Category Archives: Incarnation

Origin of the Bible – Definitions and Clarifications

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A folio of the book of GenesisWhen talking about the origins of the “Bible,” it is a given that a discussion around the “canon” of the scriptures should take place. So what is the canon, exactly, and do all view it in the same manner?

For most, the canon is a list of writings (or “books”) that is considered to be both authoritative and divinely inspired. In other words, it is the “table of contents” of one’s Bible. The word “canon” comes from Greek, and means “rule” or “measuring stick.” For the Hebrew people prior to AD 70 (when the second temple was destroyed by Roman forces), the canon was supposedly set according to whichever scrolls were in the temple itself (per Flavius Josephus, the Jewish historian, c. AD 37-100); that is, within the Holy of Holies. If one wanted to know if a particular text or copy of a scroll was “canonical,” they only had to lay it alongside the canonical scroll and make comparisons. It was almost a literal “measuring stick,” if you think about the action of rolling out a scroll and laying them side-by-side.

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Hinting at a Future Post

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The so-called “Lord’s Prayer” (the “Our Father) is a prayer for the “end of the world,” or the “end of the age.”

It is a prayer for the apocalypse, the parousia of Christ.

It is a prayer for Maranatha.

“Thy Kingdom come […] on earth as it is in heaven.”

But … it isn’t a prayer about the future.

Clerical Dress and American Worship

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An Eastern Orthodox priest.This might not be a very popular post …

Schmemann began his book For the Life of the World with the phrase “Man is what he eats,” quoting the German philosopher Feuerbach. In a similar fashion (wait for the pun), I believe that “man is what he wears.”

Yes, friends, the way we dress matters. It shapes and transforms the way we think, the way we work, the way we act and – most importantly for the Christian – the way we worship. While the rationalism of our Enlightenment culture might deny the effects of “matter” (you know, earthy stuff), simply denying the reality of something doesn’t make it true. Everyone knows that when you dress professionally, you are more productive and focused at work, and that dressing in a casual manner actually reduces productivity and the mental faculties of the average person – these are widely accepted viewpoints, it seems. In a similar way, surrounding yourself with certain decorations or trappings can affect the way one thinks and acts, as well. Aesthetics matter.

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Tim Tebow and the Saints

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All the SaintsThe recent Tim Tebow fascination and hysteria (among evangelicals, especially) is a reminder of the fact that most Americans (especially American, evangelical Christians) are held captive by Iconoclasm.

As C.S. Lewis once pointed out, when there is no king or monarch to venerate (honor), people will seek out celebrities and even deviants to hold up as worthy of honor. This, of course, explains the American fascination (voyeurism) with regards to celebrities (TMZ, Entertainment Tonight, People magazine, etc.) as well as “reality television” – a most horrendous form of entertainment where literally anyone can be venerated for simply pretending to live their day-to-day lives in front of a television camera.

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Putting the “Mass” Back into Christmas (and Other Bumper Sticker Ideas)

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Icon of the Nativity of ChristI’ve seen a lot of rather lovely blog posts, articles, etc. from fellow Orthodox Christians these days regarding the Christmas holiday season.

Of course, living in America (or the secular West in general) during Christmas season means having to endure countless references to an elven “Santa” figure – a mythical product of Evangel-o-Deistic-Protestant-Capital-ism where one of the Church’s most holy, upright and Godly Saints is turned into an enduring symbol for capitalism and materialistic consumption – Lord, have mercy!

In addition to this, we must also endure the predictable rants of evangelicals as they lament over the usage of phrases like “Happy Holidays!” instead of “Merry Christmas!” as well as “Xmas” on Twitter.

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Jesus Didn’t Perform Miracles

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“At that time, as Jesus passed on from there, two blind men followed him, crying aloud, ‘Have mercy on us, Son of David.’ When he entered the house, the blind men came to him; and Jesus said to them, ‘Do you believe that I am able to do this?’ They said to him, ‘Yes, Lord.’ Then he touched their eyes, saying, ‘According to your faith be it done to you.’ And their eyes were opened.”
Gospel According to St Matthew, Chapter 9

The Two Blind Men and ChristI can remember hearing this passage over and over again as I grew up, all the while thinking “look at this miracle Jesus performed!”

Jesus didn’t perform a miracle in this passage. Miracle implies that this was something super-natural or out of the ordinary – something not according to normalcy; not according to plan, so to speak.

