THE COMMANDS OF CHRIST

Obedience to Christ's commands is the result of argued right reasoning and total freedom. While disobedience to the same commands is subservience to the lust of the flesh.

In his journey to God, man must avoid evil and do good. But to do this, he must be able to distinguish good from evil.

St. Paul states that God's commands are engraved in man's heart. And a true seeker of God can discover this law in all its depth and fullness. But there are many obstacles in discovering this law: one's own passion, the allurements of the world, the illusions of the devil. So Christ instructed his disciples to preach His commandments and how to observe them. . .thus providing an external aid, preaching, to the internal aid, the law of God in man's heart.

But both internal and external aids are ineffective when confronted by the "pride of life" and "love of money".

"The law of the Lord revives the soul, the law of the Lord is certain, the law of the Lord rejoices the heart, the law of the Lord is pure and enlightens the eyes."

The Church, therefore, preserves with great respect the sources from whence she gets the commands of Christ and how to interpret them--Sacred Scriptures and the Tradition of the Fathers of the Church.

What does the Law of Christ require of us? Firstly, to act in accordance to the nature of man because man, due to his fallen nature, has been behaving below his nature, oftentimes, even worse than the animals. Secondly, Christ commands us to go above the nature of man, i.e., to live like angels.

By being human, man escapes the bestiality of his fallen nature "From the beginning it was not so." By being angelic, he leaves his human nature "to be like angels," which is Christ's reason for becoming Incarnate--"That men might become gods."

(06-09-03)