ECT SALVATION: OLD TESTAMENT VS NEW

[TFTn5280]

The LXX reads literally: "The sinning soul shall die." It is referring to the fate of that soul at the Last Judgement... Where the wicked shall be deprived of God's Right Hand... It is the second death... The first is separation from body... The second is separation from God... We are baptized into the first... And through obedience to Christ in the Faith of Christ, we do not taste of the second, nor even the first, though we die a martyr's death in the teeth of wild beasts...

Arenios

yes, Yes, YES! Herein is the true and biblical interpretation of the soul that sinneth ~ not speaking to Augustine's "spiritual death" but to the only death for which Christ did not die: that being the second death.

 

[Arsenios]

In the OT faith was credited to Abraham as righteousness. Via that illustration, we realize that it was the same faith that was credited to all the OT saints (see Heb 11), righteousness credited to them as well. But what was the substance of that faith, and of that righteousness? Post haste after the declaration that his faith had opened the door to righteousness, Abraham asked God for some kind of evidence that HE, God, was serious about this faith concept, so in response God told Abraham to prepare a "blood-cut" sacrifice, separating the pieces that they might pass through them, thereby establishing a covenant between them that would NEVER be broken and would find fulfillment in Abraham's seed (sperm). Abraham did what God requested and cut the pieces. But at the time that they were to pass through the pieces, establishing the covenant between the two of them, God caused a conscious stupor to fall upon Abraham. Abraham, conscious but unable to move, watched as two representatives passed through the blood-soaked ground of that offering. There the Father established a covenant with his Son ~ the Son representing Abraham and through him all the nations, thus everybody ~ that would never be broken.

I am certain that Abraham came out of that experience knowing full well that the Son would go to his death for him and those whom he represented in his seed, the Son, his Seed, being the representation of both himself and the blood-soaked sacrifice of that offering. We may know this via Hebrews 11 where we learn that the faithful obedience that led Abraham to sacrifice his own son of promise, was shrouded in his belief that Isaac God would resurrect, the Seed promise must having to pass through him to find fulfillment.

Via St Paul in the NT we meet that "Seed" sigular in Jesus Christ, he the one who fulfilled the covenant, establishing its everlasting substance, the substance of OT faith, Christ himself being the fidelity of the wavering faith both of those OT saints and ourselves by faith in him. In the same context that Paul writes of Christ being that Seed (sperma), he writes these words: "I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live, yet not I but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith, the faithfulness of the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me" (my translation: Gal 2.20).

In the startling words of St Paul our hunches are confirmed: the blood-cut covenant between God and Abraham was Unilateral in nature. God himself in the underlying hypostasis of Father and Son acted in unison to bring to fulfillment the covenant cut with us all, via Abraham in our own stupor. By faith we all enter into the covenant already vicarious fulfilled on our behalf by the faithfulness of the Son of God to his Father.

Therefore there is but one salvation: that provided for us, fully fulfilled in Jesus Christ. Now in that fulfillment we may rest in surety via the indwelling of the Holy Spirit that our faith too is reckoned to us as righteousness, in the faithfulness of the Son of God who loves us and gave himself for us, Christ being the substance both of our faith and our righteousness.

Interesting post - Can you direct me to this "stupor of Abraham" story?

So what did Abraham not have that Paul does have?

Both were filled with the Holy Spirit...

Both had faith in God -

Christ is the God of Abraham...

What did Abraham NOT HAVE?

Arsenios

 

[chrysostom]

I did that - I quoted you the words he himself wrote in Psalm 51 [our Psalm 50]... He cannot say those words without having HAD the Joy of God's Salvation before he was DEPRIVED of it when he committed murder and adultery...



OK - Then you do not have a basis to say that there was no Salvation in the Old Testament...

Arsenios

so your position is based on this single passage?


Psalm 51:12 (KJV)

12 Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation; and uphold me with thy free spirit.


what about reason and logic?

 

[Arsenios]

have you heard about the second death?

what do you think that is?

In Adam, we are kinda born into the second...

And kinda reborn into the first...

Arsenios

 

[Arsenios]

Somewhere we must work these words into our narrative. In the middle of his story, Job declares, "For I know that my Kinnsmen Redeemer lives (go'el and he shall stand at last on the earth. And after my skin is destroyed, this I know: That in my flesh I shall see God, whom I shall see for myself, and my eyes shall behold, and not another. How my heart yearns within me" (Job 19.25-27).

That yearning was fulfilled...

Arsenios

 

[TFTn5280]

It just happened...

In Christ is in His Body as a member of the Church...

Christ in us is the key to the puzzle...

But what is the difference between Christ in us and an Old Testament Saint being saturated with the Holy Spirit? I do not think that there is some experiential measure we have that can judge the difference... So it is not experientially discerned from personal experience... At least at the beginning...

