The dogma of
salvation in Christ is the central dogma of Christianity, the heart of our
Christian faith. The Lord Jesus Christ is the Redeemer and Saviour of the human
race. All the preceding history of mankind up to the Incarnation of the Son of
God, in the clear image given both in the Old Testament and the New Testament
Scriptures, is a preparation for the coming of the Saviour. All the following
history of mankind, after the Resurrection and Ascension of the Lord, is the
actualization of the salvation which had been accomplished: the reception and
assimilation of it by the faithful. The culmination of the great work of salvation
is bound up with the end of the world. The Cross and the Resurrection of Christ
stand at the very center of human history. Neither descriptions nor
enumerations can take in the majesty, breadth, power, and significance of the
earthly ministry of Christ; there is no measuring-stick for the all-surpassing
wealth of God’s love, manifest in His mercy for the fallen and for sinners in
miracles, in healings, and finally, in His innocent sacrificial death, with
prayer for His crucifiers. Christ took upon Himselfthe sins of the entire world;
He received in Himself the guilt of all men. He is the Lamb slaughtered
for the world. Are we capable of
embracing in our thoughts and expressing in our usual, everyday
conceptions and words all the economy of our salvation? We have no words for
heavenly mysteries.
“We faithful,
speaking on things that pertain to God, touch upon an ineffable mystery, the Crucifixion,
that mind cannot comprehend, and the Resurrection that is beyond description:
for today death and hell are despoiled, while mankind is clothed in incorruption”
(Sedalion after the second kathisma, Sunday Matins, Tone 3).
However, as we see
from the writings of the Apostles, the very truth of salvation, the truth of
this mystery, was for the Apostles themselves entirely clear in its undoubtedness
and allembracingness. Upon it they based all their instruction, by means of it
they explain events in the life of mankind, they place it as the foundation of
the life of the Church and the future fate of the whole world. They constantly
proclaim the good news of salvation in the most varied expressions, without
detailed explanations, as a self-evident truth They write: “Christ saved us;”
“you are redeemed from the curse of the law;” “Christ has justified us;” “you
are bought at a dear price;” Christ “has covered our sins;” He is a
“propitiation for our sins;” by Him we have been “reconciled with God;” He is
“the sole Chief Priest;” “He has torn up the handwriting against us and nailed
it to the Cross;” He “was made a curse for us;” we have peace with God “by the
death of His Son;” we have been “sanctified by His blood;” we have been
“resurrected together with Christ.” In such expressions, chosen here at random,
the Apostles have contained a truth which in its very essence surpasses human
understanding, but which is clear for them in its meaning and in its
consequences. In a simple and accessible way this truth has penetrated from
their lips into the hearts of the faithful so that they all might know what is
“the economy of the mystery, which from the beginning of the world hath been
hid in God, Who created all things by Jesus Christ” (Eph. 3:9). Let us,
therefore, examine the teaching of the Apostles.
In the preaching of
the Apostles, especially worthy of attention is the fact that they precisely
teach us to distinguish between the truth of the salvation of mankind as a
whole, which has already been accomplished, and another truth — the necessity
for a personal reception and assimilation of the gift of salvation on the part
of each of the faithful, and the fact that this latter salvation depends upon
each one himself. “Ye are saved through faith, and that not of yourselves: it
is the gift of God,” writes the Apostle Paul (Eph. 2:8); but he also teaches,
“Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling” (Phil. 2:12).
Man’s salvation
consists in the acquirement of eternal life in God, in the Kingdom of Heaven.
“But nothing unclean can enter the Kingdom of God” (cf. Eph. 5:5; Apoc. 21:27).
God is Light, and there is no darkness in Him, and those who enter the Kingdom
of God must themselves be sons of the Light. Therefore, entrance into it
necessarily requires purity of soul, a garment of “holiness, without which no
man shall see the Lord” (Heb. 12:14).
The Son of God came
into the world in order a) to open the path to mankind in its entirety for the
personal salvation of each of us; and in order by this means b) to direct the
hearts of men to the search, to the thirst for the Kingdom of God, and “to give
help, to give power on this path of salvation for the acquirement of personal
spiritual purity and sanctity.” The first of these has been accomplished by
Christ entirely. The second depends upon ourselves, although it is accomplished
by the activity of the grace of Christ in the Holy Spirit.
CONVERSATION