Perfect People: Possible But Improbable

How is it possible that Christ has already made us perfect, as Hebrews 10:12-14 shows here? In Revelation 13:8b we read - "...the Lamb who was slain from the foundation of the world." The sacrifice of Christ took place in eternity past, because He is One of the pre-eternal Trinity. So Christ the God-Man is both outside of time as God and inside time as man, thus His work of perfecting us has both an eternal and a temporal aspect.

In our last article - "Are Perfect People Possible?" - I quoted "Therefore you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect" (Matthew 5:48) and "Follow after peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man will see the Lord" (Hebrews 12:14). How is it possible that Christians can be perfect, how can we fulfill these commands to be perfect and holy?

St. Paul wrote in Philippians 3:8-16 on striving to become perfect:

"Yes most assuredly, and I count all things to be loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus, my Lord, for Whom I suffered the loss of all things, and count them nothing but refuse, that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own, that which is of the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith; that I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, becoming conformed to His death; if by any means I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.

Not that I have already obtained, or am already made perfect; but I press on, if it is so that I may take hold of that for which also I was taken hold of by Christ Jesus. Brothers, I don't regard myself as yet having taken hold, but one thing I do. Forgetting the things which are behind, and stretching forward to the things which are before, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus."

St. Paul wrote that he was not already made perfect (in the human dimensions of space-time), but he was pressing on to take hold of what Christ had already (in eternity) taken hold of: Paul's perfection. This also explains the "predestination/free will" paradox: Christ as eternal God knows all those who are predestined for salvation, perfection, and sanctification; but we mortals are limited to space-time and cannot know the future, therefore we must freely choose to "press on toward the goal for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus."

From God's eternal point of view, there is predestination; but from a human point of view, there is free will and moral responsibility. As a Protestant might say, "God is a Calvinist, but we are all Arminians." In Hebrews 12:25 the Apostle Paul wrote - "See that you don't refuse him who speaks. For if they didn't escape when they refused Him Who warned on earth, how much more will we not escape who turn away from Him who warns from heaven." Humanly speaking, it is possible for us to turn away from Christ, just as it is possible to turn toward Him and follow Him. Let's look at some examples:

In the Early Church, after Emperor Constantine had legalized Christianity and then made it the official state religion of the Greco-Roman Empire, some Christians saw a weakening of the fervor that Christians had exhibited during times of persecution and martyrdom. So they literally forsook everything and followed Christ. At first, these early monastics led a solitary life. Pachomius the Great, an Egyptian soldier in the Roman Army, was baptized 314 in the year as soon as he completed his military service, and immediately started to practice the ascetic life of self-denial.

Soon he withdrew into the desert under the guidance of a spiritual father, and after ten years the Lord spoke to him, saying that he must form a monastic community. Thus was born the first "cenobitic" (from "koinonia") monastic community, just after Christianity was legalized. The "rule" of St. Pachomius became the model for founding documents of many later monastic communities. St. Pachomius worked miracles, and saw visions of holy Angels, and foresaw the day of his death.

Another early saint was Benedict, born in Italy in the year 480. "When he was fourteen years of age, the saint’s parents sent him to Rome to study. Unsettled by the immorality around him, he decided to devote himself to a different sort of life." He first fled to the desert and became a solitary, but after ten years a group of disciples formed around him, eventually growing to over 3,000 monastics in several monastic communities. He wrote the "Rule of St Benedict" that became the model for most monastic communities in the West. He "was granted by the Lord the gift of foresight and wonderworking. He healed many by his prayers. The monk foretold the day of his death in 547."

These two saints lived during the first millennium of Christianity when Christians in East and West formed one united Church. Tragically, after the Great Schism in A.D. 1054, the Christian faith continued to fracture into the tens of thousands of denominations we have today. Each has a portion of original Christianity - some have a large slice of the pie, others just a tiny sliver. If only they could put together all the pieces of the truth, we could again form one true Church.

But the pursuit of holiness did not completely die out. Seraphim of Sarov, who lived in the 18th century, even as a child was twice miraculously healed from illness, and had visions of angels and of Christ himself. At age 18 he entered the monastery of Sarov. At age 27 he was ordained as a hieromonk (priest-monk) and served the Eucharist every day for a year. Then he withdrew further into the wilderness, where bears, rabbits, wolves, foxes and other wild animals came to his hut to be fed from his hand. He once spent 1,000 days on a rock with his hands lifted up in prayer.

