New Life in Christ: Salvation in Orthodox Theology (2)

By Fr. Jоhn Meyendorff

2. Human freedom – which belongs to every human person – is revealed in the Greek patristic tradition as the true expression of the image of God. “Adam,” writes St. Basil the Great, “received from the Creator a free life, because his soul was created in the image of God.”[43] This same idea was developed later by St. Gregory of Nyssa[44] and by St. Cyril of Alexandria. “Man,” writes St. Cyril, “from the very beginning of creation was endowed with power over his desires and was free to follow the inclinations of his choice, because the Deity, whose image he is, is free.”[45] The freedom of the human person, therefore, points to the divine freedom that is the source of creation itself.

The incarnation undoubtedly presupposes the dimension of the hypostatic or personal existence of God, distinct from the dimension of nature or essence. By His nature or essence, God is unchangeable. In His essence, therefore, no becoming occurs.[46] Yet, “the Word became (ἐγένετο) flesh” (John 1:14), in other words, God undergoes a change, becoming something that He had not previously been. Moreover, since human nature is necessarily changeable and exists in history, the changes in the human life of Jesus must be accepted by the Logos not in essence but in person, including death itself: otherwise He would not have become fully man. It is the divine hypostasis of the Son himself, therefore, which has emerged from divine transcendence and has become visible and accessible – in the human nature of Jesus – restoring human nature in accordance with its divine prototype.

Indeed, if Christology itself presupposes an inaccessibility and absolute transcendence of the divine nature, as well as the openness and existential mutability of the hypostasis, then the formulation adopted by the Council of Chalcedon, namely of Jesus Christ as one hypostasis in two natures, acquires such clarity and applicability that were probably not fully understood even by its authors themselves. The full applicability of this formulation will be gradually developed in what has (in all likelihood inappropriately) been called Byzantine Neo-Chalcedonism. Indeed, the basic soteriological intuition of St. Cyril – namely, the unity of the person of the Incarnate Logos – as well as the necessity of distinguishing the divine nature from the human, had to be accepted in full and simultaneously. It has gradually become clear how, on the one hand, the hypostatic life in God expresses a mutual opening of the three hypostases to one another, and how, on the other hand, the hypostasis of the Son has opened itself to creation and to the assumed human nature, making it the “human nature of God.”[47] Thus, the openness of the divine hypostases to one another is a mutual openness within the Holy Trinity, but it is also an openness downwards to creation. It reveals the meaning of defining God as love, since love presupposes a personal reciprocity and relationship, eternal and transcendent in the Trinity, but also extending beyond the being of God: to the temporal being of the creatures that God has willed to exist.

On the other hand, human beings are also – hypostatically – open to the heights. As Lars Thunberg notes with regard to the Rev. Maximus the Confessor, “… Maximus manages to express his conviction that there is also a personal aspect in the life of man which goes truly beyond his nature and shows his inner unity as well as his relationship with God”.[48]

Thus the hypostatic dimension of the divine life of the Trinity, as well as the image of this life in humanity, exclude the idea of ​​redemption, salvation and deification as some automatic or magical processes of absorption of the human by the divine. Both of them presuppose – on the part of God as well as on the part of man – personal and free relationships. In Christ we see the hypostasis of the divine Logos, who perceives the fullness of human nature. Christ is not a human hypostasis. Otherwise the man Jesus could be individualized on the level of creatures, and this would make life in Christ impossible. Indeed, one created hypostasis could not exist in another. One human being cannot be transformed into another – human beings invariably preserve their uniqueness. The decisive factor with regard to salvation is that the hypostasis of the Logos is the prototype of which every human being is an image. The human nature of the Logos is not simply the nature of some individual human being – it is also our common humanity, which He assumed in its fallen state and which He glorified by His death and resurrection. The incarnate Logos calls us to be participants in His saved and glorified human nature, by virtue of our free and personal decision, through Baptism, in Eucharistic communion, in order to be transformed from the first man who is “of the earth, earthy” to the second man who is “the Lord from heaven” (1 Cor. 15:47).

