This is a very good presentation of the difference between the Protestant and the Orthodox view of salvation.
youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=WosgwLekgn8
We might have discussed this before, but I’d like to review it again with everyone. What do you think of the presentation? What would you say are the key differences between the views?
That is a magnificent exposition. Thanks for sharing it.
One of the primary, if not THE primary difference between the views, imo, is the concept that because of God’s holiness He cannot look on sin and thus turns his back on humanity. And yet, that’s not what we see in scripture. In the Garden, when Adam and Eve sinned, God sought them out, found them though they hid from Him, a spoke a promise of restoration to them though they must endure the consequences of their sin. It is God that seeks us out, not we who seek God.
I’m reminded of Paul in Rom. 3 quoting a compilation of passages from the Psalms, Prophets, Solomon, and even Jesus bemoaning the state of humanity!
10b (Ps.14 & 53 :1-3, )“None is righteous, no, not one;
11 no one understands;
no one seeks for God.
12 All have turned aside; together they have become worthless;
no one does good,
not even one.”
13 (Ps.5:9)“Their throat is (Jer.5:16)an open grave;
they use their tongues to deceive.”
(Ps.140:3)“The venom of asps is under their lips.”
14 (Ps.10:7)“Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness.”
15 (Prov.1:15-17 and Is. 59:7-8)“Their feet are swift to shed blood;
16 in their paths are ruin and misery,
17 and (Lk.1:79)the way of peace they have not known.”
18 (Ps.36:1)“There is no fear of God before their eyes.”
Talk about “prooftexting” to make a point, wow! Paul had a tremendous revelation of just how wicked we are, how much selfishness permeates our being pollutes us to the core. Everything we do, say, are is polluted like runoff from a pig farm. And yet God loves us! Paul understood this because he was bound in the most deceptive of all evil - religious bondage based on self-righteousness, legalism! I understand this mindset for I was raised in it, taught the attitudes and thinking of legalism from childhood. In our little group (non-denominational denomination), we weren’t sure we were saved; but we were supremely confidant that everyone else not in our group was lost! We had the corner market on truth and if everyone else was honest with themselves, they’s see things the way we do and submit to the laws of Christ like we do, or at least like we tried to.
I thank God regularly that He sought me out in my sin, saved me, and is working to deliver me from this and so much more evil. When Paul said he was the chiefest of sinners, I don’t think he was speaking in hyperbole, but he really meant it for he had a revelation of just how wicked and evil he really was!
There are some Protestant traditions which hew more toward the Eastern Orthodox notion of God seeking the lost instead of being repulsed by and permanently abandoning (or driving away) the lost – which seems more connected to the ancient Roman legalism inherited by the West.
Having said that, to be fair after the fall of Rome, and even before then, the East was the Roman Empire, and remained that way as Byzantium for centuries more. Still, Protestantism was influenced by, as well as reactive against, older Roman Catholic views of God’s relationship to sinners. Imperial legalism didn’t quite infect the East as much for whatever reasons, despite longer exposure to it. Ironically, modern Roman Catholicism is far less legalistic in its notion of God’s relation to sinners than some Protestant strands!
Yes, we talked about this video awhile back. And our [tag]RevDrew[/tag] made his own version with sunglasses – as sunglasses are more portable than chairs. 
youtube.com/watch?v=r8y7d_0n … e=youtu.be
Sonia