The word "orthodoxy" is made up of two parts: "ortho = integrity, soundness" and "doxy = glory"; that is, its meaning is "the sound way that glorifies God", not only through the soundness of its teaching, but also through the integrity of life and behavior.
Thus, we can perceive the necessity of Orthodox teaching's combining doctrine with daily behavior. You do not feel, when you listen to an orthodox speaker, that he ignores the doctrine and is content to speak only of the spiritual, for doctrine is what life consists of. When the Orthodox preacher talks about God, he gives us an idea of the Unity of Substance and the Trinity of Hypostases. The Orthodox Church believes that: "There is no life without theology and no theology without life." That is, it refuses to make theology consist purely of concepts and valid theories that are divorced from life and behavior. It rejects the notion that theology should be merely an intellectual activity that has no relation to the inner life. It connects it to man's inner life so that it is inflamed with love for God, to our outer life so that we behave with honesty, and to the Church so that man is united with the Lord Jesus Christ, the head of the church, with its heavenly branches, and with his brothers the believers.
When the Orthodox preacher speaks about redemption, it is not enough for him to speak only of the blood of Christ, but he also explains the theology of redemption, the participation of the Hypostases in it, and the responsibility of the believer towards it. When he discusses the Incarnation, he is not content with a spiritual meditation, but with St. Athanasius the Apostlic, he looks into the dimensions of the divine Incarnation, its role in our salvation and redemption, and the possibility of our union with God. St. Athanasius says: "If Christ were not God, how can I become a son of God?" Origen said: "The theologian is the man who knows how to pray." In the past, the fathers said: "The theologian is the martyr."
That is why the Church opposed any theological or doctrinal deviation, not merely in order to adhere to the ancient teachings delivered by the apostles, but because this faith is basic to our daily life and to our eternal salvation. We therefore understand why they opposed Arius who reduced significance of the divinity of the Lord Jesus. He made the Redeemer finite and redemption incomplete, which caused us to lose the divine blessings of infinite redemption and thus caused us to perish! The Church later also opposed Macdonius who reduced the divinity of the Holy Spirit, Who conveys to us the blessings of redemption. The Church also opposed Nestorius who separated the divine and human natures of Christ, because it feared that this heresy might deprive us of the indwelling of God in us, and so forth.
The epistles of St. John, written in opposition to those who denied the Incarnation, the mystery of holiness, give us the strongest evidence of the importance of theology in our teaching. How dangerous it is to raise the divine above the human and to claim that the former does not dwell in the latter! This means that God refuses to dwell in us; how then can we live with Him in eternity?
The epistles of St. Paul are full of Christian theological thought at the beginning, followed by its practical application at the end. Thus, he combines theology with life, and that is the orthodox way.
Some Important Theological Examples:
The Trinity
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The Unity of the Substance: - In the Creed, we say everyday: "Truly, we believe in one God." - In the opening of the Lord's Prayer, we say: "In the Name (not the Names) of the Father, the Son,
and the Holy Spirit, one God, Amen." - The Holy Bible is full of verses on the Unity: "Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one", which comes in both Testaments (Deut. 6: 4) and (Mk.12:29).
- Even the devils believe in this: "You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe and shudder." (Jas 2: 19).
We do not say that God has partners and we do not believe in many gods; nor do we accept the concept of three gods which has been condemned by Islam. All we do is that we carefully scrutinize the divine substance which enables us, through revelation and the Incarnation, to know this mystery in it, which is the mystery of the Hypostases in this One Substance. What then does the word 'Hypostasis' mean?
The Three Persons:
1- The Meaning of the Word 'Hypostasis'
Hypo = under; Stasis = to stand That means that the Hypostasis is "that self characteristic
without which the divine substance does not stand (exist)", such as: 1- The characteristic of existence: God has to exist. Without Him, nothing exists and it is impossible for our great God to lack this
characteristic. 2- The characteristic of wisdom: God must be wise; He is all-wise, and it is impossible that there should be a moment when God is devoid of this characteristic.
