Salvation - OT vs NT

[fhansen]

It is never arid, even though one might say that the Russians under the Communists had 80-some years of aridity… Yet those persecutions perfected many Saints… Yet the Way is started and the Gate narrow, and few are they who find it… But even so, as many as have been Baptized into Christ have put on Christ, so that perhaps we can say not all are called to this high calling… The important thing is to keep the Way open to those desiring it… Hence the role of Monastic Life…

Some of the speakers stated it was difficult to find mentors or teachers back in the 60s I believe. Different today from what I understood.

For us, theology is practical and empirical and ascetic… Not classes about theology, but theology itself - Knowing God…

Well, I could tell these were also learned men. For us it’s not necessarily either/or. And for myself I appreciate both. And I’ve experienced both. But, yes, at the end of the day experience, the direct experience of God, is what our faith is all about, and what it will be entirely about in the next life. Text books will not have much purpose then.

As I understand it, they are not seeking such experiences - They are simply the kind of folks who don’t do much of anything half-way, and especially repentance, prayer, fasting, vigils, services and giving alms…

Ok, they’re seeking God very earnestly in any case. What I mean is that one need not travel to a monastery, or sit under this teacher or that, even tho that’s one way of doing it.

Enough already!

Ok, enough.

 

[George720]

Some of the speakers stated it was difficult to find mentors or teachers back in the 60s I believe. Different today from what I understood.

It is difficult now - These folks do not grow on common trees, and the USA, and more generally the West, had not really begun producing the “fruits of repentance”… So we had some Saints on “loan”, so to speak… St. John of Shanghai and San Francisco was one, a Hieromonk out of, I believe, Valaam Monastery in Russia, and now we have one out of Mt. Athos in Greece, in deep and advanced old age… And mother, an Abess he brought here to establish a women’s monastery…

But I have been meeting some of those now emerging as my life draws near to the end… Of course there is a dearth of them in the US… The Spiritual Stream did not come with the immigrants fleeing persecutions - It came from an entirely different source in an entirely different direction… And it is bearing Fruit… God knows how it will all work out, but this Ancient Apostolic Faith is getting some of its feet on the ground, as it were… And none too soon… Here in the New World…

The Latin Church came with the Conquistadors, not an ideal evangelization medium, nor was that of immigrants seeking a better life or fleeing persecutions and bringing their faith along in that pursuit… The Greeks went into hiding, putting pews in their Churches and pipe organs to boot… They just wanted to get along and not cause trouble… Other Orthodox immigrants as well… They did not come here to evangelize the Faith - They came to escape their homelands… No one can blame them for that… But it simply is not enough…

So that if one wanted a Spiritual Father in the Orthodox Faith in America, even now, one will look long and hard to find one that is a charismatic Staretz, or holy man… Even in the Monasteries they are very hard to find, and if found, they may not have time to take on new Spiritual Children… They are kept pretty swamped in their labors and do the best that they can, awaiting God’s increase… It’s not like one can just say: “We need more Saints, so let’s make some right now!”

Saints talk about the Faith from the perspective of having lived it first… Even the pedantic Bp Kallistos Ware, with his Oxford PhD and love of passionately reading Aquinas’ Summa in Latin, must set all of his learning aside… And not all monks are ‘Spiritual’… But they live Apostolic repentance in poverty, chastity and obedience… The rich do not enter, you see, but Blessed are the Poor in Spirit… We enter as beggars, and not as the learned…

Slow day today - Nice spending some time with you…

geo

 

[George720]

Speaking of the wonderfully pedantic Bp Kallistos Ware, this just showed up:

He is retired and traveling all over in the Faith…

Doing interviews like this, a lot…

geo

 

[George720]

@fhansen
So since we have had a couple of days to digest BBQ’s and thoughts, I thought it might be nice to invite you to summarize your understanding of the difference between our two understandings of Salvation in Christ in terms of Sanctification and Union in this life…

The biggest one I see is the matter of gradualism vs Divine Visitation…

This is, to me at least, a very fundamental difference in kind…

We seem to be in agreement on the issue that Justification comes at/by Baptism, and then Sanctification, and you see Sanctification as progressive according to works(?) perhaps?

