The Gospel in Theology and Spirituality.

        What has been said above concerning the Gospel in worship, preaching and teaching already involves essential theological matters. We have defined the content of the Gospel as being the crucified and risen Lord, and His entire ministry, matters which are linked to the saving message of the whole Bible, Christ being its center. We have also broached the topic of justification by faith, a chief theological concern of Protestants. In what follows, we shall offer additional thoughts pertaining to the relationship between Gospel and theology, the participatory view of salvation called theosis (“divinization” or “deification”), and the role of the Gospel in Orthodox spirituality.

        In the classic Orthodox tradition, a theologian is not one who has received a formal degree in theology and has become an expert in any given theological discipline. A theologian is someone who is deeply grounded in the life of the Church, who is advanced in the life of prayer, and whose knowledge of Scripture and the Christian tradition reflects profound wisdom. A dictum of Evagrios was” “If you are a theologian, you will pray truly; and if you pray truly, you a theologian.”^[60] Properly speaking, theology has to do with personal knowledge of the mystery of the Triune God, the mystery of Christ, the mystery of Pentecost as attested by the Scriptures and celebrated in the worship of the Church. To be a theologian presupposes living faith, true repentance, inner cleansing, spiritual illumination, and growth toward perfection in Christ-likeness.

        The masterful work by Saint Athanasios On the Incarnation of the Word^[61] may serve as an example of the close relationship between Gospel and theology in the Orthodox tradition. Reading this brief treatise one enters into the world of Christian proclamation, teaching and mission. Its chief source and authority is the Bible. Written for a certain Makarios, perhaps a recent convert, its purpose is to explicate the person and work of Christ as the self-disclosure of His divinity. For Athanasios, the incarnation is not just the birth and childhood of Christ, but the adult Christ as the fullness of God on earth. The mystery of Christ’s divinity continues to be revealed through His activity as risen Lord. Makarios is instructed to study the Scriptures himself in order to test the truth of the treatise, while being reminded that biblical study must be accompanied by righteous life and purity of soul.

        Three aspects of this work are notable for the present discussion. First, it glows with assurance concerning the Christian mission and the transformative power of Christian truth. Athanasios is not merely expounding an abstract Christology; he is proclaiming Christ. He observes the expansion of the Christian mission, how the Savior's teaching is increasing everywhere, and how men and women disdain even death in the face of martyrdom. According to Athanasios, it is Christ himself as One living and working in the very present who brings people to the Christian faith, thus manifesting his deity and the power of his resurrection. Secondly, Athanasios draws from the whole story of the Bible — creation, fall, redemption, and consummation. He points to God's love and goodness in reaching out to save and restore sinful humanity especially through the ministry of Christ. And thirdly, the focus is on the reality of Jesus Christ as the eternal and pre-existent Word, the same agent who created the world and is now redeeming it. Athanasios does not engage the infancy narratives. His attention is on the adult ministry of Christ as the One who was fully God and fully man. The Alexandrian's theological perspectives are both Johannine and Pauline. The incarnate Word was living a human life and at the same time — this is the wonder — he was in union with the Father sustaining the life of creation. The chief acts by which he accomplished his redemptive work was through his death and resurrection to which Athanasios devotes supreme attention.

        Saint Athanasios was one of the first Christian theologians to use the language of theosis or divinization. He is known for the statement: “He [the eternal Word] became human so that we may become deified” (theopoiethomen).^[62] This is a bold and to some perhaps an impossible concept, one which can linguistically be traced back to Plato. However, while acknowledging the Greek philosophical origins of the word, the Orthodox teaching about theosis is thoroughly Christian. It is rooted in the New Testament itself, especially the Gospel of John and the Epistles of Paul, which clearly speak of a mystical union with Christ and a personal dwelling of the Holy Spirit in the believer. The Church Fathers elaborated this teaching based on the reality of the incarnation, the full union of the divine and human natures of Christ, to which especially the Fourth Gospel bears testimony.

        As the Evangelist before him, Saint Athanasios viewed the incarnation in its full reality. Through the incarnation the eternal Word put himself at the disposal of humanity manifesting His radiant life and glory. Recall the opening words of the First Epistle of John: “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” (1 Jn 1:1). In a similar way. Saint Athanasios stresses the reality and tangibility of the incarnate Word who fully entered the sinful world of humanity in order to rescue it from corruption and death. Salvation occurs through a new birth, just as Jesus said to Nicodemos (Jn 3:3ff.), signifying the gift of the Spirit and restoration to intimate communion with God. The Alexandrian Father invokes, as well, uses Pauline language and concepts expounding the overcoming of sin, corruption, mortality, and death through the incarnate presence of divinity whose supreme goal was the resurrection, the great victory of the Word of Life over the powers of corruption. He cites 1 Cor. 15:53-56 as a key text: “This corruptible (phtharton) must put on incorruption (aphtharsian) and this mortal (thneton) must put on immortality (athanasian). . . Then shall come to pass the saying that is written, ‘Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is thy victory? O death, where is your sting?”

