God, judgment, and repentance

This is a small bit of a continuation from a post from yesterday. Many an Evangelical preacher would agree with the saying above that, “God does not judge Christians because they sinned, but because they do not repent,” by Saint Niphon of Constantia. But, we need to think through what that saying really means. It does not mean that a Christian has repented of everything that you or I consider to be a sin. It does mean that a Christian has repented of every sin. Nor does it mean that a Christian is aware of every sin that they have committed and has repented of each and every one of them. Those sets of statements are nonsensical, if you think about them.

Throughout Church history, but especially in modern American history, we almost seem to enjoy condemning people because they do not believe or practice precisely as we do. We have Orthodox that almost speak with relish about the Pope being a heretic, almost with the undertone that we cannot tell about his salvation and we may even doubt that he will be saved. There are Evangelicals that believe the same about us. The problem with the famous Orthodox phrase that, “We know where the Church is but we cannot be sure where it is not,” is not that it is false, but that it can actually lead to a type of spiritual pride that neglects what Saint Niphon said. A fuller and better statement is made by Alexei Khomiakov who wrote, “Inasmuch as the earthly and visible Church is not the fullness and completeness of the whole Church which the Lord has appointed to appear at the final judgment of all creation, she acts and knows only within her own limits; and … does not judge the rest of mankind, and only looks upon those as excluded, that is to say, not belonging to her, who exclude themselves. The rest of mankind, whether alien from the Church, or united to her by ties which God has not willed to reveal to her, she leaves to the judgment of the great day.” See, http://www.antiochian.org/discover/church for some fuller statements by several saints and theologians. The bottom line is that we need to be very cautious to speak about others as though we are sure that they will not be in the Kingdom under their current beliefs and practices. We can very well say among ourselves that their current beliefs and practices are heretical or untaught or unwise or other evaluative phrases. But, we ought never say that this means that they are under God’s judgment. We do not know their heart. We do not know their repentance. We do not know whether God will look at their heart and repentance and consider that enough, or whether God will look at our heart and repentance and be dismayed. As the Desert Fathers point out, the best way for us to not be judged is to not judge.

Moreover, in insisting that for me to consider someone a true repented Christian if, and only if, they have repented of everything that I consider sinful is to insist that my grasp of theology is as infallible as the Pope’s. Yet, even the Roman Catholic Church does not consider the Pope infallible under those terms. Among the Orthodox, I have met all too many, sadly including some priests and monks, who assume that their viewpoint on cassocks, beards, calendar, praying the full Canon during Orthros, etc., etc., are determinative for whether a person is under God’s temporal judgment or not. It is important for us to be humble, to hold fast to Scripture, to the Ecumenical Councils, and to the guidance of our hierarchs as to Holy Tradition. Requiring much beyond that of our fellow Orthodox is to be in danger of falling into a prideful self-assessment of our theological competence. And, when it comes to non-Orthodox, our duty is to invite them to the Church, but also to realize in humility that the visible Church is not aware of those who are, “united to her by ties which God has not willed to reveal to her.” All in all, all Christians, whether Orthodox or not, are better off to hold on to truth, but to avoid judging who is headed for the Kingdom and who is not. Let us teach truth while keeping in mind that only God knows who has truly repented. Let us, yes, judge ideas, but not people. Let us not judge people lest we be judged by the same measure that we have given unto others.

To continue on, repentance cannot possibly mean that a Christian is aware of every sin that they have committed and has repented of each and every one of them. I like the idea, held by some jurisdictions, that it is good to make a life confession or a life inventory several times during your life. Particularly for a convert, making the first confession a life confession is a good way to liberate yourself from the burdens of your previous life. But, regardless of how good our memory, we will not remember every sin we have committed. Even worse, we will not, and are not, aware of every sin that we are committing. It is our lack of awareness of our sin that drives much of monastic self-evaluation. Part of being a monastic is a constant guided self-evaluation that makes the monk aware of his/her many sins and sinful attitudes so that s/he may grow more and more into the likeness of Christ. The reality is that to the day we die, we will not become aware of all the sin that we have committed. We will be surprised during the Final Judgment about the many sins that we were not aware that we have committed. That is why the prayer of confession during the sacrament of confession talks about sins known and unknown, whether of commission or omission. We repent of our sin, even that sin of which we are not aware.

That is why, “God does not judge Christians because they sinned, but because they do not repent.” Our sins are forgiven by God based on our repentance. If we were judged on sinning, we would be dead already. If we were judged on remembering each and every sin, and repenting of it, we would be dead already. We are judged on whether we have repented and taken hold of God’s grace. If that is true, then we must be especially careful of judging others for their sins. We may very well have more sins than the person we are judging, particularly because we do not even know all of our own sins! We cannot know which other people God will accept as having an adequate repentance. What we can do is to work out our salvation in fear and trembling, refusing to judge the adequacy of the repentance of other people, or whether they may have ties to God of which we are not aware.

As the Desert Fathers would encourage, we can love others; we can pray for them; we can tell them stories that illustrate the truth; we can bring them into the Church. But, we cannot judge them.