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Assurance of Salvation
You may be well aware that a lot (if not all) evangelicals, baptists, protestants etc say that they "are saved".
The Orthodox philosophy is not to say that "we are saved" but that "we are being saved". It takes the approach to salvation of an athelete who is running until the race is over. You cannot just give up.
However, their point is quite valid; and I think we have misunderstood them:
Their logic is this:
Christ's blood saved us. It was enough to pay the price for our sins - our current sins and our future sins. We stand justified before the Father. If we say we are "not sure if we are saved" then we doubt (according to their logic) that somehow our righteousness is needed for us to be saved.
Now - that's an interesting point. Isn't it? The more I struggle NOT to sin, despite my baptism, despite the death of the old man through my baptism, I STILL sin. Therefore, I will never be perfect. It doesn't mean I should stop trying, but it doesn't mean either that I should ever DOUBT that I am not saved because I have sinned.
There are sins that lead to death, and there are others that don't. You agree? And I think the sin that leads to death are the ones that you cannot repent over. But, if you repent over them, even if you fall 1000's afterwards, do you believe (AS ORTHODOX) that you are still saved? If there are sins you didnt repent/confess over (because your sins are SO countless and you forgot) are you still saved? Do you have this assurance??
One thing I noticed between us and them is that they live life with an "assurance" of their salvation. This means that they do not carry guilt about their sins. This is something, in my opinion, quite healthy. I noticed that many orthodox christians, and I guess Catholics too, have this guilt trip over their sins.
Although it is admirable that their repentance is on-going, if you have repented for your sins, why do you STILL repent if it has been forgiven? Why not live in the assurance of your salvation knowing that no matter how bad you are, God loves you so much that you are saved! You WILL NEVER be perfect. You will always fail, you will always sin. So, why the lack of assurity in the Orthodox mindset when it comes to the assurance of your own salvation.
I agree that we have a free will, and a frail nature which means, for some people, that if today I accept Christ, then tomorrow I could reject Him. I could very well, tomorrow, go off and start worshipping idols. That's true.
But the evangelicals are not talking about this when they exclaim that they are saved. To them, when they say they are "saved" they mean that they are "born again" - and this "rebirth" , for them, is something they don't deny.
Perhaps I've answered my own question, but it seems the ONLY condition that forfeits your salvation is if you doubt the sacrifice of Christ's life on the cross for you or if you refuse to repent for a sin.
Ultimately, would you agree that we still die sinful, even despite our baptism, and getting worried about EVERY single sin we do, as if our God is such a monster He's going to remember every single sin that we forget to confess about, we are STILL saved??
I just get the impression, from some Orthodox Christians, that if they sin, UNWILLINGLY, unwittingly, UNknowingly, UNintentionally, and they realise it afterwards, and repent for it, then they seem to think that their salvation is in jeopardy.
I agree - if you sin, knowingly, and you do not repent for it, INTENTIONALLY, then this is a problem. You, by your own actions, and WILL - are prefering your sin than Christ, which ultimately results in your perpetual death.
what do you all think?
The Orthodox philosophy is not to say that "we are saved" but that "we are being saved". It takes the approach to salvation of an athelete who is running until the race is over. You cannot just give up.
However, their point is quite valid; and I think we have misunderstood them:
Their logic is this:
Christ's blood saved us. It was enough to pay the price for our sins - our current sins and our future sins. We stand justified before the Father. If we say we are "not sure if we are saved" then we doubt (according to their logic) that somehow our righteousness is needed for us to be saved.
Now - that's an interesting point. Isn't it? The more I struggle NOT to sin, despite my baptism, despite the death of the old man through my baptism, I STILL sin. Therefore, I will never be perfect. It doesn't mean I should stop trying, but it doesn't mean either that I should ever DOUBT that I am not saved because I have sinned.
There are sins that lead to death, and there are others that don't. You agree? And I think the sin that leads to death are the ones that you cannot repent over. But, if you repent over them, even if you fall 1000's afterwards, do you believe (AS ORTHODOX) that you are still saved? If there are sins you didnt repent/confess over (because your sins are SO countless and you forgot) are you still saved? Do you have this assurance??
One thing I noticed between us and them is that they live life with an "assurance" of their salvation. This means that they do not carry guilt about their sins. This is something, in my opinion, quite healthy. I noticed that many orthodox christians, and I guess Catholics too, have this guilt trip over their sins.
Although it is admirable that their repentance is on-going, if you have repented for your sins, why do you STILL repent if it has been forgiven? Why not live in the assurance of your salvation knowing that no matter how bad you are, God loves you so much that you are saved! You WILL NEVER be perfect. You will always fail, you will always sin. So, why the lack of assurity in the Orthodox mindset when it comes to the assurance of your own salvation.
I agree that we have a free will, and a frail nature which means, for some people, that if today I accept Christ, then tomorrow I could reject Him. I could very well, tomorrow, go off and start worshipping idols. That's true.
But the evangelicals are not talking about this when they exclaim that they are saved. To them, when they say they are "saved" they mean that they are "born again" - and this "rebirth" , for them, is something they don't deny.
Perhaps I've answered my own question, but it seems the ONLY condition that forfeits your salvation is if you doubt the sacrifice of Christ's life on the cross for you or if you refuse to repent for a sin.
Ultimately, would you agree that we still die sinful, even despite our baptism, and getting worried about EVERY single sin we do, as if our God is such a monster He's going to remember every single sin that we forget to confess about, we are STILL saved??
I just get the impression, from some Orthodox Christians, that if they sin, UNWILLINGLY, unwittingly, UNknowingly, UNintentionally, and they realise it afterwards, and repent for it, then they seem to think that their salvation is in jeopardy.
