Senior Editor of Touchstone Magazine, and archpriest of All Saints Orthodox Church in Chicago, IL, Fr. Patrick is, perhaps, the most erudite writer in the Orthodox Church in North America today. This article, one of his Pastoral Ponderings, was published by Orthodoxtoday.org.

Publican and Pharisee

The Lord’s account of the two men who

“went up to the temple to pray” (Luke 18:9-14)

may be said to illustrate three characteristics of Christian Prayer.

It shows such prayer to be

• theologically structured,
• persistent, and
• pure.

First, the prayer is theologically structured. Jesus tells us that this Publican

“went up to the Temple to pray.”

He could have prayed anywhere, we suppose. He might have gone out into the woods, for instance. Some folks have told me, over the years, that they don’t come to church on Sunday because they find it more comfortable to pray out in the woods, or in the privacy of the home, or on the beach, or perhaps on the golf course. We presume that this Publican could have done the same, but he chose to make a special trip to the Temple, a particular house set apart for the purpose of worship.

That is to say, the Publican gave a determined theological structure to his prayer.

It may have been the case that this Publican went up to the Temple at one of the special times for prayer, such as the ninth hour, when the evening sacrifice was being offered. Thus, the Acts of the Apostles tells us,

“Peter and John went up together to the temple to pray at the hour of prayer, the ninth hour.”

This time of the evening sacrifice was a favored time of prayer. One of the Psalms recited at that hour contained the lines,

“Let my prayer be set before You as incense, The lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice.”

Jews observed this evening hour of prayer throughout the whole world, uniting their hearts and minds in communion with the evening sacrifice taking place in the Temple. Thus, in the Book of Acts we find the Centurion Cornelius observing that same ninth hour of prayer.

When Cornelius became a Christian, did he stop observing that daily discipline of evening prayer? Of course not. Indeed, he and the other converts carried it right over into the Christian Church as the canonical hour of Vespers, which we have continued, in an unbroken tradition, to the present day. It is instructive to observe that Vespers invariably contains the lines,

“Let my prayer be set before You as incense, The lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice.”

Or perhaps the Publican went up to the Temple to pray at the third hour, the time of the morning sacrifice. That too was a standard time of daily prayer for Jews throughout the world, who united their hearts and minds with the morning sacrifice being offered in the Temple. This third hour, we recall, was the time at which the Holy Spirit descended on a group of Jews gathered in the upper room on the first day of the week.

Those Jews, when they became Christians, did not stop that daily discipline of prayer at the time of the morning sacrifice. It passed over into the Christian Church as the canonical hour of Orthros or Matins, which we have observed ever since. Vespers and Matins are older than any other part of our daily liturgical format; they are older than the Christian Church.

Or it may be the case that the Publican went up at some other time during the day, a time dictated solely by his personal preference. It makes no difference. The important thing to observe is that he made his prayer in the Temple. That is to say, he gave his prayer a defined theological structure. His prayer was not a purely private devotion. It was offered within a theological context, because the Temple was an institution of theological history.

The Publican’s prayer was rendered in the setting of an “organized religion.” It found its proper frame of reference in an ongoing community of shared faith and binding address. His prayer was situated within salvation history. It expressed his identity as a child of Abraham and an heir of the covenant. He prayed in continuity with Moses and the prophets. In prayer his soul was united to David, the author of the Psalms.

The Publican’s prayer was an expression of his very identity.

Second, the Publican’s prayer was persistent. Jesus tells us that this Publican

“standing afar off, would not so much as raise his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me a sinner!’”

Luke uses here the imperfect verb etypten, which literally means,

“he kept on beating his breast.”

The Publican was not afraid to repeat himself in his prayers.

Luke also uses the imperfect tense in two other scenes of prayer in chapter 18 of his Gospel. Thus, in describing the cry of the widow in the parable that comes just before this one, Luke says that when this lady came to the judge’s house, she cried out repeatedly. Similarly, later in this same chapter of Luke, we read of the blind man of Jericho, who kept on crying out to Jesus as He walked along the road. These were all repeated prayers.

The Publican’s “Lord, have mercy” was prayed many, many times. He was not content with just once. His prayer was persistent. He would give God no rest.

Persistent prayer tends, in short, to be repetitious prayer. This is a perfectly biblical style, in spite of a strange modern bias against repetition in prayer. Apparently it was this somewhat recent bias that caused the translators of the King James Bible to mistranslate the Greek word polylogia (“wordiness”) as “vain repetition” (Matthew 6:7). Repetition in prayer, however, is exactly what we find in these stories in the Gospel, where petition takes the form of repetition. There is nothing “vain” about it.

Third, the Publican’s prayer was pure. It was a simple pleading for the divine mercy, a prayer of humility and repentance. In short, it was a pure prayer. Unlike the Pharisee in this parable, the Publican passed no judgment on anyone else. Knowing himself to be a sinner, he was not the least bit disposed to think of himself as better than others.

Pure prayer is humble and repentant. It is not self-righteous. It is not puffed up and self-satisfied. Pure prayer does not seek its own fulfillment. A man that prays with spiritual purity stands in stark contrast to those who pray in order to find some sort of spiritual lift or personal satisfaction.

We don’t know if the Publican felt spiritually fulfilled by his prayer. In fact, we surmise that perhaps he didn’t. We suspect that he felt just as miserable after his prayer as he did before. He was no less a sinner for having admitted to being a sinner. When he left the Temple that day, we may presume that he was not content or happy with himself. None of that has anything to do with the purity of prayer.

