I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel: which is not another; but there be some that trouble you, and would pervert the gospel of Christ. But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be anathema. As we said before, so say I now again, If any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be anathema.
Galatians 1:6-9
And if any controversy in regard to Scripture shall have been raised, let them not interpret it otherwise than as the lights and doctors of the church in their writings have expounded it, and in those let them glory rather than in composing things out of their own heads, lest through their lack of skill they may have departed from what was fitting.
Canon 19 of the Quintisext Council of Trullo
And if there be sin in any one, and the judgment of death be upon him, and he be put to death, and ye hang him on a tree: his body shall not remain all night upon the tree, but thou shalt in any wise bury him that day; (for he that is hanged is accursed of God;) that thy land be not defiled, which the Lord thy God giveth thee for an inheritance.
Deuteronomy 21:22-23 MT and LXX (interpreted to be about Christ by Paul in Galatians 3:13)
God will not withdraw his anger…. He will not suffer me to take my breath, but filleth me with bitterness.
Job 9:13,18 (the end interpreted as about Christ by St. Dmitri of Rostov)
All my inward friends abhorred me: and they whom I loved are turned against me. My bone cleaveth to my skin and to my flesh, and I am escaped with the skin of my teeth. Have pity upon me, have pity upon me, O ye my friends; for the hand of God hath touched me.
Job 19:19-21 (interpreted as about Christ by St. Gregory the Dialogist and St. Dmitri of Rostov)
The pangs of death surrounded me, and the torrents of iniquity sorely troubled me. The pangs of hades encircled me, round about the snares of death have overtaken me.
Psalm 17:4-5 LXX (interpreted as about Christ by St. Dmitri of Rostov)
O God, My God, attend to Me; why hast Thou forsaken Me? Far from My salvation are the words of My transgressions…. All that look upon Me have laughed Me to scorn; they have spoken with their lips and have wagged their heads: He hoped in the Lord; let Him deliver Him, let Him save Him, for He desireth Him….My strength is dried up like a potsherd, and My tongue hath cleaved to My throat, and into the dust of death hast Thou brought me down. For many dogs have encircled Me, the congregation of evil-doers hath surrounded Me; they have pierced My hands and My feet. They have numbered all My bones, and they themselves have looked and stared upon Me. They have parted My garments among themselves, and for My vesture have they cast lots.
Psalm 21:1,7-8,15-18 LXX (Read in full at Royal Hours)
O Lord, rebuke Me not in Thine anger, nor chasten Me in Thy wrath. For Thine arrows are fastened in me, and Thou hast laid Thy hand heavily upon Me. There is no healing in My flesh in the face of Thy wrath; and there is no peace in My bones in the face of My sins. For Mine iniquities are risen higher than My head; as a heavy burden have they pressed heavily upon Me.... My friends and my neighbours drew nigh over against Me and stood, and My nearest of kin stood afar off. And they that sought after My soul used violence; and they that sought evils for Me spake vain things, and craftiness all the day long did they meditate. But as for Me, like a deaf man I heard them not, and was as a speechless man that openeth not his mouth. And I became as a man that heareth not, and that hath in his mouth no reproofs…. For I am ready for scourges, and My sorrow is continually before Me. For I will declare Mine iniquity, and I will take heed concerning My sin. But mine enemies live and are made stronger than I, and they that hated Me unjustly are multiplied. They that render Me evil for good slandered Me, because I pursued goodness. Forsake Me not, O Lord my God, depart not from Me.
Ps. 37:1-4,11-14, 17-21 LXX (Quoted in part as a Prokeimenon at Royal Hours of Holy Friday)
Take away from Me Thy scourges; for from the strength of Thy hand have I fainted. With reprovings for iniquity hast Thou chastened man, and hast made his life to melt away like a spider's web.
Psalm 38:13 LXX (interpreted to be about Christ by St. Dmitri of Rostov)
Wherefore hast Thou cast Me off? And wherefore go I with downcast face whilst Mine enemy afflicteth Me?
Ps. 42:2 LXX
Mine enemies are grown strong, they that persecute Me unjustly; then did I restore that which I took not away…. For the zeal of Thy house hath eaten Me up…. And they gave me gall for my food, and for my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink….For they persecuted Him Whom Thou hast smitten, and to the pain of My wounds have they added.
Ps. 68:6,12,26-27,31 LXX (Read in full at Royal Hours)
For filled with evils is My soul, and My life unto hades hath drawn nigh. I am counted with them that go down into the pit; I am become as a man without help, free among the dead, like the bodies of the slain that sleep in the grave, whom Thou rememberest no more, and they are cut off from Thy hand. They laid Me in the lowest pit, in darkness and in the shadow of death. Against Me is Thine anger made strong, and all Thy billows hast Thou brought upon Me. Thou hast removed My friends afar from Me; they have made Me an abomination unto themselves…. Wherefore, O Lord, dost Thou cast off my soul and turnest Thy face away from me? A poor man am I, and in troubles from my youth; yea, having been exalted, I was humbled and brought to distress. Thy furies have passed upon Me, and Thy terrors have sorely troubled Me. They came round about Me like water, all the day long they compassed Me about together. Thou hast removed afar from Me friend and neighbour, and Mine acquaintances because of My misery.
Ps. 87:3-8,15-19 LXX (Quoted in part at a Prokeimenon at Holy Friday Vespers)
But Thou hast cast off and brought to nought, Thou hast been wroth with Thy Christ. Thou hast destroyed the covenant of Thy Servant, Thou hast profaned His sanctuary unto the earth. Thou hast broken down all His hedges, Thou hast made His strongholds to be His terror. All have despoiled Him that pass along the way, He is become a reproach unto His neighbours. Thou hast exalted the right hand of them that afflict Him, Thou hast gladdened all His enemies. Thou hast turned away the help of His sword, and hast not helped Him in the battle. Thou hast made an end of His purification, His throne unto the earth hast Thou cast down. Thou hast shortened the days of His time, Thou hast poured down shame upon Him. How long, O Lord, dost Thou turn away unto the end? Shall Thy wrath burn like fire? Remember what my substance is. Nay, hast Thou created all the sons of man in vain? Who is the man that shall live and not see death? Can he deliver his soul out of the hand of hades? Where are Thine ancient mercies, O Lord, which Thou swarest unto David in Thy truth? Remember, O Lord, the reproach of Thy servants, which I have endured in my bosom from many nations, wherewith Thine enemies have reproached, O Lord, wherewith they have reproached the exchange of Thy Christ. Blessed is the Lord for ever. So be it. So be it.
Ps. 88:36-50 LXX (interpreted as about Christ by St. Athanasius, although qualifying it as being the Father's allowance and somewhat of appearance, yet saying clearly that the recompence is the payment for us, in the supposedly-spurious commentary. And St. Ambrose cited this passage taking it for granted that it is known as being about Christ)
The pangs of death have encompassed Me, the perils of hades have found Me.
Ps. 114:3 LXX
My son, despise not the chastening of the Lord; neither be weary of his correction: for whom the Lord loveth he correcteth; even as a father the son in whom he delighteth.
Proverbs 3:11-12 MT (LXX, as quoted in Hebrews: “... nor faint when thou art rebuked of him: for whom the Lord loveth, he chastiseth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.” Interpreted as about Christ by St. Augustine and St. Dmitri of Rostov)
Awake, O sword, against my shepherd, and against the man that is my fellow, saith the Lord of hosts: smite the shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered.
Zecharaiah 13:7, quoted by Christ in Matthew 26:31 and Mark 14:27 as “I will smite the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock shall be scattered abroad.”
Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth: he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth. He was taken from prison and from judgment: and who shall declare his generation? for he was cut off out of the land of the living: for the transgression of my people was he stricken. And he made his grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death; because he had done no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth. Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him; he hath put him to grief: when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand. He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied: by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many; for he shall bear their iniquities. Therefore will I divide him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong; because he hath poured out his soul unto death: and he was numbered with the transgressors: and he bare the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.
