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As someone one month into my EO catechism, I have never been more fervent for all things Christ centered. Glory to God for bringing me to swallow my pride and research church history. Christ is risen and all Glory to Triune God
It’s only the beginning too man, keep diving and you’ll just keep seeing more and more, that the grace, the spirituality, the wisdom and the practical way of life is so far beyond what Protestantism could ever give, may God bless you on your journey into his Church
Glory God for that brother, my wife, my 1 year old daughter and I are catechumens ourselves at a Greek Orthodox Monestary coming from a reformed Calvinist background and we thank God for softening our hard hearts and have been so blessed by Christs church. You can’t explain it in words 🙏🏻☦️
@@dolphinitely_bro3944 I still remember thinking “WHAT!” Now, if I attend church with family (non orthodox), I’m so disappointed. It’s like someone giving you a sip of water when you are really thirsty and that sip isn’t cutting it
Living under the terrifying law is why my wife and I became so disillusioned in college and stopped going to any church for a year. Then my brother-in-law took us to an Orthodox Church, and we began a journey that took a few years but entered the Orthodox Church in 1998.
I was raised non-denominational but that underlying fear was still there in the theology I was around as a kid. Left Behind/rapture theology I think really made it stick as well.
Excellent discussion! I’m a former Protestant Evangelical, and before I came to a faith in Christ at age 25, two years earlier I read 3/4 of the Bible, and felt inadequate, as if there was a bar to high that I couldn’t reach. Who would date me if I didn’t have sex outside of marriage (I thought)? I put the Bible down never to pick it up until I came to faith in Christ. There was a remorse for my sin and then a sense of freedom gained when I expressed faith. My life turned around somewhat. But, after 25 years as a Protestant, God moved me toward the Church Fathers, and then into the Orthodox Church finding home. I describe it this way now, as a Protestant I heard about Christ and embraced the content of the message, yet as an Orthodox Christian it’s as if I’m meeting with the risen Christ in the Orthodox Church.
What he said at 27:50 about "coffee and good times" reminded me of when I was 12 years old at a megachurch scarfing down no less than 5 donuts every Sunday after service. Some Sundays it was 8. Lord have mercy.
That would be fantastic. We should email him. Many Protestant pastors have resisted public dialogue. We only know of one Protestant apologist who has consistently been open to Orthodox-Protestant dialogue.
@@Submission2OrthodoxyJay Dyer comes off way too harsh and I think because of his brash personality, it would distract from the actual conversation. I would also love to see more reformed speaking with Orthodox, that would be wonderful. Grant this Lord! Thank you The Transfigured Life. Your content is truly wonderful. 🙏🏽
Peter didn’t want to leave either during the Transfiguration, but Christ led them back down the mountain and eventually the Great Commision to bring the Kingdom of God to earth.
@@justina6045 Amen, glory to God for your love of church history. Continue having healthy conversations with your EO friend. Keep digging my brother. ☦
Amen. I'm currently keeping my brother's church while he's out. It is absolutely ridiculous how irreverent and self focused things have become. Not to mention the overgrown children having power struggles to control the church. I left organized religion 8 years ago, and had no intention of going back. I discovered Orthodoxy a couple of years ago, and I've been working through everything. As soon as I can give his church back I have every intention of joining the Orthodox Church.
25:33 I still hear this kind putting the fear of God in people type teaching/preaching or the focus of “God’s wrath” in some church. Mainly reformed Baptist where Calvinism is equated to the gospel and it’s all about His wrath and His glory. It’s really twisted.
Have you ever had a confessional Lutheran on your channel? From what i understand they dont follow everything the classic Luther teachings. They were named Lutherans as a pejorative and they just kept the name. So while they claim Sola fide they mean it differently than say an evangelical or something who think you just have to assent to faith. Confessional Lutherans believe in works I'm pretty sure.