The New Adam

The New Testament applies to Jesus the image of the Suffering Servant, described by Deuteronomy[49] (Is. 52-53; cf. Matt. 8:17; Rom. 15:21, etc.): “He took our infirmities and carried our sorrows… They made his grave with the wicked” (Is. 53:4, 9). His image is that of the Messiah, who suffers and dies, voluntarily accepting the consequences of the sins of the human race. And this suffering and this death are consequences – on a cosmic level – of Adam’s sin, which sin determines the biblical perception of created reality after the Fall.

It has often been acknowledged that Eastern patristic thought ignores the notion of the transmission of guilt from Adam to his descendants. However, this does not ignore the fact of the Fall itself – in its cosmic dimensions. This fallen state is not expressed in the vocabulary of some divine punishment imposed on all men (Augustine’s massa damnata[50]) by parents on their children, but rather as a usurpation or illegitimate tyranny exercised by Satan over God’s creation. Humans are seen rather as victims of the universal dominion of evil—after all, Satan himself is “a liar and the father of lies” (John 8:44). They are “those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery” (Heb. 2:15). It is not sin that is passed from parents to children: it is mortality and slavery that are passed on, creating the conditions under which sin is inevitable. Blessed Theodoret of Cyrene writes: “Having become mortal, [Adam and Eve] conceived mortal children, and mortal beings are inevitably subject to suffering and fear, to pleasure and sorrow, to anger and hatred.”[51] The model here is Darwinian: the fear of death gives rise to a struggle for survival, and survival is only achievable at the expense of others – it is the survival of the strongest who prevail over the weak. As Theodore of Mopsuestia writes, “… having become mortal, we have acquired an urge to sin, because we are dependent on food, drink and other necessities, and the desire to acquire them inevitably leads to sinful passions.”[52] The references to patristic texts can easily be multiplied, and their context can be understood if we remember that the Greek Fathers read the famous phrase from the Epistle to the Romans – “… as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and thus death passed upon all men, for[53] all have sinned[54]” (5:12) – in its Greek original, and their thinking was not conditioned by the erroneous translation into Latin, which implied the notion that all had sinned “in Adam”.[55]

What the Logos assumed was the mortal, corruptible and fallen nature of the human race. This was well understood in particular by the Alexandrian Fathers – supporters of a high Christology: St. Athanasius of Alexandria the Great and St. Cyril of Alexandria. And therefore their Christological position makes theopaschism inevitable: the divine Logos himself voluntarily assumed mortal human nature and, therefore, had to die in the flesh. The consequence of this is not “anthropological minimalism” – as Father George Florovsky once wrote,[56] but quite the opposite – an affirmation that human nature and its fallen state are such a real and fateful fact that they led to God’s self-emptying as a condition for salvation and true restoration.

That the high Alexandrian Christology did not imply any degradation of human nature in Jesus is also clear from the sixth-century controversy over the aphthartodocetism of Julian of Halicarnassus. Julian’s position is simple: since death and corruption (φθορά) are consequences of human sin, they could not have been present in Jesus, who had not committed sin. Thus, according to Julian, Jesus possessed an “incorruptible” (ἄφθαρτος) human nature. Julian’s critics were right when they said that he was in fact a Docetist: Jesus’ death on the Cross was only an “apparent” but not a real experience of what death is for other human beings.[57] However, if we understand Christ as sharing the determinism of a corrupt and fallen human nature, what then happens to divine freedom? Did not the Logos suffer voluntarily? The Church’s rejection of aftartodocetism was in no way intended as a rejection of divine freedom. The incarnation was indeed – in all its aspects – an expression of God’s free will. However, God willed that Jesus – precisely as a man – from the moment of his conception in the womb of the Holy Virgin, should be completely conditioned by what our human, fallen existence is: He lived in time, prospered “in wisdom and age” (Luke 2:52), there were things he did not know about, he suffered and died. On the other hand, the hypostatic unity – that is, the conception and birth of the God-man Jesus – does not yet represent in itself a deification of the human nature of Jesus. If the deification were something that happened automatically, as some imagine, then the Incarnation would be only a manifestation of a pre-existing divine-humanity of the Logos, realized when He became a human being. Whereas in reality the Incarnation has as its prerequisites tragedy and struggle. Having assumed created flesh, fallen into sin, the Creator meets death – face to face. He confronts these realities of the fallen world – the world that He Himself did not create, but only allowed – and overcomes them. And this tolerance of His reaches its ultimate point when the Incarnate Son of God accepts human death on the Cross: this ultimate point also becomes His final victory. Modern New Testament criticism has often dealt with the psychology of Jesus, as well as with questions such as His messianic consciousness. Sometimes, however, one wonders whether such pursuits do not lead to a dead end, as, for example, a learned Anglican theologian once wrote: “It is truly ridiculous and irreverent to ask what it feels like to be God incarnate.”[58] Yet what cannot be denied—and what the high Christology which affirms the fullness of the pre-existence of the divine nature of the unique person of Jesus Christ does not deny—is that “being human” necessarily implies change and growth—from child to adult; that the human nature assumed by the Son of God was ours—a “corruptible” human nature that needed salvation and which He ushered in a passage[59] (the Christian Passover) from death to life; that Christ “… was tempted in all points as we are, yet without sin” (Heb. 4:15; cf. 1 Pet. 2:22).[60]