Isaiah 53:4-12 MT (and in Vulg. same stuff). The LXX says: “He bears our sins, and is pained for us: yet we accounted him to be in trouble, and in suffering, and in affliction. But he was wounded on account of our sins, and was bruised because of our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and by his bruises we were healed. All we as sheep have gone astray; every one has gone astray in his way; and the Lord gave him up for our sins. And he, because of his affliction, opens not his mouth: he was led as a sheep to the slaughter, and as a lamb before the shearer is dumb, so he opens not his mouth. In his humiliation his judgment was taken away: who shall declare his generation? for his life is taken away from the earth: because of the iniquities of my people he was led to death. And I will give the wicked for his burial, and the rich for his death; for he practised no iniquity, nor craft with his mouth. The Lord also is pleased to purge him from his stroke. If ye can give an offering for sin, your soul shall see a long-lived seed: the Lord also is pleased to take away from the travail of his soul, to shew him light, and to form him with understanding; to justify the just one who serves many well; and he shall bear their sins. Therefore he shall inherit many, and he shall divide the spoils of the mighty; because his soul was delivered to death: and he was numbered among the transgressors; and he bore the sins of many, and was delivered because of their iniquities.”
I am the man that hath seen affliction by the rod of his wrath. He hath led me, and brought me into darkness, but not into light. Surely against me is he turned; he turneth his hand against me all the day. My flesh and my skin hath he made old; he hath broken my bones. He hath builded against me, and compassed me with gall and travail. He hath set me in dark places, as they that be dead of old. He hath hedged me about, that I cannot get out: he hath made my chain heavy. Also when I cry and shout, he shutteth out my prayer. He hath inclosed my ways with hewn stone; he hath made my paths crooked. He was unto me as a bear lying in wait, and as a lion in secret places. He hath turned aside my ways, and pulled me in pieces: he hath made me desolate. He hath bent his bow, and set me as a mark for the arrow. He hath caused the arrows of his quiver to enter into my reins. I was a derision to all my people; and their song all the day. He hath filled me with bitterness, he hath made me drunken with wormwood. He hath also broken my teeth with gravel stones, he hath covered me with ashes. And thou hast removed my soul far off from peace: I forgat prosperity. And I said, My strength and my hope is perished from the Lord: remembering mine affliction and my misery, the wormwood and the gall.
Lamentations of Jeremiah 3:1-19 MT (interpreted in various parts as being about Christ by St. Cyril of Jerusalem and St. Dmitri of Rostov)
Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by? Behold, and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow, which is done unto me, wherewith the Lord hath afflicted me in the day of his fierce anger.
Lam. 1:12 MT (interpreted as being about Christ by St. Dmitri of Rostov)
But Jesus called them unto him, and said, ‘Ye know that the princes of the Gentiles exercise dominion over them, and they that are great exercise authority upon them. But it shall not be so among you: but whosoever will be great among you, let him be your minister; And whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant: Even as the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for (ἀντί) many.’
Matthew 20:25-28
But Jesus called them to him, and saith unto them, ‘Ye know that they which are accounted to rule over the Gentiles exercise lordship over them; and their great ones exercise authority upon them. But so shall it not be among you: but whosoever will be great among you, shall be your minister: And whosoever of you will be the chiefest, shall be servant of all. For even the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for (ἀντί) many.’
Mark 10:42-45
And one of the malefactors which were hanged railed on him, saying, 'If thou be Christ, save thyself and us.' But the other answering rebuked him, saying, 'Dost not thou fear God, seeing thou art in the same condemnation? And we indeed justly; for we receive the due reward of our deeds: but this man hath done nothing amiss.'
Luke 23:39-41
Then gathered the chief priests and the Pharisees a council, and said, What do we? for this man doeth many miracles. If we let him thus alone, all men will believe on him: and the Romans shall come and take away both our place and nation. And one of them, named Caiaphas, being the high priest that same year, said unto them, ‘Ye know nothing at all, nor consider that it is expedient for us, that one man should die for the people, and that the whole nation perish not.’ And this spake he not of himself: but being high priest that year, he prophesied that Jesus should die for that nation; and not for that nation only, but that also he should gather together in one the children of God that were scattered abroad.
John 11:49-52
And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.
1 John 2:2
Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.
1 John 4:10
And when he had taken the book, the four beasts and four and twenty elders fell down before the Lamb, having every one of them harps, and golden vials full of odors, which are the prayers of saints. And they sung a new song, saying, Thou art worthy to take the book, and to open the seals thereof: for thou wast slain, and hast bought us for God (ἠγόρασας τῷ Θεῷ ἡμᾶς) by thy blood out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation; and hast made us unto our God kings and priests: and we shall reign on the earth.
Revelation 5:8-10
For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God; to declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.
Romans 3:23-26
For scarcely for a righteous man will one die: yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die. But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him. For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life.
Romans 5:7-10
For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh: that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.
Romans 8:3-4
For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's.
1 Corinthians 6:20
Ye are bought with a price; be not ye the servants of men.
1 Corinthians 7:23
For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures.
1 Cor. 15:3
For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.
2 Corinthians 5:21
Christ hath out-bought (ἐξηγόρασεν) us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree.
Galatians 3:13
Even so we, when we were children, were in bondage under the elements of the world: but when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to out-buy (ἐξαγοράσῃ) them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons.
Galatians 4:3-5
For it pleased the Father that in him should all fulness dwell; and, having made peace through the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all things unto himself; by him, I say, whether they be things in earth, or things in heaven. And you, that were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled in the body of his flesh through death, to present you holy and unblameable and unreproveable in his sight.
Colossians 1:19-22
And you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath he quickened together with him, having forgiven you all trespasses; blotting out the handwriting of the decrees that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross; and having spoiled principalities and powers, he made a shew of them openly, triumphing over them in it.
Col. 2:13-15
For they themselves shew of us what manner of entering in we had unto you, and how ye turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God; and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, even Jesus, which delivered us from the wrath to come.
1 Thessalonians 1:9-10
For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus; who gave himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time.
1 Timothy 2:5-6
But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honor; that he by the grace of God should taste death for every man.
Hebrews 2:9
And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment: so Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many; and unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation.
Hebrews 9:27-28
For even hereunto were ye called: because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that ye should follow his steps: who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth: who, when he was reviled, reviled not again; when he suffered, he threatened not; but committed himself to him that judgeth righteously: who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed. For ye were as sheep going astray; but are now returned unto the Shepherd and Bishop of your souls.
1 Peter 2:21-25
For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit.
1 Peter 3:18
But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction.
2 Peter 2:1
By love have all the elect of God been made perfect; without love nothing is well-pleasing to God. In love has the Lord taken us to Himself. On account of the love He bore us, Jesus Christ our Lord gave His blood for us by the will of God; His flesh for our flesh, and His soul for our souls.
St. Clement of Rome, Letter to the Corinthians, 1 Clement 49:5
And when our iniquity had been fully accomplished, and it had been made perfectly manifest that punishment and death were expected as its recompense, and the season came which God had ordained, when henceforth He should manifest His goodness and power (O the exceeding great kindness and love of God), He hated us not, neither rejected us, nor bore us malice, but was long-suffering and patient, and in pity for us took upon Himself our sins, and Himself parted with His own Son as a ransom for us, the holy for the lawless, the guileless for the evil, the just for the unjust, the incorruptible for the corruptible, the immortal for the mortal. For what else but His righteousness would have covered our sins? In whom was it possible for us lawless and ungodly men to have been justified, save only in the Son of God? O the sweet exchange, O the inscrutable creation, O the unexpected benefits; that the iniquity of many should be concealed in One Righteous Man, and the righteousness of One should justify many that are iniquitous! Having then in the former time demonstrated the inability of our nature to obtain life, and having now revealed a Saviour able to save even creatures which have no ability, He willed that for both reasons we should believe in His goodness and should regard Him as nurse, father, teacher, counsellor, physician, mind, light, honour, glory, strength and life.
An anonymous 2nd century disciple of the Apostles, Letter to Diognetus
In place of Isaac the just, a ram appeared for slaughter, in order that Isaac might be liberated from his bonds. The slaughter of this animal redeemed Isaac from death. In like manner, the Lord, being slain, saved us; being bound, He loosed us; being sacrificed, He redeemed us.
