In my last post I sketched a bit about how the Greek Orthodox think about Genesis 3 as a story about the etiology of death. In this post I want to go deeper into how the Orthodox view the Fall and salvation. To do this I'll be sharing extensive quotes from Orthodox theologian John Romanides' book Ancestral Sin. Romanides' work will pull together most of the threads of the earlier posts. What you'll find new in this post are first glimpses of the Orthodox view of salvation and the Christian life.This is a long and quote-heavy post. But if you get to the end of it I think you'll find your efforts amply rewarded.
And it's possible that this post could turn you entire world upside down.
To begin, Romanides contrasts the Western and Orthodox views of sin and salvation. As we've noted, the Orthodox see the Fall as humanity's descent into corruptibility which leads to moral weakness and a continued bondage to Satan. This is a death/resurrection view. The West, by contrast, works with a sin/wrath matrix.
In the East, the fall is understood to be a consequence of man's own withdrawal from divine life and the resulting weakness and disease of human nature. Thus, man himself is seen as the cause [of death] through his cooperation with the devil...The Greek Fathers look upon salvation from a biblical perspective and see it as redemption from death and corruptibility and as the healing of human nature which was assaulted by Satan...It is quite the opposite in the West where salvation does not mean, first and foremost, salvation from death and corruptibility but from divine wrath. (p. 35)Given this focus on human corruptibility and how our mortal natures make us vulnerable to Satan and moral disobedience, the Orthodox work with a Christus Victor view of salvation, the defeat of Satan and death:
[T]he dominant thought of the Fathers...is the biblical view that Satan is the primary cause of transgression, sin, and death. (p. 79)Why this focus on death as the primary predicament of humanity? Again, as noted earlier in this series, death and human corruptibility (what St. Paul calls sarx) is the motive force behind human sinfulness. The following quote is very imporant in helping us connect a theology of the slavery to death to the psychological, social, and behavioral manifestations of sin:
The only way to shatter the power of the devil is the resurrection of the dead through the trampling down of death. (p. 80)
God became man in order to destroy the devil and to trample down death. (p. 88)
Through the power of death and the devil, sin that reigns in men gives rise to fear and anxiety and to the general instinct of self-preservation or survival. Thus, Satan manipulates man's fear and his desire for self-satisfaction, raising up sin in him...Because of death, man must first attend to the necessities of life in order to stay alive. In this struggle, self-interests are unavoidable. Thus, man is unable to live in accordance with his original destiny of unselfish love. This state of subjection under the reign of death is the root of man's weakness in which he becomes entangled in sin at the urging of the demons and by his own consent. Resting in the hands of the devil, the power of the fear of death is the root from which self-aggrandizement, egotism, hatred, envy, and other similar passions spring up. In addition to the fact that man, [as John Chrysostom has written,] "subjects himself to anything in order to avoid dying," he constantly fears that his life is without meaning. Thus, he strives to demonstrate to himself and to others that it has worth. He loves flatterers and hates his detractors. He seeks his own and envies the success of others. He loves those who love him and hates those who hate him. He seeks security and happiness and wealth, glory, bodily pleasures, and he may even imagine that his destiny is a self-seeking eudaemonistic and passionless enjoyment of the presence of God regardless of whether or not he has true active, unselfish love for others. Fear and anxiety render man an individual. (p.162-163)Salvation, then, is being rescued from this slavery to the fear of death.
Hebrews 2.14-15:Preaching on this text St. John Chrysostom elaborates:
Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might break the power of him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil—and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death.
[H]e who fears death is a slave and subjects himself to everything in order to avoid dying...[But] he who does not fear death is outside the tyranny of the devil. For indeed 'man would give skin for skin, and all things for [the sake of] his life,' [Job 2.4] and if a man should decide to disregard this, whose slave is he then? He fears no one, is in terror of no one, is higher than everyone, and is freer than everyone. For he who disregards his own life disregards more so all other things. And when the devil finds such a soul, he can accomplish in it none of his works. Tell me, though, what can he threaten? The loss of money or honor? Or exile from one's country? For these are small things to him 'who counteth not even his life dear,' says blessed Paul [Acts 20.24].Romanides puts the matter succinctly: "[S]alvation from death equals salvation from the rule of sin." (p. 166). Thus, "If Christ had not abolished death, sin would continue to rule." (p. 166).
Do you see that in casting out the tyranny of death, He has dissolved the strength of the devil?
