We are Saved Together

Part One of a Contemplation of Christian Community

Acatanango, Guatemala (Photo credit: Matthew Mine)

As a convert to Orthodox Christianity from Protestant Christianity, every once in a while, I happen upon a concept that is brand new but becomes a load-bearing concept for a new paradigm of understanding. This particular concept is one that has been tumbling around in my head since one Sunday our Bishop preached a sermon that made me sit up in my seat, and I am still thinking about it well over a year later. The homily was excellent, though I have forgotten the details about the first part of it that led to this statement, but I remember his pause, his eyes as they scanned the whole congregation, and his firm words that followed: “We are saved together.” He went on to make connections between us—he cannot be saved without us, we cannot be saved without him, we cannot be saved without each other. It was very personal, and so very communal. It has taken me a long time to even scratch the surface, but I am starting to tease out some of what this might mean.

This will be a two-part article and will follow the development of ideas that I have had to examine in order to fully grasp this concept of being '“saved together.” I have attempted to unpack what I believed salvation to be, and set it against this new understanding that honestly, despite my sincere commitment to what I had been taught in the past, makes more sense to me and brings so much peace in my heart.

Why this is a new concept

In the past, I’ve always considered salvation to be a largely individual experience. To be “saved” was to be forgiven by God for my sins and absolved from the punishment of hell. As a Protestant, we were taught that we are responsible for our own salvation, and that it is up to an individual to “get his life right with God” though God helps us in that endeavor if we believe in Him. A person must profess faith in Christ, then live a life in keeping with that profession, which involves a point of repentant turning from sin and a decision to follow Christ. From that point forward, studying the scriptures, praying, clean living, and evangelism are the hallmarks of the faithful Christian life. From my perspective, Church, in the life of the Protestant, acted as a “filling station” where all Christians should go to hear the scriptures taught and to fellowship with other people of the faith in order to give and receive encouragement and to be with “one accord” —a catch phrase that comes from Acts 2:1, KJV. The phrase indicates the idea of a unified mind—All members present were on the same page, so to speak, and that is about the extent of the understanding I had of “church”—like-minded believers coming together for their mutual edification.

While Orthodoxy agrees with certain points listed above, it goes much further. So if that is not what salvation and church is, exactly, what does this idea of being “saved together” mean? What does it mean to be in communion with each other?

Starting at the Beginning

Unlike the Protestant notion that “salvation” is merely the forgiveness of sin and escape from eternal damnation, the Orthodox see salvation as a continual moving toward Christ and “theosis” which is the process of being made in His image. (II Cor. 3:16-18) This movement is why we do not say that we are saved, but rather that we are being saved. Certainly we understand that because of the fall of our ancient father, Adam, we are now subject to natural death—the consequences of sin. But if death is a universal experience—one that no human escapes—then why would salvation be any different? Why would salvation not be a universal, communal experience? If salvation were a completely individual experience, based upon a profession of faith in Christ, then how is it that Adam’s fall also brings about a change in how the entirety of all of creation understands and experiences God? How did we get from Universal Death to individual salvation, parsed out on the basis of who answers an altar call?

The first sin committed in the garden was a communal sin—that of taking and sharing forbidden food—Food that was not intended to bring life, but separation from God and resulting in eternal Death. It makes complete sense, then, that the antidote to that communion of Death would be the taking and sharing of food that is intended to restore eternal Life. But how is this accomplished?

The Sacramental Nature of Orthodoxy

I have heard it taught that the “garments of skins” (Gen. 3:21) given by God to Adam and Eve were in fact the clothing of mortality—flesh that would give way to death.¹ Certainly that is an interpretation that deserves serious consideration—that at the time they encountered God and his judgement of their actions, his plan was not one of punishment for their disobedience, but rather a restoration of their humanity, soul and body. In whatever way the clothing happened, whether that was a transformation of their physical beings, or the slaughter of an animal to provide its skin as covering,² the mercy of God was at work to cover the sin of the human couple, made in His image. He did not leave them to their own devices to manage their shame and guilt. He provided for them from the first moment. This is not the action of an angry God who only chooses a few “elect” to love and leaves the rest to damnation, or the punishment of a Father who says, “Just wait until I get home!” This is the story of children who have fallen and a Father who loves them and his whole creation with his whole being and desires to pick them up and restore them to their proper place.

