OBW, I am posting these long posts because I am also in the process of learning something new. I also want to know the truth. But to me, a brief answer is not enough. I need to see a bigger picture to get at the roots of things. So when you question me, I google for the answers. And the more I read, the more it makes sense to me. Though, I know I might be biased because the EO church is a part of my historical and cultural background.
How Are We Saved?
(It's a long article, I'll share the summary)
The work of salvation belongs entirely to God. It is God through Christ and the Holy Spirit, who has the divine power to rescue us from the forces of sickness, evil, sin, death, and the devil. It is God through Christ and the Holy Spirit who alone provides justification, forgiveness, and new life to sinners who come to Him with faith. And God provides salvation as a most amazing and unceasing gift to all sincere seekers.
From our side, the question is about receiving and using the gift of salvation. The gift is offered, but if we do not receive it, we don’t have it, and certainly cannot use it. God offers the gift. We can choose to accept it or reject it. As Orthodox Christians we do not believe in predestination. Jesus said: “Whoever wants to come after me, let him take up his cross and follow me” (Mark 8:34). The gift and the challenge to follow Jesus through a life of faith and works coincide.
The reception of the gift of salvation is not a one-time event but a life-time process. St. Paul employs the verb “to save” (sozesthai) in the past tense (“we have been saved,” Rom 8:24; Eph 2:5); in the present tense (“we are being saved,” 1 Cor 1:18; 15:2), and in the future tense (“we will be saved,” Rom 5:10). He can think even of justification as a future event and part of the final judgment (Rom 2:13, 16). For Paul, Christians are involved in a lifetime covenant with God in which we work, planting and watering, but it is “only God who gives the growth” (1 Cor 3:7).
We are “co-workers with God” (synergoi Theou, 1 Cor 3:9; 1 Thess 3:2). (Not “co-workers under God” as some translations would have it). The mystery of salvation is a duet, not a solo. It is a life-time engagement with God. It has ups and downs, twists and turns, with opportunities to grow in the love of God, knowing that we can turn to Him again and again and receive forgiveness and a new birth. When we come to Christ as sinners, we have no works to offer to Him, but only faith and repentance. But once we come to Him and receive the gift of salvation, we enter into a sacred covenant to honor Him with good works. We read in Ephesians: “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and this is not your own doing, it is the gift of God . . . [We are] created in Christ Jesus for good works” (Eph 2:8-10).
The teaching of the New Testament is that God’s grace, our free will, and our faith and good works, are intimately connected. The Holy Spirit energizes in us both faith and good works as we thirst for and seek God’s grace. Neither faith nor good works can be presented as merit before God, but only as return gifts in humility, love, and thanksgiving. Let us not forget as well the sober words of James: “Faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead . . . Faith is completed by works . . . A person is justified by works and not by faith alone” (James 2:17, 22, 24). By free will, faith, and earnest labors, we work together with the grace of God in the awesome gift and mystery of salvation. As St. Paul puts it: “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for God is at work in you, both to will and to work His good pleasure” (Phil 2:12-13). To God Almighty, together with the Son and the Holy Spirit, be praise and worship forever. Amen.
http://www.goarch.org/ourfaith/how-are-we-saved
THE ORTHODOX TEACHING ON PERSONAL SALVATION
Chapter 1 of a thesis by Deacon Victor E. Klimenko, Ph.D., a graduate of the Pastoral School of the Chicago and Mid-America of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia.
I was prompted to choose this particular topic for the present Thesis by my apologetical dialogue in the Apologetics class. When my opponent – a Presbyterian pastor – and I got into the discussion of the subject of personal salvation and went through the usual set of Biblical quotes that the two sides read differently, I felt that it was important to emphasize that the Orthodox and the Protestant teachings on salvation do not exactly carry the same weight, as
the Protestant teaching of “faith only” happens to be a 16th-century novelty that was born out of the protest against the abuses of the Papacy. Neither the Apostles, nor the Eastern Fathers, nor the Latin Fathers taught about salvation this way.
To my surprise, this statement made an impression on my opponent. He said that he does have a problem with this fact, that this is something he is “wrestling with”, and that he even finds it “troubling.” Another admission that he made was that he (in spite of his being a pastor and a seminary graduate, I would add) never questioned the Protestant views on salvation and never had to deal with the opposing views of the Roman Catholic or Eastern Orthodox Churches...
(This chapter is even longer than the previous article, so I'll stop here by giving the link).
http://www.pravoslavie.ru/english/46463.htm
ORTHODOX CRITICISM OF THE WESTERN CHRISTIAN TEACHING ON PERSONAL SALVATION
Chapter 2
Source:
http://www.pravoslavie.ru/english/46465.htm