No, purity in prayer means that the prayer is unselfish. It is not prayer made for the sake of some spiritual experience or devotional high. These qualities are not essential to prayer. Indeed, they may serve in some cases as nothing better than distractions. What is important in prayer is its purity. Pure prayer is unselfish prayer.

The Publican’s prayer represented the gift of himself to God. True, it was a poor gift, because he was a sinner, and he knew it. Yet, according to Jesus,

“this man went down to his house justified rather than the other; for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”

Such is the prayer of the man who is justified through faith, not by his own merits. His prayer is pure because it is based solely in the mercy of God.

This is the prayer that Jesus teaches in the parable of the Publican.

© 2010, Preachers Institute. All rights reserved. On republishing this, please provide a link to the original post.

Senior Editor of Touchstone Magazine, and archpriest of All Saints Orthodox Church in Chicago, IL, Fr. Patrick is, perhaps, the most erudite writer in the Orthodox Church in North America today. This article, one of his Pastoral Ponderings, was published by Orthodoxtoday.org.

One of the stories that have proved troubling to students of Holy Scripture over the years is the account of Uzzah, who stretched forth his hand to steady the Ark of the Covenant. The Ark, we recall, was being carried by ox cart in order to be installed at David’s projected new shrine at Jerusalem. Some obstacle, however, perhaps a bump in the road, caused the oxen to lurch, nearly upsetting the cart and putting the Ark in danger. The Bible describes the scene:

“Uzzah put out his hand to the Ark of God and took hold of it, for the oxen stumbled. Then the anger of the Lord was aroused against Uzzah, and God struck him there for his error; and he died there by the Ark of God” (2 Samuel 6:6-7).

The shock of readers is surely understandable. Wasn’t Uzzah’s sudden reaction, after all, simply an instinctive response to save the dignity of the Ark? To the extent that we can even describe his deed as intentional, wasn’t that intention good and honorable? How is it, then, that the all-seeing Lord, the God who searches hearts, did not look favorably on what Uzzah did? Shouldn’t he have been rewarded rather than punished

The problem is not a recent one, and readers of the Bible have pondered it for centuries. For example, the Jewish historian Josephus, writing about the same time as some New Testament authors, explained that Uzzah was struck dead for touching the Ark,

“since he was not a priest” (me on hierus — Antiquities of the Jews 7.4.2.81).

This explanation of Josephus is based on prescriptions in Numbers 4, which lists the duties of priests and Levites in regard to the treatment and transportation of the Ark.

This interpretation of the event, which does not necessarily imply a conscious moral failing on the part of Uzzah, is essentially sound, I believe. The Ark of God was very holy, and holiness is dangerous. Uzzah was hurt when he touched something holy.

In this respect it is important to reflect how little we know about the divina, the things of God. The little we do know will prompt us, surely, to be cautious in how we handle them, even in our minds.

The things of God are not what we want or imagine them to be. God Himself determines what they are, and God has not the slightest concern for our own interpretations of them. Their holiness is real, objective, and even physical.

Holiness is likewise not dependent on man’s recognition of it. It resembles electricity in this respect. The trespasser who is electrocuted when climbing too high on a high voltage tower perishes without regard to his own understanding of what he is about, or his innocent intentions, or his personal theories concerning electricity.

David learned this lesson about holiness from the death of Uzzah. Consequently, when the Ark was later returned to Jerusalem, it was borne, not by ox cart, but on the shoulders of the Levites, as it was supposed to be and as God had prescribed (1 Chronicles 15:2,15; Deuteronomy 10:8; 31:25; 1 Samuel 6:15).

David perceived what must be perceived by any who would approach the living God in worship–God decides the nature, structure, and spirit of the worship. Our religious feelings—whether by private or corporate preference–do not determine how we worship. The content and form of our worship has been established, rather, by the inherited, authoritative transmission of the worship itself. We hand it on as we have received it. We do not take it upon ourselves to give form to the worship. If we are faithful, the worship gives form to us, and the example of Uzzah instructs us on the peril of acting otherwise.

Correct (“orthodox”) worship is not the uninformed, spontaneous outpouring of human activity, and the worshipper must be on guard against identifying his personal impulses with the agency of the Holy Spirit.

Undisciplined, off-the-cuff people are far more likely to act under the impulse of suspect and impure spirits than under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. For this reason, mere spontaneity and a “sense of fulfillment” in worship are not adequate nor reliable indications of the agency of the Holy Spirit.

David perceived that correct worship is not chiefly concerned with meeting the religious needs and aspirations of human beings, but with the glory of God, which is inseparable from His holiness. The fundamental ground of true worship is not the religious nature of man, but the glorious manifestation of God. Indeed, any worship that is not a response to God’s Self-revelation must of necessity be idolatrous, the worship of something that man himself creates from the resources of his own religious nature.

For worship to be authentic and true, therefore, God Himself takes the initiative.

God must be revealed in order for man to worship correctly, and God determines how He is to be worshipped.

Otherwise, man is simply worshipping the works of his own hands, the thoughts of his own mind. Orthodox worship does not consist in the attempt to express man’s religious aspirations, but in meeting, in faith, the manifestation of God in His truth. If man thinks to worship God without rules and rubrics, heaven only knows what he is up to.

© 2010, Preachers Institute. All rights reserved. On republishing this, please provide a link to the original post.

Senior Editor of Touchstone Magazine, and archpriest of All Saints Orthodox Church in Chicago, IL, Fr. Patrick is, perhaps, the most erudite writer in the Orthodox Church in North America today. This article, one of his Pastoral Ponderings, was published by Orthodoxtoday.org.

Because it appears first in his corpus–and is the longest of his letters–I suppose it is natural to begin studying St. Paul by reading Romans.

