❓ The Paradox of Death and New Birth ❓ The human mind confined to the body—the carnal mind—asks: The Lord was born, died on the cross, and rose alive... So why must we die with Him to be born again? Why did birth precede the cross, while in our renewal, death precedes birth? The answer is easy for those who realize that the greatest thing facing humanity is death, and death is the cause of all our sins. Because of death, we try to defend our mortal lives and attempt to make them immortal, but in the end, we fail and die. Also, we start from where the Lord ended; we begin with His life-giving death and resurrection so that the birth of the Lord may then enter our lives. We start from where we are—death—and thus we enter directly into the mystery of the cross and resurrection to find the mystery of the Lord's birth, the reason for His birth from the Holy Spirit. The Lord said to the disciples: "You who have followed Me in the regeneration will sit on thrones," meaning we will receive the same glory that judged and condemned the old glory, the fading glory of Israel before the glory of Christ, the true King. Thus, Christ gathers His death and resurrection and transforms them into a new birth for humanity. In truth, if we contemplate the Lord's death on the cross, we realize that this death is no different from His birth from the Virgin Theotokos except that it was a direct confrontation with the death of Adam. #DeathAndResurrection #NewBirth #Paradox #Cross #Regeneration #Incarnation

💀 Why Did the Lord Jesus Allow His Body to Die? When the incarnate Word came into human life, He found it empty and ruined, without eternal life, but captive to death. Nevertheless, He took on a life susceptible to death in order to expel death from it, and He transferred it through the (virginal) conception from the Virgin Mary from the first Adam to His divine hypostasis. Thus, from the first moment, human life entered the realm of divine life. And when He was born as a complete human (having a human soul and body), He began to fashion the soul and body together firstly in an undivided unity; because He confronted death in His body through the union of the soul with the body in order to abolish the separation between the soul and the body that was brought by death. And when He accepted death, He allowed death to separate His humanity into a soul that descended into Hades and a body that was placed in the tomb. And because death occurred by the will of the Lord Jesus and was executed in His being, death lost its power, for it no longer has power over anyone; because the power of death was attached to judgment and the sentence of death "you shall surely die" (Gen 2:17). The Lord broke the power of death by abolishing the judgment; and therefore we pray and say: "May there be no death for Your servants, but a departure"; because He who died for us lifted the sentence from all humans. And when death was abolished in the body of the Lord, this body was no longer subject to corruption and division, but lived a divine life that does not take from the elements of the universe, such as water, air, food, and drink, what gives it life. Rather, the divinity of the Word became the source of life for the humanity after the resurrection. And the "breath of life" (Gen 2:7) became what moves and gives life to the humanity. And the rational power became the food and drink of the humanity, and glory became the garment of the humanity. And with this (transformation), He remained a human who does not perish because of the union; for He became the icon of the new life to which we will (be transformed) when we rise on the last day. #DeathAndResurrection #JesusDeath #Salvation #VictoryOverDeath #ChristianHope #EternalLife