Tag archive for ‘salvation’
On morality, hell, salvation and eschatology
When does morality fall into the realm of heresy? What makes the eastern Orthodox understanding of Sin and Hell “different”?
The beginning of theology
The beginning of theology is not the card catalogue, but doing battle with the passions. And the end of theology is not becoming a professor, but becoming a saint.
A wonderful revelation to the world
It was Thursday. The day was gloomy. The snow lay eight inches deep on the ground; and dry, crisp snowflakes were falling thickly from the sky when Father Seraphim began his conversation with me…
The geography of hell
The parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus (Luke 16:19-31) has a long history of teasing Christians into dangerous territory. I suspect that many if not most Christians have more than a little curiosity about life after death. We want to know what happens. We want to know “how things work.” And this parable – at least on its surface – seems to give more indication of “how things work” than almost any other passage in Scripture.
Juneteenth
“…in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free.”
The nature of things
It is the nature of things that Christ did not come to make bad men good, but to make dead men live. This is to say that the nature of our problem is not moral but existential or ontological. We have a problem that is rooted in the very nature of our existence, not in our behavior. We behave badly because of a prior problem. Good behavior will not correct the problem.
What did Christ do for us?
Life, and forgiveness, and holiness, righteousness, healing… it’s a mistake to think those are gifts God gives us. Instead Jesus IS the life in us. He Himself is our righteousness, our peace, our wholeness. You don’t receive these things as gifts, like created items separate from Him — instead in Christ you get all of God. More…
Ancestral Versus Original Sin
As pervasive as the term original sin has become, it may come as a surprise to some that it was unknown in both the Eastern and Western Church until Augustine (c. 354-430). The concept may have arisen in the writings of Tertullian, but the expression seems to have appeared first in Augustine’s works…
Healing the Heart
The heart itself is but a small vessel, yet dragons are there, and there are also lions; there are poisonous beasts and all the treasures of evil. But there too is God, the angels, the life and the kingdom, the light and the apostles, the heavenly cities and the treasuries of grace—all things are there…
The Way into the Kingdom of Heaven
Everywhere you go in Alaska you’ll see Orthodox communities. What kind of evangelism was it that was so successful in converting the Native Alaskan peoples to Christ? Here is an example of the sort of preaching that won the Alaskans, translated from the original Aleut.
Original sin according to St Paul
If one is to vigorously and consistently maintain that Jesus Christ is the unique Savior Who has brought salvation to a world in need of salvation, one obviously must know what is the nature of the need which provoked this salvation…
The River of Fire
The devil managed to make men believe that God does not really love us, that He really only loves Himself, and that He accepts us only if we behave as He wants us to behave; that He hates us if we do not behave as He ordered us to behave, and is offended by our insubordination to such a degree that we must pay for it by eternal tortures, created by Him for that purpose. Who can love a torturer? Even those who try hard to save themselves from the wrath of God cannot really love Him. They love only themselves, trying to escape God’s vengeance and to achieve eternal bliss by managing to please this fearsome and extremely dangerous Creator.
The Pain of the Earth: A Cry for Change
by Aidan Hart
Theological Address at the Raubichi ECEN Assembly, 29 May 2001
I have been asked to speak today about a Christian theology of creation, or more specifically, the Orthodox Church’s theology of creation, and with particular reference to the pain of the earth. The various workshops we have had and will have during this assembly [...]
Why did Christ become Man? (Athanasius, 318AD)
On the Incarnation
by Athanasius, bishop of Alexandria
Introduction by C.S. Lewis
1. Creation and the Fall
(1) In our former book [i.e. the Contra Gentes] we dealt fully enough with a few of the chief points about the heathen worship of idols, and how those false fears originally arose. We also, by God’s grace, briefly indicated that the [...]
Entries (RSS)