British Archaeologist Charles Warren and the Holy Light

Sir Charles Warren was born in 1840 in Bangor, Wales and was an archaeologist, an officer in the British Royal Engineers, and later General of the British army which participated in battles in Africa and Asia.

In 1867 he went to Jerusalem as a member of the Palestine Exploration Fund and conducted a series of excavations that lasted until 1870. Amongst his findings is a network of galleries located under the Dome of the Rock, as well as an underground water supply system that was later named after him (Warren Shaft). He also completed a detailed topographical map of the old city of Jerusalem.

A portion of the results of his excavations was published in his work titled Underground Jerusalem that was published in 1876 in London. In a chapter of this work titled “Holy Fire,” Warren speaks of all he knows of the miracle of Holy Saturday which was of particular interest to him. In the first paragraph of this chapter he poses a crucial question: “What is that fire?,” and immediately responds to his question:

"What is that fire which on Easter-eve lights up the lamps in the Holy Sepulchre?... That a miracle attends the ceremony, there cannot be a doubt."1

The British archaeologist was an eyewitness to the ceremony all four years he stayed in Jerusalem and according to his assessment there is not a doubt in his mind that it was a miracle.

The first ceremony in which he participated was Holy Saturday of 1867. On the following Holy Saturday, through the intermediation of distinguished French scholar Charles Clermont-Ganneau, Warren secured a spot on one of the raised balconies of the Latins, from where he had an unobstructed view of the Holy Sepulchre. Situated at this salient and advantageous spot, he states the following:

"I had seen the miracle of the Holy Fire on a former occasion, but now I was to have a more complete view, through the influence of M. Ganneau, who had procured me a place in the Latin Gallery, to the north, and overlooking the Holy Sepulchre."2

And he continues, describing the moment when the Holy Fire appears:

"At last there is a feeling that the fire is at hand, masses of tow are thrust forward, a flash at the opening is seen, the tow is lighted… In a moment, as though by magic, the fire extends itself in all directions."3

Warren, even though he is a member of the Anglican Church, does not hesitate to acknowledge the miracle’s authenticity. Moreover, the miracle does not belong to the Greeks or to the Orthodox in general. It belongs to all Christians and everyone can partake in it. The Holy Fire cannot be imprisoned or caged within religious orders. It can, however, be enclosed in the hearts of all simple and virtuous people.

Rapturous from what he experienced, Warren is the fourth eyewitness to describe the descent of the Holy Fire as a flash that descends from above. As he states, the flash appeared at the opening of the dome, which at the time still had a small opening toward the sky.

Furthermore, he speaks of a torch that lights simultaneously with the appearance of the flash and immediately afterwards he describes a miraculous dissemination of the Holy Fire inside the church. He is not referring to the usual dissemination of the flame from candle to candle that needs quite a bit of time, but he describes a supernatural dissemination that was performed by the Holy Fire itself which, “in a moment, as though by magic,” flooded the entire Church of the Resurrection, extending in all directions at once.

The British archaeologist’s description is particularly revealing and in line with the testimonies of the previous centuries. Aside, however, from his personal account, in the same chapter of his book there are two more very important testimonies: that of Cypriot Bishop Meletios and that of Patriarch Kyrillos II, who led the ceremony the first two years in which Warren participated - the years 1867 and 1868 respectively.

The British archeologist, impressed by all he experienced during the ceremony, wished to further investigate the miraculous event and find out exactly what occurred inside the Sepulchre just as the Holy Fire appeared. The only people who could answer his questions were the two Greek hierarchs mentioned above. So, once he met with them at different times, he asked them to describe all they experienced inside the Holy Sepulchre. Let us examine exactly what they told him.

Notes:

1. C. Warren, Underground Jerusalem, London 1976, p. 425.

2. Warren, op. cit., 430.

2. Warren, op. cit., 435.

Thanks to John Sanidopoulos

 

http://www.johnsanidopoulos.com/2012/05/british-archaeologist-charles-warren.html

 

Genesis and the Big Bang

The Creation of Time

Each day of creation is numbered. Yet there is discontinuity in the way the days are numbered. The verse says: "There is evening and morning, Day One." But the second day doesn't say "evening and morning, Day Two." Rather, it says "evening and morning, a second day." And the Torah continues with this pattern: "Evening and morning, a third day... a fourth day... a fifth day... the sixth day." Only on the first day does the text use a different form: not "first day," but "Day One" ("Yom Echad"). Many English translations make the mistake of writing "a first day." That's because editors want things to be nice and consistent. But they throw out the cosmic message in the text! Because there is a qualitative difference, as Nachmanides says, between "one" and "first." One is absolute; first is comparative.