Paul writes we have the Nous of Christ...


What does that even MEAN??

We do know that having the Nous of Christ is contingent upon holding the Mystery of the Faith (of Christ) in a pure (purified or cleansed) conscience... But in the Ekonomia of Christ, where he sends forth His Apostles to disciple all the Nations, teaching them ALL THINGS that He has commanded them to be carefully and precisely observing [the obedience of doing Christ's will in His Body, the Apostolic Church], and baptizing them in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, what exactly has to happen in order that we come into possession of the Nous of Christ?

Because at some point, you see, Paul can say: "Not I, but Christ IN me..." And this in the Discipleship of denying one's self and taking up one's Cross daily, and following Christ, as this is discipled by the Body of Christ in obedience to Christ...

So it is a big deal...

Mind you...

Good night!

Arsenios

Yes indeed! Arsenios, before I read this post I wrote my own. Brother, I think we are on the same page!

 

[chrysostom]

In Adam, we are kinda born into the second...

And kinda reborn into the first...

Arsenios

is that orthodox?

 

[Arsenios]

so your position is based on this single passage?

No, my Brother... I am but giving you the witness of the Hoy Fathers of the Church that is preserved within the Holy Tradition of the Church... There IS Salvation in the Old Testament, and it is FUNDAMENTALLY different from that which is found in the New Testament...

But the effects are not that easily discerned...

That is why I am ping-ponging responses here...

The issues are not easy at all...

They have to do with the fundamentality of the person in the Divine Ekonomia of God's Salvation in the Covenant of His Body and His Blood...

Psalm 51:12 (KJV)

12 Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation; and uphold me with thy free spirit.

We use the Greek text, the LXX, the Christian text, as the basis for our translation, which the masters of language at Holy Transfiguration Monastery have translated thus:

RESTORE unto me the Joy of Thy Salvation
And RENEW a right spirit within me...

what about reason and logic?

It flows from the text...

Arsenios

 

[Arsenios]

Yes indeed! Arsenios, before I read this post I wrote my own. Brother, I think we are on the same page!

We are close...

In my terms, you are closer to the Orthodox Faith than you may suppose...



Arsenios

 

[chrysostom]

No, my Brother... I am but giving you the witness of the Hoy Fathers of the Church that is preserved within the Holy Tradition of the Church... There IS Salvation in the Old Testament, and it is FUNDAMENTALLY different from that which is found in the New Testament...

But the effects are not that easily discerned...

That is why I am ping-ponging responses here...

The issues are not easy at all...

They have to do with the fundamentality of the person in the Divine Ekonomia of God's Salvation in the Covenant of His Body and His Blood...



We use the Greek text, the LXX, the Christian text, as the basis for our translation, which the masters of language at Holy Transfiguration Monastery have translated thus:

RESTORE unto me the Joy of Thy Salvation
And RENEW a right spirit within me...



It flows from the text...

Arsenios

why did Jesus have to come
if
salvation was already possible?

 

[Arsenios]

is that orthodox?

Sorta...

Death is separation...

The first is from the body, and the body is dead...

The second is from God, and the soul is dead...

We are born in Adam to die, for Adam transmitted death to man...
We have physical life, which wil die when the soul and body separate, and in Adam, this they will do...

And they will do so because in the very day that Adam ate of the tree, that day he died, for he separated himself from God... And we in him are born with that death, which gives us the first death, and it is in the shadow of that first death that "all have sinned"... And it is sin that causes death...

I have never heard it explained quite this way by any of the Orthodox teachers, but it is well within what they do teach...

At least I think and hope so...

Arsenios

 

[Arsenios]

why did Jesus have to come
if
Salvation was already possible?

God Bless You Chrysostom!

THAT question unlocks the Mystery!

What is it that Christ gives us that we did not have before?

What is it that ONLY the EN-FLESH-IFICATION of God the Word can give?

Because we are born with a darkened nous, and we cannot see the Truth all that clearly, if at all... And a have sinned... And death is their lot... Even those who are Saints in pre-Christ-incarnate times... The GREATEST of whom are LESS than the LEAST in the Kingdom of Heaven...

What DO we have that they did not, IF we are in the Kingdom of Heaven? What have we that makes each of us MORE than ANY of the OT Kings and Prophets?

WHO were they?

And WHO are we?

WHAT makes us personally DIFFERENT?

Arsenios

 

[Cross Reference]

no
you tell me what your understanding of it is

Understanding???? Jesus was giving an account of a real event. What more do you need??

 

[Cross Reference]

My good man, if you will read the relevant passage in Romans regarding "original sin" you will see that the ONLY thing Adam's transgression determined was the penalty for sin, which was death. Jesus' teaching reveals that that death is not eternal for all men. He taught those who love God and love man will inherit eternal life. Eternal life starts today. Funny how there is no such term as "eternal death". Ever wonder why?

