This is what human unrighteousness produces! The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of love and peace, the Spirit of grace and bounties. In His essence and in His actions, He is the only, unchanging, divine Comforter.
Yet the world is sunk in evil and does not know Him. Even if it knew Him, it could not receive Him. The spirit of the world, breathed by men given over to the flesh, is wholly opposed to the all-holy Spirit of God.
Therefore the Comforter becomes the Reprover. He whom the Son of God asked of the Father, and obtained by His death as the greatest Benefactor of mankind and the supreme Giver of every good, comes to expose sin and pronounce judgment.
“And when He comes, He will reprove the world.” Oh, how mighty this reproof must be! It is no longer the weak voice of preachers of truth, which often vanishes into the air. It does not reach the ear, much less the heart, of those who hear.
This is the reproof of the Almighty and All-knowing One. He reproved Adam’s sin, and death still gathers the terrible tribute of that sin from all mankind. He reproved Noah’s contemporaries, and their memory perished with a roar in the waters of the flood.
He reproved the cities of Sodom, which had greatly embittered the Lord, and their place was not found on the face of the earth. He reproved the apostate synagogue, and in Jerusalem not one stone was left upon another.
Here every man reproved must cry out with David to God: “Whither shall I go from Thy Spirit, the Reprover? Whither shall I flee from His face? If I ascend into heaven, He is there. If I descend into Hades, He is there.
If I fly upon the wings of the dawn to the uttermost bounds of the universe, even there His hand shall find me. His right hand shall hold me fast.”
Meanwhile, brethren, the number of those who must undergo the reproof of the Holy Spirit is so great that I do not know whether anyone can exclude himself from it. According to the Savior’s words, the Comforter must reprove the world. Who, then, is not in the world?
Who will dare say of himself that he is wholly clean from everything earthly and sinful? Therefore the reproof of the Holy Spirit concerns all and each. Therefore we are all numbered among the reproved.
Woe to that one of us who, being unworthy of the consolation of the Holy Spirit, does not at least make use of His reproof. The divine Reprover reproves sinners in sin in order to grant them the righteousness of God.
He opens the wounds of conscience in order to heal them. Therefore let us hasten to understand the mystery of saving reproof. Through obedience to the Reprover, let us turn it into the mystery of our salvation.
Having foretold the coming of the Spirit, the Reprover, the Savior also revealed, for the comfort of His disciples, what this reproof would consist in. “And when He comes,” the Savior continued to say to the disciples, “He will reprove the world concerning sin, and righteousness, and judgment.
Concerning sin, because they do not believe in Me. Concerning righteousness, because I go to My Father, and you see Me no more. Concerning judgment, because the prince of this world is judged” (Jn 16:8-11).
In these words not only the essence, but also the outline of the great reproof is indicated. The world is reproved concerning sin, which it hides or does not know. It is reproved concerning righteousness, which it rejects and persecutes.
It is reproved concerning judgment, which it perverts or forgets. It is reproved concerning its sin, that it may be brought to knowledge and acceptance of God’s righteousness. It is reproved concerning its own righteousness, that it may be delivered from judgment.
Finally, it is reproved concerning judgment, that it may know it is guilty before God in every respect. Nothing remains for it except repentance.
Who does not know, brethren, the universal corruption of morals that reigned among Jews and Gentiles when the Son of God appeared to cleanse the sins of the world? Yet the world was never so proud of its righteousness as at that time.
In vain John the Baptist preached repentance by word and life. In vain the Savior Himself cried, “Repent!” The world did not acknowledge its sins. Corrupt Pharisees continued to regard their hypocrisy as true devotion.
Reckless Sadducees continued to find wisdom in their freethinking. According to the world’s judgment, all its accomplices were holy. By contrast, Jesus Christ, who reproved the world, was numbered with the lawless.
At last, instead of repentance, the world began to persecute its Reprover. To complete its crimes, it lifted Him up on the Cross. After this, it seemed nothing could any longer bring the world to repentance.
But behold, the Spirit, the Reprover, comes, and everything takes on a new form. Peter had scarcely spoken a few words of reproof after the descent of the fiery tongues, when three thousand souls acknowledged themselves sinners and asked for baptism (Acts 2:41).
A few days later the same miracle was repeated over five thousand souls (Acts 4:4). Those miraculously reproved concerning sin became, in their turn, extraordinary reprovers of others. Here and there, companies of preachers of repentance were formed.
In a few years, what could not have been expected from whole centuries was accomplished. What a moving spectacle the whole world of that time began to present!
The word of repentance comes to Rome. It appears at the court of the Caesars. It is proclaimed in the hearing of the earthly gods. What fruits of repentance could one expect there?
Yet for the almighty Reprover there are no barriers. A few discourses on repentance, filled with spirit and power, are enough. Amid the palaces of Domitian and Nero, where Satan’s very throne stood, a community of people is invisibly formed.
Beneath purple and gold, they hide the Cross and evangelical poverty. The word of humility and faith reaches Greece, where there were as many idols as philosophers, and as many philosophers as passions.