Nachmanides explains that on Day One, time was created. That's a phenomenal insight. Time was created. You can't grab time. You don't even see it. You can see space, you can see matter, you can feel energy, you can see light energy. I understand a creation there. But the creation of time? Eight hundred years ago, Nachmanides attained this insight from the Torah's use of the phrase, "Day One." And that's exactly what Einstein taught us in the Laws of Relativity: that there was a creation, not just of space and matter, but of time itself.

Einstein's Law of Relativity

Looking back in time, a scientist will view the universe as being 15 billion years old. But what is the Bible's view of time? Maybe it sees time differently. And that makes a big difference. Albert Einstein taught us that Big Bang cosmology brings not just space and matter into existence, but that time is part of the nitty gritty. Time is a dimension. Time is affected by your view of time. How you see time depends on where you're viewing it. A minute on the moon goes faster than a minute on the Earth. A minute on the sun goes slower. Time on the sun is actually stretched out so that if you could put a clock on the sun, it would tick more slowly. It's a small difference, but it's measurable and measured.

The flow of time varies one location to another location. Hence the term: the law of relativity.

If you could ripen oranges on the Sun, they would take longer to ripen. Why? Because time goes more slowly. Would you feel it going more slowly? No, because your biology would be part of the system. If you were living on the Sun, your heart would beat more slowly. Wherever you are, your biology is in synch with the local time. And a minute or an hour where ever you are is exactly a minute or an hour.

If you could look from one system to another, you would see time very differently. Because depending on factors like gravity and velocity, you will perceive time in a way that is very different. The flow of time varies one location to another location. Hence the term: the law of relativity.

Here's an example: One evening we were sitting around the dinner table, and my 11-year-old daughter asked, "How you could have dinosaurs? How you could have billions of years scientifically ― and thousands of years Biblically at the same time? So I told her to imagine a planet where time is so stretched out that while we live out two years on Earth, only three minutes will go by on that planet. Now, those places actually exist, they are observed. It would be hard to live there with their conditions, and you couldn't get to them either, but in mental experiments you can do it. Two years are going to go by on Earth, three minutes are going to go by on the planet. So my daughter says, "Great! Send me to the planet. I'll spend three minutes there. I'll do two years worth of homework. I'll come back home in three minutes, and no more homework for two years."

Nice try. Assuming she was age 11 when she left, and her friends were 11. She spends three minutes on the planet and then comes home. (The travel time takes no time.) How old is she when she gets back? Eleven years and 3 minutes. And her friends are 13. Because she lived out 3 minutes while we lived out 2 years. Her friends aged from 11 years to 13 years, while she's 11 years and 3 minutes.

Had she looked down on Earth from that planet, her perception of Earth time would be that everybody was moving very quickly because in one of her minutes, hundreds of thousands of our minutes would pass. Whereas if we looked up, she'd be moving very slowly.

But which is correct? Is it three years? Or three minutes? The answer is both. They're both happening at the same time. That's the legacy of Albert Einstein. It so happens there literally billions of locations in the universe, where if you could put a clock at that location, it would tick so slowly, that from our perspective (if we could last that long) 15 billion years would go by... but the clock at that remote location would tick out six days.

Time Travel and the Big Bang

But how does this help to explain the Bible? Because anyway the Talmud and Rashi and Nahmanides (that is the kabala) all say that Six Days of Genesis were six regular 24-hour periods not longer than our work week!

Let's look a bit deeper. The classical Jewish sources say that before the beginning, we don't really know what there is. We can't tell what predates the universe. The Midrash asks the question: Why does the Bible begin with the letter Beit? Because Beit (which is written like a backwards C) is closed in all directions and only open in the forward direction. Hence we can't know what comes before ― only after. The first letter is a Beit ― closed in all directions and only open in the forward direction.

Nachmanides expands the statement. He says that although the days are 24 hours each, they contain "kol yemot ha-olam" ― all the ages and all the secrets of the world.

Nachmanides says that before the universe, there was nothing... but then suddenly the entire creation appeared as a minuscule speck. He gives a dimension for the speck: something very tiny like the size of a grain of mustard. And he says that is the only physical creation. There was no other physical creation; all other creations were spiritual. The Nefesh (the soul of animal life) and the Neshama (the soul of human life) are spiritual creations. There's only one physical creation, and that creation was a tiny speck. The speck is all there was. Anything else was God. In that speck was all the raw material that would be used for making everything else. Nachmanides describes the substance as "dak me'od, ein bo mamash" ― very thin, no substance to it. And as this speck expanded out, this substance ― so thin that it has no essence ― turned into matter as we know it.

