What is the Eastern Orthodox view of the atonement?

As I was able to understand it, the penal substitution view (at least in the Reformed/Calvinist sense) really turned on an understanding of a certain "divine dilemma" for God, in which his infinite mercy and infinite justice had to be reconciled.

Because he his perfectly just, he cannot forgive without punishing sin...or else, so the reasoning goes, he would be unjust. Verses like Exodus 34:6-7, "I am the LORD...a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation" are often cited to support this.

On the other hand, because he is perfectly loving, he cannot completely condemn the entire creation and so therefore must redeem it, and man with it as his own image-bearers.

Therefore, Jesus who is perfectly sinless voluntarily receives the punishment due to the whole human race (which in Calvin's own writings involved rejection from God and actual suffering in Hades, as a condemned person) so that God's justice is satisfied and his anger is taken away from us. They speak of the "double transaction" wherein our total sinfulness is imputed to him and punished on the cross, and his total obedience is imputed to us (well, to the elect, anyway). Jesus of course destroyed death and the power of the devil in his resurrection, and now all who are joined to him by faith are "saved" in the sense that all sins (past, present and future) all already punished...and that Christ's "infinite merit" is now ours, meaning that he's basically earned heaven for us.

I've always thought that penal substitution really only made logically consistent sense in the Calvinist model, where Christ paid the full penalty for those chosen for salvation and no others, lest he shed his blood for anyone who chooses otherwise and therefore "wastes the blood."

Of course this is all caught up in the medeival system of penance, which was bound up with "temporal punishments owed in purgatory," and various sorts of "merit" that could be given to a Christian for good works or acts of contrition, etc. The Reformers were working in basically the same framework but sought to remove the idea that "temporal punishment" always loomed over people...if Christ really took the punishment for us, then he took all of it, meaning there's no purgatory and no temporal debt.

Where that all broke down for me, was that the underlying assumption of what it meant for God to be "just" seemed rather restrictive and human. It treats God's Law as though it looms above him and cannot be transgressed, and therefore forgiveness really is conditional, given only when punishment is served, and therefore isn't actually forgiveness at all. Jesus taught us to pray that God would forgive us as we forgive those who sin against us...meaning freely and totally. We are supposed to forgive without exacting vengeance.

Since all the underlying assumptions are different in Orthodoxy...we aren't born condemned because of the sin of another (whether "real" or "imputed"), God does not have to punish in order to forgive, etc. then the whole model of atonement in the West doesn't even fit.

I'm still learning, and it isnt' nearly as precisely formulated in the East as it is in various Western confessions, which are scholastic and precise and excruciatingly detailed. It seems that Jesus did in fact suffer in our place, accepting the consequences of sin that we'd brought upon ourselves. His sacrifical death did fulfill the entire system of blood sacrifice in the Old Covenant, and what he voluntarily accepted were all the curses of the Law...death, abandonment, being carried outside the camp where the unclean things were (see Hebrews), and so forth. But, just as lepers became clean by touching him (the reverse of the Law, where a clean person became unclean), Christ through his sacrifice made humanity clean again. Death was destroyed in his resurrection. All those who approach God through Christ are clean and holy, forgiven and accepted. His body became the veil that separated the common from the holy, and through him we enter into true communion with God. In the Eucharist we unite ourselves to his sacrifice and through Him offer ourselves to God as living sacrifices. All is fulfilled.

We then struggle against sin, against our own passions, and those things that still try to hold us back (what Paul calls the "old man") in a process of deepening our union with Christ, of becoming what we already are. We are saved, but yet being saved. Holy, yet being sanctified. Justified, yet being made right before God.

"Already, but not yet" and all that.

So far that's the best I can understand of where I am now. The beauty is that all the trappings of merit, punishment, and all the medieval ideas that led to the Reformation and the splintering of Western Christianity, aren't there. I don't need to lay out a billion bullet points of everything Christ fulfilled or did..."he is all, and in all." And I don't need to divide myself from the person next to me because I see the atonement a little more this way, and he sees it a little more that way...we're both sinners, saved by grace, coming to Christ in repentence to receive forgiveness and approach him and truly unite with him, body and spirit, in the Eucharist. It kind of makes your jaw drop and the details kind of fade.