This last – “… except without sin” – also makes a high Christology inevitable, because it can be said of God alone – and of no creature – that he is above sin, which is a conscious personal act of rebellion against the divine will. Precisely because he is God and not “merely man” – Jesus is able to overcome the temptations inherent in fallen human nature, and that is why he says to the tempter: “You shall not tempt the Lord your God” (Matt. 4:7; Luke 4:12). And although no philosophical, rational or psychological explanation can be found for this, here is precisely the very content of the gospel revealed in Christ: that God himself has placed himself on our level, within our very existence; that He is no longer a distant, heavenly existence, but the One who is personally, hypostatically with us, even in temptations and in death – Emmanuel.

It is important, moreover, to realize that the Chalcedonian patristic tradition, which itself adheres to a high Christology, stands firmly against the Monophysite and Monothelite, and any other one-sided theocentric views of salvation. The Christology of St. Maximus the Confessor, which defends the existence in Christ of a human will that is separate from the divine, is particularly categorical when it claims that the human nature of Christ was not a passive instrument of divinity, but exercised – in time and space – authentic human freedom. St. Maximus illustrates this in his commentary on two of the episodes of Christ’s life – His baptism in the Jordan River and His agony in the Garden of Gethsemane.

When Jesus came out of the Jordan—where, having been baptized by John, he consciously identified himself with the condition of the others—he “suddenly saw the heavens being opened, and the Spirit descending upon him like a dove” (Mark 1:11). For St. Maximus, this was Jesus’ second birth, thus shaping the model of our own baptismal renewal:

The incarnation first took place in the form of a bodily birth—because of my condemnation, but was later followed by a birth in the Spirit, through baptism, which was neglected [by fallen humanity]; [it took place] for the sake of my salvation, so that I might be called again by grace, or, more precisely, be created anew.[61]

In Jesus, therefore, the synergy between the divine and human wills, which is a precondition for the reconciling sacrament of communion between the divine nature and the human nature, included His human experience of the new birth, which took place at the end of His growth as a man and at the beginning of His messianic ministry.

What happened in Gethsemane, according to St. Maximus, is another and decisive human perception by Jesus of the Father’s will for the salvation of the world. Indeed, Gethsemane did not signify resistance or rebellion, but only an agonizing exercise of the human will of Christ. In the divine nature and in the will of the Holy Trinity, the Logos has willed our salvation at all times (φύσει θελητικὸς καὶ ἐνεργητικὸς τῆς ἡμῶν σωτηρίας).