The whole story of the Cross therefore begins in the Garden, not as a means of payment for guilt, but as a means of reunion and the recapitulation of everything under Christ’s dominion. We interpret Death, therefore, to be a mercy, not a punishment, because it is the way provided for us to be reunited with the Creator, because Adam and Eve chose the temptation of the Deceiver who opposed Him. God, taking on flesh with us and for us in the person of Jesus Christ, is the means by which that Universal Death can be changed to Universal Life.³ This is the ultimate justice—the ultimate mercy.

Fast forward to the apex of human history, when we observe the God of the universe being subjected to the utter humiliation of His human flesh, and hung up for the world to observe as he, in agony, gives up his spirit. This is the ultimate proof of his humanity—no one could suggest that because he was divine he could not suffer, or because he has the nature of God he somehow escaped true death. We see it happen there at the hands of the Roman soldiers and stand with his mother who bore him and is bearing every blow and piercing with him in her soul. It is an earthy, fleshy event—blood and sweat, whips and thorns, nails and spear, in which both God and humanity fully participate.

But Death and the grave cannot hold the Creator of Life.

The next thing we observe is the God-Man risen, whole, comforting his mother and friends. He touches them, breaks bread with them, cooks them breakfast, and teaches them the full meaning of the scriptures. He commissions the women to tell the news, illumines the minds of his apostles as they walk on the road, reinstates and forgives Peter for his sin of denying Him, and does countless other things that were not written down, before we see him ascending into Heaven.

The How Before the Why

Wait…I thought we were talking about being saved together…

Yes, but we cannot talk about the how without first talking about the why. When I first came to Orthodoxy, typical of Protestants, I had understood the Gospel to be something to which I had to respond with belief, what we considered “faith,” and that was what saved me—what is called in Protestant theology “sola fide”—that nothing I do on my own can save me, but only my faith in Christ. Furthermore, what I now call sacraments I previously understood to be mere symbols, and when I came to an Anglican church which technically teaches sacraments, no one insisted that I change my previous perspective or pointed out the lack in my understanding. Baptism was merely an “outward sign of an inward change” and the elements of bread and wine were simply memorials, a way of calling to mind⁴ (see footnote) the work Christ did on the cross.

Orthodoxy, however demanded that I look at the Gospel in a different way. Until now the Gospel was about my belief in Christ and my testimony and my remembrance of Christ. Now however, I had to examine the Gospel not from the starting point of my belief in Christ, but from the very beginning in the Garden of Eden right through to Christ’s body on the cross and on forward through eternity. I began to understand that God was involved in our flesh and in our physical world in a way that has been utterly extracted from our thinking by modern materialism. It was no longer a rational assent that brought about the infilling of the Holy Spirit but faith combined with physical actions. This is a wound that keeps us from Truth. We can understand the mechanistic operations of the material world and how to manipulate them for our own use, but we forget that a loving Creator Father set it all in motion, breathes himself into everything, and sustains it with his Being. This is the missing piece of the puzzle—that because the triune God took on our flesh and shared our existence, everything about our existence is now shot through with God. Nothing—not even the the things that are part of our fallen nature—is outside his reach or his incarnate human experience, and the way back to Himself was clearly provided. He was baptized, sanctifying water for the remission of our sins through baptism. He offered the sacrifice of bread and wine, making it His Body and Blood, and at every Divine Liturgy He invites us to partake of him anew.

Understand, therefore, that for the Orthodox Christian, our observance of baptism and the Eucharist and the other sacraments that flow out from them are not optional memorial tokens. They are not decorations on our faith like a cloth thrown over a table to remind us to use our good manners. They are the table itself. They are the central features of our Life that continually convert and renew both soul and body, because these are not separate from each other. We gather at the table, not the tablecloth. The cloth in itself has no substance or meaning and cannot support anything, but that is precisely what Christian observances based only on rational assent (belief) and symbolic “sacraments” consist of—a flimsy cover.

