Salvation in Christ: A Lutheran-Orthodox Dialogue

"Here the concepts of the church as the eucharistic community extending through time and space, salvation as forgiveness and newness of life, and the authority of revelation as enacting the salvation event are mutually integral." Paul R. Hinlicky, Toward integrating theosis and justification by faith Temporal Vs. Eternal Salvation: "One of the greatest semantic misunderstandings concerns the way in which the terms 'salvation','atonement', and 'redemption' are used by Roman Catholics. Protestants have a distinctive and narrowly focused set of meanings for these terms. When they read Catholic documents that use these terms in larger senses, it appears to them that Catholics are stating teachings that deny the sufficiency of Christ's cross; reading a Catholic book one encounters the expression that one may atone for one's iniquity by faithfulness and love, and would have an attack of apoplexy. "No one can atone for own sins!" they would exclaim, "That is a denial of the sufficiency of the cross. Only Christ atone for us!" "Since it is true that only Christ can atone for our sins in one sense, we must therefore conclude that Proverbs 16:6, "By love and faithfulness iniquity is atoned for, and by the fear of the Lord a man avoids evil," is speaking of atonement in a different sense. And since only Christ can atone for the eternal effects of our sins, we must conclude that Proverbs 16 speaks of love and faithfulness resulting in a non-eternal atoning for sin; in other words, a temporal atonement rather than an eternal one.(James Akin, Temporal and Eternal Salvation,(c)1996) Synergy in Salvation: Both Lutherans and Orthodox teach that divine grace operates universally and that God freely grants grace to all human beings. God's saving grace does not operate by necessity or in an irresistible manner, since human beings can reject it. Regarding the way in which salvation is appropriated by the believers, Lutherans, by teaching that justification and salvation are by grace alone through faith (sola gratia, sola fide), stress the absolute priority of divine grace in salvation. ...The Orthodox also affirm the absolute priority of divine grace. They underline that it is God's grace which enables our human will to conform to the divine will (Phil 2:13) in the steps of Jesus praying, "not as I will but as You will" (Matt. 26:39), so that we may work out our salvation in fear and trembling ( Phil. 2:12). This is what the Orthodox mean by "synergy" (working together) of divine grace and the human will of the believer in the appropriation of the divine life in Christ. The understanding of synergy in salvation is helped by the fact that the human will in the one person of Christ was not abolished when the human nature was united in Him with the divine nature,... While Lutherans do not use the concept of synergy, they recognize the personal responsibility of the human being in the acceptance or refusal of divine grace through faith, and in the growth of faith

Edited by two respected theologians, this collection of essays examines Christ "for us" and "in us," representing two approaches to soteriology. Topics include: Anthropology in Christ, Orthodox Soteriology, Slavation as Justification and Theosis, Divine Initiative and the necessity of grace, Free will and original sin, free will and the two natures of Christ, the image of God in Lutheranism, Election from the Lutheran view, Election: the Biblical/Orthodox View and finally, predestination and divine foreknowledge. This is a very handy book for serious ecumenists or Lutherans seeking to better understand their Eastern brothers in Christ (and vice versa).