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Aslan’s Questions, or How the Chronicles of Narnia Teach Us Repentance / OrthoChristian.Com

Aslan’s Questions, or How the Chronicles of Narnia Teach Us Repentance / OrthoChristian.Com

Church Tradition directly connects the Cross with the Ark of the Covenant, because the Ark and the Mercy Seat was the place of atonement, and the Ark is referred to as "the place where His feet have stood" (Psalm 131:7 lxx) and the Cross is the place were Christ's feet stood, when he made atonement for our sins (see Christopher Veniamin, trans. Saint Gregory Palamas: The Homilies (Waymart, PA: Mount Thabor Publishing, 2009) p. 86).

There are many contemporary Orthodox writers who wish to deny or downplay a number of concepts that relate to our redemption. They will argue we don't believe Christ had to die in our place, or that His blood needed to be shed to pay the penalty for our sins. They will deny the legitimacy of legal terms, in favor of the idea that the Church is a spiritual hospital. The problem is not that the Church is not a spiritual hospital, but rather that in emphasizing one set of images used to explain our salvation, they deny a whole set of equally valid images that are clearly Biblical. It is true that in the west there was an over emphasis on legal imagery, but the solution to such an imbalance is not a new imbalance in the opposite direction. We can and should speak of sin as an illness, but when we die, we do not go before the final medical exam -- we face the final judgment,* which is a legal image if ever there was one. And so we can also speak of sin as a transgression of the Law of God, and of our need to be justified by God, even as we speak of sin in terms of an illness that we need to be healed of.

We reject the idea that Christ's death was a ransom paid to the devil, but that it was a ransom in some sense is confirmed by the Lord Himself, and elsewhere in Scripture (Matthew 20:28; Mark 10:45; 1 Timothy 2:6). So we simply have to understand that verbal images point to a reality, but are not the reality itself, and we get a better idea of that reality by considering all the Biblical images that point to it -- not by focusing on one or two to the exclusion of the rest, and certainly not by pressing those images beyond the point that they are intended to make.

St. Gregory Palamas, in his Sixteenth Homily (delivered on Holy Saturday: "About the Dispensation According to the flesh of our Lord Jesus Christ and the Gifts of Grace Granted to Those Who Truly Believe in Him"), speaks quite a bit about the need for Christ to die in our place. The entire homily is well worth reading, but here are some excerpts:

"Man was led into his captivity when he experienced God's wrath, this wrath being the good God's just abandonment of man. God had to be reconciled with the human race, for otherwise mankind could not be set free from the servitude. A sacrifice was needed to reconcile the Father on high with us and to sanctify us, since we had been soiled by fellowship with the evil one. There had to be a sacrifice which both cleansed and was clean, and a purified and sinless priest" (Christopher Veniamin, trans. Saint Gregory Palamas: The Homilies (Waymart, PA: Mount Thabor Publishing, 2009) p. 124).

"Christ overturned the devil through suffering and His flesh which He offered as a sacrifice to God the Father, as a pure and altogether holy victim -- how great is His gift! -- and reconciled God to our human race" (p.125).

"For this reason the Lord patiently endured for our sake a death He was not obliged to undergo, to redeem us, who were obliged to suffer death, from servitude to the devil and death, by which I mean death both of the soul and of the body, temporary and eternal. Since He gave His blood, which was sinless and therefore guiltless, as a ransom for us who were liable to punishment because of our sins, He redeemed us from our guilt. He forgave us our sins, tore up the record of them on the Cross and delivered us from the Devil's tyranny (cf. Col 2:14-15)"( p. 128f)."

As is often the case, the proper Orthodox perspective on this question is one of balance. We should proclaim the whole counsel of God (Acts 20:27), and not just the parts that we find most appealing. Nor should we overreact to the imbalances of heterodox theologians, and thus fall into a new error, by rejecting important aspects of our Tradition.

Fr John Whiteford

*see Romans chapter 2

Liturgical Chants: Ave Maria

Dale: Materna Requiem - 6. Paradisum Interlude

Iona - Luke: The Calf

'The far land of Spare Oom where eternal summer reigns around the bright city of War Drobe...'

Art: Pauline Baynes

'They panted up the steep bank, forced their way through some brambles, and found themselves standing round an old tree that was heavy with large yellowish-golden apples as firm and juicy as you could wish to see.'

