Transcription
The idea is that when Christ, the divine person, the second person of the Trinity, the Logos, uh, becomes man, takes upon himself our human nature that we all share, he comes to share it with us. Uh, the union of the divine nature to our humanity purifies our shared humanity.
"What's going on, Mike? How are you doing, man?"
"Hey, I'm doing well. Thanks for taking my call, Alex. Nice to see you."
"Yeah, likewise. How have you been?"
"Bit of trouble with his wife."
"Good, good. [laughter] Yeah."
"I'm already in trouble, so it's all good."
"[laughter] >> Is it the long streams late into the night?"
"Yeah, it was like the, the, what, 3 and a half hour mark or something, but you know, we're in it now, so [laughter]."
"All right. Well, hey, I just wanted to come on and ask you guys your thoughts. So, Orthodoxy rejects penal substitutionary atonement, right?"
"Yes."
"I would love it if you guys told me more about why."
"You mean, so when you say something like penal substitutionary atonement, I mean, I'll let Father Stephen take the lead. He did go to like the top Calvinist seminary, so. But like [laughter] when, when you say penal substitutionary atonement, I'm already thinking like the proper noun, like penal substitutionary atonement. That's referring to a specific doctrine. This is like a Reformation doctrine, came out of like the Reformed tradition. Right? So, this has like a specific meaning and a specific theological system already. Like, it's downstream of a certain doctrine of God. It's downstream of a certain understanding of the Old Testament, like Calvin's seemingly arbitrary trifurcation of the law into like civil, ceremonial, and ritual. Right? So, like, it's like all of those things are kind of like built into the doctrine of penal substitutionary atonement. Uh, so, since we reject all of those things in Calvinism, like, there's no way that we can accept their atonement model, either. But, that's..."
"One, one, one point to add is that like Perry Robinson talks about this. He says, you know, PSA, it's built in the cake, just like what Alex is saying. It's built in the cake that it requires limited atonement, it requires sola fide, and it requires forensic justification. We reject those things."
"Mhm."
"So, uh, Father Stephen can expound on it more than I can."
"[laughter] >> Well, yeah, yeah. And I will say also to you might want to watch, if you're interested in this, I think I saw you doing a stream about this, uh, the other day. So, I, I get the impression you're interested in this topic in general."
"Um, >> Yeah."
"Uh, tomorrow night, I think it is, on Cleve's channel, Cleve to Antiquity's channel, he's having my friend Father Joseph Lucas on to talk about PSA and the Church Fathers."
"Okay."
"Um, and he wrote his, he wrote his dissertation on atonement in Saint Cyril of Alexandria. So, like, he's an expert on that."
"Cool."
"I wrote my dissertation on on atonement in the New Testament. So..."
"[laughter] >> Sweet."
"Yeah. Um, >> Yeah, so I mean, I reject it. I reject it as well. And so, I was just doing some reading on it and I just wanted to learn more and figured I was watching Alex's stream, I thought, well, he's taking questions, why not ask you guys yourself?"
"So, the issue is, so, in terms of PSA and sort of, if you want the sort of the negative case, right? So, the Orthodox Church kind of predates penal substitutionary atonement proper. Um, it does lay at the end of a line of development. You have in the West, um, especially with Anselm and then running through Thomas Aquinas, uh, the growth of satisfaction models of the atonement."
"Mhm."
"And that kind of leads up to, right? That's that's sort of in the, if you're following the tree, right? Of ideas in history, right? [laughter] That's sort of part of the prerequisites. So, we sort of predate it. So, there's a positive case to be made on how we do view atonement, which probably wouldn't work for you 'cause it's based on our understanding of the incarnation. Which I, I have the impression you very much do not share. But, um, but, so, uh, in terms of the negative case, we have a, we have a couple problems with it. Um, so, it assumes a bunch of things. One of the really problematic ones biblically is that it assumes that, uh, keeping Torah, right? If you could keep Torah perfectly, you would earn salvation. But, that the violation of any part of the Torah, in addition to the penalties actually described in the Torah, right? So, for example, if you steal, you have to pay back five times what you stole."
"Mhm. Yeah."
"But, in addition to that penalty, you're also liable to eternal torment."