I want to suggest, nonetheless, that there is a serious problem–perhaps even a theological danger–in taking this approach, especially if it involves (as often is the case) using Romans as the master key to the interpretation of Paul as a whole.

Perhaps the best way to identify this problem is to describe the defining characteristics of the Epistle to the Romans:

Romans is unique in the amount of attention given to what we may call phenomenological anthropology. That is to say, no other New Testament work goes to such lengths to describe the experience of living as a human being. Romans represents, in short, Paul’s most extensive and mature reflection on the human condition.

There were apparently two germinating seeds that found rich fruit in that reflection: Paul’s conversion (ca. 32) and the Galatian crisis (ca. 53).

First, there was Paul’s experience of conversion. In the overpowering light revealed on the road to Damascus, he recognized, not only Jesus as Lord, but also himself as a deeply sinful man, someone at enmity with God:

“Why do you persecute Me?”

Until that point, where the searing truth of his condition was made manifest to him, Paul had imagined himself to be the Lord’s faithful servant, a loyal adherent of the Law, and a man pleasing to the Most High by reason of that adherence.

After the revelatory experience of his conversion, however, Paul knew that he had been deceived. He realized, in a radical way, that his very adherence to the Law had caused him to fancy himself a righteous man. That is to say, the Law had not only failed to justify him before God; it also proved to be the occasion of his offending God.

In sum, the Apostle’s conversion revealed to him, not only the lordship of Jesus, but also his own sinful state and the disadvantage of the Law.

Second, there was the Galatian crisis, in which Paul had to contend with the Judaizers, those who professed the observance of the Law as obligatory for Christians. Paul understandably examined and criticized that profession from the perspective of his conversion, and, in doing so, he adjusted the theological rudder that would guide the future history of the Church.

The crisis in Galatia laid bare two opposing views of salvation history. The Judaizers regarded the latter solely in term of continuity. Although they apparently accepted Jesus as the fulfillment of prophecy, they did not regard Him as also the fulfillment of the Law–in the sense of rendering superfluous the future observance of the Law.

Paul, however, whose experience of conversion was marked by a deep sense of “before and after,” was disposed to look at salvation history from the same perspective–a before and an after. The first covenant, that of the Law, was symbolized in Abraham’s elder son, Ishmael, the child of the slave girl. The covenant of the Gospel, on the other hand, was expressed in Isaac, the child of Sarah, the son of promise. These covenants were distinguished as representing two stages in history, divided by what Paul called

“the fullness of time” (Galatians 4:4-31).

Between the writing of Galatians and the composition of Romans in early A. D. 58, Paul had had almost five years to think more deeply on the content of that earlier epistle. In particular, he had reflected on the anthropological implications of its thesis: justification by faith apart from the works of the Law. He deeply explored the psychology of man with and without Christ. This is the reason why Romans lays such immense stress on phenomenological anthropology, the experience of human existence with and without divine grace. This existential and psychological preoccupation is usually taken to be the chief characteristic of the Epistle to the Romans.

I want to suggest that it also poses the major difficulty of using Romans as the key to understanding Paul’s theology. To put the matter simply, the existentialism of Romans presupposes an ontological basis of redemption, to which Paul gave greater attention in his earlier letters, notably the Macedonian and Corinthian literature. Inasmuch as these works laid greater stress on the objective work of Christ, I suggest they serve as better introductions to Paul’s theology–his soteriology in particular. Otherwise, there is a danger that an anthropological preoccupation may overwhelm and dominate Christology in the study of Paul.

Indeed, as St. Paul has been interpreted throughout history, one may observe several instances in which the Christological center of soteriology has been displaced by considerations of religious psychology. It is easy to document, I believe, that some readers of Paul, taking Romans as their interpretive key, have reduced Christology to a mere subcategory of anthropology.

They forgot that the letters to the Thessalonians and Corinthians (and, it seems to me, Philippians) were written before Romans.

Romans should be unlocked with the key of those earlier letters, not the other way around.

© 2010, Preachers Institute. All rights reserved. On republishing this, please provide a link to the original post.

Senior Editor of Touchstone Magazine, and archpriest of All Saints Orthodox Church in Chicago, IL, Fr. Patrick is, perhaps, the most erudite writer in the Orthodox Church in North America today. This article, one of his Pastoral Ponderings, was published by Orthodoxtoday.org.

Two parallel scenes in the Pentateuch indicate the spiritual growth of Aaron over the years of Israel’s desert wandering. Standing in opposition to one another in the general structure of the Torah, each scene also contains further elements of internal contrast.

The earlier story is preserved in Exodus 32, which describes the incident of the golden calf. Aaron, in that episode, appears as a craven and double-minded hireling, and no shepherd. At the people’s first idolatrous impulse, in fact, he accedes to their wishes, telling them to hand over their jewelry, which he then uses to construct a molded calf.

Although very involved in the people’s sin, Aaron never admits his association in their guilt. He becomes, rather, a classical example of a sinner rationalizing an infidelity, pretending his is not an act of apostasy, but an example (as the saying goes) of “accepting people where they are.” Aaron does not love them enough to resist them.

Then, taken to task by his brother for this complicity, Aaron shamelessly denies his fault. “You know the people,” he tells Moses, “they are set on evil.” In a line of supreme mockery, the cowardly Aaron tries to minimize his involvement by claiming, “I cast [the gold] into the fire, and this calf came out.” He is portrayed as a truly unsuitable priest.

Within the structure of this story, furthermore, Aaron is dramatically contrasted with Moses: At the very moment he is down in the valley, enabling the infidelity of the Israelites, faithful Moses stands on top of the mountain, praying the Lord to spare His people. The prayer of Moses prevails.