And your, understanding my good man, matches any one of many spiritualist cults out there I encounter from time to time which are short on grasping the issues. Please define 1. "original sin", 2. Penalty for sin as just being death of some sort short of eternal and 3. Love of God and man being sufficient for eternal life? Try to fit Jesus in all that if you can.

 

[Aimiel]

Did He not BECOME a man conceived in the womb of the Blessed Virgin?

To BECOME is to CHANGE...

The whole of the INCARNATION was for God to BECOME man...

Arsenios

I'm afraid that lamb slain from the foundation of the world' trumps your 'becomes' brother.

 

[TFTn5280]

Funny how there is no such term as "eternal death". Ever wonder why?

I encourage you to read Athanasius on life and death, life being a chronology of "becoming," ever becoming even in everlasting life. Death, he wrote, was the opposite of that; death was "unbecoming": death a voracious, all-consuming corruption which devours until literally no-thing is left; that being a return to the nothingness from which we were created.

I find it interesting that this is the very concept that Adam surely took away from his first post-lapsarian encounter with God: "In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread Till you return to the ground, For out of it you were taken; For dust you are, And to dust you shall return" (Gen 3.19). Even life itself in the ever more corrupting absence of God can be viewed as unbecoming. Dust you are: life absent God. And to dust you shall return: death, absolute unbecoming. Death to Athanasius was a return to nothingness. Surely to Adam it was the same as well.

Throughout history many Jews have held to that view of death: "from dust to dust," they say. Others surmised a resurrection. Interestingly, not two weeks ago I had an encounter on this site with a Jew. His view of death: a return to nothingness.

I find it interesting that we have developed two concepts that are strained to find biblical support. The first being that there was some form of resurrection prior to and apart from the resurrection of Jesus Christ or perhaps an immortal soul. There was no resurrection, no heaven, no hell, no eternal torment, no immortal soul, no nothing prior to the one and only everlasting resurrection from the dead, his being a victorious resurrection over death, sin, the devil, the law, human nature, creation itself: all that fell in Adam ~ the resurrection of Jesus Christ! Whatever doctrines we hold that lead us to some sort of "ever-lasting" apart from THE resurrection of Christ, we need to examine closing and prepare ourselves to abandon.

Second concept: Why this idea of second death being an everlasting consciousness of continual torment? Why do we assume that the second death takes on a form incongruent with the first? From where does this doctrine come? From the middle ages I tell you. Thank Dante et al for that one, even though a great imagination he did have. Death is death, an unbecoming of life, nothing conscious about it, in fact nothing at all. I find no reason from Scripture to consider the second death any differently. Yes, in his resurrection the first death cannot hold us, any of us. For many, perhaps most, there is everlasting life, death defeated at the cross. Yes, too, there is a second death awaiting those whose rebellion was unrelenting. Theirs too in resurrection ~ they too escape the death from which Christ did arise. The second death then they meet alone, no Savior there to spare them. Forever dead they will be, back to dust, their unbecoming, everlasting nothingness.

 

[Arsenios]

Understanding???? Jesus was giving an account of a real event. What more do you need??

I love the word "UNDERSTANDING"...

It is a transliteration of the Greek word HYPO-STASIS...

It means Person...

It is the key to the difference in OT vs NT Salvation by God...

Arsenios

 

[Arsenios]

I'm afraid that lamb slain from the foundation of the world' trumps your 'becomes' brother.

When it is Him being slain, that makes it from the Foundation of the world, regardless of when it happened in history... He could not have become this Lamb slain from the foundation of the world had He NOT incarnated in time in His creation as a creature...

Which He did, while remaining God...

This Faith of Christ is not a Mystery without good reason...

When you see where this is going, you should be agape and gladdened... It affirms virtually all you have posted here...

And everyone misses it...

And it is a core Orthodox tenet...

Arsenios

 

[TFTn5280]

Interesting post - Can you direct me to this "stupor of Abraham" story?

So what did Abraham not have that Paul does have?

Both were filled with the Holy Spirit...

Both had faith in God -

Christ is the God of Abraham...

What did Abraham NOT HAVE?

Arsenios

In Abraham the many narrowed to the one, Jesus Christ. In Jesus Christ the one includes and spreads to the many, on the fulfillment side of which Paul wrote. That being one difference that I see.

 

[Arsenios]

In Abraham the many narrowed to the one, Jesus Christ. In Jesus Christ the one includes and spreads to the many, on the fulfillment side of which Paul wrote. That being one difference that I see.

Thank-you...

What title in Athanasius were you reading on life and death as becoming and unbecoming?

Did you read "On the Incarnation"?

My catechist, Fr. Joseph, catechized from it - He used yellow highlighter to highlight just the very most important sentences throughout the book...

Every page was solid yellow...

Arsenios