In. III, 1-21:1 Among the Pharisees there was a certain man named Nicodemus, one of the rulers of Judah. 2 He came to Jesus at night and said to Him: Rabbi! we know that You are a teacher come from God; for no one can do such miracles as You do unless God is with him. 3 Jesus answered and said to him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless someone is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” 4 Nicodemus said to Him, “How can a man be born when he is old?” Can he really enter his mother’s womb another time and be born? 5 Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.” 6 That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. 7 Do not be surprised at what I said to you: you must be born again. 8 The Spirit breathes where it wills, and you hear its voice, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes: this is the case with everyone born of the Spirit. 9 Nicodemus answered and said to Him, “How can this be?” 10 Jesus answered and said to him, “You are the teacher of Israel, and do you not know this?” 11 Truly, truly, I say to you, We speak of what we know and testify of what we have seen, but you do not accept Our testimony. 12 If I told you about earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you about heavenly things? 13 No one has ascended into heaven except the Son of Man, who is in heaven, who came down from heaven. 14 And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, 15 so that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life. 16 For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through Him. 18 He who believes in Him is not condemned, but he who does not believe is already condemned, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. 19 Now this is the judgment, that light has come into the world; but people loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil; 20 For everyone who does evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds be exposed, because they are evil. 21 But he who does righteousness comes to the light, so that his deeds may be revealed, because they are done in God.

Guide to the study of the Four Gospels.

Prot. Seraphim Slobodskaya (1912-1971).
Based on the book “The Law of God”, 1957.

Conversation of Jesus Christ with Nicodemus

(John III, 1-21)

Among the people who were amazed by the miracles of Jesus Christ and believed in Him was the Pharisee Nicodemus, one of the leaders of the Jews. He came to Jesus Christ at night, secretly from everyone, so that the Pharisees and Jewish leaders, who did not love Jesus Christ, would know about it.

Nicodemus wanted to find out whether Jesus Christ really is the expected Savior of the world, and who He will accept into His Kingdom: what a person needs to do to enter His Kingdom. He said to the Savior: “Rabbi (teacher)! we know that You are a Teacher who came from God; because no one can do such miracles as You do unless God is with Him.”

The Savior, in a conversation with Nicodemus, said: “Truly I say to you, whoever is not born again cannot be in the Kingdom of God.”

Nicodemus was very surprised how a person could be born again.

But the Savior told him not about an ordinary, physical birth, but about a spiritual one, that is, that a person needs to change, to become completely different in his soul - completely kind and merciful, and that such a change in a person can only happen by the power of God.

The Savior said to Nicodemus: “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless someone is born of water (through baptism) and of the Spirit (which comes upon a person during baptism), he cannot enter the Kingdom of God.”

The Savior explained to Nicodemus that a person, born only from earthly parents, remains as sinful as they are (which means, unworthy of the Kingdom of Heaven). Having been born of the Holy Spirit, a person becomes pure from sins, holy. But how such a change takes place in the human soul, people cannot understand this work of God.

Then the Savior told Nicodemus that He came to earth to suffer and die for people, not to ascend to the royal throne, but to the cross: “as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert (i.e., hung a copper serpent on a tree to save those bitten by poisonous snakes of the Jews), so the Son of Man must be lifted up (that is, Christ, the Son of Man, must also be lifted up on the tree of the cross), so that everyone (everyone) who believes in Him will not perish, but have eternal life. God loves the world so much that to save people He gave His only begotten Son (to suffer and die), and sent Him into the world not to judge people, but to save people.

From that time on, Nicodemus became a secret disciple of Jesus Christ.

Archbishop Averky (Taushev) (1906-1976)
A Guide to Studying the Holy Scriptures of the New Testament. Four Gospels. Holy Trinity Monastery, Jordanville, 1954.

2. Conversation of the Lord Jesus Christ with Nicodemus

(John III, 1-21)

The expulsion of the merchants from the temple and the miracles performed by the Lord in Jerusalem had such a strong effect on the Jews that even one of the “princes,” or leaders of the Jews, a member of the Sanhedrin (see John 7:50) Nicodemus came to Jesus at night, apparently wanting to hear His teaching, but fearing to incur the anger of his fellows who are hostile to the Lord. Having come to the Lord, Nicodemus calls Him “Rabbi,” that is, “teacher,” thereby recognizing for Him the right of teaching, which, according to the scribes and Pharisees, Jesus, as not having graduated from rabbinical school, could not have. This already proves Nicodemus’s disposition towards the Lord. Then he calls Him “a teacher who came from God,” recognizing that He works miracles by the power of God that is inherent in Him. He says this not only personally on his own behalf, but also on behalf of all the Jews who believed in the Lord, perhaps even some of the Pharisee sect and members of the Sanhedrin, although for the most part these people were undoubtedly hostile to the Lord. The entire subsequent conversation is remarkable in that it is aimed at defeating the false fantastic views of Pharisaism about the Kingdom of God and the conditions for man’s entry into this Kingdom. This conversation is divided into three parts: 1) Spiritual rebirth, as the main requirement for entering the Kingdom of God, 2) The redemption of humanity through the sufferings of the Son of God on the cross, without which it would be impossible for people to inherit the Kingdom of God, and 3) The essence of the Judgment of people who did not believe in Son of God.

The type of Pharisee at that time was the personification of the narrowest and fanatical national particularism: “not like other men.” The Pharisee believed that he, simply because he was a Jew, and even more so a Pharisee, was thereby an indispensable and worthy member of the glorious Kingdom of the Messiah. The Messiah himself, according to the views of the Pharisees, will be a Jew like them, who will free the Jews from the foreign yoke and establish a world kingdom in which the Jews will occupy a dominant position. Nicodemus, obviously sharing these views common to the Pharisees, although perhaps in the depths of his soul he felt their falsity, came to the conclusion whether Jesus, about whose remarkable personality so many rumors had spread, was not really the expected Messiah. And he decided to go to Him himself to make sure of this. The Lord begins His conversation with him by immediately smashing this false Pharisee view.

“Amen, amen, I say to you,” He says to him: “unless one is born again, he cannot see the Kingdom of God,” i.e. It is not enough to be a Jew by birth: one needs a complete moral rebirth, which is given to a person from above, from God; one must, as it were, be born again, become a new creature (which is the essence of Christianity). Since the Pharisees imagined the Kingdom of the Messiah as a sensual, earthly kingdom, it is not surprising that Nicodemus understood these words of the Lord also in a sensual sense, i.e. that to enter the Kingdom of the Messiah a second carnal birth is necessary and expressed his bewilderment, emphasizing the absurdity of this requirement: “How can a person be born, old? Can food enter its mother’s womb for the second time and be born?” Then Jesus explains to him that He is not talking about carnal birth, but about a special spiritual birth, which differs, both in causes and results, from carnal birth. This is birth by water and the Spirit. Water is here a means or an instrument, and the Holy Spirit is the Power that produces a new birth, as the Author of a new being: “Unless someone is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the Kingdom of God.” This new birth differs from the carnal one in its fruits. “What is born of the flesh is flesh” - when a person is born from carnal parents, he inherits from them the original sin of Adam, which nests in the flesh, thinks carnally and pleases carnal passions and lusts. These shortcomings of carnal birth are corrected by spiritual birth: “That which is born of the Spirit is spirit.” He who has accepted rebirth from the Spirit himself enters into spiritual life, rising above everything carnal and sensual. Seeing that Nicodemus still does not understand this, the Lord begins to explain to him what this birth from the Spirit consists of, comparing the method of this birth with the wind. “Spirit, in this case the Lord here calls the wind “spirit,” wherever it wants to breathe, and you hear its voice, but do not know where it comes from and where it goes: such is every person born of the Spirit.” In other words, in the spiritual rebirth of a person, only the change that occurs in the person himself is observable, and the regenerating force, the ways in which it comes, the way in which it acts - all this is mysterious and elusive for a person. This is similar to how we feel the action of the wind on ourselves, hear “its voice,” i.e. noise, but where it comes from and where it rushes, so free in its aspiration and so little dependent on our will, we do not see and do not know. In the same way, the action of the Spirit of God, which regenerates us, is obvious and tangible, but mysterious and inexplicable. Nicodemus continues to not understand, and in his question: “how can these things be?” both distrust of the words of Jesus and his Pharisaic pride with a claim to understand and explain everything are expressed. This Pharisaic arrogance strikes the Lord with all his might in his answer, so that Nicodemus does not dare to object any more, and in his moral self-abasement little by little prepares in his heart the soil on which the Lord then sows the seeds of His saving teaching: “ Thou art the teacher of Israel, and art thou not these? With these words, the Lord denounces not so much Nicodemus himself, but the entire arrogant Pharisee teaching, which, having taken the key to understanding the mysteries of the Kingdom of God, neither entered into it itself, nor allowed others to enter. How could the Pharisees not know the teaching about the need for spiritual rebirth, when in the Old Testament the idea of ​​the need to renew man, about God giving him a heart of flesh instead of stone (Ezek. 36:26) was so often encountered. After all, King David also prayed: “Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a right spirit in my womb” (Ps. 50:12).

