Salvation - OT vs NT

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fhansen said:
The second is the notion that gives me the worst headspins. I sort of hope that’s not the one.
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It is how I first understood it - That if you begin the obedience of ongoing repenting from evil and sins, you are forcing your way into the Kingdom of the Heavens, BECAUSE Jesus incarnated into human flesh as God… Prior to the Incarnation, as the Faithful eulogized in Hebrews so elegantly described as those of whom the world is not worthy, did NOT attain that which we have attained through Baptism into Christ… For we are not Baptized into His earthly body, but into His Ascended one… Remember His words to Mary the Magdalene? “Touch Me not, for I have not yet ascended to the Father…”

geo
 
fhansen said:
I just didn’t realize I was so… violent.
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Monks on Mt Athos (many of them), in order to overcome the demon of sleep, will hold themselves erect with ropes at night, so that when they fall asleep involuntarily, they are awakened falling into the ropes… And the stories of the martyrs are all about violent and painful deaths - These deaths are prepared beforehand, both OT and NT, by the praxis of the Faith of Christ which is denial of self and taking up one’s own instrument of torture unto death voluntarily…

For me, it was well within the understanding of the praxis of the Church, but for you not so much? I mean, it takes heroism of soul and body - Living Christ is not for sissies, I say! Nor is it violent toward others generally… But self persecution is time-honored and true… I mean, how ELSE can one DENY himself?

Yet not punishing the flesh because it is flesh - That’s gnosticism… But punishing the self for evil inclinations? Open season - And vigilance of soul against such incursions and immediate assault against any and all that arise… It is a war, and it is unseen, and it is internal… Your tutor can punish you externally (the Law) but only you have inward dominion in this fallen life… Which is why the YOU is so important, and the New Creation that YOU become by being Baptized INTO Christ is such a blessing, and why discerning the Body of Christ is so essential to receiving Communion in purity of heart…

geo
 
I’m thinking you’re still in a development stage regarding this passage George? We went from repentance to flagellation, with another concept or two thrown in beforehand. I doubt extreme aesceticism or martyrdom are necessarily involved in salvation.
 
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fhansen said:
I’m thinking you’re still in a development stage regarding this passage George? We went from repentance to flagellation, with another concept or two thrown in beforehand. I doubt extreme aesceticism or martyrdom are necessarily involved in salvation.
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Flagellation???

geo
 
fhansen said:
I’m thinking you’re still in a development stage regarding this passage George?
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It’s meaning is being a little elusive, so I ran it by you to see if you might have a handle on it, to no avail so far…

geo
 
No, I read a couple commentaries on it but both from the same Bible, one on Matthew 11:12 and the other on Luke 16:16, which I’m sure are both based on the same discourse. And the two commentaries each gave two opposite views on the meaning. Go figure. Anyway, I thought at first maybe you had it worked out. Or that there was a common EO understanding on it.
 
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I don’t know how I had not seen Luke 16:16
Luke 16:16 - BYZ –
ο νομος και οι προφηται εως ιωαννου
The Law and the Prophets until John…

απο τοτε η βασιλεια του θεου ευαγγελιζεται
From then the Kingdom of God is being evangelized

και πας εις αυτην βιαζεται
and everyone into her are forcing

Good old βιαζεται again…

This utterly affirms my first understanding - eg You can substitute the verb “repent” for the verb “force”… And this usage as a gloss for repenting - “pressing” as the KJV has it, which is weakly accurate - is no accident… It constitutes an empirical description of the human means of Salvation by God… Of the human means of repentance… Indeed of repentance itself…

It (βιαζεται) is a very genuine middle verb tense, and it even is third person singular, which means it is not a group effort but a personal one… Most of the time in Biblical Greek, a middle verb functions as a deponent, or an active or a passive… But this forcing is middle, which means it originates within the person, and acts within the person, and is not directed outside the person…

Because the Kingdom of Heaven is within the person…

The Gospel begins with a command: “Be ye repenting…” because that is the human means of God’s Salvation… God does not hand you repentance as a free gift, as so many double-D Protestants suppose - Thinking that the Call of God is the Gift OF Repentance rather than the Call UNTO repenting…

So that in a certain way, we are forcing our way into the Kingdom of the Heavens, which is Christ Jesus Himself… Foreshadowed in the OT when that Prophet wrestled with God - Who was he? Or was it an Angel he wrestled with? God wants us to force ourselves into Him, and the danger of doing so is pride… Because by regarding ourselves as dirt - as dust to which we shall return - while ascending the divine heights, we keep the praxis of askesis, which is the forcing, wherein we find the very narrow and afflicted Way of God, who is lowly of heart and meek…

So that yes, we utterly expend ourselves in labors of obedience, yet we cannot boast, because the labors only avail if we know for a fact that we are nothing to or of ourselves… Because God as well is not a thing, you see, and we want Him alone…