        Saint Athanasios brings his readers to the core of the patristic understanding of soteriology, a view of salvation based on the revelation of the incarnate Christ and the unity of his divine and human natures. This view presupposes the biblical concepts of the solidarity of humanity, the corruption of human nature by transgression and sin, and the human need for healing and transformation through sharing in the divine grace and life. It is a soteriology which treats the problem of sin primarily not in legal but existential, realistic terms. Though produced by transgression, sin is a sickness, a blight on humanity. Sick humanity needs divine healing by an infusion of grace, penetrating all of human existence, just as evil had done the same, according to Athanasios. The full solution to sin is not only forgiveness from heaven but also recreative sharing in the divine life in union with the crucified and risen Lord. It is a “participatory” view of salvation according to which believers are united with Christ as the branches are united to the vine (Jn 15:1ff.). It is by such intimate union that believers “are being transformed into the same image [of the glory of the Lord] from one degree of glory to another” (2 Cor. 3:18). Thus patristic soteriology is anchored on Johannine and Pauline categories of thought such as union and communion with God, the indwelling of Christ and the Spirit, as well as the transformation and glorification of all things (2 Cor. 5:17; Rom. 8:18ff.). The most appropriate biblical term for theosis is simply glorification by means of divine grace.^[63]

        However, the language of deification is not necessarily overwhelming and certainly not exclusive among the Church Fathers. When reflecting on the death of Christ, Athanasios himself uses a number of forensic biblical terms and images. The sacrifice of Christ was to free humanity from its Adamic transgression as a result of which a debt had to be paid. The death of the Lord was a ransom for all. By dying Christ became a sufficient exchange for all, a substitutionary offering and sacricice.^[64] Similar terminology and ideas appear in other Church Fathers, although they are never developed into a system as in the case of Anselm in the West. Remarkable as well is the fact that Gregory Palamas, known for his theology of theosis, never mentions the term nor deals with the theological concept in his sermons addressed to the ordinary faithful where the usual biblical vocabulary and exhortations prevail.^[65]

        Let us turn now to some remarks on the Gospel in Orthodox spirituality. This tradition is represented by an astonishingly rich literature dating from the Egyptian Desert Fathers (fourth century and later) to contemporary writers on the Holy Mountain in Greece. The preeminent record is The Philokalia,^[66] a collection of diversified treatises on the spiritual life covering a period roughly from the fourth to the fourteenth century.

        A number of contemporary western scholars have given attention to this tradition of Orthodoxy.^[67] Most recently a substantial volume appeared by Douglas Burton-Christie entitled The Word in the Desert: Scripture and the Quest for Holiness in Early Christian Monasticism.^[68] The thesis of this book is to demonstrate the central role that Scripture played in the life of the ancient monastics whose hearts and minds were shaped by biblical reading and meditation. The emphasis was, according to Burton-Christie, on a hermeneutic of praxis, the release of the power of God's word through the application of the sacred texts with the conviction that they inherently carried the power to transform and sanctify life. By means of study and memorization of the sacred texts, as well as rumination on their meaning, the biblical word penetrated the deepest recesses of the soul. It stripped away layers of ego-centric deceptive concerns and opened up new possibilities for the actualization of the evangelical virtues such as humility, love, and the fervent expectation of the coming kingdom. The ultimate expression of the desert hermeneutic, Burton-Christie concludes, was not doctrinal interpretation but the saintly elder as a person, a “Christ-bearer,” who embodied the sacred texts and who drew others out of themselves into a world of personal and corporate transformation by means of the practice of the biblical word.^[69]

        A striking witness to Orthodox spirituality is St. Mark the Ascetic (fifth century), whose treatises appear in The Philokalia. One of them is entitled On Those Who Think that They Are Made Righteous by Works.^[70] One thousand years before Martin Luther, this erudite monastic affirmed the biblical position in the clearest terms. His opening statement includes the following declaration:

Wishing to show that to fulfill every commandment is a duty, whereas sonship

is a gift given to people through His own Blood, the Lord said: 'When you have

done all that is commanded you, say: “We are useless servants: we have only

    done what was our duty”' (Lk 17:10). Thus the kingdom of heaven is not a

reward for works, but a gift of grace prepared by the Master for his faithful servants.^[71]

A few more aphorisms from Saint Mark the Ascetic, given according to their numbering in The Philokalia, will provide aspects of his understanding of spiritual life, especially as related to grace, faith and works:

12. Even though knowledge is true, it is still not firmly established if

unaccompanied by works. For everything is established by being put into

practice.