-Prince Caspian, 'Chronicles of Narnia' C.S. Lewis

In more moderate quarters, one hears an appeal to the theology of deification as if it were a kind of alternative soteriological “model,” opposed and in contradistinction to the idea of Christ’s vicarious offering in atonement for sin. Yet the fact remains: the language of vicarious representation, sacrifice, and legal vindication used to describe various facets of the saving work of Jesus Christ is to be found both in the Bible and the Fathers, where it has crucial and abiding theological significance. What the language of atonement indicates is not an alternative “model” to theosis, but rather a crucial dimension of that multi-faceted plan of the Creator to save His fallen creatures from death and destruction and to raise them up into union with Him. While affirming deification as the original plan of the Creator God and as the goal of Christian life, Orthodox theologians today must also maintain the objective reality of the divine and atoning acts accomplished historically once and for all on our behalf, without which the ultimate end of union with God would be impossible for fallen human beings. The Church’s sacramental and ascetical life allows us to hold these tensions together: it presumes the objective reality of the victory won on the Cross and of the continuing high priestly ministry of the ascended Jesus, while also inviting us to a free and active personal participation in these realities.

-Matthew Baker; Seraphim Danckaert; Nicholas Marinides. 'On the Tree of the Cross' 

Peace

Long Ago

One of the VERY frustrating things about becoming Orthodox is the growing realization that on some things, there are different voices that speak with authority that THIS is Orthodox teaching. Without a Catechism, this sort of thing (I'm discovering) can create real problems, especially for lay converts.

Over the past several months, I have agonized over what I heard one day in Church, that "we Orthodox" do not adhere to  penal substitutionary atonement. That term, it is said, is not found in the Bible or the early Church. That, it is said, was an 'invention' of Anselm. 

Doing some reading, gathering information from the internet, and the Bible, I remain confused. For example, one Orthodox priest cited these early fathers as proof that the Church fathers DID teach (penal) substitutionary atonement:

St Gregory Palamas:

"Man was led into his captivity when he experienced God's wrath, this wrath being the good God's just abandonment of man. God had to be reconciled with the human race, for otherwise mankind could not be set free from the servitude. A sacrifice was needed to reconcile the Father on high with us and to sanctify us, since we had been soiled by fellowship with the evil one. There had to be a sacrifice which both cleansed and was clean, and a purified and sinless priest" (Christopher Veniamin, trans. Saint Gregory Palamas: The Homilies (Waymart, PA: Mount Thabor Publishing, 2009) p. 124).

"Christ overturned the devil through suffering and His flesh which He offered as a sacrifice to God the Father, as a pure and altogether holy victim -- how great is His gift! -- and reconciled God to our human race" (p.125).

"For this reason the lord patiently endured for our sake a death He was not obliged to undergo, to redeem us, who were obliged to suffer death, from servitude to the devil and death, by which I mean death both of the soul and of the body, temporary and eternal. Since He gave His blood, which was sinless and therefore guiltless, as a ransom for us who were liable to punishment because of our sins, He redeemed us from our guilt. He forgave us our sins, tore up the record of them on the Cross and delivered us from the Devil's tyranny (cf. Col 2:14-15)"( p. 128f)."

Believe me, there are many more that could be cited. Contemporary writers such as Kallistos Ware and Patrick Henry Reardon (and recent convert Hank Hanegraaff) are other sources that speak of the blood of Christ that cleanses us from sin.

I have been a Christian for 45 years. 30 years in ordained ministry in the Episcopal Church. A few years as a Catholic layman, and now Orthodox. But now this serious departure from what I KNOW to be true-that "Throughout the New Testament the apostolic witness gives a central place to the theme of Christ’s redeeming blood, which was poured out in his sacrificial death on the Cross. For the whole human race this blood procures deliverance from sin and death." (Fr Patrick Henry Reardon). 