The wise men of the world hear for the first time that they are sinners. They do not believe. They doubt. Yet the power of the word of the Cross passes over their mind and strikes the heart.
Soon, instead of an altar to an unknown God, an altar is raised to the known Redeemer. Finally, the word of the Gospel is no longer contained within the limits of Rome. It reaches where the weapons of the conquerors of the world could not penetrate.
The warlike Parthian and the wild Scythian hear the reproof. They hear and repent. Many of them do not yet know what the law is. Yet, reproved by faith, they acknowledge themselves lawless.
The spirit of compunction foreseen by the prophet is poured out upon the whole earth. Millions of men begin to weep over what happened in Judea.
Nations, what has happened to you? You were not in Judea. You did not crucify Christ. You received Him when He had been rejected. Why, then, do you grieve over His death? Is this your sin?
“It is ours,” whole tribes and tongues answer. “He bears our sins and suffers for us. The chastisement of our peace was upon Him, and by His wound we all are healed” (Is 53:4-5).
Thus the reproof of the Holy Spirit was accomplished over the pagan world. Oh, if only it had ended together with ancient paganism! If only Christians, by their sins, had not compelled the Holy Spirit to begin a new reproof!
The Christian world continues within itself the sins of the pagan world. The Spirit of God continues over it the reproof prepared for the Gentiles.
First of all, the divine Reprover from time to time raises up special zealots of piety. As though moved by some hidden power, they preach repentance to their contemporaries. Every age has them. Every land sees and hears them.
The life of these men becomes a mirror. In it, even more clearly than in their words, the imperfections of lovers of the world are displayed. Is this not why the world has always persecuted truly pious men?
Their life, according to the expression of the sacred writer, is a torment to it. For sinners who do not see or do not listen to living reprovers, the Holy Spirit has set up an inanimate reprover.
Yet it can impart life to those dead in sins. This is the word of God. Give it to anyone you wish, to a Mohammedan, a pagan, or a Jew. He may not believe in its divine origin.
Yet after reading it, he will say that he has not fulfilled everything written in it. He will acknowledge himself a sinner.
What Pharisee could ever stand before the evangelical reproof? What Sadducee has not trembled at the threats contained in it? The weak pastor of the Church, who does not rightly divide the word of truth and neglects his flock, sees his sin there.
The covetous judge, who looks at the persons of those judged instead of at righteousness, sees it. The beastly master, who lives by the oppression and tears of his subordinates, sees it.
The deceitful servant, who neglects the profit and honor of his master, sees it. In short, every sinner clearly sees his sin in the word of God.
All this is produced, so to speak, by the very letter of the Gospel, appointed to reprove coarse sinners. The spirit of evangelical teaching is still more reproving.
The righteous themselves, as they penetrate it, have always found new defects in themselves. As a man grows in virtue, the Gospel itself seems to grow in its demands.
Finally, even those who cannot read or hear the word of God are not deprived of a reprover. The mysteries of the Church serve in its place.
Oh you who senselessly reject or belittle these organs of God’s grace, learn rather to see in them the wisdom of God and the good of mankind. Tell me, how can whole nations be taught the great truth that man is sinful by nature?
How can they be taught that he therefore has ceaseless need of repentance? In Christianity, this important truth and many others are instilled, so to speak, by themselves through the mysteries.
At every man’s entrance into the world, the Church declares in baptism that he is sinful. At his departure from the world, she repeats in Holy Unction that he is sinful.
During life, she several times summons each person to the tribunal of repentance and says: You are sinful. A wondrous spectacle! The king and the last slave, the wise man and the commoner, cast themselves down at the foot of the Crucified One.
In the hearing of a fellow man, they confess their sins. Who compelled millions of people to be so open and to overcome natural reserve?
Only the Spirit of God could so reprove the world concerning sin that confession of sin became a public obligation. What shall we say about the inward reproofs of the Holy Spirit in the conscience of sinners?
Which of us has not at some time heard this reproof? Who has not made a vow to himself to amend his life? Who has not often regretted failing to fulfill that vow?
At least the Reprover has fulfilled His work. He took upon Himself the duty of reproving our sins, and He reproved them. None of us can say that he is without sin.
This is already enough for the glory of the Reprover and for our salvation. There was a time when the whole world sinned, yet did not know that it was sinful. “Sin is not imputed when there is no law” (Rom 5:13).
The second object of the Holy Spirit’s reproof is the world’s unbelief in righteousness. “Concerning righteousness, because I go to My Father, and you see Me no more.”
When reproved concerning sin, the world has always found ruinous consolation in rejecting or concealing the righteousness of God (Rom 1:18). It acted in the same way toward the Hypostatic Righteousness when He appeared on earth in the person of the Son of God.
Neither the purity of the teaching, nor the holiness of the divine Teacher, nor the miracles He performed could convince a crooked and sinful generation. It would not believe that the words of eternal life were being proclaimed to it.
When the Herald of truth, for the highest reasons unknown to the world, deigned to ascend the Cross and then to hide Himself forever from human sight, the malicious world took this as decisive proof.
THEOSIS