Humanity
- Feb 6
- 5 min read
“St. John the Forerunner witnesses that he saw the Holy Spirit descend upon Jesus at His baptism – this is how he knew that Jesus is the Messiah. Additionally, the fact that the Holy Spirit not only descended on Jesus but remained upon Him, signifies that God is restoring humanity to its glorious original position. In Genesis 6: 3, just before the Great Flood, God in His disappointment with sinful humanity says His Spirit will not remain on us forever. Now in Christ, the Holy Spirit comes and remains on humanity signifying an end to God’s displeasure. Divinity is again united to humanity, thanks to Jesus Christ, the God-man.” (Fr. Ted Bobosh)
“…through Christ’s life, God appears to us as divine truth in visible form. Perfect truth, sacrificial love, and spotless holiness are all offered to man in Christ. In the life of Christ, human nature also appears in its completest form. Christ’s sincere humility and total obedience transfigure humanity; humanity is lifted out of the ashes and raised heavenward in order to find its place in God.” (Matthew the Poor)
“Prayer, ascetic life and, above all, the patient bearing of your cross of suffering and trials of life help you acquire a “compassionate heart”…A compassionate, loving, and merciful heart is a sign of restoration of human nature to its original integrity. Such a heart bears the unity of all humanity and the cosmos. Everything lives in a compassionate heart—people, animals, plants, and all organic and inorganic matter. Thus, the believer becomes like God. Like Christ, he is no longer separated from anything or anyone, because he bears all things within himself. Nothing is external and alien to him anymore, and he is not indifferent to anything anymore. He feels responsible for everyone and for everything that happens in humanity and in the universe. Such a person begins to perceive his neighbors through the words of the Apostle Paul: For as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body (1 Cor. 12:12). A believer who has acquired a compassionate heart resolutely sets himself up to serve his neighbors, with whom Christ identifies Himself.” (Metropolitan Serafim Joanta, St. Isaac the Syrian)
“When I write in a manner critical of modernity, I am often understood to be arguing for an abolition of technology and a return to an older, “simpler” time. It is not older and simpler that interests me – it is the recovery and practice of what it means to be truly human that matters. It is possible to be truly human and make use of technology. But it is also important to use it in such a manner that our humanity isn’t compromised…Our humanity is a tradition. I can only learn what it is to be a human being from another human being, someone who has successfully fulfilled that reality. Animals are no different. Birds do not suddenly fly – their flight is traditioned to them. Human beings learn to walk in a traditioned manner as well. Your computer or your phone will not teach you how to be a human being.” (Father Stephen Freeman)
“This sickness of isolation weakens our resolve to live honorable lives….When you feel cut off from others, you feel less obligated to protect your community, or even yourself, from the base desires of fallen humanity. You may lose sight of your purpose. Alone, we do as we please; in the community, we remember that our actions affect those around us. When isolated, we are more likely to accept the degrading illusion of intimacy without responsibility. Eventually, disconnection begins to erode a lonely person’s very identity.” (Reverend Christopher T. Metropulos, D. Min)
“We have insisted on going our own way without bothering with the will and ways of our Creator. Yet this attitude is the bedrock of human sinfulness. From the initial sin of Adam and Eve, humankind has declared its independence from its Creator. But this desire to be one’s own god has led humanity farther and farther away from the source of life and goodness. Indifference is a benign form of the rejection of God and everything that He represents. The hatred that underlies this uncaring attitude was revealed whenever God tried to win humans back to Him. When the Creator has tried to reveal His good for human persons, they have bristled with indignation. Accordingly, Paul said, “By the law comes knowledge of sin” (OSB Romans 3:20). The law commands, corrects, and holds humans accountable to the divine will. And so, it stirs up animosity. Man willfully subjects himself to corruption rather than acknowledge His dependence on and responsibility to His Creator.” (Fr. Basil)
“…when we can no longer make any offering of our lives to God for the life of the world, at that point precisely we are in danger of losing our humanity. This can be the berserker; it can be the heroin addict; it can be the cruel intellectual in his cold ivory tower; the moralizing uncompassionate preacher; it can be the selfish rich. All alike have left behind both priesthood and shame, and thus are seeing their own humanity slip away.” (Timothy G. Patitsas)
“…humans are not created perfect in the beginning. Humans have to choose their destiny – whether to be mere animals or to choose to be more godlike. Humans are created with the potential for perfection, but each person has to make the choices that moves towards or away from perfection. Adam and Eve are created neither mortal nor immortal – this is part of the destiny they must choose for themselves and humankind. Humans are the interface between the immortal and the mortal, between the physical and spiritual, the rational and irrational. Thus, from the beginning God intended there to be a synergy between humanity and divinity, but humans rejected this loving cooperation and chose to go at life on their own and to their own detriment.” (Fr. Ted Bobosh)
“Christianity was born…because followers…experienced Him after His crucifixion and death as more powerfully alive than before, as sharing, indeed, the very life of God, a life that He in turn made available to them through the gift of the Holy Spirit. The resurrection of Jesus was not regarded as a simple continuation of His mortal body through resuscitation—a historical event—but as a new form of existence as the “life-giving Spirit” (1 Cor. 15:45) who could touch and transform all other human bodies. It ended one world and began another: “If anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation” (2 Cor. 5:16; Gal 6:15). By virtue of His resurrection, then, Jesus is much more than a Jewish messiah; He is a new Adam (1 Cor. 15:45; Rom 5:12—21), the firstborn of a new humanity (Rom 8:29; Col 3:11).” (Luke Timothy Johnson)
“So if we once again ask ourselves the question, what is the essence of Christianity, then we must answer: it is the humanity of God, the joining of the finite and temporal human spirit with the eternal Divinity, it is the sanctification of the flesh, for from that moment when the Son of Man, the Human One, took on our joys and our sufferings, our love, our labors, from that moment, nature, the world, everything in which He was, in which He rejoiced, as a human being and as God-man, no longer is rejected, no longer is degraded but is raised up to a new level and is made holy…Christ didn’t come just to settle some cosmic score with death; He also came to show us, in His own flesh, what humanity was intended to be and what it will again become by His grace.” (Father Alexander Men, Father Michael Plekon, Sarah Clarkson)
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