Nachmanides further writes: "Misheyesh, yitfos bo zman" -- from the moment that matter formed from this substance-less substance, time grabs hold. Not "begins." Time is created at the beginning. But time "grabs hold." When matter condenses, congeals, coalesces, out of this substance so thin it has no essence ― that's when the Biblical clock of the six days starts.

Science has shown that there's only one "substance-less substance" that can change into matter. And that's energy. Einstein's famous equation, E=MC2, tells us that energy can change into matter. And once it changes into matter, time grabs hold.

(The speed of light is 186,000 miles per second,

and miles per minute (60 seconds x 186,000) would be 11,160,000 miles per minute

therefore

miles per hour (60 minutes x 60 seconds or 3600 seconds x 186,000) = 669,600,000 miles per hour)

Nachmanides has made a phenomenal statement. I don't know if he knew the Laws of Relativity. But we know them now. We know that energy ― light beams, radio waves, gamma rays, x-rays ― all travel at the speed of light, 300 million meters per second. At the speed of light, time does not pass. The universe was aging, but time only grabs hold when matter is present. This moment of time before the clock begins for the Bible, lasted about 1/100,000 of a second. A miniscule time. But in that time, the universe expanded from a tiny speck, to about the size of the Solar System. From that moment on we have matter, and time flows forward. The Biblical clock begins here.

Now the fact that the Bible tells us there is "evening and morning Day One" (and not “a first day”) comes to teach us time from a Biblical perspective. Einstein proved that time varies from place to place in the universe, and that time varies from perspective to perspective in the universe. The Bible says there is "evening and morning Day One".

Now if the Torah were seeing time from the days of Moses and Mount Sinai ― long after Adam ― the text would not have written Day One. Because by Sinai, hundreds of thousands of days already passed. There was a lot of time with which to compare Day One. Torah would have said "A First Day." By the second day of Genesis, the Bible says "a second day," because there was already the First Day with which to compare it. You could say on the second day, "what happened on the first day." But as Nahmanides pointed out, you could not say on the first day, "what happened on the first day" because "first" implies comparison ― an existing series. And there was no existing series. Day One was all there was.

Even if the Torah was seeing time from Adam, the text would have said "a first day", because by its own statement there were six days. The Torah says "Day One" because the Torah is looking forward from the beginning. And it says, How old is the universe? Six Days. We'll just take time up until Adam. Six Days. We look back in time, and say the universe is approximately 15 billion years old. But every scientist knows, that when we say the universe is 15 billion years old, there's another half of the sentence that we never say. The other half of the sentence is: The universe is 15 billion years old as seen from the time-space coordinates that we exist in on earth. That's Einstein's view of relativity. But what would those billions of years be as perceived from near the beginning looking forward?

The key is that the Torah looks forward in time, from very different time-space coordinates, when the universe was small. But since then, the universe has expanded out. Space stretches, and that stretching of space totally changes the perception of time.

Imagine in your mind going back billions of years ago to the beginning of time. Now pretend way back at the beginning of time, when time grabs hold, there's an intelligent community. (It's totally fictitious.) Imagine that the intelligent community has a laser, and it's going to shoot out a blast of light, and every second it's going to pulse. Every second ― pulse. Pulse. Pulse. It shoots the light out, and then billions of years later, way far down the time line, we here on Earth have a big satellite dish, and we receive that pulse of light. And on that pulse of light is imprinted (printing information on light is called fiber optics ― sending information by light), "I'm sending you a pulse every second." And then a second goes by and the next pulse is sent.

Light travels 300 million meters per second. So the two light pulses are separated by 300 million meters at the beginning. Now they travel through space for billions of years, and they're going to reach the Earth billions of years later. But wait a minute. Is the universe static? No. The universe is expanding. That's the cosmology of the universe. And that does not mean it's expanding into an empty space outside the universe. There's only the universe. There is no space outside the universe. The universe expands by its own space stretching. So as these pulses go through billions of years of traveling, the universe and space are stretching. As space is stretching, what's happening to these pulses? The space between them is also stretching. So the pulses really get further and further apart.

Billions of years later, when the first pulse arrives, we say, "Wow ― a pulse!" And written on it is "I'm sending you a pulse every second." You call all your friends, and you wait for the next pulse to arrive. Does it arrive another second later? No! A year later? Maybe not. Maybe billions of years later. Because depending on how much time this pulse of light has traveled through space, will determine the amount of stretching of space between the pulses. That's standard astronomy.