It’s unfortunate when a former Protestant doesn’t know Protestant doctrines. Theosis or Christification is taught by the Lutherans. We are divine partakers with Christ.
Are you aware of how Lutheran's understanding of theosis or christification differs from that of the Orthodox? Lutherans reject the essence and energies distinction. Therefore, although verbal credence is given to Theosis in the Lutheran tradition because it's clear the Fathers and scripture reveal the theology, Lutherans don't have a consistent theology to teach such a doctrine. In what ontological way is the Lutheran protestant becoming a partaker of the divine nature and not the 4th person of the Godhead? Do you see how plucking one aspect of Orthodox theology but not embracing all of it wholesale can be problematic.
Not to mention the issue of Total Depravity. Luther never saw any good in man and therefore Theosis as the True Church know it is not possible in Lutheranism.
Protestants and everyone else are saved by grace though faith. Ex-Protestants seem to have a bone to pick with faith and Orthodoxy provides that outlet.
Giving verbal credence to something doesn't necessarily mean all who call themselves Christians mean the same thing regarding those terms. A simple example is the word "grace." Protestants and Orthodox approach grace in two completely different ways. For Protestants, grace is often seen as an unmerited favor, focusing on salvation through faith alone (sola fide). In contrast, the Orthodox Church views God's grace as God's uncreated energies. Grace in the Ancient Church has a transformative power that works through the sacraments and leads to (theosis)-becoming gods by grace. That's why some protestants can see the sacraments as a mere symbol, and oddly a more high-church protestant who sees it as more than that will still consider that low church protestant a Christian even though they reject an essential doctrine of the Christian faith. The early church would never have such loose boundaries because the church was instituted by God himself. Christ only established one Church, and she's still here.
Is their anything assurance of salvation within orthodoxy? Like, i know the doctrine of eternal security isn't held too, but is their assurance in any sense?
I’m not a representative of the Orthodox Church, so take this comment with a grain of salt. In orthodoxy, you are in a relationship with Jesus Christ and his church. Like any relationship, both parties need to show they love one another. God shows us he loves us in an infinite amount but it is up to us to show we love Him. We do this through faithfulness/loyalty to God. In a marriage, we have assurance that the person we love wouldn’t just leave us because we know them. We know Christ through prayer, the church community, and cooperation with the Holy Spirit to generate a new heart within us with the law of God written on it. We are saved from sin, death, and demonic influence through our relationship with Christ. If we love God with all our heart, mind, and strength we maintain that relationship by keeping his commandments and truly repenting of our sins. I have never been a Protestant, but I try to understand their perspective on the matter. It is completely foreign to me so it is difficult but I can try articulate what I can. The Protestant perspective is not relational. You are made righteous because Jesus paid the penalty of death for your sins. You are covered with His righteousness, that is alien to you. The reason for this is because any sin that you have (that I guess can’t be forgiven or there is still punishment that God needs to enact) will not make you righteous before God’s judgement. Protestant justification, to me, is their salvation. Sanctification is just an added bonus that happens after you’re justified. This justification is not justice but it does produce assurance that God the Father will judge you as righteous as Christ.
Protestants utilize legal language. So justification for us is a declaration by God that we are innocent, clothed in the rightousness of christ by faith. Sanctification is done by the Holy Spirit after we are justified. From my understanding justification and sanctification are deeply intertwined within orthodoxy and they call it theosis. My question is, because the goal for the orthodox christian is to he divine in the sense we partake of the virtues or energy's of God not his essence that's when we are saved. But I've heard of doctrines like the toll houses and if one could not complete theosis in this life then what? If we were to die what happens? If we fail to cooperate FULLY with God and we die what happens?
@@klw272a Christian is saved by Grace thru faith according to the Orthodox Church. The difference is, we don’t presume anything. We have free will to turn our back on God if we choose not to follow Him. It is our choice at any time to quit being a Christian. Baptist believe once you say the sinners prayer, get baptized and choose to live like hell, you have your “fire insurance.” Orthodox don’t believe one and done salvation.
