The Atonement- Legal or Therapeutic?

Most western Christians, Protestant or Catholic, are familiar with the doctrine of “Atonement by Penal Substitution.” However, very few western Christians are familiar with the earliest view of atonement held by the Eastern Orthodox Church. The Orthodox view has come to be called, "Atonement by Recapitulation.” 

PENAL SUBSTITUTION

What exactly is the Penal Substitution view of the Atonement?

This penal substitution view focuses on Christ’s suffering and death as the price for man’s sin. 

The model for Atonement is primarily that of a courtroom.  Mankind enters God’s courtroom "guilty of sin, a cosmic crime against God."

Due to his sin, man needed to be  made right with a perfect and just God.  Therefore,  Christ came to suffer and pay the price in our place, i.e., He substituted Himself for us.  Now, in the courtroom of God, those who accept Christ as their Lord and Savior are judged innocent.   They have a forensic righteousness imputed upon them.

What is the origin of the penal substitution theory?

Penal substitition originated in the fifth century with Augustine's concept of the “seminal” transmission of the guilt and defect of original sin.  Augustine taught that humanity was placed into a “lump of sin,” justly condemned to death and damnation by God, and incapable of salvation without the intervention of God’s prevenient Grace.   Augustine also posited that Christ’s death offered God a vicarious or substitionary satisfaction of the sentence placed upon humankind by God.

In the eleventh century St. Anselm of Canterbury later developed these ideas into legalistic terms: According to Anselm, humanity had “transgressed” God’s law, thereby earning from God a condemnation of death, which death sentence was paid on our behalf by Christ.

This concept of Christ’s atoning work was later embraced by the sixteenth century Reformers, and thus became the predominant way of understanding Christ’s saving us.  Calvin, Luther, and their followers further developed Augustine’s notions of original sin and predestination in the direction of a denial of human free will.

THE RECAPITULATION [REGATHERING or SUMMING UP] VIEW 

What is the Recapitulation View?

The “Recapitulation View” agrees that  God needed to deal with man’s sin.  Man was separated from God as a result of the fall and, left to his own devices,   was incapable of  returning to God.  However,

The Recapitulation model sees the means through which God dealt with man’s sin  as a hospital rather than a courtroom.  

Instead of viewing the atonement as Christ paying the price for sin in order to satisfy a wrathful God, the Recapitulation view teaches that Christ became human AND RECAPPED, or gathered all things to himself, in order to heal mankind by perfectly uniting the human nature to  the Divine Nature  in His person. 

What is the origin of the Recapitulation view?

Justin the Martyr (1^st cent.)

The “Recapitulation View” dates to very early in the Church.  We find its earliest record inthe first century with the writings of Justin the Martyr, a disciple of Saint John the Apostle, and perhaps of Saint Paul also. In his book against Marcion, Justin writes:

"I would not have believed the Lord Himself, if He had announced any other than He who is our framer, maker, and nourisher. But because the only-begotten Son came to us from the one God, who both made this world and formed us, and contains and administers all things, summing up (recapitulating) His own handiwork in Himself, my faith towards Him is steadfast, and my love to the Father immoveable, God bestowing both upon us."

Saint Iranaeus (2^nd cent)

In the second century, there are further treatments of the subject in the writings of Saint Irenaeus, a disciple of Polycarp, who was a disciple of Saint John, the Apostle also.  Like Saint Paul, Irenaeus saw the "recapitulation" in Christ as both cosmic and historical.

Since both human existence and all of nature fell in Adam, God sent His Son to be the New Man, who would restore and transform all things. By the Incarnation, "the Word saved that which really existed — the humanity which had perished — effecting by means of Himself that communion which should be held with it, and seeking out its salvation.” Because man fell in the flesh, it was proper that he should be redeemed in the flesh: “But the thing which had perished possessed flesh and blood. For the Lord, taking dust from the earth, molded man; and it was upon his behalf that all the dispensation [oikonomia] of the Lord's advent took place. He Himself, therefore, had flesh and blood, recapitulating in Himself not just anybody, but that original handiwork of the Father, seeking out the very thing which had perished" (Against the Heresies 5.14.2).

According to the tradition (paradosis) passed on to Iranaeus, what humanity lost in Adam, it regained and transformed in Christwhen God's Son became man.

"He commenced afresh the long line of human beings, and furnished us with salvation in a succinct, inclusive manner, so that what we had lost in Adam — namely, to be according to the image and likeness of God — that we might recover in Christ Jesus" (3.18.1).

“But what he did appear, that he also was: God recapitulated in himself the ancient formulation of man, that he might kills in, deprive death of its power, and vivify man; and therefore his works are true” (3.18.7).

 “So did he who was the Word, recapitulating Adam in himself, rightly receive a birth, enabling him to gather up Adam [into himself]… making a recapitulation in himself… that the very same formation should be summed up [recapitulated] in Christ” (3.21.10).

Saint Athanasius (early 4^thcent.)

We find the same recapitulation view throughout the writings of the early Church Fathers.    In AD 318 Saint Athanasius wrote, On The Incarnation wherein he explains the recapitulation view very clearly.

Jesus “surrendered his body to death  instead of all, and offered it to the Father.   This he did out of sheer love for us, so that in his death all might die, and the law of death thereby be abolished because, having fulfilled (recapitulated) in his body that for which it was appointed, it was thereafter voided of its power for men”(2.8). In this way did he become “in dying a sufficient   exchange for all”(2.9).

“For the solidarity of mankind is such that, by virtue of the Word’s indwelling in a single body, the corruption which goes with death has lost its power over all” (2.9).

