The title just about says it all, but a little extra general information:
My father is a Russian Orthodox priest, and these are the sermons he gives during Sunday Divine Liturgy.
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In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
"But what saith it? The word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth, and in thy heart: that is, the word of faith, which we preach; That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation." Romans 10:8-10
How should we view the Nicene Creed in light of the simple formula of the confession of faith which Paul lays down in Romans 10:9 ("Jesus is Lord")? Is the Creed therefore superfluous? God forbid! The Church does not add to or take away from the "faith once delivered unto the saints"! It must be understood that at that time--in the first century-- they were indeed confessing the "Jesus" whom the apostles preached. There was no mistaking who this Jesus was. If the Creed elaborates on that, it was due to necessity because of heretics that arose, preaching "another Jesus". The Nicene Creed of Orthodoxy (right glory) is the confession of the true Jesus. It is the "unpacking" of the confession "Jesus is Lord: that he is Light from Light. that he is true God of true God, that he was begotten, not made, that he is of one essence with the Father, by whom all things were made, etc. This demolishes the "Jesus" of the Gnostics, of the Arians, and of all the ancient heretics--as well as of the Muslims, of the Jehovah's Witnesses, of the Mormons--not to mention all the modern distorted Jesus', from the superstar "Jesus" of pop culture to the Ascended Master "Jesus" of the New Agers.
And how then does this passage relate to salvation? Does it teach the "easy believism" of modern Evangelicals? Certainly not! First, it is inseparably linked with baptism, as it is in Romans where Paul devoted a whole chapter to the connection of baptism with salvation. In baptism the old man dies and the new man arises. We are given a heart of flesh to replace our old stony heart. And the Confession of faith in Christ, like a Divine defibrillator, starts that new heart beating. But that is just the beginning. Salvation is not a one-time event, but a process that continues until our last breath--and so is calling on the name of the Lord! It is an ongoing dynamic, the "working out of our salvation with fear and trembling", without which faith, being alone, is dead.
Just as a man without a beating heart is dead, so a Christian without prayer is dead. And this is where the Jesus Prayer comes into play. When we pray the Jesus Prayer we re-pack all that is said about Christ in the Nicene Creed, and apply it to our personal salvation: "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner". When we call upon the name of the Lord Jesus, admitting our sinfulness, our heart contracts, as it were, in humility. Then Jesus, moved with compassion, responds, sending down his mercy and grace into our heart, and it swells with the lifeblood of salvation, which nourishes and strengthens the new man unto eternal life. So Orthodox Christians most certainly believe in Jesus as our "personal saviour"--not as a one-time thing of the past, but in the here and now, moment by moment, heartbeat by heartbeat, prayer by prayer: "For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved." Amen.