This salvation He willed together with the Father and with the Holy Spirit; but [for the sake of this same salvation] He also [as a human being] became obedient to the Father “unto death, even death on a cross” (Phil. 2:8), accomplishing in Himself (in His divine hypostasis) the great mystery of His coming to us in the flesh.[62]

This Christology illustrates once again the distinction – always characteristic of the Greek Fathers – between the concepts of hypostasis (or person) and nature. As we have already noted, the hypostasis of the Son is not the same as the divine nature, for the hypostasis “becomes,” while the nature is absolutely unchangeable. The hypostasis, by assuming human nature and making it its own, becomes a composite hypostasis (ὑπόστασις συμποτος[63]). The personality – divine or human – is therefore not simply a manifestation of “nature” (individual), but a subject capable of saying “I” and of transcending or going beyond the limitations of the nature it possesses. The human nature assumed by the Logos was fully such and even more perfectly human than our nature, because the Logos is the Model according to whom we ourselves were created: the fact that in Jesus there is no human hypostasis – or a separate human “I” (the Nestorian solution) – does not make Him any less perfect man. Rather, His hypostasis, because it is divine, intensifies the humanity which is – in Christ – the human nature of God. This philosophy of hypostasis, applied to created human nature, makes deification understandable as always a personal or hypostatic possibility for every human being – when he or she goes beyond natural limitations and becomes a participant in the divine life.

As we have seen, the move away from legalism and towards an emphasis on personal communion as the essence of salvation is a major trend in contemporary Orthodox theology. In this approach, there is a certain danger of falling into subjectivism if we do not adhere fully to patristic Christology and a sound theology of Baptism.[64]

If death is the last and cosmic enemy, then Christ is the Savior, because He has conquered death. His death on the Cross is a historical fact, sealed by the Resurrection. Having identified Himself with fallen humanity – even to His death on the Cross – He rose again and showed the exalted, transformed and deified human nature, which was in God’s intentions from the very beginning. This new human nature also becomes ours when we are baptized and partake of the Eucharist, which is communion with the risen Lord: “For – as the apostle writes – you have died, and your life is hid with Christ in God” (Col. 3:3). Thus, Baptism and the Eucharist are the true foundations not only of spirituality, but also of Christian ethics. Through them, every human person can participate in the risen humanity of Christ and reach that communal unity that is the Church: the Body of Christ. Since Christ’s human nature is hypostatically united with the divine Logos, life in Christ can also be called deification.[65]

Although the Christological dimension of the new human nature is the necessary starting point in soteriology, central to the personalistic and freedom-oriented Orthodox understanding of salvation is, however, the role of the Holy Spirit.[66]

The Fathers of the Church – and especially St. Gregory the Theologian and Pseudo-Macarius – often define theocentric anthropology, speaking of an outflow of the Spirit into man, making him different from the rest of creation.[67] It is precisely this kinship with God – through the Holy Spirit – that explains both man’s openness upward and his freedom. It follows that the Spirit is at work wherever humanity exercises this God-given freedom—for example, as Mary uttered her “Yes” to God’s will (Luke 1:38) or as Jesus, with his human will, accepted the messianic ministry in the waters of the Jordan River and—like countless other human beings—was baptized by water and the Spirit. When they mention the Spirit, Christian revelation and Christian theology are to some extent apophatic. Indeed, the Spirit has not become incarnate, and his person or hypostasis remains hidden, except for his role in the manifestation of Christ and in the completion of Christ’s work—the revelation of the divine life in Christ for the free choice of every human person.

Conclusion: The Ethics of the Resurrection

If it is true to say, as we have already pointed out, that human existence in a fallen world is dominated by mortality (and therefore by the struggle for survival, creating both dependence on the means of subsistence and conflicts in the struggle to possess these means), then the Resurrection and the possibility of sharing in the glory and immortality of Christ radically change these conditions. The awareness that this is so explains why for the early Christians the Resurrection represented the very content of the Gospel: “… if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins” – writes the Apostle Paul (1 Cor. 15:17), because the mortal human being is unable to give up the struggle for survival and, therefore, remains an inevitable sinner. In immortality, however, man can be truly free.