Turning then to the revelation of the highest secrets about Himself and His Kingdom, the Lord, as if in the form of an introductory remark, tells Nicodemus that, in contrast to the Pharisee teaching, He Himself and His disciples proclaim a new teaching, which is based on direct knowledge and contemplation of the truth: “ We know, we speak, and we see, we testify, but you do not accept our testimony,” i.e. you are Pharisees, pretended teachers of Israel.

Further in the words: “If the earthly river came to you and you did not believe, how would you believe if the heavenly river came to you?” The Lord means by “earthly” the doctrine of the need for rebirth, since both the need for rebirth and its consequences occur in man and are known by his inner experience, and by “heavenly” the sublime secrets of the Divine, which are above all human observation and knowledge: as about the eternal council of the Trinity God, about the Son of God taking upon Himself the redemptive feat for the salvation of people, about the combination in this feat of Divine love with Divine justice. What happens to a person and in a person, the person himself can partly know about this. But which of the people can ascend to heaven and penetrate into the mysterious region of Divine life? No one except the Son of Man, Who, having descended to earth, left heaven: “No one has ascended into heaven, except the Son of Man who came down from heaven, who is in heaven.” With these words, the Lord reveals to Nicodemus the secret of His incarnation; convinces him that He is more than an ordinary messenger of God, like the Old Testament prophets, as Nicodemus considers Him, that His appearance on earth in the form of the Son of Man is a descent from a higher state to a lower, humiliated one, because His eternal, everlasting existence is not on earth, but in heaven.

Then the Lord reveals to Nicodemus the secret of His redemptive deed. “And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so it is fitting for the Son of Man to be lifted up.” Why must the Son of Man be lifted up on the cross to save people? This is precisely what is “heavenly”, which cannot be comprehended by earthly thought. As a prototype of His feat on the cross, the Lord points to the copper serpent lifted up by Moses in the desert. Moses erected a copper serpent in front of the Israelites so that when they were struck by snakes, they would receive healing by looking at the serpent. Likewise, the entire human race, stricken by the plague of sin living in the flesh, receives healing by looking with faith at Christ, who came in the likeness of the flesh of sin (Rom. 8:3). The basis of the deed on the cross of the Son of God is God’s love for people: “For God so loved the world, as He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him may not perish, but may have eternal life.” Eternal life is established in a person by the grace of the Holy Spirit, and people receive access to the throne of grace (Heb. 4:16) through the atoning death of Jesus Christ.

The Pharisees thought that Christ's work would consist of judging the nations of other faiths. The Lord explains that He is now sent not for judgment, but for the salvation of the world. Unbelievers will condemn themselves, for in this unbelief their love for darkness and hatred for light, which stems from their love for evil deeds, will be revealed. Those who create the truth, honest, moral souls, themselves go to the light, without fear of exposure of their deeds.

New Testament

Conversation of Jesus Christ with Nicodemus

Among the people amazed by the miracles of Jesus Christ and who believed in Him was a Pharisee Nicodemus, one of the leaders of the Jews. He came to Jesus Christ at night, secretly from everyone, so that the Pharisees and Jewish leaders, who did not love Jesus Christ, would know about it.

Nicodemus wanted to find out whether Jesus Christ really is the expected Savior of the world, and who He will accept into His Kingdom: what a person needs to do to enter His Kingdom. He said to the Savior: “Rabbi (teacher), we know that You are a Teacher who came from God; because no one can do such miracles as You do unless God is with Him.”

The Savior, in a conversation with Nicodemus, said: “Truly I say to you, whoever is not born again cannot be in the Kingdom of God.”

Nicodemus was very surprised how a person could be born again.

But the Savior spoke to him not about an ordinary, physical birth, but about spiritual, that is, - that a person needs to change, to become completely different in his soul - completely kind and merciful, and that such a change in a person can only happen by the power of God.

The Savior said to Nicodemus: “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless someone is born of water (through baptism) and of the Spirit (which comes upon a person during baptism), he cannot enter the Kingdom of God.”

The Savior explained to Nicodemus that a person, born only from earthly parents, remains as sinful as they are (which means, unworthy of the Kingdom of Heaven). Having been born of the Holy Spirit, a person becomes pure from sins, holy. But how such a change takes place in the human soul, people cannot understand this work of God.

Then the Savior told Nicodemus that He came to earth to suffer and die for people, not to ascend to the royal throne, but to cross: “just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert (i.e., he hung a copper serpent on a tree to save Jews bitten by poisonous snakes from death), so must the Son of Man be lifted up (i.e., Christ must also be lifted up on the tree of the cross) - Son of Man), so that everyone (everyone) who believes in Him will not perish, but will have eternal life. God loves the world so much that for the salvation of people He gave His only begotten Son (to suffer and die), and sent Him into the world not for this. not to judge people, but to save people.

Abraham (from Hebrew “father of the multitude”) - the biblical patriarch, the ancestor of the chosen people, called to preserve the true religion. The story of his life is told in Gen. 11, 26-25, 10, to which Philo, I. Flavius ​​and other Jewish writers make insignificant additions. He was the eldest son of Terah, born in Ur, a Chaldean city identified with the present Mugair on the western bank of the Euphrates, between Babylon and the Persian Gulf. He was married to his half-sister Sarah, who was ten years younger than him. His father's family, under the influence of the environment, had already become infected with idolatry; not wanting, however, to completely lose the faith of his fathers, he set out to move to Canaan (Gen. 11, 31, 15, 7; Neh. 9, 7), but only got as far as Harran, where Terah died. Then God appeared to Abram (as Abraham was first called), commanded him to leave Harran and go to the land of Canaan, where he would be the founder of a great nation. Abram, being then 75 years old, obeyed, took his childless wife and his nephew Lot, with all his servants and household (about 2,000 people in total) and with all his property went to the land indicated to him, where he stayed near Shechem in the oak grove of Moreh . There the Lord appeared to him again and promised to give all this land to his descendants. The ensuing famine prompted him to move to Egypt, to this land of wonders. Since Egypt was widely known throughout the world at that time, Abram was probably partly familiar with the nature of the government and the morals of the country. Therefore, when entering it, he found it necessary to take some precautions. So, knowing the boundless arbitrariness and despotic character of her kings, the pharaohs, he agreed with Sarah so that she would pretend to be only his sister, since otherwise, if the pharaoh liked her, the Egyptians would kill her husband (which actually happened, as they show monuments of ancient Egypt). The precaution was not in vain. Pharaoh liked the beautiful Sarah, and he took her into his house, and endowed his imaginary brother-in-law with rich gifts, “flocks and herds, and donkeys, and male and female slaves, and mules and camels.” But “the Lord struck Pharaoh with heavy blows because of Sarai Abram’s wife,” so that he was forced to return her to her husband, and ordered them to leave their country. Abram returned to Canaan very rich, but various misadventures and troubles began there again, and only thanks to his generosity, he settled the troubles he had with his nephew Lot (Gen. 13, 14). At this time, Chedorlaomer, king of Elam, invaded the valley of Sodom (Gen. 14), and, having captured enormous booty, he took away, along with other captives, Abram’s nephew, Lot. When news of such a disaster for his nephew reached Abram, he immediately armed his household, numbering 318 people, and, in alliance with neighboring friendly tribes, rushed in pursuit of the enemy. Having overtaken him at Dan, in the northern part of Palestine, on the second day at night, he attacked the careless victors, defeated them, put them to flight, freed all the captives along with Lot, returned the taken property to everyone, further refusing the gifts brought to him in gratitude for the liberation by the king of Sodom. The return from this victory was marked by a very remarkable event (Gen. 14: 17 - 23). Melchizedek, king of Salem, came out to meet him, among others, with bread and wine. He was at the same time "priest of the Most High God," and he blessed Abram in the name of the Most High God, and Abram gave him a tenth of everything. - Years after years passed, and Abram's faith in God's promise that he would have a son was tested more and more, since Sarah was still barren. And yet he did not doubt this promise. On the advice of Sarah, he took her maid Hagar, an Egyptian, as his concubine, and she bore him a son, Ishmael. Then he was 86 years old. But Ishmael was not the promised son. In the 99th year, God again appeared to Abram, and solemnly renewed the promise to him, and changed his name from Abram to Abraham, and the name of Sarah ("noble") to the name of Sarah ("queen"). As a sign of the reliability of God's promise, the rite of circumcision was established, and this rite was performed on Abraham himself, Ishmael and all his household. Then the promise of a son was confirmed to Sarah by one of the three angels who appeared to Abraham in the form of strangers, although she accepted this promise with a smile of doubt. At this time, the Lord revealed to Abraham about the impending destruction of the cities of the Sodom Valley. The intercession of Abraham (Gen. 18:23-33) is one of the most touching events in biblical history. But since there were not even ten righteous people in the criminal cities, Sodom and the cities allied with it were destroyed. It is very likely that as a result of the destruction of these cities, Abraham moved to Gerar, south of Canaan, and there the same incident happened to him as in Egypt (see Abimelech). A year later, when Abraham was already 100 years old and Sarah was 90, their long-awaited son was finally born and was named Isaac (“laughter”). The jealousy that arose between Sarah and Hagar served as the reason for the latter's expulsion. God's plan required complete separation between the chosen seed and the worldly. Then came the final test of the patriarch's faith, which was the most difficult - namely, the sacrifice of Isaac (Gen. 22). Having courageously withstood this test of his faith, Abraham finally testified to the steadfastness of his faith in God and His promises. From this time on, Abraham's life proceeded calmly. Sarah died at the age of 127, and he buried her in one plot that he acquired as his own - in the cave of Machpelah, in Hebron - which plot he bought from Ephron, a Hittite. At Abraham's request, Isaac took a wife from his relatives in Mesopotamia. Then Abraham also married Keturah, with whom he had six sons; but these sons did not have an equal share with the son of promise (Gen. 25:6). The elderly patriarch was happy that while his son Isaac was still alive, sons Esau and Jacob were born, and only fifteen years after their birth Abraham, already 175 years old, “was gathered to his people” (Gen. 25:7, 8). Among the chosen vessels of God there were many great and righteous men, but above them, in his faith and righteousness, stands the spiritual ancestor of the human race, the “father of believers” and “friend of God,” Patriarch Abraham. His whole life shows that his faith was not a simple external confession, but the active beginning of his entire existence. Truly he was the father of believers. He never had any doubts about the words and promises of God, even if their fulfillment seemed completely impossible to the human mind. “By faith,” says the apostle, Abraham, being tempted, sacrificed Isaac, his only begotten son, from whom all the descendants promised to him were to come. For he thought that God was able to raise him from the dead” (Heb. 11, 17, 19 ). The expression that he “believed in the Lord” has never been applied to anyone with such force, that is, he completely trusted in Him, calming his spirit in this faith, like a child resting in the arms of his mother. And such faith was credited to him as righteousness, because it provided the main source from which righteousness can arise. “Abraham obeyed the voice of the Lord, kept His commandments, statutes and laws” (Gen. 26:5). Hence, he will forever remain the highest example of a believer, and from his example people of all nations and centuries can draw inspiration from the holy feelings of faith, hope and love. It is not for nothing that his memory is sacredly revered by the peoples of the three greatest religions of the world: Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Ancient Jewish traditions praise the extraordinary knowledge and wisdom of Abraham, and say that he was the teacher of monotheism among the Chaldeans, and was the first to teach astronomy and mathematics to the Egyptians. His name is still preserved in the memory of the Arabs, who call him El-Khalil, friend (of God).

