On the Doctrine of Imputed Righteousness & the Atonement

This is one of the more difficult subjects to address, as there are significant differences between modern evangelical protestantism and orthodoxy on this exact point.  To say that the doctrine of imputed righteousness formed a cornerstone for non-Anglican protestantism (starting with Luther) would be an understatement.  Alongside sola-scriptura, it is one of the few things that virtually all protestants have in common (historically). 

The doctrine, in essence, goes like this: we are born with a sinful nature (so that sinning is as unavoidable and natural to us as having eyes or feet).  We cannot avoid this, and, due to sin, owe to God an unpayable debt.  In Christ, through Christ's faithfulness, the ultimate and unpayable debt for our sins is absolved as, on the Cross, Christ accepted the punishment which was due to us for our sins.  When we place our faith in Christ, then, God views us through "Christ-tinted-glasses" - He sees not our sinfulness, but rather imputes Christ's righteousness (including Christ's payment of our debt) to us. 

More after the jump.

The short of it is this: original sin (called "sinful nature" above) doesn't show up until Augustine as a teaching in the church. We, the Orthodox, do not believe that we inherit a nature of SIN from Adam, but rather we CHOSE to sin. We do believe we inherit a nature which is MORTAL (can die) from Adam, but this was also true of Adam. Our sin leads us unto corruption and death, but we are personally responsible for it.

Though we inherit the same human nature as Adam (with the full image of God intact, and no natural propensity to sin) we live in a culture rife with sin. As humans, by nature, learn by imitation, we all sin (though are technically capable of not sinning - as Christ demonstrated to us, having the same nature as us).

In point of fact, IF sin is truly part of our nature, THEN Christ never took on OUR nature in full - never came down TO us AS us. Original sin as outlined by Augustine, to my admittedly limited mind, seems to compromise Christ's humanity. You know this to be true if you've ever found yourself using Christ's divinity as an excuse for your sins: "Oh, of course He's sinless, He's the Son of God!"

Yet we are responsible for our own sins. No blaming others. Christ, in His humanity, just like ours, was without sin. That means we can do that to.

But we don't. Nothing causes us to sin (other than that we imitate one another - which is a very powerful thing indeed). Nothing causes us to betray God! We are all Adam, all in the garden, all sinning voluntarily. When I sin, I (not Adam) crucify Christ. When I sin, I (not Adam) betray my Lord.

It is a sobering and depressing thought, because if I chose to sin, then I can chose to act righteously. And now, I am responsible for my actions. I am responsible to change - and that can be a terrifying thing indeed. It is easier to blame Adam for it all (or Eve, as some have done erroneously, though she was tricked by the most powerful of angels, and Adam imitated her - his equal).

Since we don't follow Augustine (who came to be used exclusively in the West when it came to discussing original sin), we also don't follow Anselm of Canterbury in his text Cur Deus Homo. In it, he is the first guy to outline what most protestants would call the "blood atonement" theory of the cross - the idea that Christ died to satisfy the wrath of God by blood. The idea of Christ dying for the forgiveness of our sins is certainly present in Orthodoxy, but generally seen as one metaphor (among many) in the mystery of the cross.  Technically, Anselm didn't talk much about blood & wrath - he was more taken up by the idea of debt & payment; we owe God a debt, Christ's death is payment for that death.  But his ideas were and continue to be used as the grounding for a language of wrath and the satisfaction of that wrath by the blood of Christ.  Take a look at traditional Protestant hymnity if you doubt that these ideas are present in Christianity today.  Or listen to a Billy Graham sermon or an altar call.  The idea of wrath / punishment and debt / payment occupies the vast majority of the means by which Western Christians (mostly Protestants) talk about the cross.

When Anselm absolutized the "satisfactionalist" view, it came to be used universally in the West (though the RCC today has picked back up the views of Abelard and Athanasius, to my great joy). As it came to Luther, Anselm's view of the cross presented a problem:

IF Christ died to pay the penalty of our sins, and Christ is infinite, then how can there be any other penalty (i.e. a temporal penalty, as prescribed by the RCC and serving as the justification of purgatory during the middle ages)?

This observation (that Christ's infinitude meant that no further penalty could be paid by us) led him to sola fide and the assertion that Christ's righteousness (His payment of the penalty) is imputed to us in place of our own (since we can't pay the penalty, using Anselmian logic). 

This means the "imputed righteousness" doctrine didn't exist until the 1500's, and is based on an idea stemming from Anselm in the 1000's, which requires a particular view of human nature stemming from Augustine in the 400's. Since we disagree with the first two (Augustine and Anselm), we find no place for imputed righteousness.  We just don't start from the same presuppositions when discussing salvation.

In particular, the view of imputed righteousness does several things which we can't do:

First - it makes salvation about a problem God has with us, rather than about an ontological (real) change IN us (while God remains unchangeably love).

Let me explain. In the view of sola-fide imputed-righteousness blood-atonement, before creation God is love (in the Trinity). After the fall, God has wrath towards humanity. Christ comes to earth, dies (satisfying God's wrath / justice), and rises from the dead indicating His power. We accept that act, and God changes again, now His wrath is gone and His love is back. Except we haven't changed. We're born into sin, and continue in sin. Only God changes in this view.  The idea of a changing God is just unacceptable.  God cannot change, as change would imply that He is subject to time (since change means something goes from one way to another way - that applies chronological ideas like "past" or "present" to God).  God CREATED time - He is above and beyond and without it, literally timeless and eternal.  For God to change just undermines the entire concept of the monotheistic deity in Christianity.