St. Melito of Sardis (+180), Fragment from the Catena on Genesis
If, then, the Father of all wished His Christ for the whole human family to take upon Him the curses of all, knowing that, after He had been crucified and was dead, He would raise Him up, why do you argue about Him, who submitted to suffer these things according to the Father's will, as if He were accursed, and do not rather bewail yourselves? For although His Father caused Him to suffer these things in behalf of the human family, yet you did not commit the deed as in obedience to the will of God.
St. Justin Martyr (+165), Dialogue with Trypho
'Just as the human race was bound to death by a virgin it is released through a virgin, the obedience of a virgin evenly counterbalancing the disobedience of a virgin. For the sin of the first-formed was wiped out by the chastisement of the First-born, the wisdom of the serpent was conquered by the simplicity of the Dove, and we were released from the chains by which we were bound to death.
ibid., V.19
Christ who humbled Himself and took unto Himself the form of the servant Adam, calls upon God the Father in heaven as it were in our person, and speaks thus in the sixty-eighth Psalm: Save me, O God; for the waters have come in unto my soul (v. 1). I am sunk in the mire of the abyss, that is to say, in the corruption of Hades, on account of the transgression in paradise; and there is no sure standing (v. 2), that is, help. My eyes failed while from my hoping upon my God (v. 4); 'when will He come and save me?' Then, in what next follows, Christ speaks, as it were, in His own person: Then I restored that, says He, which I took not away (v. 6); that is, 'on account of the sin of Adam I endured the death which was not mine by sinning.'
St. Hippolytus of Rome (+236), Expository Treatise Against the Jews
The Lord alone can have mercy. He alone can bestow pardon for sins which have been committed against Himself, who bare our sins, who sorrowed for us, whom God delivered up for our sins.
St. Cyprian of Carthage (+258), Treatise III
Then the Lord, the third day after His death, rose again, thus bringing man to a knowledge of the Trinity. Then all the nations of the human race were saved by Christ. One submitted to the judgment, and many thousands were absolved.
St. Alexander of Alexandria (+326), Epistles on Arianism, On the Soul and the Body and the Passion of the Lord
Who compelled God to come down to earth… to be nailed to the tree, to be buried in the bosom of the earth, and the third day to rise again from the dead; in the cause of redemption to give life for life, blood for blood, to undergo death for death? For Christ, by dying, has discharged the debt of death to which man was obnoxious. Oh, the new and ineffable mystery!
ibid., The Addition in the Codex
For Daniel's sake the wrath of the King was appeased from the Chaldeans, so that they were not slain; and for Jesus' sake the wrath of His Father was appeased from all nations, so that they were not slain and died not because of their sins.
St. Aphrahat the Persian Sage (+345), Demonstration 21.
The sacrifices of the Law, which consisted of whole burnt-offerings and oblations of goats and of bulls, did not involve an expression of free will, because the sentence of a curse was pronounced on all who broke the Law. Whoever failed to sacrifice laid himself open to the curse. And it was always necessary to go through the whole sacrificial action because the addition of a curse to the commandment forbade any trifling with the obligation of offering. It was from this curse that our Lord Jesus Christ redeemed us, when, as the Apostle says: Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made curse for us, for it is written: cursed is every one that hangs on a tree (Gal. 3:13). Thus He offered Himself to the death of the accursed that He might break the curse of the Law, offering Himself voluntarily a victim to God the Father, in order that by means of a voluntary victim the curse which attended the discontinuance of the regular victim might be removed.
St. Hilary of Poitiers (+363), Commentary on Psalm 53
And thus taking from our bodies one of like nature, because all were under penalty of the corruption of death He gave it over to death in the stead of all, and offered it to the Father.
St. Athanasius the Great (+373), On the Incarnation, Chapter 8
For the Word, perceiving that no otherwise could the corruption of men be undone save by death as a necessary condition, while it was impossible for the Word to suffer death, being immortal, and Son of the Father; to this end He takes to Himself a body capable of death, that it, by partaking of the Word Who is above all, might be worthy to die in the stead of all, and might, because of the Word which had come to dwell in it, remain incorruptible, and that thenceforth corruption might be stayed from all by the Grace of the Resurrection. Whence, by offering unto death the body He Himself had taken, as an offering and sacrifice free from any stain, straightway He put away death from all His peers by the offering of an equivalent. For being over all, the Word of God naturally by offering His own temple and corporeal instrument for the life of all satisfied the debt by His death.
ibid., Chapter 9
He it is that was crucified before the sun and all creation as witnesses, and before those who put Him to death: and by His death has salvation come to all, and all creation been ransomed. He is the Life of all, and He it is that as a sheep yielded His body to death as a substitute, for the salvation of all, even though the Jews believe it not.
ibid., Chapter 37
Psalms 87 and 68, again speaking in the Lord's own person, tell us further that He suffered these things, not for His own sake but for ours. Thou hast made Thy wrath to rest upon me, says the one; and the other adds, I paid them things I never took. For He did not die as being Himself liable to death: He suffered for us, and bore in Himself the wrath that was the penalty of our transgression, even as Isaiah says, He Himself bore our infirmities (Is. 53:4).
id., Letter to Marcellinus Concerning the Interpretation of the Psalms
Formerly the world, as guilty, was under judgment from the Law; but now the Word has taken on Himself the judgment, and having suffered in the body for all, has bestowed salvation to all.
id., First Discourse Against the Arians
Bishop [Saint] Macarius of Jerusalem: '…We had earned the penalty of the cross, but even if we had all been crucified, we could not have rescued ourselves from death. Rather, death reigned from Adam until Moses even over those who did not sin (Romans 5:14). There were many saints, prophets, and righteous persons, but none of them could redeem himself from the power of death. But the Savior of all came and took into His sinless flesh the penalty due unto us, from us, in our place, for our sake….' When the Holy Spirit had thus pronounced this through our holy fathers assembled at the holy council, the whole audience which had gathered glorified God. The God-loving emperor, who also attended most of the council, was himself in the audience. Greatly pleased, he glorified God on hearing such godly doctrine. Rejoicing at the agreement of our bishops, he was overjoyed in the Spirit. It was his ambition that no one, great or small, would disagree with this saving confession.
recounted in the anonymous 5th century Church history attributed to one Gelasius of Cyzicus, Syntagma of the Holy Synod in Nicaea, Book II (mentioned by St. Photius in the Bibliotheca: "Read the Acts of the first council in three volumes. It bears the name of Gelasius, but is rather a history than an Acts. The author's style is poor and mean, but he gives a detailed account of the proceedings of the council.")
And when they shouted against him and scourged him, they did not notice that he requited the scourging of that heir who was injured and went astray in Eden. O, to you (be glory), the Master who had pity on the servant so that he would not be scourged, and who held out his Son and scourged him in his place! Heaven and also earth, these and all that are in it are too small to give thanks for this!
St. Ephrem the Syrian (+373), Hymn On the Crucifixion 4
Blessed too are you, O Golgotha. Heaven has envied your smallness. For it was not when our Lord was hidden in heaven above that reconciliation occurred. Upon you was our debt repaid, for from you, the thief opened up and entered Eden. Heaven could not become our place of refuge. It is the slain one who through you saved me!
id., Hymn On the Crucifixion 8
Blessed is he who was crucified in our place!
-id., Hymn On the Crucifixion 9, refrain
And as He began at birth, He went on and fulfilled in death. His Birth received worship; His Death paid the debt.
id. Hymn On the Nativity 14
In fact, what can man find great enough that he may give it for the ransom of his soul? But, one thing was found worth as much as all men together. This was given for the price of ransom for our souls, the holy and highly honored blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, which He poured out for all of us; therefore, we were bought at a great price.
St. Basil the Great (+379), Commentary on Psalm 48
If Phineas, when he waxed zealous and slew the evil-doer, staved the wrath of God, shall not Jesus, who slew not another, but gave up Himself for a ransom (1 Tim. 2:6), put away the wrath which is against mankind?
St. Cyril of Jerusalem (+386), Catechetical Lecture XIII
Many have been crucified throughout the world, but by none of these are the devils scared; but when they see even the Sign of the Cross of Christ, who was crucified for us, they shudder. For those men died for their own sins, but Christ for the sins of others; for He did no sin, neither was guile found in His mouth.
ibid.
