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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KNOW THE FAITH (PART V)
JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH : The Protestant Doctrine of Justification by Faith Alone
Martin Luther whose express mission was to get back to the Holy Scripture, was the first to espouse and define a doctrine of justification by faith alone. As he himself attests, "This one and firm rock, which we all the doctrine of justification, is the chief article of the whole Christian doctrine."
The classical Protestant teaching can be summarized as follows. When a man comes to belief in Jesus Christ, God the Father imputes righteousness to him--that is, credits Christ's righteousness to him. He is declared by God innocent of sin by virtue of Christ's redemptive work and is thus no longer subject to God's wrath or condemnation to hell. In this interpretation of Saint Paul, justification is simply God's pronouncement that a man is righteous by virtue of his faith in Christ's shed blood.
The Protestant doctrine does not speak of an internal change in man wrought through faith, but only a change in legal status, from guilty to innocent. In point of fact, it explicitly denies any real change.
"...Thus salvation is defined negatively in Protestantism: "To be saved means that God has delivered us (saved us) from His righteous wrathful judgment due us because of our sins against Him. It means that we will not be judged (there is no accountability on Judgment Day or the Second Coming of Christ) for our sins and be therefore sentenced to eternal damnation".
Neither is grace a positive gift of godlikeness, of sharing in His life; it is merely described how God removes the guilt inherited from Adam and paints over fallen human nature with a coat of grace. In this paradigm there is no qualitative difference between the sheep and the goats at the Last (Final) Judgment (Matthew 25:31-46). Both are equally sinners. The sheep, however, will not be judged for their sins.
Orthodox Response
The Protestant Reformers' doctrine of total depravity was simply not believed by anyone in the early Church; nor was justification by faith alone. Rather, the universal teaching was that the Fall distorted and darkened the image of God in man, covering over it but by no means destroying it. Man is still essentially good but in need of regeneration so that he may recover God's image, not by legal fiat but by an organic transformation through faith that unites him to God's image, Jesus Christ.
The grace of God still works upon fallen man and can prompt him toward the good, because grace is his natural yearning. Since the early Christians believed this, they understood that even before baptism, man could cooperate or synergize with God. Because he is made in the image of God, the spark of grace is still in him. As in the case of all the righteous figures of the Old Testament, fallen man can walk in the way of God's Commandments. The holy men and women of old even participated in the grace of Jesus Christ in a limited way before His Incarnation (see 1 Corinthians 10:4). What man could not do is regenerate his fallen human nature, nor overcome the consequences of the first parents' sin--corruption after death. Only God Incarnate can do that.
But mankind's Fall is not chiefly a matter of guilt. It cannot be resolved with a legal declaration of innocence. Christ did not come to save us from guilt but from sin and death. He came to overcome the inescapable corruption that had infiltrated the humanity of the Old Adam. He then, the New Adam (Jesus Christ), regenerated this death-bearing, corruption-ridden humanity by taking it upon Himself and filling it with His life-giving grace.
Those who by faith in Christ open themselves to this Life-Giving grace are justified. But this condition of justification grows and is perfected as one more fully enters into the reality of faith, through union with His resurrected Body (i.e. the Church) through baptism and the whole life of faith that cause one to be in Christ. This includes the personal, internal, and ascetic spiritual work of faith that is taken up by the baptized Christian in order to be fully freed from the passions so that "Christ is formed" (Galatians 4:19) in him.
The Law of Moses could not affect salvation precisely because it could not change the fallen human condition. The law could not extract the power of death from humanity of the old Adam; it could not renew his nature. This could only be done organically, from within, in the flesh of Jesus Christ. This was Saint Paul's point: that only the faith of Jesus Christ--that is, receiving the effects of Christ's saving work organically into oneself--justifies a man, because it brings him into saving union with God.