There are several events and facts associated with the story of Abraham that require more detailed presentation and explanation. These are 1) the reasons for the calling of Abraham and his resettlement to Canaan; 2) the sacrifice of Isaac and 3) the facts that serve as the subject of objections from rationalist criticism.

I. Reasons for the calling of Abraham. There were several such reasons, and the first of them was the religious reason, which consisted in God’s intention to save Abraham from idolatry and make him the ancestor of the chosen people. After their scattering, the descendants of Noah, growing into tribes and various peoples and moving away from one another, little by little forgot the original traditions and the God who revealed himself to their forefathers. The concept of the true God became darker and darker. His worship was replaced by the worship of false deities and idols, and true religion was threatened with complete extinction on earth. St. Epiphanius (Haeg. 1, 6) recorded an ancient legend according to which idolatry began to spread among people already in the time of Serukh. At first, he says, people did not carry their superstition to the point of worshiping stone, wooden, gold or silver images; such images were at first only a means of arousing reverence in people towards false gods. Seeing the spread of false teaching, in the form of polytheism, which prevailed everywhere in the time of Abraham, God, in His great mercy, deigned to preserve the deposit of revelation and true faith, at least among one people, who would specifically be the guardian of true worship of God. That is why He chose as the founder of this people a righteous man who was devoted to the true faith and deserved to be given the honor of being the father of believers. But in order to deliver this ancestor of the chosen people from the harmful influences of the example of those around him, from the temptations that could influence him and his family in his homeland, God decided to remove Abraham from his homeland, and commanded him to leave Chaldea and his father's house. St. Ambrose (Epis. 50) says that Abraham went to the land of Canaan due to the superstition of the Chaldeans. The ancient documents of Chaldea, discovered and read in our time, sufficiently reveal to us the religious state of this country in the time of Abraham. In this country Hamites and Semites lived together, and both were polytheists. The Hamites were the first owners of this land. Most of the texts remaining from them, written in the Summarian-Akkadian language, are religious texts, dedicatory inscriptions to the gods, and from them it is clear what gross idolatry prevailed among these people. The Chaldeans worshiped the stars and various objects of the universe. Each city had its own special god, although his cult did not exclude the worship of other gods. Even the family of Abraham had already begun to become infected with the errors of those Semitic tribes to which they belonged by origin, and although they had not yet completely abandoned true worship of God, they were also in danger. The Lord Himself testifies to this through the mouth of Joshua: “Your fathers lived beyond the river of old, Terah the father of Abraham, and the father of Nahor, and served other gods. But I took your father Abraham from beyond the river, and led him throughout all the earth. Canaan" (Joshua 24:2,3). In Mugair, the ruins of a temple erected in honor of the god Sin even before Abraham were discovered. There, no doubt, Terah and other ancestors of the Jews committed idolatry, for which Joshua reproached them. Achior told Holofernes the same thing about the Jewish people, saying: “This people come from the Chaldeans. First they settled in Mesopotamia because they did not want to serve the gods of their fathers, who were in the land of the Chaldeans and deviated from the path of their ancestors, and began to worship God heaven, God, whom they knew, and the Chaldeans drove them out from before their gods, and they fled to Mesopotamia, and dwelt there for a long time. But their God told them to leave the place of migration and go to the land of Canaan" (Jude 5). , 6-9). Even recognizing the God of Abraham (Gen. 24, 50, 51, 31, 29 - 42), Laban, the son of Nahor, kept the Tereim, who were kidnapped by Rachel (Gen. 13, 19, 30, 35). The Lord thus took Abraham from his father’s house in order to save him from idolatry, which was beginning to penetrate into his family. One rabbinic tradition tells that Abraham, because he refused to worship the Fire that the Chaldeans worshiped, was thrown into a red-hot furnace, from the flames of which he miraculously escaped; meanwhile his brother, Aran, died there. Bl. Jerome and Augustine accepted this tradition. St. Ephraim the Syrian says that Abraham, while still a youth, set fire to the temple where the Chaldeans worshiped the idol Cainan; Aran ran to save the idol from the flame, but was himself consumed by fire, as a result of which the Chaldeans began to demand the death of the arsonist; then Terah had to flee the country with his family. - The second reason for Abraham’s eviction was political. According to Lenormand, the migration of Terah and Abraham may have depended on the Elamite conquest, which dates back to about 2250. BC The entire basin of the Euphrates and Tigris was affected, so Chedorlaomer’s campaign against Palestine (Gen. 14) was only one of the episodes of this general movement. If the invasion of Chaldea by a foreign people was not an exceptional motive that could lead to the resettlement of Abraham, then nevertheless it could have been, at least, a secondary reason for this. This event, according to God's providence, could serve as a sufficient basis for Abraham to justify in the eyes of his contemporaries his resettlement, the true motives of which were hidden. Finally, the third reason was the educational nature of the event itself. Some church fathers saw in Abraham's migration an image of education or a subject of moral edification. St. Irenaeus says that, leaving his earthly parents and relatives, Abraham unquestioningly obeyed the word of God, setting an example of the greatest faith in the Providence of God. In exactly the same way, the apostles, leaving their boats and their fathers, followed the Word of God.

