Orthodox "Atonement" theories; why did Jesus have to die?

[GaryTaylor]

Anyway Christ is the redeemer, He redeems mankind by His Blood and Death on the Cross.

Christians are on earth to redeem mankind through Jesus Christ. Whats your purpose here? Aside from following the path of Christ is Scripture? Isn’t this what we are ALL suppose to be doing???

God Bless, Gary

 

[Giga1992]

From the Eastern Christian perspective, original sin marred the image of God within us. The only Person who could restore that image was the Image of God the Father Himself, namely the Son and Word of God Who became flesh in Jesus Christ. (This puts pay to the heretical notion that Christ was an angel before He became man - angels are not made in the image of God for one thing).

By uniting His Divinity with our humanity, by becoming Man in Jesus Christ, God the Son, the Divine Image of the Father, healed the alienation we experience through sin, restored us to God’s favour by having us participate in Him and deifies us through the Communion of His Body and Blood through the Holy Spirit.

He brings His saving Divinity into every aspect of human experience and by doing so, He saves and transfigures us.

By dying out of obedience to God the Father, He restores what we lost by Adam’s disobedience and through our daily disobediences/sins. We participate and are alive in Him through faith and obedience and this entails our participation in the life of the Body of Christ which is the Church - her sacraments, prayer life etc.

By rising from the dead, He conquered death for all time and the grave lost its power over us.

As Orthodox theologians however have said - the Western understandings of redemption are in no wise condemned or somehow deprecated by Eastern Orthodoxy.

Alex

That is a very good answer. I would simply like to elaborate on your last point. The Orthodox do have the doctrine of redemption in the religion. We simply ignore it most of the time. While our general theology on the Crucifiction and Resurrection is more humane than the Western teaching, it is in no way more correct. Both the doctrine of the Sacrificial Redemption of man through the death of our Lord, and the doctrine of the union of the Natures through Christ, the restoration of the likeness, exist in Orthodox theology. Both are clearly present in the Bible, and both are orthodox beliefs. Metropolitan Kallistos Ware, one of the greatest modern Eastern theologians, has said that in the interest of unity between East and West, the East must rediscover the doctrine of the Redemption, and the West must rediscover our image of Jesus’ Death and Resurrection.

 

[Giga1992]

I didn’t know that this was what the Orthodox believed. It makes good sense.

Your friend,
Sufjon

That is true, but remember that in the East we do believe in the Redemption, just as in the West. We just don’t really emphasize it. We see that as a small part of the big picture, not the picture itself.

 

[Volodymyr]

That is true, but remember that in the East we do believe in the Redemption, just as in the West. We just don’t really emphasize it. We see that as a small part of the big picture, not the picture itself.[/QU ]

This is so important! Please understand what Orthodox theologia teaches called theosis. обожение, оr divinization! We believe Atoning action of Christ was suffering, death snd resurrection! Not just death! West makes resurecction just a final kind dramatic proof of what Christ did on Cross! and Holy Spirit only helper of Christ! not so!! This is why Immaculate Conception for us is wrong since such a belief teaches us that we cannot be made like God without such a miraclle at conception!! We know Mother of God is sinless by grace Holy Spirit! Therefore

we do not believe immaculate conception because it makes theosis not possible without such miracle

we cannot believe Papa Rome is inflallible if he makes Immaculate Comception like it is true!

Many here like St Irenseus when he wrote about bishop
Rome but more important what wrote about theosis.

 

[Formosus]

In Eastern theology, Christ’s death on the Cross was not meant to satisfy some sort of Divine Justice, rather it was to defeat death, by death and restore the image of God within man that was lost at the Fall.

Old topic!

But with two extra years behind me, I will say that at their roots there are no substantial differences between authentic western atonement and eastern atonement theories. There are some theologians and manuals that corrupted the teaching in the 16th century due to Calvinist influences, but at their core both teachings are about an ontological redemption of man’s human nature, and helping man to reach union with God.