Peter exhorts sinners not to despair and challenges their belief that the Creator of all is incapable of saving them. Because God is, as the liturgy says, “the lover of mankind,” because Paul tells us that it is God’s desire “that all shall be saved” (1 Timothy 2:3-4), so we should not lose hope.
Even if you are not what you should be, you should not despair. It is bad enough that you have sinned- why in addition do you wrong God by regarding him in your ignorance as powerless? Is he, who for your sake created the great universe that you behold, incapable of saving your soul?
Although we usually find the Eastern writers stressing that the key to salvation is repentance, it is often mentioned along with humility. In this passage, Peter suggests that even if people cannot manage to repent, they can nonetheless be saved by humility. Before receiving Holy Communion, Orthodox Christians profess their belief that “Christ came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the first.” This will lead to the person not daring “to judge or censure anyone.”
And if you say that this fact, as well as his incarnation, only makes your condemnation worse, then repent- and he will receive your repentance, as he accepted that of the prodigal son (Luke 15:20) and the prostitute (Luke 7:37-50). But if repentance is too much for you, and you sin out of habit even when you do not want to, show humility like the publican (Luke 18:13): this is enough to ensure your salvation. For he who sins without repenting, yet does not despair, must of necessity regard himself as the lowest of creatures, and will not dare to judge or censure anyone. Rather, he will marvel at God’s compassion.
ST. PETER OF DAMASKOS, III, A TREASURY OF DIVINE KNOWLEDGE, THAT WE SHOULD NOT DESPAIR EVEN IF WE SIN MANY TIMES
God is better understood as a physician than as a judge, just as sin is better understood as illness than as transgression. In the mystery of repentance (sacramental confession), this is the image used. The penitent come before God and the priest (as God’s agent) not to plead guilty but to seek healing. Indeed, the priest exhorts the penitent to leave nothing unconfessed, “lest having come to a Physician” they leave unhealed.
It is always possible to make a new start by means of repentance. “You fell,” it is written, “now arise” (Proverbs 24:16). And if you fall again, then rise again, without despairing at all of your salvation, no matter what happens. As long as you do not surrender yourself willingly to the enemy, your patient endurance, combined with self-reproach, will suffice for your salvation. “For at one time we ourselves went astray in our folly and disobedience,” says St. Paul. ” . . . Yet he saved us, not because of any good things we had done, but in his mercy” (Titus 3:5). So do not despair in any way, ignoring God’s help, for he can do whatever he wishes. O n the contrary, place your hope in him and he will do one of these things: either through trials and temptations, or in some other way which he alone knows, he will bring about your restoration, – or he will accept your patient endurance and humility in the place of works, – or because of your hope he will act lovingly toward you in some other way of which you are not aware, and so will save your shackled soul. Only do not abandon your Physician.
ST. PETER OF DAMASKOS, III, THE GREAT BENEFIT OF TRUE REPENTANCE
For these good things we ought all of us always to give thanks to him, especially those who have received from him the power to renew their holy baptism through repentance, because without repentance no one can be saved. For the Lord has said, “Why do you call me, Lord, Lord, yet fail to do the things I tell you?” (Luke 6:46).
ST. PETER OF DAMASKOS, III, HOW IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO BE SAVED WITHOUT HUMILITY
~Allyne Smith, Philokalia: The Eastern Christian Spiritual Texts (Selections Annotated & Explained. Translation by G.E.H. Palmer, Philip Sherrard and Metropolitan Kallistos Ware).