II. Abraham's sacrifice of Isaac also requires some explanation, because with this event rationalists associate the question of the existence of human sacrifices among the ancient Jews. This kind of critic, trying to apply the laws of natural evolution to the religion of Israel, suggests that the Israelites were originally polytheists, and made human sacrifices to their national god Jave, just as their contemporaries, the Semites or Chaldeans, made the same sacrifices to their false gods. Most of the peoples with whom Abraham was in communication thought that their gods were especially pleased with human sacrifices, which were offered to them as propitiation. Regarding Babylonia and Assyria, this fact has long been disputed. But engraved stones, which served as seals or amulets, of very ancient Babylonian or Chaldean origin, apparently directly depict human sacrifices. On the other hand, the inhabitants of Sepharvaim threw their children into the fire in honor of their gods Adramelech and Anamelech (2 Kings 17:31). Among the Canaanite tribes, the fact of such sacrifices is not subject to dispute. The Phoenicians and Carehaginians were famous for the terrible sacrifices they made to their Baals. Mesa, king of Moab, slain his eldest son on the city wall in order to gain victory thanks to such a generous sacrifice (2 Kings 3:27). God strictly forbade the Israelites from making human sacrifices to Molech (Leviticus 18:21; 20:2-5), but they did not always observe this prohibition and imitated their neighbors in this (2 Kings 16:3; Ps. 501:37-38; Jer. 32, 35; Ezek. 23, 37). To prove that these human sacrifices were not only random and temporary violations of the divine law among the Jewish people, but a formal divine service, performed regularly and finding sanctification in the law itself, rationalists refer to the story of the sacrifice of Abraham, as described in Genesis. 22, 1-14. But this narrative, considered without any preliminary consideration, does not provide the slightest evidence of the existence of human sacrifices among the Jews in honor of Jehovah. God, no doubt, by virtue of His sovereignty over life and death, could require that Isaac should be sacrificed to Him; but, as the sacred text clearly expresses (Gen. 12:1), this was only to test Abraham, to test his obedience and his faith. The whole meaning of the story, on the contrary, shows that God did not actually demand the sacrifice of Isaac, because He Himself prevented its completion and was satisfied with the proof of Abraham’s unconditional obedience. The offering of Isaac, thus, was by no means a human sacrifice, but only a simple moral test for Abraham - a lesson for him that the life and death of every person is in the power of God. And that human sacrifices were in themselves displeasing to God, this was manifested in the formal law, which subsequently, of course, prohibited such sacrifices to the Jews (Deut. 11:31). But being a test of Abraham's faith, the sacrifice of Isaac also had a much higher significance and meaning. This was a type of the sacrifice of the Son of God. This is indicated by the ap. Paul, when he says that Abraham received his son "as a sign" (Heb. 12:19). Of the various interpretations of this passage, the most consistent with the thought of the apostle is the one according to which the sacrifice of Isaac was a pre-depiction of the sacrifice of I. Christ by His Father. In the saying of the ap. Paul that God “did not spare His only begotten Son” (Rom. 8:32), also contains an allusion to the word of the angel to Abraham (Gen. 12:12). The fathers and teachers of the church developed this apostle in detail. Paul's instructions. The first of the prototypes of Christ's suffering, which Tertullian (M. 2.628) reveals in the Old Testament, is the image of Isaac, led by his father as a sacrifice to the slaughter, and carrying wood for his sacrifice. He prefigured Christ, given by the Heavenly Father as a sacrifice of atonement and personally bearing His cross. According to the teachings of St. Irenaeus (M. 7, 986), Abraham, who, by virtue of his faith, selflessly decided to sacrifice his only and beloved son to God, prefigured the sacrifice of His only begotten beloved Son performed by God the Father for the redemption of all his offspring. St. Melito of Sardis (M. 5.1216) compares Isaac and the ram with whom he was replaced with Jesus Christ, brought by the Heavenly Father, and slain on the cross. Origen, bringing together the saying of the Angel (Gen. 12, 12) and the apostle. Paul (Rom. 8:32), shows how God competed in generosity with Abraham. The Patriarch brought to God his mortal son, who should not have died, and God put His Immortal Son to death for all people. What shall we render to the Lord for all that He has done for us? God the Father did not spare His Own Son for our sake. St. Ambrose in many places (M. 14.331) expounded the representative character of Abraham's sacrifice. We see the same thing in the teachings of other fathers and teachers of the church, like St. I. Chrysostom (Bes.47 on the book of Genesis), Cyril of Alexandria, bl. Theodoret, Theophylact, Ephraim the Syrian and others. The same thoughts found expression in ancient Christian art. Thus, the images in the catacombs represent this sacrifice as a prototype of the Eucharist. This is the nature of the image in the catacombs of St. Callista, dating back to the end of the 2nd century. Abraham is depicted at the moment when he wants to slay his son, Isaac. Father and son are both in prayer, with their hands raised to the sky, in a praying position. Even the ram raises its head, as if for sacrifice. Near the tree there is a bundle of firewood, reminiscent of the historical circumstances of the sacrifice and leaving no doubt about the meaning of the entire image. In the cemetery of Generosa there are traces of another image of the same sacrifice. On it you can still distinguish a lamb and a man dressed in a tunic. The letters A...NAM directly indicate the name of the person himself. At the Second Council of Nicaea, held in 787, in Act IV, a passage from one of St.’s sermons is given. Gregory of Nisskago, where the holy bishop tells how often he turned his gaze to an image that made him shed tears. This image was of Isaac kneeling on an altar with his hands tied back. Abraham, standing behind his son, placed his left hand on Isaac's head, and pointed the tip of the knife in his right hand towards the victim. This quotation, given in the sense of indicating the depiction of the suffering of Jesus Christ, served to refute the iconoclasts. The same subject was depicted on several ancient mosaics and on clay vessels. The discovery of these monuments, thus, has preserved to our time an explanation of the mysterious meaning of the sacrifice of Abraham, which represented at the same time both the bloody sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross and His bloodless sacrifice in the Eucharist.

III. Objections of rationalist criticism and their refutation. Modern rationalism raises quite a few objections against the biblical story of Abraham, which can be reduced to three main ones.

1. On the issue of origin. According to the book of Genesis, Abraham was born in the city of Ur, in Chaldea, and moved to Haran when God called him to the land of Canaan, promising to give it to him and his descendants as his possession. The German critic Hitzig rejects the authenticity of this story. According to him, the origin of Abraham is purely Indian. To be convinced of this, it is enough to compare his name with the name of Ram, the Indian god, and the Sanskrit word Brahman. As for his wife Sarah, her name is reminiscent of the nymph Sarah; Thus, the Bible is mistaken in presenting Abraham as a Semite; therefore, his story is not credible and is nothing more than a myth. This conclusion is not only hasty, but also completely erroneous. Abraham's name is so Assyrian (or Chaldean) that it appears in the list of eponyms, or mayors, of Nineveh. Moreover: if, as the Bible testifies, Abraham came out of Chaldea, then the language and customs of this country, of course, should have left a deep mark on his descendants. And this is exactly what the latest discoveries confirm, sufficiently proving the closeness between the two peoples - Jewish and Assyrian. Let us briefly point out this closeness between them: a) The Hebrew vocabulary is very close to the Assyrian vocabulary, at least in words expressing concepts known since the time of Abraham. God is called Ilu in Assyrian, and El in Hebrew; Also almost identical in both languages ​​are the words denoting family relationships (father, mother, etc.), members of the human body (head, eye, mouth, etc.), geographical terms (sea, river, star, etc.), weapons ( bow, spear, etc.), metals, animals; in addition, there are other names, such as the names of fermented drinks, numbers, calendar, measures, which by their similarity in both languages ​​show that the Jewish civilization, in addition to its divine element, is nothing more than one of the ramifications of the Chaldean civilization; b) the grammar is also the same in both languages. When Abraham left Mesopotamia, the language had already reached its inflectional period (see paragraph 2. Language), and, like all Semitic languages, received its specific imprint; therefore, between these two grammars, Assyrian and Hebrew, there must be sufficiently many points of similarity for one to conclude that they have a common origin, and anyone who has been at all involved in the study of the languages ​​of Hebrew and Assyrian could not help but be struck by the close similarity between their grammatical forms. This similarity is further manifested in the verses, because in both Hebrew and Assyrian there is a parallelism with its usual rhythm. Finally, to top it all off, it is not superfluous to say that some Jewish idiocy, which had long been inexplicable, now found an explanation for itself, thanks to familiarity with the Assyrian language. So, eleven in Hebrew is called aste-asar. Asara is known to mean ten, but the meaning of acme was hitherto unknown. Now, with the help of the Assyrian language, this secret has been clarified: acme or estin means one in Assyrian, and thus this Hebrew word means one and ten, or eleven. Although all of these similarities do not constitute the exclusive property of both languages, and a significant number of similarities with other Semitic idioms can be indicated, still, undoubtedly, there are no other two languages ​​that would be as closely related to each other as the Hebrew and Assyrian languages. Be that as it may, if we take into account the results achieved by comparing these two languages ​​with the fantastic etymology of Hitzig, it will be easy to see on whose side the truth is.