Thanks, Fred…

I had missed βιαζεται in 16:16

Now you can show me how wrong I am! 🙂

geo
 
So in terms of subjective experience of the Saints - That of the OT Prophets vs that of those of the NT, at the stage of full Sainthood on earth, which consists in being Glorified by God after having been Called by God and then Justified by God, I do not know if there is any difference, for both consist in the suffusion of God’s Grace into the person being Sanctified… My guess would be that there is no subjective difference in the two Salvations at all, for Theosis is common to both, and that experience would, one might guess, be uniform…

On the other hand, experiencing God as an enhypostatically conjoined person with God very well might be some kind of order of magnitude different from one who is not so conjoined… I don’t know if it is important, nor do I know how one might find out… John the Baptist, you see, was not Baptized… Finding OT style Glorified Saints these days is no easy matter! And asking them for an assessment of the difference in their experience of theosis pre-Baptism vs post-Baptism does not seem all that viable…

But I wonder nonetheless…

geo
 
There are many commentaries on it. Some agreed with you. Believers were eagerly pushing their way into the Kingdom, to Christ, against the powers that be, against the will of the Judaizers and legalistics and leaders/Old Covenant teachers. Or by wrestling with God? Was resistance coming from Him? We certainly have to struggle with our own pride; we wrestle with ourselves to deny the rebellious will of the world, which we’re born part of. Maybe we have to get real violent with everyone. 😲

Sorry, not quite ready to place my imprimatur on this one yet.
 
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Which goes straight into Protestant Salvation - A few years back, it was common to hear from Protestant confessions: “I was saved on July 13th, 1974…” and the like, where a profound Spiritual event turned someone’s life around, and they were turned from their lost and evil ways to living a God-pleasing life insofar as they were able to do so…

This is the quintessential path of the Protestant confessions - “Once I was lost, but now I am found…” - A personal and private, normally, encounter with God, and its counterpart, and often concomitant, walk down the aisle to the Altar in confession of Christ, and then Baptism to publicly affirm what happened in one’s own soul…

And it is indeed an encounter with God…
It is indeed life transforming…
And it needs to be understood…

I tend to think of it, in its best examples, as Theosis for the under-prepared…
It by-passes the baptism of John unto repentance, which prepares the Way…
And it lands on the sinner unawares and turns him around…
Around to what was missing in preparation: Repentance…
And the struggle with sin consistently comes up short…
Nor, of course, do they have the discipling of the Church…
Nor Her Sacramental Mysteries…
The wonder is that they have done as well as they have…
Glory to God!

geo
 
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I think the question can be posed thus:

IS repentance an act of violence?

IS taking up your cross an act of violence?

IS the narrow and obstructed Way violent?

IS food deprivation an act of violence?

IS sleep deprivation an act of violence?

IS obedience an act of violence?

And the question then becomes, violence against what or whom?

And the graveyard of the self is obedience…

Death to self comes through obedience to another…

You want to eat a donut…
You ask for an obedience to eat it…
You are denied the obedience…
You walk away from a perfectly edible donut…
An act of violence?
It is sure violent to self…

You are going to bed…
You are really tired…
All you want to do is sleep…
You have an hour of prayers to do…
It is your nightly prayer rule…
You force yourself to do them…
You nod off doing them…
You force yourself to stay awake…
You make yourself keep praying…

An act of violence?
Only to your self…

geo
 
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There is a huge difference between self-discipline and violence…

Authoritarians are normally lousy disciplinarians…

The reason is that personal authority is by its very nature capricious…

Whereas discipline requires a standard of consistency followed throughout…

The one I love most is this instruction of an authoritarian:

“You are free here to do anything you want to do…
There is only one reasonably minor caveat…
Don’t you EVER make me mad!”

Discipline is consistent, ongoing and always…
Undisciplined soldiers are the most vicious…
Disciplined soldiers are the bravest and most effective…

Discipline is simply training in virtue for the Christian…
Violence is a straw figure that can forsake discipline…

geo
 
Luke 16:16 - BYZ –
ο νομος και οι προφηται εως ιωαννου
The Law and the Prophets until John…

απο τοτε η βασιλεια του θεου ευαγγελιζεται
From then the Kingdom of God is being evangelized

και πας εις αυτην βιαζεται
and everyone into her is forcing

This literal translation translates BIAZO as “to force”, which is its primary meaning, with “to inflict violence” a derived meaning in certain contexts… Here is Liddel and Scott:

TO FORCE, CONSTRAIN

The meaning of the root, BIA, is BODILY STRENGTH, FORCE, MIGHT

So it is hard to avoid the centrality of physically constraining one’s self when it is used in the Greek Middle Present tense as a verb, and it dovetails perfectly with the Great Commandment to love the Lord thy God with ALL THY STRENGTH…

So it is NOT about violence inflicted upon one’s self - eg as in punishing one’s self for having sinned, where the central thesis of Salvation is understood as Crime and Punishment… Instead it centers on turning back to God in love by the willful directing of all of one’s bodily strength in obeying Christ’s Commandments in repentance from evil… That to do so is to partake of the medicine of immortality, by the simple deeds of turning from evil and loving God and neighbor in word and deed…

geo
 
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