A Religion Of Works For Salvation
By Cohen G. Reckart, Pastor
The Eastern Orthodox religion is a religion of works for salvation. By works we mean human effort not found in the New Testament and which are not directed to obedience to Acts 2:38 for a plan of salvation. The Apostles taught that faith and grace came through obedience to the Gospel [Rom. 16:26]. The Eastern Church teaches that faith and grace comes through the seven sacraments of the Church (42). Works is their plan of salvation.
They also teach that unless a person believes in the trinity they can not be saved (43). This is nowhere found in the New Testament yet like Rome they teach it and have enforced it upon the penalty of death. How can any Oneness Minister ever allow a trinitarian upon their platform or behind the pulpit without consenting to the slaughter of so many thousands of innocents?
The Greek Church teaches that everyone must abide by the decrees of the first seven Councils of the Church or they cannot be saved. They teach that there is an intermediatory place [refuse to call it purgatory], where the works of relatives and friends can relieve the sufferings and sins of the dead (44). This is not found in the New Testament. They believe in infant baptism and this is not found in the New Testament. They believe in the wearing of pontifical garments and robes. This is not a New Testament practice. Jesus did not wear them. The Apostles did not wear them. And yet, among many Pentecostals they wear these black robes of death, Babylonian garments with turned around colars, with chagrin and pride?
The Greek Church believes in the holiness of the bones and relics of saints. This is not found in the New Testament. They infuse these relics in the altars of their Churches. This is not found in the New Testament. They worship the crucifix as an idol. This is not found in the New Testament. They believe in the Substantiation or changing of the Bread and Wine into the actual flesh and blood of Jesus. This is not taught in the New Testament. What is taught, is that the elements of Communion are taken symbolically as were the elements of the Old Passover which it was to replace. They believe in confession of sins to a priest. This is not in the Bible. They believe in penances imposed by the Priest to remove sin that may have been imposed by God or the Church. This is not in the Bible. They believe in monks for their Bishops. Celibate Bishops are false and not found in the Bible [1Tim. 3:2]. They believe in the union of Church and State. They are intolerable to Protestant Churches and Missionary work among their people. They do not believe people should have Bibles and form their own views and opinion of Scripture. They believe in censorship of views and use the word heretic liberally for effect. They celebrate the mystery Mass, which is not a New Testament practice at all. They burn incense and candles, which are nowhere mentioned in the New Testament as a practice of the Church.
Peter E. Gillquist, former regional director of Campus Crusades For Christ, in his book, "Becoming Orthodox, A Journey To The Ancient Christian Faith," has now recanted the basic protests of Protestantism. He has agreed in fact if not in principal that Protestants are all heretics. He has cut off from salvation all those who refuse to become practicing members of the Eastern Orthodox Churches [Greek, Serbian, Ukrainian, Russian, et al]; who do not accept works for salvation or follow the legislations of the first seven Councils. He has adopted tradition as being equal in authority with Scripture. He has rejected the Gospel as preached by the Apostles, to defend that "Christianity" that began at Nicaea. He rejects the independent, autonomous, Churches of the New Testament era, for multi-tiered hierarchies, built around diocese, started by Constantine in 325 AD, and NOT found in the New Testament. He has replaced the offices of the Five-Fold Ministry of Apostles, Prophets, Evangelist, Pastors and Teachers, with political offices that are often awarded, bought, and issued, based upon insider favoritism. He has replaced worship with ritual and Christian truth for tradition. He has renounced his Evangelical "salvation," claiming it could not save him, and by adopting the works and traditions of the Eastern Greek Church, he now claims orthodoxy as his salvation.
What Rev. Gillquist and others now returning to Greek Orthodoxy have done, is stop 300 years short of finding the true New Testament Church. They have accepted as genuine, a religious system that has no foundation, if the decrees of the first seven Councils are taken away from them. He has nothing in the New Testament upon which to base his claim of salvation or Church once his Creeds are gone. His salvation should not be in the decrees of the seven Councils, but in Jesus Christ through the Apostolic Doctrine, first preached by the Apostles.
Salvation is by grace through faith and this is found in Acts 2:38, a text that the Greek Church ignores and has refused to accept as the New Testament plan of salvation. As long as this error exist, those who are deceived by the traditions of the Greek Church which hails itself as orthodox, are outside the Kingdom of God. There must be evangelism among them or they will be lost. Evangelism has not been directed at the Greek Catholics because the hierarchy of the Church and subordinate Priest would not hesitate to have many put to death even if under some disguise.
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Bibilography
(42) Encyclopedia Britannica, 1910 Edition, Vol 20, p 336
(43) Bernard Piault, What Is The Trinity, Twentieth Century Encyclopedia of Catholicism, Vol 17, p 65
(44) IbidCopyright Notice | Tribute | Introduction | The Eastern Greek Orthodox Church | Greek Claims of Orthodoxy
The Cabbalist Jewish Connection | Nicaea Where Truth Was Declared Illegal | Constantine Takes The Bait
Constantinople A Rival Religious Papacy | A Religion Of Works For Salvation
Things Greek Orthodoxy Must Admit | The Curse Of Nicaea Upon Constantine And His House
Additional Trinity Notes | Patripassianism | Gnosticism
Quotes Worthy Of Notice | True Orthodoxy