Two notes: First, you may rightly subtitle this post, “Reflections on the Orthodox View of Atonement as explained by Bishop Kallistos Ware in ‘The Orthodox Way’, and as I understand it in my Evangelical Way.” (Clunky, I know…which is why I didn’t subtitle this blog at all!) Secondly…this is an excerpt from a reflection paper I wrote for a class at Fuller Theological Seminary, so if it reads a little dry, you know why! (My books are slightly better.)
I was particularly drawn to Ware’s discussion of themes related to atonement, which occurs largely in his chapter on “God as Man.” Prior to that chapter, Ware had described the Fall not as “total depravity” but as something which resulted in the divine image in man becoming “obscured but not obliterated” (pg. 61). Ware goes on to say that “original sin” in Orthodoxy is not interpreted in “juridical or quasi-biological terms” as much as it is in communal terms. Drawing on the Trinity as our understanding of “oneness”, Ware describes a “solidarity” in humanity (pg. 62). Human beings, “made in the image of the Trinitarian god, are interdependent and coinherent”—and therefore joined to each other so that when “one sins, all have sinned” (pg. 62).
Atonement, then, is described in similar language. Salvation is Christ’s sharing in our life and death. Ware’s chapter on Christ—“God as Man”—begins with a brief tour of the seven councils. He sums it up what the Councils have to say about Christ as God and Man with two basic principles: First, “only God can save us” and, secondly, “salvation must reach the point of human need” (pg. 73). Then, placing the atonement squarely in the context of the Incarnation, Ware writes, “Christ shares to the full in what we are, and so he makes it possible for us to share in what he is, in his divine life and glory” (pg. 74).
How much of our nature did Christ take one? Ware cites St. Gregory the Theologian’s famous maxim: “The unassumed is the unhealed” (pg. 75). Taking this theme of sharing from its roots in the Trinitarian life to its glorious saving heights at Calvary, Ware explains the Orthodox view not as a “penal substitution” but as a “saving companionship” (pg. 82). He explains:
<p >Christ’s suffering and death have, then, an objective value: he has done for us something we should be altogether incapable of doing without him. At the same time, we should not say that Christ has suffered “instead of us”, but rather that he has suffered on our behalf. The Son of God suffered “unto death”, not that we might exempt from suffering, but that our suffering might be like his. Christ has offered us, now a way round suffering, but a way throughit; not substitution, but saving companionship (pg. 82).
While Ware is silent about what it is that Christ has done for us that we were incapable of—appeasing God? propitiating His wrath? vanquishing Satan?—he leads us to see the atonement not in a transactional way but in a relational and communal way. This way is at the heart of Orthodox theology. Furthermore, by speaking of Christ dying “on our behalf” and not simply “instead of us”, you get both the “for” and the “with” dimensions: Christ died for our sins and with us in our humanity. Earlier in the chapter, Ware underscored this “sharing” in a personal and almost pastoral way:
<p >Such is the message of the Cross to each one of us. However far I have to travel through the valley of the shadow of death, I am never alone. I have a companion. And this companion is not only a true man as I am, but also true God from true God. At the moment of Christ’s deepest humiliation on the Cross, he is as much the eternal and living God as he is at his Transfiguration in glory upon Mount Tabor. Looking upon Christ crucified, I see not only a suffering man but suffering God(pg. 80).
The Orthodox narrative– I think– the Story of the Trinitarian God who, because He is three-in-One is the very embodiment of Love, and who created the world and gave humans free will out of His love that they might freely love Him too, and who entered His world out of love that He might share in our humanity and in our life and in our death so that His might triumphantly and joyfully bring us into Himself so that we might share in the divine communion forever and ever. Amen.