However, the healing of pain, sickness, disease and all infirmity is inextricably linked with the Gospel itself. The Gospel of Jesus Christ is a Gospel of resurrection and triumph over death. “Christ is risen from the dead, trampling down death by death; And upon those in the tomb, bestowing life.”

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The Eighth Day and Millennium of Christ

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The ParousiaFor many Christians today, Sunday has become “the Christian Sabbath.” While not all of the restrictions and laws of the old religion have been applied to it (with the exception of some extremists), it has essentially become a day of rest for the people of Christ.

There’s nothing wrong with resting on Sunday, to be clear, but this view is rather short-sighted and doesn’t capture the full and broader meaning behind worshiping on the “Day of the Sun.”

The ancient fathers didn’t look at Sunday from the perspective of the Hebraic Sabbath; rather, they looked at it from the perspective of the “eighth day” and the “Day of the Lord” as promised and foretold by many prophetic and apocalyptic writings of Second Temple Judaism.

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The Eucharist is Real

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Orthodox Icon of the Mystical Supper

“And as they ate, Jesus took the bread, and blessed it, and broke it, and was giving it to the disciples, and said, ‘Take, eat; this is My body.’ And He took the cup, and gave thanks (Greek: Eucharistia), and gave it to them, saying ‘Drink of it, all of you; for this is My blood, that of the new covenant, which is being poured out for many for the remission of sins.”
Gospel According to St Matthew 26:26-28

“Verily, verily, I say to you, unless ye should eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, ye are not having life in yourselves. The one who partaketh of My flesh and drinketh My blood hath eternal life; and I will raise him up in the last day. For My flesh is true food and My blood is true drink. The one who eateth My flesh and drinketh My blood abideth in Me, and I in him. Even as the living Father sent Me forth, and I live because of the Father, also the one who eateth Me, even he shall live because of Me. This One is the bread, the One having come down out of the heavens – not as your fathers ate the manna, and died. The one who eateth this bread shall live forever.”
Gospel According to St John the Theologian 6:53-58

The Eucharist is real.

We are truly consuming the risen body and blood of the Lord Jesus Christ every Sunday when we commune together in worship. Make no mistake about it; it is reality – it is a fact of the Scriptures and the whole received Tradition of the Orthodox Church. There is no getting around this without boldly denying the Scriptures – and therefore Christ – Himself.

While this makes a certain minority of Christians worldwide (namely, Protestant evangelicals) rather uncomfortable, we are to believe what Christ has taught us about Himself and about this ritual – not science, the skepticism of post-modernity, the rationalism of post-Enlightenment, Western civilization, and certainly not the “traditions of men” who have failed to either grasp or receive the truth of Christ.

Why does the reality of partaking of the risen body and blood of Christ bother these people so?

To be frank, such people are being influenced by the “traditions of men” instead of the Church (and Her Scriptures).

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The Eucharist is Important

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An Orthodox infant receiving the Eucharist in AfricaFor whatever reason, I’ve been thinking a lot about the Eucharist lately.

Maybe it is because of some of the great podcasts I’ve listened to in recent travels, or because I’m simply reminded of the importance, reality and danger of the Eucharist each time I’ve entered into heaven through the Divine Liturgy of the Orthodox Church. Regardless, there’s been a lot of things swirling around in my head recently, so I figured I might as well put them to “paper” and see what happens. That’s pretty much the point of this blog, after all.

As I said above, the Eucharist is important, real and dangerous.

It is along these three lines that I’d like to discuss this topic, starting first with the importance of the Eucharist.

In the world I live in (post-modern, Westernized, American culture), the very idea of the Eucharist is immediately controversial. Not only do we have to deal with the false dichotomies of the “sacred” and “profane,” but one is faced with a quasi-Gnostic worldview everywhere one looks (in this case, a tendency to focus on the “invisible” when it comes to faith). Along with this, the idea that something physical or created can manifest or make present the Grace of God (the Holy Spirit) is roundly scoffed at by every post-Enlightenment Christian. Faith – for the post-Enlightenment Christian – is entirely conceived of as one’s personal relationship with God through assent to a set of beliefs about God. It is mostly a matter of the mind or “heart” and never really entertains the physical world for any reason.

I’ll speak more to this point in my next post, but I needed to lay a brief historical context before I continued any further (knowing that most evangelicals who read this will immediately be repulsed by the idea of something physical being necessary for our salvation, despite the clarity of the Scriptures and all of Church Tradition and history on this point).

