Orthodox Soteriology

 

St. Patrick Orthodox Church,
the local ἐκκλησία in Carrollton, Georgia

I foolishly wrote about this, not just once, but twice, back when I was a baby Orthodox Christian and knew just enough to be dangerous, but far too little to presume to teach anyone.

Now, some 15 years later, I am still not quite a teacher, but I've learned a thing or two along the way.  I'd like to revisit some of the distinctions between what we believe and what most other Christians believe about soteriology.

First, that word "soteriology."  It is Greek, from two words, "σωτηρία," meaning "deliver" or "save" or "health," and the suffix "-λογία," which is a branch of knowledge, literally from the Greek "λόγος," meaning "word" or, in some cases, even ideas or conceptions.  Put simply, the word "soteriology" essentially boils down to "the knowledge of salvation" -- it is the theology of how we humans are saved by God.

In understanding this, it is probably important to understand that the "health" derivative of "σωτηρία" is more in line with what Orthodox Christians believe about salvation than more legalistic interpretations.  As Fr. Seth reminds us every now and then, we take the core of the Greek word "ἐλεῖσον," or "mercy," as related to the Greek word "ἐλαίον," which literally means "olive oil" and thus is related to the oil of healing.  This concept and understanding actually pre-dates Christianity. Orthodox Christians have never wavered from this.  We believe, and have always believed, that what the West calls "salvation" relates not so much to judgment, guilt, and punishment, but sickness, healing, and restoration.

With that in mind, how does this affect our salvation?  For one thing, as I have also written previously, we are not saved in isolation from one another.  We are saved in community  That doesn't mean the entire community (however we define it) is either saved or unsaved.  We don't tend to think like that.  What it does mean is the Body of Christ (that is, the Church), is saved, and I hope to be a part of it.  As a pre-emptive aside, I should state that this is not necessarily a statement about the canonical boundaries of the Church so much as the charismatic boundaries of the Church.  One can be related to the Church in some way, but still not quite fully within her canonical walls, so to speak. How and when this happens, God knows and we do not.  So we dare not judge the salvation of others based on whether they are in our "club."  The point is, we are saved in relation to others, not merely in relation to God alone. God saves us, not just me.

This corporate understanding of salvation is manifest in the pages of the New Testament.  The Bible talks about the company of heaven in Revelation, gathered around the altar asking "how long?"  St. Paul says "for just as the body is one and has many parts, and all the parts of the body, though many, are one body, so also is Christ. For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free—and have all been made to drink into one Spirit. For in fact the body is not one member but many." I Cor. 12:12-14. Elsewhere he writes "For just as each of us has one body with many members, and not all members have the same function, so in Christ we who are many are one body, and each member belongs to one another."  Romans 12:4-5.  The very word "ἐκκλησία," which we translate as "Church," means "those called out," and implies a gathering or assembly.  Put simply, there is no salvation without a Church, and there is no Church of one.  When St. Paul says "each member belongs to one another," there is a responsibility there, and a familial bond.  We are not alone, whether we like it or not.  We are not only among other people, but in fact we are bound to them in Christ.

This is clear in Orthodox practice.  We do not have private masses or anything like them.  For the Orthodox to celebrate a Divine Liturgy, at least one layman must be present.  The priest cannot offer a liturgy for someone by himself.  We are all, in a very real sense, in this together.

So if salvation is corporate, and it is the Church that is saved, what does this mean for our understanding of how we are saved and from what are we saved?  For one thing, as members of the Body of Christ, no sin is truly private.  Any sin I commit is as public as if I had done it in the middle of liturgy.  We still have private confession -- don't worry inquirers -- but our understanding of this is as a mercy to preserve the dignity of the penitent.  It is not because we think our sins don't affect other people.  For another, our love is also not private.  That is, we cannot love one person and hate another within the Body of Christ.  We all sin, we all fall short, we are all in need of healing.  So we forgive and show mercy and help one another.  That is the Christian way.  There are no enemies in the Body of Christ.  Even those we struggle to get along with are worthy of our prayers.  And our love for one another affects everything around us.

Beyond the corporate nature of salvation, though, there is the emphasis we place on sin as a wound or disease, and salvation as healing or restoration.  The Orthodox do speak in terms of guilt and punishment, it's just that it's not the overarching emphasis when we discuss salvation.  Some of this is our understanding of Who God is.  If God is love, then experiencing God's "wrath" as "anger" and so forth leaves us with some pretty uncomfortable conclusions.  Either the Calvinists are right, and God doesn't love everybody, or there is something more experiential about attributing the anthropomorphisms of "wrath" and "anger" to God.  The latter is how the Orthodox understand things.  We receive God's love as "wrath" when we experience the consequences of our own sin.  It's not that God hates us.  It's that God's infinite love is received by us as frightening and even painful when we are in opposition to Him.  That is one reason we take very seriously the idea of proper preparation for Holy Communion.  God loves everybody, but not everybody is prepared to receive that love.

In turn, this emphasis on healing versus being found "not guilty" leads us to understand our neighbor's sin better.  If they're wounded, and I'm wounded, then what do I have by which to judge them?  This does not mean, obviously, that we must endure abuse from unrepentant abusers.  We must forgive those who do us harm, but sometimes that forgiveness must come from a distance.  It does mean, however, that I am under a holy obligation to understand that I struggle with my own sin, and to learn to forgive even if others are not yet able or willing to either forgive or repent.

So what does this all mean, practically?  It means salvation is not being saved from the Father's wrath towards us.  God loves us.  Salvation is not being found "not guilty" because Christ, Who is innocent, was found "guilty" in our place.  God is just, and punishing the innocent for the sins of the wicked is unjust.  Salvation is not believing that I am saved because I believe the right things or do the right things, while others cannot be saved because they do not believe and act as I do.  God is merciful, and is not waiting for us to intellectually grasp every tenet of theology before He will save us.

Rather, salvation is understanding that each and every human person stands on the same footing before God, and that God loves us just as we are and forgives us just as we are.  It is taking those first steps as a spiritual toddler, with God holding our hand patiently as we stumble along, and then eventually, hopefully, learning to walk more steps without falling. It is realizing that because God loves me just as I am, He also loves me enough to want me to stop harming myself by my sin, and to stop harming my neighbor (who He loves as much as He loves me).   It is understanding that He gives us Himself to heal us and enliven us (particularly in the Sacraments).  And it is realizing that every human person on the planet is my neighbor, because our Lord, God and Saviour Jesus Christ has identified Himself with every human person on the planet.  Nobody is outside the reach of God's love, and because of that, nobody is beyond the scope of my forgiveness and forbearance.

That is, roughly speaking, how we see salvation.  Not as an angry judge punishing us for disobedience, but as a loving Father disciplining us and always drawing us to Himself.  And just as encounters with earthly fathers can be uncomfortable when we are not acting like we are members of the family, so too can encounters with God be uncomfortable when we do not act like His children.  If earthly fathers can forgive and love, despite our many failings, surely we can conceive of a God Who can do at least as much.