not Mine but the Father’s who sent Me.'' '' (John 14:22-24)

So, wait a second. Who is it? Which person is in us? Is it the Father? Is it the Son? Is it the Holy Spirit? Because again, in verse 23, He says: We will come to him and make Our home with him. And the answer's simple: it's all three of them. So, we receive the Holy Spirit, again, baptism and chrismation. The Holy Spirit makes Christ present. That's why we say things like we put on Christ in baptism or the image of Christ is recreated in us. And being with the Son automatically unites us with the Father. So, the Father is also in us.

Again, every person of the Trinity share the one, the same divine essence and an attribute or a characteristic of this essence is to be everywhere. So, they're everywhere. But the fellowship that we have with this one Trinitarian God in us, the fellowship is enabled when we are baptized. And then, again, we have this indwelling of the Spirit, the recreation of the image of the Son and unity with the Father.

Verse 25:

'' 25 ''These things I have spoken to you while being present with you. [right? So, Christ is present with the apostles.]

26 But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you.'' '' (John 14:25-26)

So, the Holy Spirit will remind the apostles of all things that Christ has said to them. But also, the Holy Spirit will teach you all things. So, why isn't Christ teaching the apostles all things? Well, first, Christ thought He taught the apostles everything that they needed to know: to start the Church, the mysteries, like, you name it, right? All of these things that he spent with them 40 days, again, between the resurrection and Ascension, and He explained to them everything related to the kingdom of God, as it says in the first... in the beginning of the book of Acts.

However, there are certain things that change with time. And the Holy Spirit within the Church guides the bishop, the bishops, sorry, and the clergy, right?, the Holy Senate, and He leads them into all truth as time progresses, as things change. For example, so, scientific advancement happens on a specific level. How ought we to deal with the scientific advancement? Should we shut it down? No. Should we automatically accept it? Neither. We should pray about it and the Holy Spirit will lead us.

So scientific advancements are good, some are not so good. Some seem to be good from an atheistic perspective, but, like abortion or anything else, but from a religious perspective understanding that the soul and the body... the human being is formed from the first instance, you know, the Church rejects this.

God gives meaning to science. Science has no meaning in itself. It's only the explanation of how things come to be. But who gives that meaning? Who says this is right or wrong? It's God. This is when morality is super important and that's why absolute morality is a must and we cannot avoid it. If God is not there, then let us do what... whatever we want. But if God is there and He gives that morality, then He has dictated what is sin and what is not and therefore, we abide by His laws and He gives meaning to everything. He's the ultimate scientist and the ultimate philosopher and the Creator of humanity and the entire cosmos and He is the one that saved the entire cosmos, including humanity.

So, verse 27:

'' 27 ''Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.'' '' (John 14:27)

Again, He's in the process of comforting them this whole part of that discussion. But He clearly clarifies, here, that the peace that comes from earthly things is very different from the heavenly one. My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. So, there are earthly peace, there's an earthly peace and earthly joy and so on, and there's also the heavenly ones, and they are at a completely different level.

And truly, when someone taps into God and experiences the kingdom of God within, we realize this. And this is real life. And I really encourage all of us to really, like, have a life of prayer, of partaking of the Eucharist, of reading Scripture, of keeping away from sin, that we may live true life and have that peace and that joy within us. Verse 28:

'' 28 ''You have heard Me say to you, 'I am going away and coming back to you'. If you loved Me, you would rejoice because I said, 'I am going to the Father', for [the] Father is greater than I.'' '' (John 14:28)

Obviously, this verse is one of the verses that the Arians jumped on to attempt to prove that the Son is not equal to the Father, because the Son says that my Father is greater than I. As St. Cyril will explain that to us in a few seconds, that's not the actual meaning. Again, we have seen so many verses where He declares His divinity, so He is God; there's no doubt about this.

And also here, why would He state this if He's stating the obvious? If there's no point... if He's... if the Father's great, really greater than Him in that sense that He is not God, and therefore, He's a created being, He's not the Creator, then why would He even mention this? Because it's a given. But it's not the case. There's a different meaning here. So, let's hear what St. Cyril has to say. So, St. Cyril says:

''He says that [the Father] is greater, not because He sat down on the right hand as God, but as He was still with us, that is, in human shape. For as He still wore the [disguise] of a servant, and the time had not yet come that he should be reinstated, He calls God the Father greater.'' (St. Cyril of Alexandria)

So, in other words, what he's saying is that since the Son had took on this humanity, He was in a state not as the one He was in prior to His incarnation. And therefore, while being in this state, He calls God the Father greater, since God the Father is in a greater state than the Son was at that specific time.

