"And, behold, a certain lawyer stood up, and tempted (i.e, tested) him, saying, Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?" Of course, the lawyer--being well versed in the Jewish Law--knows the answer already, so when Jesus counters, "What is written in the Law," he answers at once, quoting from the Old Testament book of Leviticus, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbor as thyself." He had answered correctly, and this should have been the end of the discussion. Yet the lawyer was not satisfied. Being a lawyer, he sought to find a loophole. Seeking to justify himself, he asks Jesus, "And who is my neighbor?"
And so Jesus responds (as He often does) with a parable: A man traveling from Jerusalem to Jericho is stripped naked by thieves, robbed, and left for dead. And it comes to pass that a Jewish priest, and then a Levite, walk by, gaze upon the unfortunate victim, then pass by on the other side: lest they should touch the man and be ceremonially defiled by his blood, and thus having to endure the inconvenience of being purified once again before they could offer their sacrifices in the Temple of Jerusalem. Yet does not God Himself declare in the Old Testament Scriptures that what He desires is mercy, not sacrifice? Or rather, the sacrifice He truly does desire is that we put to death every egotistical thought and desire upon the altar of sacrificial love, that we might strive to be merciful, even as our heavenly Father is merciful.
The thieves in this parable are, of course, the demons, who strive by every means possible to draw us away from the true path of salvation--while the Good Samaritan is Christ Himself, who never ceases to deliver us from the deception of the Evil One, and to bind up every wound inflicted by the enemy, that by His grace and compassion we might in the end prove ourselves worthy of eternal life in His Kingdom.
For surely the inconceivably glorious salvation wrought for us upon the Cross by our Lord, God, and Savior Jesus Christ cannot be achieved by means of fulfilling a series of ceremonial laws and requirements, nor by simply confessing with our lips that Jesus Christ is our "personal" Lord and Savior. Nor is it achieved by the mere fact that we have been baptized, nor even that we attend Divine Liturgy on Sundays, as though these are magical rites that somehow ensure our salvation.
Salvation is, rather, a process, that begins in this earthly life, and extends into eternity. Because God is love, and love is eternal, our ascent to God--as St. Gregory of Nyssa assures us--can never end. But it is essential that having died and risen with Christ in the waters of Baptism, we should strive and struggle till the very end of our lives to acquire a spirit of true repentance, that having set aside all earthly things, we might receive in our hearts the King of all.
For this reason does the Holy Apostle write that we are saved by faith, not by the words of the Law. Because it is impossible to be saved simply by following a set of written laws--however exalted--but only through uniting ourselves to the living God, that we might in the end--by His grace and mercy--become partakers of His divine nature.
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