Salvation - OT vs NT

[George720]

The moral mandate since Eden is, in essence, ‘Thou Shalt Obey Me’.

Thank-you for your lovely post…

IOW, with the New Covenant man …needs to enter relationship with God first of all…

Well, the Baptism of Repentance is prior to Baptism into Christ…

The Call of God is too Repentance…

Relationship with God is first Repentance, yes?

Have you seen this video on the Pilgrimage to Chartres?

To live or to die is of no concern whatsoever to these lovely Servants…

The best, most encouraging, Catholic news I have ever encountered…

geo

 

[fhansen]

Well, I was speaking in broadest brushstrokes but in the order of things pertaining to coming to know our need for God and entering relationship with Him we first of all encounter knowledge/revelation, of which Jesus was the truest and fullest fount of. He most definitively revealed God’s very existence, His goodness, trustworthiness and forgiveness: His love. As we move to accept and embrace that light and forsake darkness our responses will be faith first of all, with contrition and repentance part and parcel of that faith-all still moved by grace. Baptism formalizes it so to speak, as the first public profession of that faith, and we’re ushered into God’s kingdom.

The cross, especially the crucifix IMO, stands as the apex of Christ’s revelation of God-with an amazingly humble God suffering for us on a cross. If that doesn’t blast out the message of forgiveness and acceptance simultaneously, right off the bat to counter our natural aversion to and fear of God, nothing probably will. A very counter-cultural superhero we have.

 

[George720]

Christ took up His Cross…
We are to take up ours…
We are Baptized BY Christ…
We are Baptized INTO Christ…
We are Baptized INTO His Death on the Cross…
That means into suffering unto death…
For the sake of our neighbor…
In the Love of God…

Baptism is not a formality, my Brother…
It is our rebirth into Christ…
A social proclamation it is not…
Through it we embrace suffering…
Through it we die to the world…
Through it we find His Peace…

geo

 

[fhansen]

I didn’t say it was a formality-as in a mere formality. I said it formalizes our faith. It’s an outward expression of an inward spiritual change that confers the grace that it signifies as the Church teaches. By “formal” I mean to say that it’s a structured means that God has provided for us to become initiated into His fold. The sacraments are sort of theology set into concrete actions by which we live or act out the basics of our faith.

 

[George720]

God bless you, my Brother…

geo

 

[Lavenderson]

OT Salvation : follow these rules perfectly and you’ll be saved
NT Salvation : follow these rules, but repent if you fail and pick up your cross again because God already fulfilled the Law for you.

Something like that?

 

[fhansen]

Well, George, I don’t know if I absorbed all you were looking to explain but I sort of feel that progress was made…?

Forgive my obtuseness in any case-I’m a work in progress… hoping so anyway

 

[George720]

Well, George, I don’t know if I absorbed all you were looking to explain but I sort of feel that progress was made…?

Forgive my obtuseness in any case-I’m a work in progress… hoping so anyway

Back at ya, my Brother!

Doubtless making more progress than this old reprobate!

geo

 

[George720]

OT Salvation : follow these rules perfectly and you’ll be saved
NT Salvation : follow these rules, but repent if you fail and pick up your cross again because God already fulfilled the Law for you.

Something like that?

That is about as far as most here and everywhere else have been able to go - eg The two Salvations are differentiated by their means rather than by their ends in the life of the one struggling to be faithful to God…

But the question posed is based on this predicate:

Luk 7:28
For I say unto you,
Among those that are born of women
there is not a greater prophet than John the Baptist:
but he that is least in the kingdom of God
is greater than he.

And:

Heb 11:40
God having provided some better thing for us,
that they without us
should not be made perfect.

So the question is this “perfecting” that Christians have that the Old Testament Saints do not have - Such that Ananias the Baptizer of Paul is greater than John the Baptizer of God?

Granting that both are saved, and that both WERE saved in their lifetimes, what is the difference between the two - What is the difference in their Salvation by God?

I have asked this question of many Western Confessions, and no one seems to have thought about it very much, if at all… Eastern Catholics normally can field it rather easily…

Moses, for instance, was so lit up coming off 40 days with God on the Mountain that his face had to be shielded from the people - He was saturated with God - Yet Christ tells us that the least in the Kingdom of Heaven into which we are Baptized is greater than he… So what is it that makes you and me greater than Moses?

