FRUITS OF REPENTANCE If this book, in its essence is the book of ‘the divine wedding’, in which God proclaims His longing for His people, as a Groom seeking His bride; revealing to her, openly and clearly, her sins and iniquities, demanding her return to Him; He ends it with an ultimate call on the part of the divine Groom, demanding the return of His adulteress bride, showing His work with her in a very rejoiceful way; something that you rarely find in any other book in the Old Testament, to end in such a way. In this ultimate call for her return, He also demonstrates her human role; as well as the divine role in sanctifying and glorifying her. 1. The human role in repentance 1 – 3. 2. The divine role in sanctification 4 – 9. 1. THE HUMAN ROLE IN REPENTANCE: In this ultimate call, it came: “O Israel, return to the Lord your God, for you have stumbled because of your iniquity; Take words with you, and return to the Lord” (Hosea 14: 1, 2) Our heavenly Groom so keeps on calling us all the days of our sojourn, up till our last breath, provoking us to return to Him. Yet, He does not commit us to return against our will, but lovingly tries to arouse our emotions, and to draw our hearts by His consistent calls and proclamations. And as said by father Mark the hermit: [No power on the earth can force us to do good or bad; But whoever is, to whom we are to be carried through our free will – whether God or Satan – would provoke us to do according to what concerns his kingdom1]. He calls us, and keeps calling us, but would never commit us; He appreciates our human freedom, and deals with us on the level of mutual love, and not as dumb tools in His hands. And as said by St. John Chrysostom: [Being our own masters, we can turn every member in us into, either a tool for evil, or for righteousness (by Jesus Christ)2]. As a man of iniquity acts in his free will, it would be likewise befitting for him to return to the Lord his God also with his free will, seeking the divine help to support him to return. The start of the way to repentance is a feeling of remorse; saying: [“For you have stumbled (fallen) because of your iniquity”; It would be fitting for you to return to the Lord your God, “taking words with you”; namely a confession of your iniquity]. As he, who realizes in his depths that he has fallen because of his iniquity, will not lack words, nor wonder, saying: ‘What shall I confess?’, or ‘How shall I confess?’ The Holy Spirit who exposes his iniquities, will support him in his confession of those iniquities. Here, we wish to confirm that confession is not just doing a census of sins or iniquities that we have committed; But it is, before anything else, a feeling of bitterness because of what we have done. And as is said by father Mark the hermit: [A man of experience, who has a knowledge of the truth, confesses his sins to God; not through doing a mere census of what he has done, but through the bitterness of his soul because of them3]. And as said by father John of kronstadt: [Let us hasten to draw God’s mercy by . 1 الفیلوكالیا، ص 102 2 PG 49: 117. . 3 الفیلوكالیا، ص 144 100 our tears and repentance. Let us enter into our souls, and look carefully at our unclean hearts, to see how the multitudes of our transgressions are keeping the grace of God away from us, and to realize how spiritually dead we have become1]. This confession bears two integral aspects: A confession of sin, and a faith in God, the grantor of goodness. And as said by St. Augustine: [We confess to God our sins, as we confess His work in us as well, giving Him praise. “Say to Him, ‘Take away all iniquity; (Accept that which is good), and we will offer the (fruits) of our lips” (Hosea 14: 2). We seek from Him to take away from us every iniquity we have committed, and to grant us all what is good, that we may have lost; offering as sacrifices of thanksgiving, the fruits of our lips, or the (calves of our lips), according to the Septuagint version. Our realization of the iniquity that killed our hearts, and brought our inner souls to death; And our confession of God, as the Grantor of the virtuous life; will bind us to Him as a sole Savior; and that we should not lean upon a human arm, whoever he may be; saying: “Assyria shall not save us; We will not ride on horses, nor will we say anymore to the work of our hands, ‘You are our gods’” (Hosea 14: 3). As far as the people of Israel at that time are concerned, They realized that Assyria, upon whom they have leaned, failed to save them, but rather destroyed and captivated