15 Billion or Six Days?

Today, we look back in time. We see 15 billion years. Looking forward from when the universe is very small ― billions of times smaller ― the Torah says six days. They both may be correct.

What's exciting about the last few years in cosmology is we now have quantified the data to know the relationship of the "view of time" from the beginning, relative to the "view of time" today. It's not science fiction any longer. Any one of a dozen physics text books all bring the same number. The general relationship between time near the beginning when stable matter formed from the light (the energy, the electromagnetic radiation) of the creation) and time today is a million million, that is a trillion fold extension. That's a 1 with 12 zeros after it. It is a unit-less ratio. So when a view from the beginning looking forward says "I'm sending you a pulse every second," would we see it every second? No. We'd see it every million million seconds. Because that's the stretching effect of the expansion of the universe. In astronomy, the term is “red shift.” Red shift in observed astronomical data is standard.

The Torah doesn't say every second, does it? It says Six Days. How would we see those six days? If the Torah says we're sending information for six days, would we receive that information as six days? No. We would receive that information as six million million days. Because the Torah's perspective is from the beginning looking forward.

Six million million days is a very interesting number. What would that be in years? Divide by 365 and it comes out to be 16 billion years. Essentially the estimate of the age of the universe. Not a bad guess for 3300 years ago.

The way these two figures match up is extraordinary. I'm not speaking as a theologian; I'm making a scientific claim. I didn't pull these numbers out of hat. That's why I led up to the explanation very slowly, so you can follow it step-by-step.

Now we can go one step further. Let's look at the development of time, day-by-day, based on the expansion factor. Every time the universe doubles, the perception of time is cut in half. Now when the universe was small, it was doubling very rapidly. But as the universe gets bigger, the doubling time gets longer. This rate of expansion is quoted in "The Principles of Physical Cosmology," a textbook that is used literally around the world.

(In case you want to know, this exponential rate of expansion has a specific number averaged at 10 to the 12th power. That is in fact the temperature of quark confinement, when matter freezes out of the energy: 10.9 times 10 to the 12th power Kelvin degrees divided by (or the ratio to) the temperature of the universe today, 2.73 degrees. That's the initial ratio which changes exponentially as the universe expands.)

The calculations come out to be as follows:

• The first of the Biblical days lasted 24 hours, viewed from the "beginning of time perspective." But the duration from our perspective was 8 billion years.

• The second day, from the Bible's perspective lasted 24 hours. From our perspective it lasted half of the previous day, 4 billion years.

• The third 24 hour day also included half of the previous day, 2 billion years.

• The fourth 24 hour day ― one billion years.

• The fifth 24 hour day ― one-half billion years.

• The sixth 24 hour day ― one-quarter billion years.

When you add up the Six Days, you get the age of the universe at 15 and 3/4 billion years. The same as modern cosmology. Is it by chance?

But there's more. The Bible goes out on a limb and tells you what happened on each of those days. Now you can take cosmology, paleontology, archaeology, and look at the history of the world, and see whether or not they match up day-by-day. And I'll give you a hint. They match up close enough to send chills up your spine.

Thanks to

Dr. Schroeder's book, Genesis and the Big Bang.

The Holy Trinity

In the three persons of the Holy Trinity--- Father, Son and Holy Spirit, there is a definite distinction, but never separation. All three persons have the same will, and the same energy. Not one person of the Trinity ever acts on his own behalf, but always in conjunction with the other two. There is only one God, not three. The distinction between the three persons is to be regarded as an eternal distinction existing within the nature of God Himself, and does not apply merely to the external world. God is not a set of three masks which He uses whenever He sees fit. God is three coeternal and coequal persons. This is a very difficult concept to grasp. According to St. Gregory of Nyssa, the explanation of the Trinity is a riddle--- Three in One, One in Three. "The doctrine of the Trinity is paradoxical, and lies beyond words and understanding. It is something revealed to us by God, not demonstrated to us by our own reason."

God the Father is the fountain of the Godhead, and the other two members are defined in terms of their relationship to the Father. The Son is begotten from the Father, and the Spirit proceeds from the Father. The Father is the sole source of unity in the Godhead. What is exactly the difference between generation and procession? St. John Damascus states, "We have been told that there is a difference between generation and procession, but what is the nature of this difference, we do not understand at all." If St. John Damascus confessed himself baffled, then so may we. Acording to St. Basil the Great, "Our reasoning brain is weak, and our tongue is weaker still. it is easier to measure the entire sea with a tiny cup than to grasp God's ineffable greatness with the human mind."

