Chadrho
Active Member
We're saved from the destructive nature of sin and evil, which tend toward non-being. The consuming fire of God is God, it is divine love redeeming what belongs to God. The Logos (hypostasis of divine wisdom) of God is both the means of creation and the means of reconciliation. The incarnation, death, and resurrection are the revelation of God's love and power as well as the means of uniting God and humanity (theosis).
But we are not saved from suffering. Death to self and the passions entails suffering, either now or later. This is why Paul says- If we suffer with Christ we will be glorified with him. The early church understood that self-denial and detachment from the passions that destroy us is essential to faith. It's not works righteousness but death to the illusion (old man). We take off the old man and put on Christ. God will not lose anything given to the Son who has been given authority over all flesh. Hence, we will all be salted with fire (divine love). Catharsis/healing is an act of divine love whether it happens now or later.
If we are in Christ, this age is a gentle death to self as we go through the process of sanctification under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. If we don't consent to death of self now, in the next age we will be confronted with a more intimate experience of divine love. When we enter pure, unmitigated love and yet are still clinging to sin and evil, that death will be more excruciating because we will have no way to avoid it. The illusory self we have created in the image of our desires will be destroyed in the presence of pure, unmitigated love so that we suffer the loss of what we thought we were. As the illusion painfully dies, we will see the truth and the reality of divine love. In seeing we will freely choose the good for which we are created. But waiting until the next age is foolish since the good for which we are created is revealed and the suffering of this age cannot compared to the glory or suffering of the next, depending on whether we are in Christ, the means of our creation and redemption.
That's the general outlook as it was understood by those influenced by the Alexandrian school (Clement, Origen, Nyssan, Evagrious, etc.). I know it's not the usual way we think about the faith and the afterlife, but it helps to understand the basic idea, I think. It's not like I walk into heaven and see my grandmother (a saint to be sure) and Hitler playing checkers. If Hitler endures the fire of God, what comes out in the other side will not be Hitler (the illusory self created from sin and self-will) but the image God created and brought to fulfillment in Christ. Essentially, grandma will be in the age of life, until Hitler and the rest are purified in the age of punishment, after which (after all has been subjected to Christ) Christ will hand the purified kingdom to God, who will be all in all eternally.
