Know the Faith (Part II)

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.

+

KNOW THE FAITH (Part II)
Introduction

In the biblical account, an Angel appears to Cornelius and proclaims exactly how he has found favor with God: "Your prayers and your alms have come up for a memorial before God" (Acts 10:4). It was his faithful prayer and love for the poor that placed Cornelius in a position to receive the visitation of God's grace. But this grace had still not come to dwell within him, for he was not yet regenerated in baptism.

God then led to him the holy Apostle Peter, who preached the Good News of Jesus Christ and taught him the way of salvation. His entrance into the life of salvation began by water and the spirit. He would then begin to participate in the life of grace and grow toward the "fullness of Christ" (Ephesians 4:13) in the apostolic Church.

This is essentially no different from how one enters in the Orthodox Church today. One who is seeking the True God, prompted ultimately by the Spirit, at some point encounters His Apostolic Church. He bears the teaching of the Gospel in its fullness and is made a catechumen (a "learner") by the Church. After a period of preparation in which he is taught the way of faith, he is baptized into Christ and receives the gift of the Holy Spirit through the Mysterion (Sacrament) of Holy Chrismation.

But this is only the beginning. Salvation is not a legal or ritual removal of guilt that entitles one to go to heaven when he dies. It is not a stamped ticket to Eternal Life in exchange for a one-time confession of faith. Salvation is a real union with God, a participation with the resurrected flesh of Jesus Christ and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. This is why salvation requires repentance: because the heart must actually open up to the grace of God--and not just part of the heart, but the whole heart.

Salvation begins with the forgiveness of sins but must progress toward the actual remission of sins to the healing of the passions, the source of these sins. A man (a person) whose body is riddled with cancer and who is threatened with imminent death will not be comforted by news that his cancer is "forgiven." He will rejoice with great rejoicing, however, if he is told his cancer is in remission. For then he knows that the death-bearing cancerous cells have receded and life reigns in his body.

As another example, a wedding and a marriage certificate do not make a marriage, an actual communion of husband and wife. What is blessed by God and begun well must continually be lived out and realized within the arena of a daily struggle to actualize what Saint Paul describes as marriage: an icon of Christ with His Bride, the Church (see Ephesians 5:22-33).

According to the mind of the Holy Orthodox Church, salvation is the reorientation and healing of the human being. First, it is the uncovering of the image of God and then a progression "from glory to glory" (2 Corinthians 3:18), toward His likeness. For instance, in his Questions to Thalassios, Saint Maximus the Confessor describes The process of salvation, or spiritual rebirth:

"The manner of birth from God within us is two-fold: the one bestows the grace of adoption, which is entirely present in potency in those who are born of God; the other introduces, wholly by active exertion, that grace which deliberately reorients the entire free choice of the one being born of God toward the God who gives birth. The first bears the grace, present in potency, through faith alone; but the second, beyond faith, also engenders in the knower the sublimely divine likeness of the One known."

Saint Maximus goes on to say that, although God gives the whole gift of grace at the outset to the one reborn, it cannot be actualized because the will has "not yet fully detached from its propensity to the flesh." In other words, one must voluntarily assent and conform to the life of grace, for God transforms us only to the extent that we have a "willing will."

In order to actualize the grace of regeneration in baptism, great struggle is necessary to overcome the still imperfect and fallen will and desire. The Holy Fathers of the Church teach us that our first effort must be in the practice of keeping Christ's Commandments, for in this way we crucify the fleshly desires and receive God's grace. Because what we do either attracts or repels God's grace, it matters what we do in this life and to what extent we repent of those obstacles that obstruct our hearts from receiving His grace.

Salvation has a beginning. For some it is an obvious dramatic" road to Damascus" experience, but for others it is n almost imperceptible, slow-growing flame that has been burning with the help of the Church from infancy. It is not for us to say that we are "saved" in the sense that we have "already attained" salvation or are "already perfected" (Phil. 3:12). Even the great Apostle Paul did not presume that. It is for us to abide in the way of salvation and strive toward "the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ" (Ephesians 4:13).

Far from being "guaranteed," salvation can never be taken for granted, since the moment we do so, we become presumptuous and stop striving for it. In Orthodox Christianity there is no "minimum requirement" of holiness or faith for salvation. This is because the goal is love (agape) for God and neighbor. There are no minimums when it comes to love (agape). That would be the approach of a spiritual lawyer or accountant.

When a certain young man came to Jesus, he inquired about minimums: "Good Teacher, what good thing shall I so that I may have eternal life?" (Matthew 19:16). In response the Lord provided him with a maximal answer: "If you want to be perfect, go, sell what you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me" (Matthew 19:21).

This does not mean we are to be constantly insecure and anxious about whether we are on the path of salvation. It is not, as it is sometimes presented, as if we Orthodox Christians have no clue whether or not we are striving to repent of our sinful habits and seeking to "be transformed by the renewing of [our] mind" (literally, the nous, or inner man, Romans 12:2). Yet in humility we know we have much further to go along the path of salvation and, without God's grace, we are vulnerable to straying from the path.

This comes into sharper focus as we look to those who have gone before us, those who are instructed to "imitate" (1 Corinthians 4:16; 11:1; Hebrews 6:12) and "whose faith" we are to "follow, considering the outcome of their conduct" (Hebrews 13:7). They are our examples, "because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it" (Matthew 7:14). It is not only he who begins on the way, "but he who endures in the end [who] will be saved" (Matthew 10:22).

In the end, salvation means real union with God. Cornelius would not have known of atonement theories that seek to package God's redemptive work into a juridical formula. Salvation for the early Church was about Christ's victory over the devil and death, the "last enemy" (1 Corinthians 15:26). It was about the renewal of human nature in the Incarnation, the victory over sin on the Cross, and the ultimate goal--the deification (theosis) of human nature in the Person of the Resurrected Christ. Salvation is the good news that what Jesus is by nature, we also can become by grace.

The very word Holy Scripture uses to describe our personal assimilation of God's redemptive work--salvation (Greek, soteria)--signifies health, wholeness, safety, preservation, and deliverance from enemies. Ultimately, salvation is the condition of spiritual health and wholeness that comes by an organic union with God, through Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit. (Source: Know the Faith. A Handbook for Orthodox Christians and Inquirers by Rev. Michael Shanbour)

(To be continued)

________________________

"Glory Be To GOD For All Things!" -- Saint John Chrysostom

+++

With sincere agape in His Holy Diakonia (Ministry)
The sinner and unworthy servant of God

+Father George