The Saving Power of the Word of God.

Metropolitan Anthony (Khrapovitsky)

Any established group has to meet, in order to hold conversations about the matter, which brings the members together. Our circle was gathered for the preaching and listening of the word of God. With the same aim it brought us together today in this room, full of light, making some people leave secular matters, depriving the others of rest after heavy daily work, reporting to all of us the unanimous spirit and filling everybody with thirst for the word of God, as the Psalmist said: "The law of thy mouth is better unto me than thousands of gold and silver…How sweet are thy words unto my taste! Yea, sweeter than honey to my mouth!" (Psalms 118:72,103).

But where exactly can be found this mysterious strength of the word of God, which brings us here? What qualities do turn out to be so powerful and effective? In what is, at last, the influence of the word of God upon the heart and life of man — all this we shall hear today, on the day of annual celebration, dedicated to the word of God. But who will clarify that to us? Can natural reason explain the action of the Divine word? — No, our soul only feels its life-giving power, but by itself will never be able to understand, where it comes from, as the Lord said: "The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit." (John 3:8). But if our mind is not able to define the laws of the word, then we shall be taught by the revelation. Let the very Word, Which had incarnated, reveal to us Its action, and teach us, first, what significance the word of God should have in Christian life, and secondly, what fruits it will bring for a believer in this and future life.

We have to discuss the first matter only because many consider the reading and preaching of the word of God almost unnecessary for salvation, hoping to earn it with good deeds and the fulfillment of the church orders, and the others, on the contrary, are ready to enclose the entire nature of salvation in studying the Bible and do not consider necessary to exercise their will in virtue. Despite these extremes, the Divine Scripture shows the perfect combination of how to perceive the word and strengthen it in Christian life. If we wish to search for the possibility of the sermon of the word of God, both for the beginning of Christian life, and for strengthening it, we shall learn that Christian faith itself, very Christianity is sometimes called the teaching of the word. This way, in the Acts it is said that after the baptism of Cornelius the Centurion, who was heathen, "the apostles and brethren that were in Judaea heard that the Gentiles had also received the word of God" (Acts 11:1), i.e. Christian faith. About it Apostle Paul said in Antiochia of Pisidia: "To you is the word of this salvation sent" (13:26). In the same chapter it is said that heathens "glorified the word of the Lord" (13:48). If the acceptance of Christianity is called in the Bible the acceptance of the word of God, then the process of perfection of people, taking place in Christian life, is called there as the development of the word of God, as it is mentioned many times in the Acts: "So mightily grew the word of God and prevailed" (19:20; 12:24, comp. Tim. 2:9 and the like).

Thus, if the goal of divine faith was understood like the assimilation of the word of God, then it is rather understandable that the preachers of this faith — the holy apostles — considered the preaching to be the main matter, called themselves the servants of the word and rejected external regulations, ordering to elect deacons and saying: "But we will give ourselves continually to prayer, and to the ministry of the word" (Acts 2:41; 1 Tim. 4:12; 5:17; 2 Tim. 4:2; Hebr. 13:7; Rev. 1:2,9; 20:4).

But how much is mistaken the one, who thinks that Christian life is limited by the process of listening to the word of God, that the word of God by itself, without our efforts, can sanctify us. On the contrary, in the parable about the sower the Lord clearly showed that the pure acceptance of the word through faith without a struggle is not more stable than that sprout of the seed on the stony ground, which dries in the heat of the sun; that only those souls can be suitable for the Divine Kingdom, which, having accepted the word, "bring forth fruit with patience," and only that one who, listening to the teaching of Christ, fulfills it, erects the building of salvation on the good ground (Luke 6:47). The disciple of God will be the one, who continues in His word (John 8:32), who keeps it (8;52), who, having received it in meekness (James 1:21), is the doer of the word (1:22), but not only a hearer (1:23), for the Jews as well heard the word, but it is said about them: "The word preached did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in them that heard it" (Hebr. 4:2). Then among Christians appeared talkative rebels, but the apostle threatened them to come and test "not the speech of them which are puffed up, but the power" (1 Cor. 4:19). About his sermon the apostle said that "our gospel came not unto you in word only, but also in power, and in the Holy Ghost, and in much assurance" (1 Thes. 1:5)

So, the word of God gets its saving significance only with the firm decision to change own sinful life and with the strife of man to accomplish, what he had decided, what is within his powers. Let the sectarians, who calmed their conscience in pure dead faith, and who are saying that the blissful word of God by Itself creates new life in them without any efforts of theirs, become silent. The very Word teaches us, the faithful, that the Evangelic teaching saves only on the condition that man struggles against his sin.