And we both understand that God’s Grace is flowing through it all…

Or correct me if I am misunderstanding…

geo

 

[fhansen]

Hi George. I ate too much but drank a bit less than usual. However, I have another chance as some relatives are having the “big” fiesta today. Yes, I understand Divine Visitation, but although it profoundly affects a person I never thought of it as a one-time act of divinization. I guess I have a hard time separating theosis from sanctification in any case, seeing sanctification as God’s perfecting of us to begin with. And I’ve always seen sanctification as progressive-and, yes, tied to our works. And yes, all impossible without God’s grace, which we must cooperate with. The will of man plays a role in his being sanctified or deified, as well it should if the concept is to have any meaning-and value.

 

[George720]

Yes, I understand Divine Visitation, but although it profoundly affects a person I never thought of it as a one-time act of divinization.

Well, it can happen more than once, and normally does - The effect on the person in whom it takes place is limited by their degree of repentance - eg The Grace is the same but our receptivity and ability to hold it varies a lot… So that when it happens to, say, a Protestant, they are pretty much permanently “saved”, as they will tell you, but being unprepared by discipleship in the Mother Church, the benefit bestowed, being outside Her Communion and Baptism, has the limits of OT Salvation, which does not end up overcoming sin in any great degree, to the point where they will simply develop doctrines that deny the need we have to overcome sin, and Christ becomes their Substitute for overcoming sin, rather than their Way of overcoming their own sin(s)…

And I have met Protestants who know God through Divination… Nor were the OT Saints without it… In this way, we understand both Salvations the same - eg Divinization or Knowing God - Yet the two “platforms” of human nature so knowing Him - That of one Baptized into Christ by the Hands of Christ in His Servants in His Body, vs That of one NOT so Baptized into Christ…

So that this is how the difference is understood, and the reason we have so many times more Saints in the Apostolic Churches than were ever produced in the Circumcision under the Law of OT times…

Repentance is progressive, but does not sanctify us - It simply increases our virtue… It is God Who Sanctifies, you see… Not man by his own efforts… And this accounts for much of the conflict between the Latin Church and Her illegitimate daughter, the Protestant Reformation…

Paul said it all when he wrote: "These also He hath Glorified…"

Glorification is Divinization - Union with God in the Marriage of the Lamb for those Baptized into Christ…

geo

 

[margaret42]

Salvation in the Old Testament I think was about keeping the law, without exceptions.
Salvation in the New Testament is about following the “spirit of the law”, which Jesus showed us. Mistakes are allowed, and so are exceptions. And forgiveness takes our sins away.

 

[George720]

Salvation in the Old Testament I think was about keeping the law, without exceptions.
Salvation in the New Testament is about following the “spirit of the law”, which Jesus showed us.
Mistakes are allowed, and so are exceptions. And forgiveness takes our sins away.

I know it is a very long thread now, but did you get the basis of the question? Where Jesus is recorded in the Gospel saying that the Least in the Kingdom of Heaven is greater than the greatest of the OT Prophets,? That, say, Ananias the baptizer of Paul, is greater than John the Baptiser and Forerunner of Christ…?

So the question is, what makes this true in the nature of the two Salvations? God is the same in each… And Paul is recorded in Hebrews writing that none of the OT Saints, all of them being of great faith, received the Promise… Heb 11

So what IS this Promise that makes, Ananias greater than John the Baptist?

Thank you for replying…

geo

 

[George720]

I guess I have a hard time separating theosis from sanctification in any case, seeing sanctification as God’s perfecting of us to begin with. And I’ve always seen sanctification as progressive-and, yes, tied to our works. And yes, all impossible without God’s grace, which we must cooperate with. The will of man plays a role in his being sanctified or deified, as well it should if the concept is to have any meaning-and value.

The idea that we become holy is anomalous… We repent, we overcome sin, we purchase the Holy Spirit in the giving of alms, we partake of the Mysteries of the Body of Christ, we pray, and we do a lot of things that comprise obedience to God… And the Holy Ones of God cure diseases, heal wounds, bring down Holy Fire, strengthen the weak, and overcome sins in others…

And the key understanding of these Holy Ones of God is that the farther they progress, the more wretched they see themselves, the more undeserving and the less worthy… Every increase of God’s Grace increases their unworthiness… And this assessment of self in them is not some mere affectation given for the sake of acquiring or maintaining humility… IF it were that, they would be liars and hypocrites…

They are, with each new Glorification by God, simply being given the ever increasing perception of their true state in this fallen human condition… Christ Himself, just arisen from the dead, told Mary Magdalene to NOT touch him, because He had not YET ascended to His Father…