For we were enemies of God through sin, and God had appointed the sinner to die. There must needs therefore have happened one of two things; either that God, in His truth, should destroy all men, or that in His loving-kindness He should cancel the sentence. But behold the wisdom of God; He preserved both the truth of His sentence, and the exercise of His loving-kindness. Christ took our sins in His body on the tree, that we by His death might die to sin, and live unto righteousness (1 Pet. 2:24). Of no small account was He who died for us; He was not a literal sheep; He was not a mere man; He was more than an Angel; He was God made man. The transgression of sinners was not so great as the righteousness of Him who died for them; the sin which we committed was not so great as the righteousness which He wrought who laid down His life for us — who laid it down when He pleased, and took it again when He pleased.
ibid.
Now we are to examine another fact and dogma, neglected by most people, but in my judgment well worth enquiring into. To Whom was that Blood offered that was shed for us, and why was It shed? I mean the precious and famous Blood of our God and High priest and Sacrifice. We were detained in bondage by the Evil One, sold under sin, and receiving pleasure in exchange for wickedness. Now, since a ransom belongs only to him who holds in bondage, I ask to whom was this offered, and for what cause? If to the Evil One, fie upon the outrage! If the robber receives ransom, not only from God, but a ransom which consists of God Himself, and has such an illustrious payment for his tyranny, a payment for whose sake it would have been right for him to have left us alone altogether. But if to the Father, I ask first, how? For it was not by Him that we were being oppressed; and next, On what principle did the Blood of His Only begotten Son delight the Father, Who would not receive even Isaac, when he was being offered by his Father, but changed the sacrifice, putting a ram in the place of the human victim? Is it not evident that the Father accepts Him, but neither asked for Him nor demanded Him; but on account of the Incarnation, and because Humanity must be sanctified by the Humanity of God, that He might deliver us Himself, and overcome the tyrant, and draw us to Himself by the mediation of His Son, Who also arranged this to the honour of the Father, Whom it is manifest that He obeys in all things? So much we have said of Christ; the greater part of what we might say shall be reverenced with silence.
St. Gregory the Theologian (+390), Oration 45 (interpreted by St. Nikodemos of the Holy Mountain (+1809) in the Eortodromion thus: "...then he resolves this perplexity and rightly judges that the Father accepted the blood of the Son, not because He demanded it from the Son or needed it, but accepted it through dispensation and because man needed sanctification by the humanity of Christ...") (See also St. Mark of Ephesus's words below, from a work beginning with, "Already with the great father, Gregory the Theologian, the perplexity regarding the Sovereign Blood was considered: to whom it was brought and how. However, since the teacher liked to be brief in his speeches, and in itself the holiday word did not allow enough time to be devoted to such research, he resolved the difficulty in a few words and rushed on. But you, moved by your ordinary love for knowledge and questions of others, ask us, as far as possible, to give a complete and detailed solution of this perplexity. So… we affirm the following.…")
But look at it in this manner: that as for my sake He was called a curse, Who destroyed my curse; and sin, who takes away the sin of the world; and became a new Adam to take the place of the old, just so He makes my disobedience His own as Head of the whole body. As long then as I am disobedient and rebellious, both by denial of God and by my passions, so long Christ also is called disobedient on my account. But when all things shall be subdued unto Him on the one hand by acknowledgment of Him, and on the other by a reformation, then He Himself also will have fulfilled His submission, bringing me whom He has saved to God. For this, according to my view, is the subjection of Christ; namely, the fulfilling of the Father's Will. But as the Son subjects all to the Father, so does the Father to the Son; the One by His Work, the Other by His good pleasure, as we have already said. And thus He Who subjects presents to God that which he has subjected, making our condition His own. Of the same kind, it appears to me, is the expression, My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me? It was not He who was forsaken either by the Father, or by His own Godhead, as some have thought, as if It were afraid of the Passion, and therefore withdrew Itself from Him in His Sufferings (for who compelled Him either to be born on earth at all, or to be lifted up on the Cross?) But as I said, He was in His own Person representing us. For we were the forsaken and despised before, but now by the Sufferings of Him Who could not suffer, we were taken up and saved. Similarly, He makes His own our folly and our transgressions; and says what follows in the Psalm, for it is very evident that the Twenty-first Psalm refers to Christ.
id. Oration 30, The Fourth Theological Oration, the Second Concerning the Son
And He is called…Redemption, because He sets us free, who were held captive under sin, giving Himself a Ransom for us (1 Tim. 2:6), the Sacrifice to make expiation for the world.
ibid.
Here the Lord comes to death and argues with death. He orders that death release, from hell and death, the souls and give them back to him. Behold, death is shaken by these words and approaches his servants and gathers together into a group all his powers and princes of evil. And the prince of evil bears forth the signed documents of indentured slaves and declares: 'Look, these people have obeyed my word! See how they, mortal men, have bowed down in adoration to us!' But God, who is a just judge, shows then his justice and says to him: 'Adam obeyed you and you did then through him capture all hearts. Humanity obeyed you. But my body, what is it doing here? It is sinless. That body of the first Adam was in bondage to you and you legally held the writ of indenture. But all bear witness to me that I have not sinned. I owe you nothing. And that I am the Son of God all universally bear witness. For from above out of the heavens there came upon earth a voice bearing testimony: This is my beloved Son; hear him' (Mt 3:17). John gives witness: 'Behold, the Lamb of God, that takes away the sin of the world' (Jn 1:29). And again Scripture says: 'He who sinned not, nor was there any guile found in him' (1 Pt 2:22). And again: The prince of this world comes and in me finds nothing' (Jn 14:30). And, moreover, you yourself, Satan, witness to me in saying: 'I know you, that you are the Son of God' (Mk 1:24). And again: 'What do we have to do with you, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come here to torment us before the time?' (Mt 8:29). There are, therefore, three who bear witness to me: he that sends down from the heavens a voice; and those who are on earth; and you yourself. I, therefore, brought back the body that was sold to you by the first Adam. I tore up the contract that enslaved mankind to you. Indeed, I satisfied Adam's debts when I was crucified and I descended into hell.
St. Macarius the Great (+391), Fifty Spiritual Homilies, homily 11
Since then it was impossible that our life, which had been estranged from God, should of itself return to the high and heavenly place, for this cause, as says the Apostle, He Who knew no sin is made sin for us , and frees us from the curse by taking on Him our curse as His own, and having taken up and, in the language of the Apostle, slain in Himself the enmity (Eph. 2:16) which by means of sin had come between us and God -- (in fact sin was the enmity) -- and having become what we were, He through Himself again united humanity to God.
St. Gregory of Nyssa (+395), Against Eunomius, Book XII
And so then, Jesus took flesh that He might destroy the curse of sinful flesh, and He became for us a curse that a blessing might overwhelm a curse, uprightness might overwhelm sin, forgiveness might overwhelm the sentence, and life might overwhelm death. He also took up death that the sentence might be fulfilled and satisfaction might be given for the judgment, the curse placed on sinful flesh even to death. Therefore, nothing was done contrary to God’s sentence when the terms of that sentence were fulfilled, for the curse was unto death but grace is after death.
St. Ambrose of Milan (+397), On Flight from the World
Him that knew no sin He made to be sin, for you. For had He achieved nothing but done only this, think how great a thing it were to give His Son for those that had outraged Him. But now He has both well achieved mighty things, and besides, has suffered Him that did no wrong to be punished for those who had done wrong. But he did not say this: but mentioned that which is far greater than this. What then is this? Him that knew no sin, he says, Him that was righteousness itself, He made to be sin, that is, suffered him as a sinner to be condemned, as one cursed to die…. And that you may learn what a thing it is, consider this which I say. If one that was himself a king, beholding a robber and malefactor under punishment, gave his well-beloved son, his only-begotten and true, to be slain; and transferred the death and the guilt as well, from him to his son, (who was himself of no such character,) that he might both save the condemned man and clear him from his evil reputation; and then if, having subsequently promoted him to great dignity, he had yet, after thus saving him and advancing him to that glory unspeakable, been outraged by the person that had received such treatment: would not that man, if he had any sense, have chosen ten thousand deaths rather than appear guilty of so great ingratitude?