    22. When Scripture says 'He will reward every man according to his

works' (Mt 16:27), do not imagine that works in themselves merit either hell or

the kingdom. On the contrary, Christ rewards each man according to whether

his works are done with faith or without faith in Himself; and He is not a dealer

bound by contract, but God our Creator and Redeemer.

    57. He who does something good and expects a reward is serving not God but

his own will.

    117. To him who hungers after Christ grace is food; to him who is thirsty,

a reviving drink; to him who is cold, a garment; to him who is weary, rest; to him

who prays, assurance; to him who mourns, consolation.

The most prophetic and evangelical voice in Orthodox spirituality is Saint Symeon the New Theologian (949-1022), a learned abbot of a monastery in Constantinople who shook the religious establishment of his time by his teachings, was persecuted and died in exile. Some of his works, including The Disourses,^[72] have been translated into English. In Discourse 22 Saint Symeon tells how, while seeking as a young man the forgiveness of his sins through fervent prayer, he unexpectedly beheld the risen Christ in the radiance of His uncreated light. This sublime experience of renewal marked a new stage in Saint Symeon’s life. He became a zealous preacher of Christ and insisted that the very life of the apostles could be lived by every Christian in any epoch. For Saint Symeon, the luminous presence of Christ, the burning fire of His grace and love, was always eager to ignite a receptive soul, just as fire is always eager to consume dry wood. What was required was the exercise of the gift of faith, attention to conscience, an awareness of one’s blindness and the need for enlightenment, fervent prayer, and faithful obedience to the Lord.

        Appealing to the witness of Scripture, especially the Evangelist John and the Apostle Paul, Saint Symeon proclaimed in bold terms the necessity of an adult experience of conversion and renewal, a “new birth,” just as Jesus had proclaimed to Nicodemos in the Gospel of John.  According to Saint Symeon, most people by adulthood have reached a state of spiritual insensibility, their baptismal grace inactive and concealed by all manner of evil desires and passions. He did not address only lay people but clerics and monastics as well. All needed a profound sense of repentance, a deep conversion of heart and mind, indeed a new “baptism of the Holy Spirit” to rejuvenate baptismal grace.  o some Saint Symeon’s apostolic message smacked of heresy. His teaching once provoked some of his own monastics to rush at him in order to inflict bodily harm. Although rejected by officials and exiled, he was soon acknowledged as one of the greatest charismatic saints in the Orthodox tradition and was accorded the rare honorary title “Theologian.”^[73]

        The biblical and evangelical dimension in Symeon is simply astonishing. A loyal follower of the great Church Fathers, and deeply respectful of the Church’s tradition, Saint Symeon lived and breathed the Scriptures. In Disourses 28-36 he expounds the new life in Christ presenting “the truth from divine Scripture and from experience.”^[74] He tells of leaving every other preoccupation in life to labor day and night “excavating” the Scriptures (p. 355) until, by Christ's luminous intervention, they yielded their spiritual treasures.^[75] Though being accused of pride and arrogance, he boldly parallels his witness to that of the apostles and the Church Fathers who possessed the mind of Christ. He viewed his work as “a ministry of the Spirit”^[76] against which resisters committed the unforgivable sin of blasphemy. According to Symeon, without the renewed life in conscious union with Christ and the Spirit, all are slaves of this world and sit in darkness, whether they be emperors or patriarchs, prelates or priests, monks or lay persons.^[77] He viewed himself as no more than “a poor, brother-loving beggar” (ptochos philadelphos), who out of love for his fellow beggars ran about the streets calling all beggars to the door of an amazing Master freely dispensing His wealth to all. Nevertheless, as a prophet, he also challenged his hearers to test the truth of his witness with these words:

You, on your part, must see and test that which we say. If we have views

different from those of the Apostles and of the holy and God-inspired Fathers,

if we speak contrary to what they said, if we fail to repeat what the Holy Gospels

say about God, then let me be anathema from the Lord God Jesus Christ.^[78]