What Was Old Becomes New (Again)

A counselor at a rescue mission once told me of their intake interview wherein they asked each man about his history. The stories, with little variation, involved mostly drinking and drugging, coupled with promiscuity. Later, when asked, “How’s your relationship with God?” almost 100% of the interviewees answered along the lines of, “Oh! Me and God are tight! Yep. God and I are close.”

It happens to all of us: our “old man” (Ephesians 4:22) plays tricks on us, leading us to neglect the one thing needful. Though we long for God, we fill up our lives with that which leads us far from Him.

Elder Paisios of Mount Athos writes:

The one who neglects his prayer and duties unjustifyably and works all the time building pyramids for Pharaoh) is estranged from God, becomes wild, constantly and cruelly hitting his guardian angel with kicks and disorder, until he finally drives him away. Then, he accepts the devil as his ruler, who immediately makes the following changes: 1) abolishes the prayer rope, replacing it with worldly worry beads and 2) does away with spiritual study completely, replacing it with worldly magazines and newspapers. In the end, the devil conquers him and he suffers internally and seeks amusement as Saul did, when he was alienated from God and demon possessed (Epistles, p.218) .

The temptations of contemporary society, not to mention the destructive forces of addiction, seduce us into believing them to be necessary to the point of excluding that which is necessary for our salvation (prayer, fasting, alms giving).

Truthfully, brothers and sisters, we’ve only got one chore: “The thing that will move God more on the Day of Judgment is the work each one of us has done on his old man.”

God created Man in His image and likeness to be in communion with Him. Man has free will to respond to this relationship. Although created in the image and after the likeness of God, he does not sustain communion with God. Though fashioned in God’s image, the likeness has been lost and, through sin, the image tarnished.

Understanding the image as residing in the intellect and reflecting on the parable of the Prodigal Son and how he came to himself, Georgios Mantzaridis writes:

Developing the parable of the prodigal son, and speaking of the dissipation of the father’s fortune by the younger son, [St Gregory] Palamas gives the following allegorical interpretation: man’s chief wealth is his inborn intellect. While he keeps to the path of salvation, he keeps his intellect concentrated in itself and on the first and highest Intellect, God. If, however, he is led astray into misuse, then his intellect is dispersed and adheres to earthly things, and to the pleasures of the flesh. Man is required to fight against this pathological deviation through his return to himself and elevation towards God [The Deification of Man: St Gregory Palamas and the Orthodox Tradition (TDOM)p.82].

Mantzaridis continues: “If there exists something that man can and must seek and find within himself, it is not the self which deviated but the new man in Christ, born through baptismal grace and the other church sacraments” (TDOM, p.83).

Thus, we do not come to our base nature — the old man — which is corrupted by sin. Rather, we come to that which is good, beautiful and true. We come to that which Adam was before the Fall; we come to the New Man, Christ, Who is within us.

We are called to “put on Christ.” We are to become like God, thereby regaining the “likeness” that we have lost by transgression. The first step in this process is that we “come to ourselves.” This coming to oneself is the first step toward repentance and reconciliation that leads to communion with God and neighbor. This is true when “man, ‘having entered wholly within himself’, becomes aware of himself and awaits within himself the coming of God and the divine transformation” (TDOM, p.85) .

Certainly, we all have some discernment. Let us not kid ourselves that we are in good standing with God even though we neglect our neighbor and we are living the life of the “old man.” Let us put on the New Man and “resolve to struggle fervently, cut off our passions, liberate our soul, and fly into Heaven” (Epistles, pp.150-151).

This reflection, a combination of two previous posts (and currently in the St George MESSENGER), is based on: Epistles, Greece: Holy Monastery of the Evangelist John the Theologian, 2002; and, The Deification of Man: St Gregory Palamas and the Orthodox Tradition by Georgios Mantzaridis, New York: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1997.

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