2. On the subject of Abraham's journey to Egypt - Chapter 12 of Genesis tells that famine forced Abraham to go to Egypt; The circumstances of this story are the subject of many objections from rationalists. a) Before entering Egypt, Abraham, fearing that the beauty of his wife would become the cause of death for him, advises her to say that she is his sister. Rationalists did not fail to use these words to slander the character of the patriarch. But in reality, this episode serves precisely as proof of the authenticity of the story: in myth there would be no such story. But on the other hand, it is also quite true that Sarah was a close relative of Abraham, as further evidenced by the book of Genesis (20:12); and in Eastern languages ​​the words “brother” and “sister” are used to denote generally close kinship. If in this way Abraham did not tell the whole truth, then, in any case, what he said was true, b) When they were in Egypt, Sarah was taken for Pharaoh, and Abraham, thanks to her, becomes the subject of a special royal favors: Pharaoh endows him with numerous gifts, and gives him, among other things, sheep, oxen, donkeys and camels. All these features were for rationalist criticism a pretext for attacking the Bible, and yet they are now fully justified by science. And above all, the kings of the East always enjoyed the right to take into their harem all the unmarried women they liked, and it is known that the kings of Egypt had secondary wives. Here, for example, is what one Egyptian papyrus tells: one worker, seeing that the overseer had taken his donkey, protested against this, and the matter came to the pharaoh, who, after interrogation, pronounced a sentence in these words: “He does not answer anything.” , what they say to him... Let us be given an account in writing...; let his wife and his children belong to the king... You will order to give him bread." Do we not have a story here similar to the story of Abraham? Then they say: how could a Semite like Abraham receive such a reception at the court of Pharaoh, and especially the Hamitic Pharaoh? But we have two Egyptian monuments that refute this objection and confirm the biblical story: a) One Egyptian tomb depicts the arrival of Amu nomads (from Arabia or Palestine) in Egypt; the name of their leader Abma (which in Egyptian pronunciation is quite similar to the name of Abraham); Famine forced them to come to Egypt just like Abraham, and they were favorably received by the Egyptian ruler. b) One papyrus preserves the curious story of a certain Senech: being an Amu or Egyptian, he entered the service of the pharaoh and reached high positions; but then for some reason he fled, remained for a long time in Palestine, finally returned again, again received mercy, and became a close advisor to the king. All this closely matches the story of the Bible. But the main objection the rationalists make concerns the gifts given to Abraham. “Look,” says Bolen, “what a mistake the author of this narrative falls into: horses were very numerous in Egypt, and yet he does not mention them among the animals given to Abraham; on the contrary, the author lists sheep and camels, which meanwhile were very rare in Egypt, and donkeys, which could not be tolerated there at all. Can a story so filled with errors be recognized as genuine? To this objection we can say that the details conveyed by the biblical historian are entirely consistent with the truth. Sheep are depicted on Egyptian monuments as early as the 12th dynasty, and we have, among other things, one inscription where 3,208 of these animals are attributed to one owner. The same applies to oxen: geological excavations made it possible to discover their bones in the Delta at considerable depth, and, judging by the inscriptions, they were used in Egypt in the same way as they are used now; In addition, the Egyptian cult of the Apis bull and the story of the golden calf are known. Donkeys are also depicted in whole herds on pyramid tombs, where inscriptions attribute up to 760 of these animals to one owner. The main difficulty concerns camels. They are rarely depicted on monuments. But can we conclude from this that they are absent or extremely rare in Egypt? No. In fact: a) well-known rules prevented artists from depicting some animals, for example, chickens and cats; it is possible that a similar custom existed in relation to camels. b) It is certain that camels were in Egypt during the time of the Ptolemies; and yet on the monuments of their time there are no images of these animals: the same could have happened in previous centuries. c) The Arabs undoubtedly used camels; their neighbors, the Egyptians, therefore, were probably also familiar with them, d) Some monuments prove that camels were used in Egypt in a very ancient era: the inscriptions say that they taught them to dance; Shalmaneser (857) mentions camels among the tribute paid by Egypt. e) Finally, geological excavations made it possible to find the skeletons of dromedaries in Egyptian soil at a very significant depth. All this evidence is so categorical that the famous Egyptologist Shaba, who initially objected to this point in the Bible, subsequently formally abandoned his objection. As for horses, Bolen sees an inconsistency in the biblical narrative in that it does not mention them. The reason, meanwhile, is very simple: horses appeared in Egypt only with the invasion of the Hykses, and they appear in hieroglyphs no earlier than the era of the 17th dynasty; and Abraham's journey to Egypt is usually attributed to the time of the XII dynasty.

3. On the issue of victory over Chedorlaomer. - When Abraham returned from Egypt to Palestine, Chedorlaomer, king of Elam, Amraphel, king of Shinar, Arioch, king of Elassar, and Tidal, king of Goim, having defeated the five kings of the Canaanites, took away, among other captives, Abraham’s nephew, Lot. Upon news of this, Abraham gathered 318 of his household, rushed in pursuit of the victors, defeated them, and freed the captives. This is, in essence, the story of the 14th chapter of the book of Genesis. Rationalists consider the story of this victory to be downright legendary. In 1860, Knobel, recognizing that some kind of historical tradition was meant here, nevertheless tried to prove the unreliability of the biblical narrative, and could not, for example, allow the Elamites to extend their power so far during the time of Abraham: biblical author , in his opinion, was probably mistaken and mistook the Assyrians for the Elamites. After Knobel, rationalists even began to deny the entire historical basis of the biblical narrative; according to Bolen, Amraphel is Sardanapalus, Arioch is Arbak, and Chedorlaomer is Belesis; according to Hitzig, the story about this campaign is only an imitation of the story about the campaign of Sennacherib. Grotefend went further than all others: in his opinion, the Elamite invasion is nothing more than an old Babylonian myth; relying on an extremely fantastic etymology, he sees spring in Amraphel, summer in Arioch, etc.; and the five Canaanite kings, in his opinion, are nothing more than five additional days of the Babylonian calendar. In view of these fantasies, it is enough simply to point out what the latest discoveries show us on the issue of this Elamite campaign. - The name Chedorlaomer or Kudur-Lagamar is completely Elamite. Kudur is found in the name of all the kings of Elam, and Lagamar is a deity; so the name Chedorlaomer means “servant of Lagamar,” and not “sheaf-binding,” as Grotefend explained. That Elam, under the rule of this king, in ancient times was a powerful state, is confirmed by discoveries made in Susa, the capital of this kingdom. As for Arioch, king of Elassar, Assyriology presented us with even more interesting results: his name is revealed in the name of Yeriaku, king of the city of Larsa; so that this ancient king, about whom we knew only from the book of Genesis, but whom rationalist criticism attributed to the realm of myths, was found in inscriptions on monuments of very high antiquity: what evidence in favor of the historical authenticity of this story!

Abraham is mentioned frequently in the New Testament. In the Gospel of St. The Virgin Mary and Zechariah sing of the promises and covenant of Abraham (Luke I, 55 and 73). I. Christ is called the Son of Abraham (Matt. 1:1; Luke 3:34). All the righteous who have fallen asleep rest in Abraham’s bosom (Luke 13.28). Ap. Peter, St. Stephen the First Martyr (Acts 25; 7, 2-8, 17) and St. Paul (Heb. 6:13) remind the Jews of the promises to their forefather, and the Apostle of the Nations proves that these promises were fulfilled in the person of I. Christ “The Scripture,” he says, seeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, foretold to Abraham: “In you all will be blessed.” nations,” and then you add: “The promises were given to Abraham and to his seed. It is not said: And to your descendants, as if they were many, but as one, and to your seed, which is Christ” (Galat. III, 8, 16). - It is hardly necessary to prove that all nations have actually received a blessing in Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham, that they are endowed with all the blessings of grace, with all spiritual benefits, through the church, of which He is the Founder and Head.

Abraham, as the ancestor of the Jewish people, is also well known in civil history. The Chaldean priest-writer Berosus, as can be seen from a passage in I. Flavius ​​(Ancient I, 7, 2), speaks of one highly moral man, familiar with celestial objects, who lived among the Chaldeans in the tenth generation after the flood, and, in the opinion of I. Flavius, the Chaldean priest meant Abraham here. The historian Nicholas of Damascus, whose testimony is also cited by Josephus, says that Abraham left Chaldea with an army, went first to Damascus, where he reigned for some time before entering the land of Canaan. According to Justin the Philosopher, Abraham was the 4th king of Damascus, Eusevinus of Caesarea collected all the information about Abraham found in Berosus, Hecataeus, Nicholas of Damascus, Eupolemos, Artapanus, Milo and Philo the Elder, drive. in Alexander Polyhistor and I. Flavius. - The same ancient writers report legends about Abraham’s deep knowledge in astronomy, metaphysics and mathematics. Goodbye to the words. Abraham says that he invented the Hebrew alphabet, and several works were attributed to him: a book about creation, about idolatry, Psalms 88 and 89. But these legends already go beyond the boundaries of strict history.

About Abraham, see St. Ambrose De Abraham, in Ming II. lat., XIV, col. 414-500; Beer, Leben Abrahams, Leipzig 1859; Tomkins, Studies on the Times of Abraham, London. In Russian literature: D. Shcheglov, The Calling of Abraham and the historical significance of this event. Kyiv 1874; articles: “Abraham and his descendants” (“Christian. Reading” 1829, 34); “Abraham the Father of the Believers” (“Resurrection Reading” 1854, 342). See also about Abraham in “Biblical history in the light of the latest research and discoveries” by A. 11. Lopukhin, volume I.

Abraham in the month of the word. - Abraham with his nephew, right. Lot, we remember St. church 9 Oct. and on St. Sunday forefathers. - In Prol. and Thu.-Min. on 9 Oct. a special reading was supposed - “the word about Abraham”, compiled on the basis of the biblical narrative about him (Gen. ch. 11-25). - See Sp. - Adj. Ave., XIV century, perg., print. Ave. 1675, Thursday-M. Poppy. Sin., ed. archaeog. com., Mar. R., ASS. ose. IU, 997.-St. Dim. Growth, in Th.-Min.: “on the same day (Oct. 9) the memory of the holy righteous Abraham the forefather, like God in the Trinity, who appeared to him in three angelic faces, was established at the oak of Mamre” (honored with hospitality, established - ξεναγεἱν ξενἱζειν , hospitio accirere, - Miclos., Lex. palaeoslov., s. v.). In Men. V. on 9 Oct. There is no memory of St. Abraham. To Synaxar. Nirodima (Venet., 1819) on October 9. stories about rights There is no Abraham, but a memory is given and couplets are given - separately for Abraham and separately for Lot (these couplets were also in our verse Prologue). In the first edition of the “Christian Monthly Book, with brief historical tales about all the saints glorified by the Orthodox Church,” made “with the permission of the Holy Governing Synod” (Moscow 1851), it is said that “Aur. is right, and L., tribe . him, lived 1992 BC." (p. 320). Slavic and Russian apocryphal tales about Abraham and Russian. For spiritual poems about him, see under the words - Apocrypha and spiritual poems.

