Over the years I've been grateful to Fr. Stephen Freeman for reminding us, repeatedly, of the scriptural and patristic truth that Salvation is union with God in Christ, and not anything else.
Not long ago, he wrote this:
The Orthodox faith teaches that we are saved by communion – in particular, communion with Christ. When a person is being baptized they are asked three times by the priest: “Do you unite yourself to Christ?”... Every sacrament of the Church is about union with Christ, or union with another human being (marriage). It is predicated on the possibility of true communion and participation.
The claim that this is true and possible distinguishes Orthodox Christianity from virtually every form of contemporary Christian believing. It is the foundation of the sacramental world of the Church...
Living in such a manner that this communion is made manifest in our lives is the entire purpose of the Orthodox Christian life.
Just a day after reading his essay, I came across this in 1 Corinthians:
The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ? Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread. (1 Cor 10:16-17, ESV)
I wondered what Greek word "participation" translates, and looked it up: it's κοινωνία (koinonia), also translated as communion.
Then I turned to the passage in 2 Peter that so perfectly expresses our call to this union:
His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire. (2 Peter 1:3-4, ESV)
Sure enough, "partakers" is κοινωνοὶ (koinonoi), the related noun form.
"Do you unite yourself to Christ?"
"I do unite myself to Christ!"
Amen.
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Image: Christ communing the Apostles.
(Aside: In my Greek course at the protestant seminary, we were taught to pronounce it Koy-no-NEE-a; in Church, we say Kee-no-NEE-a. In my pre-Orthodox days, the translation I encountered most often was "fellowship," as used in Clarence Jordan's remarkable Koinonia Farm and its offshoots.)
IC XC NIKA
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