@@k9leadstheway531 what I tried to convey, without using loaded theological terms, is that theosis is becoming like God through intimate communion (relationship) with Him. We have assurance of salvation (from sin, death, and demonic influence) through our relationship with God. I could be wrong though
@@Orthodixi I agree. I tried to explain saved by grace through faith without those words because I think those mean different things to Protestants. Did I state anything incorrectly?
As usual, the Catholic or Orthodox polemic paint Protestantism with the one brush of American Evangelicalism. The idea of justification by faith alone means that we are accepted initially by faith with nothing we can do to make God accept us. We bring nothing to our favorable disposition with God. Daniel downplays the doctrine of sanctification (theosis) in Calvin the Anglican Divines, and John and Charles Wesley with the notion of final justification. That is, what classical Protestantism means by justification alone is initial justification. But in order to receive final justification at the judgement, one needs to be growing in sanctification-and for the Wesley brothers, entire sanctification. Protestantism places the accent of salvation on initial justification, whereas Orthodox place it on final justification through growth in theosis. But that Protestantism does not teach theosis in connection with salvation is a misrepresentation and caricature of the historical primary sources. If Protestants misconstrue Orthodoxy for believing salvation by works, Orthodox misrepresents classical Protestantism as an easy beliefism that has no theology of theosis in connection with salvation.
Theosis doesn't exist in protestant teaching, its not partaking in the divine attributes via the energies, rather its a very broad sense of a type of purification qua sanctification.
The problem is in America wesleyan spirituality is the vast minority in American protestant expressions as most of it is either some form of baptist or calvinist theology that has slowly morphed into easy believism especially in baptist-lite nondenom megachurch circles which accounts for the vast majority.
@@eikon7001 Dude, Wesley talks about holiness or sanctification of a person in this life, as something separate to becoming a christian and getting baptised, but something that can be achieved in this life and the outcome of being sanctified is to be made perfect like Christ. Isn't this exactly theosis?
@@DsBoyan, our understanding isn't limited to sanctification. There are also other aspects as well. Like glorification starting in the here and now. For we partake in God's Glory just like Moses on the mountain while in God's presence. And like the body of Jesus on Mount Tabor when His body was Transfigured. His resurrected body was a fully Transfigured body! Transfigured by Glory! That same Glory comes to us when we're united to the Risen Christ!
Theosis indicated in 2 Peter To those who have [a]obtained like[b] precious faith with us by the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ: 2Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord, 3as His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue, 4by which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises, that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the [c]corruption that is in the world through lust.
I'm a paramedic and I make a lot more than my priest. I know some priests that don't get a paycheck from the Church at all, they have a secular job in addition to their duties
For more information on St. Athanasius College and its great degree programs and courses, visit its website. stacollege.org/
Use our code "Transfigured75" to save $75 by waiving the application fee. Get started today!
As someone one month into my EO catechism, I have never been more fervent for all things Christ centered. Glory to God for bringing me to swallow my pride and research church history. Christ is risen and all Glory to Triune God
It’s only the beginning too man, keep diving and you’ll just keep seeing more and more, that the grace, the spirituality, the wisdom and the practical way of life is so far beyond what Protestantism could ever give, may God bless you on your journey into his Church
@ same to you as well ☦️ Im forever grateful for how merciful God has been to me
Glory God for that brother, my wife, my 1 year old daughter and I are catechumens ourselves at a Greek Orthodox Monestary coming from a reformed Calvinist background and we thank God for softening our hard hearts and have been so blessed by Christs church. You can’t explain it in words 🙏🏻☦️
@@dolphinitely_bro3944 I still remember thinking “WHAT!” Now, if I attend church with family (non orthodox), I’m so disappointed. It’s like someone giving you a sip of water when you are really thirsty and that sip isn’t cutting it
@ yes! Give me the waterhose!
