The Catalog of Good Deeds

Question: "Often in Protestant circles and Bible studies one will reference 1 John 5:13, “These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life." This is a verse that they claim as a basis for having complete assurance of their salvation. What is the Orthodox teaching on this passage?"

The question here is what does it mean to know that you have eternal life? Do we have to know that there is nothing we could possibly do to lose our salvation in order to know that we have eternal life?

This sort of thinking is something that has emerged from a strange Protestant mix of Arminianism and Calvinism. Calvinism teaches that God has decreed before all eternity who will be saved and who will be damned, and so obviously, if you are among the elect, there is nothing you could possibly do to become unelected. But a Calvinist would say that those who are elect will show the fruits of their election at some point before they die, and begin to live like Christians. Arminians, on the other hand deny that God determines who will be saved, and that the offer of salvation is open to everyone, and that furthermore, one can fall away from God and lose their salvation. Most Baptists are partially Calvinistic and partially Arminian -- they believe that salvation is open to all, but that once who are saved, you cannot lose your salvation. You could "steal a horse and ride it into heaven." And for those who have bought into this perspective, the idea of eternal security is something they believe in very strongly. And in fact, they seem to have a hard time understanding how anyone could have any confidence in their salvation if they did not have the absolute assurance that they could not possibly lose their salvation.

I have known my wife since I was 17, and we have been married for more than 27 years. I feel very secure in our relationship, but I am quite certain that there are things I could do to destroy that relationship. I am not in fear of that happening, however, because I have no intention of doing any of those things. So I know that my wife loves me, but I also respect her, and make sure that I treat her with love and respect so as to maintain that relationship. Our relationship with God is similar. We know God loves us, but we also know that if we turn our back on Him, we will not remain in a right relationship with Him. All we need to do, however, is to not do that.

St. Nicholas Cabasilas explains how we are saved in our cooperation with God this way:

"There is an element which derives from God, and another which derives from our own zeal. The one is entirely His work, the other involves striving on our part. However, the latter is our contribution only to the extent that we submit to His grace and do not surrender the treasure nor extinguish the torch when it has been lighted. By this I mean that we contribute nothing which is either hostile to the life or produces death. It is to this that all human good and every virtue leads, that no one should draw the sword against himself, nor flee from happiness, nor toss the crowns of victory from off his head" (The Life in Christ, trans. by Carmino J. DeCatanzaro, (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1974), pp. 48-49).

Countless passages of Scripture could be cited to demonstrate that it is possible for us to lose our salvation, but the following words of the Prophet Ezekiel are a fairly clear example:

"The soul that sinneth, it shall die. The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son: the righteousness of the righteous shall be upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him. But if the wicked will turn from all his sins that he hath committed, and keep all my statutes, and do that which is lawful and right, he shall surely live, he shall not die. All his transgressions that he hath committed, they shall not be mentioned unto him: in his righteousness that he hath done he shall live. Have I any pleasure at all that the wicked should die? saith the Lord God: and not that he should return from his ways, and live? But when the righteous turneth away from his righteousness, and committeth iniquity, and doeth according to all the abominations that the wicked man doeth, shall he live? All his righteousness that he hath done shall not be mentioned: in his trespass that he hath trespassed, and in his sin that he hath sinned, in them shall he die" (Ezekiel 18:20-24).

By Fr. John Whiteford

Source: http://fatherjohn.blogspot.com/2015/12/stump-priest-assurance-of-salvation.html

The Hell is a vast territory, which God specially designed to torture the sinners. There are pans with boiling oil, cauldrons, demons with pitchforks, and unquenchable fire… In short, it’s the lake of fire. Is it true that the worse the sins of a dead man, the more terrible the suffering that his soul has to endure after death?

The Church doesn’t teach about any frying pans. That is what Saint Isaac the Syrian writes about the reason for the human suffering in hell: “I tell you, those who suffer in the Gehenna are lashed by the whip of love! How bitter and cruel this torment of love is! …The sadness that strikes one’s heart for sinning against love is more frightening than any other possible punishment. The idea that the sinners in hell are left without God’s love is incongruous. Love is born out of the knowledge of truth, which (as everyone agrees) is disseminated among all humans. However, the power of love has two opposite effects: it torments the sinners, even as we have to suffer certain afflictions from our loved ones here on earth, and makes those who did what they were obliged to do happy. That is why, in my opinion, the torment of hell is actually repentance.”

