The gates of Paradise have been opened

We do not know if every one followed Christ when He rose from hell. Nor do we know if every one will follow Him to the eschatological Heavenly Kingdom when He will become ‘all in all’. But we do know that since the descent of Christ into Hades the way to resurrection has been opened for ‘all flesh’, salvation has been granted to every human being, and the gates of paradise have been opened for all those who wish to enter through them. This is the faith of the Early Church inherited from the first generation of Christians and cherished by Orthodox Tradition. This is the never-extinguished hope of all those who believe in Christ Who once and for all conquered death, destroyed hell and granted resurrection to the entire human race.

Metropolitan Hilarion (Alfeyev), “Christ the Conqueror of Hell – The Descent of Christ into Hades in Eastern and Western Theological Traditions”

I know that I quoted this once before, but it seems particularly apt at this time!

 

If He conquered as God, to us it is nothing…

When Cyril [of Alexandria] writes in his commentary on the Gospel of John, he sees another dimension to the Resurrection. The Resurrection was evidence that Christ was a unique kind of man. Christ, he writes, “presented himself to God the Father as the first fruits of humanity…. He opened up for us the way that the human race had not known before.” Before Christ came into the world “human nature was incapable of destroying death,” but Christ was superior to the tribulations of the world and “more powerful” than death. Hence he became the first man who was able to conquer death and corruption. By showing himself stronger than death, Christ extends to us the power of his Resurrection “because the one that overcame death was one of us.” Then Cyril adds the sentence, “If he conquered as God, to us it is nothing; but if he conquered as man we conquered in Him. For he is to us the second Adam come from heaven according to the Scriptures.” This is an extraordinary statement and to my knowledge unprecedented. Cyril asserts that Christ triumphed over death because of the kind of human being he was. His human nature makes Christ unique.

Robert Louis Wilken, The Spirit of Early Christian Thought. Seeking the Face of God, 120-21.

 

The Protestant view of salvation and the Orthodox view of salvation

I’ve just watched this and found it strangely moving. Somehow I expected it to be funny because, well, it’s Steve Robinson. But of course salvation is serious business. I’m posting this here, because I suspect that there are others who may appreciate it. And also, I suppose, because it reminds me of how growing up I found the penal substitutionary atonement theory really revolting but didn’t know what the alternative was… and if anyone else is in that situation I’d like them to watch this.

 

Lazarus Saturday

Though has clothed me in a body of clay, O Saviour, and breathed life into me, and I beheld Thy light; and Thou hast raised me from the dead by Thy command.

Thou has breathed life into my flesh, O Saviour, when there was no breathe within it; Thou has bound it fast with bones and sinews, and Thou has raised me from the dead by Thy command.

Thou hast broken open the all-devouring belly of hell and snatched me out, O Saviour, by Thy power; and thou has raised me from the dead by Thou command.

Canticle Six from the Canon of St Andrew of Crete for Lazarus Sunday.

 

Seeing the Resurrection

Salvation is not how to get people like me (or like you) into some place safe from the fires of hell. That is a transportation problem at best, or a legal problem, at worst. The point of salvation is how to change people like me (and you). It is about changing us such that seeing the resurrection becomes possible.

Father Stephen Freeman, here.

 

The Second Adam

The first Adam, progenitor of the human race, was unable to fulfil the vocation laid before him: to achieve deification and bring to God the visible world by means of spiritual and moral perfection. Having broken the commandment and fallen away from the sweetness of Paradise, he had closed the way to deification. Yet everything that the first man left undone was accomplished in his stead by God Incarnate, the Word-become-flesh, the Lord Jesus Christ. He trod that path to us which we were meant to tread towards him. And if this would have been the way of humanity’s ascent, for God it was the way of humble condescension, of self-emptying (kenosis).

St Paul calls Christ the ‘second Adam’. Contrasting him with the first, he says: ‘The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man is from heaven’ (I Cor. 15:47). This parallelism was developed by St John Chrysostom, who referred to Adam as the prototype of Christ:

Adam is the image of Christ … as the man for those who came from him, even though they did not eat of the tree, became the cause of death, then Christ for those who were born of him, although they have done no good, became the bearer of righteousness, which he gave to all of us through the Cross.

Gregory the Theologian makes a detailed comparison between Christ’s sufferings and Adam’s fall:

For each of our debts we are given to in a special way … The tree of the Cross has been given for the tree we tasted of; for our hand stretched out greedily, we have been given arms courageously extended; for our hands following their own inclination, we have been given hands nailed to the Cross; for the hand that has driven out Adam, we have been given arms uniting the ends of the earth into one. For our fall we have been given his raising up on a Cross; for our tasting of the forbidden fruit, we have been given his tasting of bile; for our death, his death; for our return to the earth, his burial.

Metropolitan Hilarion Alfeyev, The Mystery of Faith: An Introduction to the Teaching and Spirituality of the Orthodox Church, 79-80.

 

It remains spiritually impossible to talk of Hell for others

It remains spiritually impossible to talk of Hell for others. The theme of Hell can only be broached in the language of I and Thou. The threats in the Gospel concern me; they form the serious tragic element in my spiritual destiny; they prompt me to humility and repentance, because I recognise them as the diagnosis of my state. But for you, the numberless you of my neighbour, I can only serve, bear witness, and pray that you will experience the Risen Christ, and that you and everyone will be saved…

Olivier Clement quoted in Metropolitan Hilarion Alfeyev, The Mystery of Faith: An Introduction to the Teaching and Spirituality of the Orthodox Church, 227.