There is an additional irony in this contrast between Moses and Aaron: At the time the restless Israelites in the valley had been plotting their rebellion, Moses had been receiving the Lord’s detailed instructions concerning Aaron’s priesthood (Exodus 28-31). That is to say, even as his priesthood was in the process of formation, Aaron already proved himself unqualified for it. Even as his vestments were being designed, he showed himself unworthy to wear them.

In pointed contrast to this early portrayal of Aaron stands a later scene in Numbers 16. In the latter case we find a much improved Aaron, who has now become a genuine high priest with

“compassion on those who are ignorant and going astray, since he himself is also subject to weakness” (Hebrews 5:2).

As the Israelites in the later scene are being punished by plague for their most recent rebellion — thousands of them dying in a single day — Aaron takes up his priestly censor and runs down among them, placing his body between the dead and the living, and

“making atonement for the people.”

The Sacred Text tells us,

“he stood between the dead and the living; so the plague was stopped.”

In this riveting scene, Aaron is not contrasted with Moses. On the contrary, the two brothers are now at one in their concern for the people. When the Lord tells them,

“Get away from among this congregation, that I may consume them in a moment,”

Moses and Aaron alike fall on their faces in joint intercessory prayer. In the earlier story, Moses had made that prayer alone, while his brother was being complicit in the people’s sin, but now the two brothers are in complete harmony.

The tension of the earlier story is resolved:

“So Aaron returned to Moses at the door of the tabernacle of meeting, for the plague had stopped.”

The internal contrast in this second account is, rather, between Aaron and a Levite named Korah. Forgetting that “no man takes this honor to himself, but he who is called by God, just as Aaron (Hebrews 5:4), Korah coveted the priestly office as a position of honor and power, both for himself and his household. So in the rebellion Korah and his family were the first to be punished:

“the ground split apart under them, and the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them up, with their households and all the men with Korah, with all their goods. So they and all those with them went down alive into the pit; the earth closed over them, and they perished from among the assembly.”

If we compare Korah’s sin with the earlier infidelity of Aaron, it appears to be far worse. Whereas Aaron’s had been the failing of a weak and unworthy man, Korah’s is the more terrible offense of malice, pride, and deliberate rebellion.

© 2010, Preachers Institute. All rights reserved. On republishing this, please provide a link to the original post.

Senior Editor of Touchstone Magazine, and archpriest of All Saints Orthodox Church in Chicago, IL, Fr. Patrick is, perhaps, the most erudite writer in the Orthodox Church in North America today. This article, one of his Pastoral Ponderings, was published by Orthodoxtoday.org.

Among the biblical concepts supporting St. Paul’s theology of atonement, one of the most important, surely, is that of expiation. What does the Apostle mean when he writes,

“God set forth [Jesus Christ] as the expiatory in His blood” (Romans 3:25)?

Although this is the only time St. Paul uses the noun hilasterion, I believe that the full context of his epistles, along with the Old Testament substratum on which they depend, provides the correct and adequate meaning of that term.

If I seem to belabor an obvious point–that we should go to the Bible for enlightenment on the subject of expiation– let me say that I do so from a sense that some readers of Holy Scripture in recent centuries either have not done so, or have done so inconsistently. They have borrowed misleading ideas from elsewhere.

In classical and Hellenistic Greek, the verb “to propitiate” (hilaskomai), when used with a personal object, normally signified the placating of some irate god or hero. It is a curious fact that since the rediscovery of ancient Greek literature in the West, beginning from the Renaissance, there has grown a strong tendency to impose this pagan meaning of “expiation” on the teaching of the Bible.

Understood in this way, Paul is presumed to teach that Jesus, in His self-sacrifice on the Cross, placated God’s wrath against sinful humanity. That is to say, the purpose of the shedding of Christ’s blood was to propitiate, to assuage an angry Father.

Let me say that this interpretation of the Apostle Paul is very erroneous and should be rejected for three reasons.

First, this picture is difficult to reconcile with Paul’s conviction that God Himself is the One who made the sacrifice. How easily we forget that the Cross did cost God something. He is the One that gave up His only-begotten Son out of love for us. It was Jesus’ Father

“who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all” (Romans 8:32).

Sacrificial victims are expensive, and in this sacrifice the Father Himself bore the price. He gave up, unto death, that which was dearest and most precious to Him. In the death of Jesus, everything about God is love, more love, infinite love. There is not the faintest trace of divine anger in the death of Christ.

Second, in those places where Holy Scripture does speak of propitiating the anger of God, this propitiation is never linked to blood sacrifice. When biblical men are said to soften the divine wrath, it is done with prayer, as in the case of Moses on Mount Sinai, or by the offering of incense, which symbolizes prayer. Because blood sacrifice and the wrath of God are two things the Bible never joins together, I submit that authentic Christian theology should also endeavor to keep them apart.

Moreover, when the Apostle Paul does write of God’s anger, it is never in terms of appeasement but of deliverance. At the final judgment, when that divine anger, far from being placated, will consume the realm and servants of sin, Christ will deliver us from it, recognizing us as His faithful servants (1 Thessalonians 1:10; Romans 5:9). There will be not the slightest hint of appeasement at that point.

Third, the word hilasterion, which I have translated as the substantive “expiatory,” seems to have in Paul’s mind a more technical significance. In Hebrews 9:5, the only other place where the word appears in the New Testament, hilasterion designates the top, the cover, of the Ark of the Covenant, where the Almighty is said to throne between and above the Cherubim. In this context, the term is often translated as “mercy seat,” and it seems reasonable to think that this is the image that Paul too has in mind.