What we Believe about Salvation (Orthodox)

Excerpts from:

 Introducing The Orthodox Church: Its Faith and Life.  Anthony M. Coniaris, Light and Life Publishing, pages 47-54, 1982.

A question is often addressed to us is: “Are you saved?” There are those who delight in using this question in their Christian witness. It is really not a bad question, for it directs our thinking to an all-important subject. But repeated too often it can become overbearing. There is a story of a man at a baseball game who was looking for an opportunity to share his Christian faith. Finally someone spoke to him. “Is this seat saved?” “No,” Said the man, “are you?”

The three stages of being saved

A very godly bishop was walking down the street one day when a little girl, a very zealous Christian, no doubt, asked him, “Bishop, are you saved?” The bishop, a very kind man, smiled and said, “My dear friend, might I just inquire a little more exactly as to what you are asking me. Are you asking me, have I been saved? Or are you asking me, am I now being saved? Or are you asking me, shall I yet someday be saved?” Well, that pretty much flustered the little girl. She didn’t respond. “Honey, “said the bishop, “All three are true. I have been saved. I am being saved; and I shall yet be saved.” You see, salvation is comprehensive. It has to do with our past--- we have been saved from sin and death through baptism. This we call justification. It has to do with the present--- we are being saved. This has to do with our daily walk and growth in the life of Christ and the Spirit. This we call sanctification. And salvation has to do also with our final glory in Christ. As Paul said, “When Christ who is our life appears, then also you will appear with Him in glory” (Col. 3:4). That we call glorification.

Another bishop when asked the question, “Have you been saved?” replied, “I have.” “And when were you saved?” he was asked. The bishop replied immediately “On a Friday afternoon at three o’clock in the spring of the year 33 A.D. on a hill outside the city of Jerusalem.”

That is when we were all saved, but God will not force this salvation upon us, we must--- each of us--- accept it personally as the great gift of God’s love. We were saved in baptism which is our personal Golgotha. Baptism is the tomb where “we were baptized into His death” (Rom. 6:3); it is also the womb from which we were born anew receiving within us the life of Christ.

Work out your salvation

We were saved at baptism but we must continue to “work out” our salvation for the rest of our lives by daily serving, loving, obeying, and following Jesus.

When you stand before God’s alter to be married, you are pronounced man and wife in the Lord. You are married right there and then. No one can argue that point.  But it is equally true that you will work out your marriage from that moment on till the end of your life together. As two wills seek to become one, your marriage becomes what God ordained it to be.

In Jeremiah 3:14 the Lord said to His people, “I am married to you.” Our relationship to God is like a marriage relationship. More than anything else God wants our love, our heart. He wants us! In the Christian life, as in marriage, two wills are involved; God’s will and ours. Jesus constantly yielded His will to the Father. It was the last thing He did before He went to the cross. That kind of obedience is not easy. And it is not something we can do once and forget. It is a way  of life--- a constant yielding of our will to God’s will daily. Each time we choose God’s will we are working out our salvation. In the words of St. Paul, “Therefore, my beloved… work out your own salvation with fear and trembling” (Phil. 2:12).

A Constant moving toward God

In Orthodox theology salvation is not static but dynamic; it is not a completed state, a state of having arrived, a state of having made it, but a constant moving toward theosis, toward becoming like Christ, toward receiving the fullness of God’s life. And it can never be achieved fully in this life.

A Cry for Salvation

People today are not running to church with the question: “What must I do to be saved?” But when they run to psychiatrists, when they take doses of drugs, when they drown themselves with alcochol, when they try to resign from the human race, when they complain that life is not worth living and try to commit suicide, what are they doing but confessing a need--- a need to be saved from themselves, from the sin and death of their daily existence.

An Inner salvation

The salvation we are looking for is not to be found in education, or politics, or economics but in Christ. It is a spiritual, an inner salvation, which in turn produces and outer salvation. Changed people produce a changed society. The peace and fulfillment we are searching for can be found in a relationship to God that only Jesus can bring. “Peace I leave with you, “ He said, “my peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you (John 14:27).

What is Salvation

What does it mean to be saved? What is salvation in Christ? Salvation is freedom--- freedom from the tyranny of self-centerdness, freedom from the bondage of fear and death.

Salvation in Christ is being freed from myself so that I can become the person God created me to be and intends me to become.

Salvation is God lifting us up in Christ Jesus. It is God giving us hope. It is God working an unrelenting work in our personalities, in our characters, in our lives. It is God not giving up on us.