In all of this we see the central role of death in keeping humans bound to evil/Satan/demonic impulses and to sin and self-interest. The key to salvation, then, is cracking death. Liberated from death humanity would be reconnected to the Divine Life and, thus, set free from sin, death, and the devil.
For the Orthodox what this means is that salvation is about revivification, about taking something that was dead and bringing it back to life. Born again. Raised to life. Resurrection. Revivification.
Paul identifies righteousness with vivification. Thus, the justification of the righteous, who were held captive by death and the devil unjustly or temporarily, is the very same thing as their vivification, in other words, as the imparting to them of the uncreated and life-giving energy of the Holy Spirit through the sacrifice on the Cross. (p. 94)We see this clearly in Paul's discussion of sin and baptism in Romans 6. Note how liberation from sin is made possible by the liberation from death.
Romans 6.1-9That's the key to being set free from sarx, a body "ruled by sin," to be connected to the life of Jesus because "death no longer has mastery over him." Nor over the baptized. As Romanides notes (p. 73): "Christians defeated Satan through baptism."
What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means! We are those who have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.
For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly also be united with him in a resurrection like his. For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might be rendered powerless, that we should no longer be slaves to sin—because anyone who has died has been set free from sin.
Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him.
The idea here is that what was lost in Eden, participation in the life-giving energy of God, is restored through the gift of the Holy Spirit. With the Spirit we are no longer solely sarx/flesh. We have been restored to life via the Spirit. For "The carnal and animal man is the whole man who is bereft of the energy of the Holy Spirit that makes man incorruptible." (p. 141; cf. Gal. 5.18, 6.7-8; 1 Cor. 2.14-3.4; 2 Cor. 3.6; Eph. 4.30; 1 Thess. 5.19; Rom. 8.11).
Just as the death of the body is its separation from the soul, likewise the death of the soul is its separation from the life-giving energy of the Holy Spirit. Only those who have the Spirit of God are partakers of the true immortality and life of God...This is why, when we speak of man's condition under the power of death, we mean not only the tyranny of the corruptibility of the body but also the separation of the soul from the life-giving energy of the Spirit. (p. 131)The storyline goes like this. Humanity was on the path to perfection, immortality, and communion with God. But through the envy of the devil and human cooperation death entered the world. Humanity was, thus, severed from the Image/Spirit of God. Humans were now animals, biodegradable creatures, flesh, sarx. And as biodegradable creatures humans became enslaved to their fear of death. Self-preservation at all costs became the rule of life in the Darwinian, post-Eden ecosystem.
To save us from this situation we had to be reconnected to the Source of Life. In the cross Christ defeats death and the devil and allows the Spirit to be poured out on flesh/sarx. This occurs on Pentecost and throughout the book of Acts. Salvation is revivification, Spirit pouring onto sarx, a reconnection with God. Eden restored. Adam fell off the path. And we, inheriting the mortal condition, were powerless to get back on the path. Christ came and restored the lost connection, setting us back on the path.
Salvation in Christ is the restoration of man to the path of perfection and immortality through the communion of the Holy Spirit. (p. 152)So, via the Spirit, the connection has been restored. Those in the Spirit are back on the path toward perfection, immortality, and ultimate communion with God. But here's the twist for Western Christians. We can fall back off the path. The connection can be re-broken. Salvation begins and is made possible with the gift of the Spirit. But we can thwart, reject and "grieve the Spirit." Salvation is a process, a journey, an end point. We have the Spirit, the life-giving connection, the hope. But we aren't saved yet. We have to fight. We have to go to war against sin, death and the devil.
Participation in the life-giving energy of the Holy Spirit is not given permanently, once for all, by Baptism...Man is able to participate in the energy of God that can make him incorruptible only through the struggle for perfection...the personal and corporate struggle against the devil who reigns because of death. (p. 172-173)In this view, the Christian life is both developmental and militant. It is the constant and continual struggle against sin, death, and the devil in our lives and in the world around us. And through this fight we become perfected. More mature in the faith. Participating in greater portions with the Spirit. We build with precious stones rather than with straw:
Those who live in Christ belong to the realm of the Spirit of life, while the rest of the world belongs to the realm of death. Although the battle for perfection and immortality in Christ has been won by the triumphant saints who await the final victory, for the militant faithful, however, the communion in the Spirit of life that leads to incorruptibility is not yet an accomplished and permanent reality. On this side of the grave, those who live in Christ have not yet permanently acquired the Spirit's life-giving energy that renders man incorruptible. The permanent gift of immortality depends on how much labor the Christian undertakes to live according to the Spirit during this life. Thus, the faithful on this side of the grave, for the present, have only the "betrothal to the Spirit." (p. 140-141).