It seemed to me before that Church was somewhat optional—something that was good for me, like taking vitamins. I now believe church to be vital, something that without which I will experience spiritual decline and even Death because in the Church there is the Tree of Life, the Cross, the Body and Blood, and the Resurrection. No where else is this experienced in the same way.⁵ It is where my soul is strengthened and empowered through both the physical and the spiritual presence of Christ in me to do good works and to be united to Him through the renewing of my mind (nous) as St. Paul instructs us to do. (Romans 2:12)

Just as Adam and Eve partook of the fruit in their physical bodies and ate unto spiritual Death, so must their descendants partake in our physical bodies of the food that comes from the Tree of Life and be restored unto spiritual Life and Christ makes it clear that this food is essential for our Life.

John 6:53–59

So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him. As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever feeds on me, he also will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like the bread the fathers ate, and died. Whoever feeds on this bread will live forever.” Jesus said these things in the synagogue, as he taught at Capernaum. (ESV)

Unlike Roman Catholics, Orthodox Christians do not seek to explain how bread and wine become the body and blood of Christ. We observe him breaking bread with his disciples and lifting the cup and declaring them to be his body and blood though we are not able to perceive how that happens, so we accept it as such—as a mystery. The participation in the sacramental eucharist is not a one-time event. I don’t eat once, but I “feed” on Christ. This is an ongoing, spiritually life-giving, yet physical behavior. It cannot be ignored. Indeed it is the most profound mystery! Just as many left Christ when he declared the necessity of partaking of his flesh and blood to be a concept beyond their ability to process, both the modern Protestant explanations of pure symbolism and the legalism of Catholic transubstantiation explain this mystery away, reducing it to rational belief in the work that Christ did through his body and blood on the cross, or an overshot into the transformation from bread and wine into flesh and blood, both of which seem insufficient to probe the incredible, ineffable depths of this miracle. We do not define what happens in the Holy Mysteries, but we receive them in faith.

Many of Christ’s disciples responded negatively concerning this matter: “this is a hard saying” to which Christ replied, “are you offended?”… He did not seek to explain away his words as metaphor—He stood by them and this was the result:

John 6:66–69

After this many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him. So Jesus said to the twelve, “Do you want to go away as well?” Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God.” (ESV)

In Part 2, I will examine what it means to be “saved together” and how participation in the life of the Church accomplishes this.

1. Lord of Spirits Podcast, Ancient Faith Radio: “Garments of Skin” https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/lordofspirits/fall_of_man_part_1_garments_of_skin

2. St. Ephram the Syrian (AD 373), Catena Bible

3. Just as the heresy of strict Calvinist Predestination negates the free will of humans to choose their response to God, Universalism, on the opposite extreme has a similar effect. Humans, made in the image of God, are free and able to choose to reject God or to serve Him, and their synergistic participation with Him enables them to be transformed into the image of Christ. The Orthodox teaching may be stated as “All may be saved,” but ultimately, it is not for us to know the final outcomes.

4. The Greek word for “remembrance” is anamnesis, and it its meaning is not confined to simply remembering what I said yesterday or remembering to drop something off at the post office, or even an historic event or person who died. Rather, it is to make a past event present now. This is a distinction that separates the idea of a Protestant “memorial” from the Orthodox and Roman Catholic’s understanding of “sacrament.” We are bringing the action of Christ’s breaking of the bread into the here and now and making a present experience, not a past event.

Anamnesis and the Key to the Mass, Thomas Griffin, May 12, 2021, Ascension Press, https://media.ascensionpress.com/2021/05/12/anamnesis-and-the-key-to-the-mass/

5. This is not to say that we believe everyone outside of Orthodoxy is damned or beyond Salvation. I only know what God says about those who are in the Church and the responsibility that rests upon us, and I do not judge what happens outside. God is free to work where he will and save whom he wishes and judge “each according to his deeds.” (Romans 2:6-11) Therefore it is not up to me to declare the state of another’s soul or whether or not he / she is “saved” but rather for me to work out my own salvation with “fear and trembling” (Phil. 2:12) It is my Christian responsibility to view every human as the Imago Dei and humble myself accordingly, assuming that I am the chief of sinners in need of God’s mercy.