“This,” he says, “is what moves us to entreat you.
“He stirs believers not only by the abundance and height of the blessings and by God’s love for mankind, but also by the shortness of the time.
“And not only by the shortness of the time given, but also because this time alone is favorable for salvation.
“‘Behold, now,’ he says, ‘is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation.’
“Let us not lose the favorable time, but let us show care worthy of the grace given to us.
“Therefore,” he says, “we ourselves hasten, knowing the shortness of the favorable time.
“The time is favorable. What time is this? The time of gift and grace.
“In this time they do not demand an account of sins and do not pronounce condemnation. Rather, with forgiveness of sins, countless blessings are offered for enjoyment: justification, sanctification, and all the rest.
“How much labor would have been needed to obtain such a time? Yet behold, without any labor on our part, this time has come, bringing with it remission of all former sins.
“For this reason he calls it favorable, because the Lord now receives even the greatest sinners.
“And He not only receives them, but even deems them worthy of the highest honors.
“For at the coming of a king it is not a time of judgment, but of mercy and salvation.
“Therefore again he calls the time favorable, as long as we are in the contest, as long as we work in the vineyard, as long as the eleventh hour remains.
“Let us then enter the contest and show a virtuous life.
“For it is easy and convenient to receive the reward when one struggles in such a time, in which so many gifts and so much grace have been poured out.
“Even among earthly kings, during festivals, when they appear in royal garments, one who has labored little receives great gifts.
“But when they sit in judgment, great correctness and great effort are required to receive anything.
“Therefore let us also struggle in this present favorable time, in which all things are given freely.
“For now is the time of grace, the time of God’s grace, in which we can easily receive crowns.
“For if God received and forgave us when we were burdened with so many sins, will He not much more receive us now, already forgiven, when we bring something also from our own will?”
The Apostle brings this lesson together with the prophetic word. Our interpreters do not dwell on the prophet’s words, but take directly the general thought of the text and explain it.
From this it is clear that whether we properly understand the prophet’s word there, in the flow of prophetic speech, and here, in the flow of apostolic speech, or do not understand it, the Apostle’s lesson remains equally strong.
The Apostle takes the prophet’s words from Is 49:8: “For He says.” Who says? In the prophet Isaiah it stands plainly: the Lord. “Thus says the Lord.”
To whom does the Lord address the speech in the prophet? To Him of whom He said above: “Behold, I have given You as a covenant to the people, as a light to the nations, that You may be My salvation unto the ends of the earth” (Is 49:6).
It is evident that Christ Jesus, the Lord and Savior, is being spoken of here.
The words cited by the Apostle are read in the prophet in the same way: “In an acceptable time I heard You, and in the day of salvation I helped You.”
“I heard” presupposes a prayer from the Savior to God the Father. “I helped” means the hearing of the prayer and the granting of everything requested.
When did the Lord and Savior pray so mightily that this was foreheard by the prophetic spirit?
The same Apostle speaks of this: “Who in the days of His flesh, with loud cries and tears, offered up prayers and supplications to Him who was able to save Him from death, and was heard because of His reverence,” and so forth (Heb 5:7).
From this it is clear that the prophet calls “the accepted time” and “the day of salvation” that time when the Son of God, having become incarnate and suffered, thereby opened all the treasuries of divine grace to the human race.
The death on the Cross was His prayer and supplication, not in word, but in deed. It drew all God’s mercies to us.
This intercessory prayer, once begun, does not cease. It stands and, with a mighty cry, always ascends to God for mercies toward us.
Hence the accepted time and the day of salvation is the whole time during which this mediation will have force.
It will cease only when the one Mediator, instead of interceding, comes to judge.
The whole time from Christ’s first coming to the second is the time of the ordering of Christ’s kingdom on earth, the kingdom of grace.
The prophetic indication of precisely this is very clear. After “I helped You,” he says, “to establish the earth,” and further, “saying to those who are in bonds, ‘Go forth,’ and to those who are in darkness, ‘Show yourselves.’”
Those in bonds are those entangled by sins. Those in darkness are those plunged into the gloom of ignorance.
The Apostles did nothing other than carry everywhere, in the name of Christ the Savior, freedom from the bonds of sin and illumination by the light of divine knowledge.
Therefore Saint Paul could not fail to see in his own time the exact fulfillment of the prophetic word.
He speaks as though saying: the favorable time foretold by the prophet has come. Hasten to make use of it.
For if there is a favorable time, it means there is also an unfavorable one. And who can say when it will come?
“Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation.” Tomorrow, perhaps, it will no longer be possible to say this. Therefore do not delay.
THEOSIS