Some Orthodox writers suggest that this is a western invention (as said above), that Christ simply paid the price of sin (Death) and defeated death on the Cross. God, they say, did not need 'satisfaction' or 'the demands of justice met,' that the atonement of Christ by His blood was not necessary because God has always forgiven. The purpose of the Crucifixion, it is said, is THEOSIS, a Greek word meaning 'becoming like God', or as Protestants would call it, 'sanctification'. Not a 'judicial' act but rather ontological. I don't quarrel with that as a partial explanation, but it is incomplete (in my humble view) for it leaves out the atonement Christ made on the Cross by His blood. "the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin." (1 Jn. 1.7)

This is a HUGE deal for me. And again, without a Catechism (look at how thick the Catholic Catechism is!), it can be difficult for laity, would-be converts or new converts to know WHAT to believe.

I will never deny that Christ's Cross and His blood made atonement for my sin. The question is can I REMAIN Orthodox holding this view, one that many priests/scholars call 'heretical.'

Stay tuned.

Jill, a young girl, has been transported to another world, and nears a stream to satisfy her thirst—but sees a lion, a lion that frightens her. And then, the lion speaks: “If you’re thirsty, you may drink.”

Anyway, she had seen its lips move this time, and the voice was not like a man’s. It was deeper, wilder, and stronger; a sort of heavy, golden voice. It did not make her any less frightened than she had been before, but it made her frightened in rather a different way.

“Are you not thirsty?” said the lion.

“I’m dying of thirst,” said Jill.

“Then drink,” said the lion.

“May I—could I—would you mind going away while I do?” said Jill.

The Lion answered this only by a look and a very low growl. And as Jill gazed at its motionless bulk, she realized that she might as well have asked the whole mountain to move aside for her convenience.

The delicious rippling noise of the stream was driving her nearly frantic.

“Will you promise not to—do anything to me, if I do come?” said Jill.

“I make no promise,” said the Lion.

Jill was so thirsty now that, without noticing it, she had come a step nearer.

“Do you eat girls?” she said.

“I have swallowed up girls and boys, women and men, kings and emperors, cities and realms,” said the Lion. It didn’t say this as if it were boasting, nor as if it were sorry, nor as if it were angry. It just said it.

“I daren’t come and drink,” said Jill.

“Then you will die of thirst,” said the Lion.

“Oh dear!” said Jill, coming another step nearer. “I suppose I must go and look for another stream then.”

“There is no other stream,” said the Lion.

-C. S. Lewis, The Silver Chair

 Shift the Manipulator, The Last Battle

The Last Battle is many people's least favorite book in the Narnian Chronicles, and while I can understand their objections, I think it has a lot going for it. Shift, the aptly-named ape, is one of the best-drawn characters in all the Narnia stories, and he provides yet another example of misused authority.  Shift manipulates to get his way. He exercises authority by lies and trickery, all the while convincing his victims that he is only looking out for their best interests. For example, let's look at how Shift manipulates his so-called friend, Puzzle the donkey.

"Really, Puzzle," said Shift, "I didn't think you'd ever say a thing like that. I didn't think it of you, really."

"Why, what have I said wrong?" said the Ass, speaking in rather a humble voice, for he saw that Shift was very deeply offended.  Now what is Shift doing in this passage by acting offended? He is manipulating Puzzle by creating false guilt. Have you ever seen someone moping around, waiting for others to feel sorry for him? (Maybe you have even done this yourself.) Perhaps this type of person wants pity, or perhaps they want to instill a false sense of guilt in someone, but the goal is always the same—somehow they want to get their way. There is something they want—maybe they just want to feel some kind of power over others—and they manipulate others' feelings in order to get it.

Douglas Wilson. 'What I Learned in Narnia'

 

No, posting a meme like this doesn’t mean approval of it. Posting a meme like this is yet one more attempt to warn some people about the levels of dark disillusionment they have been assiduously cultivating for some years now.

The deeper I dove into Orthodox Judaism, the more I realized Yeshua is o...

“Thus on Easter we celebrate Christ’s Resurrection as something that happened and still happens to us. For each one of us received the gift of that new life and the power to accept it and to live by it. It is a gift which radically alters our attitude toward everything in this world, including death. It makes it possible for us joyfully to affirm: "Death is no more!" Oh, death is still there, to be sure and we still face it and someday it will come and take us. But it is our whole faith that by His own death Christ changed the very nature of death, made it a passage—a "passover," a "Pascha"—into the Kingdom of God, transforming the tragedy of tragedies into the ultimate victory. "Trampling down death by death," He made us partakes of His Resurrection. This is why at the end of the Paschal Matins we say: "Christ is risen and life reigneth! Christ is risen and not one dead remains in the grave!”