So, the first influence of the word of God onto our life is reflected in our spiritual revival. This way, Apostle James says that God "begat us with the word of truth" (1:18), and Apostle Peter explains that this birth through the word differs from ephemeral birth, for it leads us into eternal, non-ephemeral life. The people, born in the word, must be absolutely strange to any malice, flattery, hypocrisy, envy and slander, as newly-born babies; love only that verbal milk, which gives us the opportunity to taste "that the Lord is gracious" (1 Pet. 2:3).

Have you experienced this new birth through the word? Was there a moment in your life when you felt in yourself the beginning of new life, not the one, with which your body, your secular calculations live, but that gracious life, for which you need nothing, but God and the fulfillment of His commandments, for the sake of what man is about to agree for tortures and death, when he is ready to forget his former life and feels himself, on the word of the apostle, as a newly-born baby, free of any cunningness and envy? Can you say that you are revived by the word? — God gave you all, so that you could reach perfection of this birth within you: He cleansed you with water and the Spirit in the Holy baptism, but remember that this holy sacrament will bring its fruit within you only when you yourself will consciously be revived by the word, because the purification and sanctification of the church happens through baptism, but in no other way, than by the means of the word, as it is said in the Scripture: "Cleanse it with the washing of water by the word" (Eph. 5:26).

So, if in your life you had not experienced such decisiveness to set aside self-love and sin, and live for God, if you have not accepted the words of Christ, that one has to be born from above, if you have not experienced how new life’s spiritual strength comes onto you, and according to the teaching of the Savior, suddenly overwhelms our hearts (John 3:8) as an unexpected blowing of the wind, then pray and ask God to give you the opportunity to be revived by the word, for you received the principal element for revival in the holy baptism.

But if you were in that state, if the sermon of the word of God opened your eyes and you saw life and death, truth and lie and arose in decisiveness to live for God, then be careful and do not lose this life, nourish it and make it bring its fruits, so that it would not remain in you fruitless. How should one nourish it? It happens again through the word of God. This is what the New Testament says about the significance of the word of God for those, who had been revived by water and spirit, for Christians, whom God had already begotten by the word of truth.

For the maintenance of physical life one needs food and drinks: the same way spiritual life cannot be maintained without learning or listening to the word of God. About that the Lord says in the conversation with the Samaritan woman: "But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him…shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life" (John 4:14). Having said about such drinking of His word, the Lord calls the fulfillment of His commandments as food. The way food and drinks maintain and strengthen the body, the same way the word of God and Christian virtues nourish newly revived, spiritual life. This life is begotten in us by God, as some plants, and the servants of the word "plant and water them" (1 Cor. 3:5).

The word of God is so necessary for supporting in us that glorious life, that it is even called as the gracious word in the Holy Bible (Luke 4:22; Acts 14:3; 20:35), or as the word of life (Acts 5:20; 7:38), or, finally, as life itself or light (John 1:4; 6:63). The life-giving power of the word of Christ was seen in the fact that the people, listening to it, at once decided that this was the word of God (Luke 5:1), and Christ was the preaching prophet (John 7:49). The Lord Himself called the listening to the word of God blissful and cleansed "through the word which I have spoken unto you" (John15:3). Then apostle Paul even more expressively describes the action of the word, saying: "For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart" (Hebr. 4:12). Why is it so? — It is because it meets with the same demands, with which human heart is filled, like the apostle explains in another epistle: "The word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth, and in thy heart: that is, the word of faith, which we preach" (Rom. 10:8).

O Christian! Does the word of God, which you hear or read, satiate you? Does it make you quench spiritual thirst; does it introduce light into your life and make your conscience open for the analysis of all intentions and actions? To fulfill this spiritual feeding by the word, the Lord gives to you His very Body and Blood in the image of bread and wine. Are you truly feeding yourself with the word of life; is it really the Evangelic sermon, which raises you over the world of flesh and passions and fills you with spiritual joy about God? If it is so, then thanks God!