Christ, the incarnate Word, himself offered “the sacrifice on behalf of all, surrendering his own temple [body] to death in place of all, to settle man’s account with death   and free him from the primal transgression” (4.20).

If then, “any honest Christian wants to know why he suffered death on the cross and not in some other way, we answer thus: in no other way was it expedient for us, indeed  the Lord offered for our sakes the one death that was supremely good. He had come to bear the curse that was on us; and how could he ‘become a curse’ otherwise than by accepting the accursed death? And that death is the cross, for it is written, ‘Cursed is everyone that hangeth on a tree’” (4.25). 

This Orthodox view of the bible’s teaching on the substitionary atonement of Christ by way of recapitulation has been retained by the Orthodox Church throughout history without change or modification.  It is also clearly found in the writings of Maximos the Confessor (8^th cent.),Symeon the New Theologian (11^th cent), Gregory Palamas (14^thcent.), and every other prominent defender of Orthodoxy.

How does the recapitulation view work?

Through the Incarnation, Christ took on  human nature, becoming the Second Adam, and entered into every  stage of humanity, from infancy to adulthood, uniting it to God.   He then suffered death to enter Hades and destroy it.  After three days, He resurrected and completed His task by destroying death.

Is there a substitution involved?

Yes. By entering and assuming each of these stages of humanity and remaining perfectly obedient to the Father, Christ recapitulated every aspect of human nature.  He said “Yes” where Adam said “No” and healed what Adam’s actions had  damaged.  His substituted the Old Adam for the New Adam, and become our substitute.

What does Christ's recapitulation bring about?

As the new Adam, Christ's enables all of those  who are willing to say yes to God to be perfectly united with the Holy Trinity through Christ’s person.  In addition, by destroying death, Christ reversed the consequence of the fall.  Now, all can be resurrected.  Those who choose to live their life in Christ can be perfectly united to the Holy Trinity, receiving the full love of God as Heavenly bliss.  However, those who reject Christ and choose to live their lives chasing after their passions will receive the love of God as hell.

Because of its focus on unification between God and man in the person of Christ, Recapitulation places great importance on the teaching that Christ  is bothfully man and fully God.  If Christ did not have both natures, He would have been incapable of uniting humanity to divinity, which was the entire purpose of the Incarnation.  As Saint Gregory of Nazianzus said in the fourth century:

“That which is not assumed is not healed, butthat which is united to God is saved.”

Law and Economics - Nomos and Oikonomia

Oikonomia (economics) literally means the "law of the house." The term Oikonomia primarily refers to the divine will for man's salvation and the specific application of the will of God in the life of the Church.

The Orthodox Church accepts and understands that there are hard-fast laws of God. However, it also acknowledges that these laws are to be employed with pastoral wisdom in each and every particular situation.  The range of application may extend from akriveia, or strict adherence (precision, exactness), to varying levels of pastoral discretion called oikonomia. 

Oikonomia acknowledges that the purpose of law of God is to reflect His truth and His will for the world, while at the same time acknowledging that the will of God is intended to lead to life and not to destruction.  One great example is found in the 12^th chapter of St. Matthew’s gospel. 

At that time Jesus went through the grainfields on the Sabbath. And His disciples were hungry, and began to pluck heads of grain and to eat. And when the Pharisees saw it, they said to Him, "Look, Your disciples are doing what is not lawful to do on the Sabbath! "But He said to them, "Have you not read what David did when he was hungry, he and those who were with him: "how he entered the house of God and ate the showbread which was not lawful for him to eat, nor for those who were with him, but only for the priests?  "Or have you not read in the law that on the Sabbath the priests in the temple profane the Sabbath, and are blameless? Matthew 12:1-5 NKJ  

The use oikonomia expresses an understanding that the law of God, while perfect, when applied with precision may put out the smoldering wick of life and lead to destruction. In the above passage, the disciples and David needed to eat, yet to do so they violated the law. Nevertheless, we read that neither David, nor the disciples were found guilty of a violation by Christ. Why? The law was always intended to be a teacher that leads to mankind to Christ. Akrivia alone kills. 

It is this lack of oikonomia that is one the greatest problems with Non-Orthodox. It is not uncommon to find out that the greatest atheists are the children of Christian fundamentalists, who drove the law home to their children, and in doing so put out their smoldering wicks. It is also a lack of oikonomia that proves to be a problem for the more progressive types.  The progressives shy away from the law of God by turning against it, and in many cases even by ridiculing it. Case and point, the Episcopal Church's and its treatment of same sex attraction. By trying to be gentle to the broken people who are afflicted by same sex attraction, they conclude that the law of God does not say what it means, and that certain actions forbidden by God are instead blessed.

The Orthodox Christian approach rejects both the fundamentalist and the progressive positions. We follow the tradition of Christ, the apostles, and the church fathers, and apply the law of God and the canons of the church in a way that ranges from strict adherence to relative laxity. Depending on the person's spiritual condition,  Akrivia may needed, or perhaps some level of Oikonomia may be what is needed. Orthodox believe that the revealed law of God is perfect, yet we also acknowledge our fallen weaknesses and God’s mercy. For this reason, when it comes to a difficult situation regarding God’s law, we go to our spiritual fathers and mothers to seek their guidance in the application of God’s law. When it comes to right and wrong in general, we know what is right, God's revealed will is right. However, we do not stop there; we go on to ask, what is best for the healing of the soul of this individual? As we provide an answer, we strive to remember that the point of the law is to cause us to continue to move forward in our salvation in grace and truth.