St. John Chrysostom (+407), Homily XI on Second Corinthians
As then both he who hanged on a tree, and he who transgresses the Law, is cursed, and as it was necessary for him who is about to relieve from a curse himself to be free from it, but to receive another instead of it, therefore Christ took upon Him such another, and thereby relieved us from the curse. It was like an innocent man's undertaking to die for another sentenced to death, and so rescuing him from punishment. For Christ took upon Him not the curse of transgression [cf. Gal. 3:10, For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse: for it is written, Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them. (Deut. 27:26)], but the other curse, in order to remove that of others. For, He had done no violence neither was any deceit in His mouth (Is. 53:9; 1 Pet. 2:22). And as by dying He rescued from death those who were dying, so by taking upon Himself the curse, He delivered them from it.
id., Homily III on Galatians
Do you see how great is His earnestness that the bond should be done away? To wit, we all were under sin and punishment. He Himself, through suffering punishment, did away with both the sin and the punishment, and He was punished on the Cross.
id., Homily VI on Colossians
We had offended: we ought to have died: He died for us and made us worthy of the Testament.
id., Homily XVI on Hebrews
Adam sinned, and died; Christ did not sin, yet He also died. This was something new and paradoxical; for that one sinned and died, while this One did not sin, and yet died. And what was the reason for this? So that the one who had sinned and died could be set free from the death that held him by the One Who died yet was without sin. This kind of thing can happen with money. For often someone having debts but not having the means to pay them off is put in chains; while another, not having debts, and having the means to pay off the other’s debts, pays them off, thus delivering the debtor. This also happened with Adam. He was a debtor, held fast by the devil, as he had no means to pay off his debt; while Christ, having no debts, and not being held by the devil, had the means to pay off Adam’s debt. So He came, and paid off with His death the debt of the one being held by the devil, in order to set him free.
id., Homily against Drunkenness and on the Resurrection
Hence Christ too said to the Jews, Your father Abraham rejoiced in anticipation of seeing my day; he saw it and was delighted (John 8:56). How did he see it if he lived so long before? In type, in shadow: just as in our text the sheep was offered in place of Isaac, so here the rational lamb was offered for the world.
id., Homily 47 on Genesis
He took on himself the punishment that we deserved from the Father and endured the disgrace and insults that we inflicted on God. Do you desire to learn how he assumed both that punishment from on high and these insults here below? It is said, Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us (Gal 3:13). See then how he received the punishment inflicted from above? Consider how he also endured the insults inflicted here below. The insults of those who insult you, he says, have fallen on me (Ps 68:10). See how he dissolved the enmity, how he did not cease to do, suffer, and painstakingly perform all things until he had brought the adversary and enemy back to God himself and made him a friend?
id., Homily on the Ascension
Consider, that the commandments of the law is the main point of the two denarii: this -- debt, which our race has needed to pay; but we did not pay it, and we, falling under such an accusation, are embraced by death. Christ came, and finding us afflicted by it -- He paid the debt, fulfilled the necessary and seized from it those, who were not able to pay.
id., Discourse on the Day of the Baptism of Christ, on antiochian.org
Now which is the more shameful and humiliating, to be subject to the Father… or to be crucified and made the curse of the cross? For cursed is everyone that hangs on a tree (Galatians 3:13). If Christ then for our sakes was made a curse that He might deliver us from the curse of the law, are you surprised that He is also for our sakes subject to the Father to make us, too, subject to Him as He says in the gospel: No man comes unto the Father but by me (John 14:6), and I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me (John 12:32). Christ then is subject to the Father in the faithful.
St. Jerome of Stridon (+420), Letter 55, to Amandus
This Jesus was clothed with filthy garments (Zech 3:3), who although he did not sin, was made sin for us (2 Cor. 5:21). And he himself carries our infirmities (Is. 53:4), and suffers for us, and we have thought him to be in suffering, and wounded, and in anguish. But he himself was wounded for our iniquities, and weak because of our sins (Is. 53:5). And we read in the apostle Paul: Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having been made a curse for us (Gal. 3:13). He speaks in the twenty-first Psalm: Far from my salvation are the words of my offenses (Ps. 21:1). And in the sixty-eighth Psalm: God, you know my foolishness, and my offenses are not hidden from you (Ps. 68:5). All these things are called 'filthy garments,' and they will be taken from him when he blots out our sins, so that, because he was clothed with filthy garments, let us who rise again hear in him after baptism: May your garments be white at all times (Eccl. 9:8).
id., Commentary on Zechariah
For even the Lord was subject to death, but not on account of sin: He took upon Him our punishment, and so looseth our guilt.
St. Augustine of Hippo (+430), Explanation of Psalm 50 [51 MT]. See also Porphyrios and Nectarios.
A man may deny that Christ was cursed who denies that He died. But the man who believes that Christ died, and acknowledges that death is the fruit of sin, and is itself called sin, will understand who it is that is cursed by Moses, when he hears the apostle saying 'For our old man is crucified with Him.' The apostle boldly says of Christ, 'He was made a curse for us;' for he could also venture to say, 'He died for all.' Both ' He died,' and 'He was cursed,' are the same. Death is the effect of the curse; and all sin is cursed, whether it means the action which merits punishment, or the punishment which follows. Christ, though guiltless, took our punishment, that He might cancel our guilt, and do away with our punishment. These things are not my conjectures, but are affirmed constantly by the apostle, with an emphasis sufficient to rouse the careless and to silence the gainsayers.… The believer in the true doctrine of the gospel will understand that Christ is not reproached by Moses when he speaks of Him as cursed, not in His divine majesty, but as hanging on the tree as our substitute, bearing our punishment.
id., Reply to Faustus the Manichean, Book XIV
Howbeit, after that Christ had given Himself unto the Father for our salvation as a Spotless Victim, and was now on the point of paying the penalties that He suffered on our behalf, we were ransomed from the accusations of sin….
St. Cyril of Alexandria (+444), Commentary on John, Book VIII
It had been foretold, by the mouth of the prophet, that with Christ this would come to pass: I gave My back to the scourge, and My cheeks to them that smite. He was being led on in truth to the end foretold long ago, to the verdict of Jewish presumption, which was also the abolition and determination of our deserved dishonour, for that we sinned in Adam first, and trampled under foot the Divine commandment. For He was dishonoured for our sake, in that He took our sins upon Him, as the prophet says, and was afflicted on our account. For as He wrought out our deliverance from death, giving up His own Body to death, so likewise, I think, the blow with which Christ was smitten, in fulfilling the dishonour that He bore, carried with it our deliverance from the dishonour by which we were burdened through the transgression and original sin of our forefather. For He, being One, was yet a perfect Ransom for all men, and bore our dishonour.
ibid., Book XI
For those against whom the transgression of the Law may be charged, and who are very prone to err from its commandments, surely deserve chastisement. Therefore, He That knew no sin was accursed for our sakes, that He might deliver us from the old curse. For all-sufficient was the God Who is above all, so dying for all; and by the death of His own Body, purchasing the redemption of all mankind. We were, then, accursed and condemned, by the sentence of God, through Adam's transgression, and through breach of the Law laid down after him; but the Saviour wiped out the handwriting against us, by nailing the title to His Cross, which very clearly pointed to the death upon the Cross which He underwent for the salvation of men, who lay under condemnation. For our sake He paid the penalty for our sins. For though He was One that suffered, yet was He far above any creature, as God, and more precious than the life of all. Therefore, as the Psalmist says, the mouth of all lawlessness was stopped (Psalm 106), and the tongue of sin was silenced, unable any more to speak against sinners. For we are justified, now that Christ has paid the penalty for us; for by His stripes we are healed, according to the Scripture.