It should not be a stumper, but it sure seems to be so…

geo

 

[fhansen]

But George, isn’t this “perfecting” what we’ve been talking about, the difference between the old and new covenant having to do with God accomplishing in man what man cannot accomplish himself by trying to observe the law?

 

[Lifeisbeautiful3]

As Jesus had not redeemed the world yet in the OT I don’t think the souls of the righteous in the OT entered heaven as we knew it just yet- they were in a good place though. Scripture mentions “Abraham’s bosom”…

So you’re saying that people that have existed on this planet for hundreds of thousands (millions?) of years have not gone to heaven, but humans in the last 2000 years have had the chance to??

 

[George720]

But George, isn’t this “perfecting” what we’ve been talking about, the difference between the old and new covenant having to do with God accomplishing in man what man cannot accomplish himself by trying to observe the law?

It is by man becoming “Godded” hypostatically… Man becomes god by hypostatic union with God, which the OT Saints did not do, even though they were SATURATED with God… They were still but human, which Christians Baptized into Christ are no longer… The Mystery of the Faith, as Paul writes, is Christ within us… Not merely Christ throughout us by the Coming Upon us of God the Holy Spirit, but by ourselves becoming a New Creation IN Christ Who is IN us essentially, at the very core of our created being, rather than simply superimposed with God, as were the OT Patriarchs…

geo

 

[fhansen]

Okay, in Catholic understanding there’s never been any real confusion between the mystical experiences of certain figures of the OT, NT, and more modern saints compared to the promises of the New Covenant-it just doesn’t come up as those experiences have specific purposes according to God’s plans & wisdom. The NC involves the Trinity now living and working in us in an intimate way that was not available as far as I know under the OC. It is a relationship that man was made for, and yet one he must willingly participate in as the time is ready, and he’s to increase or grow in this participation as he continues along. I don’t think the New Covenant is explained well as a rule tho. I don’t know about the EO.

But either way in Catholic teaching justification and sanctification are inseparable, meaning that it’s all a work of “divinization”, God transforming us into His image, not without struggle in the meanwhile, from the beginning of our new union with Him. Again, not so well understood or taught as I see it.

 

[fhansen]

1987 The grace of the Holy Spirit has the power to justify us, that is, to cleanse us from our sins and to communicate to us “the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ” and through Baptism:34

But if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him. For we know that Christ being raised from the dead will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. The death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves as dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.35

1988 Through the power of the Holy Spirit we take part in Christ’s Passion by dying to sin, and in his Resurrection by being born to a new life; we are members of his Body which is the Church, branches grafted onto the vine which is himself:36

[God] gave himself to us through his Spirit. By the participation of the Spirit, we become communicants in the divine nature. . . . For this reason, those in whom the Spirit dwells are divinized.37

1994 Justification is the most excellent work of God’s love made manifest in Christ Jesus and granted by the Holy Spirit. It is the opinion of St. Augustine that “the justification of the wicked is a greater work than the creation of heaven and earth,” because "heaven and earth will pass away but the salvation and justification of the elect . . . will not pass away."43 He holds also that the justification of sinners surpasses the creation of the angels in justice, in that it bears witness to a greater mercy.

1995 The Holy Spirit is the master of the interior life. By giving birth to the "inner man,"44 justification entails the sanctification of his whole being:

Just as you once yielded your members to impurity and to greater and greater iniquity, so now yield your members to righteousness for sanctification. . . . But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the return you get is sanctification and its end, eternal life.45

 

[George720]

I must say that I have simply been unable to communicate the question, and I do not know another means of communicating it clearly… And I am going to have to thank you all for participating in the discussion… I will try a time or two more, but divination is not the difference, because theosis is an acquisition by man of God which God gives - eg It is a Holy Wealth that men to whom it has been given are able to retain for varying lengths of time according to their maturity… It is invariably life-altering… Nobody lives in it, and Moses is the Saint who lived in it continuously for 40 days and 40 nights on the Mountain… I know of no other Saint exposed to it for anywhere near that long continuously…

Both OT Saints and NT Saints bear theosis…

Theosis is the suffusion of the Holy Spirit onto the person of a human being…
As such, it is his or her Spiritual Wealth, variously maintained and expended…
In the OT, Theosis IS Salvation…

