The Victory of the Cross

Salvation in Eastern Orthodoxy

James R. Payton

• Publisher: IVP Academic
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9780830866687
• Topic: Teologia e religione
• Subtopic: Teologia cristiana

Word Guild Awards — AcademicHow can Christians claim that the death of Jesus Christ on the cross is a victory?Yet the doctrine of salvation affirms precisely that: in his death and his resurrection, Christ is victorious over the power of sin and death. The articulation of this tenet of faith has taken different shapes throughout the church's life and history. Eastern Orthodoxy has made its own contributions to the belief in salvation through Christ, but its expressions sometimes sound unfamiliar to Western branches of the church.Here James Payton, a Western Christian with a sympathetic ear for Eastern Orthodoxy, explores the Orthodox doctrine of salvation. Payton helps Christians of all traditions listen to Orthodox brothers and sisters so that together we might rejoice, "Where, O death, is your victory?"

1

INTRODUCTION

Christ, our God, You were crucified

but conquered death by death.

LJC² 128

Christ Jesus came into the world

to save sinners.

1 TIMOTHY 1:15

Jesus Christ . . . died for us,

in order that by believing in His death

you might escape death.

ST. IGNATIUS OF ANTIOCH, LETTER TO THE TRALLIANS

THERE IS NO CHRISTIANITY WITHOUT JESUS CHRIST; there can be no Christian faith without the Savior. The proclamation of salvation in the incarnate Son of God is the heart of the apostolic kerygma; the “gospel” (euangelion—“good tidings”) is good news only if it declares what God has done in Jesus Christ to fulfill his ancient promise (Gen 3:15) to save humanity and the rest of creation. In Jesus Christ all the salvific promises given long before find their fulfillment; in the apostolic proclamation, good news is heard.

The message of what God had done in Jesus Christ to bring salvation to humanity was not just another religious datum: it was the focus and fulfillment of all the divine intentions since humankind first turned away from God. Dominical1 promise assured the apostles of divine leading to declare the message faithfully and assured their descendants of divine presence to guide them into and keep them in all truth (Jn 14:16-17, 25-26; 16:13). Apostolic concern to secure faithful transmission of the good news in Christ led to exhortation to defend it carefully (Jude 3) and directives to assure it was handed on faithfully (2 Tim 2:2).

The early church rose to the challenge: the apostolic fathers of the late first through the mid-second century manifested loyalty to Jesus Christ and devotion to the apostolic message; the second-century apologists defended it against calumnies; and the rest of the church fathers, from the mid-second through the mid-eighth centuries, stood staunchly for the apostolic message handed down to them. Indeed, loyalty to and faithful handing on of that apostolic tradition became the badge of the Christian community. Fidelity, not novelty, was the mark of the trustworthy teacher; the collective transmission of the faith intact became the humble boast and striking accomplishment of the patristic period.2

According to Eastern Orthodoxy, all responsible subsequent Christian teaching finds its measure in the apostolic proclamation, as handed down by the church fathers. The patristic tradition is, thus, not only a witness to what was believed long ago but to what should be believed today by those who claim the name Christian. The church fathers thus serve as the reliable guides to a proper understanding of the Christian faith and to the faithful interpretation of Scripture. As the ones who heard and transmitted the apostolic message, they were the heirs, as well, of the dominical promise, “He who hears you hears me” (Lk 10:16). For Orthodoxy, the church fathers are the recognized interpreters of Scripture: their witness must continue to guide the faithful.

The Scriptures that the church fathers expound in their teaching include both the Old Testament, which prepared for and focused on the coming Savior, and the New Testament, which presents both him and all he did and also the apostolic proclamation of what that means for life before God in the present age. The Old Testament used by the church fathers was, almost always, the Septuagint—the Greek translation produced during the intertestamental period for the intellectual culture of the day, which did not know the Hebrew language. The Septuagint included books that the Hebrew canon, as subsequently delimited by rabbinical circles, excluded—namely, books originally written by faithful Jews living outside the land of Palestine. These books, known by some in Western Christian circles as “the Apocrypha,”3 are referred to by others as Deuterocanonical.4 These terms carry no significance for Orthodoxy, which is bound not by rabbinical decision or Western Christian assessment but by patristic practice, which treated the canon of the Septuagint as the Old Testament Scripture that had been fulfilled in Jesus Christ. The apostles most often relied on the Septuagint in their writings, and the church fathers commonly followed apostolic precedent. In Orthodoxy, the Scripture that bears witness to Jesus Christ and the salvation he has brought includes the books of the larger canon found in the Septuagint.

From the Orthodox understanding, the dominical promise to “be with” and to “guide” the church (Mt 28:20; Jn 16:13) included not only the apostles and their patristic heirs but all those who would believe in Christ through their word (Jn 17:20). The whole host of the church, gathered to worship, is united in apostolic faith and patristic proclamation, and in its worship collectively praises the One who is always with the Church. Thus, the patterns of worship that come to be used are manifestations of divine leading, rooted in scriptural teaching, guided by patristic exposition, and composed to lead God’s people in confessing the truth and seeking him.