 

Praying for all

Imitate God! If He willeth that all men should be saved, there is reason why one should pray for all, if He hath willed that all should be saved, be thou willing also; and if thou wishest it, pray for it, for wishes lead to prayers. Observe how from every quarter He urges this upon the soul, to pray for the Heathen, showing how great advantage springs from it; “that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life”; and what is much more than this, that it is pleasing to God, and thus men become like Him, in that they will the same that He does. This is enough to shame a very brute. Fear not therefore to pray for the Gentiles, for God Himself wills it; but fear only to pray against any, for that He wills not. And if you pray for the Heathens, you ought of course to pray for Heretics also, for we are to pray for all men, and not to persecute. And this is good also for another reason, as we are partakers of the same nature, and God commands and accepts benevolence and affection towards one another.

But if the Lord Himself wills to give, you say, what need of my prayer? It is of great benefit both to them and to thyself. It draws them to love, and it inclines thee to humanity. It has the power of attracting others to the faith; (for many men have fallen away from God, from contentiousness towards one another;) and this is what he now calls the salvation of God, “who will have all men to be saved”; without this all other is nothing great, a mere nominal salvation, and only in words. “And to come to the knowledge of the truth.” The truth: what truth? Faith in Him. And indeed he had previously said, “Charge some that they teach no other doctrine.” But that no one may consider such as enemies, and on that account raise troubles against them; he says that “He willeth that all men should be saved, and come to the knowledge of the truth”; and having said this, he adds, “For there is one God, and one Mediator between God and men.”

Saint John Chrysostom, Homily VII on 1 Timothy ii. 2–4.

 

Opened for all humanity

As the last stage in the divine descent (katabasis) and self-emptying (kenosis), the descent of Christ into Hades became at the same time the starting point of the ascent of humanity towards deification (theosis). Since this descent, the path to paradise is opened for both the living and the dead, which was followed by those whom Christ delivered from hell.  The destination point for all humanity and every individual is the fullness of deification in which God becomes ‘all in all’. It is for this deification that God first created man and then, when ‘the time had fully come’ (Gal. 4:4), Himself became man, suffered, died, descended to Hades and was raised from the dead.

We do not know if every one followed Christ when He rose from hell. Nor do we know if every one will follow Him to the eschatological Heavenly Kingdom when He will become ‘all in all’. But we do know that since the descent of Christ into Hades the way to resurrection has been opened for ‘all flesh’, salvation has been granted to every human being, and the gates of paradise have been opened for all those who wish to enter through them. This is the faith of the Early Church inherited from the first generation of Christians and cherished by Orthodox Tradition. This is the never-extinguished hope of all those who believe in Christ Who once and for all conquered death, destroyed hell and granted resurrection to the entire human race.

Metropolitan Hilarion (Alfeyev), “Christ the Conqueror of Hell – The Descent of Christ into Hades in Eastern and Western Theological Traditions”

 

Against the grain?

This morning I was reflecting on the decided coolness that some Christians around here seem to display towards Orthodoxy. While this is no doubt partly because we are really pretty unknown, I suspect that there is also more going on. On the one hand, there are  Evangelicals I know who I suspect regard us as some sort of weird sect, or else as a more exotic version of Catholicism which, for some of them, is probably hardly any better. But there are also, on the other hand, more liberal Protestants, Anglicans and Catholics, who show more interest in the Church, being fascinated by the icons, music, Liturgy and so on, until, well, until we give offence. The discovery that we do not accept “intercommunion,” or believe that all religious expressions are of equal validity, or buy into an agenda of “inclusivity,” seems to lead – understandably enough if one is committed to such things – to a coolness even if this is not expressed as an outright rejection.

Anyway, I  as I was washing the bath this morning I found myself thinking that Orthodox Christianity does indeed go “against the grain” of many contemporary cultural assumptions. However, no sooner had I voiced that phrase than I caught myself. While it is an expression that I have used before, I had never really considered where it came from until now. And, as a bookbinder who had only yesterday emailed a prospective client explaining the importance of grain direction, I really ought to know. And, as I reflected on this, I realised that it is actually a misconception to say that Orthodox Christianity goes “against the grain” or that it can ever be a good thing to go “against the grain.”

This is an expression that originates in the grain direction of paper. If you take a sheet of paper and bend it to fold it, you will notice that it folds more easily in one direction than the other (usually in the length with a sheet of A4 paper). When one is binding a book, it is very important that the paper is folded and glued “with the grain” and that the board for the covers and all other paper used should likewise run in the same direction. If this does not happen one gets friction between the different elements of the book, one may get warping and, quite simply, the finished product does not open and read as easily. (Regrettably publishers of many commercially bound books ignore this in the name of economy, but if you wonder why some books are not as supple to open as others, this could be why).

Anyway, reflecting on this, I realised that the Christian vision, while it may go “against the grain” of certain contemporary cultural assumptions – and, indeed, of the dominant assumptions of any era – does not go “against the grain” of our human nature, and of our deepest human identity. For we are created “with the grain,” in harmony with the grain direction of the universe, for we are created in the image and likeness of God. While that image has been distorted and marred due to sin, it is still our deepest identity and salvation in a Christian perspective is not only to recognise that image, but also to recover the likeness that has been lost by sin.

In this context, the life of the Church is there to form us – and re-form us – in the right direction, not simply in order to adapt us to a standard outside of ourselves, but because this is the direction of our own deepest nature. It is to ensure that we are in harmony with those to whom we are attached in a greater whole, to re-orientate us to the true reality in the universe. In this context, to try and go “against the grain,” to use the bookbinding analogy, is asking for trouble, not simply because it is being rebellious, but because it is inattentive to our own deepest identity.