During one of my travels though the internet, I came across an article discussing the difference in understanding of salvation between Protestants and Orthodox Christians. While I was reading the article, I was struck by a thought: Is there something more to the word and the idea of atonement than we in modern society understand? I decided to do a little more digging into the word atonement and how it tied into salvation.
The first thing I decided to do was to look in the dictionary. I did this to verify the definition. According to Webster’s Dictionary, atonement is defined as: 1) Agreement; concord; reconciliation, after enmity or controversy. 2) Expiation; satisfaction or reparation made by giving an equivalent for an injury, or by doing or suffering that which is received in satisfaction for an offense or injury; with for. Reading through both possible definitions, the common theme that came to me is of two people or groups now at peace after formerly being at odds.
What I find interesting is, the first definition of atonement is one of reconciliation. Being a former Protestant, I can remember the concept of substitutionary atonement, and the first definition doesn’t seem to ‘fit’ with that concept. I decided to find out about the history of the satisfaction understanding (or theological interpretation) of atonement, to ensure my memory on the topic was accurate. In short, Archbishop Anselm , the Archbishop of Canterbury living in the 11th Century first wrote out the idea of ‘forensic justification’ in his work Cur Deus Homo. Anselm described mankind’s sin is an infinite offense to God, and only Christ was able to satisfy the infinite offense and God’s infinite wrath (by extension) through Christ’s crucifixion. To me, this now describes salvation as something scientific. Moreover, looking at salvation as a legal matter, it moves the essence of our individual salvation outside of ourselves. If we are the children of God, is He going to treat us and our sins in a legal fashion? (Maybe I shouldn’t ask that question given how many families seem to think it’s OK to sue each other.)
Orthodox Christianity, by contrast, views the essence of our individual salvation as inside each of us. Our souls and our fallen natures are healed and we are reconciled to God through Christ through His incarnation, death, and resurrection. Going back to the idea of our being the children of God, both God’s act through Christ (involving His incarnation, death, and resurrection) and our act of repentance (along with other elements of the Orthodox faith) allows us to be reconciled to God. This is more in line with the concept of family (at least to me).
Moving on from the dictionary, I decided to start looking through the Bible to see where atonement was used. The word appears 70 times. 69 of those are in the Old Testament. I decided to look at a Jewish version/definition of Atonement. In The Encyclopedia of Judaism, there is the following on page 86 regarding atonement:
Judaism views the sinner as one spiritually alienated from God, from his fellow-man, or from his ideal self. Atonement, in the religious sense, means a reversal of the alienation caused by sin whereby the offending party is restored to spiritual “at-one-ment” and ultimately forgiven. Atonement, in Jewish teaching, can only be achieved after a process of repentance which involves a recognition and admission of the sin, feelings of remorse, restitution to the offended party, and a resolve not to repeat the offense.
And later in the same entry:
In the case of unwitting offenses against the ritual law, the Bible prescribes a sin-offering. This is not viewed as some payment of restitution to an offended God, but rather as a sacrament intended to restore the ideal relationship between man and God, a relationship that had been impaired by man’s sin. Confession, as an expression of repentance, always accompanied such sacrifices and offerings. when the prophets of Israel directed harsh criticism against sacrifice, their real target was not the sacrificial system as such but insincere atonement and the perfunctory way in which the offering was made. No sacrifices could atone for deliberate transgressions, and the concept of a vicarious sacrifice was largely alien to Judaism.
Looking at this, the idea of someone suffering in place of another is not in the theological framework of Israel, from which the Christian Church grew. I did remember Leviticus Chapter 16 and the Day of Atonement, where sacrifices were made to atone for the sins of the people of Israel. When you look at the Jewish system of atonement, the goal was for the soul of the sinner to be relieved of the burden of his sin. This requires action from the individual committing the sin. You can’t ask someone else to do this for you. There also needs to be repentance in order for the relationship (whether with God or with another person) to be restored. How many times have we seen either someone ‘apologizing’ without truly being sorry for what they did, or having a ‘spokesman’ try to apologize for them? When we see these things happen, do we believe the person is sorry and wants to reconcile the relationship? My answer’s no. Why should it be any different when we are trying to reconcile with God?
The one New Testament reference is Romans 5:11 “And not only so, but we also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the atonement.” I decided to play ‘word substitution’, where I would substitute either ‘reconciliation’ or ‘satisfaction’ for ‘atonement’. I’m going to type them out so you can see the results: 1) “And not only so, but we also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the satisfaction.” 2) “And not only so, but we also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the reconciliation.”
The west (Roman Catholics and Protestants) treats salvation as a legal matter (where we as sinful human beings are before a vengeful God to be judged) and the east treats salvation as a matter of the soul (where humanity, originally a perfect reflection of the image of God, is now an imperfect reflection due to sin). This polemic continues to feed the misunderstandings between the two sides and hinders the possibility for reconciliation.
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