"[laughter] >> Right? Even though Torah, of course, never says that, right? The Torah, it seems to say if you steal something and you pay it back and you offer a sacrifice, resolved, right? Like..."
"Yeah. Yeah."
"[laughter] >> Right. Um, right? And even if it's the death penalty, once you've lost your life on this earth, resolved, right? It doesn't say anything about what's going to happen to you afterwards in the Torah, right? As a result of having broken that."
"Mhm."
"Right? And it also assumes that not just the other means of of dealing with sin in terms of like making restitution or whatever don't actually fully forgive it in terms of the eternal consequences, but that the sacrificial system did not actually give you any forgiveness."
"Yeah. Yeah."
"Um, and all that's not actually in the text. Right? That's that's assumed. And it gets problematized by there there are people who the text says kept the whole Torah."
"Yeah."
"[laughter] >> Right? And so, we wouldn't, we wouldn't say as Orthodox Christians that they thereby earned their salvation, right? By doing it. Okay? So, um, and the reason all that's required is part and parcel, uh, of the view of penal substitutionary atonement is this idea of double imputation. Right? So, Christ by his perfect obedience to Torah earns salvation. His righteousness is imputed to us. Our sin and liability to punishment is imputed to him."
"Yeah, double imputation."
"Right. >> Yeah."
"So, um, so that becomes problematic when you understand that about the Torah."
"Mhm."
"Right? Then the second problem, and this is, this is the real breaker for us, right? Is that then you have to say that that penalty, which is eternal damnation, spiritual death, right? All the different terms the Bible uses to describe it, that that happened to Christ."
"Right. Yeah."
"And it really, for Calvin, comes out of his denial of the harrowing of Hades. His denial of the idea that Christ literally descended into the underworld."
"Mhm."
"To free people, as is talked about in 1 Peter, for example."
"Yeah."
"Um, which the church had uniformly taught. I mean, with variations, but I mean, that general idea that he had actually descended into..."
"Into Sheol."
"Parts of the earth, right?"
"Calvin rejected that?"
"Calvin rejected that."
"I didn't even know that."
"Yeah. And so, Calvin says, 'No, he experienced that on the cross in the outpouring of God's wrath.'"
"Weird."
"Yeah. >> It's weird."
"Somehow, right? Like, at eternity of, right, he somehow experienced. And so, for us, with our Trinitarian view, for example, we would say, 'Well, so what are you saying? Are you saying like, the Father and the Son within the Trinity, like, one of them hated and was separated from the other?'"
"Yeah."
"Like, that doesn't make any sense from our Trinitarian view."
"I can get that how that's problematic."
"Yeah. [laughter] >> And then, but, but, so, they, they real- like, Calvin and the immediate followers of Calvin, like, uh, Vermigli. Uh, Peter- a really important text on this is Peter Vermigli's on the Two Natures of Christ, 'cause he's talking about the, his understanding of the Two Natures of Christ, which from our perspective is Nestorian. Um, and, uh, how that relates specifically to the atonement. And so, they don't want to separate the Father and the Son in the Trinity. So, what they say is that the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit in the Trinity all poured out their wrath on Christ's humanity. So, they have Christ's divine nature..."
"Yeah."
"Participating in the punishment of his human nature."
"It breaks the hypostatic >> cross."
"[laughter] >> Yeah."
"Yeah. >> You can also see why from our, our of view that's hugely problematic. [laughter]"
"So funny."
"[laughter] >> Right."
"Yeah. >> Right."
"So, that's, that's sort of high, I mean, there's a bunch of other things, but I think that's a pretty good highlight reel for you of..."
"Yeah, although the one thing, the one thing for me was there's one line in the religion of the apostles that when I read it a few years ago, it's like the scales fell from my eyes. It's like, nowhere in the Old Testament are the sins of a person imputed onto an animal and then that animal is killed."
"Sacrifice to God."
"Yeah, sacrifice to God for the >> The only time that's done is the goat for Azazel on the day of atonement. And that's the one that's not sacrificed."
"Yeah, and that's the one that's let go."
"Yeah, right. >> It's had sins put on it."
"Yeah, there's no [clears throat] there's no Old Testament type. Yeah."
