Ancestral Sin (“Original sin”) and Orthodox Concept of Salvation

1. Ancestral Sin (“Original sin”) and Orthodox Concept of Salvation Servants Prep Class 2014 Winter semester

2. Genesis1:26-27 “Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all[a] the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” 27 So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.”

3. So what happened to the likeness part? “Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all[a] the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” 27 So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.”

4. The Likeness is your potential • Potential for what? • To be the icon of Christ by His grace working in us- to grow to be like God

5. St Basil the Great “We possess one by creation (image) and the other one (likeness) by freewill (working in cooperation with God)

6. So what happened to Adam?

7. On the Incarnation • (4) You may be wondering why we are discussing the origin of men when we set out to talk about the Word's becoming Man. The former subject is relevant to the latter for this reason: it was our sorry case that caused the Word to come down, our transgression that called out His love for us, so that He made haste to help us and to appear among us. It is we who were the cause of His taking human form, and for our salvation that in His great love He was both born and manifested in a human body. For God had made man thus (that is, as an embodied spirit), and had willed that he should remain in incorruption.

8. But men, having turned from the contemplation of God to evil of their own devising, had come inevitably under the law of death. Instead of remaining in the state in which God had created them, they were in process of becoming corrupted entirely, and death had them completely under its dominion. For the transgression of the commandment was making them turn back again according to their nature; and as they had at the beginning come into being out of non-existence, so were they now on the way to returning, through corruption, to non-existence again. The presence and love of the Word had called them into being; inevitably, therefore when they lost the knowledge of God, they lost existence with it; for it is God alone Who exists, evil is non-being, the negation and antithesis of good.

9. The ability to be like God was lostin the Fall of Adam and Eve

10. Consequences of Adam’s sin • Sin separated man from God (separated themselves from life) • Destroyed human relationships • Alters our perception of the world

11. There are 2 views of 'Original Sin" Man inherited 2 things: • We inherited the consequence of Adam's sin which is a fallen sinful nature and mortality • we are guilty of Adam's sin because we were in the loins of Adam when he sinned and • this is an Augustinian view (not accepted in Orthodoxy)

12. Orthodox View holds: • We inherited the consequence of Adam's sin which is a fallen, sinful nature and mortality (death) • The Church Fathers say that each person bears the guilt of their own sin and no one else!

13. Ezekiel 18:19-20 19 “Yet you say, ‘Why should the son not bear the guilt of the father?’ Because the son has done what is lawful and right, and has kept all My statutes and observed them, he shall surely live. 20 The soul who sins shall die. The son shall not bear the guilt of the father, nor the father bear the guilt of the son. The righteousness of the righteous shall be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon himself.

14. Romans 5:21 “so that as sin reigned in death, even so grace might reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

15. Romans 5:12 12 Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned— The difference stems from Augustine's interpretation of a Latin translation of Romans 5:12 to mean that through Adam all men sinned, whereas the Orthodox reading in Greek interpret it as meaning that all of humanity sins as part of the inheritance of flawed nature from Adam.

16. The difference stems from Augustine's interpretation of a Latin translation of Romans 5:12 to mean that through Adam all men sinned, whereas the Orthodox reading in Greek interpret it as meaning that all of humanity sins as part of the inheritance of flawed nature from Adam.

17. St Cyril of Alexandria • Our nature became "diseased...through the sin of one". •   It is not guilt that is passed on, for the Orthodox fathers; it is a condition, a disease

18. For Adam and Eve • To embrace their God-given vocation would bring life, to reject it would bring death, but not at God's hands. • St Theophiluscontinues, "...should he keep the commandment of God he would be rewarded with immortality...if, however, he should turn to things of death by disobeying God, he would be the cause of death to himself" (Romanides, 2002, p. 32)

19. Salvation and the Church • There is only one Church, the Orthodox Church. -The Church is the Body of Christ, a divine- human organism, of which -Christ is the chief member and the only Head. • Salvation is within and through the Church.

20. Theosis (Deification) • Salvation consists of theosis, becoming divinized/deified, which means attaining union with God and becoming ever more like Him, becoming by grace what Christ is by nature. • It is participation in the energies of God, becoming “ partakers of the divine nature” (2 Pet. 1:4), but not participation in His essence. • This process extends through all eternity, because God is infinite

21. The Work of Salvation Salvation rescues us not only from the guilt of sin, but from the very power of sin and death. • It is not merely a change in legal status, but a change in actual being.

22. How does one become saved? • Salvation is possible only by the power of God, with the cooperation of man • — "by grace, through faith” (Eph. 2:8). This cooperation is termed synergy. • God will always honor man' s free will, so if man ceases his cooperation, then God‘s grace does not operate. • Cooperation consists in repentance of sins, prayer, and participation in the sacraments.

23. Salvation through the Church • ■ The Holy Mysteries (sacraments) truly communicate grace by the action of God Himself through the clergy (priesthood), who are the servants of the mysteries • The clergy are, through the episcopacy, in the succession of the Apostles, who were ordained by Christ.