Tag Archives: Fr. Stephen Freeman

Therapeutic Substitutionary Atonement

Fr. Stephen FreemanFr. Stephen Freeman of the Orthodox Church in America recently posted a great article on the atonement which should be read by everyone.

Sadly enough, I don’t have the time to go into details about the article….but I will say this:

Father Stephen does a great job at pointing out the problems with forensic models of the atonement (i.e. Jesus died instead of man or Jesus died to appease the wrath of God) while offering up an amazing model with takes into account His resurrection (which is usually  forgotten about in atonement conversations).

Below is a quote from the article that highlight the main jest of it – however, I would suggest reading the whole thing to really get it.

 

“For some, Christ’s death on the Cross represents the payment for a debt owed to God, the debt of Adam’s sin. In another account, Christ’s death on the Cross is a blood sacrifice to appease the wrath of God, incurred through Adam’s sin. For still others, Christ’s death is the destruction of Hades and death itself, the healing of the corruption of sin. There are yet other views, but the disagreement has largely been between advocates of one version or another of these accounts.

“The first two accounts generally fall into a category of “forensic” models. In these, there is a debt or a divine consequence (wrath) that must be paid or turned aside. In various ways it is noted that only a perfect Man could pay the debt (or appease the wrath). Since all men sin, only God could meet the requirements. Thus God became man, so that God, as man, could accomplish what man alone could not.

“In the second model, sin and death are more or less synonymous. Rather than being forensic (legal) in character, they are ontological (a matter of being and existence). Sin is the disease of corruption, the movement from true existence toward non-being. The destructive chaos that it leaves in its wake is more like “symptoms” than legal problems. God in His mercy becomes man, and as the God/Man enters the depths of death and Hades, the depths of ontological corruption and destroys them. In His resurrection (which is a necessary aspect of this model – unlike the others), our ontological corruption is destroyed or rather “put to death” and we receive new life – the eternal life of the resurrection (which is a quality and not merely longevity). In this model, there is a participation and communion. Christ becomes sin, that we might become righteous. He dies that we might live. He takes on our death, that we might take on His life.”