I agree - if you sin, knowingly, and you do not repent for it, INTENTIONALLY, then this is a problem. You, by your own actions, and WILL - are prefering your sin than Christ, which ultimately results in your perpetual death.
what do you all think?
Comments
You are supposed to feel guilt over your sins, and remorse. The main thing is not to feel helpless.
After you appreciate those feelings, with proper discipline and awareness, this allows a person to seek out confession, penance, and a sense of solace when the sin is absolved. Naturally, the Grace of God, and His Holy Spirit, guide us through the process.
This is the aim of the Christian life, to acquire the Holy Spirit. When we sin the Holy Spirit withdraws from us. as we grow in spirituality this becomes more evident to us, and more painful for us. At first perhaps we only avoid gross sins because we think we will get into trouble, but this at least can help us form good habits. In my (protestant) home we were not allowed to use any bad language at all, and so I have the habit of not using such language and I find it painful when I hear other Christians do so. But such habits of avoiding what we will be punished for is not the same as seeking to acquire the Holy Spirit out of love of God.
If we feel guilty because we have sinned then this is a good thing because we are being given the opportunity to repent. But a feeling of being guilty is not the essence of repentance. Satan does like to convince people that feeling bad about themselves is the same as repentance - it is not. Indeed as we grow in spirituality we realise that we are entirely weak and entirely unable to do any good without God's grace, so feeling guilty that we have failed is actually a form of pride. We are considering ourselves better than we are.
And just as there is a counterfeit guilt which is self-centered, so there is a counterfeit repentance which is also self-centered. This can be seen when we insist to God that we will try harder next time, and that we really will stop committing this sin or that sin. This is really just pride talking. We don't have the power to stop sinning in ourselves, and when we insist that we will we are only kidding ourselves that we will do that which we have already shown we are unable to do.
Genuine spiritual guilt is that sense that we have offended and grieved God. It is not based on the fear of punishment but on the fear of losing God's presence in our lives. The counterfeit guilt remains with us because when we recall our sins we are reminded that we have fallen, or we are reminded that we are worthy of punishment. True guilt (and I don't like that word so much) does not leave a mark of fear but turns into thankfulness, and the remembrance of sin is a remembrance of God's grace and forgiveness, and a welcome reminder that without God we can do nothing.
Genuine repentance is, in one sense, the opposite of promising to do better next time. We know that we can't. What we need to do is turn towards God and ask Him for the grace to even make a beginning of overcoming sin. Repentance is not a feeling. Repentance is a decision and a direction. Indeed it is the Greek word for 'turning around'. So when we repent we are choosing God, just as when we sin we are choosing ourselves. It doesn't matter what feelings we might have if we so not turn back to God, and turning back to God requires us to seek Him and Him alone.
The Prodigal Son found himself in a pig sty and realised he had made a terrible mistake in his life, but this was not repentance. Indeed he could have continued to sit in the pig sty the rest of his life feeling miserable and it would not have been a true repentance. He sat in the pig sty and said to himself, I will go back to my father. But that wasn't repentance, it was just thinking about repentance. He repented when he actually did get up out of the pig sty and set off to his father's house. He repented when he realised that his real issue was being separated from his father, and not the fact that he had no food, or was living in filth.
We can imagine that if someone had offered him a bath or a good meal then he would not have felt so miserable and would have settled back into his old life, and he would have remained separated from his father. His issue was not his hunger and his dirtiness.
Often we think that we have done things which make us ashamed before God. But he knows all our thoughts. There is no need to be ashamed, as if He has just learned that we are weak and useless. He knows it all along. Our problem is that we are not seeking God with our whole heart, not that we commit this sin or that. The reason we commit sin is because we are not seekign God. But we often put it the other way around and act as though we would really seek God if only we really made some effort and made ourselves holy first.
We cannot. We fool ourselves, or are fooled by Satan, if we think we can make ourselves holy and then seek God. All we can ever do is seek God and let Him take care of our sin. We can never take care of our sin ourselves. We can only keep getting up, setting off again on the road to our father's house, and fall before him saying, 'I have sinned against you, I am not worthy to be your child'.
The problem with the common Protestant view of salvation is that it need have nothing to do with seeking God, or seeking to acquire the Holy Spirit. It is a legal transaction. I have believed that Jesus died for my sins, and now I will go to heaven regardless. This really is deficient. Indeed it does not require any seeking after God at all, just a mental assent to the idea that Jesus died for my sins.
The Christian faith requires not a mental assent to an idea, but a personal commitment to the personal Trinity. We must be united with Christ, not in an external manner, like in a legal contract. But in the sense that 'it is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me'. This is why we need the sacraments, this is why we need the grace of the Holy Spirit.
The sense in which many Protestants speak of salvation is very different indeed to that of the Church and the Fathers. There may well be a sense of assurance, but it is often based on failing to do anything much about sin. And if we are sinful then we are distant from God. And if we are distant from God then we are not becoming renewed and transformed in the image and likeness of Christ.
It is a bit like the difference between me giving someone a US or a UK passport and saying, you are now a citizen of the US or UK. And them actually coming to live in the US or UK. Getting a job. Paying taxes. Joining in social and cutural activities. Speaking the language. etc etc. The first idea makes a person notionally and legally a citizen, but it is only by participation that a person really becomes American or British in a meaningful sense.
Father Peter
We are saved by the power of the Lord’s Passion and Resurrection when we received the Christian Mystery (we were “born again”) at Baptism,
We are being saved by the working of the Holy Spirit through prayer, the Holy Gifts (the Eucharist) and all the Mysteries of Divine healing, and
By the mercy of God we shall be saved for Eternal Life at the Partial Judgment at the moment of our death, being made worthy by the Life-Giving Word and Holy Tradition.
Salvation is a gift offered by God. We as believers must accept this gift to be saved.