Living under the terrifying law is why my wife and I became so disillusioned in college and stopped going to any church for a year. Then my brother-in-law took us to an Orthodox Church, and we began a journey that took a few years but entered the Orthodox Church in 1998.
Glory to God! What protestant tradition were you a part of?
I was raised non-denominational but that underlying fear was still there in the theology I was around as a kid. Left Behind/rapture theology I think really made it stick as well.
Thank you Father Jonathan and Luther for adding another gem to your channel! May God continue to show mercy to you both as you do His work! ☦️🙏
My brother thanks for your comment. Glory to God. We appreciate your support! ☦🙏
Excellent discussion! I’m a former Protestant Evangelical, and before I came to a faith in Christ at age 25, two years earlier I read 3/4 of the Bible, and felt inadequate, as if there was a bar to high that I couldn’t reach. Who would date me if I didn’t have sex outside of marriage (I thought)? I put the Bible down never to pick it up until I came to faith in Christ. There was a remorse for my sin and then a sense of freedom gained when I expressed faith. My life turned around somewhat. But, after 25 years as a Protestant, God moved me toward the Church Fathers, and then into the Orthodox Church finding home. I describe it this way now, as a Protestant I heard about Christ and embraced the content of the message, yet as an Orthodox Christian it’s as if I’m meeting with the risen Christ in the Orthodox Church.
Thank you, Father, Daniel and Luther!
What he said at 27:50 about "coffee and good times" reminded me of when I was 12 years old at a megachurch scarfing down no less than 5 donuts every Sunday after service. Some Sundays it was 8. Lord have mercy.
Update: The church eliminated their after-service donuts not long after we joined the church. Maybe I helped?
@@michaelalexander3001 you were a growing boy
this was gold tier content luther, a great guest and questions!
Thanks fam! 🤝
Glory to God ❤
This is a good distinction to point out!
My brother! 🤝
When I was Protestant, I didn’t understand the nature of “grace.”
Would love to see you guys bring on a Reformed Christian leader in the church such as Pastor Doug Wilson to discuss this topic.
That would be fantastic. We should email him. Many Protestant pastors have resisted public dialogue. We only know of one Protestant apologist who has consistently been open to Orthodox-Protestant dialogue.
Chuck Swindoll or Chuck Smith too
Get Doug Wilson and Jay Dyer.
@@Submission2OrthodoxyJay Dyer comes off way too harsh and I think because of his brash personality, it would distract from the actual conversation. I would also love to see more reformed speaking with Orthodox, that would be wonderful. Grant this Lord! Thank you The Transfigured Life. Your content is truly wonderful. 🙏🏽
I'm ready to watch this' this will be very interesting.
Sadly, the papal system is still a legalistic mess. I'm thankful to be Orthodox.
Peter didn’t want to leave either during the Transfiguration, but Christ led them back down the mountain and eventually the Great Commision to bring the Kingdom of God to earth.
The loss of the awe of God in todays culture has lent itself to that as well
Lord have mercy
Thanks for your thoughts. Are you an Orthodox Christian or an inquirer?
@ Protty. My friend is OE and I appreciate learning about church history
@@justina6045 Amen, glory to God for your love of church history. Continue having healthy conversations with your EO friend. Keep digging my brother. ☦
Amen. I'm currently keeping my brother's church while he's out. It is absolutely ridiculous how irreverent and self focused things have become. Not to mention the overgrown children having power struggles to control the church. I left organized religion 8 years ago, and had no intention of going back. I discovered Orthodoxy a couple of years ago, and I've been working through everything. As soon as I can give his church back I have every intention of joining the Orthodox Church.
25:33 I still hear this kind putting the fear of God in people type teaching/preaching or the focus of “God’s wrath” in some church. Mainly reformed Baptist where Calvinism is equated to the gospel and it’s all about His wrath and His glory. It’s really twisted.