Over the centuries, Orthodoxy has developed a marvelously rich liturgical heritage, in which the faithful hear and confess repeatedly in every Sunday liturgy that God is “the Lover of humanity.”5 Drawn to him by his love, Orthodox faithful celebrate the great deeds of the Lord in a rich tableaux of Lenten liturgies and other festal celebrations in the Orthodox church year, in addition to the weekly liturgy.6 Since all these liturgical forms ultimately focus on the wonder of divine love that has saved humanity in Christ, they all include references and allusions to the materials we are focusing on in this volume, and they are abundantly cited here.7 In these unchanging forms,8 Orthodox faithful learn how to shape their prayer and devotion, and they commit themselves to God in time-honored ways that manifest the oneness of the believing community. Honed and polished through the centuries, the liturgical tradition of Orthodoxy offers a rich vein of doxology that must be carefully mined to obtain the ore of Orthodox teaching and practice.

Thus, as we explore Orthodoxy’s view of salvation in the coming chapters, we will rely on the Scriptures as accepted within Orthodoxy9 (including the Apocryphal/Deuterocanonical books), the church fathers, and the Orthodox liturgical tradition. This is necessary if we are to present faithfully those Orthodox perspectives and come to a genuine understanding of them. The important consideration here for Western Christians, whether Roman Catholic or Protestant (of all kinds), is not whether their own tradition follows such a pattern but what pattern the Orthodox follow. If we are to appreciate what Orthodoxy sets forth about salvation, we must look to Scripture as expounded by the church fathers, with the guidance of the liturgical tradition.

Orthodox patterns of thought often do not coincide with those which have become common within Western Christianity. Orthodoxy asks different questions than Western Christianity typically does—and when you ask different questions, you get different answers. Orthodoxy sometimes takes another starting point than Western Christianity does—and another starting point opens an alternative journey to the intended destination. That is certainly the case as we explore the Orthodox doctrine of salvation. Focused on the Passion of Christ, its conception of his crucifixion offers a significantly different take on it than Western Christianity offers. This Orthodox conception shapes and reciprocally is shaped by how Orthodoxy understands the need of salvation, how it is accomplished, and how it is received. Before summarizing what will follow in subsequent chapters, though, it would be wise to offer an important aside here.

Orthodoxy does not limit its perspective on salvation just to humanity. While that focus on humanity will be our concern in this volume, it should be noted that a complete Orthodox perspective on salvation includes a robust sense of its impact for the entire creation. Orthodox theologians declare this firmly. Kallistos Ware has commented, “Our human salvation leads . . . to the redemption of the whole created order.”10 Vladimir Lossky pointed out that, with our first parents’ sin, “a catastrophic fracture has opened in the cosmos; this wound must be healed and the abortive history of man redeemed for a new beginning: such are the aims of redemption.” After summarizing what God had done to assure that, Lossky went on to declare, “Redemption is a wondrous reality, which extends across the entire cosmos, visible or not.”11 This has entailed considerable concern among contemporary Orthodox spokesmen for faithful creation care in the present.12 Regrettably, our treatment in this volume will have to leave this cosmic vista of redemption to the side. This book will focus on Orthodoxy’s view of the salvation of humanity.

In the next chapter, we will consider how Christians view the cross. How do Western Christians and how do Orthodox typically view it? How did St. Paul (the apostle who wrote most of the letters in the New Testament canon) write about it? How did the church fathers view the cross? How is the difference between Western Christian and Orthodox views seen in their respective classical pictorial representations of the crucifixion?

In the third chapter, we will investigate the need for salvation. Why is salvation needed at all? What is the problem salvation addresses? How did the problem get here? How did it manifest itself early on? How does it do so today? And what are the ramifications of that problem for humanity?

In the fourth chapter, we will examine the Eastern Orthodox focus on the Savior. According to Orthodoxy, not only salvation but the whole of Scripture focuses on the Savior. Why should that be believed? How did the apostles come to that conclusion? What are the implications of that view of Scripture? How does that assist in the understanding of Scripture? How are we to see the Savior in all Scripture? How do the church fathers follow up on that understanding? How does the Orthodox liturgical tradition do so? And does this square with the early doctrinal and controversial history of the church?

In the fifth chapter, we consider how God saved humanity. Relying on Scripture, patristic teaching, and liturgical witness, we examine Orthodox teaching on the “economy” of salvation—that is, how it was done. As we do so, we find four key elements emphasized—and, probably surprisingly for Western Christians, one that is not.

In the sixth chapter, we set forth what Orthodoxy teaches about the goal of salvation—namely, deification. We note what that term meant in the intellectual culture in which the early church fathers proclaimed salvation and then consider how the patristic tradition reinvested that notion with distinctively and faithfully Christian meaning. We consider the biblical warrant for the teaching, as found in both the Old and the New Testaments. In that regard, we pay special attention to the transfiguration on Mount Tabor and what its apostolic witnesses declar...