The Fire of Salvation

Longing for our salvation, he cried out elsewhere, saying, 'I came to cast fire upon the earth' (Luke 3:16), the one who desires mercy, the one who thirsts to thirst, the one who swore by himself, 'not to desire the death of the sinner, but that he might turn back and live.' The Savior came to cast fire upon the earth, which he fashioned with his own hands and sanctified with the divine breath. The Savior came to cast fire upon it to rekindle its self-power, which was honored by him from the beginning, but which the finder of evil and deceit took away from it and enslaved in passions of dishonor.

The Savior came to cast fire upon it, that illuminating fire, the life-giving fire, the fire of the knowledge of God, the consumer of the thorns of impiety, the increaser of the seeds of the pious, the destroyer and uprooter of that which is against nature, and the planter and farmer of those good things which are according to nature, so that just as man was voluntarily joined to deceit and arbitrarily seized the death forewarned through disobedience, so again, having been cleansed from hardness of heart, he may know what is necessary, and through ransom and through drawing near to Him, may be made to belong to God.

This divine and illuminating fire was kindled and kindled up toward the salvation of the Jews and in Lazarus the Lord, as providing them a sense worthy of faith for the sake of being saved. For to the unbelieving, signs are always given, and not to the believing is the occasion of salvation given. For while they were contradicting and fighting against the truth, he manifested himself through God-powered works to be God irrefutably, just as he says: 'If you do not believe me, believe my works, so that you may know that the Father is in me and I in the Father' (John 14:11).

This is like the radiance of the sun in the sun and like the sun in a ray, indivisibly and unalterably, because of the consubstantiality and self-strength; and elsewhere: 'He who has seen me has seen the Father' (John 14:9), just as the tree is known by its fruit; and elsewhere: 'I and the Father are one' (John 10:30), demonstrating equality and equal power; but let us return to what is before us.

“They made a dinner for him,” he says, “and Lazarus was one reclining with him” (Luke 7:13). This is a magnificent way toward true faith in the invisible resurrection of the saved; for so also the Lord, after his salvific resurrection, manifested himself to his genuine disciples, having taken and eaten in their eyes according to the law of human nature.

Because of this, even now, having conquered the master's command of the law of nature and death, he who dined with the Master, the one raised rejoiced with the one who raised him, the clay sat with the potter, the one fleeing the darkness rejoiced with the light, the one falling in chains joined with the one loosening them, the one in those pangs of death—I say indeed to the unlearned—having easily deceived the harsh gale, was attentive to the Lord who raised him.

But I will say to you: open to us, O divine head, John, your holy tablets; for we are unable to traverse the immense depth of the wonder. Yes, he says, Lazarus reclined with Jesus, the old and new man, whom he called out of corruption through the word of the living and almighty one into life; the newborn reclined as if he were presenting to the new birth of men a command; for it is the law for the offspring of the Jews to recline together, being filled with joy. “For when a woman gives birth, she has pain because her hour has come; but when she has given birth to the child, she no longer remembers the distress because of the joy that a human being was born into the world” (John 16:21).

So also our Lord, intending to raise Lazarus from Hades, the one who loves his household wept and was moved with compassion, seeing human nature decaying and grieving with those who came together, and he inwardly rebuked the death that holds him and visibly called out to the one being held, the greatness of the household...