On Yom Kippur, the annual Atonement Day, the high priest sprinkled sacrificial blood on that hilasterion,

“because of the uncleanness of the children of Israel, and because of their transgressions of all their sins” (Leviticus 16:16).

Therefore, by saying that God “set forth” (proetheto) Jesus as the expiatory, or “instrument of expiation,” for our sins, Paul asserts that the shedding of Jesus’ blood on the Cross fulfilled the prophetic meaning and promise of that ancient liturgical institution of Israel, reconciling mankind by the removal of the uncleanness,

“their transgressions of all their sins.”

The Cross was the supreme altar, and Good Friday was preeminently the Day of the Atonement. The removal of sins was not accomplished by a juridical act, but a liturgical act performed in great love:

“Christ also has loved us and given Himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling aroma” (Ephesians 5:2).

Loving both the Father and ourselves, Jesus brought the Father and ourselves together by what

He accomplished in His own body, reconciling us through the blood of His Cross.

In the Bible,

“the life of the flesh is in the blood” (Leviticus 17:11).

The victim slain in sacrifice was not the vicarious recipient of a punishment, but the symbol of the loving dedication of the life of the person making the sacrifice.

This sacrificial dedication of life is the means by which the sinner is made “at one” with God.

Such is the biblical meaning of expiation and the proper context in which to interpret Paul’s teaching on the sacrifice of Christ.

© 2010, Preachers Institute. All rights reserved. On republishing this, please provide a link to the original post.

Senior Editor of Touchstone Magazine, and archpriest of All Saints Orthodox Church in Chicago, IL, Fr. Patrick is, perhaps, the most erudite writer in the Orthodox Church in North America today. This article, one of his Pastoral Ponderings, was published by Orthodoxtoday.org.

The classical and ancient theology of the Christian Church regards as redemptive the entire “event” of Jesus Christ, beginning with His personal and permanent assumption of our flesh. Everything about Jesus Christ is soteriological.

The Incarnation itself, according to the reasoning pursued at the Council of Nicaea, was integral to our redemption. That is to say, we would not be saved unless Jesus Christ were truly both divine and human. This was a point made repeatedly by the most persuasive voice at that council, St. Athanasios of Alexandria.

In accord with this principle, Eastern Christians for a long time have commonly spoken of a triadic structure in the redemption of the human race, a structure corresponding to man’s threefold alienation from God.

First, man is alien to God by reason of Creation itself, inasmuch as man has a nature different from God’s. This initial alienation, however, has been redeemed by God’s taking on our human nature in the Incarnation.

“And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us” (John 1:14; cf. Colossians 2:9).

Thus, the Incarnation is soteriological.

The Word’s sharing of our human nature, moreover, becomes the medium of our participation in the divine nature (2 Peter 1:4). As this truth was boldly expressed by Irenaeus of Lyons and many other Church Fathers, but most notably by Athanasios himself,

“God became man so that man might become god.”

This transformation by divine grace is the goal of human existence and man’s sole reason for being in this world at all.

Second, man is alien to God by reason of sin, a legacy to which all human beings are heirs, because

“by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners” (Romans 5:19).

To overcome this alienation from God by sin, Jesus died on the cross, thereby reconciling us to our Creator.

Holy Scripture is repetitious and emphatic on this point, insisting that,

“when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son” (Romans 5:10).

Integral to the reconciling death of Christ were His voluntary sufferings and the sacrificial outpouring of His blood, whereby God washed away the sins of the world. Indeed, the Bible’s chief image of the reconciliation on the cross is the blood of Jesus, poured out in libation for the sins of the world. The New Covenant is established by this redemptive shedding of His blood (Matthew 26:28; Mark 14:24). Only in the blood of Christ do we have access to God.

The necessity that Christ shed His blood for our redemption is established by a general principle governing the biblical sacrifice for sins-namely,

“without shedding of blood there is no remission” (Hebrews 9:22).

In Christ, therefore,

“we have redemption through His blood, the remission of our sins” (Ephesians 1:7).

Jesus

“Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree…, by whose stripes you are healed”

(1 Peter 2:24).

Thus, the sufferings, bloodshed, and death of Jesus are soteriological.

Third, man is alien to God by reason of death, because death is inseparable from sin. By reason of Adam’s offense,

“sin entered into the world, and death through sin” (Romans 5:12).

Indeed,

“sin reigned in death” (5:21).

Paul goes to Genesis 3 to explain what he calls

“the reign of death” (Romans 5:14,17).

In the Bible death is not natural, nor is it merely biological, and certainly it is not neutral. Apart from Christ, death represents man’s final separation from God (Romans 6:21,23; 8:2,6,38). The corruption of death is sin incarnate and rendered visible. When death, this “last enemy” (1 Corinthians 15:56), has finally been vanquished, then may we most correctly speak of “salvation.” (This is why the vocabulary of salvation normally appears in the future tense in the Epistle to the Romans.)

Thus, the resurrection of Jesus is soteriological. Indeed, it is absolutely essential to our redemption, because Christ

“was delivered up for our offenses and raised for our justification” (Romans 4:25).

Ultimately it is from the reign of death that He delivers us.

Just as the sufferings and bloodshed of Jesus were integral to the redemptive value of His death, so His passing into glory and His seating at the right hand of God pertain to the fullness of His resurrection. This theme is especially developed in the Epistle to the Hebrews, which describes Jesus’ ascension as an entry into the heavenly sanctuary as the eternal High Priest, the Mediator of the New Covenant.

