Reading Scripture in Lent with the Church Fathers: Friday of the Fourth Week of Lent

Today’s Scripture Readings in the Orthodox Church
Isaiah 29:13-23; Genesis 12:1-7; Proverbs 14:15-26

Isaiah 29:13. The Lord said: The scribes and Pharisees sit on Moses’ seat; so practice and observe what they tell you, but not what they do; for they preach, but do not practice. They bind heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on men’s shoulders, but they themselves will not move them with their finger (Matt 23:2–4). He does not condemn the law of Moses. He urged that it be observed while Jerusalem was still standing. But he censured those who taught the law but were without love. For this reason they were unrighteous with respect to God and to their neighbors. As Isaiah said: This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. In vain do they worship me, teaching human doctrines and precepts (29:13). He does not call the law of Moses human precepts, but the traditions of the elders which they created. By upholding these they rejected the law of God, and for this reason did not submit to the Word. Here is what Paul wrote about this matter: For, being ignorant of the righteousness that comes from God, and seeking to establish their own, they did not submit to God’s righteousness. For Christ is the end of the law, that every one who has faith may be justified (Rom 10:3–4).
St Irenaeus of Lyon (2nd century)

Even though no one can escape from God who is everywhere present, there are people who are far from God. Otherwise scripture would not have said: This people honors me with its lips, but its heart is far from me (29:13). Being far from God does not mean being distant in location, but being unlike God. What would it mean to be unlike God? A bad life and corrupt morals. For if we draw near to God by living virtuously, we withdraw from God by our evil actions. The same person, while standing in the same place, may approach God by loving him or withdraw from him by loving sin. The feet make no move whatsoever, yet one is able to come near or to withdraw. The feet that carry us on this journey are our affections. Everything depends on our affections, on our love. The more we love the closer we are; the less we love the more distant we become… Or think about two just persons, one in the east, the other in the west. Though far distant from each other, they are close to one another because they are in God. But on the other hand, suppose one is just and the other wicked; then even if they are shackled with the same chain, they are a great distance from one another. If, then, we move away from God by being unlike him, we also come close to him by being like him. What kind of likeness is this? It is being in the likeness in which we were created, which we spoiled by our sin, which we receive again when our sins are forgiven. This likeness is renewed in us inwardly in our minds. So the image of our God is engraved anew on the coin which is our soul so that we my return to his treasury.
St Augustine (5th century)

“See, Lord, I will not keep my lips sealed, you know it.” My lips speak, and I will not restrain them. My lips speak to the ears of men and women, but you know my heart. “Lord, I will not keep my lips sealed, you know it.” A human being hears one thing, but God perceives something else. This is emphasized because our proclamation must not be with our lips only, so that it could be said of us, “Do what they tell you, but do not imitate what they do.” Nor must it be said of us, as it was said of that people who praised God with their mouths but not their hearts, “This people honors me with its lips, but its heart is far from me.” Sing with your lips, but draw near to him with your heart, for “the faith that issues in righteousness is in the heart, and the confession that leads to salvation is made with the lips.” This was true of the thief who hung on the cross with the Lord and from the cross acknowledged the Lord. Others failed to recognize the Lord even as he performed miracles, but this man recognized him as he hung upon the cross. The thief was nailed securely in all his limbs: his hands were immobilized by nails, his feet were transfixed, and his whole body fastened to the wood. That body had no use of its other members, but his heart had the use of his tongue. With his heart he believed, and with his lips he made confession. “Lord, remember me when you come into your kingdom,” he said. He hoped for salvation as a distant prospect and would have been content to receive it after a long delay; his hope stretched toward a far-off future, but the day was not delayed. He prayed, “Remember me when you come into your kingdom,” but Christ replied, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise.”
St Augustine

Isaiah 29:14. From my youth up until now I have spent many years in writing various works and have always tried to teach my hearers the doctrine that I have been taught publicly in church. I have not followed the philosophers in their discussions but have preferred to acquiesce in the plain words of the apostles. For I have known that it is written, “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent,” and “the foolishness of God is wiser than men.” This being the case, I challenge my opponents thoroughly to sift all my past writings and, if they can find anything that is faulty in them, to bring it to light. One of two things must happen. Either my works will be found edifying and I shall confute the false charges brought against me; or they will be found blameworthy and I shall confess my error.
St Jerome (4th century)

Genesis 12:1. The right thing to do, brothers and sisters, is to believe God before he pays up anything, because just as he cannot possibly lie, so he cannot deceive. For he is God. That’s how our ancestors believed him. That’s how Abraham believed him. There’s a faith for you that really deserves to be admired and made widely known. He had received nothing from him, and he believed his promise. We do not yet believe him, though we have already received so much. Was Abraham ever in a position to say to him, “I will believe you, because you promised me that and paid up”? No, he believed from the very first command given, without having received anything else at all. “Go out from your country,” he was told, “and from your kindred, and go into a country which I will give you.” And he believed straightaway, and [God] didn’t give him that country but kept it for his seed.
St Augustine

Genesis 12:2. The scope of the promise is extraordinary: “I will make you a great nation; I will bless you and magnify your name.” Not only will I place you at the head of a great nation and cause your name to be great, but as well, “I will bless you, and you will be a blessing.” I will favor you with so much blessing, he says, that it will last for all time. “You will be a blessing” to such an extent that everyone will be anxious to thrust themselves into your company in preference to the highest honor. See how God right from the beginning foretold to him the honor he would later confer upon him. “I will make you a great nation,” he said; “I will magnify your name; I will bless you, and you will be a blessing.”
St John Chrysostom (4th century)

Genesis 12:4. In this, his going forth by divine command from the land, from his kin and from the house of his father, it is clear that all the sons of his promise, among whom are we also, must imitate him. We go forth from our land when we renounce the pleasures of the flesh; from our kin when, in the measure possible for humans, we make an effort to rid ourselves of all the vices with which we are born. We go forth from the house of our father when, for love of the heavenly life, we want to leave the world itself with its head, the devil. All of us, in fact, because of the first disobedience, are born into the world as sons of the devil. But, through the grace of regeneration, all those who belong to the seed of Abraham are made sons of God, because our Father who is in heaven says to us, that is, to his church, “Hear, O daughter, consider, and incline your ear; forget your people and your father’s house.”
St Bede the Venerable (8th Century)

Genesis 12:7. Please note that the same Moses says in another passage that God appeared to Abraham. Yet the same Moses hears from God that no man can see God and live. If God cannot be seen, how did God appear? If he appeared, how is it that he cannot be seen? For John says similarly, “No one has ever seen God.” And the apostle Paul says, “Whom no man has seen or can see.” But certainly Scripture does not lie; therefore God was really seen. Accordingly this can only mean that it was not the Father, who never has been seen, that was seen, but the Son, who willed to descend and to be seen, for the simple reason that he has descended. In fact, he is the “image of the invisible God,” that our limited human nature and frailty might in time grow accustomed to see God the Father in him who is the Image of God, that is, in the Son of God. Gradually and by degrees, human frailty had to be strengthened by means of the Image for the glory of being able one day to see God the Father.
Novatian (3rd century)