-Alexander Schemann, 'Great Lent: Journey to Pascha'

According to the [Old Testament] law, without the shedding of blood, there is no remission of sin. We must therefore emphasize that the Christian faith is a religion founded on blood sacrifice. Moreover the shedding of blood in the older covenant was not intended to be efficacious, but rather typological through animals. The Christian faith is built on the foundation of a human sacrifice but in the Old Covenant it was animals. If sin is to be dealt with, blood must flow. To the modernist, this seems barbaric—but it deals with the fact of sin. The only way to avoid blood sacrifice in religion is to traffic in wishful thinking. Scripture teaches us here that the tabernacle in the heavens needed to be purified. Because it is in the heavens, only the blood of Christ would suffice to accomplish this. The blood of bulls and goats could purify the tabernacle here, but in the heavenlies only the true and ultimate sacrifice was worthy. This relates to our sense of Christian finality. Christ came at the “end of the ages.” An air of finality attended his arrival, his ministry, his work. His work was to put away sin. Christ was offered one time in the same way that each man dies one time. First is the death, an event in history, and after the death follow the consequences of the nature of that death. Christ died for the many, and after that death, their sins were put away. Each man dies in history, and after that follows the judgment. Nothing is more certain than the inevitability of your death, and nothing is more certain than the judgment that will follow that death. The question each one of us must ask ourselves regularly is this: Do we have a high priest who has put away our sins? Do we have a sacrifice in the heavens? Do we have Christ?

Douglas Wilson,  'Hebrews Through New Eyes: Christ and His Rivals

 Isn’t suffering at the very center of life? Isn’t each one of us aware of it all too often? Yes, this is certainly true. But here the question is not about us, but about Christ. And is not our affirmation about Christ that he is God? But is it not also a fact that from God, from faith, we demand comfort (if not the complete annihilation of our sufferings)? Do not the adherents as well as the opponents of faith contend in some odd agreement that religion means first of all help, comfort, a certain balm for the soul, as they say? Yet here is the cross, which reappears on Holy Friday, and again we hear the same words: “... he began to be sorrowful and troubled” (Mt 26:37), and he said, “My soul is very sorrowful, even to death” (Mt 26:38). Instead of helping his apostles, who are numb with sorrow and despair, he asks help from them: “Remain here, and watch with me” (Mt 26:38). And then, that lonely suffering: first the assault, then the derision, slapping on the face, spitting, the nails in the hands an d feet. And most terrible o f all—abandonment. Everyone abandons him , everyone runs away It is as if the whole sky was hidden, for “about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, ‘my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’” (Mt 27:46). No, if we begin to the truly examine this, if we listen to it carefully, something strange happens here with religion itself. It seems as if nothing familiar remains— no assistance, no support, no guarantee. Put up a candle, offer a service for help or a memorial, and everything in life will be well, God will come to our aid, here as well as there, after a horrible and mysterious death. Is this not the simplified concept of faith that prevails among most believers? Did they not already at the time of Christ follow him in great crowds, hoping for healing, help, and useful teachings? Notice carefully how in the Gospel accounts this crowd gradually diminishes. He is abandoned by that rich young man who thinks that he has observed all the commandments of religion but who in the end is unable to grasp Christs words: “If you would be perfect, go and sell what you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me” (Mt 19:21). On the night of the great supper of love, his disciple leaves in order to betray him. And finally, at the end, they all abandon him and flee. In our life things are exactly reversed: we begin alone, in obscurity, and then come acknowledgment and accolades, a host of admirers. In the Gospel, however, when things end at the Cross, Christ rem ains alone. Furtherm ore, he says about the coming time: “They have persecuted me, they will persecute you” (Jn 15:20), “In the world you have tribulation” (Jn 16:33). And there is only one vocation given to us, only one requirement— to pick up our cross and to carry it, and we already know what this cross is. Indeed, something strange happens here with religion: instead of help, we are given the cross, instead of promises of comfort and well-being, we hear the certainty: “They persecuted me, they will persecute you.” 