@@mariebo7491 “sinners in the hands of an angry god” yep
Yes! "If X, then why not Y??"
German dirt-farmer priest here
Greetings Father! ☦
Oh! A former German Lutheran dirt-farmer, I think I know such a guy!
💪
Have you ever had a confessional Lutheran on your channel? From what i understand they dont follow everything the classic Luther teachings. They were named Lutherans as a pejorative and they just kept the name. So while they claim Sola fide they mean it differently than say an evangelical or something who think you just have to assent to faith. Confessional Lutherans believe in works I'm pretty sure.
It’s unfortunate when a former Protestant doesn’t know Protestant doctrines. Theosis or Christification is taught by the Lutherans. We are divine partakers with Christ.
Are you aware of how Lutheran's understanding of theosis or christification differs from that of the Orthodox? Lutherans reject the essence and energies distinction. Therefore, although verbal credence is given to Theosis in the Lutheran tradition because it's clear the Fathers and scripture reveal the theology, Lutherans don't have a consistent theology to teach such a doctrine. In what ontological way is the Lutheran protestant becoming a partaker of the divine nature and not the 4th person of the Godhead? Do you see how plucking one aspect of Orthodox theology but not embracing all of it wholesale can be problematic.
Not to mention the issue of Total Depravity. Luther never saw any good in man and therefore Theosis as the True Church know it is not possible in Lutheranism.
Need leading Protestant apologetics to analysis this , wonder what they would say
Protestants and everyone else are saved by grace though faith. Ex-Protestants seem to have a bone to pick with faith and Orthodoxy provides that outlet.
Giving verbal credence to something doesn't necessarily mean all who call themselves Christians mean the same thing regarding those terms. A simple example is the word "grace." Protestants and Orthodox approach grace in two completely different ways. For Protestants, grace is often seen as an unmerited favor, focusing on salvation through faith alone (sola fide). In contrast, the Orthodox Church views God's grace as God's uncreated energies. Grace in the Ancient Church has a transformative power that works through the sacraments and leads to (theosis)-becoming gods by grace. That's why some protestants can see the sacraments as a mere symbol, and oddly a more high-church protestant who sees it as more than that will still consider that low church protestant a Christian even though they reject an essential doctrine of the Christian faith. The early church would never have such loose boundaries because the church was instituted by God himself. Christ only established one Church, and she's still here.
Is their anything assurance of salvation within orthodoxy? Like, i know the doctrine of eternal security isn't held too, but is their assurance in any sense?
I’m not a representative of the Orthodox Church, so take this comment with a grain of salt. In orthodoxy, you are in a relationship with Jesus Christ and his church. Like any relationship, both parties need to show they love one another. God shows us he loves us in an infinite amount but it is up to us to show we love Him. We do this through faithfulness/loyalty to God.
In a marriage, we have assurance that the person we love wouldn’t just leave us because we know them. We know Christ through prayer, the church community, and cooperation with the Holy Spirit to generate a new heart within us with the law of God written on it.
We are saved from sin, death, and demonic influence through our relationship with Christ. If we love God with all our heart, mind, and strength we maintain that relationship by keeping his commandments and truly repenting of our sins.
I have never been a Protestant, but I try to understand their perspective on the matter. It is completely foreign to me so it is difficult but I can try articulate what I can.
The Protestant perspective is not relational. You are made righteous because Jesus paid the penalty of death for your sins. You are covered with His righteousness, that is alien to you. The reason for this is because any sin that you have (that I guess can’t be forgiven or there is still punishment that God needs to enact) will not make you righteous before God’s judgement. Protestant justification, to me, is their salvation. Sanctification is just an added bonus that happens after you’re justified. This justification is not justice but it does produce assurance that God the Father will judge you as righteous as Christ.
