Dear readers,
I rarely write about theology, I am not a theologian nor will I attempt to act as one. I felt compelled to write this essay to explain how great and loving our Lord is. It is done to best of my ability myself being a very flawed and sinful man.
The greatest sin in my opinion is pride, it was arguably the first sin of mankind and it is the sin that caused Satan and a third of the angels to fall from heaven. God’s love for humanity is unconditional in spite of this sin of ours and he even showed his love for us even before Adam’s first breath, even before the foundation of the universe. God the father in unity with his son and the Holy Spirit showed his heavenly host his plan for the creation of the universe and mankind. Being all knowing he also showed them that man would fall and that he would in the fullness of time send his son. He showed them that he would humble himself and become a man through the incarnation and suffer at the hands of mankind. That he would take upon himself the sins of all of mankind and be resurrected and glorified and worshiped as God made man.
Satan-Lucifer was at that time the highest of all of the angels, Beloved of God and the most beautiful of all the angels. Lucifer ( לוציפר) in Hebrew means “shining one, light bearer.” When he was shown this vision by the almighty he became enraged at the thought of worshipping God the son as both God and man. Man in his eyes was a lesser creature and his pride made the thought of worshipping Christ as both God and man repugnant. His pride made him say to the almighty, “I will not serve.” He wanted to be God himself, and through his awful pride convinced a third of the heavenly host to rebel against God. Michael, the archangel, through the power of the most high, triumphed over Satan and his followers and cast them down from heaven.
Satan corrupted man through the sin of pride through Adam. Adam and Eve, through their pride wanted in the words of the serpent, “be like God, knowing good and evil.” (Genesis 3:5) The sin of pride permeates mankind’s history from Cain in his slaying of his brother, Abel; The Pride of King Nimrod and the tower of babel; the stubborn pride of the pharaoh Rameses in response of Moses’s pleas to the stubbornness of Israel in the desert–even in the presence of God as the Christ man showed his foolish pride. It was the sin of pride that caused the Sanhedrin to arrest and mock Jesus. Even the Roman procurator Pontius Pilate knew the real reason for them turning Jesus over to him: “For he knew that they had handed Him over because of envy.” (Matthew 27:18)
We all are guilty of the sin of pride when we won’t accept God’s will; even the consecrated in the church. Even though Jesus promised, “And I say also unto thee, that thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” (Matthew 16:18)
The church is still populated by sinful men and women and their personal actions might not match their vows and as is shown throughout history, this can be evil. Through the Holy Spirit, the teaching of the church (Magisterium) is eternal and cannot change. The same goes for God’s love for us.
No other faith, save Christianity, has the deity become a man with all of the frailties of the human form. He takes the sins of all of mankind upon himself. The almighty has no false pride. What a powerful and loving God we have that he emptied himself for the redemption of mankind. You see, readers, God himself cannot go against justice. The enteral scale had to be balanced. Mankind’s great sin from Adam until the end of time had to be paid for. God loved us so much he paid for our sins himself through the scared heart of Jesus.
We are all the recipients of this great gift and must put our foolish pride aside to accept it.
– D.B.
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