them; That their military might (the horses), were incapable of saving them from the wrath of God, that dwelt upon them because of their wickedness; And that the idols of the Baal, the work of their own hands, were not the true gods capable of supporting them. On another aspect, God intended to proclaim, for the sake of the separation of the political side from the spiritual one, that salvation would not be realized by a human arm, whatever his might is; by greatness, or authority, like Assyria; by a temporal power like that of horses; nor by the gods, that are the works of our own hands … But salvation is only from God. In other words, I wish we do not lean upon Assyria; namely upon others, nor upon our own ability, talents, or possibilities (horses); nor upon our own righteousness (our inner gods); But we should say: “In You, the fatherless finds mercy” (Hosea 14: 3) Namely, without You, I have become fatherless, with no heavenly Father; Who, but You, will have mercy upon me?! And as said by St. Jerome: [The fatherless are those who lost God, their divine Father2]. 2. THE DIVINE ROLE IN SANCTIFICATION: If Israel has reached a condition of sickness that is impossible to cure; yet it is God alone who can deal with it; saying: “I will heal their backsliding” (Hosea 14: 4). St. Pavnotius says: [The true saints would never say, that the perfect progress which they have reached, walking on the way of virtue, is realized by their own strife, but by the grace of God, saying: “Lead me in Your truth and teach me” (Psalm 25: 5) 3]. 1 My Life in Christ, vol 1, P3 2 Comm.. on Osee 14: 2-4. 3 Cession: Conf. 3: 13. 101 God, motivated by His totally free love, approaches us as a true Physician, to heal the backsliding soul: “I will heal their backsliding, I will love them freely, for My anger has turned away from him” (Hosea 14: 4). The divine Physician proclaiming His healing love, says: “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life” (John 3: 16). What did the divine Physician provide His beloved patients? “I will be like dew to Israel; He shall blossom like the lily, He shall strike root like the forests of Lebanon. His shoots shall spread out, His beauty shall be like the olive tree, and his fragrance like that of Lebanon. They shall again live beneath My shadow. They shall flourish as a garden; They shall blossom like the vine. Their fragrance shall be like the wine of Lebanon. Ephraim shall say, ‘What have I to do anymore with idols?” (Hosea 14: 5-8). In short, we can say that God gives Himself to them like dew coming down from heaven: to water them, and to revive them like the blossoming lily; To renew them internally; making their hidden roots go deep; To let them spiritually grow, spreading out their shoots with no limits; To grant them spiritual beauty and glory, to become like an olive tree in splendor; To pour His fragrance in them to make them smell like Lebanon; To use them for the comfort of many, embracing many beneath their shadow, and for the joy of many, blossoming like a vine; And never to cut off their good remembrance. (1) “I will be like dew to Israel” (5). In the old, God said to Moses: “I am going to rain bread from heaven for you” (Exodus 16: 4); And it was said: ”When the dew fell on the camp in the night, the manna would fall with it” (Numbers 11: 9). Now, however, He does not rain bread from heaven for us, But He Himself descended to us, providing us with His holy body as heavenly bread to fulfill the heart; He descended to us like dew that quenches the fire of lusts; He dwells upon our inner camp to make it His camp and dwelling place; He descends upon us secretly in the night, to turn our darkness into a bright day. When the three young men were cast into the furnace of fire, the Word of God appeared with them, turning the fire like dew for them. Likewise, As the world became a furnace and fire, the Lord Christ transfiguring in us, transforms our life like dew! (2) “Blossoms like lilies”. The heavenly Groom says: “I am the rose of Sharon, and the lily of the valley” (Songs 2: 1); And here He makes, out of His people blossoming lilies. And as said by the scholar Origen: [He becomes “the lily of the valley” to make His beloved bride, as well, a lily like He is … Namely, that every soul that approaches Him, and follows His lead, would also become a lily1]. And St. Gregory, Bishop of Nyssa believes that the soul, as a lily, will ascend upright to the Messiah, her true Vinedresser, who lifts her up above the worries of this world, above the thorns of sin that strangle the soul (Mark 4: 18), and above the dust of this life, to spare her from getting defiled2. The Lord Christ will revive His church, granting her “every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places” (Ephesians 1: 3); to bear His heavenly features, and to realize His mission in her. (3) “He shall strike root like the forests of Lebanon” If the church, through being connected to the Lord Christ, shall bear His uprightness and the fellowship of His 1 Comm.. on Cant. 4: 4. . 