And when we hear the Gospel about the Pharisees who derided the crucified Christ— “He saved others, he cannot save himself! He is the king of Israel; let him come down now from the cross and we will believe in him” (Mt 27:42)— are we not immediately reminded of the derision and accusations that are heard today: “So, wasn’t your God able to help you: And indeed, as long as we expect from God only this type of help, only miracles that would eliminate the sufferings from our life, then these accusations will continue. And they will continue because any cheap pill is certainly better able to relieve a headache than prayer and religion. And we will never understand the mystery of the Cross as long as we expect this type of pill from religion— be it for something trivial or important. As long as this is the case, regardless of all the gold or silver with which it is covered, the Cross remains what the apostle Paul said at the dawn of Christianity: “a scandal for the Jews, and folly for the Gentiles” (1 Cor 1:23). In our given situation the “Jews” represent those who seek only help from religion, while the “Gentiles” are those who seek clever and easy explanations. And in this case the Cross is truly a scandal and folly. Again the cross is brought out in procession, and that unique week of weeks approaches when the Church invites us not so much to examine and to discuss, but to silently and intensely follow each step of Christ, to follow his slow and irreversible path to suffering, to crucifixion, and to death. It invites us to pick up this very cross. And something strange happens to us. Suddenly from our own problems, from our own difficulties, and even from our own sufferings we turn our attention to Another, to this silently sorrowful and suffering Person, to this night of horror, betrayal, and loneliness, but also of celebration, of love, and of victory. Something strange happens to us: perhaps without even knowing it one begins to feel how this cheap and egotistical religion, a religion once demanding only something for itself, demanding that even God would be in its service, evaporates! And it becomes clear, spiritually clear, that at its depths religion is entirely about something else. That in the end it is not all about comfort or help, but about joy and victory. 

Fr Alexander Schmemann, 'O Death, Where is Thy Sting?'

Icon: Małgorzata Klockowska, Poland

If indeed Christianity is supposed to be a religion of salvation from earthly evils and tribulations then it is certainly a total failure. No, it is not with this kind of salvation that we are concerned. We are concerned rather with that salvation of which we spoke previously, from that radical and tragic transformation that occurred and is still constantly taking place in the rapport of man with his own life— a transformation that man himself is already incapable of correcting and restoring. The name that I gave to this transformation, to this fall, is death; death, not only as the end of life, but life itself as a senseless waste, as diminution and disappearance, life itself as a dying, already from the moment of birth; the transformation of the world into a cosmic cemetery; the hopeless subjection of man to disintegration, to time, and to death. It is not the weak person but rather the one who is strong who seeks salvation, who thirsts for it. The weak person looks for help. The weak person desires that mediocre and boring happiness that is offered to him by the various ideologues that have once and for all come to terms with death. The weak ones are content to accept to live for a while and then to die. Those who are strong consider such a view unworthy of man and of the world. This is our response to the opponents of Christianity who claim that we are terribly weak if we need salvation. It is not we alone who need this, but that whole image of the world and of the true life that lives in man; that whole being, which recoils against this senseless commotion on a globe stuffed with corpses. Therefore, the Christian understanding of salvation means a restoration of that life, Life with a capital “L,” Life eternal and unfading, for which man knows he is created. And it is not a sign of his weakness but rather of his strength that man hungers for salvation and receives it from God. For God is that very Life that man had lost, subjecting himself irrevocably to the world, having lost himself completely in time and in death'. And so we believe and we know, as John the Evangelist says: “Life was made manifest” (1 Jn 1:2). God did not save us by the exercise of power, nor with a miracle, nor by force or through fear, nor by intimidation, but only by coming among us in the world and for the world, for life itself—life as divine beauty, as wisdom, and as goodness, life as the beauty of the world and of man, life as capable in itself and by itself to transform, to obliterate, and to consume death. And this Life appeared not as one more philosophical theory, not as a principal of organization, but as a Person. Yes, Christianity teaches and proclaims that in one Person, in one place, and at one point in time, Divine Life appeared to mankind in the image of the perfect Man—Jesus Christ from Nazareth in Galilee. The intellectual, the technocrat, the so-called “contemporary man” shrugs his shoulders and declares: what nonsense! And yes, nonsense or not, it is this image, this Person, this Life, which over the course of two thousand years has held an incomparable sway over the hearts and lives o f people. There is no single teaching, no philosophy, which has not changed or vanished over time; not one kingdom, not one culture, which has not faded into history. But if there was and if there is in history a miracle, it is the memory of this one Person, who did not write a single line, who was in no way concerned with what would be said about him later on— a Person who died a shameful death on a cross, as a criminal, a Person who lives, truly lives, in those who believe in him. He said of himself, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life” (Jn 14:6). Now millions of people walk along this way, preserve this truth, live by this life, so that even the most powerful government, which precisely organizes every detail of peoples lives from cradle to grave, controlling each word, each thought, each breath— even that government—is powerless before this faith. Christ is the savior of the world—this is the most ancient Christian affirmation. And he saved the world and us by virtue of giving us the possibility to live life independently of death and time, and in this lies our salvation. If the apostle Paul accepted Christ after a long period of persecuting his disciples and suddenly exclaimed, “For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain!” (Phil 1:21), then we can certainly say that something has radically changed in the world. 