Herein lies, it seems to me, the correct approach to ethics—such as we find in the New Testament, but which can easily be dismissed as an unrealistic retelling if we do not take seriously the idea that Jesus’ teachings are addressed to those who are free from death and the struggle for survival. Indeed, precepts such as “do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink… Look at the birds of the air, for they do not sow or reap… Consider the lilies of the field…” (Matt. 6:25-30) may sound only sentimental or emotional exhortations—unless they reflect some real experience of victory over death that frees Christians from the most widespread dependence on food (or money) and enables them to give rather than be concerned about what they receive (cf. Acts 20:35). Redemption is not simply the cancellation and forgiveness of sins, but also – and above all else – a new freedom for the children of God – in communion with the New Adam.

Notes:

[43] Homiliae, 6 (Quod Deus non est auctor malorum) – PG 31, 344B.

[44] Gaïth, J. La conception de la liberté chez Grégoire de Nysse, Paris: “Vrin”, 1953, pp. 40-66.

[45] Glaphyra in Genesin, 1, 4 – PG 69, 24C.

[46] Italics mine.

[47] These implications were brilliantly developed by the Romanian theologian Prot. Dumitru Staniloae – see: Staniloae, D. “Trinitarian Relations and the Life of the Church” – In: Theology and the Church, Crestwood, NY: “St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press”, 1980, p. 11-44.

[48] Thunberg, L. Microcosm and Mediator: The Theological Anthropology of Maximus the Confessor, Lund: “Gleerup”, 1968, p. 119.

[49] The name “Second Isaiah” (or “Deutero-Isaiah”) in biblical studies conventionally designates the author of chapters 40-55 of the Old Testament Book of the Prophet Isaiah, written ca. 540 BC.

[50] From the Latin “accursed mass” or “condemned multitude” – a term introduced into theology by St. Augustine, who describes the state of all humanity after the fall of the first parents.

[51] Interpretatio in psalmos, 50 – PG 80, 1245A.

[52] In Epistolam ad Romanos, 6, 6 – PG 66, 801B.

[53] At this point Father Meyendorff adds as his own reading: “… and through death (all have sinned)”.

[54] The second part of Rom. 5:12: “and thus death passed upon all men through one man, for in him all sinned,” which semantically coincides with the erroneous translation of this passage into Latin commented on by Fr. John Meyendorff.

[55] The Latin version of ἐφ’ ᾧ πάντες ἥμαρτον from Rom. 5:12 is “in quo omnes peccaverunt.” In the masculine gender, quo should refer to that “one man” mentioned earlier in the sentence, i.e., “all sinned in Adam.” The Greek text does not allow such a meaning, but grammatically allows for two possibilities: 1) if ἐφ’ ᾧ is neuter and means “because,” the sentence defines death as the punishment for the transgressions of every person (not “original” sin); 2) if ἐφ’ ᾧ is masculine, then it refers to “death” (θάνατος), so that death – as a cosmic, personalized reality – becomes the cause of the sins of the individual. This is the sense in which the text was read by the blessed Theodoret of Cyrene and by Theodore of Mopsuestia, as well as by many other Greek authors, including St. John Chrysostom, St. Cyril of Alexandria, St. Maximus the Confessor and the later Byzantine theologians. For more on this issue, see: Meyendorff, J. Byzantine Theology: Historical Trends and Doctrinal Themes, New York: Fordham University Press, 31987, pp. 143-146. The clear divergence of the Augustinian tradition from the Greek tradition on the topic of “original sin” is something widely recognized by historians – see, for example: Kelly, J. N. D. Early Christian Doctrines, London: A. & C. Black, 1958, pp. 348-352. For a detailed analysis and treatment of the issue of “original” sin, see also the doctoral dissertation of Prot. John S. Romanidis, also printed as a book: Ρωμανίδης, Ἰ. Σ. Τὸ Προπατορικὸν Ἁμάρτημα, Thessaloniki: “Πουρναράς”, 32010; for more on the topic from the work of the protopresbyter John Meyendorff himself, see his article: “Ἐφ᾽ ᾧ (Rom. 5, 12) chez Cyrille d’Alexandrie et Théodoret”, published in Studia patristica, 4, 1961 (Texte und Untersuchungen zur Geschichte der altchristlicher Literatur, 79), S. 157-161.