© 2010, Preachers Institute. All rights reserved. On republishing this, please provide a link to the original post.

Senior Editor of Touchstone Magazine, and archpriest of All Saints Orthodox Church in Chicago, IL, Fr. Patrick is, perhaps, the most erudite writer in the Orthodox Church in North America today. This article, one of his Pastoral Ponderings, was published by Orthodoxtoday.org.

Although the history of art does not show this to be the case, ancient legend claimed that the Amazon warriors — the easier to bend the bow and fling the spear — had their right breasts amputated. Indeed, popular Greek etymology explained the name “Amazon” as derived from a-mazos, “without breast.”

I wonder, however, if that physical mutilation did not also insinuate in the Amazons some deeper and more significant impairment, a hint, as it were, of diminished femininity. The willful loss of that breast suggests – to me, at least – that the Amazons, as women, were not quite up to the mark. I confess to a basic, inherited, and irremediable bias against women warriors. I don’t like girls getting into fights. It just ain’t proper.

I especially do not approve of women fighting the way men do, which is how classical literature described the Amazons. Indeed, they are called antianeira —

“a match for a man” (Iliad 3.189; 6.186).

Ugghh!

No, on those occasions when women are obliged to fight, I do not expect them to fight like men. On the contrary, I expect them to cheat. Indeed, if they have to fight, I heartily approve of their cheating. If a woman is forced into combat, she should cheat. If I am wrong on this point, then I have seriously misunderstood Holy Scripture.

Leave fighting aside for the moment, and just think of biblical women in tough situations. They were expected to bend the rules a bit. Even without actual fighting, the Bible is hardly offended that women now and then employed intrigue, chicanery, legerdemain and a flexible approach to facts in order to attain their goals.

One thinks of Rebecca, Abigail, Esther, Tamar in Genesis 38, Rahab of Jericho, Naomi and Ruth, Michal in 1 Samuel 19, Joab’s “actress” in 2 Samuel 14, and perhaps Bathsheba in 1 Kings 2. All of these women are portrayed as “inventive,” when the going got rough.

Nor does the Bible appear to be shocked that the “inventiveness” of some women occasionally took an aggressive turn. For instance, there was the blood-warming (and perhaps blood-curdling) enthusiasm of Miriam and Deborah giving themselves to hearty, full-throated song over the dead bodies of their enemies. One likewise recalls the steady eye and strong arm of that millstone-tossing Shechemite lady who dispatched Abimelech with a severe headache in Judges 9. We may also mention the “wise counsel” of the anonymous female citizen of Abel Beth-Maachah who supervised an appropriate beheading in 2 Samuel 20.

The Bible offers even better examples. One is particularly struck by the similarities between the actions of the heroine of the Book of Judith and those of Jael in Judges 4. The villains in both cases, Holofernes and Sisera, were first lulled to sleep — one by warm milk, the other by wine — and then quickly dispatched with each lady’s weapon of choice:

Jael grabbed a hammer and drove a tent peg into the sleeping head of Sisera. She slammed him so hard that the point of the peg came out the other side and went into the ground. Jael did all this after deceiving the man as someone who would protect him.

As for Judith, she did not wait for Holofernes to come to her. She went to him, and for the apparent purpose of showing him a good time. One is at a loss to explain this respectable widow, this almost monastic devotee of prayer and fasting, who plied her victim with alcohol, and then came walking home the next morning with a man’s head tucked in her purse. Goodness!

Not only are the exploits of Jael and Judith praised in song (Judges 5:24-27; Judith 15:12-13), but also both songs are full of raw mockery, elaborated in gory and relished detail (Judges 5:24-27; Judith 16:4-9).

Sisera and Holofernes were utter scoundrels, of course, but they were also first-rate suckers, to whose dim wits it had not occurred that females, when they fight, follow a completely different set of rules. No man would have been praised for doing what they did: Although the Bible considered it very bad form for a fellow to kill his enemy while he slept (1 Samuel 26:5-11; 2 Samuel 4:5-12), such a procedure was perfectly acceptable for women, such as Jael and Judith. That is to say, among gentlemen it was understood that girls do not fight fair.

And if some fool did not know that, he got exactly what he deserved.

© 2010, Preachers Institute. All rights reserved. On republishing this, please provide a link to the original post.

Senior Editor of Touchstone Magazine, and archpriest of All Saints Orthodox Church in Chicago, IL, Fr. Patrick is, perhaps, the most erudite writer in the Orthodox Church in North America today. This article, one of his Pastoral Ponderings, was published by Orthodoxtoday.org.

There is a glaring fallacy in the contemporary presumption that idolatry is found only in polytheism. I admit, of course, that all polytheism is necessarily idolatrous, but it seems not to have occurred to most folks that the confession of one false god is just as idolatrous as the confession of several. Monotheism is no defense against idolatry.

This modern misunderstanding about idolatry, moreover, is the twin and steady companion of another, the strange fancy that all monotheists necessarily confess the same divinity.

Arguably the clearest spokesman for the latter fallacy may be that C. S. Lewis character who forthrightly declared,

“Tash is another name for Aslan. All that old idea of us being right and the Calormenes wrong is silly. We know better now. The Calormenes use different words but we all mean the same thing. Tash and Aslan are only two different names for you know Who. That’s why there can never be any quarrel between them. Get that into your heads, you stupid brutes. Tash is Aslan: Aslan is Tash.”

The telltale line in that discourse, I submit, is “We know better now.” On matters respecting God, I can’t think of anything we know better now.

