InquisitorKind said:
How are we saved and reconciled to God?
This deep and wonderful question has been constantly with me for a long time now. I cannot answer you in my own words...as I do not understand these mysteries of God that I can use my own mouth. I found these paragraphs on a website, and they particularly cleared some things up for me, that I understood, but don't understand...(if that makes any sense).
The loss of the Grace Assimilation to God (
'omoíosis Theõ) resulting from the first humans' sinning meant that the capacities of reason and freedom to please God were no longer energizable. There an ontological Fall--the separation of humanity and indeed the cosmos from the Energies of uncreated Grace. God allowed satan to enslave humanity in this alienation from Grace and to impose decay and death on human beings. This sin-prone condition of separation from the Energizing of Grace is called
'amartía in Greek; in its singular form, it is not "a sin" (
'amártema).
Salvation ontologically reverses this situation. Salvation has two parts--what Christ did for us, and what His worshipers do to respond to that.
The Incarnation united human nature with divine Nature, and the Resurrection unites individual worshipers as new creations who are members of Christ's Risen Body, partaking of the Energies of His Life. But this could not happen till Jesus died and rose to life again. If the Cross is ubiquitous in Orthodoxy ( three-dimensional or graven images are not allowed), adorns temples and homes, is venerated, and if worshipers frequently cross themselves, it does not unite our nature to God the way the Incarnation did, nor does it make Christ's worshipers new creations and members of His risen Body the way His Resurrection does. It was necessary for Christ to rise again and defeat satan and overcome the separation of creation from God's Grace. While dead, Christ ravaged satan's kingdom of Hades and liberated the Old Testament Saints. (He bestowed the first resurrection--that of the soul--on them; Christ's worshipers received the first resurrection when they are born again in Baptism and partake of Christ's Body and Blood at Holy Communion--which even baptized infants receive. Baptism is often called Illumination, and one speaks of the newly illuminated."
The Crucifixion expiated the obstacles of sin from Christ's worshipers in order that they might be able to become one with Him in His risen body. Rom. 4:25 says that Christ "was handed over because of our sins and was raised for the sake of our being made righteous." Christ's Self-Offering was the first perfect Worship--which is the returning of a part of creation to God in acknowledgement of God's ownership of and dominion over the entire cosmos. It had the additional benefit of making perfect Worship possible ever after in Christ's offering in His members Himself at every divine Liturgy.
Christ's Resurrection destroyed satan's power to sustain the decay and death of humans in any ultimate way and made it possible for the Holy Spirit to incorporate His new-born worshipers into His risen Body through sharing in the Grace or Energies of His risen Life.
Worshipers are sustained in this condition (or returned to it when the last part of Baptism, Chrismation, is served to lapsed Orthodox at their return to Orthodoxy) by the Mysteries, who number has never been stipulated by the Orthodox Church. Mysteries include prayerful confession and absolution, marriage and burial, ordination and tonsure (of bishops [who have got to be monks]), of priests and deacons (both of which orders may get married before, but not after, ordination]. They include icons, relics (cf. Acts 19:12), various blessings--holy oil and holy water, including the Great Blessing of Waters on Theophany--tonsures (including the tonsure received at Baptism), making the sign of the Cross, and many other things. Note that formal validity (right performance of a Mystery by a person in the physical Apostolic succession) is a potential that can be authenticated (made real, genuine, functional)
only, so far as assurances and guarantees are concerned, in the Orthodox Church. A valid Mystery (one served correctly by someone in physical succession with the Apostles is not necessarily an authentic Mystery; it is only a potential Mystery unless or until it has been energized in the Orthodox Church. One Mystery of great importance in Orthodox think is that of the Transfiguration on Mt. T(h)avor, when certain disciples were miraculous enabled to see Christ's uncreated Light--a manifestation of His uncreated Energy.
As worshipers synergize (co-operate) with the Holy Spirit's energizing good works in them (Philp. 2:13)--
works that are soterial because they are God's as well as the worshipers--more Grace is given to the Grace already energized in them (John 1:16). Unlike those who teach that all acts are predestinated and therefore equal, the Orthodox recognize the heroes of the Faith as Saints. Aside from the all-holy Theotókos,
The holy Apostles and Evangelists (authors of Gospels), as well as St. Mary Magdalene Equal-to-the-Apostles and the other six myrrh-bearing women who went to Jesus's tomb to embalm him, who--with Joseph of Arimathea and Nikodemos--are commemorated on the third Lordsday following Pascha. St. John the Forerunner and Baptist is very eminent among the Saints. The icons of the Saints surround the worshipers in a temple to remind the worshipers of reposed Saints at the earthly divine Liturgy (see below for the Communion of Saints). The Orthodox venerate crosses, icons, relics of Saints, and holy places because of the holiness the Church finds in them: Sanctity is not restricted to non-material reality, as in Reformation theology. Saints often have epithets like "great martyr, wonder-worker, equal-to-the-Apostles." Holy persons and holy things are sometimes perceived as being surrounded by a halo of the created Light represented the normally invisible Light of the divine Energy. This glow has been seen on many Saints; e.g. St. Seraphim of Sarov. Christians are sometimes permitted miraculous to see what is ordinarily invisible; the prototype of the vision of uncreated Light was the Transfiguration of Christ on Mt. T(h)avor. An example of non-Christians' seeing the created light of halos occurred with the appearance of Light on the temples of Kiyev when the communists slaughtered a huge crowd of clergy and monastics; the communists themselves reported seeing the halos!
See www.orlapubs.com/AR/R145.html for the whole article.
