How the creation of the world and of angels reveals God’s order for our place and function in life – an order that is carefully preserved in the Church but lost in “Contemporary Christianity”.

St. Dionysius the Areopagite describes the order and hierarchy that exists in the world, the order by which God rules over His creation.  For the creation is orderly.  We read in the beginning of the book of Genesis that the world was shapeless and void, but God brought it into increasing order through the process of creation, working through His uncreated, ever-existing Word.  As St. Dionysius teaches, before God made the world, He created the Angels in three ranks of three orders each:  the Cherubim, Seraphim and Thrones; Authorities, Dominions, and Powers; and Principalities, Archangels, and Angels.  The chief angels – the Cherubim – stand directly before God, although even they cannot see Him in His true being, since He cannot be comprehended by any created being.  Each rank conveys God’s grace and instructions to the next rank, order by order, until they are brought down to our created world.  And similarly, our prayers ascend up to God through the ranks of angels, each rank purifying and transmitting the prayers it has received.

This is not to suggest that we have no contact with God; on the contrary, we ourselves fit into this blessed hierarchy, in which everything is done decently and in order [I Cor. 14:40].  For the rank below the Angels is mankind itself.  And as the Angels are divided into three ranks, so mankind is also divided into three ranks: the clergy (divided into bishops, priests, and deacons), the sacred people (monastics, divided into novices, professed, and schema-monks), and those being purified (divided into the initiates – the Baptized and believing Christian laity; the repentant – those preparing for Baptism or those who have fallen into serious sin after Baptism; and the possessed – those outside the Church of God).  Grace is mediated from God to the created world through these ordered hierarchies, showing us the beautiful and elegant structure which sustains the world.   Each of us has a place in the hierarchy, a place which God has given us.  Think how different this view is from that of modern science.  In St. Dionysius’s understanding of the universe God’s guiding hand is everywhere, mediated in an orderly and loving manner.  There is no blind chance at work; there are no mindless “natural laws”; there is no purposeless evolution.  Rather, there is meaning and purpose in every single act, because every one of our acts is either a proper participation in the process of passing on God’s grace through our order and returning our prayers to Him through the Celestial Hierarchy, or it breaks the link in the hierarchy and damages the whole creation.  For the point of the hierarchy is that each member must play his assigned role for it to work properly.  Some of God’s grace may fail to reach the repentant and the possessed, if the initiates do not transmit it.  And the prayers of the initiates and those below do not ascent upward as well if the monastics and the clergy are themselves careless and impure.  The significance of a hierarchy is precisely this: it only works properly if each rank performs its functions correctly.  Satan’s fall removed some members of the higher orders, and in a real sense weakened God’s creation.  Man’s fall disrupted the hierarchy even more, since there are now no human beings who truly meet their calling in the Divine Hierarchy.  If we look at the state of the world around us today, we cannot fail to see the disastrous results of the failure of Christians to fulfill their assigned functions.  And the horrors of our world are substantially our fault, because we do not even see our role in sustaining God’s creation, much less fulfill it…

The Divine Liturgy in the Church is the fullest expression on earth of God’s hierarchy.  At the Liturgy you can see the orders of the earthly hierarchy present before God’s throne.  The clergy stand at the front, immediately before the Throne of God, the Holy Table.  The initiates stand in the body of the temple, the nave.  The repentant stand outside the nave in the narthex.  And the possessed are completely outside the temple of God.  The Liturgy is offered with beauty and order, raising our prayers to the Celestial Hierarchy to convey to God’s throne, and in return bringing down God’s grace to us on earth.  At the Liturgy we join with the whole Divine Hierarchy in Heaven and on earth, and we truly see our place in God’s creation.   When the Liturgy is over, we must not lose sight of God’s order for the world. We must continue to send our prayers upward to His throne in everything we do; and we must look for His grace to continue to descend to us through our private prayers at every moment during the day.  This is our calling as Christians.  How different this is from what the world wants us to believe!  We are not little lumps of meaningless flesh that live for a few years, seeking maximum pleasure, then die and cease to exist.  Rather, we are God’s creatures [we even see the Divine order and hierarchy in body, soul, and spirit], made by Him for a specific purpose and assigned a place in the order of the universe.  Only you can fulfill the spot for which you were created.  And if you fail to fill it, you detract from and damage all of God’s creation.  How awesome our role!  How frightening to look at the world around us and realize that our failure to be what we were made to be is the root cause of many social and moral evils we see!  One day our eyes will be opened and we will see God’s creation as it is.  I pray that day may be now, where there is still time for each of you to begin to take your place in it.  But, if it is not now, it will be at the dread judgment seat of Christ, when it will be too late to do anything but gnash your teeth and cry out in rage, frustration, and grief.  Learn to see the world as it truly is.  And take your place in God’s order with obedience, love, and joy.

