Salvation

OBJECTIVE

God's promise of a Savior
God's "divine dilemma"
God as a Savior
My Salvation
I am a new creation

INTRODUCTION

If you were God, what would you do after seeing Adam and Eve disobey you?

Any parent does not want to see their child fail, be in danger or see their child go astray. God is no different. In seeing His children disobey His commandments, seeing His children reject Him, go astray and separate themselves from Him, God was still faithful and full of love towards His creation.

He was, however, left with a dilemma. The punishment for eating of the tree of knowledge of good and evil was death. However, God loves His children and does not want to see them die. If they don't die, then God would then be a liar. If they do die, God's centerpiece and masterpiece of creation dies.

This is what St. Athanasius called the "divine dilemma" in (cf. On the Incarnation)

HOLY SCRIPTURE

"Because you the serpent have done this, you are cursed more than all cattle, and more than every beast of the field; On your belly you shall go, and you shall eat dust all the days of your life. And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heel." To the woman He said: "I will greatly multiply your sorrow and your conception; In pain you shall bring forth children; your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you." (Genesis 3:15-16)
And so it is written, "The first man Adam became a living being." The last Adam became a life-giving spirit. (1 Corinthians 15:45)
But now Christ is risen from the dead, and has become the firstfruits of those who have dfallen asleep. For since by man came death, by Man also came the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ all shall be made alive. But each one in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, afterward those who are Christ's at His coming. (1 Corinthians 15:20-23)
For when we were still without strength, din due time Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die; yet perhaps for a good man someone would even dare to die. But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him. For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life. And not only that, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the reconciliation. (Romans 5:6-11)

CONTENT (KEY POINTS)

The Promise of a Savior

Despite man's sin and fall, God had a divine plan for salvation. While addressing the serpent, God gives humanity hope through, what is largely regarded as, the "first preaching of the Gospel" (i.e. the "protoevangelium;" proto meaning "first," evangelium meaning "Gospel/Good News"):

"And I will put enmity between you and the woman, And between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise your head, And you shall bruise His heel."

According to St. Irenaeus, these verses can be read as a prefiguring of the victory of Christ over the devil. Christ warred against the serpent, healing all who were oppressed by the devil and finally casting Satan down from authority through His Cross. Christ was revealed as the "Seed" who would come from the Holy Virgin through His Incarnation, His "heel was bruised" through His Crucifixion, but as a result, He "crushed the head" of the devil by trampling down death by His own death and Resurrection.

These verses reveal the immensity of God's love for humanity, that even before all of Creation, God intended the Incarnation from the beginning and that Christ's sacrifice was "foreordained before the foundation of the world." Even in the pronouncement of the just sentence of condemnation for Adam and Eve's sin, God took care to comfort them with an assurance of eventual victory over the evil that ensnared them.

The Divine Dilemma and its Solution through Christ

St. Athanasius describes the Divine Dilemma as the different problems that would rise if God let man die or if He tried to save mankind. St. Athanasius said that if man does not die, then God is a liar. If God allows man to die, then His work is ruined. It is not worthy of God's goodness that man should waste away. Why did God create man if they were just going to die? If God does not save us Adam, then does that mean He's weak since He's incapable of saving man? If the consequence of death doesn't hold, then, again, God would be a liar. Man couldn't just repent because they were under the sentence of death, and repentance could not change the nature of man that had become corrupt through sin.

The solution to the divine dilemma was that Christ must be incarnate as man, to die and defeat death in His death, to recreate the image of God in mankind. St. Cyril of Alexandria comments on the salvation through Christ, which was known since the beginning:

The grace that is in Christ was given before all ages, and that those who would be conformed to the image of His Son were evidently foreknown and predestined by God the Father. For the manner of the Incarnation, as I said, was foreknown, and the deliverance from infirmity was administered at the proper time.

When mankind sinned, the image of God in man was distorted, like if a portrait of a man fell into mud. The image of that man is still there, but under layers of dirt. The nature of the painting is much different than before, and doesn't have the glory it once had. The artist would need to call the man so he could paint his image once more on the portrait.

Christ is both the artist and the man in the portrait, while we are the canvas in which His image is painted. Christ, Who created us in His image, came so that we may be a new creation in Him, and so the image may be clear without distortion. Therefore, in Christ we are born again through "water and spirit."

