We notice this phenomenon in our forefathers. Even after accepting the faith of Christ and performing Christian rites, they still worshiped the old idols in their chambers. They also respected and observed pagan feasts and games.
Saint Paul the Apostle noticed exactly the same thing among Jews who had already turned to Christ. As is known, even after accepting the Christian faith, the Jews considered it necessary for salvation to observe certain rites prescribed in the Old Testament.
Their sympathy for Judaism often went so far as open insult to the faith of Christ (Acts 15:1, 10). Therefore, in the Epistle to the Hebrews, Saint Paul says that in Christianity the Jews must be especially attentive.
They must attend not to what had been prescribed to them in the Law of Moses, but to what they had heard from Christ the Messiah, lest they fall away (Heb 2:1).
Why is this so? First, because Christ, the Lawgiver of the Christian faith, is God, the Creator and Provider (Heb 1:10-11). Second, because the old law was given to the Jews by God through Angels and Moses, the servants of God.
But the evangelical law was proclaimed to men by the Son of God Himself, our Lord Jesus Christ (Heb 2:2-4). From this the superiority of the evangelical law over the Law of Moses is clear.
Our Holy Church, offering us today the apostolic teaching, urges us also to care more zealously for our salvation. We must hold firmly to the teaching of Christ and fulfill it in holiness.
We must not be carried away by any traditions of remote antiquity that oppose the faith. Nor should we be drawn away by new and fresh information that is still immature and far from the truth.
Chapter 1, verse 10: "In the beginning Thou, Lord, didst found the earth, and the heavens are the work of Thy hands." Verse 11: "They will perish, but Thou remainest, and they all will grow old like a garment."
Verse 12: "And like a cloak Thou wilt fold them up. Thou wilt change them, and they will be changed. But Thou art the same, and Thy years will not fail."
"In the beginning Thou, Lord, didst found the earth, and the heavens are the work of Thy hands."
So the Jewish world believed in every age. Adam, Abraham, Noah, and David with his descendants held this conviction. Many pagan peoples also believed and sensed that in nature there is a certain Rational Power.
They perceived a Being who created and adorned the world, governs it, preserves it in order, watches over the proper course of the universe, and to this day orders all things wisely.
These same beliefs passed over to Christians. They were sanctified by the word of Christ and made clear by the Apostles. But today there are people, even a whole succession of students and men learned in their own way, who preach otherwise.
They say that the universe did not come from God at all. They say it began to exist by itself and to act according to certain laws, for no reason whatever, without any cause.
As though an effect could exist without a cause. As though the wondrous structure of the world, the wise movement of the heavenly lights, and the manifestation of powers in the earth were possible without a Wise Ruler, without an Almighty Being.
We see that there is order in the universe. There are laws that sustain order. Therefore, there must be some supreme Lawgiver. And this Lawgiver, this Creator of the world, is God.
He existed before the creation of the world and before all ages. He will remain forever unchanging, while the universe He created will be changed.
The present heaven and earth will be changed at the universal resurrection of the dead. Then there will be other conditions of life. Our body will then receive other properties, suited to the endless life that awaits man beyond the grave.
THEOSIS