The Lord is angry with sinners and punishes them with various diseases and troubles while they are still alive, and sentences them to eternal torture in hell after they die because sin makes God angry or offended, right?

Sin is an action that contradicts our very essence as human beings, and thus it is no accident that such an action inflicts pain. As far as God’s attitude towards sinners is concerned, this is what St. Anthony the Great has to say, “…God is never happy and never angry because joy and anger are passions. It is foolish to think that the Deity may feel good or bad due to our actions. God is good and He always does only good. He never harms anyone. He is always the same. When we are good, we can interact with God due to our association with him; when we become bad, we are separated from God because we become different from him. When we lead a virtuous life, we are close to God; when we become evil, we are far from him; it doesn’t mean that He is angry with us: our own sins don’t let God shine through us. Our sins connect us with our tormentors, the demons.”

Are we responsible for the sins of our parents?

Depends on how you define responsibility. If you mean legal responsibility, of course not. Only the “author” of a certain sin is responsible for it before God, people, and his own conscience. However, the sin-inflicted damage of human nature can be inherited from one’s parents. A vivid example is inborn alcohol addiction, which an alcoholic mother can transmit to her unborn child.

Why do I have to bear responsibility for the sin of Adam and Eve?

Metropolitan Hierotheos (Vlachos), a contemporary Greek theologian, writes, “…the Holy Fathers make it evident that it’s not Adam’s guilt that is inherited but the consequences of his sin, i.e., corruption and death. Adam’s sin made human nature weak and corrupt, and therefore, it is natural that every human being, as an inseparable part of this nature, cannot avoid the prevailing corruption… Therefore, based on all those assumptions, we can speak of inheritance of mortality but not guilt, as Western theology claims.”

Why do people in the Church commit sins?

It’s because the Church is the spiritual hospital. People in the Church sin for exactly the same reason that patients who stay in a hospital are ill. Saint Ephraim the Syrian used to say in the 4^th century that the Church is not only the assembly of the righteous but also the crowd of penitent sinners. There are spiritual diseases that cannot be cured straightaway. With that said, the sinners who go to church hate their own sins, shed tears and do their best to get rid of them, while those very sins can constitute the main purpose and meaning in the life of a person who doesn’t go to church.

Is retaliation for one’s sin in Christianity the same as the law of Dharma in Eastern religions?

No, it’s not. Indeed, there is the idea in Christianity that retaliation for one’s sin is natural. This is what St. Mark the Ascetic writes about it: “Generally, God has decreed that every action, good or bad, must be followed by a natural consequence. The reward or retaliation is not invented for every occasions separately, as some people who are ignorant of the spiritual laws believe.” At first glance, you might think that there is a direct analogy of this teaching with the principle of Dharma or with atheist determinism, where every event in the life of the world is an inescapable result of preceding events. However, this analogy is superficial. According to Christian doctrine, apart from spiritual causes and effects, there is also the omnipotent God who is capable of tearing up the connection between human sins and their apparently unavoidable results. Figuratively speaking, Dharmic religions teach that if you shoot an arrow, it will always hit the target even if you suddenly realize that the arrow is directed at your own son. Christianity teaches that God can ward that “arrow of sin” off even if it is almost too late.

Why does the Church demand that I confess “thought crimes”? I can’t control my thoughts

It doesn’t mean that you have to repent of the never-ending “train of thoughts” that’s so often filled up with so much garbage. Only the thoughts that you “entertain in your heart” can be sinful. Confession of all sinful thoughts is doomed to failure: we commit these kinds of sins too often. There is a better way to ward them off: an immediate prayer of repentance and an outcry to God for help is the most effective means against the countless sins that every one of us commits in our hearts all the time. You don’t have to wait for a formal confession to ask God for help. Saint Theophan the Recluse stated in no unclear terms that “with regard to minor sinful movements of the heart, thoughts and the like… here’s the rule: as soon as you notice something impure, you must purify it with repentance before the Lord. It will suffice but if your conscience signals that there’s something wrong still, you can mention that thought during your evening prayer with a contrite heart, and that’s enough. This kind of sins is cleansed by heartfelt repentance.”

