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.
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OUR SPIRITUAL JOURNEY TO THE HOLY NATIVITY OF OUR LORD AND SAVIOR JESUS CHRIST
According to Metropolitan of Nafpaktos Hierotheos "The incarnation (taking human flesh) of the Son and Logos/Word of God shows how Good, Wise, Just and Powerful God is: good, because He did not overlook the weakness of the creature, but gave him a helping hand; wise, because He found the most fitting solution for that which seemed impossible; just, because after the fall He did not form another man to wrestle with the devil, nor did He forcibly detach man from death, but made him the victor by assuming the death and suffering of the flesh Himself; powerful, because He was able to do this, to become man while at the same time he would be true God, consubstantial with the Father and the Holy Spirit (Saint John of Damascus).
Therefore man's deification (theosis) is not a luxury in the spiritual life, but his purpose and end. Through the Godman Christ, man can pass from the image to the likeness, which is deification (theosis). In Christ, the assumed human nature was deified, and when a man is united with Him, he can deify his own hypostasis. Since the medicine of salvation has been found, every man can take it and be cured of his illness.
The deification (theosis) of man is called a cure, a therapy because this is how man is cured of being subject to decay and mortality and is released from the tyranny of the devil. In the early Church, there were heretics who taught that Christ assumed the soul and body of man, but not the nous as well. In answer to this, Saint Gregory the Theologian says that Christ assumed the whole human nature, body, soul, nous and all the constituents of human nature, because otherwise, He could not have cured them. That is to say, if He had not assumed the nous, then the nous would have remained uncured. "What is not assumed is not cured; what is united to God is saved."
"When a person lives sacramentally and ascetically, in harmony with the spirit of the Orthodox Christian Tradition, then he is experiencing spiritually the events of the Divine Incarnation in his heart, and more generally in his whole being. Saint Symeon the New Theologian says that when a man purifies his heart and is illuminated, then he receives Christ within himself and understands His infant-like leaps. Christ is conceived as an Infant in him and is born through the virtues, and now the man is living all these events in his being. To be sure, it is only in Christ that the Divine was united with the human nature hypostatically. But the deified (theosis) person also receives God's energy in his nature and becomes a member of the Body of Christ. Thus he comprehends how the grace of God works in his nature, what kenosis is, what deification (theosis) of human nature is."
The celebration of the Nativity of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ is all about the salvation of all of mankind. "The dogma of salvation in Christ is the central dogma of Christianity, the heart of our Christian faith."
We call Christ Himself our "Savior" and in our Symbol of Faith, we confess our belief in "One Lord Jesus Christ...Who for us men and for our salvation came down from the heavens and was incarnate of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary, and became man, and was crucified for us under Pontius Pilate, and suffered, and was buried..." By these words, the Orthodox Church teaches that the salvation of the human race is achieved by the Son of God, Lord Jesus Christ, Who said about Himself, "the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give His life a ransom for many" (St. Matthew 20:28; Saint Mark 10:45).
Why do we call Christ "the Savior"? Likewise, we can also ask: what is salvation? Salvation from what? If we talking about salvation, someone must be in danger. The answers that the Orthodox Church gives to these questions are tied to the Orthodox teaching about the "ancestral sin" and its consequences.
From the beginning, the Church's teaching has been that the nature of man was profoundly corrupted as a result of the fall. Adam and Eve sinned by violating God's order and breaking their connection with God -- Who alone is Life. "The breaking of this communion with God can be consummated on in death because nothing created can continue indefinitely to exist of itself. Thus, by the transgression of the first man, the principle of "sin (the devil) entered into the world and through sin death, and so death became completely dislocated. Our wholesome essence got split into three parts -- mind, heart, and body -- that got in conflict with each other. We inherit that damaged nature, with its pre-disposition to sin. "Ancestral ("Original") sin is understood by Orthodox Christian theology as a sinful inclination which has entered into mankind and becomes its spiritual disease."
Salvation is not for the "elect", or "chosen people". God "will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth" (1 Timothy 2:4). Furthermore, "in every nation he that feareth Him and worketh righteousness is accepted in Him" (Acts 10:35). Christ said: "I...will draw all men unto Me" (St. John 12:32). He "died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto Him which died for them, and rose again..." (2 Corinthians 5:15). From Christ, the Apostles "have received grace and apostleship, for obedience to the faith among all nations..." (Romans 1:5). With the Apostles "we trust in the Living God, Who is the Savior of all men, especially of those that believe" (1 Timothy 4:10).
Faith is only the beginning. "Faith only reveals to one the truth that for his prior sins God will not punish him, that, on the opposite, He is ready to accept him and pardon him and recognize him as His son. But this...only clears for one path to God but does not do anything with him. Before that, he was afraid to turn to God, but now he got to know God and stopped fearing Him, and, on the opposite, grew to love Him. But he is still the same man. It is necessary for him not just to begin loving God but actively, really turn to Him."
In order to believe truly, it is necessary for one to understand the magnitude of his sins forgiven by God, to realize that he is a sinner worthy of death. One can only have a true love for God when he realizes the true horror of his sins that God forgave him for free. This state -- repentance (metanoia) -- can even be called "the beginning of faith." Without judging himself, one will not ask God for forgiveness -- and without asking for forgiveness, one will not receive it and thus will not be saved. One's return to God starts with repentance. Seeing it, God, like the father in the parable of the prodigal son, runs to meet us: "when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him" (St. Luke 15:20).
The Church is the keeper of the tradition of personal salvation, "the life in Christ." All the Holy Fathers are considered the Teachers of the Church not because they were the most learned and knowledgeable but because they were holy -- that is, they, through the life of asceticism, repentance and prayer, cleansed themselves from their sinful passions and reached theosis (deification). The example of such life was given to the Church by Christ Himself.
Christ said: "I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by Me" (St. John 14:6). And in His Own Person, Christ showed us salvation -- that is, 'what the true "likeness to god" is..." (Sources: The Feasts of the Lord by Metropolitan Hierotheos and The Orthodox Teaching on Personal Salvation by Deacon Victor E. Klimenko, Ph.D.)
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"Glory Be To GOD For All Things!" -- Saint John Chrysostomos
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With sincere agape in His Holy Diakonia (Ministry),
The sinner and unworthy servant of God
+Father George