To that end, we look to what we have learned through our faith in God. There are three theological concepts that can help us as we consider what we believe about the end of life.
First, our faith is theocentric. We honor God through our lives, and give thanks and praise for the goodness of God. To be welcomed into the arms of God beyond this life should bring us tremendous joy, not fill us with fear or dread. Second, our faith is incarnational. Our theology of the incarnation is most fully revealed in Jesus Christ. Because we are sinful creatures, our relationship with God is broken.
Jesus Christ came to restore that relationship and bring us back into communion with God. The restoration for Anglicans takes place in and through the Word and sacrament, as they draw us into the life of God as it is revealed in Jesus Christ.
In his life and in his death, Jesus is one with God, and is raised into God. So, too, through the love of God and the love of neighbor, we are drawn out of ourselves and into the glory of God. The presence of God becomes clearer through our lives, and even in our death.
Third, our faith is corporate. We live out our faith in community as it was intended from the earliest days of the church. We are made one body in Christ, and that body will support us in all phases of our life, even and especially at the end, as we move into that heavenly kingdom.
Because we need not fear the end of life, we are set free to appreciate the life we have now. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Some also see Christ's death as a moral ideal, the highest example of love.
Because of who Jesus is and what he has done, traditional Anglicanism holds, people no longer need suffer eternal death. Those who believe in Jesus are redeemed and born again, and they shall not perish but have everlasting life. The term "believe in" means to have faith in Jesus as Lord, trusting that one's sins are forgiven because of his sacrifice on the cross.
By this faith one is accounted righteous for the sake of Christ--that is, justified--and one shares in the risen life of Christ. Such faith is itself no natural work, but a gift of God's grace through the Holy Spirit. Works that are pleasing to God do not contribute to justification, but rather flow from faith and justification.
Anglicanism teaches that, for those who have faith in Jesus and have become God's children, salvation is both a current, lived reality and a future hope. The current aspect of salvation is a relationship with God through the Holy Spirit. The justified walk in newness of life, meaning they are enabled to love God, worship God, and serve God by loving and serving other people.
This is called sanctification, which is never lived out perfectly in this life. The future hope of the saved in Anglican teaching is eternity in perfect relationship with God in heaven. As with hell, the exact nature of heaven is unknown. The Bible often uses geographical imagery for it, but many prefer to consider it as a state of being.
Regardless, it is characterized by union with, but distinction from, God. It is a state of continual worship of God, of perfect love, of rest, of the end of tears and pain and labors and death, of perfect fellowship with believers, of bliss. The term via media when used in reference to the Anglican tradition generally refers to the idea that Anglicanism represents a middle way between Protestantism and Roman Catholicism.
They have also varied considerably as to the limits of orthodoxy conformation to the Christian faith as represented in the creeds of the early church and the appropriate sanctions if any for breaching those limits. A very brief summary of a worldwide common Anglican stance is to be found in the Lambeth Quadrilateral , but individual provinces have established doctrine commissions or doctrine and worship committees to advise the House of Bishops and the General Synod or comparable body on doctrinal issues.
Hence, in the fuller life beyond this one, there will be something corresponding to our bodies, but we cannot possibly envisage the precise nature of such life. Should we pray for the dead? Should we pray for anyone? If God knows what is best, need we ask for it? Christ clearly encouraged us to pray for each other and for ourselves Matt.
We naturally pray for those we love, and we are commanded to pray for those who do not love us Matt. Should we, then, pray for the dead? Prayer for those on this earth is not always a specific request for a specific need.
Do the dead need our prayers? For those in one state, prayer is unnecessary, and for those in the other, it is futile. But the Bible does not enable us to be so certain about the state of the dead or to say dogmatically that prayer for them is either unnecessary or futile.
Anglicans disagree about the rightness of specific petitions for the departed and the official documents of the Church of Ireland leave the question open. It is significant that prayers for the dead were not rejected in the 39 Articles. This and similar petitions can be understood to be for the living only, or for both the living and departed.
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