3- The characteristic of life:
His is the Giver of life, and it is impossible that he should be without this characteristic for even one moment. God, therefore, exists by Himself, speaks through a Living Word, and is alive with His Spirit. These are three characteristics (hypostases) without which the Divine Substance cannot exist.
2. The Meaning Behind the Names:
f The characteristic of existence is called "the hypostasis of the Father", a Syriac word meaning "the origin".
f The characteristic of wisdom is called "the Son". This does not mean a tangible genetic birth, for we say: 'the son of Egypt, the son of the Nile, the daughter of lips, the daughters of thought'. The word means equality in hypostasis, in substance, just as the son is equal to the father in his inheriting his characteristics, his name, and his money. In the same way, wisdom is equal with the entity; they are both one substance and it is impossible for one of them to exist without the other.
f We call the characteristic of life "the Spirit" because this is a common and prevalent expression (the spirit of man is his life).
3. Important Analogies:
A.The Sun:
f The sun's disc stands for the origin, the Father.
f The sun's rays represent the Son, born of the disc.
f
The heat represents the Holy Spirit, emanating from the disc. Just as the rays of the sun send us its heat enfolded in them, but do not emit this heat, so the Son born of the Father before all ages is light born of
fire. He sends us the Comforter "who emanates from the Father". Sending, therefore, is different from emanating.
B. Intellectual Life:
It consists of perception + existing + tendency. These are distinct without being separate. Perception is for understanding, existing is for feeling, and tendency is for movement. All three take part in the following:
^ When we solve a mathematical problem, the burden is on perception, but existence and tendency work with it.
^ When we paint a picture, the burden is on existence, but perception and tendency work participate.
^ When we take part in a race, the burden is on tendency, but perception and existence collaborate. The three are distinct, but not separate.
4. The Work of the Hypostases and Their Unity:
The Father creates, the Son redeems, and the Spirit sanctifies. However, each does not work alone without the other Hypostases.
^ The Father creates through the Son and breathes His Spirit into man.
^ The Son redeems, and the Father sacrifices His Son, and the Spirit conveys to us the blessings of redemption.
^ The Spirit sanctifies us, in accordance with the Father's will and the Son's redemption.
^ The Three are distinct in Their work without being separate, for They are One Substance.
^ The characteristic of existence is responsible for existence, but it is not separate from wisdom and life... Impossible!
^ The characteristic of wisdom is responsible for wisdom in God, but it is not separate from the existence and life of God.
^ The characteristic of life is responsible for life in God, but it is not separate, even for a moment, from His wisdom or His being.
He is the One God in Substance and the Trinity in Hypostases:
The Incarnation
Why the Incarnation?
This is an important question; it is all of Christianity. It is a question that has been raised in every era and in every place. This is a question that required that Divine Inspiration should speak through St. John the Beloved in his gospel and epistles to make clear the necessity of Incarnation for the salvation of humanity and the impossibility of salvation without faith in the incarnation of God the Word. In the epistles of St. John, he considers (being, of course, inspired of God) that: " Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God, and every spirit that does not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is not of God. And this is the spirit of the Antichrist, which you have heard was coming, and is now already in the world." ( 1 Jn. 4: 2,3). God intended that St. John the Beloved, who often leaned on Jesus' breast, should live to the end of the first century as a faithful witness to sound Christian theological thought, exactly as he had received it from the Lord Himself. Whereas all the rest of the twelve apostles and St. Paul died as martyrs before 70AD, St. John the Beloved survived almost to the end of the first century to establish the sound Christian doctrine in the face of numerous heresies such as:
1. The Gnostic Heresy:
The Gnostics imagined that salvation could be achieved through intellectual knowledge, Gnosis = Know. They said that rational contemplation purifies the spirit and saves it, and that the Lord Jesus Christ is merely a man upon whom a sublime spirit descended.