''Moreover, when He endured the precious cross for us, the Jews brought Him vinegar and gall when He was thirsty, and when He drank, He said, It is finished. For already the time of His humiliation was fulfilled, and He was crucified as man. He had overcome the power of death, not as man but rather as God, I say by the working of His power and the glory and might of His conquest, not according to the flesh.

''The Father then is greater since the Son was still a servant and in the world, as He says that He is God of Himself, and adds this attribute to His human form. [So, the Son, at that point, was God and human; 100 % God, 100% human.] For if we believe that He degraded and humbled Himself, will it not be obvious to all that He descended from superiority to an inferiority, and rather from equality with the Father to the reverse. The

Father underwent nothing of this, and He abode where He was at the beginning. He is greater therefore than He that chose inferiority by His own dispensation, and remained in such a state until He was restored to His ancient condition...'' (St. Cyril of Alexandria) So, in verse 28, we see Christ's humanity while, in 29, we also see His divinity. As He says:

'' 29 ''And now I have told you before it comes, [I know the future, because I am God] that when it does come to pass, you may believe.'' '' (John 14:29) Right? So, again, He wants to comfort them. He wants to prepare them for the future, again, for the cross, the resurrection, and everything they will be going through. And that teaches us that we also ought to do the same. When we have our own disciples, meaning our children at home, the ones that we serve in church, seeing the state that the world is in and the corruption and the darkness, as they are growing up, we have to prepare them to live as saints in this world, to be the light of the world, so they don't grow up and they're shocked.

Sometimes, we try to raise children where we protect them from the world to the point that they're blind to everything that is happening. And once they grow up, now, they're challenged with all of these things, whether it's different ideology, whether it's sin, and they're not able to cope, because we haven't prepared them. We have to prepare them and teach them to be strong, even in the midst of the strikes.

Verse 30:

'' 30 ''I will no longer talk much with you, for the ruler of this world is coming, and he has nothing in Me.'' '' (John 14:30)

I'm about to be arrested and this arrest is led by the devil and by Judas who is under the control of the devil. And there's no communion between light and darkness. There's no fellowship between God and the devil, between good and evil. And that's why He says: this ruler of this world is coming and he has nothing in Me.

As God is the source of peace and joy and happiness and love and all of these things, the devil is the source of... not the source of the opposite, but he's in a state of complete opposition. So, there's hatred there, there's anxiety, there's anger, there's nothing good there, 'cause God is good. There's light on one side and there's darkness on the other.

Verse 31:

'' 31 ''But that the world may know that I love the Father, and as the Father gave Me commandment, so I do. Arise, let us go from here.'' '' (John 14:31)

What does it mean when He says: and as the Father gave me commandment, so I do? So, I said repeatedly that salvation, a component of it is the healing of humanity. Adam disobeyed

God and therefore sinned and corruption happened, death and corruption happened within humanity. Now, this human will is corrupt, is going rogue against God.

Part of the healing of humanity is healing that will. So, when the Son of God, who is divine, becomes human as well, He takes on the totality of what we call a human being, including a will, and He submits that will to His divinity. And His will is always one, because it is... there's no way that the Son would actually sin.

So, we say, yes, the will is always one. However, that one will is composed of two wills, if you will. So, it's composed of the divine and the human. The human will is not cancelled, but the human will is submitting to the divine will, correcting the fault of the first Adam who disobeyed.

And therefore, the Son, in His humanity, has to obey, even to the point of death and to the point of death of the cross, like St. Paul says in Philippians 2, because that becomes part of the healing. And then He heals that will and He gives it to us. And he tells me: now that I have healed your will, you're capable, through the mysteries, to also obey God. You're able to be a partaker of the divine nature. You become a partaker or a member of the second Adam, not of the first Adam anymore.

And then He says: Arise, let us go from here. Potentially, this was the end of the meal, because Christ went on for quite a while after that.

Remember: Know your faith, live your faith, and teach your faith. And glory be to God forever and ever. Amen.

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