Orthodox Soteriology?

abacabb3

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Salvation is justification and sanctification in Orthodoxy. This is because salvation is Theosis, an eternal and real union with God. And so, there is real righteousness in justification because there is really the presence of God. Hence, this righteousness is there the moment one believes, it is there years later, it exists as long as faith and good works exists, though it may exist where there are no good works because the time did not exist yet to do them. In short, it exists when God indwells the Christian, which is by grace, through faith, and not of works as a perquisite. However, the subsequent good works that flow from this indwelling are done by God's grace/energies and are a manifestation of the indwelling of God, co-operating with His operating, and thereby are justifying because justice merely = God's presence/grace.

@abacabb3 ,

From the links:

1) Salvation is viewed strictly is a gift for being judged as righteous by virtue of having faith in Christ.

Lutheran view: we are not judged as righteous by virtue of having faith, but by virtue of Christ alone, whom faith runs to and clings to.

2) one is not saved, then one has faith which justifies an individual and after that point in time one is sanctified after that specific incident of justification.

Lutheran: we are not justified in a single once for all moment but neither is justification a process. We are justified through baptism and confession (we can fall into mortal sin). In baptism and confession, we are declared not guilty, cleansed of our sin and regenerated. Apart from the sacraments, Lutheran justification makes no sense.

3) because of this, Christians are simultaneously just yet sinners merely imputed as righteous but in fact not yet righteous.

Lutheran response: we are in fact righteous. The declaration actually does what it declares, it is creative. So when God declares us worthy we are truly worthy. A forgiven sinner is no longer a sinner.

All this however relies on a Western notion of propitiation. If someone has a theology where God's wrath or honor is not in view, then there is no need for most of this.
 
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Thatgirloncfforums

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I'm sorry. This still seems Lutheran to me. The real righteousness is the righteousness of Christ. We call it, the Mystical Union. In my mind, the Mystical Union pertains to justification as well as sanctification, on 2 accounts: 1) It's the reception of Christ by faith. 2) Justification according to the Lutheran Confessions is regeneration, which includes a real change. Justification includes the penitential declaration, but is not limited to it.
I know a lot of Lutherans would argue with me--probably, but I came to understand Lutheran theology through Luther himself.
Salvation is justification and sanctification in Orthodoxy. This is because salvation is Theosis, an eternal and real union with God. And so, there is real righteousness in justification because there is really the presence of God. Hence, this righteousness is there the moment one believes, it is there years later, it exists as long as faith and good works exists, though it may exist where there are no good works because the time did not exist yet to do them. In short, it exists when God indwells the Christian, which is by grace, through faith, and not of works as a perquisite. However, the subsequent good works that flow from this indwelling are done by God's grace/energies and are a manifestation of the indwelling of God, co-operating with His operating, and thereby are justifying because justice merely = God's presence/grace.
 
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abacabb3

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I'm sorry. This still seems Lutheran to me. The real righteousness is the righteousness of Christ. We call it, the Mystical Union. In my mind, the Mystical Union pertains to justification as well as sanctification, on 2 accounts: 1) It's the reception of Christ by faith. 2) Justification according to the Lutheran Confessions is regeneration, which includes a real change. Justification includes the penitential declaration, but is not limited to it.
I know a lot of Lutherans would argue with me--probably, but I came to understand Lutheran theology through Luther himself.
I can't judge lutheranism, but when the lutheran dialogued with Jeremias II of COnstantinople, they did not affirm the Orthodox doctrine here. But subsequent lutheran theology may have moved in our direction.
 
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Thatgirloncfforums

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I can't judge lutheranism, but when the lutheran dialogued with Jeremias II of COnstantinople, they did not affirm the Orthodox doctrine here. But subsequent lutheran theology may have moved in our direction.
How did they not affirm it?
This has always confused me. I don't understand why Sola fide or Monergism is wrong. Whenever I read Orthodox sources, I concur. Perhaps the Orthodox do not know what is being said?
 
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Thatgirloncfforums

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@abacabb3 ,

Forgive me. I am not trying to argue. It's just, If there is truly a difference between us, I want to understand.

I'm sorry. This still seems Lutheran to me. The real righteousness is the righteousness of Christ. We call it, the Mystical Union. In my mind, the Mystical Union pertains to justification as well as sanctification, on 2 accounts: 1) It's the reception of Christ by faith. 2) Justification according to the Lutheran Confessions is regeneration, which includes a real change. Justification includes the penitential declaration, but is not limited to it.
I know a lot of Lutherans would argue with me--probably, but I came to understand Lutheran theology through Luther himself.
 
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Ezana

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How did they not affirm it?
This has always confused me. I don't understand why Sola fide or Monergism is wrong. Whenever I read Orthodox sources, I concur. Perhaps the Orthodox do not know what is being said?

I'm not sure if it addresses your specific queries, but if you haven't yet, the correspondence between Patriarch Jeremiah II and the Lutheran theologians of Tübingen is worth reading in its entirety. Here are the responses from the Patriarch:

The Three Answers of Patriarch Jeremiah II
 
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Thatgirloncfforums

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np, take time to marinate on the third article, i think it makes things clearer
It does. It's actually close to what I believe (or believed, as I have been now inundated with Western thought for about 20 yrs now).
Soteriology was always a headache for me. It always moved away from the person of Christ toward contemplation of other things and I've always felt these things as extraneous or even erroneous. I started to read Luther around 14 yrs of age. Page after page, he elucidated how we identify with Christ and how Christ identifies with us. That's why I always thought that Justification was a part of Theosis. I mean, Luther puts us up on the cross with Jesus, in the very act of Redemption.
Separating justification and sanctification, while emphasizing God's declaration is something that I use to associate with the Reformed. But I guess I was wrong because 2 Lutherans have replied to my thread now, both disagreeing with me. So I'm going to stop talking for Lutherans.
As a Western Christian, I am hung up on works. I was taught to be. It's going to take awhile to purge myself of that, among other things. I want to be done with the whole system. It doesn't work for me.