So the greater the Gifts, the less the worthiness…

The greater the Sanctification, the greater the UN-worthiness…

So the idea of earning Grace by works comes only with the giving of Alms…

"Sell all you have and give to the poor, and you will have riches in heaven…" was Christ’s instruction to the young rich man… But even this is not an increase of self-worth… Instead it is the making of the worth of the other to be more than the worth of self…

It is quintessentially antinomial…

geo

 

[fhansen]

Repentance is progressive, but does not sanctify us - It simply increases our virtue… It is God Who Sanctifies, you see… Not man by his own efforts… And this accounts for much of the conflict between the Latin Church and Her illegitimate daughter, the Protestant Reformation…

Paul said it all when he wrote: "These also He hath Glorified…"

Glorification is Divinization - Union with God in the Marriage of the Lamb for those Baptized into Christ…

Yes, God does the justifying, the regenerating, the sanctifying, the glorifying, et al. And while I think I may’ve posted these RCC teachings already, I’ll do so again-just for discussion.

1731 Freedom is the power, rooted in reason and will, to act or not to act, to do this or that, and so to perform deliberate actions on one’s own responsibility. By free will one shapes one’s own life. Human freedom is a force for growth and maturity in truth and goodness; it attains its perfection when directed toward God, our beatitude.

1732 As long as freedom has not bound itself definitively to its ultimate good which is God, there is the possibility of choosing between good and evil , and thus of growing in perfection or of failing and sinning. This freedom characterizes properly human acts. It is the basis of praise or blame, merit or reproach.

I firmly believe these teachings to be true but how would I understand this perfecting? Is it justification, regeneration, sanctification, deification, glorification? I think the more we do grow in virtues, most importantly love, the more all of these actions are accomplished in us. There’s simply no higher value.

Either way, man’s will is obviously involved in these two teachings on human freedom-and I believe that while only God can accomplish any of these changes in us, man is expected to cooperate, to increasingly want it, to increasingly own it, as a part of this perfecting or justifying or deifying. That gradual alignment with God’s will as part of His transformation of us into His image seems to be critical to Him; a rightly ordered will is what he covets in and from us. He draws and coaxes it while not forcing it.

 

[George720]

1731 Freedom is the power, rooted in reason and will, to act or not to act, to do this or that, and so to perform deliberate actions on one’s own responsibility. By free will one shapes one’s own life. Human freedom is a force for growth and maturity in truth and goodness; it attains its perfection when directed toward God, our beatitude.

1732 As long as freedom has not bound itself definitively to its ultimate good which is God, there is the possibility of choosing between good and evil , and thus of growing in perfection or of failing and sinning. This freedom characterizes properly human acts. It is the basis of praise or blame, merit or reproach.

I firmly believe these teachings to be true but how would I understand this perfecting ? Is it justification, regeneration, sanctification, deification, glorification? I think the more we do grow in virtues, most importantly love , the more all of these actions are accomplished in us. There’s simply no higher value.

That is the issue, isn’t it? The difference between OT Salvation and NT Salvation cannot be found in 1731-1732… Human freedom in fallen creation is a given… Yet self-Deification is not possible, and for this reason: We do not HAVE God to give to ourselves… ONLY God HAS God to give to us… This is why Scripture reads "We are saved by (His) Grace through (His) Faith, and this not of ourselves (because we do not have the Grace to give for our Salvation)… Of God the Gift…". It IS a Gift because it is God Himself that is given, and God CANNOT be earned… He is Uncreated, and flesh and man is created, and especially now as fallen man are we created… It simply and categorically a fact that creation cannot earn Uncreation… Uncreation creates creation… God is unapproachable, and we call upon Him…

All of which is moot, because Deification is common (not ordinary, mind you!) to both OT and NT Salvation… What is not common is the New Creation - Created man now enhypostatically conjoined to God… The God-man incarnated that man become man-gods by Grace… This is Justification, for AS godded now by nature, we have passed through the middle wall of partition of the OT Temple, and the Sacrifice is once for all, a bloodless partaking… The Bread IS the Body…

It is a Mystery, this Faith: God within us… Not as a visitor, as with Old Testament Saints, but as a Component of the very basis of our human nature…

geo

 

[fhansen]

Ok, but i’m not sure how different this really is. Perfection is a very big endeavor-and, as per the new Covenant, is not an endeavor that man can succeed at on his own. So while human freedom is involved as deemed proper by God, God, himself, is essential in accomplishing the feat.