Protestants utilize legal language. So justification for us is a declaration by God that we are innocent, clothed in the rightousness of christ by faith. Sanctification is done by the Holy Spirit after we are justified. From my understanding justification and sanctification are deeply intertwined within orthodoxy and they call it theosis. My question is, because the goal for the orthodox christian is to he divine in the sense we partake of the virtues or energy's of God not his essence that's when we are saved. But I've heard of doctrines like the toll houses and if one could not complete theosis in this life then what? If we were to die what happens? If we fail to cooperate FULLY with God and we die what happens?
@@klw272a Christian is saved by Grace thru faith according to the Orthodox Church. The difference is, we don’t presume anything. We have free will to turn our back on God if we choose not to follow Him. It is our choice at any time to quit being a Christian. Baptist believe once you say the sinners prayer, get baptized and choose to live like hell, you have your “fire insurance.” Orthodox don’t believe one and done salvation.
@@k9leadstheway531 what I tried to convey, without using loaded theological terms, is that theosis is becoming like God through intimate communion (relationship) with Him. We have assurance of salvation (from sin, death, and demonic influence) through our relationship with God. I could be wrong though
@@Orthodixi I agree. I tried to explain saved by grace through faith without those words because I think those mean different things to Protestants. Did I state anything incorrectly?
As usual, the Catholic or Orthodox polemic paint Protestantism with the one brush of American Evangelicalism.
The idea of justification by faith alone means that we are accepted initially by faith with nothing we can do to make God accept us. We bring nothing to our favorable disposition with God. Daniel downplays the doctrine of sanctification (theosis) in Calvin the Anglican Divines, and John and Charles Wesley with the notion of final justification. That is, what classical Protestantism means by justification alone is initial justification. But in order to receive final justification at the judgement, one needs to be growing in sanctification-and for the Wesley brothers, entire sanctification. Protestantism places the accent of salvation on initial justification, whereas Orthodox place it on final justification through growth in theosis. But that Protestantism does not teach theosis in connection with salvation is a misrepresentation and caricature of the historical primary sources.
If Protestants misconstrue Orthodoxy for believing salvation by works, Orthodox misrepresents classical Protestantism as an easy beliefism that has no theology of theosis in connection with salvation.
Theosis doesn't exist in protestant teaching, its not partaking in the divine attributes via the energies, rather its a very broad sense of a type of purification qua sanctification.
This intro is a bit weird, Wesleyans do have a similar theology to theosis. It’s not foreign to Protestants.
The problem is in America wesleyan spirituality is the vast minority in American protestant expressions as most of it is either some form of baptist or calvinist theology that has slowly morphed into easy believism especially in baptist-lite nondenom megachurch circles which accounts for the vast majority.
Having some theory that resembles it is meaningless.
@@eikon7001 Dude, Wesley talks about holiness or sanctification of a person in this life, as something separate to becoming a christian and getting baptised, but something that can be achieved in this life and the outcome of being sanctified is to be made perfect like Christ. Isn't this exactly theosis?
@@DsBoyan, our understanding isn't limited to sanctification. There are also other aspects as well. Like glorification starting in the here and now. For we partake in God's Glory just like Moses on the mountain while in God's presence. And like the body of Jesus on Mount Tabor when His body was Transfigured. His resurrected body was a fully Transfigured body! Transfigured by Glory! That same Glory comes to us when we're united to the Risen Christ!
@@jnorm888 This sounds cool, but I don't know - I have not seen a person in a glorified body yet.
There is no theosis in real orthodoxy: miyaphysitism
Theosis indicated in 2 Peter
To those who have [a]obtained like[b] precious faith with us by the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ:
2Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord, 3as His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue, 4by which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises, that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the [c]corruption that is in the world through lust.
Money All Church's same .Preachers gott rich and We can't listen anymore. Sorry.
I'm a paramedic and I make a lot more than my priest. I know some priests that don't get a paycheck from the Church at all, they have a secular job in addition to their duties
You are speaking from the perspective of someone who attended private business(es) that owners falsely call "church".