Are you saved? We all have been asked this question at one time or another by well-meaning and concerned evangelical Protestant brethren. This question makes some of us pause and think and perhaps makes others wonder what kind of trite question is this.
Romans 5:1-10 examines this issue in depth. The crux of this question is the classic evangelical Protestant understanding, or rather misunderstanding of faith, works and the justification of man by Jesus Christ.
To help us understand the dynamics behind this question, we first need to look at some basic Church history. For most of Christian history, salvation focused around the entire life of a Christian. There was no question to the ancient Christian we are saved through our baptism in Jesus Christ, nurtured and nourished by and in the Church. Our faith is centered on the Holy Trinity, the Incarnation of the Son of God, atonement for our sins, and our spiritual nourishment through the Eucharist: the Body and Blood of Christ.
However, the Protestant Reformers as early as the 1600s focused their attention on the merits of good works as they discovered, or rediscovered today’s epistle reading. A lively debate arose among the reformers and a tradition of sola fides—justification by faith alone was the norm. This whole justification thing of faith vs. works never entered into the mindset of the Orthodox Christian for the simple reason that works were the outward expression of our faith, that is, since Orthodoxy is a way of life, we express our faith in our lives in many ways, among them through our works and actions. Our faith calls us to do good works, so this Protestant debate is foreign to us, along with the trite question it has spawned: Are you saved?
It is important for us as Orthodox Christians to understand and know both intellectually and in our hearts just how the Orthodox understanding of justification differs from that of our Protestant brethren.
Our understanding of justification hinges on several key points:
Justification and the New Covenant
Justification and God’s mercy
Justification by faith is dynamic, not static
Let us examine each of these points in turn.
The Orthodox Christian understands justification in terms of the New Covenant. That is, we have a covenant relationship with the Holy Trinity. The Jews understood a legal relationship under the Law of the Old Covenant. For the Orthodox Christian salvation is understood as receiving the Gift of the Holy Spirit—the Holy Spirit indwells within each of us. We are saved by Christ through the descent and action of the Holy Spirit in our lives. This is in sharp contrast to the Protestant understanding of justification as a legal acquittal before God.
Second, Orthodox teaching emphasizes that God’s mercy is the source of both our salvation and faith. The first two verses of today’s epistle remind us: “Having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through whom also we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. Thus, it is God who initiates his New Covenant of mercy on us.
Thirdly, justification by faith is dynamic, it is not static. For the Protestant, faith is a static one-shot or point-to-point affair. We see this in the way the trite question is asked: “Are you saved? Or have you been saved?” For the Orthodox Christian, faith is a way of life; it is a continuum that begins with baptism and continues throughout life until our last breath. We are justified by God for a lifetime and beyond.
We can summarize our Orthodox understanding of salvation as follows:
I have been saved, joined to Christ in baptism,
I am being saved, growing in Christ through the sacramental life of the Church, and
I will be saved by the mercy of God at the Last Judgment.
If our more intense understanding of salvation makes it hard for us to relate to our evangelical Protestant brethren, their understanding of justification by faith alone, that is, only by faith is even more disconcerting for us. Sola fides actually contradicts Scripture! In James 2:24 we find: “you see that a man is justified by works and not by faith only.” And in Romans 3:28, the Scriptures state “we are justified by faith apart from the deeds of the law”; however, there is no place in Scripture where it says we are justified by faith alone! On the contrary, “faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.” (James 2:17)
Thus we are granted entrance into the Kingdom by God’s mercy and grace. Our works then become an expression of that gratitude for God’s great mercy in our lives and are thus empowered by God Himself to perform works for His glory.
Today’s gospel further amplifies this fact by reminding us that we can only serve one master—our Lord God and Savior Jesus Christ. We cannot serve God and money. The reason is very simple we tend to become attached to our earthly possessions. So how can we serve God and not become attached to our earthly possessions? We must conquer our anxiety over the things of the world. Note that the scriptures do not say not to plan for our future; we should plan for the future and plan properly. However, we should not be so overly concerned and attached to our earthly cares that we lose sight of our purpose in this life. We are reminded of this during the singing of the Cherubic hymn: Let us lay aside all earthly cares that we may receive the King of all who comes invisibly escorted by angelic hosts.
How we use our financial resources and how we support our church also says a lot about where our heart and treasure are: we are called to be stewards of everything we have been given including our Church. You may not know it, but tithing is actually an Orthodox tradition that has fallen into disuse. It is very much a part of the Protestant and Catholic traditions today because it came from Orthodoxy. Just because our Church is not legalistic in her understanding doesn’t mean we should not strive to be good stewards. Rather, we our given free choice by God Himself to express our love for Him not only by accepting the gift of his mercy and His gift of life, but also to give back to Him from His earthly gifts he has so richly poured out on us. We are all called to be as generous as we can both with our time and our money! These are some of the tools that God has given us with which to do our good works! Let us lay aside all earthly cares that we may receive the King of all!