Why does the Church divide sins into mortal and non-mortal ones?

The Old Testament lists several sins that couldn’t be atoned by animal sacrifice. They devastated the soul of the person who had committed them so strongly that according to the Mosaic Law, the person who had committed one of those sins had to be punished by death. Among those sins were murder (premeditated or not) and forced sale into slavery, which was regarded as its equivalent; idolatry; adultery; fornication and various sexual perversions; sorcery and false prophecy; irreverence towards parents and elders; failure to observe the Sabbath and religious holidays; blasphemy and sacrilege. The New Testament Church abandoned the practice of death atonement for these sins. However, the name “mortal sin” which can be found in the New Testament points at the profound spiritual damage that was punished by death in the ancient Israel. A mortal sin changes the sinner’s life. There is some part of his or her soul that dies forever because of it.

Why do people tend to commit the same sins that they’ve confessed over and over again?

Saint Augustine described this situation with extreme precision: “I was asking You to make me chaste and I said, Please make me chaste and moderate but not now. I was afraid that You would hear me immediately and cure my evil passion at once: I preferred to satisfy it rather than extinguish it altogether.” If our souls are attached to the sin, it remains attractive and desirable. The Lord inspects our hearts, not our words. If we confess our sins hoping that the Lord won’t hear us, the Lord won’t cure our sins against our will. He will let us fall into that sin again and again and again… However, you still have to repent of that sin because if you have to go to a confession and tell a priest about your sin, you will have to overcome the barrier of shame. This shame frequently has a therapeutic effect because it calls for our effort. Seeing our effort, the Lord gives us the chance to see how ugly our sins really are and begin to loathe them. Only then can a genuine repentance and liberation from those sins be possible.

How can I denounce one’s sin and not be angry with the sinner?

It is possible only if that sinner is a person whom you really love and whom you can sacrifice your own life for. Saints loved everyone equally, like God. If you aren’t a saint but you see someone else’s sin and are willing to help that person to improve, pause and try to be honest with yourself: what are you ready to do for that person and for his or her improvement? How dear is that person to you? It’s not enough to help another person to see his or her own sin. You must help them to defeat that sin by being around and by taking up some slack. It means that you’ll inevitably have to bear some repercussions of his or her sin. You will have to suffer on his or her behalf and carry his or her burden according to the law of love. If you’re not prepared to do so, refrain from criticizing someone else’s sins and take care of your own sins instead.

Source: https://foma.ru/10-voprosov-o-grehe.html

1. Know your faith and know how to explain why we confess Orthodox Christianity. “But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts, and always be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you, with meekness and fear” (1 Peter 3:15).

2. Be not arrogant. To know and love your faith does not mean to blaspheme other people’s faith and to look down on the representatives of other confessions and religions, for such attitude to others’ beliefs is unworthy of the high name of a Christian. Remember that you are honored to be an Orthodox Christian only by God’s grace and that “we have this treasure in earthen vessels” (2 Corinthians 4:7).

3. Love the word of God and study it all the time. Every Christian should wholeheartedly read the Holy Scripture, following the teaching of the church and the words of Apostle Paul: “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord” (Colossians 3:16).

4. Set a rule for yourself – to read a piece of the Epistle or the Holy Gospel and the Scriptures of the Old Testament. When Christ said “search the Scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life; and these are they which testify of Me” (John 5:39), He meant exactly the Old Testament.

5. Pray. Keep learning to pray for your whole life. Prayer is the main connection between God and the human being. If there is no prayer, there is no connection with God, and we cannot be His sons and daughters, His redeemed people, as well as He cannot be our Father. To recognize God as our Father, we need to be His true children, which is just impossible without the communication through prayer. “Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. Do not quench the Spirit” (1 Thessalonians 5:16-19).

