Free Republic
Browse · Search
Religion
Topics · Post Article

To: koinonia
The word gentile in the OT doesn't mean the same as what Paul created. It simply meant those who did not believe. Even some of the Hebrews in the OT are called "Gentiles."

The word "nation"means just gathering of the people, a tribe (one language), and not a universal concept.

Just as the word for earth indicates a country (such as Israel), and not the whole globe.

39 posted on 08/06/2008 2:40:33 PM PDT by kosta50 (Eastern Orthodoxy is pure Christianity)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 37 | View Replies ]


To: kosta50; Kolokotronis
Returning to the subject of this post, Ad Orientem has an excellent presentation on the primary motive of the Incarnation by Archpriest G. Florovsky.

Click on the icon of the Incarnation to see it. It’s worth the read.

From my limited knowledge (hence the ping to Kolokotronis, if he's around) it seems that the Divine Liturgy and the Sacred Icons of Christ in the Orthodox Churches more focused on Christ’s glory and man’s elevation in Christ rather than on atonement from sin. (No Christian, I would assume, denies man's need after the fall to be redeemed from sin).

I was also under the impression that “theosis” or deification in Christ according to Saints like St. Gregory of Nazianzen and St. Gregory of Palamas was more central to the Orthodox spirituality rooted in the Incarnation which obviously lends itself to the so-called “absolute primacy of Christ”—absolute because God’s immutable decree was the Incarnation (sin or no sin) and our "theosis" in Him—as opposed to a “relative primacy of Christ”—relative to man’s need for redemption from sin--Aquinas' position that without sin there would never have been Christ the King of Glory: no sin, no Incarnation, therefore not an absolute primacy.

CHRISTE ELEISON!

41 posted on 08/06/2008 3:01:33 PM PDT by koinonia ("Thou art bought with the blood of God... Be the companion of Christ." -St. Ephraim)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 39 | View Replies ]

Free Republic
Browse · Search
Religion
Topics · Post Article


FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson