~Monday Morning Meditations~
Every Monday Fr. Steven Kostoff sends out his Monday Morning Meditations. I thought today’s offering would be particularly interesting to many of my readers. The emphasis is mine. I have found this explanation to be very helpful. Also I have a new reader and subscriber from Nepal! Isn’t that neat? WELCOME! 
Over the centuries a particular theory developed in the West as to why Christ had to die on the Cross for our salvation. It is now often referred to as the penal satisfaction theory, and it is traced back to St. Anselm of Canterbury (11th c.). As an early scholastic theologian, Anselm was trying to rationally explain the mystery of our redemption in Christ. The Orthodox theologian, Vladimir Lossky, critical of this theory, describes it thus in speaking of Anselm:
In his work Christian horizons are limited by the drama played between God, who is infinitely
offended by sin, and man, who is unable to satisfy the impossible demands of vindictive justice.
The drama finds its resolution in the death of Christ, the Son of God, who has become man in
order to substitute Himself for us and to pay our debt to divine justice.
This was later further distorted by many of the Protestant reformers who claimed that God was angry with us and that Christ had to “appease” or “propitiate” Him by His blood. Hence, Jonathon Edward’s “sinners in the hands of an angry God.” The rich imagery of the Scriptures is unfortunately narrowed down to a very legalistic understanding of redemption in Christ. As Lossky further probes this theory, he reveals its many shortcomings:
What becomes of the dispensation of the Holy Spirit here? His part is reduced to that of an
auxiliary, an assistant in redemption, causing us to receive Christ’s expiating merit. The final
goal of our union with God is, if not excluded altogether, at least shut out from our sight by
the stern vault of a theological conception built on the ideas of original guilt and its reparation.
There are further “casualties” in this narrowly-focused atonement theory, according to Lossky:
The price of our redemption having been paid in the death of Christ, the resurrection and the
ascension are only a glorious happy end of His work, a kind of apotheosis without direct
relationship to our human destiny. This redemptionist theology, placing all the emphasis
on the passion, seems to take no interest in the triumph of Christ over death. The very
work of the Christ-Redeemer, to which this theology is confined, seems to be truncated,
impoverished, reduced to a change of the divine attitude toward fallen men, unrelated to the
nature of humanity.
Too great a price to pay for a rationalistic theology! Only now, are both Roman Catholic and Protestants taking a serious and critical look at this particular theory of atonement.
The early Church, following the Scriptures, emphasized the victory of Christ over sin, death and the devil in His Cross and Resurrection. He truly “trampled down death by death.” The Church Fathers, beginning with St. Irenaeus of Lyons, were very expressive in their formulation of this aspect of our redemption. So you will not find the “satisfaction theory” in their writings. The language of Scripture is meant to provide a series of images and metaphors that help us understand our redemption in Christ without falling prey to a narrowly-focused rationalism or legalism. “Justification,” “salvation,” “atonement,” “expiation,” “ransom,” “reconciliation,” “sanctification,” “glorification,” “freedom” – these are the many terms borrowed from both the Old Testament and from the Graeco-Roman world to convey the great “mystery of piety.” These images are the many sides of a beautiful diamond that must be viewed from different angles for its true beauty and brilliance to be appreciated.
Ransom is another term that can be misapplied if one is overly-literalistic, or again legalistic, in its application. The following passage from St. Gregory the Theologian is probably the “classic” Orthodox response to any misunderstanding about the use of “ransom” language when referring to the death of Christ. This passage demands a very careful reading, if not multiple readings, to draw out the rich insights of St. Gregory. Basically, he is making it clear that the “ransom” offered by Christ was “paid” neither to the devil nor to God the Father:
We must now consider a problem and a doctrine often passed over in silently, which, in my view,
nevertheless needs deep study. The blood shed for us, the most precious and glorious blood of
God, the blood of the Sacrificer and the Sacrifice – why was it shed and to whom was it offered?
We were under the reign of the devil, sold to sin, after we had gained corruption on account of
our sinful desire. If the price of our ransom is paid to him who has us in his power, I ask myself:
Why is such a price to be paid? If it is given to the devil, it is outrageous! The brigand receives
the price of redemption. Not only does he receive it from God, he receives God Himself. For his
violence he demands such a disproportionate ransom that it would be more just for him to set us
free without ransom. But if to the Father, why should that be done? It is not the Father who has
held us as His captives. Moreover, why should the blood of His only Son be acceptable to the
Father, who did not wish to accept Isaac, when Abraham offered Him his son as a burnt-offering,
but replaced the human sacrifice with the sacrifice of a ram? Is it not evident that the Father
accepts the sacrifice not because He demanded it or had any need for it but by His dispensation?
It was necessary that man should be sanctified by the humanity of God; it was necessary that
He Himself should free us, triumphing over the tyrant by His own strength, and that He should
recall us to Himself by His Son who is the Mediator, who does all for the honor of the Father, to
whom He is obedient in all things. Let the rest of the mystery be venerated silently.
Lossky comments on this passage, thus:
What emerges from the passage we have just quoted is that, for St. Gregory, the idea
of redemption, far from implying the idea of a necessity imposed by vindictive justice, is
rather an expression of the dispensation, whose mystery cannot be adequately
clarified in a series of rational concepts.
The key concept here is the “dispensation” or “divine economy” (from the Gk. oikonomia or God’s “household management”). The Son of God must offer His life as a sacrifice in fulfilment of the Father’s will, by the power of the Holy Spirit, in order for God’s design or saving plan for us to be realized - the abolition of the power of sin and death over us. This is powerfully stated in the Epistle to the Hebrews:
Inasmuch then as the children have partaken of flesh and blood, He Himself likewise
shared in the same, that through death He might destroy him who had the power of death,
that is, the devil, and release those who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject
to bondage. (HEB. 2:14-15)
We are not sinners in the hands of an angry God, but sinners in the hands of a loving God: “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son … (JN. 3:16) Yet, there is not a drop of sentimentality in this divine love for us. As St. Paul says: “For you were bought at a price,” meaning the ”cost” to God in willing His Son to die on our behalf. God’s saving dispensation includes not only our forgiveness of sins, but also our glorification with Christ in the Kingdom of Heaven. That is why we never really separate the Cross from the Resurrection and Ascension. There is one unified paschal mystery. Christ is vanquishing sin and death on the Cross: “I call Him King, because I see Him crucified” says St. John Chrysostom. Of course, our sins are forgiven on the Cross because God desired them to be wiped out. That is the true meaning of Christ as our “expiation.” The Cross is the “Mercy Seat” (Gk. hilasterion) on which are sins are wiped away by God, thus revealing His righteousness by restoring us by His faithfulness to His covenantal love.
We know that we are “saved” by the death and resurrection of Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. We have been “ransomed” back from slavery to sin and death, because He “paid the price” on our behalf. This fulfilled the love of God for us, and did satisfy a non-existent “wrath” that needed to be appeased. We accept this in faith, without trying to overly penetrate the “mystery of piety.” Let us venerate the mystery in silence as St. Gregory teaches us.
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