(4) Salvation in the Orthodox Understanding – Baptism
The Conditions of Salvation Through the Blood of Christ
Baptism
The Importance of Baptism for Salvation
A Theological Explanation of “The Importance of Baptism”
What is the essence of Christian teaching concerning Baptism as a means of salvation? Why is it necessary for salvation? And why can no one be saved without it? The matter is very clear, and we shall explain it as follows:
The Bible says, “For the wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23). Therefore, death is necessary, and the path of salvation must begin with death…
Salvation continues through death… and the final stage of salvation comes through death. Salvation begins with death, ends with death, and continues through death, because the wages of sin is death. What, then, does this mean?
(A) Salvation Began with Death
Salvation began with Christ’s death on the Cross, where He paid the price for sin and purchased us with His Blood. How, then, does salvation reach you? It reaches you through death. How is that? Christ granted salvation through His death. In order for you to have a share in this salvation, you must share in Christ’s death: you must die with Christ and rise with Him, so that you may be glorified with Him. Therefore, the Apostle Paul says, “That I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death” (Philippians 3:10).
If you do not enter into this death, the second death will befall you, which is eternal torment in the lake of fire (Revelation 20:14).
How, then, do you enter into this death? How do you share in Christ’s death? This takes place through Baptism. That is why the Apostle Paul says, “Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death” (Romans 6:3–4).
Our death with Christ and our burial with Him are what enable us to share with Him in the glories of His Resurrection. Therefore, the Apostle Paul says, “For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection… Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him” (Romans 6:5, 8).
Let us, then, summarize the matter in the following words:
The wages of sin is death. Therefore, a person must die and be buried… But Christ died for us. We must share in His death so that we do not remain distant from the merits of Christ’s death. We must never allow Christ to die alone for us without sharing in His death, or at least being conformed to His death, entering into “the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death.” This is what the Apostle said: “We died with Him… we were buried with Him… we have been united together in the likeness of His death… our old man was crucified with Him… For if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him” (Romans 6:5–8).
Let us, then, summarize the matter in the following words:
The wages of sin is death. Therefore, a person must die and be buried… But Christ died for us. We must share in His death so that we do not remain distant from the merits of Christ’s death. We must never allow Christ to die alone for us without sharing in His death, or at least being conformed to His death, entering into “the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death.” This is what the Apostle said: “We died with Him… we were buried with Him… we have been united together in the likeness of His death… our old man was crucified with Him… For if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him” (Romans 6:3–8).
The Bible explains that this death takes place through Baptism. We are completely immersed in it, as though we were buried in the baptismal font. As Paul said, “We were buried with Him through baptism into death” (Romans 6:4). Then we rise from this water “in newness of life,” “knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with.”
Baptism, therefore, is necessary for salvation because it is participation in Christ’s death, because it is faith in death as the means to life, and an acknowledgment that the wages of sin is death. Those who say that salvation takes place through faith alone, without Baptism, have not yet understood what faith is. Let us try to discuss the matter together so that we may understand it.
What is faith? It is believing that the wages of sin is death, believing that Christ died for you, and believing that you must die with Him in order to live with Him as well. Thus, faith leads you to what we have said.
We said that salvation began with death: the death of Christ. This is the salvation for which He paid the price. We also said that we began to receive this salvation through death, as we died with Christ and were buried with Him through Baptism. This is the salvation we received.
We also say that this salvation continues through death.
(B) Salvation Continues Through Death
Thus, the Apostle Paul says, “Likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord… Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lusts” (Romans 6:11–12).
These words are very beautiful and explain the Orthodox faith perfectly: “Do not let sin reign in your mortal body.” We entered into salvation through death, and our body must continue to be dead to worldly desires. As long as it remains dead, salvation works within it. But if the desires of the body begin to rise from this death and become active, we then become liable to lose our salvation, because salvation is accomplished only through death.
That is why, in the Ninth Hour prayer, we pray to God, saying, “Put to death our bodily senses, O Christ our God, and save us.”
Perhaps this is the fulfillment of the biblical saying, “But if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live” (Romans 8:13). Does not the Apostle Paul say, “So then death is working in us” (2 Corinthians 4:12)?
The Apostle Paul also says, “For we who live are always delivered to death for Jesus’ sake, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh” (2 Corinthians 4:11). He also says, “And if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit is life because of righteousness” (Romans 8:10). He further says, “For Your sake we are killed all day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter” (Romans 8:36). Thus, we live “always carrying about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body” (2 Corinthians 4:10).
Therefore, as long as we walk along the path of salvation, the body must be dead to sin! Death must be at work within us. A person who says that he has been saved while loving the world or the things that are in the world is truly deluded, for “friendship with the world is enmity with God” (James 4:4). Salvation continues through death: the death of the deeds of the body, the death of bodily desires, and death to the world, material things, and their demands that wage war against the spirit.
What Does “We Shall Be Saved by His Life” Mean?
Here we encounter the verse that says, “For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life” (Romans 5:10). What does “we shall be saved by His life” mean?
It may mean that we are saved by His life as our Intercessor, as the Priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek: “He is also able to save to the uttermost those who come to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them” (Hebrews 7:25). Thus, we are saved by His life as our Intercessor, because we continually sin. And if anyone sins, “we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous” (1 John 2:1).
Here we observe that the continuation of Christ’s intercession for us means that we continually need salvation at all times and that the work of salvation continues within us.
There is, however, another beautiful meaning to the expression “we shall be saved by His life.” It is found in the words of the Apostle Paul: “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me” (Galatians 2:20). He says, “I have been crucified with Christ.” This is death. The Apostle also says that we “have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires” (Galatians 5:24).
We are saved in this way, when Christ is the One who lives in us. The expression “it is no longer I who live” means surrendering one’s will completely to the Lord, so that a person continually says, “Not my will, but Yours, be done.” It is as though he were dead and no longer existed; he no longer lives, but Christ lives in him.
He says to Christ, “I am saved by Your death, and I am saved by Your life within me.” This is the sound understanding of salvation in the Orthodox understanding: we have been saved through Christ’s death when we died with Him in Baptism, and we are also being saved through Christ’s life within us by surrendering ourselves completely to His will in our lives, saying with the Apostle, “It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me.”
(C) Salvation Is Brought to Completion Through Death
We have said that salvation begins with death in Baptism and continues through dying to the desires of the world. For how long? The Bible says, “Be faithful until death, and I will give you the crown of life” (Revelation 2:10).
Thus, death continues to work within you, even until the body itself dies. As long as you put to death the deeds of the body, you are still walking along the path of salvation. When do you reach the end of the road?
When you die and are transferred to the other world.
You are still walking along the path. Will you stop halfway and cry out, “I have been saved”?! Be humble, my brother, and listen to the words of the Apostle: “Remember those who rule over you, who have spoken the word of God to you, whose faith follow, considering the outcome of their conduct” (Hebrews 13:7).
Do not boast in vain, for many have begun in the Spirit and ended in the flesh (Galatians 3:3).
However, we shall discuss this subject in detail, God willing, when we speak about the completion of salvation.
An article by His Holiness Pope Shenouda III — Al-Keraza Magazine, Ninth Year, Issue 8, February 24, 1978.
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