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.
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THE HUMAN PERSON: OUR CREATION, OUR VOCATION, OUR FAILURE (Part II)
By His Eminence Metropolitan Kallistos Ware
As we have seen, the fact that the human person is in God's image means among other things that we possess free will. God wanted sons and daughters, not slaves. The Orthodox Church rejects any doctrine of grace which might seem to infringe upon human freedom. To describe the relation between the grace of God and human freedom, Orthodoxy uses the term - co-operation or synergy (synergeia); in Saint Paul's words: "We are fellow-workers (synergoi) with God" (I Corinthians 3:9). If we are to achieve full fellowship with God, we cannot do so without God's help, yet we must also play our own part: we humans as well as God must make our contribution to the common work, although what God does is of immeasurably greater importance than what we do. "The incorporation of humans into Christ and our union with God, require the co-operation of two unequal, but equally necessary forces: Divine grace and human will." The supreme example of synergy is the Mother of God.
"..."Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in" (Revelation 3:20). God knocks, but waits for us to open the door - He does not break it down. The grace of God invites all but compels none. In the words of Saint John Chrysostom, "God never draws anyone to Himself by force and violence. He wishes all to be saved, but forces no one." "It is for God to grant His grace." said Saint Cyril of Jerusalem (died +386 A.D.); "your task is to accept that grace and to guard it." But it must not be imagined that because a person accepts and guards God's grace, he thereby earns "merit". God's gifts are always free gifts, and we humans can never have any claims upon our Master. But while we can not "merit" salvation, we must certainly work for it, since "faith without works is dead" (St. James 2:17).
Jesus Christ
The Incarnation is an act of God's philanthropia, of His Loving-kindness towards humankind. Several Eastern writers, looking at the Incarnation from this point of view, have argued that even if humans had never fallen, God in His Love for humanity would still have become human: the Incarnation must be seen as part of the Eternal purpose of God, and not simply as an answer to the Fall. Such was the view of Saint Maximus the Confessor and of Saint Isaac the Syrian.
But because the human race fell, the Incarnation is not only an act of Love but an act of salvation. Jesus Christ, by uniting humankind and God in His own Person, reopened for us humans the path to union with God. In His own Person Christ showed what the True "likeness of God" is, and through His redeeming and victorious Sacrifice He set that likeness once again within our reach. Christ, the Second Adam, came to earth and reversed the effects of the first Adam's disobedience.
The essential elements in the Orthodox doctrine of Christ have already been outlines in Chapter 2: True God and True man, one Person in two natures, without separation and without confusion: a single person, but endowed with two wills and two energies.
True God and true man; as Bishop Theophan the Recluse put it: "Behind the veil of Christ's flesh, Christians behold the Triune God." These words bring us face to face with what is perhaps the most striking feature in the Orthodox Christian approach to the Incarnate Christ: an overwhelming sense of His Divine Glory. There are two moments in Christ's life when this Divine Glory was made especially manifest: the Transfiguration, when on Mount Tabor the Uncreated Light of His Godhead shone visibly through the garments of His flesh; and the Resurrection, when the tomb burst open under the pressure of Divine Life, and Christ returned triumphantly from the dead. In Orthodox worship and spirituality tremendous emphasis is placed on both these events. In the Byzantine calendar the Transfiguration is reckoned as one of the Twelve Great Feasts, and enjoys a far greater prominence in the Church's year than it possess in the West (Latin); and we have already seen the central place which the Uncreated Light of Tabor holds in the Orthodox Christian doctrine of mystical prayer. As for the Resurrection, its spirit fills the whole life of the Orthodox Church:
"Through all the vicissitudes of her history the Greek Orthodox Church has been enabled to preserve something of the very spirit of the first age of Christianity. Her liturgy still enshrines that element of sheer joy in the Resurrection of the Lord that we find in so many of the early Christian writings.
The theme of the Resurrection of Christ binds together all theological concepts and realities in Eastern Christianity and unites them is a harmonious whole." (Source: The Orthodox Church)
(To be continued)
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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