For Orthodox - works and salvation

[mardukm]

Dear brother shawn,

Are you saying you are justified by your works?

The Catholic teaching is that we are justified by Grace through works, and faith is itself a work.

Fruits are a sign of our justification. Works do not justify, but sanctify us.

Yes, that would be a difference in our positions. To Catholics (and Orthodox), sanctification is part of the justification process. Sanctification is just as necessary for salvation as justification.

Matt 7:22 Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?’ 23Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’

Notice that these people have faith, recognize Jesus as Lord, and performed works. Their justification for entering heaven though was based on their works and not solely on the grace of God through the redemptive work of Christ. All our righteous acts are like filthy rags when compared to the glory of God.

I wouldn’t use this passage to oppose “righteous acts” with “solely on the Grace of God.” That’s a bit of a stretch since the passage nowhere mentions the Grace of God. I would say that despite their faith, their works were not the works that justify - e.g., works of love, forgiving their brother, taking the log out of their brother’s eye without concern for the speck in their own (hypocrisy), etc.

When a Christian is regenerated, immediately they are justified through the redemptive work of Christ. The Christian becomes a new creation in Christ. The Christian’s disdain for sin, their love for Christ, and the desire to glorify God leads a Christian to bear fruit.

We can agree here.

Blessings,
Marduk

 

[Alexander_Roman]

Are you saying you are justified by your works?

Fruits are a sign of our justification. Works do not justify, but sanctify us.

Matt 7:22 Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?’ 23Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’

Notice that these people have faith, recognize Jesus as Lord, and performed works. Their justification for entering heaven though was based on their works and not solely on the grace of God through the redemptive work of Christ. All our righteous acts are like filthy rags when compared to the glory of God.

When a Christian is regenerated, immediately they are justified through the redemptive work of Christ. The Christian becomes a new creation in Christ. The Christian’s disdain for sin, their love for Christ, and the desire to glorify God leads a Christian to bear fruit.

OK, no problem with any of this. But how is one to understand James 2:24-26: “You see then that a man is justified by works and not by faith only. … For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.”

So faith and works go hand in hand, do they not?

Ultimately, it is not simply faith that justifies but faith and obedience. Perhaps the Protestant view of faith implies obedience. But I don’t know. Over to you friend!

Alex

 

[JonNC]

Dear brother Nine_Two,

I’m not quite clear on your position.

Are you saying that works are not necessary for salvation (which is the Lutheran position)?
Blessings,
Marduk

Marduk,
One needs to be careful about this. The Lutheran position is not one of excluding the necessity of good works.

From the Formula of Concord:

We believe, teach, and confess also that good works should be entirely excluded, just as well in the question concerning salvation as in the article of justification before God, as the apostle testifies with clear words, when he writes as follows: Even as David also describeth the blessedness of the man unto whom God imputeth righteousness without works, saying, Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin, Rom. 4:6ff And again: By grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not of works, lest any man should boast, Eph. 2:8-9.

8] 3. We believe, teach, and confess also that all men, but those especially who are born again and renewed by the Holy Ghost, are bound to do good works.

and further:

Accordingly, we also believe, teach, and confess that when it is said: The regenerate do good works from a free spirit, **this is not to be understood as though it is at the option of the regenerate man to do or to forbear doing good when he wishes, and that he can nevertheless retain faith if he intentionally perseveres in sins. **

While good works do not add to the efforts of Christ to make salvation possible, failure to do HIs commands, good works, is intentional perseverence in sin. Repeated, unrepented sin can and will lead to a loss of faith - and possibly salvation.

Jon

 

[JohnVIII]

“Works” in the Latin Tradition do not refer to works not perfected in love, nor to works that are in and of themselves salvific apart from the saving work of Christ. A “work” in the Latin Tradition is cooperation with salvific Grace - nothing more, nothing less. We cooperate in the “working out of our salvation” (in St. Paul’s words) through the good works we perform. If we don’t cooperate with the transformative power of Grace here in this life, then God will finish that work in the life hereafter, though our prayers and His Mercy…

Works seen as cooperation with grace is what I was taught is the orthodox position as well. But I was also taught that this is NOT what St Augustin of Hippo taught.

The Catholic teaching is that we are justified by Grace through works, and faith is itself a work.

I agree with this. This is why faith is dead without works. No one work may stand alone, but belongs with “the whole law”.

John 6:28, "Therefore they said to Him, “What shall we do, so that we may work the works of God?” Jesus answered and said to them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He has sent.”

I’m glad I looked this up again, seems I’m a bit confused, It’s canon 24 of session 6, not the other way around.

If any one saith, that the justice received is not preserved and also increased before God through good works; but that the said works are merely the fruits and signs of Justification obtained, but not a cause of the increase thereof; let him be anathema

Dear [user]Nine_Two[/user], what you quoted doesn’t sound like it is either-or, but rather that both are true, not at the exclusion of the other. You say “they [works] can’t be looked at as the signs of Justification”, but your quote only says that it is wrong to say “…that the said works are merely the fruits and signs of Justification”. So it is not wrong to say that works are the fruits and signs of Justification, but it is wrong to say that works are merely the fruits and signs of Justification.

 

[josephdaniel29]

Dear brother Nine_Two,

If you have a hard time grasping that “works” is “an act of cooperation with Grace,” then it is only natural that you would also find it difficult to see that “faith = works.” But I hope you can at least see that the Catholic view finds no difficulty in the concept that faith, as well as any other good work, is a human act of cooperation with Grace.

Blessings,
Marduk

Although I’m not certain I understand exactly what you mean by “justification”, there is no doubt the Orthodox position is that works certainly lead to an increase of grace in one’s life and help lead to the acquisition of the Holy Spirit. Read St Seraphim of Sarov who specifically says that works done “in the name of Christ” lead to the acquisition of the Holy Spirit. He even goes on to use the imagery of a merchant trading goods in which we “trade spiritually” to acquire the Spirit.

In Christ
Joe

 

[Ghosty]

Although I’m not certain I understand exactly what you mean by “justification”, there is no doubt the Orthodox position is that works certainly lead to an increase of grace in one’s life and help lead to the acquisition of the Holy Spirit. Read St Seraphim of Sarov who specifically says that works done “in the name of Christ” lead to the acquisition of the Holy Spirit. He even goes on to use the imagery of a merchant trading goods in which we “trade spiritually” to acquire the Spirit.

In Christ
Joe

Agreed. I would argue that this position is absolutely fundamental to the doctrine of theosis (deification in the West). I would even go so far as to say that the Byzantine tradition has historically placed an even stronger emphasis on this than the Latin tradition, not because growing in Grace through works is in any way absent from the Latin tradition (and yes, this includes St. Augustine), but because in the West there were more technical debates about the function of Grace and the language of these debates can sometimes cloud the underlying teaching of increasing Grace through works. The most common complaint I’ve heard from the Byzantine East regarding the Latin teaching on Grace and works, is that the language too easily lends itself to the Protestant notion of “Faith alone”, or “works are merely the fruit of Justification and do not increase Grace”. And it is true that Luther and Calvin utilized the language of St. Augustine in support of their novel theories, though I would argue that they ignored those apsects of St. Augustine’s writings that explicitely support deification through works in Grace.

In short, Grace growing through works is one of the cornerstones of Byzantine theology. If I’m understanding Nine-Two’s position correctly, it seems he just hasn’t internalized this teaching yet, and I can only assume that he’s a Protestant convert (praise be to God!) who is still growing into this part of the Faith. Nothing wrong with that at all; we all have to contiually grow in our understanding, and we all have our blindspots.

Peace and God bless!