Gillian Crow, ‘This Holy Man’: Impressions of Metropolitan Anthony. Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2005. Paperback, $24.00.

Does the Orthodox Church teach salvation by works? Did Paul?

I was reading an enjoyable biography of Metropolitan Anthony Bloom, a Russian Orthodox Bishop. I have thoroughly enjoyed Metropolitan Anthony’s writings and sermons. He reminds me of a Russian C. S. Lewis in his ability to explain complex theological ideas to modern people in an understandable yet still highly intelligent and cultured way.

Bloom lived a fascinating life. He grew up in Persia as the son of a Russian diplomat. During the Bolshevik revolution, his monarchist-supporting family fled to France. They lived in Paris in extreme poverty with other Russian exiles. The family was so poor they couldn’t afford to live together.

Anthony grew up as an atheist. However, he came to faith in Jesus as a teenager through a summer camp for Russian boys. The chaplain was an Orthodox priest—the famed theologian Sergius Bulgakov—who talked to the campers about God and the Gospel. Whatever Bulgakov said enraged Anthony. He returned home and borrowed a copy of the New Testament to see if the priest’s statements about Christianity were true. He began by reading the Gospel according to Mark because it was the shortest Gospel, and he didn’t want to waste any more time than was necessary. But as he was reading Mark, he testified to sensing someone standing on the other side of the table. Anthony intuitively knew that it was Jesus. At that moment, he became convinced that Jesus had risen from the dead and that everything else in the Gospels were true.

Fast forward some years and Anthony studied medicine at the Sorbonne, became a medical doctor, served with the French Resistance during WWII, and became a secret monk.

After the war, Bloom was sent to serve as a priest in England despite not knowing the language. He rose through the ecclesiastical ranks, becoming a bishop, the spiritual leader of a diocese, and then a “Metropolitan,” which is a senior bishop over a wider area. Bloom also became one of the most sought-after religious speakers in 1960s-1980s England, often speaking on the BBC and broadcasting Christian messages into the Soviet Union. I have listened to many of his sermons online. Metropolitan Bloom had a resonant voice, speaking in a pleasant Russian accent in impeccable English. I have also learned much from his books, most of which concerned prayer.

All in all, Gillian Crow’s ‘This Holy Man’ Impressions of Metropolitan Anthony is a good read, portraying Metropolitan Anthony as a flawed but impressive personality. Many Orthodox biographies are modern hagiography—portraying the person as a saint. This is not that.

However, I was very disappointed and saddened by the following passage, which refers to a talk that Metropolitan Anthony gave at the end of his life:

“In particular—and he spoke almost as if it were his swansong—he talked about salvation. His message on this point seemed to sum up his lifetime’s teaching, based on his interpretation of St Paul: that the pagans would be saved by keeping the ‘law within their hearts’; the Jews by keeping the Law of Moses; and the Christians by their faithfulness to Christ’s teaching. Thus, while not preaching universal salvation, he reiterated the view found in Orthodoxy that all may be saved. Salvation was not dependent on the glib argument of the fundamentalists that only faith in Jesus Christ as one’s personal Saviour mattered; it had been effected by Christ on the cross on behalf of all creation, and it was not for human beings to put limits on God’s will” (Gillian Crow, ‘This Holy Man,’ p. 223).

I don’t know if this accurately describes what Metropolitan Bloom taught about salvation. I will take Crow’s word for it. She is more focused on answering whether or not Bloom taught universalism. I’m more concerned about how this shows he taught works salvation.

According to Bloom (as reported by Crow), how are the pagans saved? By keeping the law within their hearts. How are Jews saved? By keeping the Mosaic Law. How are Christians saved? By our faithfulness to Christ’s teaching. In other words, we’re saved by doing works, works, and works.

That is not the gospel.

Unfortunately, I know first-hand how prevalent works salvation can be in the Orthodox Church, though priests and parishioners will adamantly deny it. But Crow’s summary of Bloom’s salvation message shows that is what can be taught in the Orthodox Church.