The Eucharist is both necessary for, and an integral part of a Christian’s salvation.

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We Keep Singing … But What Does it Mean?

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Orthodox Icon of the Resurrection and Harrowing of Hades

If you’ve ever spent time around an Orthodox Christian parish or Orthodox Christians during the Paschal season (or “Easter” in the West), something you’ll hear sung, chanted and/or said repeatedly is the Paschal troparion:

Christ is risen from the dead,
Trampling down death by death,
And upon those in the tombs,
Bestowing life!

In most Christian traditions, it is common to hear the greeting “Christ is risen!” on Easter Sunday (and people will typically respond with “He is risen, indeed,” unless they’re shy). But really, this is just an abbreviation of the above troparion (or “hymn”) that was anonymously written and eventually received by the Church over a thousand years ago.

But what does it mean?

People sing it over, and over, and over again … but what does it mean?

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What Did Christ Accomplish?: Rob Bell, Evangelical Bickering and the Gospel of St Ignatius

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Icon of Saint Ignatius of Antioch, Martyrdom

“Hence every kind of magic was destroyed, and every bond of wickedness disappeared; ignorance was removed, and the old kingdom abolished, God Himself being manifested in human form for the renewal of eternal life. And now that took a beginning which had been prepared by God. Henceforth all things were in a state of tumult, because He mediated the abolition of death.”
St Ignatius of Antioch, Epistle to the Ephesians, Ch. 19

In his letter to the Church at Ephesus, the Apostolic Father St Ignatius writes of the glories of Christ’s Incarnation and our deliverance from the Evil One and death. For the Orthodox Christian, this is a message of great joy and triumph, as the bonds of Hades have now been loosed due to Christ’s triumph over death itself.

However, modern evangelical Christians — many of whom have likely never even read one of St Ignatius’ epistles — would scoff at St Ignatius’ message above as being abhorrent and unrecognizable as the Gospel, since it doesn’t contain main of their pet doctrines and distinctives (traditions of men, if you will, since many of them are absent from all of Catholic and Orthodox Christianity). It might even be characterized as a “new” and “Liberal” theology, inspired by various philosophical and political discussions of the last two centuries. How ironic, considering this great Father lived in the age of the Apostles, was appointed in Antioch as Bishop by St Peter himself, and died a martyr’s death in AD 108. We are so arrogant in our man-made traditions and ideas that we would call this Saint a “liberal” in today’s evangelical climate. I mean, St Ignatius sat on Jesus’ lap (cf. St Matthew 18:2-4; traditions hold that this infant was St Ignatius) and was taught by His Apostles directly. It doesn’t get any more Apostolic and genuine than that! He knows the true Gospel because he saw it with his own eyes — and died for it.

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Is Fasting Biblical?

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The Expulsion from Eden

“And the Lord God commanded Adam, saying, ‘You may eat food from every tree in the garden; but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you may not eat; for in whatever day you eat from it, you shall die by death.’”
Genesis 2:16-17 (LXX)

Fasting was part of what it meant to be human and created in God’s image. When Adam broke the fast inappropriately and in an untimely manner, the consequence of that distortion of humanity was corruption unto death. Fasting as a Christian is part of our salvation insofar as it reminds us of how to be human, making our Spiritual condition of greater importance than our flesh or passions and desires. We don’t fast in order to “merit” something from God but rather to become like God.

“Moreover, when you fast, do not be like the hypocrites, with a sad countenance. For they disfigure their faces that they may appear to men to be fasting. Assuredly, I say to you, they have their reward. But you, when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, so that you do not appear to men to be fasting, but to your Father who is in the secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly.”
Gospel According to St Matthew 6:16-18

Notice that Christ our God mentions the discipline of fasting as a foregone conclusion for His disciples. Along with this, we see that our fasting is useless if it is not done with the right Spirit. Those who fast “publicly” and with great fanfare have received their reward, and it is temporal and useless. True fasting is a secret and Spiritual discipline that affects our entire Person and transforms us into the likeness of Christ. “Fasting is for spiritual growth and the glory of God, not to be seen by those around us” (OSB). The Western tradition of Ash Wednesday is, as a result, almost completely opposed to the Christian fast. On the contrary, the preparation for fasting in the East is asking for forgiveness from our fellow Christians (Forgiveness Sunday) and making ourselves ready for the fast (Meatfare and Cheesefare help with this) so that our fasting is not outwardly apparent to others.

