|
Home - People of God -
Incarnation - Kingdom of God -
Salvation -
Sanctification - Trinity -
Creation - Prayer -
Consecration - Tradition -
Saints - Heaven and Hell
- Visitors Centre - Site Map
Salvation
The Descent into Hades - the
Icon of the Resurrection
Introduction
The word "salvation" is common to all
Christians and yet it is a belief concerning Christ that conveys a radically
different meaning in the Orthodox Church from that in any other church.
Your research for this session will
require you to read some articles on a sister site. At the head of each
linked article you will find here an overview ... but please don't just go by
that. Please read the article as well. No other resources are given
for this session. It's all in the linked articles embedded in the section
titles..
Resources
Ancestral Sin and Salvation
 Overview:
Although sin leads to death, death also leads to sin.
The
problem of death in a good creation concerns its psychosomatic corruption of the
human spirit. For all the difficulties in reconciling the traditional
Orthodox stance to the ubiquity of death as a "natural" phenomenon in all living
species, death remains in Orthodoxy an enemy, something contrary to God's
original design for creation in general and humankind in particular.
The
fathers taught that Man had the potential for immortality but that this
was compromised by his primal disobedience to God. So, the Greek fathers
particularly see humans as a "work in progress" ... children called to mature
toward spiritual adulthood. The loss of this eternal life, potentially and
actually in Eden was remedied when, in the fullness of time, God incorporated
our humanity personally in the Incarnation of the Word. By undoing death
in the resurrection, the long reign of sin and death came to an end and eternal
life once again became not only a possibility but a more readily accessible
reality in the coming of the Holy Spirit.
Salvation History
 Overview:
Christianity is an historical faith. It proclaims
and lives a faith in God who acts to judge and save in the historical process,
in the lives of persons, communities and nations. The Old Testament
covenant community is no less the Church than that of the New Testament.
The coming of Christ has to be seen in this light. In
the Incarnation, God intervenes directly and personally in the historical
process which gives particular expression to a universally significant event.
These fundamentals of the Christian faith must always inform our dialogue with
other faiths whilst yet recognising that God undoubtedly provides for the
salvation of others in ways we can perhaps scarcely guess. Having said
that, all of this work is from that True Light that enlightens Everyman, (John
1:9)
The Christ of Chalcedon
 Overview:
The fourth
Ecumenical Council that met in 451 AD established in respect of Christ's
singular person and dual natures the same faith confessed by the first and
second councils, namely that Jesus is both true God and true Man.
Salvation depends on this ... the reconciliation of God and
humankind in the Saviour who is both human and divine and yet one person.
In Christ all things earthly and heavenly are united,
thereby guaranteeing the promise of a new creation attaining to and even
exceeding its original dignity of the old, through the priesthood of a redeemed
humanity, transfigured and glorified by the Spirit in the Son, (Romans 8:22-23).
The Death and Resurrection of Christ
 Overview:
The single most important obstacle to the forging of a New Creation in which
both humans and the Cosmos might participate was death, both arising from and
promoting sin in the depths of hell and in that arena of conflict with the God
opposing powers, the world and the human heart. In the biblical themes of
sacrifice, justification and redemption the Church preaches Christ crucified and
risen who by his death and resurrection both reconciled humanity to God and
restored God-likeness to the human race. Salvation activates when people
lay hold of this divine initiative of Love in faith and live by its principles,
entirely dependent on God who "makes all things new." It is this Paschal
(Easter) victory of Christ "destroying death by death" that enables the life of
the kingdom to be attainable by all.
Salvation as a Process in Time
 Overview:
There are three temporal modes of salvation: What God HAS
done in Christ - What God is doing NOW to bring people to know him based
on his historical and current actions, and, - What God will do by and on the
LAST DAY to bring all things in subjection to Him and his design for Creation.
At a personal level this has often been characterised by the saying:- "I am
saved, I am being saved and I will be saved." All three are true.
However, this is no automatic process, inexorably working its way through
history in humanly predictable ways. God in his great Love continues to
respond to the needs and frailties, the tragedies and glories of those who come
to know him. He only asks that his friends serve him with all their
created faculties, both actively and faithfully as those who will one day have
to give account to the Judge of All of their stewardship of this life.
Deification (Theosis) and the Christ Life
See also the dedicated page on this site:
"Theosis."
 Overview:
The end of our Christian life is union with God, and through that mystical
union, the transformation of the whole created order into the Garden of God's
delight. This union the Orthodox call theosis. In practical terms
this means that we are called to participate in God's life to such an extent
that our human nature is entirely "engodded" and transformed ... made perfect
that is, but without, in that immersion, losing anything of our created and
distinct uniqueness and individuality, this being amongst the many and diverse
expressions of our common and singular human nature. This is no selfish
pursuit for in truth we cannot pursue salvation alone but only in communion with
God and our brothers and sisters. It requires from us our full and freely
given loving cooperation with God insofar as the grace we have already accepted
has freed us for yet more service of His will and love for Him and all His
creatures.
Exploration
Pascha Cycle - "Pascha (Easter)"
Pentecost Cycle - "Baptism and Chrismation"
Holy Cross Cycle - "The Eucharist"
Nativity Cycle - "Confession"
| 
