My beloved spiritual children in Christ Our Only True God and Our Only True Savior,
CHRIST IS IN OUR MIDST! HE WAS, IS, AND EVER SHALL BE. Ο ΧΡΙΣΤΟΣ ΕΝ ΤΩ ΜΕΣΩ ΗΜΩΝ! ΚΑΙ ΗΝ ΚΑΙ ΕΣΤΙ ΚΑΙ ΕΣΤΑΙ.
SCRIPTURE AND TRADITION
By Father Dumitru Staniloae [Orthodox Dogmatic Theology The Experience of God]
Foreword by Metropolitan Kallistos Ware
Supernatural revelation came to its close in Christ. For in Him, as in its first exemplar, the plan to save and to deify (theosis) creation has reached its fulfillment. This plan cannot lead any higher. God draws no closer to man that He has in Christ. The union between God and man cannot advance any farther nor can we grow to any higher fulfillment than the one available to us in Christ.
But this does not mean that--by its very content--supernatural revelation can no longer be active. As God Who came into the closest intimacy with us, as man raised to the supreme heights through union with God in a single person, as God's plan completed and given in him concrete expression to its uttermost fulfillment, Christ begins the work of extending to all of us that state which has been achieved in Him.
His state has a dynamic character. As God, He wishes to achieve, in His humanity, intimacy with all men as partners equal to Himself and to maintain the personal identity of each. In this way, He desires to raise each man to the level where his own humanity reaches its maximal realization. In other words, Christ wishes to extend God's plan already fulfilled in Him.
But Christ is above all. He is not a human person who stood in need of salvation and who, with this salvation in view, was united to God. He assumed human nature which was not hypostasized in itself but in His own hypostasis in order to make it the fundamental means through which He might extend to all men the deification (theosis) to which His own human nature was raised. But precisely in this way, Christ can fulfill that work of saving and deifying (theosis) all, as no other man could do it. He is not a human person united with the Divine person; for any man could have been in that situation, inasmuch as he would not be the human centre which is also God. In such a case, communion with Christ would not bring about that communion with God Himself for which our being yearns. Christ is the Divine Person Who--being man also--makes possible, through that communion accessible to us with Himself as man, the communion with God Himself, or with absolute Person. He is the center and foundation of that act whereby salvation and deification (theosis) are extended to all who believer. In Him, as in its foundation, the plan of salvation has been fulfilled.
The act of extending His plan is similarly carried out by Christ through the Holy Spirit; it was through the Holy Spirit that He communicated revelation and created and sustained the community of the people of Israel in its incomplete phase of existence. It is also through the Holy Spirit that the continuous efficacy of a revelation which has reached its conclusion is maintained through the creating and sustaining of the higher and universal community of the Church. The Church is the dialogue of God with the faithful through Christ in the Holy Spirit. This dialogue, conducted formerly by the Logos/Word from afar, becomes an intimate dialogue through the Incarnation of the Son of God as Man and begins to spread through the Church. The Church, is, thus, that supernatural revelation concluded in Christ as it exercises its effect upon us in the course of time through the Holy Spirit. It is supernatural revelation--which has reached its fullness in Christ--in the act of spreading and bringing forth much fruit in those who believe. The Church is Christ united in the Holy Spirit with those who believe and over whom has been spread and through whom is spreading Christ's own act of drawing the faithful--by means of dialogue with them--into the process of growing into His likeness...
The Church is Christ as fullness of revelation, having its continuous effectiveness from Him. From Him it continues to give light and warmth through the Holy Spirit to those who believer, and it does this not only until the end of time but to all eternity, in and through the Church on earth and in heaven, drawing light and warmth from Christ's Body as the form of their communion with Him and among themselves. If revelation, which has become fully real in Christ, possesses in itself a prophetic dynamism, a kind of prophecy in motion, the action of revelation to the time of its final goal is entailed in that prophetic dynamism which finds expression in and through the Church.
Through the Holy Spirit, the Church has the mission, therefore, to put into effect not just any revelation at all but the revelation fulfilled in Christ, or, we might say, to make Christ effective as the embodiment of integral revelation and in the true prophetic tension implied in Him. Hence, the Church has the mission to preserve, through the Holy Spirit, the revelation fulfilled in Christ Who makes her capable of discerning the authenticity of revelation in its fullness and in the impulse that pushes it towards its true final goal. The Holy Spirit preserves the Church as witness to and as the competent means of making real the authentic revelation and thus making human existence reach its fulfillment in Christ…
"...If Scripture and revelation become fully concrete in Christ, the Church cannot dispense with them by affirming that she has Christ Himself. For they are the authentic expression of Christ, and the Church cannot remain with a Christ Who has not been expressed. For a Christ Who is not expressed cannot manifest His effectiveness. But because she has a Christ Who is at work with her through the Holy Spirit, the Church alone is capable of understanding and interpreting Scripture authentically, that is, as something made up of stages, words, and acts which express the Risen Christ and lead those who believe towards their fulfillment in the true Christ.
The Spirit of Christ makes us sensitive to Christ and unites us with Him in the Church, because the fire of the Spirit which is spread from Christ cannot be separated from the common human sensitivity for Christ. He manifests Himself as one who works through the fire of active faith. This fire is life within the continuous perfection of communion with Christ. Through the Spirit, the faithful are linked with Christ not in isolation, but together among themselves. Whoever attains to faith in Christ attains it through the faith or the sensitivity of someone else. The interpersonal sensitivity of faith in which the Holy Spirit is manifested links those who believe within the community of faith, that is, in the Church. The joyful sensitivity of communion with the absolute person of Christ spreads in the joy of communion and of works done in communion with others, and in the participation of others in the Personal reality of a God come down, in Christ, to the level of communion with human beings.
The Church is, therefore, more than just the only one who understands Scripture and Tradition as the living and dynamic expression of the power of Christ--our final goal-- she is also the only one who makes power, or the warmth of this power, real through the sensitivity produced among all human beings by the Holy Spirit.
(To be continued)
Please note: For over four years I have conducted an online adult catechism so that your knowledge of the Orthodox Christian faith will develop and grow. What has been taught to you is the official and authentic Christian message of the Church through the holy writings of the Holy Tradition, Scripture, Ecumenical Councils, Fathers, Orthodox theologians and Orthodox Christian dogma. Those of you who have read what I have given you should now be better informed. Thanks be to God!
You, I hope, understand that the Our Orthodox Christian faith is much more than the shallow and distorted information that is out there.
Over 48 years of Ministry I have come to know that although one is raised in the Church of Christ it doesn't mean that he or she understand what they profess to believe or who Christ is. One can tell by one's life, words, actions, feelings and attitude if they truly understand what it means to be a Christian, a follower of Christ, or disciple of Christ. A true Christian is full of love and joy. He or she loves Him and his/her fellow man unconditionally. He or she loves and respects His Holy Church and by the grace of God lives a virtuous life. He or she is a person of faith, of prayer, of worship, of compassion, and sensitivity to the needs of others.
A person, however, full of discontent, bitterness, hostility, anger, arrogance, has lost sight of Christ and His Divine Commandments. But, through repentance and contrition of heart, soul, and mind, one can once again find his/her way back home to Christ, our God and Savior.
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"Glory Be To GOD For All Things!"--Saint John Chrysostom
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With sincere agape in His Holy Diakonia,
The sinner and unworthy servant of God
+Father George