ibid., Book XII
Thus Christ became a victim for our sins according to the Scriptures (1 Cor. 15:3). For this reason, we say that he was named sin; wherefore, the all-wise Paul writes, For our sakes he made him to be sin who knew nothing of sin (2 Cor. 5:21), that is to say, God the Father [did]. For we do not say that Christ became a sinner, far from it, but being just, or rather in actuality Justice, for he did not know sin, the Father made him a victim for the sins of the world. He was counted among the wicked (Is. 53:12), having endured a condemnation most suitable for the wicked. And the divinely inspired prophet Isaiah will also vouch for this, saying, We had all gone astray like sheep, each following his own way, but the Lord laid upon him the guilt of us all (Is. 53:6), yet it was on our behalf he suffers (Is. 53:4), and by his stripes we were healed (Is. 53:5). The all-wise Peter writes, he bore our sins in his body upon the tree (1 Pt. 2:24). Therefore, the lot of the necessary endurance of death hung over those on the earth through the transgression in Adam and through sin reigning from him until us. But the Word of God the Father, being generous in clemency and love of men, became flesh, that is, man, in the form of us who are under sin, and he endured our lot. For as the very excellent Paul writes, By the grace of God he tasted death for all (Heb. 2:9), and he made his life be an exchange for the life of all. One died for all, in order that we all might live to God sanctified and brought to life through his blood, justified as a gift by his grace (Rom. 3:24). For as the blessed evangelist John says, The blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all sin (1 Jn. 1:7).
id. Letter 41: To Acacius the Bishop, Concerning the Scapegoat
By His sufferings blessings descend to us. He in our stead paid our debts: He bore our sins; and as it is written, in our stead He was stricken. He took them up in His own body on the tree: for it is true that by His bruises we are healed.
id., Sermon 153 on Luke
Listen to the reason for his coming and glorify the power of the one who became flesh. The human race was deep in debt and incapable of paying what it owed. By the hand of Adam we all signed a bond to sin. The devil held us all in slavery. He kept producing our bills, using our suffering body as his paper. There he stood, the wicked forger, threatening us with our debts and demanding satisfaction. One of two things had to happen: either the penalty of death had to be imposed on all, because all had sinned (Rom. 3.23), or else a substitute had to be provided who was fully entitled to plead on our behalf. No man could save us; the debt would have been his liability too. No angel could buy us out, for such a ransom was beyond his powers. One who was sinless had to die for those who had sinned; that was the only way left by which to break the bonds of evil.
St. Proclus of Constantinople (+446), Homily on the Theotokos Delivered in the Presence of the Presbyter Nestorius
With the cup of calamity and the vessel of fury of punishment (Is. 51:17), God threatens those who have sinned for their correction, handing both the cup and the vessel, sometimes to the Babylonians, and sometimes to the Assyrians. And they, being drunk by the Jews, although they made them drunk, did not make them worthy of a better life. Christ, having drunk the cup on the Tree, both sweetened its bitterness, and gave it joy.
St. Isidore of Pelusium (+449), Letter 58
[Christ says:] Father, I shall pay Adam’s debt, so that through me those who die through Adam for the underworld may live for you. Father, on account of your sentence I shall shed my blood; so pressing is it that your creation should return to you. May the price of my blood so dear to you be the redemption of all the dead.
St. Peter Chrysologus (+450), Sermon 65
The true and powerful and only remedy against the wound of original sin, by which sin in Adam the nature of all men has been corrupted and has been given a death blow, and whence the disease of concupiscence takes firm hold, is the death of the Son of God, our Lord Jesus Christ, who, though He was free of debt and alone was without sin, died for sins and debtors to death. In view of the magnitude and potency of the price, and because it pertains to the universal condition of the human race, the blood of Christ is the redemption of the whole world.
St. Prosper of Aquataine (+455), Responses on Behalf of Augustine to the Articles of Objections Raised by the Vincentianists
Suddenly an angel appeared to David advancing on Jerusalem, with a drawn sword, so that he would ask for forgiveness. The very words of the king are worthy of admiration. For he says: Lo, I have sinned, I the shepherd have done wickedly: but these sheep, what have they done? let thine hand, I pray thee, be against me, and against my father’s house. (II Kgdms. 24:17). David, not knowing the reason, called what had happened his own sin and begged him to pronounce a true sentence upon him and on his family, expressing himself as a true shepherd and imitating his Son and the Lord, who laid down His life for the sheep.
Blessed Theodoret (+457), Commentary on II Kingdoms
The people's fury was directed against One, and the mercy of Christ is for all mankind. That which their cruelty inflicts He voluntarily undergoes, in order that the work of His eternal will may be carried out through their unhindered crime. And hence the whole order of events which is most fully narrated in the Gospels must be received by the faithful in such a way that by implicit belief in the occurrences which happened at the time of the Lord's Passion, we should understand that not only was the remission of sins accomplished by Christ, but also the standard of justice satisfied.
Pope St. Leo the Great (+461), Sermon 62
Certainly that weakness and mortality (which were not sin but the punishment for sin) were accepted by the world's Redeemer as a penalty, in order that he might pay the price. As a result, that which used to be the transmission of condemnation onto all human beings becomes in Christ a 'mystery of compassion.' He offered himself (though free of debt) to his cruel taskmaster, allowing the violence of Jews (as servants of the devil) to crucify his sinless flesh.
id., Sermon 72
Christ's death profited man, for by taking death upon Himself Christ paid what Adam owed to God. Truly He became a sacrifice for the sin of men and their progeny, as blessed Paul declares: Christ loved us and delivered himself up for us an offering and a sacrifice to God to ascend in fragrant odor (Eph. 5:2). Original sin could not have easily been forgiven, if a victim had not been offered for it, if that sacred blood of propitiation had not been shed. Even then the words in Exodus were not vainly said of our Lord: I shall see the blood, and shall protect you (Ex. 12:13). That figure of the lamb represented this Passion of Christ our Lord. Blood is given for blood, death for death, a victim for sin, and thus the Devil lost what he held.
St. Caesarius of Arles (+542), Sermon 9
This is what we must believe happened. Christ our Lord, without any guilt or blame, was subject to the sentence of punishment; a sinless, innocent man was crucified. The Devil became guilty through the death of the blameless One. He became blameworthy by unduly inflicting the cross upon the just One. Christ's death profited man, for by taking death upon Himself Christ paid what Adam owed to God. Truly He became a sacrifice for the sin of men and their progeny.
Ibid., Sermon 11
Adam contracted for us the debt that we owe, by eating what he ought not, and until today it is demanded of us who are descended from him. The creditor was not satisfied with seizing the debtor, but he attacks his children too, demanding the ancestral debt, and empties the debtor’s house entirely, sweeping everyone away. And so let us all flee to one who is powerful. Knowing that we are in dire poverty, you yourself pay back what we owe, for you are rich, who come to call back Adam.
St. Romanos the Melodist (+556), full Kontakion for Palm Sunday, Oikos 9
If blessed Job bears the likeness of our Redeemer in His Passion, how is it that the Lord says to Satan, Thou movest Me against him? (Job 2:3) Truly the Mediator between God and man, the Man Christ Jesus, came to bear the scourges of our mortal nature, that He might put away the sins of our disobedience; but forasmuch as He is of one and the self-same nature with the Father, how does the Father declare that He was moved by Satan against Him, when it is acknowledged that no inequality of power, no diversity of will, interrupts the harmony between the Father and the Son? Yet He, that is equal to the Father by the Divine Nature, came for our sakes to be under stripes in a fleshly nature. Which stripes He would never have undergone, if he had not taken the form of accursed man in the work of their redemption. And unless the first man had transgressed, the second would never have come to the ignominies of the Passion. When then the first man was moved from the Lord by Satan, then the Lord was moved against the Second Man. And so Satan then moved the Lord to the affliction of this latter, when the sin of disobedience brought down the first man from the height of uprightness. For if he had not drawn the first Adam by wilful sin into the death of the soul, the second Adam, being without sin, would never have come into the voluntary death of the flesh, and therefore it is with justice said to him of our Redeemer too, Thou movedst Me against him to afflict him without cause. As though it were said in plainer words; ‘Whereas this Man dies not on His own account, but on account of that other, thou didst then move Me to the afflicting of This One, when thou didst withdraw that other from Me by thy cunning persuasions.’ And of Him it is rightly added, without cause. For ‘he was destroyed without cause,’ who was at once weighed to the earth by the avenging of sin, and not defiled by the pollution of sin. He ‘was destroyed without cause,’ Who, being made incarnate, had no sins of His own, and yet being without offence took upon Himself the punishment of the carnal.