*Alexander Ivanovich Ponomarev,
Master of Theology, Professor
Kyiv Theological Academy.

Source of text: Orthodox Theological Encyclopedia. Volume 1, page 164. Petrograd publication. Supplement to the spiritual magazine "The Wanderer" for 1900.

It took four hundred years and ten generations from the time of Noah before the necessary conditions were met to enable God to choose a family to correct the wrongs committed in the families of Adam and Noah. Abraham became the central figure chosen by God, and Abraham's family was given the task of laying the foundation of faith and substance. Four generations of Abraham's family successfully participated in laying the foundation for the emergence of True Parents and forming a new stage in the dispensation of restoration, which gradually, starting with one person, reached the global level.

Because of this success, Abraham became a prophet of special importance. His family marked the beginning of a lineage chosen to receive True Parents. Abraham and his descendants received revelations from God, as a result of which three main monotheistic religions arose: Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

However, despite the fact that Abraham was such a great figure in providence, not everything went smoothly in his family. Because it is human nature to err in a fallen world, several errors have been made that have caused delays and complications in the dispensation of restoration. Some of these mistakes sowed the seeds of discord that resulted in rivalries and conflicts at the level of clans, nations, and the world, thereby seriously thwarting God's providence.

Preparing Abraham for His Mission

The most important condition due to which Abraham became a prophet and laid the foundation for the emergence of True Parents was his lineage. He was chosen from the descendants of Shem, from a line blessed by God, after Satan laid claim to Ham. To create the foundation for Abraham, the family of Shem had to pay a huge indemnity. Without special training and support, a providential figure of Abraham's stature would not have been able to fulfill his God-given mission.

In restoration history, every person chosen to be the central figure in God's providence must first qualify for that mission by being separated from the fallen world. This process of purification establishes the central personality in her mission and prepares her to participate in God's work. Only after the central personality has fulfilled the conditions for his purification and dedicated his life to God can God use him in providence.

Although Abraham came from a blessed family, his father worshiped idols and created a family environment in which Satan ruled. Abraham had to separate himself from this fallen environment before he could begin his mission for God. In Noah's providential journey, the chosen family was separated from the fallen world by the flood, and in the case of Abraham, God commanded him to leave his home and go in search of a land that would be shown to him as the place where he would settle and lay the foundation for the emergence of a sinless family.

Abraham obeyed God. He rejected his father's idolatry and left his homeland in Chaldea with his wife Sarah and nephew Lot. Sarah, who represented Eve, had no children, so at that moment Lot occupied the position of their child. With God's help, Abraham's family reached Canaan safely, overcoming all the obstacles that stood in their way. Satan's final attack was when the Egyptian Pharaoh tried to seduce Sarah, thus repeating the seduction of Eve by the Servant, but the Pharaoh was warned of the consequences of such an act and, in fear, allowed Abraham's family to leave the country safely. Having successfully separated his family from the internal fallen world of his father and the external fallen world of Egypt, Abraham was ready to fulfill the conditions for creating a foundation of faith.

Foundation of Faith

God told Abraham to make a sacrifice, which would be a condition for restoring the foundation of faith. Abraham had to take a heifer, a ram, a goat, a dove and a turtledove, divide them in half and sacrifice them to God. Abraham cut the animals in half, but did not cut the birds. Abraham's mistake gave Satan, symbolized by the birds of prey, the opportunity to hijack the sacrifice, which had two consequences. First, Abraham was told to fulfill the condition of the atonement to a greater extent - to sacrifice his own son instead of animals and birds, and second, he was told that his descendants would face a 400-year period of slavery as atonement for their mistakes.

By not cutting the birds in half, Abraham failed in creating the necessary conditions to purify the sacrifice before offering it to God. Uncut, the entire sacrifice was under the control of Satan, much like Adam after the Fall. Just as Adam had to be divided into Cain and Abel, the sacrifice had to be cut in half, conditionally dividing it into the side of Cain and the side of Abel, removing the “fallen” blood and separating the fallen nature from the original one.

The male and female birds symbolized man and woman in the formative stage of restoration, the ram and goat symbolized man and woman in the growth stage of restoration, and the heifer symbolized the unity of man and woman in the completion stage. By performing the sacrifice, Abraham fulfilled the condition for the restoration of humanity through three stages. When the birds were never cut, Satan hijacked the foundational formation stage in the sacrifice, thus claiming the entire sacrifice as his own.

Abraham was determined to correct his mistake and was willing to sacrifice his own son as God required. Before he could begin the sacrifice, he had to once again go through the process of separation from Satan, who had taken over his family as a result of the botched sacrifice. Abraham's family was again subjected to a test similar to what happened in Egypt, but this time King Abimelech tried to seduce Sarah. As in the case of Pharaoh, God warned the king of the punishments that awaited him if he kept Sarah with him, and in fear Abimelech returned Sarah to Abraham, who then safely left his kingdom. Abraham's family had once again separated from Satan and were ready to establish a foundation of faith.

Abraham sacrifices his son

God told Abraham to sacrifice his son (according to the Bible, he prepared to sacrifice his second son, Isaac, who was Sarah's only child; the Koran does not say which son this was, but in Islamic tradition it is generally accepted that it was the first son , Ishmael, born of the maidservant Hagar; according to the model of restoration, which is revealed in the Principle, it is always the second son who sacrifices himself as Abel to restore Adam's faith). Father and son set out on a three-day journey to reach the top of the mountain, which was indicated to them as the place of sacrifice. Abraham built an altar from wood on which he intended to sacrifice his son. He was about to pierce the boy's body when an angel intervened and stopped him, saying that his faith was strong enough.

Abraham's great faith, expressed in his willingness to sacrifice his own son for God, restored his family to the position of the central family of God's providence. The most important thing here is that his son did not oppose what his father was going to do, believing that this was the will of God. It is difficult to imagine how this young man could be so obedient that he even helped his father in preparations for his own death. By demonstrating such amazing faith, he fulfilled the condition of restoring Ham's lost faith in his father Noah and establishing a foundation of faith in Abraham's family.

Through this victory Isaac, the second son in Abel's position, was fully united with his father's heart of faith and could take his place in establishing the foundation of the faith. Next, he helped his father sacrifice a ram. Thus, as a result of the two successful foundations of faith created by Abel and Noah and because of Abraham's great faith at the sacrifice of his son, Isaac took over his father's position as the central figure in restoring Adam's faith. This made him, as Noah and Abraham had been before, the father of faith.

Substantial basis

According to the principles of creation, humans occupy a central position in creation, and all other creatures are created as objects for humans. Therefore, the Servant, created before Adam, had to obey Adam and receive God's blessings through Adam. As a result of the Fall, the Servant received unrighteous power over Adam through Eve. Because of this change of position in creation, God could not bless either Adam or the Servant. To bless them when they violated the principles of creation would be to recognize the unprincipled relationship as being in accordance with the Principle and to endow it with eternal value.

According to the principles of restoration, the relationship between Adam and the Servant must be restored to its original state, which is possible if the representative of the Servant voluntarily submits to the representative of Adam. According to the model of restoration established in Adam's family, the eldest son is chosen as the representative of the Servant, and the younger son is chosen as the representative of Adam. Once the relationship between Adam and the Servant is corrected by Cain submitting to Abel's love, a substantial foundation will be created and Cain and Abel will be able to receive God's blessing.

If Abraham himself had created the foundation of faith, then his sons, Ishmael and Isaac, would have been responsible for restoring the relationship between Cain and Abel and would have created the substantial foundation. If successful, both sons would have received God's blessing, but because of Abraham's mistake in the first sacrifice, Isaac took over from Abraham the position of the father of faith, and his two sons, Esau and Jacob, took over the position of Ishmael and Isaac (Cain and Abel) .

Ishmael and Isaac

Ishmael, as the eldest son and child of a handmaid, was to restore Cain's position and receive God's blessings through unity with Isaac. However, Abraham's position passed to Isaac, and Ishmael could not participate in the creation of the substantial foundation with his brother and could not receive the blessings that God promised to give to the sons of Abraham. As the Bible and Koran confirm, the story of restoration, which began in the family of Abraham, continued in the family of Isaac. His son Jacob became the father of faith for 12 sons, who became the ancestors of 12 tribes of God's chosen people, the children of Israel. It was not until several centuries later, when the Prophet Muhammad appeared, that the line of Ishmael began to play a central role in the providence of restoration.