[56] Florovsky, G. Byzantine Fathers V-VIII centuries, Paris: “YMCA”, 1933, p. 7.

[57] See the concise definition of St. John of Damascus: “… [the Aphthartodocetes] accept the incorruptibility of the Lord’s body from its very creation; and they also confess that the Lord experienced passions, i.e. hunger and thirst, and fatigue, but they believe that He experienced these passions not in the same way as we do. For we experience them by natural necessity, but they say of Christ that He experiences them voluntarily (ἑκουσίως), and not in servitude to natural laws” (On Heresies, 84 – PG 94, 156A; on aftartodocetism see also: Draguet, R. Julien d’Halicarnasse et sa controverse avec Sévère d’Antioche sur l’incorruptibilité du corps du Christ, Louvain, 1924; cf. Meyendorff, J. Christ in Eastern Christian Thought, p. 87-88, 165-166. Of course, if we believe in the divinity of Christ, we cannot deny divine freedom, but in the Orthodox tradition (unlike aftartodocetism) divine freedom, as a whole, finds its expression in the Incarnation: mortality and corruption were assumed by the Son of God from the very beginning of His human life.

[58] Mascall, E. L. Christ, the Christian and the Church, London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1946, p. 3.

[59] “Passing over” is the meaning of the Hebrew Pesach (פֶּסַח), whence the name of the feast of Passover.

[60] See my article: “Christ’s Humanity: The Paschal Mystery” – In: St. Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly, 31, 1987, p. 5-40.

[61] Ambiguorum liber – PG 91, 1348D. The scholarly literature on St. Maximus is abundant. Specifically on the subject of his Christology see: Heinzer, F. “L’Explication trinitaire de l’économie chez Maxime le Confesseur” – In: Maximus Confessor: Actes du Symposium sur Maxime le Confesseur, Fribourg, 1-5 Septembre, 1980, ed. F. Heinzer & Ch. von Schönborn, Fribourg, 1982, p. 159-172.

[62] Opuscula theologica et polemica, 6 – PG 91, 68D. On this subject see the commentary in: Léthel, F. M. Théologie de l’agonie du Christ, Paris: “Beauchesne”, 1979, pp. 87-90 (with a French translation of the critically important Opusculum 6 of the Rev. Maximus).

[63] See: Maximus Confessor, Epistola, 12 – PG 91, 489C etc.; cf.: Johannes Damascenus, De natura composita contra acephalos – PG 95, 113D.

[64] From the fourth century until the Late Middle Ages the heresy of Messalianism was a constant temptation for Eastern Christian monasticism. One of its most characteristic features is the understanding of deification as a purely subjective result of prayer – independently of Baptism. This criterion has allowed the modern tendency to rehabilitate the author, known as Pseudo-Macarius, from the accusation of Messalianism – see: Dörries, H. Die Theologie des Makarios/Symeon, Göttingen: “Vandenhoeck Ruprecht”, 1978. His rehabilitation is important in view of the great (and fully justified) popularity of Macarius’ writings in the Orthodox spiritual tradition.

[65] In the Christology formed by St. Maximus the Confessor and later by St. Gregory Palamas, the hypostatic union of the two natures in Christ presupposes a communicatio idiomatum: the divine energies penetrate and deify the risen human nature of Christ (without mixing of essences or natures), as well as the human nature of those who are in Christ – cf. Meyendorff, J. Christ in Eastern Christian Thought, p. 170-171; 188-189; A Study of Gregory Palamas, Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 21974, pp. 157-184.

[66] See: “The Theology of the Holy Spirit” – In: Meyendorff, J. Catholicity and the Church, Crestwood, NY: “St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press”, 1983, p. 15-29.

[67] See: Gregorius Nazianzenus, Poemata dogmatica, 8: “De anima” – PG 37, 452A.

Source: Meyendorff, J. “New Life in Christ: Salvation in Orthodox Theology” – In: Theological Studies, Vol. 50, No. 3, 1989, pp. 481-499; the text is also printed in: Meyendorff, J. Rome, Constantinople, Moscow: Historical and Theological Studies, Crestwood, NY: “St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press” 1996, pp. 149-168.