"Yeah, there, I think something that I didn't realize until I became Orthodox is that a lot of the Trinitarian views from these other paradigms, whether it's satisfaction theory, whether it's penal substitutionary atonement, they almost always cause issues within the the Trinity. And so, for me, it really resolved, like, it really resolved a lot of the issues that I had subconsciously. Like, I, I was always kind of Trinitarian growing up, but I would just like, I knew there were like things that I couldn't make sense of. I was like, 'Ah, God's a mystery.' And that was just kind of how I rationalized it, but Orthodoxy actually makes sense to me because of the monarchy, uh, because of our view of the monarchy of the Father, the Father being the sole um, the source, right?"
"Yeah. Yeah."
"Of divinity. So, I think that that really resolves a lot of the tension that a lot of people have with Trinitarian doctrine. And actually, I think it's a reason why there's a lot of Muslims that tend to actually not be able to respect. Muslims can critique very, very easily some of these views if they're smart enough. Um, but a lot of them just don't. Like, this is what we were talking about earlier in the stream with Father Stephen is that a smart Muslim will be able to eventually point out the issues of penal substitutionary atonement. Eventually, they will be able to point that out and there will be one that does."
"How that doesn't make sense. Yeah."
"Yeah, [laughter] exactly. And so, so this is why Orthodoxy is uniquely positioned to actually answer and respond to these concerns because we've actually worked it out and we haven't adopted these heresies, right? So, now, you may not view them to be heresies, but like, from our view, so."
"Right, right. Yeah. So, I definitely am open to hearing, you know, how the Trinity plays into how you understand atonement, but first, I'm wondering, so what role do you think that Christ as new high priest then plays? Right? You know, Hebrews also talks about, uh, you know, it's impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to forgive sins. And, you know, I guess, just the role of how the whole sacrificial system in general sort of points towards Christ and him as our new high priest. Like, we put our faith in his work. Not to say that we don't have to repent, but, um, yeah, I would love to hear more about that. Where does, like, the book of Hebrews, how do you interpret that?"
"Yeah. So, in the core idea behind atonement, I'm going to try and keep this relatively short. Uh, so Alex only has to sleep on the couch for a few hours."
"I mean, it's an important issue. I think it [laughter] should be, you know, I'm not opposed to Mike is my friend. Let's give Mike the the the >> What what what comes out >> Thank you, Alex. >> the royal treatment."
"The text of the Torah, like Leviticus 16 and the, the, the day of atonement, right? Is that it's about purification with the blood of the sacrifice. Right? So, that's used to purify the sanctuary."
"Yeah, right."
"Right? >> Yeah."
"To make atonement for the altar. To make atonement for these inanimate objects, right? Which, if you have a penal substitutionary paradigm, like, what does that even mean, right? Like, what did the altar do?"
"[laughter] >> Yeah, right. It's all redundant. Yeah, it becomes redundant."
"But, if you understand it as being purification, right? Uh, that makes a lot of sense, right? Because the people are living in the camp, they're sinning. Right? God wants to continue to dwell in their midst in the tabernacle. How can a holy God dwell in the midst of a, of a sinful people? Right? So, there needs to be this constant cycle of sin offerings and the annual day of atonement, continual purification made so that God can remain there. Right? And, and eventually, what you see in Ezekiel is that it gets so bad that God can't dwell with them anymore. And Ezekiel sees him leave the temple."
"Mhm."
"And then the temple falls, right? But, the, the sort of ultimate inefficacy also gets shown there because they have to keep doing this over and over and over again, every year, every year, every year. Sin isn't really being dealt with definitively."
"Right."
"Sort of managed."
"Yeah. [laughter] >> Right. And so, that in the Torah is sort of this sin management system until the Messiah can come..."
"Yeah."
"To deal with sin once and for all."
"Mhm."
"And so, that's what we would say Christ does as the great high priest. He takes care of sin once and for all. Right? And so, the purification that happens in this language is all over the New Testament, us being purified by his blood. Right."
"And what, so, do you >> think washed and purified from our sins? And it's not just us, as St. John says in 1 John 2:2, but the whole world. So, it's not just this one tabernacle in the one camp, it's the whole world in Christ. And that's why the Holy Spirit can come into all the people of the world. That's why all the nations of the world can be called into the church. They're no longer unclean. Right? Because, and, and, and there's key language like when St. Peter has his vision in Acts. God doesn't say, 'Don't call unclean what I have called clean.' He says, 'Don't call unclean what I have made clean.'"