The character that made that proclamation was, of course, the Ape in Lewis’s The Last Battle, and it really was an apish thing to say. Although I have heard his thesis proclaimed times out of mind (and even alas, by those who call themselves Orthodox Christians), it cannot stand up to two seconds of critical reflection.

Let us recall that monotheism made its appearance in this world in the same voice that identified the one God’s essence with His existence,

“I am the One Who Is.”

When Moses heard that auto-identification, perhaps he did not have a clear idea, at first, what it meant (and modern biblical scholars still argue about it!), but he faithfully recorded the words, and the faithful have been thinking about them seriously ever since.

Typical of the faithful in this respect was St. Gregory of Nyssa, who interpreted the words to mean that God revealed Himself as

“the Existent One” (Against Eunomius 2.4).

The same writer reflected further,

“all things depend on Him Who is, nor can there be anything that does not owe its existence to Him Who is” (The Great Catechism 25).

Gregory asserts two things in these texts. First, it is of God’s very being that He exists, which is to say that God exists of Himself. Latin terminology calls this the aseity of God (a se=”of Himself”), meaning that He exists by reason of Himself. Second, this aseity pertains to no other being. Whatever exists, besides God, exists only because of God.

This twofold thesis enunciated by St. Gregory of Nyssa (chosen at random, really, because all the Church Fathers that spoke on the subject said the same thing) indicates two reflective approaches to the true God, both of them unique to the biblical revelation.

Let us observe, moreover, that Christian thinkers have converted both of these theological considerations into apologetic arguments for the existence of God.

First, there is God as Being in Himself. Now it is a fact that no pagan philosopher ever thought to identify God as Being. This historical fact is perhaps difficult for us to appreciate, because the history of Christian reflection has so accustomed us to a proposition unknown to ancient pagan thought.

After about a thousand years of pondering this thesis, some Christian philosophers were ready to convert it into an argument for God’s existence. It is a deductive, a priori argument that begins with identifying God as the One Who, if He exists, must exist. Put in its simplest form, the argument runs something like this: If He Who must exist can exist, He does exist. This is called the Ontological Argument, which reasons from the idea of God to the existence of God.

Leaving aside the question of its validity, the striking fact about this argument is that it never occurred to anyone outside of the data of biblical revelation. Some pagan thinkers adopted it afterwards (the recently lamented Charles Hartshorne being a notable example), but it was Bible-believers, significantly, who thought of the argument first. Nor is there is any reason to believe it would have entered anyone’s mind except for that voice on Sinai.

Second, there is God as the cause of all that is not God. This approach to God is more developed in Holy Scripture, which teaches in many places that He is the Maker of all things.

This thesis, too, provided an argument for God’s existence, an inductive, a posteriori case known as the Cosmological Argument. This line of reasoning, which is found explicitly in Holy Scripture itself, endeavors to discover an explanation (or efficient cause) for the existence of those things that do, in fact, exist. The existence of these non-necessary things (things that don’t have to exist) is sought in some Maker that caused them to exist, and this Maker we call God. We find this argument briefly elaborated in Wisdom 13 and Romans 1.

Both of these approaches to the existence of God are based in the voice from Sinai, which in which God identified Himself as the Existing One, the One Who, needing nothing from us, nonetheless decided to talk to us.

© 2010, Preachers Institute. All rights reserved. On republishing this, please provide a link to the original post.

Senior Editor of  Touchstone Magazine, and archpriest of All Saints Orthodox Church in Chicago, IL, Fr. Patrick is, perhaps, the most erudite writer in the Orthodox Church in North America today. This article, one of his Pastoral Ponderings, was recently published by Orthodoxtoday.org.

Inasmuch as Holy Scripture ascribes to the staff of Aaron such diverse wonders, it is hardly remarkable that Christian readers, over the centuries, have looked upon it as the bearer of numerous mysteries. It is not my intention to question any of those traditional interpretations, but I am especially partial to the view that Aaron’s staff represents the pastoral office in general, and the ministry of preaching in particular.

We may begin by mentioning that the underlying Hebrew word, matteh, not only means “staff” or “rod,” but also “tribe.” It was a symbol, in fact, of tribal authority. Thus, Aaron’s matteh indicated that he was, first of all, the leader of the priestly family, the tribe of Levi. It was entirely appropriate, therefore, that eventually Aaron’s matteh was kept in the Holy of Holies, inside the Ark of the Covenant, along with the Tables of the Law and the jar of Manna (Hebrews 9:4).

Applied to the pastoral ministry of preaching, then, staff of Aaron represents the authority with which the preacher proclaims the Word. The Christian pulpit is not the forum for the sharing of a preacher’s ideas, not even his theological exegetical ideas. It is the place from which the seed of the Word is sown. What is conveyed in the preaching must be nothing other than the Gospel itself.

Thus, some months after evangelizing the Macedonians, Paul wrote to them,

“we preached to you the Gospel of God” (1 Thessalonians 2:9).

Paul sums up that experience:

“when you received the word of God which you heard from us, you welcomed it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which also effectively works in you who believe” (2:13).

The staff of Aaron is more than a sign of his authority, however; it is the channel of power. Indeed, this is what distinguishes the matteh of Aaron from the other tribal staffs of Israel. Two narratives, in particular, illustrate the power of Aaron’s priestly staff: the encounter with Pharaoh in the Book of Exodus and the test in the Tabernacle in the Book of Numbers. Each of these incidents, I will argue, demonstrates an aspect of the preaching ministry.

First, Aaron’s staff is powerful against the satanic forces represented in the rule of Pharaoh. Even before Egypt was visited with a single plague, that matteh became a snake and devoured the staffs of the sorcerers (Exodus 7:8-12). Then, through the same instrument the Lord visited Egypt with the plagues of frogs and lice (8:5,16,17).