Fr Alexander Schmemann, 'Death, Where is Thy Sting?'

The whole world was given by God as food to man, with the exception of one forbidden fruit. And it is precisely this fruit that man eats, refusing to believe and to obey God. What is the meaning of this story, which greets us like a child’s fable? It means that the fruit of this one tree, in contrast to all others, was not given as a gift to man. It did not bear God s blessing. This means that if man ate this fruit, he did not eat it in order to have life with God, as a means of transforming it into life, but rather as a goal in itself, and thus, having consumed it, man subjected himself to food. He desired to have life not from God or for God but rather for himself. The very fall of man consists in the fact that he desired life for himself and in himself, and not for God and in God. 

God made this very world a means of communion with himself, but man desired the world purely for him self alone. Instead of returning God’s love with love for him, man fell in love with the world, as a goal in itself. But herein lies the whole problem, that the world cannot be an end in and of itself, just as food has no purpose unless it is transformed into life. 

So too, the world, having ceased to be transparent to God, has become an endless commotion, a senseless cycle of time in which everything is constantly in flux, constantly vanishing, and, in the final analysis, dying. In the divine conception of humanity, dependence on the world was overcome by the transformation o f the world itself into life. Life means possessing God. “In him was life, and the life was the light of men”— so we read in the Gospel of John (1:4). 

But if the world is no longer transformed into anything, if life ceases to be a transformation into communion with Absolute Meaning, with Absolute Beauty, with Absolute Goodness, then this world becomes not only meaningless, it becomes death. Nothing has life in and by itself, everything vanishes, everything dissolves. Cut off from its roots, a flower can live for a short time in water and even decorate a room, but we realize that it is dying, that it is already subject to corruption. 

Man ate the forbidden fruit, thinking that it would give him life. But life itself outside of and without God is simply communion with death. It is no accident that what we eat already needs to be dead in order to become our life. We eat in order to live, but since we eat something that is already deprived of life, food itself inevitably leads us to death. And in death there neither is nor can be any life. 

“Man is what he eats” There it is, he eats...death— dead animals, dead vegetation, rot and dissolution. He himself dies and, perhaps, the enormity of his fall consists precisely in the fact that this very death-filled and corrupt life, this life defined from the very beginning by corruption, this life that flows and irrevocably vanishes—this life he considers absolutely normal. And he is confirmed in this attitude by those who dare to blame Christianity as being pessimistic and as destructive toward man. But when Christ approached the grave of his friend Lazarus, and they said to him, “Do not come near, for he already stinks” (Jn 11:39), Christ did not consider this normal— he wept. 

“I am the image of your ineffable glory”—and yet they remove him and hide him so that he would not smell and disrupt their routines— this Man, this image and likeness of God, this hing and crown of creation! Indeed, this horrible meaninglessness of the world, this constant commotion of mankind within a cosmic cemetery, these pathetic attempts to build something for those who are dying, for those already dead, and finally, the affirmation of all of this as normal and natural— this is what Christianity declares as the Fall, as the falsification by man of The Nature of Man himself and of his divine and eternal calling. It refuses to come to term s with such a worldview, and firmly and clearly proclaims: “The last enemy to be destroyed is death” (1 Cor 15:26). 

Fr Alexander Alexander Schmemann, 'O Death, Where is Thy Sting?'