But you should know that for this you will have to suffer from the world, which lies in the evil. We have heard that the word of God leads to the separation of the soul and spirit: it also divides emotional people and those spiritual and arms the first against the second, as righteous Simeon predicted, holding in his arms the incarnated Word (Luke 2:35). Already within the life of the Savior the prophesy about the sufferings on earth for the sake of the word of God started coming true, as He said about Himself to the enemies: "But ye seek to kill me, because my word hath no place in you…even because ye cannot hear my word" (John 8:37-43); and about the apostles in the prayer to the Father: "I have given them thy word; and the world hath hated them" (John 17:14). Therefore the Lord said to His disciples that they should "think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword. For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law. And a man's foes shall be they of his own household" (Math. 10:34-36). And the observer of the mysteries of the further lot of the Church St. John saw in the Revelation multitudes of the righteous, slain for the word.

This way, the word of God, together with spiritual life, promises us sufferings and even physical death. Shall we be scared of them and confounded by the mundane condemnation for the word of God? Let it not be so, for the Lord said: "Whosoever therefore shall be ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation; of him also shall the Son of man be ashamed, when he cometh in the glory of his Father with the holy angels" (Mark 8:38). But if it is so, with what should we fight, protecting the word? — The answer is: with the very word, for, on the statement of Apostle Paul, it is "the sword of the Spirit" (Eph. 6:17), it is invincible for "the word of God is not bound" (2 Tim. 2:9). It is not afraid of mundane contempt, mockery, mundane judgment, for it is not the world that judges the word of God, but the world is judged itself by this word, as the Lord told us: "And if any man hear my words, and believe not, I judge him not…He that rejecteth me, and receiveth not my words, hath one that judgeth him: the word that I have spoken, the same shall judge him in the last day" (John 12:47-48).

But why is the word of God the judge of the universe? — Because the commandments of Christ are not accidental resolutions, but represent the qualities of the heavenly Ruler, as it is said in the Scripture: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not…And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth" (John 1:1-6, 14).

So, do you understand, why is the world judged by the word of God? Because those, who have accepted the word, accepted the One, Who had brought this word onto earth, received the One Who said: "If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him" (John 14:23). This is why the person having accepted the word of God is not scared of the world: because he lives in the unity with God-the Father, Who is seen only by those believing eyes, as the constant Judge of the world, as John had seen him in the Revelation: "And I saw heaven opened, and behold a white horse; and he that sat upon him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he doth judge and make war. His eyes were as a flame of fire, and on his head were many crowns; and he had a name written, that no man knew, but he himself. And he was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood: and his name is called The Word of God. And the armies which were in heaven followed him upon white horses, clothed in fine linen, white and clean. And out of his mouth goeth a sharp sword, that with it he should smite the nations: and he shall rule them with a rod of iron: and he treadeth the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God. And he hath on his vesture and on his thigh a name written, King of Kings, and Lord of Lords" (Rev. 19:11-17). This is Him, with Whom the assimilation of the word of God connects us: with the pre-eternal and unchangeable Word, ruling the universe since the beginning.

In this unity with God is the fourth point of the Evangelic sermon, and the fifth is in the fact that because this divine life is unchangeable and eternal, as Christ (2 Cor. 1:18-21), then exactly through the word of the Gospel, received and fulfilled through faith, we step into eternal life, as the Lord promised: "Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life" (John 5:24; 6:40-74 and 12:25).

Should we continue speaking about the use of the word of God, brothers? Shall we continue neglecting everything most precious on earth and in heaven? Shall we prefer fuss and decay to the word? Let it not be this way! And if we are weak and infirm to do good, then let us pray to the divine Word, so that It could strengthen within us love for listening to and proclaiming, for acceptance and fulfillment of the word here, on earth, and could award us with better understanding of it in heaven after we leave the body. "O great and holiest Pascha, Christ. O Wisdom and Word of God and Power, grant us truly to partake of thee in the day without evening of thy kingdom!"