If, then, we understand Aaron’s staff to symbolize the ministry of preaching, the account in Exodus indicates the aggressive, confrontational, and apologetical aspects of the preacher’s task. His message must be ever

“mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:4-5).

Second, Aaron’s staff is the bearer of both beauty and nourishment, because we read of it:

“the staff of Aaron, of the house of Levi, had sprouted and put forth buds, had produced blossoms and yielded ripe almonds” (Numbers 17:8).

I understand those blossoms to indicate the rhetorical skill in which the Gospel is conveyed. Aaron’s staff is not employed to hit people over the head, but to attract their adherence by the beauty of the Gospel and the sweetness of conscientious persuasion. It is the preacher’s task to attract his hearers to conviction. The Lord compares His Word to honey, after all. So, wrote Gregory the Theologian, the preacher does not use force or violence, but the lure of wisdom.

The ripe almonds on Aaron’s rod I take to mean the spiritual nourishment provided by pastoral preaching. If the content of the sermon really is the Word of God, then it really will be that by which man lives. It will accomplish what God has promised with respect to His Word:

“For as the rain comes down, and the snow from heaven, / And do not return there, / But water the earth, / And make it bring forth and bud, / That it may give seed to the sower / And bread to the eater, / So shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth; / It shall not return to Me void, / But it shall accomplish what I please, / And it shall prosper in that for which I sent it” (Isaiah 55:1-11).

Fr. Patrick Henry Reardon is pastor of All Saints Antiochian Orthodox Church in Chicago, Illinois, and a Senior Editor of Touchstone: A Journal of Mere Christianity.

© 2010, Preachers Institute. All rights reserved. On republishing this, please provide a link to the original post.

Senior Editor of  Touchstone Magazine, and archpriest of All Saints Orthodox Church in Chicago, IL, Fr. Patrick is, perhaps, the most erudite writer in the Orthodox Church in North America today. This article, one of his Pastoral Ponderings, was published by Orthodoxtoday.org.

When Nicodemus came to Jesus by night, the Lord’s first words presented him with a challenge:

“Amen, amen, I say to you, unless a person is born anew, he cannot see the kingdom of God” (John 3:3).

The Greek adverb translated here as “anew” is another, which is deliberately ambivalent. Literally it means “from above,” but this expression may be taken in two ways: It can mean “from on high” or “from the top.” If the latter sense is understood, the meaning is “anew” or “again.” (One thinks of our English idiom, “let’s take it again from the top.”) That is to say, there are two aspects to this birth: It is new, and it is from on high. Very early John’s gospel had spoken of this rebirth:

“But to as many as received Him He gave the authority to become children of God, to those who believe in His name: who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God” (1:12-13).

Nicodemus, in his bewildered response to Jesus’ assertion, understands it simply to mean “again”: “How can a man be born when he is old? Is he able to enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?” (emphasis added) When Jesus answers this question, however, it is the spiritual manner of this rebirth—-the “from above”—-that receives the accent:

“Amen, amen, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. What is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit” (3:4-6).

In the preaching of John the Baptist, there was a contrast between baptism with water and baptism with the Holy Spirit:

“I indeed baptized you with water, but He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit”(Mark 1:8; cf. Matthew 3:11).

This contrast is also found in the Fourth Gospel with respect to Baptism:

“I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and He remained upon Him. I did not know Him, but He who sent me to baptize in water said to me, ‘Upon whom you see the Spirit descending, and remaining on Him, this is He who baptizes in the Holy Spirit’” (1:32-33).

In the conversation with Nicodemus, however, both aspects of the rebirth are spoken of—-both the water and the Spirit. John clearly has in mind here the theology of Christian baptism. In this Christian mystery, there is no real distinction between baptism in water and baptism in the Holy Spirit. There is only “one Baptism” (cf. Ephesians 4:5).

This double aspect of renewal was already spoken of in prophecy:

“I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean; I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put My Spirit within you” (Ezekiel 36:25-27).

Jesus’ words to Nicodemus, however, stress the Spirit more than the water, because the gift of the Holy Spirit distinguishes Christian baptism from that of John. Jesus goes on:

“What is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again’” (John 3:6).

The distinction now is not between water and the Spirit, but between flesh and the Spirit. The flesh is that which dies, whereas the Spirit gives life. Later in John, Jesus says,

“It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak to you are spirit, and life” (6:63).

What, then, does it mean to be reborn in the Spirit? According to Jesus’ words, it certainly involves Baptism. Clearly, however, it involves more, as Jesus indicates when He says,

“The Spirit breathes where He wills, and you hear His voice, but cannot tell where He comes from and where He goes. Thus is everyone who is born of the Spirit” (3:8).

Our Lord suggests here an incomprehensible mystery involved in man’s rebirth. It can be recognized, but it transcends understanding. As the Spirit’s activity, man’s rebirth cannot be explained. Both its origin and its goal—-”where He comes from and where He goes”—-elude man’s scrutiny. Only Jesus Himself can legitimately speak of what the Spirit does:

“We speak what We know and testify what We have seen” (3:11).

This mystery of man’s rebirth, however, can be taken as the implied subject matter of John’s whole gospel. Each chapter addresses the question,

“What does it mean to be born again from on high?”

Fr. Patrick Henry Reardon is archpriest and pastor of All Saints Antiochian Orthodox Church in Chicago, Illinois, and a Senior Editor of Touchstone: A Journal of Mere Christianity.

© 2010, Preachers Institute. All rights reserved. On republishing this, please provide a link to the original post.