But I am confused and frankly skeptical about the aerial toll booths we supposedly have to go through to be purified after death.

Zobel, can you or any other Orthodox folks help explain it to me. Thanks.

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But I am confused and frankly skeptical about the aerial toll booths we supposedly have to go through to be purified after death.

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And I am not trolling. Just curious.

Nothing wrong with being skeptical. Not sure I can help you understand the tollhouses as I've done very little reading on them as having an opinion on their reality or falsehood seems kind of irrelevant to me. In all the conversations and reading I did for my catechumenate (which was more than a year), tollhouses was never a topic that came up, so I'm not certain how critical a part of the faith they are. There's a lot of things I don't have an intellectual handle on (like the trinity) but I don't experience that my lack of intellectual grasp has any effect on my ability to interact with God or live out the faith. The only reason many people today are even aware of the idea is because a modern priest-monk wrote a popular book on the subject of life after death (Fr. Seraphim Rose). Tollhouses have never been officially, dogmatically defined and there are varying opinions about what they are, how they work, or of the veracity of the belief.

The little I do know is that a number of saints of the church have had visions/revelations (going back to the early 4th century) about what happens to the soul after death. The idea of salvation as, in part, a process is consistent with Orthodox theology, so it makes sense to me that this process might continue after death. I see the tollhouses as a way of describing what one aspect of that process might look like. One idea about the tollhouses is that this is a time before the final judgment when the demons play the role of accusers and attempt to hold us accountable for our sins. That seems to make some sense to me as Satan is called the accuser, so demons acting as accusatory agents sounds reasonable. The idea that we have to compensate for the accused sin seems strange to me, so I'm not sure what to make of that.

Thanks

did k2aggie07 or whatever his exact username was give up texags?

He is zobel now

dermdoc said:

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He is zobel now

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interesting. thanks. was that in response to the F16 jerks?

Thanks

Zobel said:

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It was a few PMs making me question how wise it was to more or less limit the number of people I might be known to be to a handful. Anyone who wants to find out who I am will have an easy time, but I didn't see the wisdom in making it quite a bit easier for them.

Tollhouses - I've never been taught that, only seen it mentioned in a few books. I wouldn't worry about it. I'd classify it as pious opinion. If it troubles you, ignore it.

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sorry to hear that. for some, the internet is very serious business.

Is Jesus an EZ tag?

I laughed. Thanks.

This day you shall be with Me in paradise.

Thanks 94, it has been a long week, I needed a good laugh.

I don't think this is official Church Orthodox theology. That's said it's not critical to your salvation to believe it.

I don't think anyone knows the "processing procedures" for getting into heavens. This is based on the visions of some early Church father's.

Sounds a lot like "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me."

This is not something I've given a lot of thought so take it with a grain of salt and correct me if I'm wrong if some one understands better

The only good tollbooth is a Phantom Tollbooth

?w=1920&h=1080

Salvation not an event

It is a process of purification that can continue after death. Suffering must be united to the suffering of Christ.

With that base assumption, there is plenty of room for all kinds of visions and speculations. Private revelation, however, should bring about big skepticisms - even the holiest of people are limited in understanding and articulation.

False.

Salvation is an event. The death and resurrection of Jesus.

Without that, nothing else matters.

Redstone said:

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An argument on that point would fracture in the typical Catholic / Protestant way we see on this board all the time, so I'll just note salvation as a process of continuous receiving grace by faith was the view of all Christians - and I do mean very literally almost all - for about 1,500 years.....as well as being the view of the Church who gave us their product the Bible, codified after 3 centuries of contentious debate and much prayer.

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This isn't a Catholic/Protestant argument.

You note that salvation is a continuous process of receiving grace by faith? The cause of the entire process is the death and resurrection of Jesus. Without it, there's no effect. We can do nothing. However, because of that event, we can be renewed daily, we chose to resist that salvation, but nowhere in this did we play a part in our salvation.

This to me is the fatal flaw of Pelagianism, Sam-Pelagianism, or synergist salvation. They gloss over Jesus in favor of man.

And finally, it's not true that this has been the way for 1500 years. St. Augustine would not have supported that thought and his pupil Prosper clearly spoke out against it as well.

Zobel said:

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We are told to work out our salvation in fear and trembling. We are also told we are God's fellow workers, and the are rewarded according to our labor.

The scriptures don't say we can nothing, they say we do nothing apart from Jesus.