From a talk given by +Fr. Seraphim Johnson, my spiritual father of blessed memory.

[This view of God’s order as revealed in the creation and function of the Angels and in the order of the Church is lost in a “Christianity” that seeks to hold on to Adam and Eve’s autonomy of the individual – the original sin – and perceives Christianity as essentially just “God and me”, and the Church as whatever everybody wants it to be.]

Reflections on things that drove me to Orthodoxy, or as some might say, to madness. 

I have been an Orthodox Christian now for some 25 years. I still reflect on my earlier years as a Free Will Baptist and later as a Lutheran and recall many of the feelings and thoughts that sent me in search of the historical Church of Christ. It all began when I was a Free Will Baptist right after I graduated from college and was pastoring my first church outside of Detroit, Michigan. 

 I used to wonder why there were so many different denominations with so many different beliefs. It didn't make sense to me that everyone claimed to believe the same Bible and be led by the same Holy Spirit and yet had so many conflicting and contradictory views of the Christian Faith. It seemed to me that instead of the one Lord, one Faith and one Baptism of the Bible there were many Lords, many Faiths and many Baptisms. I just couldn't reconcile all of this with any sense of integrity or authenticity of faith. “They can’t all be right,” I reasoned, “since they contradict each other.” “And if they can’t all be right which one is the true Christian Faith in its fullness?” I knew it couldn’t be the ones that just started 50 years ago, or 100 years ago, or 1500 years ago. I finally concluded it had to be the one that could trace its unbroken history, doctrine, faith, worship and practice back to the first century. 

 I used to wonder by what authority our church leaders interpreted the Bible. What made one person's interpretation more believable or more authoritative than the next person who had a different interpretation? By what authority did every Tom, Dick, Harry and Jane say, “Thus sayeth the Lord”? The Bible was claimed by everyone as the final authority but with everyone free to say and do their own thing there really was no authority at all. The Bible was at the mercy of everyone’s interpretation. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes – a clear contradiction of the Bible itself, or at least to someone’s interpretation of the Bible. It seemed to me that everyone had become a little pope unto himself/herself.

 Everyone said, "Oh, we all agree on the major stuff" but I knew we didn't. We disagreed on many major doctrines and practices, things that had a direct bearing on our salvation. Besides, I wondered who determines what is major and what is not? And if the differences didn't really matter why did we separate into thousands of denomination and go our separate ways and hang out our different signs and preach our different doctrines?

 I used to wonder about Baptism and the Lord's Supper, as we called it. By what authority did we say there are no sacraments and these are just symbolic reminders? I couldn’t reconcile this with a number of Bible verses that seemed to attach saving significance to these events. As mere outward symbols they seemed so empty, useless, awkward and even silly. “Why bother?” I asked. It was as though we were children playing house or actors upon a stage. It was all just words with no reality. 

 Everything was based on the individual’s invisible thoughts and feelings. If you felt saved, you were saved. If you felt like you had the Holy Spirit, you had the Holy Spirit. If you felt assured of heaven you were assured. If you felt called to preach, you were called, etc. Everything was so nebulous and unknown beyond what one felt. If you felt like this preacher or that preacher was the right one, he was the right one. If you felt like such and such church had the truth, then it was so. It was all subjective and individualistic and privatistic. There was no real authority beyond the individual’s thoughts and feelings. And few seemed to be bothered by the fact that people’s thoughts and feelings can be very wrong and even demonic even while they are convinced they are from God. We knew the Bible verse about the heart “is desperately wicked and who can know it” but like so many other Bible verses it got lost in the individuals thoughts and feelings. It seemed to me that we had fallen into the same trap Adam and Eve fell into – the autonomy of the individual. 

I struggled with the same issues in regards to worship.  Worship was totally individualistic from the type or forms of worship to how worship was experienced.  People chose churches on the type of worship they liked.  If the preacher was a good speaker and entertainer, people flocked to that.   And everything was based on the feelings of the preacher as to what he preached and the theme for each Sunday.  I grew weary of making up my own forms of worship based on subjective feelings and competing with worldly forms of entertainment.  It seemed that the value and meaning of worship should not be based on the effectiveness of some speaker, the thrill of some entertaining music or the feelings of the worshipper.  I was convinced that the worship of Almighty God deserved more than my flimsy and inadequate words and more than worldly forms and themes.  

