Follow Jesus Christ

Jesus taught about the formation of a person over time. His language was full of images of growth: a seed falls into the ground, sprouts, becomes a plant and bears fruit; the mustard seed grows; a vine branch must remain on the vine in order to bear fruit. In all these images there is time between the beginning and the outcome. You cannot plant a seed today and demand a harvest tomorrow.

In many ways the Church has lost this side of Jesus’ teaching. In place of a long process of human formation an almost instantaneous scheme of salvation has been put: repent, say a prayer, profess your faith, be baptized, become a member of the church — and the main question of your eternal fate is considered settled. A person can remain irritable, cruel, vain, greedy, unable to love enemies or forgive offenders, and still be confident that they are already “saved.” The means that were supposed to mark the beginning of spiritual life have turned into almost magical acts guaranteeing its result.

For Jesus the criterion of salvation is far stricter: a tree is known by its fruit. What matters is not only what a person once confessed, but who they have become. Salvation, understood this way, cannot be separated from years of forming the soul. Fruit does not appear at the moment a seed is planted; it is the result of the tree’s whole life process.

Modern psychology allows us to view this problem from another angle. Psychologist Daniel Kahneman, in his book Thinking, Fast and Slow, popularized the description of two systems of thinking. System 1 works quickly and automatically: emotions, habitual reactions, intuitive decisions. System 2 is slow: it requires attention, reasons, compares and controls impulses.

Deeper still is System 3 — a person’s worldview: notions of good and evil, of God, of life’s meaning, the value of other people, and one’s own purpose. It forms very slowly. It comprises upbringing, life experience, faith, culture, reflection, and the thousands of choices made — a person’s highest values. It is this system that gradually begins to reorganize the other two systems.

A person hears Jesus’ words about forgiving enemies and at first just understands them with System 2. Then a real enemy appears. System 1 demands a response of harm. The person consciously chooses a different path. Such situations repeat hundreds of times. Gradually forgiveness ceases to be an external requirement and becomes part of the worldview. Years later even the automatic reaction changes: the person no longer feels the old need for revenge. What once required enormous effort becomes character. This is the deep essence of Jesus’ authentic teaching.

The Holy Spirit can be understood as the source directing this growth. He does not abolish human freedom and does not produce a finished saint instantly. He guides a person toward truth, love, mercy and goodness, and the person responds with their decisions. One right choice does not yet create character. Thousands of choices made over many years create something new — the spiritual fruit of a lived life, which can be called a forming soul.

The image of fruit also lets us frame the question of death differently. The tree and the fruit are not the same. The tree is temporary, but the result of its life is contained in the fruit. The body, together with the brain and earthly mechanisms like Systems 1, 2 and 3, will one day cease to exist. If resurrection is real, one can suppose that what is preserved is not the old biological mechanism but the fruit of its development — the formed soul.

Resurrection, then, does not necessarily mean a return of a person to their former psychophysical state. The person will surely receive a new body, a new mind, and new systems of perception, thinking and worldview development. The soul does not begin again from scratch, but nor does it receive instantaneous perfection. It continues to grow in new circumstances, preserving the spiritual result of the previous life.

This understanding sharply contrasts with the idea of salvation as a one-off legal or religious procedure. You cannot replace decades of inner growth with a prayer, a rite, or the correct formulation of doctrine. They can plant a seed, but a seed is not yet fruit.

Jesus spoke of the way, of growth, of abiding, of ripening and of fruits. All these concepts require time. Therefore it is wiser to understand the salvation of the soul not only as an event that once happened to a person, but as a process continually taking place within them. Salvation lasts for years because it takes years to form what is to be saved.