Salvation according to Orthodox theology is not the state of “I have arrived. I have made it. I am saved.” Rather, it is the state of “I am moving. I am growing in God, for God, with God, and through the power of God.”

Saved by Grace

St. Paul assures us that we are saved by grace through faith. Let us examine first the word grace: What is it? Grace is a gift rather than a wage we can earn. It cannot be deserved. Sin give wages. God gives grace. “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus or Lord” (Rom. 6:23) “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and this is not your own doing, it is a gift of God--- not because of works, lest any man should boast” (Eph. 2:8).

There is a story about a man who went to heaven. He was met at the pearly gates by Peter, who said, “It will take 1000 points for you to be admitted. The good works you did during your lifetime will determine your points.”

The man said, “Unless I was sick, I attended church every Sunday, and I sang in the choir.”

“That will be 50 points,” Peter said.

“And I gave to the church liberally,”  the man added.

“That is worth 25 more points,” said Peter.

The man, realizing that he had only 75 points, started getting desperate. “I taught a Sunday school class,” he said. “That’s a great work for God.”

“Yes,” Said Peter. “That’s worth 25 points.”

The man was frantic. “You know,” he said, “at this rate the only way I’m going to heaven is by the Grace of God.”

Peter smiled. “that’s 900 points! Come on in!”

In this world we get what we pay for, people say. Do we? What can we ever pay for the grace of God? What can we ever pay for His love? What can we ever pay for His sacrifice on the cross?

Grace is the unlimited pouring out of God’s mercy. It is God’s unconditional forgiveness offered to the unworthy. It is God accepting us as His children in Baptism, filling us with His Holy Spirit in Confirmation, and then sending Jesus to live in our hearts through Holy Communion. It is God loving us when we are unlovable. “But God shows His love for us in that while we were yet sinners Christ die for us” (Rom. 5:8).

A word about good works and our salvation

The person who has accepted Christ, been baptized and received the Holy Spirit begins a new life which is expressed in love through good deeds. A person is not saved by faith alone but by faith which expresses itself through love as St. Paul writes. St. James asks, “What does it profit, my brethren, if man says he has faith but has no works? Can his faith save him? If a brother or sister is ill-clad and in lack of daily food, and one of you says to them ‘Go in peace, be warmed and filled,’ without giving then the things needed for the body, what does it profit? So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead” (James 2:14-17).

Not Meritorious

The good works that we do, do not earn us any special merit points in heaven.  We can never buy God’s love with them since Jesus specifically tells us: “So you also, when you have done all that is commanded you say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done what was our duty’ “(Luke 17:10).

Our Good deeds do not put God in our debt. It is God’s love in Christ that puts us forever in His debt. Our good deeds are a grateful response, a feeble attempt on our part to show appreciation to God for what He has done for us. We can never fully accomplish all that we should do, but neither should we stop trying. Love will not let us. “The love of Christ controls us, “ says Paul (2 Cor. 5:14).

Created for good works

Paul writes in Ephesians 2:10, “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” This verse seems to contradict the one just before it: “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and this is not your own doing, it is a gift of God--- not because of works lest any man boast” (Ephesians 2:8-9). One verse says: “You have been saved… not because of works,” and the next says: “Created in Christ Jesus for good works.”

A new creation produces new works

Far from contradicting each other, these verses give us the Orthodox Christian position concerning good works. Good works do not produce salvation, but salvation produces good works. We are not saved because of good works, but we are saved for good works. Christ makes each one of us a new creation, a new being. The new being, through the power of the indwelling Trinity, produces new works. Christ does not begin by changing our deeds. He begins by changing us. The good deeds flow by God’s grace out of the new person.

A showplace of good deeds

The early Church was a showplace of good works done for Christ. Having been made a new creation in Christ, those early Christians began to produce new deeds that astounded the pagan world.

In one of the earliest apologetic works preserved, Justin the Martyr (d. 165), writes:

“We used to value above all else money and possession; now we bring together all that we have and share it with those who are in need (cf. Acts 4:34-37). Formerly we hated and killed one another and, because of a difference in nationality or custom, we refused to admit strangers within our gates. We pray for our enemies and seek to convert those who hate us unjustly…” (I Apology VIV).

Tertullian (160-220) said: “It is our care for the helpless, our practice of lovingkindness, that brands us in the eye of many of our opponents. ‘Only look,’ they say, ‘look how they love one another’” (Apology XXXIX).