I think you're taking this way too far.

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Agree. And John 15 bears witness to your post.

Zobel said:

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We are told to work out our salvation in fear and trembling. We are also told we are God's fellow workers, and the are rewarded according to our labor.

The scriptures don't say we can nothing, they say we do nothing apart from Jesus.

I think you're taking this way too far.

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You're making a different argument than I am.

If you want to quote Philippians 2, let's not forget about Philippians 1 and who Paul is writing to:

"Paul and Timothy, bondservants of Jesus Christ,
To all the saints in Christ Jesus who are in Philippi, with the bishops and deacons:
2 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ."

So if you want to argue that because of Jesus death and resurrection that there can be cooperation with those that are save/regenerated/reborn, etc, than absolutely.

But would Paul have given the same direction to the "children of wrath", the unregenerate or those who are "slaves to sin?" No. Because he'd know they could not work out their salvation. Once they stopped resisting God and the salvation He offered, that the Holy Spirit could begin to work and we could begin to cooperate.

So I don't think I'm taking it too far because it is actually important to avoid the slippery slope to Pelagianism that has been a theme throughout history.

You started by saying salvation was an event that we have absolutely no action in. That's not scriptural, one of the first descriptions of the church is those who are being saved. Salvation is not *only* an event, and we participate in our own salvation.

1 Cor 1:18
2 Cor 2:15
Acts 2:47

The Church is those who are being saved.

Put another way. If you can fall off the horse to one side as did Pelagius, denting the necessity of the work of Jesus Christ in our salvation you can also fall off the other way. That would be by denying the necessity of the work Holy Spirit in our salvation.

Yeah, I don't hold to a single event that led to my conversion. It's a process. Justification is a part of Sanctification. Conversion is a better term to include both, in my opinion of the God of my understanding.

Historically Reformed didn't separate the two like modern evangelicalism has.

Read Pilgrims Progress by Bunyan.

Zobel said:

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You started by saying salvation was an event that we have absolutely no action in. That's not scriptural, one of the first descriptions of the church is those who are being saved. Salvation is not *only* an event, and we participate in our own salvation.

1 Cor 1:18
2 Cor 2:15
Acts 2:47

The Church is those who are being saved.

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Yes. Salvation is an event. Jesus death and resurrection. We took no part in that act. We certainly receive a benefit from it (mainly life), but we do not and cannot earn it.

But I now see there are two things you must be misunderstanding.

Just because salvation is tied to a single event, does not make it a "one time event." Certainly our faith must endure and in some ways we can grow in our relationship to God. However, that growth does not earn us more salvation. Salvation was earned completely through Jesus alone.

You also seem to be having an issue with cause and effect. If Jesus doesn't die, there's no working out of salvation. It's why things like synergism don't work until after salvation is achieved.

And you prove my point wonderfully with 1 Cor 1:18: "For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God."

What a great example of the cause/effect.

For those who do not have faith, all that exists is death/hell.

For those who believe in Jesus, there is salvation.

A great example of salvation being tied to the power of God and not to anything we've done.

Next lets look at 2 Cor 2:15 or better yet, the whole group of verses from 14-17.

"14 But thanks be to God, who always leads us as captives in Christ's triumphal procession and uses us to spread the aroma of the knowledge of him everywhere. 15 For we are to God the pleasing aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing. 16 To the one we are an aroma that brings death; to the other, an aroma that brings life. And who is equal to such a task? 17 Unlike so many, we do not peddle the word of God for profit. On the contrary, in Christ we speak before God with sincerity, as those sent from God.

A couple things we note:

1. Paul once again clearly distinguishes between a group that spreads an aroma of life and another with an aroma of death.

2 What distinguishes the groups? The Christ.

Cause and effect. For those with faith in Jesus, there is one outcome, for those without faith in Jesus another.

We also see that Paul makes it clear that there's no personal profit to their actions. Their salvation was achieved. Their aroma pleasant for those in the faith.

Finally Acts 2:47, well lets again start with context vs a single verse.

"42 They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. 43 Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles. 44 All the believers were together and had everything in common. 45 They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. 46 Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts,47 praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved."

Again we see a similar pattern.

God spoke through the apostles and the Holy Spirit entered into new believers, who afterwards begin to grow in their faith to God.

In fact, in verse 47 that you noted, we see that Luke gives credit entirely to the Lord as the one who added to the numbers. There is no credit given to anyone else.