The Good News: A Popular Presentation of The Doctrine of Salvation as taught in the Orthodox Church By Fr John Maxwell God is love. He is the Communal Being par excellence. From all eternity the Father loved the Son and the Holy Spirit. The Son loved the Father and the Holy Spirit. And the Holy Spirit loved the Father and the Son. God desired to express this love, not out of necessity, but out of love, outside of Himself. Thus He created the world. The Crown of this creation was man, who was made in His image and after His likeness. Being made in the image of the Communal Being, he is called to live as such, to love and to be loved. And as the crown of creation he is its prophet (its spokesman for God), priest (its intercessor to God) and shepherd king (its caretaker). Moreover, he has a special relationship to all of creation. In himself, he sums up all of creation. He is a microcosm of the universe. Man has communion with both the material, visible created realm because of his body and the invisible created realm (the realm of angels and heavenly hosts) because of his soul. He also has the capacity for communion with the invisible uncreated realm (namely God) because he is also spirit. GOD The Uncreated Realm

SPIRIT

SOUL

The Spiritual Created Realm

BODY

The Physical Created Realm

Furthermore, because he is a communal being, he is called upon to unite all of creation and bring it to God. Ultimately, the goal is for him to break the "NATURAL BARRIER" between God and Creation, that is the barrier between the uncreated (God) and the created (The Cosmos), the infinite and the finite. GOD Natural Barrier MAN But instead of living as a communal being man went the way of separate existence. This fall of man resulted in countless separations: the separation of man and God, the separation of body and soul, the separation of man with man, the separation of man with the angels, and the separation of man with creation. And this fall introduced two new barriers: the barriers of sin and death. GOD Natural Barrier Death Barrier Sin Barrier MAN As man continued to choose this way of existence, he increasingly refused to give thanks to the Creator or to strive to live in communion with Him. His knowledge of God became darkened and he began to worship vain things of his own making and to rationalize his immoral life through self justifications. Instead of spiritualizing the body, he became subject to the material conditions of the world. He now had a new dependence on the animal side of existence. Life began to be thought of in terms of survival of the fittest. In this anxiety over his survival, along with his desire to satisfy the appetites of the flesh, which give birth to the passionate life, he failed to live consistently with self emptying love. His life became characterized by grasping for all the gusto he could. The Devil and his host of demons, seeing the downfall of man, assaulted man, as he continues to do, with tempting thoughts, pushing just the right buttons. As man yields to these temptations and participates in sin, he becomes more and more enslaved to sin. Sin is like the Lay’s potato chip: "It’s hard to have just one." God, however, did not despise man for this but sought him out to restore him to his former glory. God formed an alliance through the seed of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob through which the goal of theanthropic union (the union of the divine and human natures in the single person of Christ) would take place. In this preparatory stage, a purifying process took place through a series of rises and falls, through the spiritual training of the law and the prophets, and all of this was culminated in the Holy Virgin who would bear God.

Before the incarnation, (God becoming man in the person of Jesus Christ) divine likeness was only possible by degree. Now there is the possibility of divine likeness by kind. Through the incarnation, our Lord and Savior removes the Natural Barrier. By His Life, Teachings, and Saving Deeds, He tore down the Barrier of Sin. By Teaching the truth, He gave us spiritual direction, and delivered us from the delusion of idolatry. By His Baptism, He cleansed and sanctified the human race. In the Garden of Gethsemane, He took on our sin to restore man to the garden of paradisaical innocence. On the Cross, He became the sacrifice for sin. Now not only forgiveness but cleansing and deliverance from sin is possible. He is truly the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. By dying, He broke down the Barrier of Death. By dying and going to hell, He identified with us. Death has been conquered by the death of God. Because He was God, it was not possible for death to hold him captive. Therefore, He rose from the dead granting life to the world. Death is now transfigured into a bed of hope. By ascending into the Godhead, He made our union with God complete. He then sent the Holy Spirit: establishing the New creation, the Church. Everything is now possible for full growth in divine life. Christ is made known in Her (the Church). Individuals who live in a separate mode of existence become persons who live in a communion of love. The Trinitarian mode of existence can now be realized. The foretaste of the Kingdom of God is with us. And at the second coming, we will be changed and be like Him when we see Him face to face. Finally, we will love and be loved in an unmeasured way. GOD Natural Barrier Death Barrier Sin Barrier MAN We are all invited to enter this new life in Christ through repentance, faith, and the sacramental life of the Church. Through Holy Baptism we are born again - we put on Christ. Through Holy Chrismation we receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. Through Holy Communion Christ enters our life. By God’s grace we are justified (just as if we had never sinned). This is the beginning of this new life. We are then called to grow in Christ, through ascetic effort (i.e. prayer, fasting, almsgiving) and participating in the sacramental life of the Church. By God’s grace working in our lives we are changed into the likeness of Jesus Christ. Ultimately, we will be forever changed when He appears to us.