Adam was like Christ, being the beginning of the human race. However, when man sinned, Christ came, being the second Adam, to redeem Adam and his race. St. Basil said Christ came to restore mankind to his original condition:

The human being will come again to his original condition, rejecting evil, this life of many troubles, the soul's enslavement involving life's concerns; putting aside all these things, he will return to that life in paradise unenslaved to the passions of the flesh, free, intimate with God, with the same way of life as the angels.

God never left us alone, but prepared us through the law and prophets that we may be ready according to the "dispensation of the fullness of time" to receive Christ. He gave us the law to teach us that sin leads to death, and showed us that we need to depend on God in order to have salvation. He prepared our hearts and our minds so that when Christ took flesh, many would believe in His name and become children of God.

APPLICATION (Action)

What does Christ dying on the cross do for me - How does His death equate to my salvation?

Through Jesus taking on our humanity, He becomes a bridge between us and God.

God the Son, being divine, takes on flesh to Himself meaning He unites flesh to His divinity without mingling, confusion or alteration, becoming fully God and fully man

He takes upon Himself the death that's due to us. He dies because of us and for us. When He died, His humanity never separated from His divinity for a moment. Therefore, death could never conquer or contain God. In Jesus' victory is our victory because He shares that with us. Christ is the new Adam and recreates us and renews humanity or the "image and likeness" of humanity in Himself.

In the first Adam, we took death, However in Jesus, who is the second Adam (cf. 1 Corinthians 15:45), we take life - these new conditions are shared to us through faith and the mysteries that keep us in union with Him.

We are united through Him through the mysteries of the Church. So that His life is our life. We are renewed, restored, recreated through Christ as the second Adam or the first fruits

How is His conquering of death shared with us

Sin and death still exist in the world but no longer have the power as they did in the OT, unless we choose it. We still have the freedom to turn from the source of Life or remain. Now we have the possibility of repentance. What we received in baptism is renewed in repentance/confession

Our recreation or renewal of mankind was not fully accomplished at the cross but also includes the Ascension (bringing mankind back in the Garden and before God) and Pentecost (receiving the Holy Spirit). Thus we return back to the first Adam, even better.

All of these works of God grant us salvation, healing, power, grace, and gifts which complete God's plan to sanctify and perfect us

DISCUSSION/ACTIVITY

Compare the ploys of the devil towards Adam and Eve and see how Christ conquered them and restored/recreated mankind:

Devil implies that God is a liar - Christ taught us who God is; the ultimate revelation of God; The Logos and express image of God the Father (Hebrews 1:2-3)
Devil has us question God's love for us - Christ is incarnate, suffer and dies (cf. Romans 5:8)
Devil implies that God hides things from us - God gives us Himself (John 3:16)
Through the devil came lies - Through Jesus came grace and truth (John 1:14,17)
Through the devil came death - Through Jesus came life (John 10:10)
Through the devil, Adam and Eve transgressed the law - Jesus fulfilled all the law
Through the fall came banishment from Paradise - Jesus raises us to Heaven and sits at the right hand of God the Father; through Jesus came the opportunity of Heaven
Through the devil came sin (separation from God) - God came and "dwelt among us" (John 1:14). In Jesus, we have a Mediator (1 Timothy 2:5); through Jesus came grace: the giving of Himself in us; joining us to Himself (through the mysteries of the Church)
Through the devil came eviction from the garden - through Christ we are joined to the One Body of God.
Through the fall, we lost the opportunity of the tree of life - through Christ, we are given the Tree of Life: the Church.
Through the fall, we lost God the Holy Spirit and lost the image and likeness of God - Through the resurrection, we are able to receive Him once more and return to the image and likeness of God.

God went through great lengths to save us, restore us, recreate us. In seeing this sacrificial plan full of and driven by love for mankind, let's take a minute to stop and take this in.

How great God loves us.

There is no sin too great, that God cannot heal us from. There is not a moment that God will tell us that He doesn't love us or want us.

If He did all this to save us from sin, do you really think that there is something you can do in which He would reject you from coming back to Him?

Oh, how He pursues us with love.

As a Good Shepherd, You have sought after that which had gone astray. As a true father, you have labored with me, I who had fallen.
You have bound me with all the remedies that lead to life. You are He who has sent to me the prophets for my sake, I the sick. You have given me the Law as a help.
You are He who ministered salvation to me when I disobeyed Your Law. As true light, You have shone upon the lost and the ignorant. Liturgy of St. Gregory

What great lengths God goes for each one of us because He truly does love us.

SERVANT RESOURCES

See attached below.