Crow claims that Bloom’s comments are based on his interpretation of Paul. Is it true that Paul taught people were saved by keeping whatever law they know? Nothing could be further from what Paul wrote!

Here is what Paul taught about salvation and the law:

Now it is clear that no one is justified before God by the law, because the righteous will live by faith (Galatians 3:11, emphasis added).

For no one will be justified in his sight by the works of the law, because the knowledge of sin comes through the law (Romans 3:20, emphasis added).

For we conclude that a person is justified by faith apart from the works of the law (Romans 3:28, emphasis added).

Would Paul agree that “the pagans would be saved by keeping the ‘law within their hearts’” or that “the Jews [would be saved] by keeping the Law of Moses”?

No!

No one is justified by the law. No one. It will never happen.

Yes, God gave people the law, but not so we can be saved by keeping it. Instead, He gave it to be a kind of mirror that shows us the stains of sin in our lives. The law is supposed to help you realize that there’s no hope for being saved based on your obedience because you don’t obey. No day goes by without you sinning in thought, word, or deed.

How, then, are we saved? Here, too, Paul couldn’t be clearer. And that is how Paul taught we are saved—by faith, apart from works:

For we conclude that a person is justified by faith apart from the works of the law (Romans 3:28, emphasis added).

and yet because we know that a person is not justified by the works of the law but by faith in Jesus Christ, even we ourselves have believed in Christ Jesus. This was so that we might be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law, because by the works of the law no human being will be justified (Galatians 2:16, emphasis added).

For you are saved by grace through faith, and this is not from yourselves; it is God’s gift—not from works, so that no one can boast (Ephesians 2:8-9, emphasis added).

Can Paul be any clearer? I could cite dozens more verses, especially from Jesus, which make clear that salvation comes through faith (cf. John 3:15-18). Although Crow writes, “Salvation was not dependent on the glib argument of the fundamentalists that only faith in Jesus Christ as one’s personal Saviour mattered…” On the contrary, that is exactly what Paul teaches. Faith in Christ is all that matters in salvation. Jesus saves us through faith, apart from our works. The Lord did the work of salvation by dying for our sins and rising again from the dead so that salvation could be absolutely free. That’s what it means for salvation to be by grace.

How could anyone read Paul and conclude people will be saved based on their works? I honestly don’t understand.

Maybe Crow was thinking about what Paul said in Romans 2:

For all who sin without the law will also perish without the law, and all who sin under the law will be judged by the law. For the hearers of the law are not righteous before God, but the doers of the law will be justified. So, when Gentiles, who do not by nature have the law, do what the law demands, they are a law to themselves even though they do not have the law. They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts. Their consciences confirm this. Their competing thoughts either accuse or even excuse them on the day when God judges what people have kept secret, according to my gospel through Christ Jesus (Romans 2:12-16).

In that passage, Paul wrote that Gentiles have the law written on their hearts. He even says they can sometimes obey it. The key to understanding Paul’s argument in that section is v 13: “For the hearers of the law are not righteous before God, but the doers of the law will be justified.” If you want to be justified by law, you can’t just hear it, but must actually do it. But as Paul makes very clear in Romans 1–3, no one has done it! Everyone—Jew and Gentile—has broken the law they know. As Paul concludes just a few verses later:

as it is written:

There is no one righteous, not even one.
There is no one who understands;
there is no one who seeks God.
All have turned away;
all alike have become worthless.
There is no one who does what is good,
not even one (Romans 3:10-12).

No one is good. Although it is hypothetically possible to be saved if one never sinned and kept the law perfectly, salvation by works is practically impossible because no one has ever met that requirement. Despite the title of his biography, Metropolitan Bloom never met that requirement. No one has. If anyone is going to be saved—if anyone is going to be considered righteous before God—it will require another way. And Jesus provided that other way through the cross!

To give Paul the last word, our hope is not to be saved based on being faithful to the law, but to—

be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own from the law, but one that is through faith in Christ—the righteousness from God based on faith (Philippians 3:9).

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