Written by: Catechist Branislav Ilić
“And this is eternal life: that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent” (John 17:3). From a biblical perspective, death is the consequence of sin and of humanity’s separation from God. Therefore, death is not something natural to man; rather, it is entirely unnatural—indeed, we might say, unacceptable. Death is neither an ontological necessity nor a divinely imposed reality. God does not give death; He merely foresees it as the natural result of transgressing His commandment: “But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat; for in the day that you eat of it, you shall surely die” (Gen. 2:17). Saint Paul speaks of how death is overcome within the Church in his Epistle to the Ephesians. The introduction to this epistle is a theological hymn in prose, dedicated to the divine Economy of salvation from sin and death—a reality fulfilled in the God-man, Jesus Christ (Eph. 1:3–14). From this passage, we see that the Incarnation of the Lord Jesus Christ is in fact the realisation of the eternal will of God to create a world that would live eternally in communion with Him.
The pre-eternal God accomplished a work greater than creation itself and fulfilled the promise given to our forebears—a promise foretold by the prophets from of old and humbly accepted by the Most Pure, Most Blessed, and Ever-Virgin Mary, who remained faithful to her own words: “Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word” (Luke 1:38). The Word of God became Man and dwelt among us (John 1:14). The Son of the Heavenly Father became contemporary with the human race, so that man might become co-eternal with God. The Lord Almighty “humbled Himself, taking the form of a servant” (Phil. 2:7), becoming like unto our lowly body, that He might make us like unto the image of His glory. Hence, the divinely wise Apostle Paul exclaims: “Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and His ways past finding out!” (Rom. 11:33).
Our venerable and God-bearing father, Saint Justin of Ćelije, devotes the second volume of his Dogmatics to the themes of Christology and Soteriology. The Elder of Ćelije first sets forth the dogmatic content of Christological teaching, followed by the unfolding of the divine plan within the Economy of salvation. Saint Justin reveals the significance of the God-man Christ’s action for the life and salvation of the world. His soteriology is marked by a clear dedication to historical realism in the exposition of dogma. In addition to his theological treatment of the salvation of humankind and all of creation in the Person of the God-man Christ, Saint Justin’s homilies—especially those delivered from the pulpit of the old church of the Monastery of the Holy Archangels in Ćelije, near Valjevo—are of no lesser value. These homilies, particularly those delivered on feasts of the Lord, often present a lucid articulation of the doctrine of the salvation of both man and the entire created world in Christ.
According to Saint Justin of Ćelije, the salvation of the world is intrinsically linked to the salvation of man, beginning with the very act of creation. When God created the entire cosmos, He made it to be in communion with Himself, and man was created to offer all of creation back to God.
The ascetic of Ćelije teaches that by His entire divine-human Person and life, the Lord Christ accomplished the salvation of the human race; for this reason, He was given the name Jesus, which means “Saviour.” The mystery of salvation is fully coincident with the mystery of the Incarnation. Everything that constitutes the mystery of salvation is summed up in the earthly life of the Son of God. God in the flesh is indeed the Saviour. The path of human nature in the Person of the Lord Christ—from His conception in the Holy Virgin to His Resurrection and Ascension—constitutes the divine-human Economy of salvation. In this spirit, Saint Justin penetrates this mystery in his Nativity homily, declaring: “Today the Eternal Life is born as a Man. When God is born as a Man, Eternal Life is born with Him. Can there be death in God? No! God is entirely Life—Infinite and Boundless. He becomes Man, so that you, O man, who have fallen into countless deaths, might taste what Eternal Life is. What a great mystery, what great mercy!”
On the Question of Salvation: According to Saint Justin of Ćelije
In response to the question, “What is salvation?”, Saint Justin offers the following answer:
“Life in the Church. And what is life in the Church? Life in the God-man. And what is life in the God-man? Life in the Holy Trinity, for the God-man is the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, eternally consubstantial and co-living with the Unoriginate Father and the Life-Giving Spirit. Thus, salvation is in fact life in the Holy Trinity. In sum: salvation is a grace-filled struggle of becoming ecclesial and Church-like, of becoming Christlike and Godlike, of becoming trinitarian and united with the Trinity. Everything within the Church is both divine-human and trinitarian, and through the God-man, always leads to the Triune Divinity.”
Saint Justin grounds his theological reflection on the salvation of all creation and of man in the unbroken continuity of the patristic tradition, faithfully following the teachings of the Holy Fathers and Teachers of the Church. According to Saint Justin, in Christ the Lord—whom we confess in the Nicene Creed as “the Son of God, the Only-Begotten, begotten of the Father before all ages; Light of Light, true God of true God; begotten, not made; of one essence with the Father, by whom all things were made; who for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven, and was incarnate of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary, and became man…”—there is, once and for all, the victory over imperfection, sin, and death.