Ishmael, through no fault of his own, was excluded from participation in direct providence in Abraham's family. The blessing promised to Ishmael and his descendants was inevitably connected with the providence of Isaac, since God regarded the family of Abraham as one race. Ishmael's plight contributed to his deep-seated resentment at having to wait for God's blessing. The tendency to bear resentment against Isaac and his family was transmitted from Ishmael to his descendants and became one of the providential problems in need of solution. Ishmael had 12 sons, whose descendants formed 12 tribes of the Arab people. It was to fulfill His promise to Ishmael and to end the historical grievance that arose between the families of Isaac and Ishmael that God sent Muhammad to the Arabs approximately 2,500 years after Abraham's family passed into the spirit world (see Chapter 19).

Resentment destroys human relationships because it is based on the desire to take for yourself what others have, instead of sacrificing what is own to others. Resentment has a destructive effect on both the object of the insult and the one who harbors it. Resentment was the main motive for the Servant's rebellion against God and his intrusion into the loving relationship between Adam and Eve. It can only be defeated by the power of love, which affirms the original value of its object and frees fallen humanity from grievances, allowing people to realize their potential. Thus, the descendants of Isaac and Ishmael were to love one another in order to remove the resentment planted in Ishmael's heart and to break down the barriers that resulted from the failure of Isaac and Ishmael to unite in the providence of Abraham's family.

Jacob and Esau

Like their father Isaac and uncle Ishmael, Jacob and Esau were particularly important characters in the story of the restoration. For this reason, they are given significant space in the pages of this book. Esau and Jacob were twins, with Esau being the firstborn. Jacob, occupying the position of Abel, had to achieve the voluntary submission of Esau, although Esau, personifying Cain, occupied the privileged position of the eldest son. As a fallen man, Esau was naturally inclined to lord it over Jacob against the will of God, but in the end Jacob was able to persuade his twin brother to accept him as God's representative, and together they succeeded in creating the foundation of substance.

Achieving this victory required taking a number of steps. First, Jacob obtained Esau's birthright by trading it for food at a time when Esau was hungry and valued food more than his position in the family. Esau's attitude towards his position as the eldest son was similar to the attitude of the fallen Adam, for whom personal pleasure became higher than the goal of creating a kind of good, while Jacob understood the highest value of the kind. Forty years later, when Isaac was old and blind and on the verge of death, Jacob managed to obtain his father's blessing intended for Esau. Rebekah, Isaac's wife, helped her son in this, thereby atone for Eve's deception of God and Eve's failure to convey God's blessing to her children.

Esau was furious when he discovered that Jacob had received the blessing intended for him, Esau, as the eldest son. His envy and anger toward Jacob were similar to the feelings the Servant had toward Adam and Eve when he felt he was losing God's love. They were also akin to Cain's envy, which prompted him to kill Abel. Jacob did not want to give his brother such an opportunity and therefore, again with the help of his mother, he fled to the homeland of his uncle Laban, to Haran.

Laban was a person in the position of a Servant whom Jacob had to win to his side through service and love. Jacob served Laban for 7 years to win the hand of his daughter Rachel, but Laban deceived Jacob by replacing Rachel with her sister Leah on their wedding night. He had to work another 7 years to win Rachel, whom he also married.

When Jacob prepared to return home, his uncle did not allow him to take any property with him, although Jacob faithfully served Laban for 14 years and made him rich. Therefore, Jacob had to work 7 years for the third time in order to earn material wealth. By persistently loving Laban and serving him until his victory, Jacob conditionally restored Adam’s subject position over the Servant. Based on this victory, he also gained power over the material world, thus completing the conditions for the realization of the three blessings: restoration of himself, his wife and material possessions.

Based on this victory, Jacob returned to his homeland in Canaan. On his way home, while fording the Jabbok River, he met an angel who fought with him. Although the angel injured Jacob's hip, Jacob persevered and eventually overcame the angel. In this case, Jacob restored the right relationship between the Servant (the angel) and Adam (himself). By not succumbing to the angel, Jacob fulfilled the condition for atonement for the Fall. Having won this struggle, Jacob demanded a blessing from the angel and received it, as well as a new name “Israel”, which means “one who fought with God.” Since then, Jacob has been called Israel, and his descendants - the sons of Israel.

Having defeated Laban and the angel, Jacob continued his journey to Canaan, preparing to meet his older brother Esau, who in turn was preparing to attack Jacob, driven by an insatiable anger over the lost birthright and his father's blessing. Jacob realized that anger and resentment were seething in Esau's heart, and before his meeting with him, he wisely offered Esau his wealth and everything that was valuable to him in life. Esau, who expected his brother to return as a conqueror, was surprised and touched by such generosity and love. When Jacob himself appeared, Esau forgot his anger, and the brothers embraced each other in tears. Jacob completely won the heart of his brother Esau.

The peaceful reunion of Jacob and Esau meant the restoration of the relationship between Cain and Abel, and for the first time in the providence of restoration the providential family successfully laid a substantial foundation.

The Reason for the Emergence of True Parents

Abraham's family was the first family chosen by God to restore Adam's family, successfully laying the foundation of faith (created by Isaac and inherited by Jacob) and the foundation of substance (created by Jacob and Esau). The moment when Esau and Jacob embraced in love was the most hopeful and joyful moment for God since the fall of Adam and Eve. With this great providential victory, the foundation was finally set for the emergence of True Parents, and God could begin to unfold the providence of restoration on the substantial level, expanding His influence among the fallen people of the world.

However, True Parents could not appear at that time because Jacob's family and descendants first had to atone for Abraham's failure to sacrifice animals and birds. The period of indemnity for restoration was the 400 years that the Israelites had to spend as slaves in Egypt. Moreover, during the time of Abraham, Satan gained dominion over entire countries, while only one family was on God's side. How could one family resist entire countries?

Fares and Zara

The reconciliation of Jacob and Esau was a major victory for God. However, complete atonement for the Fall did not occur, since this reconciliation personified only the symbolic purification of the race, while the substantial purification of the race must occur in the womb, where the fallen nature of man arose.

This is precisely what lies behind the paradoxical story of Tamar. Only by understanding that Tamar, like Isaac's wife Rebekah, had to restore the fallen Eve, can we understand why Jesus was born into her family, descended from the tribe of Judah. She risked her life when, obeying God's command, she gave birth to twins with her father-in-law, Judah, one of Jacob's sons.

During childbirth, the position of the twins in the womb changed, and the younger son Perez, personifying Abel, was born before his brother Zara. The change in the order of birth became known due to the fact that first Zara’s hand appeared from Tamar’s womb, to which a red thread was tied, but then it disappeared again into the womb.

The cleansing of Tamar's womb became the basis for the birth of the sinless Jesus, which is the first condition for the appearance of the Messiah. Messiah Jesus was to become the True Parent and establish a purified race, free from satanic domination and returned to the authority of God.

Jacob's chosen race

When Jacob and Esau restored Cain and Abel's relationship, they laid the foundation for the first True Parents in history. God chose the descendants of Jacob who became the 12 tribes of Israel, a people called to create a country in which the Messiah would appear. When Tamar restored the purity of Eve's womb, God chose the race of Judah to be the birthplace of the Messiah. Thus, the family of Abraham, and the lineage of Jacob in particular, became the starting point for expanding the boundaries of the providence of restoration from the individual to the family, the tribe, and ultimately the country ready to receive True Parents. Thus the children of Israel became the chosen people.

Foundation of Jacob's family

Jacob's family became the center of God's providence. Jacob had 12 sons, the first ten born from three women - Leah, Leah's maid and Rachel's maid. The two youngest sons, Benjamin and Joseph, were born from Rachel. These 12 sons formed the 12 tribes of Israel - the people chosen by God to become the country that would receive the True Parents.

The spiritual, “Abelian” attitude to life was adopted from Jacob by his penultimate son Joseph. Joseph's brothers were jealous of his position as the favorite son and sold him into slavery in Egypt. There Joseph achieved prosperity and became the chief nobleman of Pharaoh. Having overcome the temptations of the fallen world of Egypt, especially the temptations of women, Joseph established himself as Abel in the second generation of Jacob's family.

When famine began in his homeland, Joseph's brothers arrived in Egypt to buy grain. Joseph recognized them and, despite the cruelty they had shown him earlier, received them with love, gave them grain and returned the money they had paid for that grain. The brothers could not understand such generosity, but when they arrived again in Egypt to buy grain, Joseph revealed himself to them. The brothers, reunited, cried with joy.

Joseph acted wisely to win over his brothers and father, much as his father had done to win the love of Esau. By giving gifts to his brothers, he showed them that he loved them, despite the harm they had caused him in the past. They, for their part, were ready to repent and ask for forgiveness for what they had done. As a result of the restoration of the relationship between Cain and Abel in Jacob's family, the personal basis for the emergence of True Parents created by Jacob reached the family level through his sons.

What can we learn from the example of Abraham's family?

First, when fulfilling the conditions of indemnity, it is important to pay attention to the little things in addition to having an open heart. Fallen humans are unable to fulfill the original responsibility of sinless Adam and Eve because their sinful nature is unable to fully cooperate with God. In order to overcome this limitation, God allowed fallen humans to fulfill their responsibilities conditionally through sacrifices using nature and themselves. Thus, offering to God is a conditional fulfillment of human responsibility, a step toward the substantial fulfillment of responsibility by restored people. The need for sacrifices arose as a result of Adam and Eve's failure to fulfill their responsibility as the son and daughter of God: they did not take God's warning seriously and, as a result, were not diligent in carrying out God's command. Thus, an offering has meaning only if it is done with the right, responsible attitude and in strict compliance with the instructions received.