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Christ the Mercy Seat

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Orthodox Tabernacle

In his Epistle to the Romans, St Paul writes:

“… being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, Whom God Himself hath set forth to be an expiation through faith in His blood …”
St Paul’s Epistle to the Romans, 3.24-25

This word translated “expiation” by the Orthodox New Testament is in Greek hilasterion. The usage and meaning of this word is critical in understanding the meaning behind Jesus Christ’s death on the Cross, among many other things.

In the Septuagint, the word hilasterion is always used in the sense of expiation or “cleansing,” being a translation of the Hebrew word כפורת (kaporet). These words (hilasterion and kaporet) are both used in the Masoretic revision of the Old Testament (in Hebrew) and the Septuagint (the ancient Greek translation of the Old Testament into Greek, accepted by the ancient Church as Holy Scripture) for what we call the “mercy seat” today in English. The Hebrew kaporet is likely derived from the word kaphar or “to wipe out,” making kaporet to mean “thing of wiping out” or “thing of cleansing” (cf. Cheyne & Black, Encyclopedia Biblica).

Things really get interesting when you look at the New Testament in more detail, and especially modern translations in English.

Hilasterion is used throughout the New Testament, and especially in St Paul’s Epistle to the Romans and his Epistle to the Hebrews. While most modern, Protestant translations will rightly translate hilasterion as “mercy seat” in the Epistle to the Hebrews, they will inconsistently translate hilasterion as “propitiate” in St Paul’s other Epistles. There is an apparent bias at play in these translation decisions, and it could indicate that Protestants rely upon the traditions of men even when it comes to the translation of Scripture (along with its canon or “table of contents”).

Seeing the mercy seat as a “thing of cleansing” and how that correlates to the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ would seem to be apparent in the Apostle:

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God (Sorta) With Us

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According to most people who hold to the Anselm-ian “Substitutionary Atonement” viewpoint, due to Christ’s “work on the Cross,” when God the Father considers those who are “saved,” He does not see us, but Christ instead.

In other words, even though we’re “saved,” we still don’t truly have fellowship or a relationship with God the Father. The Father has a relationship with the Son (and we’re “counted” along with the Son in that dynamic).

This obviously makes the Father a “distant” figure for us and our Christian experience. We end up only truly having a relationship with Jesus Christ, and not with the Father as well. This creates not only a heretical view of the Godhead, where there is variation among the Persons of the Trinity, but also pushes us along the road towards Deism, Agnosticism and eventually, Atheism.

Or — to be frank — it chronicles the modern history of Western, Protestant Christianity in the United States. Practically every mainline denomination has followed down this disastrous path, some more so than others.

All of this has therefore led to a heavily philosophical faith, the doctrine of Sola Scriptura, and a refusal to accept or believe in the possibility of an experience of God that does not involve reason. Even the Church of Rome has a beatific vision that is a heightened “rational experience of God,” as opposed to the noetic experience of God you’ll find in the East, along with hesychasm.

God has been removed from us and He is now “the man upstairs” rather than Immanuel or “God with us.”

For more on this subject, I would encourage you to check out Matthew Gallatin‘s podcast series Pilgrims from Paradise, as well as Fr Stephen Freeman‘s new book Everywhere Present: God in a One Storey Universe.

God on the East Side

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Heresy

In the West, God became known mostly by his (im)passion for justice and order.

In order to be worthy of God’s presence and fellowship with him, one must live up to God’s demands for perfection and “holiness.”  As the result of what Westerners now call “Original Sin,” this was impossible without the work of God’s grace within the heart of sinful humanity — and even then, one can only achieve fellowship with God through the imputation of Christ’s obedience and fulfillment of God’s demands for perfection. Without having Christ’s “merit” accounted as one’s own, there was no chance of coming before God without the expectation of divine wrath and judgment.

In the East, God is known for His eternal lovingkindness and compassion — a love for all mankind and a desire to see all come into fellowship with Him, restoring the order between humanity and God that existed in the Garden before the Fall.

Eastern Theology says — along with the Apostle St Paul — that God shows His love for sinful humanity in that “while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”

God is not waiting in eager anticipation for judgment day; He is actively seeking the lost sheep of humanity, and has sent His Son to abolish the curse and pave the way for us to be reunited with Him through His Body, the Church.

Again, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

The implications of this are far-reaching, but one can easily see how this would influence concepts of everything from government to justice to forgiveness.

“God is love.”
St John the Theologian