A disciple of his named Motovilov came to him one cloudy day in the winter. When asked the meaning of the Christian life, St. Seraphim said - "It is necessary that the Holy Spirit enter our heart. Everything good that we do, that we do for Christ, is given to us by the Holy Spirit, but prayer most of all, which is always available to us." When Motovilov asked how he could know the Holy Spirit, he answered - "We are both now, my dear fellow, in the Holy Spirit." It was as if Motovilov's eyes had been opened, for he saw that the face of the elder was brighter than the sun.

In his heart, Motovilov felt joy and peace, in his body a warmth as if it were summer, and a fragrance began to spread around them. Motovilov was terrified by the unusual change, but especially by the fact that the face of the starets shone like the sun. But St. Seraphim said to him, "Do not fear, dear fellow. You would not even be able to see me if you yourself were not in the fullness of the Holy Spirit. Thank the Lord for His mercy toward us." He went on to explain that this gift was not only for monastics but for all Christians who seek the Holy Spirit with all their hearts.

Another great saint is John of Kronstadt. Born in 19th-century Russia, he lived into the early 20th century. He also had the gifts of healing and foreknowledge. A married priest, he served the Eucharist daily, ministered to the Imperial Family, and foresaw the fall of Russia into atheism a decade after his death. He formed houses for the poor and sick in St. Petersburg, visiting them, praying for them and even giving them the shoes off his feet in the dead of winter. You can get The Aim of the Christian Life by St. Seraphim of Sarov and My Life in Christ by St. John of Kronstadt at our website www.Discover-Original-Christianity.info/literatura.htm.

As St. Seraphim told Motovilov, the gift of the Holy Spirit and the life of sanctification is the aim for all Christians, not just for priests, monks, and nuns. As St. Paul wrote, "to the church of God which is at Corinth; those who are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints" (1 Corinthians 1:2). But not all will make the effort, "because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it" (Matthew 7:14). we must make every effort, we must strive for holiness, as St. Peter wrote - "Therefore, my brothers and sisters, make every effort to confirm your calling and election. For if you do these things, you will never stumble," (2 Peter 1:10).

(Linked to www.Hosken-News.info of 26 Nov. 2016.)

Are Perfect People Possible?

We've heard - "Nobody's perfect" so many times, that we finally begin to believe it. We believe that it's impossible for people to be perfect. And when someone says - "you're just perfect!" like in this photo, we think they're just blowing smoke.

But what did Christ teach us? "Therefore you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect" (Matthew 5:48). How should we understand this command of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God? Some translations render the word "perfect" as "mature" in other New Testament texts, but that doesn't make sense here: our heavenly Father isn't merely mature, He's perfect. And that is what we're supposed to strive for, by God's grace. Humanly speaking, without Divine help, perfection is impossible, and perfectionism - striving for perfection by our own efforts - can cause serious psychological problems. But with the Holy Spirit working in us and sanctifying us, making us holy, perfection is possible.

Romans 5:12 is the key verse: "Therefore, as sin entered into the world through one man, and death through sin; and so death passed to all men, in that all sinned." When St. Jerome translated the original Greek New Testament into the Latin Vulgate, this verse became: "Wherefore as by one man sin entered into this world and by sin death: and so death passed upon all men, in whom all have sinned" (1899 Douay-Rhiems Catholic Bible). Note "in whom" (masculine pronoun) vs. the Greek - "in that" (neuter pronoun).

The neuter pronoun is just one letter in Greek, but either Jerome's knowledge of Greek wasn't that great, or he held a prior belief that it should refer to Adam, but in any case, he rendered it as "him," and This One Letter has changed the West's whole theological system! Based mainly on this verse in the Latin Vulgate, St. Augustine developed his doctrine of original sin and guilt passing on from Adam to all men. And even though most modern Bible translations including the modern Catholic Bible have corrected this translation error, the Western doctrine of original sin has remained.

Are the universe and mankind essentially good, or inherently evil? This is the so-called liberal vs. conservative argument, but there are actually two sides to the conservative viewpoint. What are they?