6. Pray not just in the morning or in the evening, but during the day and sometimes even at night. We all have our own studies and works, our own responsibilities and worries that we cannot ignore or avoid in our life. It is natural that we cannot pray all day and all night. But we can remember about God, thank Him, ask wholeheartedly for help and protection. “God have mercy on me” – this is what we can, and this is our sacrifice of praising God in our everyday life.

7. Live according to your faith and do good deeds. If we only believe and do not live by our faith, then there is no place for Orthodoxy at all because in this case there is only self-deception. This is why to do good means to live by the Orthodox faith. “Show me your faith without your works, and I will show you my faith by my works. For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also” (James 2:18, 26).

8. It is much better for you to do good in secret – not in front of other people so that you can receive appreciation from God, but not from people. “Take heed that you do not do your charitable deeds before men, to be seen by them. Otherwise you have no reward from your Father in heaven” (Matthew 6:1). It is we who need these good deeds most, for they are supposed to soften our own hearts.

9. Participate in the Eucharist. Without loving the Holy Eucharist, it is just impossible to love Christ because the Eucharist itself is Christ. The opportunity to partake of Blood and Body of Christ, to unite with our Lord is both the greatest privilege and responsibility of a Christian. Partaking of Holy Communion during the Liturgy, we are allowed to touch the One, Who is praised by Cherubims and Seraphims. “Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day” (John 6:54). Going to church to participate in the Liturgy and knowing that we will hear the Savior’s words addressed to us – “Take, eat; this is My body” – we must not disobey our Teacher, we must not reject the Chalice of Christ following our false humility. The true humility is to follow Christ’s calling: “Come, eat of my bread and drink of the wine I have mixed” (Proverbs 9:5).

10. Remember that the sense of a Christian’s life is to attain the Holy Spirit. The aim of our Christian being is to get involved into the being of the Holy Trinity, to become like Christ, Who came to the world so that we learn how to love God and each other. This is what the Church was established for – dying for any evil and resurrecting for piousness in the sacrament of the Holy Baptism, everyone of us has to become a member of God’s people, with whom the Lord made His New and Final covenant. Through the Chrismation of the Holy Spirit, we received Christ Himself, and now we can take part in His supper. Now, when we have become God’s children and received all these gifts, we have to give to the Lord only one thing in return – “Give me your heart” (Proverbs 23:26), and have to tell the whole world about this Good News – “For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved” (John 3:17).

By John Nichiporuk,

a Bachelor of Theology, a student of

the Minsk Theological Academy

The Catalog Of Good Deeds

1. Faith is the foundation of all goodness you need both in this life and to secure a good fate in the future everlasting eternity.

2. When our autocratic volition, guided by reason, wants to do good, i.e., to fulfil God’s will, and proves it by deed, it is pleasing unto God, and God helps us in performing those actions. When our foolishness wants to do something contrary to God’s will and insists on committing it, God allows it to happen because he doesn’t restrict our volition. However, He awards us for the first choice and punishes us for the second choice.

3. Our salvation is in our neighbour, and the Lord commands us to seek not our own benefit but the benefit of our neighbour.

4. Pride is the reason for all our disasters and alienation from God… It hides in the heart so well that a person who has it doesn’t notice or understand it unless God sends him a temptation to make it visible.

5. When we make God angry at our sins, we will not succeed in our worldly affairs, either.

6. Teach your children moral values and, when they are worth it and when it’s useful for them, God is able to enrich them or grant them things that they need and that will suffice them.

7. Our Lord Jesus Christ has revealed to us what the love of God consists of: “He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me” (John 14:21). That is why when we trespass God’s commandments, there is no love of God in us any longer.

8. When you don’t have a lot of time for prayer, use the time that you have. God will accept your will; remember: the publican’s repentance in prayer is pleasing unto God. Be careful not to put a price tag on your prayer: it’s God’s business, not ours.

9. If our thoughts are pure, we see everyone as holy and good. When we see that people are bad, it is caused by our own disposition.