Pope St. Gregory Magnus the Dialogist (+604), Moralia in Job
Be a herald of God's goodness, for God rules over you, unworthy though you are. Although your debt to Him is so very great, He is not seen exacting payment from you; and from the small works you do, He bestows great rewards upon you. Do not call God just, for His justice is not manifest in the things concerning you. And if David calls Him just and upright, His Son revealed to us that He is good and kind. He is good, He says, to the evil and to the impious (Luke 6:32).
St. Isaac the Syrian (+700), Ascetical Homilies, Homily 51 (often used against PSA by those who despise the saints and pit them against each other. But they are wrong, for does the saint say David is wrong? The homily is talking about personally calling down God's justice. The saint's point here though is that a just God revealed His kindness in His Son, and thus doesn't have to exact debt from you or unleash justice. One translation even says not to call God just "anymore")
Hence the mutation of human nature over to passibility, corruption, and death is the condemnation of Adam's deliberate sin. Man was not created by God in the beginning with such a corrupted nature; rather, man invented and knew it since he created deliberate sin through his disobedience. And clearly condemnation by death is the result of such sin. Yet the Lord took on this very condemnation of my deliberate sin, that is to say, the passibility, corruptibility, and mortality of our nature. He became the sin that I caused, in terms of the passibility, corruptibility, and mortality, and he submitted voluntarily to the condemnation owed me in my nature, even though he himself was blameless in his freedom of choice, in order to condemn both my deliberate 'sin' and the 'sin' that befell my nature. Accordingly he has driven sin, passion, corruption, and death from human nature, and the economy of Christ's philanthropy on my behalf has become for me, one fallen through disobedience, a new mystery. For the sake of my salvation, Christ, through his own death, voluntarily made my condemnation his own, thereby granting me restoration to immortality.
St. Maximus the Confessor (+662), Ad Thalassium 42
He redeemed all its [human nature's] debt as if he were liable even though he was not liable but sinless, and brought us back again to the original grace of his kingdom by giving himself as a ransom for us.
id., Mystagogy, Chapter 8
Indeed, our Master did not come to the Cross to judge the world, but came to nail the handwriting of the fallen to the Cross and to redeem them from their ancient debts, pouring out all His pure blood in payment for them. Now the fiery sword will turn its back from us, for whom the Lord Himself took scourgings on the back. It cannot drive us away as villains worthy of punishment or as indecent slaves: it sees that by the stripes of Christ we are all healed (Is. 53:5) and that the wounds that we, sinners, carved on our backs, passed on to Him, sinless.
St. Germanus of Constantinople (+740), Homily for the Sunday of the Cross
Whereas the people were liable to a curse by the condemnation of him who abideth not by all the things written in the book of the Law, yet Christ exchanged another curse for this, even the one saying: Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree (Gal. 3:13). As then both he who hangeth on a tree is cursed, and he who transgresseth the Law is cursed, and as he who is about to destroy the curse should not be liable to the same, and should receive another curse instead of that one -- instead of that condemnation, I say, of the one who abideth not by all the things written -- freedom from it indeed come about by all this. For no deceit was found in his mouth (Is. 53:9), yet he took on this curse… and by this one he destroyed that one. And just as with one condemned to be killed, another, who is not liable, in choosing to be killed for him takes the punishment away from him, even so did Christ do.
St. John of Damascus (+749), Commentary on Galatians, PG 95, col. 796 (amateur translation)
And from the time that God, the Son of God, impassible by reason of His Godhead, chose to suffer voluntarily, He wiped out our debt, also paying for us a most full and noble ransom.
id., On the Holy Images
The curse of mortal mankind was abolished when Thou, О Master, wast accursed and didst pour forth blessing through the Cross.
St. Joseph the Hymnographer (+886), Canon of the Cross for Friday Orthros in Tone 7, Ode III, Troparion 2
Come, all ye nations, let us worship the blessed Tree, through which was wrought the everlasting righteousness. For he that by a tree beguiled our forefather Adam, is himself ensnared by the Cross; and he that by tyranny gained dominion over the creation of the King, is by faith overthrown in utter ruin. By the Blood of God, the serpent’s poison is washed away; and the curse of a just condemnation is loosed by the unjust judgment passed against the Just One. For it was fitting that the wood should be healed by wood; and that the sufferings of him who was condemned because of the tree should be done away through the Passion of Him Who is passionless. But, O Christ our King, glory to Thy dread dispensation toward us, whereby Thou hast saved us all, since Thou art good and the Lover of mankind.
Doxastikon at the Kekregarion for the Feast of the Elevation of the Cross, September 14
[The Theotokos:] Yea, the sensual sun was clothed in darkness when the spiritual Sun of Truth was eclipsed. And the stones were split, together with which, it seems to me, my heart has to break. Oh, holy Flesh, which miraculously was formed from my blood, because the ancient debt had to be repaid!
St. Simeon the Translator (+987), Lamentation of the Theotokos
The primordial Adam, being in paradise, fell into pride at the suggestion of the serpent, and dreaming of being a god, as the devil told him, he ate from the tree from which God commanded him not to eat. For this he is given over to great punishments - corruption and death, to humble his pride. But when God condemns for something, He gives a sentence, and His sentence becomes a deed, and an eternal punishment, and there is no longer any possibility to destroy this punishment, which is according to God's definition…. And now, as you see, the sentence of God remains an eternal punishment forever. And we all became both corruptible and mortal people, and there is nothing that could avert this great and terrible sentence. When it is not possible to remove this sentence, then what is the use of wisdom, or wealth, or power, or the whole world? For this sake, the Most High Son of God, the Lord Jesus Christ, came to humble himself instead of Adam, and indeed humbled Himself even to death on the cross.
St. Simeon the New Theologian (+1022), Homily 1
For we were all subject to sin and punishment, but He, Himself sinless, being punished for us, destroyed sin and punishment on the Cross: therefore, on it He tore up the handwriting.
St. Theophylact of Ohrid (+1107), Commentary on Colossians
For I will declare mine iniquity (Ps. 37:18). What iniquity of Thine? That which pertaineth to My father Adam which I took on, of whom I took on both the form and the transgression. And I will take heed for the sin (ibid.) of the world, to die for that sin.
St. Neophytos the Recluse of Cyprus (+1214), Interpretation of the Psalms, Psalm 37
Against Me is Thine anger made strong, and all Thy billows hast Thou brought upon Me (Ps. 87:8). 'Though Thou didst bear for Me,' He saith, 'to go unto the Passion, yet Thine eyes went not away from Me:' for this is referred to as billows.
ibid., Psalm 87
For this reason the Lord patiently endured for our sake a death He was not obliged to undergo, to redeem us, who were obliged to suffer death, from servitude to the devil and death, by which I mean death both of the soul and of the body, temporary and eternal. Since He gave His blood, which was sinless and therefore guiltless, as a ransom for us who were liable to punishment because of our sins, He redeemed us from our guilt. He forgave us our sins, tore up the record of them on the Cross and delivered us from the Devil's tyranny.
St. Gregory Palamas (+1359), About the Dispensation According to the Flesh of our Lord Jesus Christ and the Gifts of Grace Granted to Those Who Truly Believe in Him
The wounding of Him who is under no censure becomes the penalty of those who are guilty of many things. Since it was a great and wondrous penalty which more than outweighed the evils committed by men, it not only cancelled the indictment but added so great an abundance of benefits that He ascended into heaven in order to make those who were of the earth, the most hateful captives, enslaved and dishonoured, to become partakers with God of the heavenly kingdom. That death was precious beyond the power of human thought, and yet the Saviour yielded Himself to be sold to His murderers for a trifling sum, so that even this should be full of poverty and dishonour for Him! By being bought He willed to share the lot of a slave and be subject to outrageous treatment. He considered it gain to be dishonoured for our sake; by being sold for a trifling sum He would hint that He came freely, as a Gift, to suffer death for the world. Willingly He died, having wronged no one either for the sake of His own life or for the common good, supplying graces to His murderers far greater than they could wish or hope for. But why do I mention these things? It is God who died; it was God's blood which was shed upon the cross. What could be more precious than this death, what more awesome? How great a sin had human nature committed that needed so great a penalty to expiate it! How great was the wound that required the power of this remedy! It was necessary that sin should be abolished by some penalty, and that we, by paying a just penalty, should be cleared of the indictment of the sins which we have committed against God. He who has been punished for the things which he has committed will not be called to account for them again. But among men there was no one who, himself being guiltless, might have suffered for the others. Since no one could have sufficed for himself, even the whole race, could it have died ten thousand times, was unable to pay the penalty it deserved. What fitting penalty could that most wretched slave undergo, who had utterly destroyed the image of the king and acted contemptuously towards so great a dignity? It is for this reason that the Master who is without sin suffers many terrible things and dies and endures the blow. As man He undertakes the cause of mankind. He releases our race from the indictment and gives freedom to the prisoners, since He Himself, being God and Master, stood in no need thereof.