In the NT, we are Baptized INTO Christ and become REBORN…
The person entering the Baptismal Waters is NOT the same…
As the person emerging from them…
We are not given theosis in Baptism…
We are Given the Seal of the Holy Spirit within our person…
This rebirth as a New Creation IS our entry INTO the Kingdom of Heaven…
Here and now, upon this earth…
And having this, we now CAN attain theosis outwardly…
Because we have God IN us INWARDLY…
Sanctification is the acquisition of the Holy Spirit through virtue…
Justification is our entry into Christ as a member of His Body…
There is no longer the wall of partition…
Because we are IN Christ…
“For as many as have been Baptized INTO Christ have put on Christ.”
This is the Apostolic Way Christ discipled to His Apostles…
The Ascent comes with the virtuous struggle of overcoming of sin…
And it is purely the Gift of God…
Padre Pio had it…

Many Orthodox Elders have it…

The Gifts vary from person to person…

Theosis from without is OT Salvation…

Theosis from within is NT Salvation…

Which is WHY the least in the Kingdom of Heaven is greater than the greatest of the OT Prophets…

Does that help??

geo

 

[George720]

So you’re saying that people that have existed on this planet for hundreds of thousands (millions?) of years have not gone to heaven, but humans in the last 2000 years have had the chance to??

@Lifeisbeautiful3

Yes - Not in their earthly lives have they so entered until John the Baptist came baptizing men into repentance to prepare them for the coming of Christ Whom he baptized in Jordan’s Waters - The water the Israelites had to cross in order to enter into the Promised Land… They acquired the Holy Spirit, encountered God, and did all manner of things, but until Christ incarnated, the Kingdom of Heaven had not descended upon the earth that we should enter into it… But we are Baptized into Christ…

 

[fhansen]

The part about Theosis being OT salvation doesn’t seem right scripturally or according to classical teaching. Maybe still not understanding

 

[fhansen]

Theosis or divinization seem to be part and parcel of justification, which includes sanctification. From the moment we believe and are baptized God justifies us; He makes us worthy of salvation. From there by walking with Him and investing the talents He gives we grow in justice or sanctity, working out our salvation based on and increasing the “seedling” justice He first gives. We struggle with overcoming sin as we also strive to do the works He’s prepared for us. We struggle with allowing Christ to live and express Himself in and through our lives, vs thwarting that. In this way we are perfected as we grow in faith, hope, and love.

Anyway, I just can’t see how being transformed into God’s image (Theosis) can be really any different from the justification and sanctification that He works in us unto salvation, with our cooperation. I’m not sure if the mystical experiences or “saturation” need be other than that: experiences granted for God’s purposes but not theosis in and of themselves

 

[George720]

Theosis is the acquisition of God by the person -
Baptism is the rebirth of the person in God…
So that the hypostasis, the sub-stance, that IS the person has been reborn with God as a part of the person who then acquires God… The acquisition of God is Theosis… The rebirth of the Person INTO God is by Baptism into Christ…

This is simply, I should think, outside the phronema of the western confessions totally…

For instance: The Blessed Virgin upon conceiving Christ in Her womb went straight to the house of Elizabeth 6 months pregnant, and the Holy Spirit came upon Elizabeth filling her, remember? And she said:

Luk 1:44-45
For, lo, as soon as the voice of thy salutation sounded in mine ears, the babe leaped in my womb for joy.
And blessed is she that believed: for there shall be a performance of those things which were told her from the Lord.

Elizabeth’s words were entered into the Gospel because they came from God, because she was filled with God the Holy Spirit. This is Theosis - Being filled with the Holy Spirit - Her words were not her own - They were the Holy Spirit speaking through her…

Similarly when John wrote the Apocalypsis, he wrote that he was “in the Spirit” on a Sunday… This is the same, except that John and Elizabeth differ, because Elizabeth was never Baptized into Christ, but John was… OT Salvation and NT Salvation differ greatly, but not experientially, in their Saints…

geo

 

[fhansen]

This is simply, I should think, outside the phronema of the western confessions totally…

Well, I’m thinking we’re in agreement there.

Anyway, as I understand it God’s intention since creation was divinization or theosis for man, transforming us into His image. That, I’d be inclined to think, is the ultimate state of being for man. Is there early Father commentary on the difference as you state it?