2 للمؤلف: نشید الأناشید، 1980 ، ص 57 102 nature, to be counted as a lily in the wilderness among the thorns; The secret is its hidden roots that enjoy His grace, and bear His life in them; to say on the tongue of the apostle Paul: “By the grace of God, I am what I am, and His grace toward me was not in vain” (1 Corinthians 15: 10). (4) The deeper the roots strike in the ground, to bear in them “the life of Christ, the farther up the shoots shall spread out, to bear in abundance the fruits of the Holy Spirit; knowing no barrenness or non-fruition. (5) “His beauty shall be like the olive tree”. The believer thus, will bear the features of the Lord and His life through the roots, His fruits on the shoots, as well as His splendor and glory inside and outside. And as the Lord says to His bride: “’You grew exceedingly beautiful, fit to be a queen. Your fame spread among the nations on account of your beauty, for it was perfect because of my splendor that I had bestowed on you’, says the Lord God” (Ezekiel 16, 13, 14). The true believer, anticipating the fellowship of the glory of Christ in eternity, tastes that glory and that splendor in his inner life. And as said by St. Maccar the Great: [What he is to get in the future, will only be an extension of the down-payment he enjoyed inside him]. (6) “His fragrance will be like that of Lebanon”. Bearing the splendor of God like a fruitful olive tree, In him the fragrance of Christ will appear. And as said by the apostle: “Through us diffuses the fragrance of His knowledge in every place. For we are to God the fragrance of Christ among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing” (2 Corinthians 2: 14, 15). (7) “They shall again live beneath My shadow; They shall flourish as a garden; They shall blossom like the vine; Their fragrance shall be like the wine of Lebanon”. They shall bear a heart spacious with love, to draw many to join them beneath the shadow of the Lord, offering them spiritual food, and joyful drink; And their behavior will remain a good everlasting memory, testifying to their heavenly Groom. (8) “Ephraim shall say: ‘What have I to do anymore with idols”. If Ephraim was the tribe that provoked the rest of the tribes to worship the idols, He will also be the tribe that shows remorse on that action, and proclaims his hatred of evil. Thus the energies of evil in man will turn into energies of edification, to the account of the kingdom of the true heavenly Groom. This is a simplified portrait of God’s work in the life of his people, and in that of every individual of them, when he returns to Him with repentance, and delivers his life in His hands to work in him. God responds to our repentance and to our return to Him, saying: “I have heard and observed him” (8); As though He has been anticipating our return, observing everything going on inside us, and waiting for the least movement on our part, to move toward us with His love. And as said by the apostle: “Draw near to God and He will draw near to you” (James 4: 8). The Lord draws near to us “like (an ever-green) Cypress tree” (8). He cover us with His shadow, and protects us from the harm of the sun of temptations. He also confirms to us that He is the Grantor of fruition in our life, saying: “Your fruitfulness comes from Me”.(8). Finally, Hosea ends the book by an advice He gives to all of us, to be reasonable and return to the Lord in repentance, in order to gain its fruit: 103 “Who is wise? Let him understand these things. Who is prudent? Let him know them. For the ways of the Lord are right; The righteous walk in them; But transgressors stumble in them” (Hosea 14: 9). By this, He flares the longing in us to understand the ways of the Lord, and to walk in them with wisdom and prudence, so as not to stumble. And as said by father Theophilos: [Whoever has the wish to learn, will learn well. Therefore, It is befitting of you to strive to join me in listening to the living voice, in order to conceive the truth].
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