THE GLORY AND EXALTATION OF MAN AND WOMAN

THE GLORY AND EXALTATION 

OF MAN AND WOMAN

   When God created man and woman, he foreknew that they would fall away  from Him, but He also knew how one day he would exalt them beyond all imagination, for His plans are perfect and will be accomplished.  The terrible degradation of man began with their breaking of God’s law upon accepting the advice to do so by the devil who appeared the form of a serpent and seduced them. Heeding his pernicious words, followed by their disobedient action they ate, breaking life- threatening law which firmly forbid this. By their action, Satan became their master while man acquired fears never felt previously. Death entered the world and man sunk from his noble and glorious rulership of all creation to the depths of enslavement to the devil. Nature released fury as well as beauty and food.

All evils that has entered the world came were released in the breaking of the law by the first created pair. This was not God’s intention nor is it ever right to blame God for anything because He alone is the Lover of all mankind and his great and mysterious plan for all creation was, not in the cherubim, seraphim or thrones, but in the exaltation of the race of man.

Today, if anyone will heed the voice of the Lord, there is prepared unbelievable glory and honor for those who offer their attention followed by a firm decision to pursue this glory, for this is truly the only destiny of man. Jesus Christ came into the world, born of the Virgin,  and it is he, whom we  speak of as the head of the race of man. He is the main person for while Adam and Eve made bad choices, and brought evils into the world, the Godman Jesus Christ was obedient to death even the death of the Cross, and brought all of God’s goodness into the world. For this reason God the Father has highly exalted Him. St. Paul describes this exaltation with these wonderful words: 

“That ou may know what is the hope of his calling and what are the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints; and what is the greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his mighty power, which he wrought in Christ, when he raised him from the dead, and set him in his own right hand in the heavenly places, far above all authority and power and lordship, and every name that has been named, not only in this world bu also in that which is to come; and has put all things under his feet, and gave him to be the head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fulness of him that fills all in all” (Eph. 1:18-23). 

   Wherever the head goes the body must always accompanies it. Christ is the Head of the Church, and we who are members of the church and His body, will go wherever He goes. The following most beautiful words, showing the true glory and exaltation of man, are by St. Nicola Velemirovic referring to the words of St. Paul:

THE TRUE GLORY AND EXALTATION OF MAN

“Behold the heights to which God raises the being of man!  Here it is not of the divine nature of Christ that is being spoken of, but His human nature; and not the eternal Logos of God but the man Jesus, whom God raised from the dead and exalted not only above all the visible and mortal world but above the invisible and immortal. Higher than all the ranks of angels and the heavenly powers, higher than all the revealed and unrevealed wondrous hierarchies of heaven, higher than every created being, known and unknown, and higher than every name on both worlds, in the material and the spiritual.  Do you see brethren, how our glorious Creator fulfills to us the promise He made to Adam when He drove him out of  Paradise, a promise renewed more plainly to Abraham , and still more plainly through David and the prophets Do you see how the Lord Sabaoth sets himself to glorify the human race in glorifying the man Jesus, in whom was incarnate the divinity of God the Son of God. God first glorified Him, and then, in order, all those who are numbered with Him, and by the grace of the Holy Spirit, are marked for eternal glory and are written in the Book of Life.

  It is not without cause that the Church sings to the Mother of God/: “More honorable than the Cherubim, and incomparably more glorious than the Seraphim. There where the risen Lord is exalted, there is exalted His most holy Mother, and there also His holy Apostles, according to His words to His heavenly Father// “Father, I will that they also, that you have given me, be with me where I am (John 17:24).  Such is the incalculable consequence of God’s coming to earth.  Such is the unspeakable fruit of His sufferings.  O Lord Jesus Christ, our Savior, alone equal to your Father and the Holy Spirit, help us, that we may, before the end, pull ourselves right out of our filthy sins and sensual folly.  To you be gory and praise forever. Amen.