 I began to feel I must find the true Church and the true Faith for my salvation. I could no longer trust my feelings or a thousand different feelings and voices all claiming to speak for the same God, by the same Holy Spirit and from the same Bible.

PUTTING THE CROSS BEFORE THE INCARNATION

CHRIST IS BORN!  GLORIFY HIM!

There is a prevailing tendency today in contemporary Christianity to overlook the significance of the Incarnation.  This is because the teaching of the Church regarding Theosis as the essence of the Christian Faith and of Salvation has been lost.  

In contemporary Christianity there is hardly any emphasis on the Incarnation.  Everyone wants to quickly relate His birth to His cross and His death as though that's all that matters.  Everyone wants to jump immediately from Bethlehem to Calvary.  "He was born to die for our sins" is the prevailing understanding.  This is because salvation is perceived primarily as the forgiveness of sins, a sort of fire insurance, if you will.   

But not so in the Orthodox Christian Church.  In the Church, the Incarnation stands on its own as a crucial and vital truth that reveals the renewal/redemption of creation and of mankind as the point of reunion between heaven and earth and the means by which fallen man can once again partake of the Divine Nature.  Redemption is in the Incarnation.  In Christ the God-Man, all of creation is renewed and once again has the potential of being used for our salvation and returned to God as a sweet smelling offering.  

The Incarnation reversed the fall of Adam just as the obedience of the Blessed Virgin Mary reversed the fall of Eve.  The forgiveness of our sins is one very important part of our redemption but only one part.  The forgiveness of sins is the prelude and continuing condition for Theosis.  The goal of the Christian Faith is not merely to be forgiven but to return to union with God and to paradise, a journey that begins here and now and is possible only via the Incarnation.  God was in Christ, not merely forgiving sins, but "reconciling the world unto Himself".  Or in the words of St. Peter to make us "partakers of the divine nature" (2 Peter 1: 4).  This, of course, is a participation in the Divine Nature by Grace, and that only in His Energies and not in His Essence.  These, too, are important distinctions that have been lost in contemporary Christianity which are crucial to avoiding false teachings and understandings about salvation.  

In the Church we linger with the Incarnation in a special way until the Feast of Theophany as we remember and celebrate His circumcision, Naming, flight to Egypt, the Slaughter of the Innocents, the visit of the Magi, His earthly Mother and Father and His earthly kinsmen, but mostly of how the God/Man reunites and restores the human with the divine.  

But it doesn't end there.  The Incarnation is celebrated throughout the year in the life and worship of the Church in our daily and weekly hymns and prayers, the fasts and Feasts, the reliving of His earthly life and that of His Blessed Mother, and first and foremost in the Communion of the Body and Blood of the Incarnate Saviour. 

The cross finds it meaning and power in the Incarnation.  Not the other way around. 

The Early Church Fathers on Apostolic Succession:

The Early Fathers believed that authentic teaching and authority came through apostolic succession and the Church of Christ would exist only within the walls of this succession.  To be sure, the succession required is not merely an historical succession but a succession of the same Life and Truth.  In other words, true Apostolic Succession is a two-sided coin and neither side can be omitted.  There must be an historical succession that can be traced directly back to the Apostles but also a succession of the same Teachings and Practices.  Thus, the Orthodox do no consider the Roman Catholic, Anglican and Lutheran succession to be true since they have departed from the succession of the Apostolic Teachings and have followed false teachings invented by the Pope, Luther and others.  And, of course, the Protestants/Evangelicals make no claim of and see no need for any Apostolic Succession.

Clement of Rome (first century), third bishop of Rome after the Apostle Peter, taught:

Our Apostles knew through our Lord Jesus Christ that there would be strife for the office of bishop. For this reason, therefore, having received perfect foreknowledge, they appointed those who have already been mentioned, and afterwards added the further provision that, if they should die, other approved men should succeed to their ministry (Letter to the Corinthians 44:1 [A.D. 95]).

Ignatius of Antioch, first century, third bishop of Antioch and student of the Apostle John.  Some ancient traditions tell us that he was the child whom the Saviour set in the midst as an example of the child-like humility required to enter the Kingdom of Heaven, taught:

You must all follow the bishop as Jesus Christ follows the Father, and the presbytery as you would the Apostles. Reverence the deacons as you would the command of God. Let no one do anything of concern to the Church without the bishop. Let that be considered a valid Eucharist which is celebrated by the bishop, or by one whom he appoints. Wherever the bishop appears, let the people be there… (Letter to the Smyrnaeans 8:1 [A.D. 110]).