So, in the Orthodox Christian understanding, one is justified when by faith he places himself in the position of receiving Christ's saving grace. According to the Lord, the tax collector, not the Pharisee, was justified after praying in the temple. Why? Because the tax collector opened himself to God's grace and light through his contrition and humility. Abraham, by faith, was justified because he believed in God's word and acted upon it. By doing so he placed himself directly in the sunlight of God's grace and appropriated a declaration or certificate of innocence, but the Life-creating power of God. In that same way, by faith, Saint Veronica received the grace of God when she touched the hem of the Lord's garment, for "power" went out from Christ's Body (Luke 8:46).
"...The early Christians never taught that humans are incapable of doing good or overcoming sin in their lives. But they did teach that cooperation with God's grace was required in order to do so. They understood that salvation as coming by God's grace, but man had to desire and seek that grace. As our Lord taught and commanded, "seek, and you will find" (Matthew 7:7). If it is to be received, God's grace must be sought. Human cooperation (Synergy) is required. The Greek actually shows continuous action: "Keep seeking...keep knocking...keep asking." Typical of the way the early Church interpreted, salvation and grace is the following passage from Saint Clement of Alexandria:
"A man by himself working and toiling at freedom from sinful desires achieves nothing. But if he plainly shows himself to be very eager and earnest about his, he attains it by the addition of the power (grace) of God. God works together with willing souls. But if the person abandons his eagerness, the Spirit from God is also restrained. To save the unwilling is the act of the using compulsion; but to save the willing, that of one showing grace." (Source: Know the Faith. A Handbook for Orthodox Christians and Inquirers by Rev. Michael Shanboor)
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"The experience of Orthodox ascetics inspires them to call Christians with all power to the humble acknowledgment of one's own infirmity, so that the saving grace of God might act. Very expressive is this case are the expressions of Saint Symeon the New Theologian (10th century):
"If the thought comes to you, instilled by the devil, that your salvation is accomplished not by the power of your God, but by your own wisdom and your own power, and if your soul agrees with such a thought, grace departs from it. The struggle against such a powerful and most difficult battle which arises in the soul must be undertaken by the soul until our last breath. The soul must, together with the blessed Apostle Paul, call out in a loud voice, in the hearing of Angels and men: "not I, but the grace of God which is with me." The Apostles and Prophets, Martyrs and Hierarchs, holy Monastics, and Righteous ones--all have confessed this grace of the Holy Spirit, and for the sake of such a confession and with its help they struggled with a good struggle and finished their course" (Homilies of Saint Symeon the New Theologian, Homily 4).
He who bears the name of Christians, we read in the same Holy Fathers, "If he does not bear in his heart the conviction that the grace of God, given for faith, is the mercy of God...if he does not labor with the aim of receiving the grace of God, first of all through Baptism, or if he had it and it departed by reason of his sin, to cause it to return again through repentance, confession, and a self-belittling life; and if, in giving alms, fasting, performing vigils, prayers, and the rest, he thinks that he is performing glorious virtues and good deeds valuable in themselves--then he labors and exhausts himself in vain" (Homily 2).
What, then, is the significance of ascetic struggle? It is a weapon against the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life" (I John 2:15-16). It is the cleansing of the field of the soul from stones, overgrowth weeds, and swampy places, in preparation for a sacred sowing, which will be moistened from above by the grace of God.
How is One to Understand "The Deification (Theosis) of Humanity in Christ?"
The human nature of the Lord Jesus Christ, through its union with the Divinity, participated in Divine qualities and was enriched by them, in other words, it was "deified" (theosis). And not only the human nature of the Lord Himself was deified: through Him and in His our humanity also is deified (theosis), for He also Himself likewise took part in our flesh and blood (Hebrews 2:14), united Himself in the most intimate way with the human race, and consequently united it with the Divinity. Since the Lord Jesus Christ received flesh from the Ever-Virgin Mary, the Church books frequently call her the Fount of our deification (theosis): "Through her we have been deified." We are deified likewise through worthy reception of the Body and Blood of Christ..." (Dogmatic Theology)
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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 (Ministry)
The sinner and unworthy servant of God
+Father George