Second - blood atonement, when absolutized, makes God a medieval tyrant. Why does God need blood and death to forgive us our sins? Aren't we commanded to forgive AS GOD forgives? Should I take a pound of my own flesh before forgiving someone (or a pound of theirs)?

God is called Father, and all earthly fathers are just imitations of Him.  Yet a parent who disciplines a child out of pure wrath is a terrible and tyranical parent. Rather, a child may experience a parent's discipline as wrath, when it is merely an act of love (love isn't always pleasent). To a child (who lacks faith in the parent's love), that wrath can be damaging - indeed, even a foretaste of hell. Yet to the parent, they still unconditionally love their child.

God, similarly, respects and loves us enough to give us free will and allow us to experience SOME of the consequences of our choices. We don't instantly drop dead the moment we sin (though Acts 5 suggests that this would be a proper response from God). Rather, God allows us to separate ourselves from Him, that by experiencing that hell we may know the goodness of the life of God and seek after Him while we still have time. Those who are sons of God - who profess faith in Him - He may even allow to suffer MORE as He knows that their faith will see this suffering as to their salvation and that it will drive them deeper into Him - deeper into communion with the God who suffers on the cross for us.

When we have faith, we CO-suffer WITH Christ (or rather, the eye of faith allows us to see that fact), and suffering becomes quite clearly an act of Love, an act of God. By this, we know to give thanks in all circumstances - that faith is the root of our joy.

And we know that a Father disciplines His sons, and that sufferings produce many great things - the fullness of faith in patient endurance. Yet NEVER is this out of TRUE wrath - it merely has the appearance thereof, and while we are children in the faith, it can be easier for some to think of it this way. As such, the church allows that language (as do the Scriptures). It's a good motivator! I certainly don't want anything that could be called the "wrath of God" - that sounds terrible!!

In short, no GOOD parent (and God is the best!) punishes children to SATISFY THEIR WRATH. That would be sick and disgusting. I do not know a God who would do that - the God I worship is LOVE. And by that love He disciplines me; and I may call that wrath, but in truth it is not - God is love.

Instead, we teach that God's wrath is a metaphor for the experience of the absence of God caused when we sin. When we sin, we remove ourselves from God and experience corruption, death, spiritual isolation / existential lonliness, the oppression of our own whims (which enslave us) and all other evils. It feels like God is angry with us - but that is a perspective issue. God is still love; we just can't experience that love.

Death is a natural consequence of chosing to reject life. God merely warned His creation of the world He had set up (that it gave us the freedom to reject Him, and therefore die).

And what is His judgment then? Not that of a judge in a courtroom; rather, His judgment is imbeded in us. Our very deaths, the very corruption of this world, is judgment enough. We KILLED our CREATOR. That is judgment enough. The cross is our judgment - it fulfills all judgment. God's judgment is in His silence; our absence from God, the hell we've created (and will persist in into eternity unless we repent) - that is God's judgment. It is nothing more than the natural consequence of rejecting God.

Christ comes and dies to ENTER INTO our suffering, death, existential lonliness ("my God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?"), etc. In other words, if we can't go to where God is (because God respects free will) HE COMES TO US that we may be with Him even in our suffering and death. In this way, suffering and death are transformed, but God remains the same in His essence - He is still love. Only OUR EXPERIENCE of God changes. The change is an ontological change in the condition of humanity, but it isn't complete. Even if God is IN suffering and IN death and IN lonliness through the Incarnation, Death, and Resurrection of Christ WE are still in our sins.

For this God gives us the Holy Spirit, the Church (which is the manifestation of the Holy Spirit), the Sacraments (by which we unite to Christ through the Holy Spirit), the Scriptures (inspired by the Holy Spirit), etc.

But we still have to walk the road. We still have to repent. In no way do we initiate salvation (that would be Pelagianism), for it is God who sent Christ to unite to us and the Holy Spirit to provide the means (and even the desire for those means). But we have to cooperate with the means. We have to try.

And then, we aren't saved until we are saved. Salvation isn't a free ticket to heaven. True salvation is LIBERATION from all that oppresses us: death, sin, lonliness. In fact, salvation goes beyond freedom from negatives, it is unity to the One Positive. Salvation isn't freedom from death, salvation is unity with the LIFE. Salvation isn't freedom from sin, it is unity with the TRUTH. This is to say we are not saved until we grow into the likeness of God - and very few indeed are those whom we know who do this.

This view of recapitulation by Christ of all of creation (by unity with creation) was the view of Irenaeus of Lyons (2nd century) and Athanasius (4th century) - much earlier than the Western view. And Irenaeus was the disciple of Polycarp of Smyrna, who in turn was the disciple of the Apostle John. That's right - there are only two degrees of separation between Irenaeus and the Apostles - he's their spiritual grand child. This makes me much more inclined to accept his view on this central matter of the gospel. At the least, historically, I can call it the earlier view.

The idea of Christ dying for the forgiveness of sins is an acceptable one, if used (like God's wrath) as a metaphor to improve understanding. It's a pedagogical tool (even as, ultimately, so is recapitulation / Christus Victor). The cross is a mystery.

God saves. We are in need of salvation. The rest is details.
In Christ,
Macarius