"Right. Yeah, chapter 10."
"Animals and Cornelius, it's not that they were never unclean. It's that God has made them clean now. Right? And so, Christ brings it to this cosmic level and he also purifies first, he enters the heavenly sanctuary and purifies the heavens. That has to do with his defeat of the demonic powers. Right? And, and, uh, the downfall of Satan."
"Do you believe that he makes any type of continual intercession now?"
"Yes."
"Yeah, right. So, you would, yeah, you would just say yes. Okay."
"Yeah, yeah. Yeah, he's high priest. Right? Uh, for us, that doesn't mean there are no other priests. [laughter] >> Okay."
"He's the high priest. He's the, the top. And so, any other priesthood of any kind. Right? So, we're not just talking about priests like I'm a priest, I celebrate the Eucharist, right? Like, that's the altar that I am a priest at where we celebrate the Eucharist. But the priesthood that a, a father has in his home, right? In a family. Right? So, all the different kinds of priesthood. Those are all ultimately participating in Christ's high priesthood as the true priest."
"Do you, do you think that Melchizedek was like a, like a pre-incarnate Christ?"
"I don't personally, but I think he was a type."
"He was a type. Okay. Yeah, well, I think of that because he's called the high priest after the order of Melchizedek, right? So, what is your view on that? What is your view on that?"
"Yeah. >> And I think the, the pattern there is primarily about the fact that he is both king and priest."
"Mhm."
"Which in the Mosaic Covenant was not allowed. Right? Like, those were two separate things. Saul gets in trouble for offering sacrifices, right? Like, that's..."
"Well, Father Stephen, uh, to, to add to what you were saying, and this is something that really just, it, the scales fall off my eyes after I read this is Malachi 1:11. I think demonstrates that that was always the plan to purify the altar and go to all the world is that, uh, what is it? It's, uh, 'From the rising of the sun to the going down of the same, my name will be made great amongst the Gentiles, and a pure offering will be offered up into my name, and incense,' right? Incense being offered."
"Yeah. Yeah."
"And the question I always ask Protestants is, yeah, as a question I always ask Protestants is, are any of you offering up incense?"
"[laughter] >> 'Cause the Jews would have only understood incense in a specific way, right? They wouldn't have understood it to be our prayers, 'cause there would have been a distinction between the prayers of the people and incense. They already knew that distinction, so why wouldn't they just say the prayers are incense, right? But they don't."
"And, and importantly, what the apostles saw was that it says among the Gentiles, among the nations. Meaning they remain Gentiles. It's not everywhere in the world becomes a Jew. [laughter] >> Right? It's Jewish people, yes. But also all of the Gentiles are offering this worship and coming to God and worshipping God as Gentiles."
"Mhm. So, but hey, man, I'm really enjoying the, that was listening to your guys' answers. It, it's good. I appreciate you answering them. So, the last one I guess I'd hit you with is, so, I'm open to hearing. So, how do you believe that Jesus being God ontologically plays into the atonement? And do you think that Jesus could fulfill his high priest role as like an exalted resurrected man at, like, the right hand of, of God?"
"Yeah. Well, so, the second question, I mean, could, this is a slippery thing. I think I think, uh, I hope you don't think I was mean to you if you watched that."
"Me and Alex reviewing your video."
"I, I watched. No, it's, it's all right. I have, I have much, I have much respect for for both [laughter] of you, so it's all right."
"Not have any meat sauce about you."
"It, I took it personally, Father Stephen De Young. I'm, I'm offended. I'm, I'm holding it against you."
"Hurt his feelings."
"Yeah. >> Well, [laughter] yeah, we were just watching a video with a lot of people with a lot of feelings, right? So, but, uh..."
"It's all right."
"Yeah. So, but one of the things >> is a good example of what you were saying, Father Stephen. That we are men. We can disagree."
"Men. We can all be >> be friends. [laughter]"
"Yes. >> We can disagree vehemently and still [clears throat] be friends."
"Yeah. >> Well, and, and see, so, and this is something I've noticed with, uh, Unitarian argumentation, right? And I don't know if you know that I, I know I'm quasi online friends with Sam Tideman, right? So, I mean, like, I know that..."
