Atonement

For I passed on to you as of first importance3 what I also received – that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures (1 Cor 15:3 NET)

"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." - Fr. James Bernstein, The Illumined Heart Podcast, May 22, 2008

"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"

"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