Irenaeus, second century bishop of Gaul taught:

It is possible, then, for everyone in every Church, who may wish to know the truth, to contemplate the tradition of the Apostles which has been made known throughout the whole world. And we are in a position to enumerate those who were instituted bishops by the Apostles, and their successors to our own times: men who neither knew nor taught anything like these heretics rave about [Gnostics]. For if the Apostles had known hidden mysteries which they taught to the elite secretly and apart from the rest, they would have handed them down especially to those very ones to whom they were committing the self-same Churches. For surely they wished all those and their successors to be perfect and without reproach, to whom they handed on their authority (Against Heresies 3:3:1 [A.D. 180-199]).

It is necessary to obey those who are the presbyters in the Church, those who, as we have shown, have succession from the Apostles; those who have received, with the succession of the episcopate, the sure charism of truth according to the good pleasure of the Father. But the rest, who have no part in the primitive succession and assemble wheresoever they will, must be held in suspicion (ibid 4:26:2).

Tertullian of Carthage, first – second century, taught:

Moreover, if there be any [heresies] bold enough to plant themselves in the midst of the apostolic age, so that they might seem to have been handed down by the Apostles because they were from the time of the Apostles, we can say to them: let them show the origin of their Churches, let them unroll the order of their bishops, running down in succession from the beginning, so that their first bishop shall have for author and predecessor some one of the Apostles or of the apostolic men who continued steadfast with the Apostles. For this is the way in which the apostolic Churches transmit their lists: like the Church of the Smyrnaeans, which records that Polycarp was placed there by John; like the Church of the Romans where Clement was ordained by Peter. In just this same way the other Churches display those whom they have as sprouts from the apostolic seed, having been established in the episcopate by the Apostles. Let the heretics invent something like it. After their blasphemies, what could be unlawful for them? But even if they should contrive it, they will accomplish nothing; for their doctrine itself, when compared with that of the Apostles, will show by its own diversity and contrariety that it has for its author neither an Apostle nor an apostolic man. The Apostles would not have differed among themselves in teaching, nor would an apostolic man have taught contrary to the Apostles, unless those who were taught by the Apostles then preached otherwise.

Therefore, they will be challenged to meet this test even by those Churches which are of much later date – for they are being established daily – and whose founder is not from among the Apostles nor from among the apostolic men; for those which agree in the same faith are reckoned as apostolic on account of the blood ties in their doctrine. Then let all heresies prove how they regard themselves as apostolic, when they are challenged by our Churches to meet either test. But in fact they are not apostolic, nor can they prove themselves to be what they are not. Neither are they received in peace and communion by the Churches which are in any way apostolic, since on account of their diverse belief they are in no way apostolic (The Demurrer Against the Heretics 32:1 [A.D. 200]).

Firmilion of Caesarea, third century, taught:

But what is his error, and how great his blindness, who says that the remission of sins can be given in the synagogues of the heretics, and who does not remain on the foundation of the one Church which was founded upon the rock by Christ can be learned from this, which Christ said to Peter : "Whatever things you shall bind on earth shall be bound also in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth, they shall be loosed in heaven;" and by this, again in the gospel, when Christ breathed upon the Apostles alone, saying to all of them; "Receive the Holy Spirit: if you forgive any man his sins, they shall be forgiven; and if you retain any mans sins, they shall be retained." Therefore, the power of forgiving sins was given to the Apostles and to the Churches which these men, sent by Christ, established; and to the bishops who succeeded them by being ordained in their place (Letter to Cyprian 75:16 [A.D. 255-256]).

EXCERPTS FROM....

PATH TO SANITY
 Lessons From Ancient Holy Counselors On How to Have a Sound Mind

by Dee Pennock
  published by Light and Life

Chapter 2

     There are certain diseases - you might call them spiritual birth defects - with which we are all born.  They are a part of being mortal (subject to death).  They are not our original true nature, but have come upon us because of the fall of Adam and Eve from Paradise.  Jesus came to heal these birth defects of ours, to deliver us from them and the death that goes with them, and to restore in us the spiritual nature we were created to have.

     We have two natures, you see: (1) the nature we were created with, which is the nature to which Christ restores us; and (2) the nature we were born with, which is the nature of the fallen Adam and Eve, in need of healing and redemption by God.  Being in God's (Christ's) image is the human nature we were created to possess and can now regain through Jesus.

     So we were not created to have any spiritual defects that are not in Christ, who has none.  No spiritual birth defects we've inherited through the flesh as a result of the fall of Adam are natural.  According to Scripture, they are all unnatural.  We were created with one nature and are born into this life with a different nature, a fallen nature with the various spiritual birth defects that accompany it. 

      To be continued...