"Oh."
"Yeah. >> Oh, yes, that's right. I've seen that."
"His channel. Yeah."
"Uh, Transfigured. Yeah, you've been on there. I've seen it."
"Yeah. So, um, so that mode of argument, you know, could Christ do it as an exalted man? Well, I mean, if God wanted to do it that way, I would say, yeah, he could. The question for me isn't, could that have happened? It's, is that what happened, right?"
"Yeah, right. Right. Fair."
"What actually happened? Yeah."
"Yeah, it's fair."
"So, but the, to the first question, um, in our view of atonement, and this is, this is interesting 'cause I actually talked about this at one point, too, Sam. Because I had listened to, to, uh, an episode of Dale Tuggy's podcast where he was talking about Saint Athanasius on the incarnation."
"Okay."
"And he said, he, in the podcast, he said he didn't really understand what Saint Athanasius was doing with atonement there, because it doesn't match any of, sort of, the Western paradigms. That's the way he's talking about it, right? That, that Dale Tuggy was familiar with."
"He was correct."
"So, [laughter] um, and the idea there is that, okay, so, um, this is about the purification of the world, right? That's what we're talking about when we're talking about atonement. Right? Purification from sin and its effects and the kind of taint or curse that's left behind by it, right? In the world. Um, and so, the idea is that when Christ, the divine person, second person of the Trinity, the Logos, uh, becomes man, takes upon himself our human nature that we all share, he comes to share it with us. Uh, the union of the divine nature to our humanity purifies our shared humanity. So, Saint Irenaeus talks about this and it's usually referred to in Saint Irenaeus as recapitulation. The idea that Christ lived through childhood and young adulthood and then into adulthood and then into middle age, and he went through these sort of passages of human life, like all these different aspects and phases of human life, even to death, right? To, to human death. Right? And by doing that, he sort of purified and perfected all of those phases. Saint Athanasius' focus is more on all aspects of our humanity."
"Mhm."
"So, our human soul, our human mind, our human bodily powers, our human energies and activities and things that we're able to do, right? Christ didn't experience all of them and purified them. And then for us, in the, what we would call the dispensation, but that gets confusing 'cause we're not dispensationalists, but in, in the economy, right? Of Christ's earthly ministry. Right? We also see this happening. So, when we celebrate Christ's baptism on January 6th, at the Offertory, we talk about, well, why is Christ baptized? He doesn't need to be purified, right? He's sinless. Well, him going into the waters purifies and blesses the waters. So, that now those waters are able to purify the other people St. John is baptizing. Right?"
"Really?"
"Sort of. Yeah, he sort of purifies the creation, right? With his presence. So..."
"Didn't he say like, 'I did it to fulfill all righteousness' or something or something like that?"
"Yeah, and that's how, that's how we understand that, right? To fulfill justice, to restore. So, justice in the ancient conception and the way we talk about it theologically, justice is when everything is in its proper place in the created order. And everything is functioning properly. And when that created order of God gets broken, that's injustice. And then when you go and correct that, that is judging. Right? And so, that's why the judges in the book of Judges are called judges. They're not hearing cases. Right? [laughter] But, things are out of line. Israel has sinned, now there's a foreign oppressor, the judge comes and puts that right, puts things back in order. Okay? And so, the righteousness, the justice that he's talking about there is talking about the creation itself and the created order. Right? So, water has this ambivalent symbolism in the ancient world. On one hand, you have the ocean, the sea, Yam, right? It's chaos. Right? And destruction. On the other hand, water is the source of life. It's cleansing, it's purifying. Right? And so, Christ restores the water to cleansing and purifying. Right? From the chaos and destruction. And that's then paradigmatic for the way he is restoring and transfiguring the whole creation. But, other examples of this, a normal person in Israel walks up and touches someone with leprosy. They're now unclean from having touched a leper. Christ walks up and touches a leper, and now the leper is made clean."
"Yeah, right. Right. [laughter] >> Based."
"Yes, right. >> So cool."
"A dead, a dead body is unclean, right? But, when Christ touches a dead body, he doesn't become unclean, the person comes back to life."
"Yeah, so good. >> Right?"