 Holy Scripture is the main source of our knowledge about God in general and about Christ in particular. Yet Scripture can be understood and interpreted in various ways; indeed, all heresies have been underpinned by references to Scripture and quotations from the Bible. It is therefore essential to find some criteria for a correct understanding of the Bible. For the Church the criterion is Holy Tradition, of which Scripture is a part. Tradition compromises the centuries-old experience and life of the Church, reflected not only in Scripture but also in the acts and definitions of faith of the Ecumenical Councils, in the works of the Church Fathers and in liturgical worship.

Tradition is not merely a supplement to Scripture; it bears testimony to the permanent and living presence of Christ in the Church. The authors of the New Testament books emphasize that they are 'witnesses': 'That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon and touched with our hands, concerning the word of life-the life was made manifest, and we saw it, and testify to it, and proclaim to you the eternal life which was with the Father and was made manifest to us' (1 John 1.1-2). Yet Christ continues to live in the Church, and the experience of contact with him, of life in him, engenders a new witness which is fixed in Tradition. 

-Metropolitan Hilarion Alfeyev

The Mississippi Mass Choir - Jesus Paid It All

Were You There feat. Andrea Thomas by The Vigil Project | Series 1

Fernando Ortega, "Ah, Holy Jesus, How Have You Offended?" (Lyric Video)

All the initiative has been on God’s side; all has been free, unbounded grace. And all will continue to be free, unbounded grace. His own puny and ridiculous efforts would be as helpless to retain the joy as they would have been to achieve it in the first place . . . He is not saved because he does works of love: he does works of love because he is saved. It is faith alone that has saved him: faith bestowed by sheer gift.

C.S. Lewis

We have to distinguish between real presence and local presence. Christ is certainly present in the administration of the Lord’s Supper (it is the Lord’s Supper), but we limit things drastically by asking whether He is locally present in the bread and wine, as they sit there on the altar (or table). And, having limited things in this way, if we answer a certain way, additional questions about the veneration of the elements naturally arise. If Christ is present there, then should we not do what we would all do if Christ were there? Wherever Christ is, Christ should be adored. But Jesus did not tell us to watch and adore. He told us to take and eat, take and drink. And in our obedience, Christ is with us. Christ inhabits the obedience, and the bread and wine are not obedient. Christ is in the participles, in the eating, and in the drinking. Christ is present in His body, and we are that body. As we take the elements and do what we were told to do (which did not include bowing down to them, adoring them, etc.) we are taken by the Holy Spirit and are knit together with Christ and the rest of His body. The elements sitting on an altar by themselves are nothing, and do nothing. But the elements are the instrument that God uses to accomplish His purposes.

Douglas Wilson, 'Papa Don't Pope: Why I'm Not a Roman Catholic' (and Why the Future is Protestant)

 

“For the most part, the people who are currently in Satan’s kingdom don’t realize where they really are, because it is a kingdom of darkness, and they can’t “see” it. In contrast, the kingdom of God is the kingdom of light; therefore, those who are in His kingdom know where they are.”

-Derek Prince

Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.”   John 3.3

The universe is a book which reveals the Creator to those who can read it. Those who have no faith, when observing the material world, cannot see in it the reflection of a higher non-material Beauty; for them the world contains nothing miraculous, everything is natural and conventional. But for believers the beauty and harmony of the universe is a most powerful testimony to the existence of God.

-Metropolitan Hilarion Alfeyev, The Mystery of Faith

 O Thou who camest from above,
 the pure celestial fire to impart
 kindle a flame of sacred love
 upon the mean altar of my heart.
There let it for thy glory burn
 with inextinguishable blaze,
 and trembling to its source return,
 in humble prayer and fervent praise.
Jesus, confirm my heart's desire
 to work and speak and think for thee;
 still let me guard the holy fire,
 and still stir up thy gift in me.
Ready for all thy perfect will,
my acts of faith and love repeat,
till death thy endless mercies seal,
and make my sacrifice complete.        

-Charles Wesley

 

This is my Father's world
Oh let me ne'er forget
That though the wrong seems oft so strong
God is the ruler yet
This is my Father's world
The battle is not done
Jesus, who died, shall be satisfied
And earth and heaven be one.