Atonement

For I passed on to you as of first importance what I also received – that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures -- 1 Cor 15:3 (NET)

Expiation vs Propitiation

"Propitiation is the term that non-Orthodox Christians tend to use with regard to sacrifice. It's emphasis is upon the sacrificial as somehow impacting God, in order to appease his anger or to change his will; and to change it from one of vengeance to one of love. In contrast, the Orthodox tend to use the word "expiation" with regard to what is accomplished in the sacrificial act. Expiation is an act of offering that seeks to change the one making the offering. The Greek word that is translated both into propitiation and expiation is "hilasmos" which means "to make acceptable and enable one to draw close to God". So the Orthodox emphasis is 1 Cor 15:3. We understand that Christ died for us in order to heal us; in order to change us to become more like God. He died for us, not instead of us. Not to appease an angry and vindictive Father, or to change God. So the ultimate purpose of Christ's death is to change us, and it's expiatory, not to avert the wrath of God, which is propitiatory. And this is the Biblical understanding, and it is the Jewish understanding too. The Catholics and Protestants took a concept of sacrifice. And took it into a direction which is not orthodox Christianity, and it's not Jewish either." - Fr. James Bernstein, The Illumined Heart Podcast, May 22, 2008

Rescue vs Ransom

"This is not a "ransom" paid to the Father; the Father wasn’t holding us captive. It is an offering, but not a payment. Look at it this way. Christ suffered to save us from our sins in the same way a fireman suffers burns and wounds to save a child from a burning home. He may dedicate this courageous act as an offering to the fire chief he loves and admires. He may do it to redeem the child from the malice of the arsonist who started the fire. But his suffering isn’t paid to anyone, in the sense of making a bargain. Likewise, God redeemed His people from the hand of Pharaoh when He rescued them in the Red Sea. But He didn’t pay Pharaoh anything. He Himself was not paid anything. It was a rescue action, not a business transaction, and our redemption by Christ is the same." - Frederica Matthewes-Greene, "First Fruits of Prayer: A Forty-Day Journey Through the Canon of St. Andrew"

Orthodox View of Salvation

The original Orthodox Christian understanding of atonement is incarnational. It has as its basis not the law or the courtroom, but God's unconditional love and grace. We begin with the understanding that forgiveness and atonement ("at-one-ment" or reconciliation with God) are not essentially legal or juridical concepts. They are principally therapeutic, organic, synergistic, transformational, and ultimately ontological in nature. In fact, the Greek word translated as "salvation" is soterias, whose root meaning is "health."

So being saved means more than being saved from something, such as death or hell; it also means being healed or made whole. When Jesus says, "Your faith has saved you" (Luke 7:50), He means, "Your faith has healed you," or "Your faith has made you whole." Forgiveness and atonement pertain to God's participation in His creation in order to renew His image and likeness in us, bringing us to wholeness and fulfillment. To be healed, we don't go to a lawyer or to a judge. To be healed, we go to a physician-and Jesus is the Great Physician. -- Fr. James Bernstein, 01 Nov 2011

Influence of Augustine on the Western Church

"I've heard Western critics of Orthodoxy say that orthodox Christians do not recognize the holiness of God. They say that, in our Orthodox focus on God's love, we forget about God's justice. But that's not the case. It's just that for us, God's holiness is his selfless love, which is ultimately concerned with healing and redeeming us. As for justice; well, justice is a devotion to setting matters right; restoring things to their proper state and their proper relationship. In our Eastern perspective, when God unselfishly empties himself for our salvation, that's just what he is doing. He makes it possible for us to be right again; to return to the mystical union with God we were created to experience. Of course, the reason Western critics accuse the Orthodox of not paying enough attention to God's holiness and justice is that they have a much different view of both holiness and justice -- an outlook that comes from Augustine and his successors. The West treats God's holiness as his unapproachable, moral perfection. And what's more, God is first and foremost concerned about preserving his moral perfection, and protecting it from all infringements. As for justice, the Western understanding of that also comes from the Greek philosophers. To the Western mind, God's chief goal is not the healing of broken human creatures. Instead, it is the reestablishment of the moral order which he conferred on creation in the beginning -- an order which Adam and Eve messed up. In the Christian East we find a God of perfectly selfless love, whose supreme objective is to heal humankind and restore it to intimacy with him. In the West, we discover a self-concerned God, who is above all things, protective of his own rightousness. When it comes to humanity, his main concern is righting the wrong human beings have done to him. True, even in this Western view, God's saving of his own honor results in the salvation of at least some human beings, but their salvation is secondary to healing the wound they have given God. This understanding of God and the nature of salvation is evident in the teaching of Augustine." - Matthew Gallatin Pilgrims for Progress podcast, June 30, 2008

