“By holding on so tightly to our sense of self, we choked God, strangling him, and put him to death. ‘But,’ you might ask, ‘can God die?’ He can die to us. He can be dead to each and everyone of us. ‘But can He rise again?’ Yes, when you change your mind, when you repent. When you do this, God comes to life within you, He rises up within you, and then you celebrate the Resurrection of Christ: you are baptized again, born again, and you give him the right to take away your passions and lead you to a place of freedom.” (Archimandrite Aimilianos)
“Christ’s conquest of death results in His authority and lordship over the living and the dead (Acts 10:42; 2 Tim. 4:1; 1 Pet. 4:5). This gives Christ the authority to judge all of humanity, return humanity to its proper estate, and give us our destiny. Those who have spent this life seeking salvation through repentance and transformation will spend eternity sharing in the divine life of the Holy Trinity, the purpose for which humanity was created. Those who have failed to do so will receive the destiny proper to them from the time of Adam’s expulsion from Paradise, the same fate faced by the devil and his angels…This mortal life is one of change and inconstancy. The capacity for growth and change makes possible both repentance and maturity, on one hand, and corruption and destruction on the other. While the loss of the life of which God is the source may be permanent, the life given to us by God in this world means that it does not have to be.” (Fr. Stephen De Young)
“…without denying the catastrophic reality of human apostasy and death—that the creature brought into being by God to share in his own life and glory turned his back on his Creator and so ends up rotting in the grave—it is possible, nevertheless, to see the same reality embraced within the overarching economy of God, as a means of bringing His creation, made from mud, to the full maturity of a human being, made in the image and likeness of God, knowing both good and evil, but rejecting the evil by turning in repentance to God. This, at the same time, demonstrates the wisdom and the power of God, a power which is made perfect in weakness. This possibility is given by Christ’s own Passion, opening up a theological vision which, retrospectively, infuses the whole of our human, and humanly created, condition, with the power of God, the power that He manifests on the cross.” (Fr. John Behr)
“God never rejects anyone. We see this in the Gospel accounts in the person of Christ, the Son who shows us the Father through the Spirit in a way we can understand. We don’t have to live in fear of an angry God who we don’t measure up to and then rejects us. We should live in fear of our own hearts and lack of repentance. An unrepentant life is the way that we reject God to the point that we don’t want His love and the salvation He offers. If this is something we are still worried about then there is still hope for us because our hearts are open. It’s when we don’t even care that we are rejecting God.” (Sacramental Living Ministries)
“Repentance is the first healing medicine. The heart has to repent and come to its natural condition. If a life of sin has led it to an unnatural state, a life of repentance will bring it back to its right state, will give it life.” (Saint Peter of Damascus)
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