The communion [with God's] life-giving energy, however, is not the same in all the faithful. It ebbs and flows between mortal condemnation and the endowment of incorruptibility unto eternal life. "Indeed," according to what the great Basil said, "the worthy do not each partake of the Holy Spirit in the same measure; rather, in proportion to the faith of each man, He metes out His energy." (p. 141)
1 Corinthians 3.10-15What, exactly, does this fight (this "building with precious stones") look like on a day to day basis?
By the grace God has given me, I laid a foundation as a wise builder, and someone else is building on it. But each one should build with care. For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ. If anyone builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, their work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each person’s work. If what has been built survives, the builder will receive a reward. If it is burned up, the builder will suffer loss but yet will be saved—even though only as one escaping through the flames.
Recall, what is the power of death in our lives? It's fear. Once again Hebrews 2: "to free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death."
The battle of the Christian life, then, is the battle between fear and love. Between self-interest and self-giving. Between Incurvatus in se and Excurvatus ex se, from being "curved inward" on ourselves to being "curved outward" toward others. This is the moral nexus of the Christian life, the struggle between fear and love.
There is a distinction "between those who live according to Satan and death and those who struggle in Christ to attain to unselfish love that is free of self-interest and necessity." (p. 133)That is a whole lot to chew on. But with these understandings firmly in hand can now start to make a slow turn from theology to the lived experience of the Christian, to the dynamics of fear and love in day to day existence. And to help make the turn let's add some more passages to help guide our thoughts forward.
The salvation of man is dependent upon how much, under the guidance of God, he is capable of exercising himself in the cultivation of a genuine, unselfish, and unconstrained love for God and his fellow man. (p. 121)
The will of God, like the purpose of the Church's existence, is the salvation of men through perfection in love for God and one another. (p. 120)
It is clear that any denial of Christ out of fear was regarded by the ancient Church as a real lack of unselfish faith and as a fall into the hands of him who has the power of fear and death...The Lord did not hesitate to speak to man's instinct of survival or self-preservation. (p. 118, 119; cf. Matt. 16.26; Mark 8.36-37; Luke 9.25)
Love that is free of self-interest and necessity fears nothing...All human unrest is rooted in inherited psychological and bodily infirmities, that is, in the soul's separation from grace and in the body's corruptibility, from which springs all selfishness. Any perceived threat automatically triggers fear and uneasiness. Fear does not allow a man to be perfected in love...Being under the sway of death and not having real and correct faith in God, man is anxious over everything and is ruled by selfish bodily and psychological motives and, thus, he is unable to love unselfishly and freely. He loves and has faith according to what he perceives to be to his own advantage...Thus, he is deprived of his original destiny and is off the mark spiritually. In biblical language, these failures and deviations are called sins. The fountain of man's personal sin is the power of death that is in the hands of the devil and in man's own willing submission to him. (p. 116-117)
Just as God, above all, is free of every need and self-interest, the spiritual man who has the Spirit struggles and becomes perfected in the love according to Christ, love that is delivered of all need and self-interest. "If the Son, then, shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed." [John 8.36] (p. 153)
Hebrews 2.14-15:The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil’s work. Dear children, do not let anyone lead you astray. The one who does what is right is righteous. And we know that we have passed from death to life, because we love each other. For anyone who does not love remains in death. This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And so we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters. If anyone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be in that person?
Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might break the power of him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil—and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death.
I John 3.7-10, 14-18
Dear children, do not let anyone lead you astray. The one who does what is right is righteous, just as he is righteous. The one who does what is sinful is of the devil, because the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil’s work. No one who is born of God will continue to sin, because God’s seed remains in them; they cannot go on sinning, because they have been born of God. This is how we know who the children of God are and who the children of the devil are: Anyone who does not do what is right is not God’s child, nor is anyone who does not love their brother and sister.
We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love each other. Anyone who does not love remains in death. Anyone who hates a brother or sister is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life residing in him.
This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters. If anyone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be in that person? Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth.
1 John 4.16b-21
God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them. This is how love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment: In this world we are like Jesus. There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.
There is no fear in love.
In this world we are like Jesus.
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