If we believe this we lose everything; salvation through the exercise of reason does away with the necessity for the incarnation and redemption. If we assume that Christ was only a man, this means that our redemption is finite and incomplete. That is why the Church rejected this dangerous heresy.
2. The Judaization Heresy:
This was prevalent for a while in the lives of some Jews who had become Christians because they were unable to be quickly liberated from the glories of their old formal worship with its rituals and symbolic devotions. St. Paul stood up to them to explain the glories of Christ and Christianity, especially in his epistle to the Hebrews, the key to which is the word "better". The Lord Jesus Christ is infinitely better than the angels (Ch.1, 2), better than Moses (Ch.3), better than Joshua (Ch.4), and better than Aaron (Ch.5). His promise is more sure (Ch.6), and the offering of Melchizadek symbolized His sacrifice (Ch.7); His priesthood is better than Aaron's (Ch.8), His covenant is better than that of the Old Testament (Ch.9), His holiness greater than that of the Temple (Ch.10). Faith in Him is the secret of the patriarch's salvation (Ch.11). His law is more perfect than the law of Moses (Ch.12), and His blood is more precious than the blood of the sacrifices (Ch.10, 13).
3. The Docitian Heresy:
The imagined that the body of the Lord Jesus Christ was ethereal and mythical, believing that it was improper for matter to be part of God's life. This heresy was revived in Eutychus' heresy, and it repercussions are still
evident in the questions that are raised about the Incarnation such as: . Is the Incarnation contrary to the nature of God? . Is the Incarnation contrary to the holiness of God?
. Is the Incarnation contrary to the power of God? . Why was the Incarnation necessary; was there no other solution? . What is the significance of the Incarnation in our lives?
There must be answers to these important questions for many reasons:
To establish our rock-like faith, on which all the heresies have been broken and destroyed.
To support our brothers in Christ on the basis of the fundamental knowledge that is necessary for salvation, for the Bible says: "my people are destroyed for lack of knowledge." (Hos. 3: 4).
Giving up the doctrine
of Incarnation is tantamount to giving up our portion in Christ and of the Kingdom. As long as God does not condescend to take our flesh, He will not dwell in us. That is perdition itself, for how can we live with Him in the Kingdom if
we do not resemble Him? That is why the apostle said: "Great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifested in the flesh" (1Tim.3:16). The Incarnation, therefore, is the mystery of human
godliness, and hence eternal salvation. Example 3: The Redemption The Characteristics of the Required Redeemer
The redeemer's task is vital, so he must have certain characteristics, such as:
- The redeemer must be a man since it is man who fell and the redeemer will bear his penalty in his place. - This redeemer must die "For the wages of sin is death" (Rom. 6: 23). The sentence God passed on Adam and Eve was
death; "for in the day that you eat of it, you shall surely die" (Gen. 2: 17). - his redeemer, however, has to be infinite in order to pay the unlimited debt of man. That is because, as we previously mentioned,
the sin was committed against the infinite God. All mankind contributed to this debt so it became immense. - he redeemer had to be without sin, for he who lacks something cannot give it; for how could he save us if he were
sinful and in need of redemption? - He has to be a creator, for what is required of him is not only forgiveness but also the renewal of man through the Holy Spirit.
In view of these characteristics, the Incarnation was necessary. Why?
The Incarnation is the solution.
When the Hypostasis of the Word, the Divine Wisdom, took flesh and came to dwell among us, He was able to redeem man, since in Him were found all the necessary
qualities:
1. In His humanity, He is man and dies. 2. In His divinity, He is infinite, without sin, and is a Creator.
Thus, the Lord of glory was able to resolve the problem of the corruptibility of human nature by "taking what was ours and giving us what is His." That is,
He bore our sins and justified us by His righteousness. Also, he took our flesh, but without sin, and He gave us fellowship in the Divine nature. Is there any other solution? Impossible!
Chapter Two
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