“And let our people learn to apply themselves to good deeds, so as to help cases or urgent need, and not to be unfruitful.” These words of St. Paul…

excerpt by Fr. Theodore Paraskevopoulos on The Trinity

Fr. Theodore Paraskevopoulos

Who is God?

Who is Jesus Christ?

What is the Gospel?

Holy Trinity: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.

How can there be one God and yet be three personalities?

God is love. God is the ultimate expression of love. Well, if we think logically, He has to be a community. He has to be three persons. Why? Because you cannot have love on your own. You cannot be all by yourself and love yourself: that is ego, that is evil. True love is selfless love; you have to express it. You have to have at least one other person to show that love, to sacrifice for that person. How can God be love if He is only one?  He is one God in essence, but He is three Persons; He is a community to show us how to love in a community. So this is one of the reasons why there is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

This is how my professor explained it:

He lit a candle for me and he placed it in front of me.

“Do you see this flame?”

 I said, “yes.”

Well, if you look at the flame, you can think of God the Father as the actual fire; He is the source of all things. But there is not just the flame there is also the light that comes from the fire, the light which hits our eye and allows us to perceive the fire, the flame. This is God the Son, Jesus Christ, because He comes into the world. The only reason why we see God is because Christ comes into the world so the son comes in and becomes visible to us and He reveals to us who God the Father is, who the Holy Spirit is. As we read the Gospel of John, you’ll see that Christ always says, He who has seen Me has seen the Father.  And so you have the flame which is God the Father, the light which comes from it, which is Christ coming into the world and you also have the heat, and the heat is felt but not seen. And the heat could be likened to the Holy Spirit because the Holy Spirit we do not see it come and go as Christ says in the Gospel of John, The Spirit comes as the wind, you do not see it but you feel it. And the Holy Spirit is what gives us the ability to believe. It gives us the spark of faith. It allows us to feel the presence of God. And so all these three things are all one fire, one flame, you cannot separate the three; you cannot separate the light and put it on its own and the flame on its own and the heat… all of them exist, they are all part of one fire. But at the same time they are also the three different, distinct elements. In the same way we can think of the Holy Spirit that there is one God, one essence, one will, one plan for mankind, and yet there are different expressions of that there are different personalities that are revealed to mankind so that we may know God in His entirety to have a deeper relationship to Him so that we can grow because in the Old Testament God was very far off, He was very distant, He was someone you never saw but He only spoke to you. But in the New Testament, We have God in human form. He becomes one with us and this is the great mystery of Christianity and this is the great beauty of Christianity. And so it begins with knowing exactly who is this God that we worship. Why do we say that He is a Trinity? What has been revealed to us by Him Himself and this is what we hold true.

thanks to Ancient Faith Radio

http://ancientfaith.com/podcasts/isermon/the_trinity

Baptism, Infants and Salvation

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"Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, to the close of the age."
Matthew 28:19-20

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Some Christians claim that according to the Bible, we do not need to be baptized in order to be saved, i.e. go to heaven. They claim that accepting Jesus Christ as personal Lord and Savior is enough (sufficient) for our personal salvation. Even some consider the Catholic Church a cult for teaching on the necessity of baptism for salvation. On a similar issue, some object to infant baptism, claiming it to be invalid since an infant is too young to willfully accept Jesus.

To address these issues on baptism, we need to begin with the words of Jesus recorded in the Gospels. First in John's Gospel, Jesus said:

"Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit (i.e. baptized), he cannot enter the kingdom of God." [John 3:5; RSV]

In Mark's Gospel just before Christ ascended into heaven, He told His disciples:

"He who believes and is baptized will be saved; but he who does not believe will be condemned." [Mark 16:16]

At the end of Matthew's Gospel, Christ commanded the Apostles to baptize all people "in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit." [Matt. 28:19] This command from Jesus would be a waste of time if we were saved by merely accepting or trusting in Him.

In the second chapter of Acts, the Apostles were filled with the Holy Spirit. St. Peter stood up and addressed the crowd. After telling them that God made Jesus, whom they crucified, both Lord and Messiah, they were shakened and asked "what shall we do?" St. Peter answered:

"Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is to you and to your children and to all that are far off, every one whom the Lord our God calls to Him." [Acts 2:38-39]

It is interesting to note that baptism and repentance are both connected to the forgiveness of personal sins - a key step towards salvation. Also noteworthy, this promise includes children; no age requirements are stated. The only requirement stated is "every one whom the Lord our God calls to Him" and not whoever is old enough to accept Jesus. Later St. Peter also wrote:

...in the days of Noah,...eight persons were saved through water. Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a clear conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ,... [1 Peter 3:20-21]

This Bible passage explicitly states that baptism "now saves you."