Origen, a second-century Bible scholar, wrote: "when he [St. Paul] speaks about sin, because of which death has passed to all men, he attributes the line of human descent, which has succumbed to this death because of sin. The apostle stated most categorically that the death of sin has passed to all men because all have sinned." St. John Chrysostom wrote in the fourth century: "Paul inquires as to how death came into the world and why it prevailed. It came in and prevailed through the sin of one man and continued because all have sinned. Thus once Adam fell, even those who had not eaten of the tree became mortal because of him." But St. Augustine wrote in the fifth century: "Everyone, even little children, have broken God's covenant, not indeed in virtue of any personal action but in virtue of mankind's common origin in that single ancestor in whom all have sinned."

St. Augustine wrote in Latin that without God's grace we are "posse pecare et non posse non pecare" (able to sin and not able not to sin). Only after receiving God's grace to we become in this life "posse pecare et posse non pecare" (able to sin and able to not sin), and in heaven "non posse pecare" (not able to sin). Both Martin Luther and John Calvin refined this doctrine further, into the idea of the predestined salvation of the elect, the predestined damnation of the un-elect, and total depravity - unregenerate mankind is totally depraved and incapable of not sinning, unable to do anything good; thus much of Protestantism has inherited this doctrine of total depravity from Roman Catholicism. You can read more about total depravity here.

But this doctrine of total depravity, the idea that for unregenerate mankind it is totally impossible to do anything that is purely good, that every action is tainted by sin, is not held by Eastern Christianity. Orthodoxy teaches that Adam and Eve's original sin has weakened human nature so that we all tend to sin, and are subject to death because of original sin, but not that we are guilty of Adam's sin and that we are incapable of doing anything good without God's saving grace. The idea that God chose some people to be eternally damned to hell fire is probably the greatest cause of atheism in the West: how could such a god exist?

Moral responsibility and guilt can only exist if one is capable of making a free, conscious choice to do evil. The prophet Ezekiel (ch. 18) wrote that children are not to be condemned for the guilt of their fathers. But if most of mankind is predestined to damnation because of Adam's sin, they have no moral responsibility or guilt because they had no choice, they were predestined before all eternity to go to hell. So this doctrine of our inheriting Adam's sin guilt falls apart.

We very likely know good people who do good works out of the goodness of their hearts. We are all created in God's image, whether we are Christians or Jews or Muslims or Buddhists or Hindus or atheists. And all of us, even atheists, are capable of doing good. Can a person go a minute or an hour or a day without committing any sin? If so, can that person go 48 hours, or 72, or 96 hours without committing any sin? Here's more on Christian perfection.

Even though the image of God in us is distorted, we should know right from wrong and are capable of choosing what is right. This is why Orthodoxy teaches that Mary committed no personal sins: she was capable of doing what is right, and with God's help ("Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with you" Luke 1:28) she consistently chose the good. Thus the Eastern Church's teaching has no need for the Roman Catholic doctrine of her immaculate conception because she did not inherit Adam's sin and guilt. But because her human nature was weakened by sin and subject to death, she needed a Savior ("God my Savior" - Luke 1:47).

The Eastern Church teaches synergy, that we are capable of doing good, and are co-laborers together with God: He works in us, but we must work with Him. We are saved by grace unto good works (Eph. 2:9-10). This is not the heresy of Pelagianism, that we are capable by our good works alone to save ourselves. Salvation is the process of being personally transformed into the image and likeness of God, which is called theosis or deification, "partakers of the divine nature" (2 Pet. 1:4). A segment of Protestantism also emphasizes mankind's free will to choose: this is called Arminianism. You can read more about it here: Semipelagianism and Arminianism.

The teaching of predestination, based largely on Rom. 5:12, says that because God knows from all eternity who will be saved, Christ's atonement is limited to only the elect. But God loves all mankind, and "is not willing that any should perish" (2 Pet. 3:9). "He [Christ] died for all" (2 Cor. 5:15) Thus we understand that Christ's atonement on the Cross is for all mankind: "If anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous. And he is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for the whole world" (2 John 2:1b-2). This is the doctrine of Unlimited Atonement.

St, Peter wrote that we should not conform to our former lusts, "but just as he who called you is holy, you yourselves also be holy in all of your behavior" (1 Pet. 1:15). And St. Paul wrote: "Follow after peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man will see the Lord" (Hebrews 12:14). When we consider these Scripture texts together with our first quotation, "Therefore you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect" (Matthew 5:48), we see that perfection or holiness is not only possible, it is what God expects of every Christian.

(Linked to www.Hosken-News.info of 12 Nov. 2016.)