10. You must be aware that every failure is preceded by pride; which is why you have to look at your heart closely and not let that serpent to creep into your heart. Our downfalls make us humble, so you should know that and you will be made free of those passions.

11. You should teach yourself to be patient not when you are rebuked for your actual guilt but when you are innocent and nevertheless scolded and admonished.

12. You have to struggle with your passions both if you live together with other people and if you live alone. However, secluded living is not for everyone, especially those who haven’t defeated their passions—abstract theorizing, rage, guile, and the like. Such people have to learn to defeat their passions through interaction with other people first.

13. Reading spiritual books enlightens our minds and shows us the road to salvation. It nurtures the soul in the same manner as physical food nurtures the body.

14. All our actions are not enough if they are not enlightened by consideration. Consideration is caused by humility. Humility in turn is born out of sorrows.

15. The Kingdom of God is within you, the Lord said (Luke 17:21), i.e., in your heart; so you must look for it in your heart by cleansing it from passions and temptations of the enemy, and by refraining from judgment or finding faults with anyone…

September 20, 2018

Translated by The Catalog of Good Deeds

Perhaps one of the most memorable verses in the New Testament comes from the Prologue of St. John’s Gospel, “ἐν ἀρχῇ ἦν ὁ λόγος, καὶ ὁ λόγος ἦν πρὸς τὸν θεόν, καὶ θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος.” (“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” (John 1:1) It was not by accident that St. John used, as the primary vehicle for communicating God’s person and presence, the term “λόγος” – Word.

A word is a means of communication. It is customarily spoken. It is itself a revelation of the One who speaks it. It requires seeing and hearing and, to distill its full meaning, it requires “rumination,” or pondering in the heart. Sacred Scripture is the living compendium of God’s Word, replete with stories, lessons, instructions, directions, and prophetic preaching designed to be seen, heard, and brought deep into the heart. In his book Bread for Life: Reading the Bible, Fr. Theodore Stylianopoulos, Professor of New Testament at Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology, writes, “The Church does not give us Holy Scripture as a book to study and interpret on our own. Rather, it opens to us the door to that beauty to which we are called by the Bridegroom Himself.”

Sacred Scripture is an encounter. It is a meeting between the human person and the very author of humanity itself. It is an extension of the salvific work done in Jesus Christ. A “living” testimony, Scripture is the presence of the Holy Spirit seeking us out to renew us and recreate us to live life in the post-modern world where, alas, words grow increasingly cheap, meaningless, and void of any power to inspire. If Sacred Scripture is so wondrous, then why do so few Orthodox Christians fail to read the Word of God every day?

A Pew Research Study on Religion and Public Life, indicates that nearly 70 percent of Orthodox Christians seldom or never pick up the Scripture and read it. 70 percent! I suspect that many, if not most reading these words find yourselves in that group. More shocking is the fact that 43 percent of Orthodox Christians believe Sacred Scripture is not the Word of God. These alarming survey results stand in stark contrast to the words of St. John Chrysostom. He tells his listeners “to persevere continually in reading the Divine Scriptures, because it is not possible, not possible for anyone to be saved without continually taking advantage of spiritually reading the Scriptures.”

Saint Jerome confirms Chrysostom’s counsel when he writes that “Ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ Himself!” For that reason, we need an Orthodox renaissance of Scripture reading. For the sake of our own holiness, spiritual life and desired closeness to Jesus, we need to read the Word, to reflect on the Word, and to live the Word – every day! How can we do that? Because of the limited amount of space, I suggest we begin by understanding how Sacred Scripture is read and by knowing four key qualities of reading the Word of God.

How is Sacred Scripture Read?

First, there is the reading of Scripture that is principally concerned with whether or not an event actually historically (factually) happened. For this method, historical authenticity means everything. It is often referred to as the “literal” way and is built on the premise that everything in Scripture literally happened as described. Secondly, there is the moral way of reading Scripture which seeks to find the moral reality, the values/ethics being taught in every passage. This way seeks out the various principles for Christian conduct, tantamount to a handbook of values. Finally, there is the spiritual way of reading Scripture. This method puts far less significance on the historical reality than the literal method and less emphasis on the purely moral reading.

