Fr. Tony’s Midweek Message
“Orthodox” Atonement
In the last couple of months during our Sunday forums, soup supper
discussions, and small group discussion of the Marcus Borg lectures, I have
heard the question asked several times, “Well, then, what does it mean when we
say Jesus died on the cross for us?”
It is important to note that though the early Church defined an orthodox
and catholic doctrine of who Christ is (“Christology”), it never defined
clearly what exactly it is that Jesus did for us in his death and resurrection
(“soteriology.”)
Much of our discussion has focused on the problems inherent with the
commonly held modern doctrine of transferred punishment: “Christ died on the
cross to pay for our sins, to suffer in our place the punishment we
deserve for our misdoings and for the original sin we all inherit from Adam and
Eve.”
This doctrine is an artifact of the late Middle Ages and the Renaissance,
and was no part of the first millennium of Christian faith. And it is not “orthodox.”
Eastern Orthodox theologians to this day maintain a clear distance from
what they see as errors introduced in the Western Church in this regard.
Abbot Tryphon, the head of All-Merciful Saviour Orthodox Christian
Monastery on Vashon Island, Washington, recently
wrote the following, which sums up nicely some of the differences between the
Eastern and modern Western Church here:
“That the Orthodox Church does not accept the doctrine of original sin as espoused in the West, in no way suggests we do not need to be born anew. Orthodoxy continues the teaching of the Early Church that we inherit only the results of Adam's sin, not his guilt, … a cosmos where sickness and death reign.
“Christ's death on the cross has as its power, not an atoning sacrifice, but in the conquering of the power of death itself. Death has been trampled down by death, and Christ's resurrection opened the door to eternal life, and ended the finality of death. Christ's resurrection becomes our resurrection.
“…Our understanding of the nature of sin as distinct from the concept of original sin and the hereditary guilt that requires a substitutionary, atonement-type, sacrifice, separates us doctrinally from Western Christianity.
“Had there not been a fall, Christ the Logos (Word) would still have, in the mind of many Church Fathers, incarnated in the flesh and taken on our nature. For this condescension by our God to take on the flesh of His creatures, opened wide the door for our communion with Him, allowing us to enter into the very Heart of God, thus completing creation as it was meant to be.
“Our journey into the heart culminates in theosis [divinization, becoming God], whereby we are joined in everlasting communion with the very God Who created us, for as Saint Athanasius of Alexandria said, ‘The Son of God became man, that we might become god.’ And in II Peter 1:4, we read that we have become ‘...partakers of divine nature.’ Saint Athanasius went on to say that theosis is ‘becoming by grace what God is by nature.’”
As we prepare for
Holy Week, with all its talk of Jesus’ death and resurrection, and how this was
for our sakes, let us remember to place these stories, texts, and doctrines in
a broader context than one that assumes (I believe wrongly) that God demands
violence and suffering to make things right, even if we may have been raised
with such a view.
Peace and Grace,
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