"The Augustinian doctrine of original sin is widely accepted by Christians in the West. They believe, as Augustine taught, that all human beings bear the guilt of Adam's sin in the garden of Eden. As his decendents, we are answerable for his disobedience. In a genetic sense, we were all present within Adam when he sinned against God, and as a result, Adam's guilt was in a sort of geneological way, passed on to all succeeding generations. Now, for a theology built upon God's need to reestablish moral order, original sin is a very useful doctrine. Holding all human beings collectively, as a group, to be culpable for the initial hishonor done to God by Adam keeps the moral scenario nice and tidy. It makes the human race easier to deal with. Righting the scales of justice would be a lot messier if God had to deal with us as billions of individuals. I mean, it's not hard to see how people vary greatly in their degree of moral goodness or badness. Restoring the moral beauty of the universe to some absolutely perfect balance would be trickier if God had to work with some who were completely corrupt, and others who were basically good moral folk, and all those who fall somewhere in between. Given Augustine's view of what God needs to accomplish, it is theologically and philosophically much tidier to declare the entire human race to be, as Augustine does in Ad Implicionum, 'a massapecati', i.e., one big single lump of sin. Also this lumping together of humanity fits well with Augustine's understanding of why God created human beings." - Matthew Gallatin Pilgrims for Progress podcast, June 30, 2008

"Rather than a perfectly selfless god of love, whose supreme objective is to heal humankind and restore it to intimacy with the Trinity, the West, under the influence of a Platonic interpreted god, has come to see God as a self-concerned god of order, who is above all things protective of his own righteousness. And when it comes to humanity, his main concern really is righting the wrong that human beings have done to him." - Matthew Gallatin Pilgrims for Progress podcast, June 30, 2008

"Unlike their Eastern counterparts that see Christ's work as a therapeutic act of healing death and sin, Western Christians by and large understand Christ's activity as legal in nature. God either sues us for defamation, as in Anselm; or hauls us into criminal court for our offenses, as in penal substitution. Christ comes either to make good on the damages, or to suffer the demands of divine justice. One way or another, he comes to pay for sin, not to heal it." - Matthew Gallatin

• In the Eastern view, when people sin, the God of love is compelled to join himself to his human children, and thereby put an end to the sin and death that separate humanity from him.
• In the Western view, God's purpose is the restoration of moral order. Adam and Eve "upset the moral apple cart" of the universe through their sin. To set things right again, the God of the West does not look to his self-denying love. Instead, he reacts in a very self-concerned, human way, that is, he inflicts punishment. According to Augustine, this punishment restores moral balance to the universe. Or, as Augustine puts it, "God applies punishment in such a way that it places natures in their right order, and forces them to comply with the beauty of the universe, so that the punishment of sin corrects the disgrace of sin" (On Free Choice Of The Will, Bk 3, Ch 9, Sect 95, 96). Also, "If sin occurred, and happiness did not result from it, then evil would violate order. As long as men who do not sin gain happiness, the universe is perfect. When sinners are unhappy the universe is perfect. Since there are souls who gain happiness because they do right, or unhappiness because they sin, the universe is always full and perfect" (On Free Choice Of The Will, Bk 3, Ch 9, Sect 93, 94).
• The Eastern God of Love wants to heal humanity. The Western God of order, according to Augustine, wants to ensure that at least some of humanity is unhappy.

• The Augustinian Theology of Original Sin
• Widely accepted in Western Christianity.

• Believe that all human beings bear the guilt of Adam's sin.
• As Adam's descendents, humans are answerable for his disobedience.
• Rests on only five biblical passages.

• Psalm 51:5
• Job 14:4,5
• John 3:5
• Romans 5:12
• Ephesians 2:3

• Based on the Stoic doctrine of Seminal Reasons

• A belief that all existing things pre-exist as potential in the fundamental patterns and priciples that govern the various forms which matter can take.
• The potential existence of each human being was in Adam's semen, therefore each individual is Adam.

• Seems to be true because everyone dies. Since Adam was punished by death, we are punished by the same fate, regardless of what kind of life we lead. Even infants who have had no opportunity to sin, will sometimes die. God must have some justification for this, and original sin fits.

• This is based on a misunderstanding of what happened in the Garden of Eden.

• Scriptures that repudiate Augustine's teaching

• 2 Kings 14:6 -- God commands Israel that fathers shall not be put to death for their children, nor shall children be put to death for their fathers, but a person shall be put to death for his own sin.

Scriptural Authority in Favor of Therapeutic Salvation

• Matthew 9:9-13

See Also

Justification Salvation