St. Paul also taught on the importance of baptism for salvation. In Acts 16:25-34, the jailer of Paul and Silas asked, "Men, what must I do to be saved?" [Acts 16:30]. Paul and Silas verbally replied:

"Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household." [Acts 16:31]

However, almost immediately during the midnight hour, Paul and Silas continued their answer not by words but by action:

...and he (the jailer) was baptized at once, with all his family. [Acts 16:33]

Now these baptisms were performed with a sense of urgency. If baptism were not necessary for salvation, then why did St. Paul baptize the jailer and his family almost immediately during the midnight hour? Since baptism is a one-time event for a person, it was more expedient for St. Paul to simply baptize the whole family than to tell the jailer that baptism is necessary for salvation.

This particular passage leads into the second issue: infant baptism. Even though the Bible does not directly address the issue of infant baptism, it does record the baptisms of three different families. As quoted above all of the jailer's family were baptized (Acts 16:33). Also the family of Lydia (Acts 16:15) and the family of Stephanas (1 Cor 1:16) were baptized. Typically a family includes children. These three passages infer infant baptism, even though they may not explicitly indicate the baptism of children. There are no indications that only adults were involved. Now it is possible that a family may be childless; however, the chance that these three families had at least one young child is greater than the chance that all three had no children. A Christian, who objects to infant baptism, must interpret these three Bible passages with the assumption that each family had no young children.

Some may object to infant baptism since they claim that a person receiving it should be able to believe or have faith in Christ. Supposedly infants and young children cannot believe in Christ. Christ actually makes reference to little children who believe:

...but whoever causes one of these little ones who believes in me to sin... [Matt 18:6]

Elsewhere Jesus said:

"Let the children come to me, and do not hinder them; for to such belongs the kingdom of God. Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it. [Luke 18:16-17; also see Matt 11:25]

According to Jesus little children not only can believe but can have a faith superior to adults. Finally heaven may belong to children but we can still hinder their encounter with Jesus.

It should be stressed that nowhere in the Bible does it condemn infant baptism. Likewise nowhere in the Bible does it explicitly state that only adult baptisms are valid. St. Paul in Col. 2:11-12 actually compares baptism to circumcision - an important religious ceremony for infant boys. (Jewish circumcision is anatomically inappropriate for girls.) St. Irenaeus in 190 A.D. acknowledged infant baptism in his book, Against Heresies (II 22:4). The custom of infant baptism dates back to the time of the Apostles as witnessed by Origen in the third century. St. Cyprian of Carthage in the third century and St. John Chrysostom in the fourth century encouraged infant baptism. It should be noted that during the third century, Christians were still dying for the faith and did not tolerate any novel teachings. Finally some may still object since the Bible does not record an actual infant baptism. However it should be remembered that St. John admitted to the fact that not everything Jesus or the Apostles did or taught were written down in the Bible (John 20:30; 21:25; 2 John 12; 3 John 13-14).

Now what happens to infants who die unbaptized? The answer to this question has not been revealed by God; however, we can be confident in God's justice and mercy that they are not condemned to hell. The "Limbo of Children" is theological speculation and has not been defined as doctrine by the Church.

It must be rightfully understood that we are saved by grace - a free gift from God due to Christ's death on the cross (Acts 15:11; Eph 2:8). We are not merely saved by accepting Jesus as our personal Lord and Savior (Matt 7:21-23). Our faith in Christ, our acceptance of Jesus as Lord and Savior, our good works and our repentance of personal sins are the fruits of actual grace - God working through us but respecting our free will (Phil 2:12-13; John 15:5; 2 Cor 6:1). Through baptism we are born again by receiving sanctifying grace which makes us right with God (1 Cor 6:11). Whether we are baptized as adults or our parents baptized us as infants, salvation is still a free gift - an inheritance (1Cor 6:9-10). Whether adults or infants, we cannot accept Christ or even salvation without God's grace. However as adults we can freely reject God's grace and salvation through sin. Baptism does not earn or guarantee our salvation. Even though eternal life in Christ Jesus (salvation) is a free gift, we can still earn death (damnation) through serious, willful sin (Rom 6:23; Heb 10:26-27; 1 John 5:16-17; Gal 5:19-21; 1 Cor 6:9-10).

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thanks to

http://users.binary.net/polycarp/baptism.html

Quote by C.S. Lewis ~ peace and happiness apart from God

God cannot give us a happiness and peace apart from Himself, because it is not there. There is no such thing.


C. S. Lewis
1898-1963