With the revelation of the fullness of His divinity and His union with human nature, the fullness of human being and its perfection has likewise been realised. The unconfused, unchangeable, indivisible, and inseparable union and communion of the divine and human natures in the God-man Jesus Christ bestows upon the world and man an indestructible, true, eternal, and divine-human communion: the Church of God.
From the teaching of Saint Justin concerning the salvation of man and creation, it becomes clear that the salvation spoken of in the Creed surpasses every human expectation. God did not become man to display His glory and majesty, nor to appear in this world accompanied by the heavenly hosts as its Ruler. The Saviour, in His divine will, chose to be born of the Most Holy Theotokos so that man—through the grace-filled powers of the Holy Spirit, through baptism, participation in the Holy Liturgy, and a life in Christ—might be reborn and become God by grace, a brother and co-heir with the God-man.
This He Himself made possible for us through the true birth unto eternal life, granted to us in holy baptism, chrismation, and the entire sacramental life, culminating in the Holy Liturgy, and accompanied by our striving to acquire the evangelical virtues.
By truly becoming members of the community of God’s children—the Church—we participate by grace in the divine life of Christ and are being saved, and indeed saved, within her.
Saint Justin emphasises that the Prophet of the Old Testament prophesied: “Behold, a Virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and shall call His name Immanuel” (Isa. 7:14). According to him, the prophet proclaims the event but does not answer the question of why God became incarnate, was born, and became man. It is in the words of the Archangel that we are given the answer: Christ the Lord was born for us men and for our salvation.
Just as God, out of absolute love, created all things and man as the crown of creation, so too, out of that same love, He was born of the Virgin in order to renew and regenerate all His creation—and above all, man—through love. Contemplating the mystery of the Nativity of the Divine Infant Christ, the holy Apostle Paul speaks of divine humility. God, he writes, “humbled Himself, taking the form of a servant, and being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient unto death—even the death of the cross” (Phil. 2:7–8).
This is the span of the boundless and unfathomable mystery of God’s love—a love that suffers together with fallen Adam and Eve to such an extent that it descends first into the cave of Bethlehem, and then into the very depths of Hades.
It is the same divine love that suffered alongside fallen humanity even as it dwelt in darkness and the shadow of death. Knowing this, Saint John the Theologian proclaims by the Holy Spirit: “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).
Saint Justin of Ćelije on the Mystery of Salvation: The Descent of Christ and the Exaltation of Man
Saint Justin concludes that Christ’s humiliation is, in essence, the condescension of His love towards the human race. Had God not come to man, man could not have come to God. Without the self-abasement of Jesus Christ, the deification of man would not have been possible.
This holy Father goes a step further and, in his teaching on the salvation of the world and humanity, clearly emphasises that it is through humility and self-emptying that the greatest love is expressed. The one who truly loves forgets himself and gives himself over to the other.
In the words of Saint John Chrysostom, Christ speaks to each of us: “For your sake, My child, I became poor; I was beaten and humbled from My glory. I left the Father and came to you who hate Me and reject Me. I ran towards you to make you Mine. I united you to Myself. I have you with Me in the heavens above, and on earth I am united with you.”
From all that has been said thus far, and guided by the theological reflections of Saint Justin of Ćelije, we come to the conclusion that the greatest mystery of this world is God-man Jesus Christ, who reveals Himself as a personal Being, and thereby discloses to humanity the truth that we, too, are called to become complete and personal beings in communion.
Our Lord Jesus Christ said to His disciples: “To you it has been given to know the mysteries of the Kingdom of God” (Mark 4:11). This refers to the spiritual knowledge of the mystery of God the Father and of Christ (Col. 2:2).
Only those who are perfect (1 Cor. 2:6) and truly rooted in Christian love are able to comprehend “what is the breadth and length and depth and height” (Eph. 3:18). The living God opens the door of utterance so that we may proclaim the mystery of Christ (Col. 4:3). As already stated, only those who are godlike and possess a pure conscience (1 Tim. 3:9) are capable of understanding the mystery of Christ (Eph. 3:4).
Saint Justin penetrates the mystery of Christ’s redemptive and salvific work, emphasising that by His coming, Christ testifies to an essential communion—a new unity between heaven and earth, Creator and creation—and reveals the great Mystery: that the most important creature under the sun is, in fact, man.
Indeed, man is the most important precisely because God, in Christ, became Man.
Our Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ, entered this world just as He once entered the Jordan. Then, as John laid his hand upon Him, all sin was repelled from Him, just as the waters of the Jordan parted. The same thing has taken place through the ages as the apostles, bishops, and presbyters have laid their hands upon the heads of those being baptised, leading them onto the path of deification.
The fire of grace—before which the cherubim tremble—was given to us in the holy Mystery of Baptism, in that font of new birth in Christ by water and the Spirit.
Thus have we become torchbearers of faith in the Son of God, the Lord Christ, receiving also, as a gift, the possibility to reign with Him eternally.