"Mhm. >> And so, that's sort of our understanding of of how atonement works vis-a-vis the incarnation. That it's about God coming into our humanity and then through our humanity coming into our world, the created world, the created order, to purify it and cleanse it and restore it to what it was originally created to be."
"And that relates to our icon theology as well. Like, that's why icons >> Yeah. >> function the way they do. >> will talk about the purification of matter."
"Mhm."
"Right? And that's why God can now work through bread and wine in the Eucharist, water in baptism, right? Uh, a male and a female human in marriage."
"[laughter] >> Yeah. Yeah."
"Yeah. >> I feel like I wasn't expecting, I was expecting something, I don't know, different. I see, I see your line of reasoning, so just in virtue of like becoming one with the human nature, all of us, our human nature becomes purified through the incarnation. It's essentially just very, very interesting. And so, that's being, that's like on, like a universal level. Like, we mean, like the universal human nature..."
"Cosmic level, yeah."
"Yeah, yeah, okay. Okay. Cool. >> And then through participation, we, we elevate ourselves through theosis. So, that's where theosis comes in. So, so it, it, it starts our entire theology leads towards that. And then, um, Father Stephen, what is the term that's in the eschaton? Theosis is eternal, but it's like apokatastasis or..."
"Apokatastasis."
"Apokatastasis. >> Yeah, I can never say that."
"Of all things."
"There's a bunch of memes about that one."
"Yeah, the restoration of all things. Yeah, but so that's the idea about theosis. We become by grace what Christ is by nature. By us being united to Christ, our humanity is transformed the way his is. And that's why, like, we will say, 'We, what we will be has not yet been made known, but we know we will be like him because we will see him as he is.'"
"Mhm. Well, you know, I'm going to have to, you know, watch back your answers probably two, three times before I'll fully grasp it and and ponder it more. There's some things, you know, at face value I could probably try and poke holes in or or or ask more questions, but, um, yeah, I'm just inquiring, wanted to learn more. I appreciate your answers. And yeah, I'll think about it. I'll think, I'll think more about it."
"Yeah. >> Yeah, it was good. It's good to hear your perspective. You know, there's a lot of things that Eastern Orthodoxy believes, you know, through my upbringing, I'm able to tell are just obviously true, and you guys have been defending it for so long, and your voice is relevant. Um, so, I respect it on many, on many accounts."
"Yeah. >> Thank God."
"Word. >> You're, you're welcome to hop on if you still want to chit-chat about just anything generally. You're welcome to hop on to my stream afterwards."
"Don't destroy Nikolai."
"[laughter] >> That's true."
"Yeah, I know. I'm not, I'm not here >> hit him pretty hard earlier, so he's still >> I deserve it."
"He's red. He's red from the >> I, I always get really red when I laugh. It's fun."
"No, I, I come in peace. I'm here just to learn, to inquire more, be open-minded."
"Yeah. >> I'm, I'm probably going to go to a divine liturgy soon."
"Glory to God. >> Yeah, I think that's awesome."
"Yeah, I >> Let's see what it's all about."
"Yeah. >> It's, it's good to see it. Yeah."
"I asked Jim Bob if I like, I'm, I'm allowed in the building. [laughter] Like, I don't, you know. He's like, 'No, there's no qualification to come in.' I'm like, 'Well, that's good.'"
"Yeah. >> Uh, you know."
"Yeah, my best recommendation, the first time I went, the best recommendation I can make is, you know, you know, if someone approaches you, obviously you can interact with them, but just quietly kind of observe. Like, that's, that's one of the first things that I did. My first Sunday was just me observing, and then asking the priest afterwards, you know, some just questions, and asking him how these things are, and, uh, feeling it out, so."
"Well, awesome. You know, it's, uh, there are things I'm struggle with. Um, with, with, with EO. You know, some, I, you know, I could point out some things. I don't know. I don't quite grasp the Marian dogmas. Guys, yeah, if I need revelation on that, there's some other things too that I just, I don't, I find it hard. I find it hard to believe, but I'm not so foolish to think that I couldn't be wrong. I've been wrong before and I'm definitely genuinely seeking the truth and so, hey, I'm, yeah, I'm going to pursue honestly, even even while defending a position I think I, I believe it's right. I'm totally open and pray for me."
"Yeah, absolutely. >> Pray for Mike, guys."