Talk about a "personal relationship" with Christ!

The ransom is paid to the devil... not God one has to be careful about what the 'ransom" is refered to also.

Wesleyan Arminian: Atonement Series: Ransom / Christus Victor

That was the only source I could find on line. But the ransom also is used as a "motif" or "theme" so we can understand the sacrifice of Christ. I think that we will fully understand when we are (God willing) with Him in Heaven.

I would rather stick to St. Athanasius explanation of incarnation that "God became man so man can become god " and leave it at that. I think the idea of "incarnation theology" that exists in EO tops all in a way and places the "redemption" in a God oriented perspective than a human's perspective.

Very few Orthodox scholars I have read believe the ransom was paid to the devil; God owes Satan nothing. In Christus Victor, God is conquerer of death. He takes what he wants. He enters hell and really death itself receives a ransom of sorts, not in direct payment by Christ to Satan but in a manner of speaking since Christ pays the price of dying and overcoming death, busting out of hell with fury and glory, dragging the new Man into a world where death doesn't dwell. Where the old man, Adam, lives and dies, through our baptism we enter into the NEW man, Christ, who dies but overcomes it. We'll do the same. So really the ransom wasn't paid to Satan, the father of lies who doesn't deserve a nickel of payment from the Divine. That's the consensus of what I read in Orthodox circles. Some fathers were proponents of that Satan receives a ransom approach and it was Anselm's reaction to it "Satan doesn't deserve payment!" that created the substitutionary Atonement views that we read in Western thinking....

For anyone interested, I'm in the beginnings of a very irenic discussion of atonement with some Presbyterians in another CF subforum. It's been interesting so far, as they are arguing somewhat against the "penal substitution model" as I described it in an earlier post in this thread.

I'm not going to debate anything there as it's not the proper forum, but it's been a good and peaceful exchange so far

http://www.christianforums.com/t7585007/

If anyone is interested.

Interesting thread. I have nothing to add to it. But I'll comment here that if they were any kind of Presbyterian other than PCUSA, I don't think they'd be having that discussion. Having been PCA, I'd had a very low view of the PCUSA (the one in my home town would give "civil union" ceremonies for homosexual couples). It's good to read Solichristos' and Hedrick's posts.

I don't believe we paid a ransom to the devil/Satan. At least that's not been taught to me or what I've watched and learned in the lectures I've seen.

St. Gregory the Theologian - "Now we are on this to examine another fact and dogma, which in my judgment, is very necessary to inquire into. to whom was that blood offered that was shed for us, and why was it shed? I mean the precious and famous blood of our God and High Priest and Sacrifice. We were detained in bondage by the evil one. Sold under sin, and receiving pleasure in exchange for wickedness. Now, since a ransom belongs only to him who holds in bondage, I ask then to whom was this offered and for what cause? If it was offered to the evil one, what an outrage to say such a thing. If the robber receives ransom not only from God, but a ransom which consists of God Himself and has such a lusterous payment for his tyranny, then it would have been right for Him to have left us alone all together. But if it was offered to God the Father, I ask first how? For it was not by God the Father that we were being oppressed. And next, on what principle did the blood of His only begotten Son delight the Father who would not even receive Isaac when he was being sacrificed by his father, Abraham, but changed the sacrifice by putting a ram in his place. Is it not evident that the Father accepts Him, but neither asked for, that neither asked for the sacrifice, nor demanded it, but on account of the Incarnation, and because humanity must be sanctified by the humanity of God, voluntarily, that He might deliver Himself and overcome the tyrant and draw us to Himself by the mediation of His Son, who also arranged this to the honor of the Father, whom it is clear, He obeys in all things."

"O God, our God, Who has sent us the Heavenly Bread, the Food of the entire world, our Lord and our God Jesus Christ, to save us, to ransom us, to do us good, to bless and sanctify us; do Thou Thyself bless this offering and accept it at Thine Altar above the Heavens. Remember in Thy Goodness and loving kindness both those who brought this offering, and those for whom they brought it; and keep us blameless in the celebration of Thy Holy Sacraments; for Holy and glorious is Thy name, of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, always, now and forever and from all ages to all ages. Amen."

To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 10 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
dir="ltr">

" ... let us commit ourselves, and one another, and our whole lives to Christ our God."