 

[George720]

Ok, but i’m not sure how different this really is. Perfection is a very big endeavor-and, as per the new Covenant, is not an endeavor that man can succeed at on his own. So while human freedom is involved as deemed proper by God, God, himself, is essential in accomplishing the feat.

Human freedom is common to both…
Divinization is common to both…

eg Moses divided the Red Sea… A feat not humanly possible…
and Ananias cured Saul’s blindness and gave him the Holy Spirit…
And labors are common to both…
God comes to both…
Both walk in the Holy Spirit…
The subjective experience of both is the same…

So the being “made perfect” of Hebrews 11 can ONLY mean the union of God with man in his fundamental human nature given by Christ when He Baptizes him into His Body by the hands of His Servants in His Body, the Church…

Externally, there is no difference, but internally, there is ALL the difference…
And this contrast holds, internal vs external, in everything NT vs OT and the Faith of Christ vs the Law of Moses…

The inner man by faith, the outer by the Law…

geo

 

[George720]

So the being “made perfect” of Hebrews 11 can ONLY mean the union of God with HIS Saints in his fundamental human nature given by Christ when He Baptizes him into His Body through the hands of His Servants in His Body, the Church…

In terms of practical import, this shows the necessity for man to be Baptized by the Apostolic Church into Christ, and validates much of the means of Salvation found in the OT… iow It validates the praxis of askesis as prescribed by Christ, if not that of the ritual worship of Mosaic Law…

Which is confirmed in the non-askesis of much of Protestant praxis, due to the absence of Apostolic Baptism into Christ, and the consequent inability to actually succeed all that much in their struggles with sin… With many of them trying to theologically justify their failures in overcoming sin through some of Paul’s writings…

geo

 

[Justin_Mary]

due to the absence of Apostolic Baptism into Christ, and the consequent inability to actually succeed all that much in their struggles with sin…

I thought all Baptisms in the name of the Trinity are valid.

 

[George720]

I thought all Baptisms in the name of the Trinity are valid.

I used to think so too…

Here is the problem - because, you see, it is Christ Himself Who Baptizes - All 4 Gospels bear witness to this… Through the mouth of John the Baptist… Here is one:

Mar 1:8

I indeed have baptized you in water:
but
He shall baptize you in the Holy Spirit.

Yet Christ Himself is nowhere in Holy Scripture recorded baptizing anyone ever…
And He Commissions His Apostles to Baptize ALL the Nations…
Indeed, Ananias Baptized Saul into Christ and healed his blindness…

So WHO is Baptizing? It is Christ who is Baptizing…
The hands of His Servants are His Hands…
They are Members of His Body…
That is why Baptism is a Holy Mystery, a Sacrament…

It is not just John and Carl dunking people who believe the Bible as a social statement…

When the Church acts in a Mystery, it is Christ Who is acting…
You see, it is Christ Himself Who Baptizes us IN the Holy Spirit…
John the Baptist was not a member of Christ’s Body…
Not while upon the earth - Though now he is…

Making any sense yet?

geo

 

[Justin_Mary]

Making any sense yet?

No.

The Church says all Baptisms are valid.

 

[Vico]

George720:

So the being “made perfect” of Hebrews 11 can ONLY mean the union of God with HIS Saints in his fundamental human nature given by Christ when He Baptizes him into His Body through the hands of His Servants in His Body, the Church…

In terms of practical import, this shows the necessity for man to be Baptized by the Apostolic Church into Christ, and validates much of the means of Salvation found in the OT… iow It validates the praxis of askesis as prescribed by Christ, if not that of the ritual worship of Mosaic Law…

Which is confirmed in the non-askesis of much of Protestant praxis, due to the absence of Apostolic Baptism into Christ, and the consequent inability to actually succeed all that much in their struggles with sin… With many of them trying to theologically justify their failures in overcoming sin through some of Paul’s writings…

geo

There is also baptism of desire and baptism of blood, so water baptism is not the only way. Also, there were justified persons before Jesus descended into hades.

Catechism

637 In his human soul united to his divine person, the dead Christ went down to the realm of the dead. He opened heaven’s gates for the just who had gone before him.

 

[fhansen]

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[fhansen]

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