Thanks.
 
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GreekOrthodox

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It does. It's actually close to what I believe (or believed, as I have been now inundated with Western thought for about 20 yrs now).
Soteriology was always a headache for me. It always moved away from the person of Christ toward contemplation of other things and I've always felt these things as extraneous or even erroneous. I started to read Luther around 14 yrs of age. Page after page, he elucidated how we identify with Christ and how Christ identifies with us. That's why I always thought that Justification was a part of Theosis. I mean, Luther puts us up on the cross with Jesus, in the very act of Redemption.
Separating justification and sanctification, while emphasizing God's declaration is something that I use to associate with the Reformed. But I guess I was wrong because 2 Lutherans have replied to my thread now, both disagreeing with me. So I'm going to stop talking for Lutherans.
As a Western Christian, I am hung up on works. I was taught to be. It's going to take awhile to purge myself of that, among other things. I want to be done with the whole system. It doesn't work for me.

Thanks.

That's where I was with Lutheranism as well. Justification BECOMES salvation and sanctification became an afterthought. Taken to the logical extreme, justification eventually becomes an intellectual exercise of checking off the right checkboxes. If you actually do something beneficial, "confessional Lutherans" will then clutch their pearls that you are doing works. Loving your neighbor becomes anathema unless it is done with a cold calculation that you make sure that you never consider it meriting anything.

Yes Orthodoxy isnt as defined and blocked off as the west. Theology isn't an intellectual exercise for us, it is living a Christ-like life.

A few years after we were Orthodox, a family that had just started to attend catechism classes had a fire that destroyed their house. They showed up at the Sunday liturgy in what they had been able to throw on while getting out of the house. Within a few hours, one family had taken them to Target and bought the family new clothes so they could at least get to school and work the next day. We cleaned out the church pantry so they had some groceries to get started with meals. Our Philoptochos society (women's guild) worked with the Red Cross to get them housing. We made sure that they had sitters for the children so the parents could have time to deal with insurance and all the rest of the stuff. It was simply natural for our church to organize this kind of help. Are the Greeks going to be running late for the Judgement, of course! But they're going to make sure that everyone is ready for it when it does come :p
 
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Thatgirloncfforums

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That's wonderful! And I bet those who helped saw Christ in the faces of the family.
Growing up, I was always aware how my love toward others brought me closer to Christ. Love in addition to trust is the hand that I cling to Christ with.

It's not that faith is unimportant, but for me, my faith is an expression of my love. If I didn't love Christ I wouldn't have faith in him.

Our church is filled with charitable people, who live out their faith in love. But loving each other is seen, not as directed toward God (vertical), but directed toward others solely (horizontal).

I have always wanted to be a nun. I was influenced by the love for Jesus that these women had. My pastor said that I can become a deaconess in the Lutheran church. But, if my love is not directed toward Christ? I love others because I love him and he loves me. I see his face and the faces of the Apostles in the men around me. I see the face of his mother in women. Everyone is like an icon.
So I don't understand why Protestants separate faith and love for Christ. I get the proper distinction between Law and Gospel. But does the Law apply to anyone anymore? Also, I get the whole merit controversy in the 16th century, but Christians aren't confined to one viewpoint or a single moment. I believe that how we each relate to Christ is as important as any soteriologically formula.

I am fortunate to have a Pastor who has his finger on the pulse of Biblical symbolism. We are discussing the OT worldview. It's nearly identical to what I have already heard listening to Ancient Faith's Lord of the Spirits podcast. We've talked about the fallen angels as gods, the gods the pagans worshipped, the holy mountains where the gods or God comes to meet man and how Babel was a temple-mountain construct.

If this is all true, then what I see is this:

Many peoples will come and say, “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the temple of the God of Jacob. He will teach us his ways, so that we may walk in his paths. The law will go out from Zion, the word of the LORD from Jerusalem.
Is 2:3.

If we are going up a mountain, we have been invited by God to do so. How does such a God need to be appeased? Furthermore, the thing we need to concentrate on is making our path easier by eschewing the brambles of sin and not walking off the path. There's no system, just walk! And I don't mean in some intangible sense, I mean, get up and go to church, partake of the Sacraments, help others alone the way.

Why can't salvation be this objective? Why does it come down to me having to dot is and cross ts in Protestantism?


That's where I was with Lutheranism as well. Justification BECOMES salvation and sanctification became an afterthought. Taken to the logical extreme, justification eventually becomes an intellectual exercise of checking off the right checkboxes. If you actually do something beneficial, "confessional Lutherans" will then clutch their pearls that you are doing works. Loving your neighbor becomes anathema unless it is done with a cold calculation that you make sure that you never consider it meriting anything.

Yes Orthodoxy isnt as defined and blocked off as the west. Theology isn't an intellectual exercise for us, it is living a Christ-like life.

A few years after we were Orthodox, a family that had just started to attend catechism classes had a fire that destroyed their house. They showed up at the Sunday liturgy in what they had been able to throw on while getting out of the house. Within a few hours, one family had taken them to Target and bought the family new clothes so they could at least get to school and work the next day. We cleaned out the church pantry so they had some groceries to get started with meals. Our Philoptochos society (women's guild) worked with the Red Cross to get them housing. We made sure that they had sitters for the children so the parents could have time to deal with insurance and all the rest of the stuff. It was simply natural for our church to organize this kind of help. Are the Greeks going to be running late for the Judgement, of course! But they're going to make sure that everyone is ready for it when it does come :p
 
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