Abraham was serious about fulfilling his responsibility to God by undertaking to make the animal and bird offerings, but having completed the main part of the sacrifice, which was cutting up the animals, he neglected the smaller task of cutting up the birds. Because of this error, Satan was able to take over the entire sacrifice.

The gravity of the situation resulting from Abraham's failure reflects the fundamental reality of the Fall. At first glance, we can say that the mistakes of Adam and Eve in the Fall are insignificant compared to the atrocities in the fallen world. However, their seemingly minor mistakes became the cause of all human suffering and grief. A small mistake can have serious consequences if the person who made it is a central figure on whom a lot depends. Adam and Eve were the ancestors of humanity, and their actions affected all of humanity. Abraham was given the mission to lay the foundation for the restoration of all mankind, and his mistake had consequences for everyone in his family and for all participants in the providence of restoration, i.e. ultimately for all the people of the world. In both cases, because of the great providential significance of these central figures, the failure to fulfill their God-given responsibility caused the most severe trials for all mankind. If God requires something specific from a person, then the person should consider that it is very important, even if from his position he does not understand why this is so.

Secondly, complete humility and obedience before God is the most powerful weapon against Satan. Abraham's son demonstrated complete humility by agreeing with his father's decision to obey God and sacrifice him. Isaac's unconditional willingness to give his life for God's will completely thwarted Satan's plans to destroy Abraham's family. There was no place for Satan in the relationship between Abraham and his son, as they both faithfully obeyed God even at the cost of their lives. It was easier for Abraham to sacrifice his own life than to kill his beloved son. The exercise of their great faith enabled Abraham's family to retain their central providential position, which had been threatened by the error of the first sacrifice.

Their faith is faith at its highest, reflecting a degree of devotion that atoned for Adam's loss of faith. During the Fall, Adam was spiritually killed when he ignored God's warning about the consequences of eating the fruit. He sought to satisfy his desires even at the cost of his life. He failed to see the absolute value in something that from his limited perspective seemed insignificant. Correction of Adam's erroneous attitude occurs when a person in Adam's position sacrifices his desires for the sake of God's will, even at the cost of his life. It is precisely this willingness to fully follow God that allows God to give a person of such faith everything, even life itself. Therefore, since Abraham's son was willing to die for God, he did not have to die.

Another important lesson from this story is Abel's need to win Cain's heart through service and love. In the history of restoration, Jacob was the first person in Abel's position to successfully lay a substantial foundation as he made great efforts to melt away Esau's resentment and anger by showing love to him even in the most difficult circumstances. Abel's mission is to achieve Cain's voluntary submission. This can only be achieved through love, and service is the practice of love. Jacob's son Joseph learned this well from his father and won the hearts of his brothers by serving them with love even though they had previously treated him harshly. Jacob and Joseph were able to obtain the willing cooperation of Cain (Esau and the eleven brothers, respectively) in creating the substantial foundation, greatly accelerating the progress of the dispensation of restoration.

The Bible is a holy book for adherents of the Christian school of religion. The meaningful meaning of the described plots, moralistic background and eternal relevance make biblical tales interesting for generations of any era. The chapters of the Old and New Testaments are reread by Christians from time to time, since the message contained in them is rarely revealed immediately and acquires new colors over time.

History of appearance

The parable describing the sacrifice of Isaac by Father Abraham tells how the biblical character, as a sign of love for God, gave him the most valuable thing in life. The significance of this legend cannot be overestimated. Abraham was the first to speak to the Almighty after the Flood. The father of many nations and spiritual ancestor made a covenant that helped save humanity. From the moment Abraham is mentioned in the Bible, the patriarchal period begins, which lasts until the moment when the last Jew left Egypt.

Today, sacrifices seem savage, although for Old Testament times it was a necessary action and a normal occurrence. Innocent souls sacrificed were considered the most precious gift from humanity. The description of the nuances that exist in reality adds special relevance to the stories. For example, Mount Moriah, where Abraham killed a ram in place of his son, is actually the site of the Jerusalem Temple. erected it in honor of the Lord.

Theologians connect the parable of Abraham with the sacrifice of Jesus. A kind of prototype of the salvation of mankind lies in the act of the prophet. Like him, God sacrificed his son, who did not resist the will of his father.

Abraham's action is also viewed from another angle. They see it as a way to get what they want from God, despite the waiting time for the promised. According to the logic of believers, it will be granted in a timely manner. God must know that a person is ready to give his most precious things as a sign of love for him. Divine mercy is revealed to biblical heroes and followers of Christianity in an individual way, and this is worth remembering when rereading the lines of sacred texts.

Abraham in religion

The date of birth of Abraham is considered to be 1812 BC. According to legend, the hero lived for 175 years and found peace in 1637 BC. The meaning of the character's name is “father of many.” His story is a legend about the life of a patriarch conducting a dialogue with the Lord after the Flood. A true lover of God was ready to do anything for the sake of faith.

The character's biography is contained in the Book of Genesis. Abraham was born in the ancient Sumerian state, Ur of the Chaldeans, located in what is now Iran. The character had two brothers: Aran and Nahor. Terah, the hero's father, died at 205 years old. Abraham was married to Sarah, who was unable to reproduce. Together with her and his nephew, he went, according to the instructions of the Lord, to the land to which the Almighty should point. God promised Abraham that he would become the progenitor of a great nation, receive the blessing of the Lord and forever preserve his name throughout the ages.

At the age of 75, Abraham and his family left Harran and headed to Canaan, where God appeared to him, bequeathing the lands to the hero’s descendants. In honor of this good deed, the man erected an altar in the city in the name of the Lord. Abraham then headed east and then south, reaching Egypt. The scripture separately tells that Sarah, the wife of Abraham, was taken into the house of Pharaoh, for which the Egyptian ruler suffered punishment. Having become rich in Egypt, Abraham returned to one of the points on his route, leading people and livestock. The travelers encountered obstacles in the form of people who had lived in this area before them, and decided to look for other lands.

The issue of prolongation of the family was resolved by Abraham with the help of Sarah's servant, whose name was Hagar. The firstborn was named Ismail (or Ishmael). When Abraham was 99 years old, he made a covenant with the Lord. God ordered the firstborn from Sarah to be named Isaac. The covenant rules were to apply to the descendants of Isaac, not to the children of Ishmael. God's friend promised to circumcise the boys of their family in exchange for the land of Canaan and honor by the descendants of Abraham. Scripture describes many events in the life of Abraham, but the main point of his biography is that he kills his son Isaac. The sacrifice made to God becomes his only heir.

Abraham offered the burnt offering without hesitation. At the moment of raising the knife over his son on the altar, which was located on Mount Moriah, Abraham saw an angel. He said that the prophet’s faith was confirmed, and the sacrifice was not needed.

This action of a man is explained by his boundless faith and loyalty. Abraham was convinced: if the Lord promised to produce offspring from Isaac, then providence would find a way to resurrect his beloved son.

Abraham died at 175 years old. The burial place of the biblical character is the Machpeleh cave, where his wife Sarah rests.

• Abraham is a hero whose name is often mentioned in the Old and New Testaments. Only Moses enjoys the same popularity. The ancestor of Jesus became a symbol through which the audience became aware of the divinity of Jesus Christ and his exaltation. The birth of Christ is the fulfillment of the covenant made by Abraham with God. At the same time, his death repeats the sacrifice made by his father in the name of faith. In the New Testament, Abraham is considered the bearer of faith and the teacher who transmits its main principles. By his example, he sets a model of righteousness and piety.

• Abraham is a character who appears in different religions. In the Koran, he is the prophet of Islam, named Ibrahim. His biography is similar to the biography from the Bible. It is curious that in Jewish midrashim the idea of ​​monotheism and monotheism belongs to Abraham. According to legend, the hero was the first to understand that God is one. At the age of three, he received his sight, realizing that the idols of his ancestors were not those worthy of his faith, and he became a follower of the Lord. In the tradition of Jewish beliefs, Abraham is considered the creator of the Book of Creation. This literary source turned out to be the basis of the Kabbalistic movement.
• The hero's sacrifice has been interpreted by scientists and philosophers in different ways. Biblical scholars hold to the idea that the sacrifice of the innocent Isaac becomes an example of the refusal of the tribute to the Lord in the form of human life. It is believed that over time the Bible has undergone changes and modifications. It is likely that in the original version of the plot, Isaac was killed, but after the sacrifices were abolished, the text was edited.

• Initially, the hero’s name was Abram, which translated means “high father.” His wife's name is Sarah, which means lady. The Lord commanded the couple to change their names at the moment when he announced that their role for the future of humanity was significant. Subsequently, God's interlocutor was called Abraham. The name is interpreted as "father of multitudes." The prophet's wife began to be called Sarah - "the lady of the multitude." This technique in literature and the plot twist in scripture indicate the exaltation of the character in the eyes of believers and in religion.