A spiritual reading means discerning what the passage says about God, His world, and His work in the world – and how it applies to my life. This last method is used by Orthodox scholars as it was by the Fathers of the Church who were the first to engage in the formal study and development of Sacred Scripture. Biblical scholar Fr. Joseph Fitzmeyer notes that, “Our culture is obsessed with literal truth. Yet Sacred Scripture dealt in larger categories that literal truth. The New Testament, in particular, uses symbolic/spiritual language. Rarely do we decide a parable’s worth by whether or not it historically happened, in real time and space.”

Sacred Scripture tells us the story of how the kingdom of Light is expelling the darkness of human sin and death, as the Good News of Christ is preached and lived. The entire Bible is actually telling the “spiritual” reality behind what we perceive with our senses. The Orthodox way of reading Scripture is actually more faithful to reality, not as we see it, but as God sees it. Reading Scripture is an expression of what the Austrian psychiatrist Viktor Frankl said was, “man’s search for meaning”—a school of psychiatry he named “logotherapy”.

What are the Four Key Qualities of Reading Sacred Scripture?

Metropolitan Kallistos of Diokleia answers that question in the following way, “We believe that the Scriptures constitute a coherent whole. They are at once divinely inspired and humanly expressed. They bear authoritative witness to God’s revelation of Himself – in creation, in the Incarnation of the Word, and the entire history of salvation. As such they express the word of God in human language.”

Because of this, when we pick up Sacred Scripture to read it, we approach it with four qualities. Firstly, our reading should be obedient. We read Scripture like no other reading we may do. It is inspired of God, contains his voice and authoritative witness, and requires our obedience (openness, submission). In short, we must be receptive to the message God is communicating to us in our reading. Not a novel, not a biography, not a history text, Scripture is “Word-for-Meaning” in our life and we use our God-given reason to plumb its depths.

Secondly, as Orthodox Christians, we should receive and interpret Scripture through the Church and in the Church. The Church tells us what is Scripture and how it is understood. The Church defined what books were to be in Scripture, known as The Canon. In Acts we see the Apostle Philip encountering an Ethiopian reading the Old Testament. Philip asks, “Do you understand what you are reading?” The Ethiopian answers, “How can I, unless some man should guide me?” (Acts 8:30-31) Though we read the Scripture personally, it represents the mind of the Church and is “the Book of the Church.” For this reason it is precious to our faith.

Thirdly, our reading of the Bible should be Christ-centered. From start to finish, the Bible is the story of God’s persistent love reaching out and into man, ultimately through the Word-made-flesh, Jesus Christ. Analytical approaches break out the Scriptures into various sources which can harm the inner integrity of the book as a whole. We Orthodox prefer, instead, a synthetic approach, reading the Scriptures as an integrated whole with Christ as the bond of union. As Fr. Alexander Schmemann famously wrote, “A Biblical Christian is the one who, wherever he looks, on every page of Scripture, finds Christ everywhere.”

Lastly, our reading of Sacred Scripture ought to be personal. St. Mark the Monk, an early ascetic writer, relates, “He who is humble in his thought and engaged in spiritual work, when he reads the Holy Scriptures, will apply everything to himself and not to his neighbor.”

Scripture does not just ask “What does it mean?” but “What does it mean for me?” Where is my story within the larger narrative of salvation history? Where is God encountering me, reaching out to me, correcting me, teaching me? This is the point of all Scripture reading, both private and liturgical: to discover ourselves as part of salvation history, part of the reason why Jesus came, part of the hand of God’s mercy reaching into our lives to heal us and make us whole. There is life and hope in the pages of Holy Writ, there for us to discover.

One day, a still small voice whispered to St. Augustine as he sat in his garden. “Tolle, lege!” – “Take up, and read!” The incorrigible Augustine, who spent his life running from God, took up the Sacred Scripture, by chance flipped it open to the Epistle to the Romans, and it literally changed his life forever! That is God’s promise to each one of us – if we, too, take up and read.

By Rev. Fr. Dimitrios J. Antokas

Source: http://myocn.net/take-up-and-read/

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