St. Nicholas Cabasilas (+1392), The Life in Christ, Book One
The commission of sin involves injury to God Himself, for it says, ‘through breaking the law dishonorest thou God’ (Rom. 2:23). There is need of virtue greater than is found in man to be able to cancel the indictment. For the lowest it is particularly easy to commit an injury against Him who is greatest. Yet it is impossible for him to compensate for this insolence by any honour, particularly when he is in many ways indebted to Him whom he has injured, and He who is injured is so far superior that the distance between them cannot even be measured. He, then, who seeks to cancel the indictment against himself must restore the honour to Him who has been insulted and repay more than he owes, partly by way of restitution, partly by adding a compensation for the wrong which he has done. Yet how can he who is unable even to attain to the measure of his debts succeed in surpassing it? It was therefore impossible for any man to reconcile himself to God by introducting his own righteousness…. Wherefore, since we by our own means and of ourselves were unable to display righteousness, Christ Himself became for us ‘righteousness from God and consecration and redemtion’ (1 Cor. 1:30). He destroys the enmity in His flesh and reconciles us to God (cf. Eph. 2:15-16). This He accomplishes not merely by sharing our nature, nor was it only when He died for us, but at all times and for every man. He was crucified then; now He hospitably entertains us whenever we in penitence ask forgiveness. He alone, then, was able to render all the honour that is due to the Father and make satisfaction for that which had been taken away. The former He achieved by His life, the latter by His death. The death which He died upon the cross to the Father’s glory He brought in to outweigh the injury which we had committed; in addition, He most abundantly made amends for the debt of honour which we owed for our sins. By His life He paid all honour, both that which it befitted Him to pay and also that by which the Father ought to be honoured.
ibid., Book Four
Having appeared as a perfect Man, just as He was a perfect God, He was subject to the blameless properties of a human being and endured even something more, repaying the debt of all, as one of the God-loving teachers says.
St. Simeon of Thessaloniki (+1429), Interpretation of the Creed
He delivers the human race from the dominion of a tyrant. He pays a ransom to him with His Blood, and he also offers it as a Sacrifice to the Father, for He, angry, as it was said, had to be reconciled, and the tyrant, who had never seen a worthy ransom, be fed. So the Savior becomes both. And according to Divine justice, although it is given as precious human Blood to a tyrant who holds our nature in captivity, he, a runaway slave and apostate, does not manage to take it away in any way, since it is the Blood of God. That is why it is offered as a Sacrifice to the Father. If we recall the example we have given: let's say that a relative took a measure of gold, wanting to ransom a captive for money, and already sent it to the tyrant, and he rushed to take the ransom, and already almost held the gold in his hands, when suddenly the king, rushing to the rescue of his household and servant, saved him from captivity, and destroyed the power of the tyrant. Let the king also have the prepared ransom… So let the Blood of Christ be offered to the Father, like a gift to one who is angry with the captive because he has completely thrown himself into the trap of the robber. This is what the work of the Dispensation of our Savior Jesus Christ was, except for the fact that here it is not that one offered a ransom, and another was the King who defeated the tyrant, but it was one and the same God the Word. He, as a man, assumed human nature and paid a ransom for the whole race, pouring out the precious Blood and suffering voluntary death - the only truly equal payment for all nature; as God and King - destroys the robber who attacked and took us prisoner, so that he, having tasted His flesh, is forced to regurgitate those whom he swallowed before; the venerable Blood is offered as a sacrifice to the Father for the reconciliation of our nature. Thus, the Only Begotten Word of God becomes everything for us: the Repayer of the debts of our nature as a co-natural Man; our Defender, the Conqueror of the terrible tyrant, and the Victorious One as King and God; and our Mediator and Conciliator before God the Father. He is both the Priest and the Sacrifice; and the Nourisher and the Food; and the Physician and the Medicine; He is everything beautiful and wholesome. So, briefly we will repeat what has already been said and finish our reasoning. The precious Blood was given by economy, as it were, as a ransom to the one who held in captivity, and until the moment of giving, it was a ransom. But although it was proper to bring it as a ransom, the tyrant did not manage to take it away - and it was impossible that he could take it away. So, it is offered as a sacrifice to the Father, since man 'needed to be sanctified by the human nature of God,' as the Divine voice [St. Gregory the Theologian] says.
St. Mark of Ephesus (+1444), To the Most Venerable Monk Kyr Dionysius, On the Sovereign and Divine Blood
In addition, it was necessary for human nature to undergo punishment, in that, if it had not been held accountable at all, it would not have received the benefit, which would not correspond to God's truth…. But how could all human nature be jointly subjected to a purifying penalty, which cannot be presented together, when it would be impossible to gather into one all the nature's parts belonging to different portions of time? Thus, it was necessary that such a Person should be born who alone would balance all human nature and who in His own person would suffer the punishment due to the whole nature. And the one who had to pay such a debt for all should not have been a sinner in any way…
St. Gennadius Scholarius (+1473), Homily on the Nativity
O my all-pure Virgin and my eternal spring, the preaching of the Prophets and the mother of the Venerables, you were the sermon preached by the Prophets, you are the unburnt bush, you are the holy mountain, you are the ark, sanctified Lady, you are also the palace, home of the King, where God dwelt, and put on flesh, and accepted the cross for my sins.
St. Philothei the Virgin Martyr of Athens (+1586), An Encomium to the Theotokos
43. What is the fourth article of the Creed? 'Who was crucified for us, under Pontius Pilate, he suffered and was buried….' 45. What is the second thing contained in this Article? That Christ suffered the punishment of us sinners, having no sin in Himself: as the Apostle St Peter testifieth, Forasmuch as ye know ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation taught you by your fathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb, without blemish and without spot (1 Pet. 1:18). In like manner doth John the Baptist bear witness, that Jesus who was perfectly innocent, and free from any stain of sin, suffered for our sins; For thus saith he, Behold the Lamb of God who taketh away the Sin of the World (Jn. 1:29). And this was voluntarily, and of his own free will, as Himself saith, I have power to lay down my life, and I have power to take it again (Jn. 10:18)
The Confession of St. Peter Mogila (+1646), approved ecumenically
A very dread substitution, an unexpected substitution, ah! terrible to speech, to sight, and to hearing. The King of heaven and all the earth, the Creator of the whole world, by a most violent beast is betrayed to the violent, by thrice-cursed Judas to the regiments of the Jews, the most unmalicious lamb to wolves thirsty for blood. He is exceedingly sorrowful in soul, seeing the cup of death, He weeps bloody sweat, ah, because of our malice.
St. Dmitri of Rostov (+1709), Verses on the Lord's Passion (translated and published by St. Vladimir's Seminary Press)
We were abandoned by God as children of wrath (Eph.2:8) who sinned in their progenitor (Rom.5:12) and for us our Advocate was abandoned by His Father.
id., Applications of the Lives of the Saints: The Passion of Christ
And outside the city He was brought to the place of death, and there, between two villains, He underwent the cross and the death penalty. Terrible and touching disgrace! The Son of God and the Lord of glory, as a villain, was condemned and led to death, and accepted the death penalty! From whom? From His evil servants! For whom? For His obscene servants! The slaves sinned, and the Master suffered the punishment! He was wounded for our sins and tormented for our iniquities (Is. 53:5). Where? Outside the gates of Jerusalem! Before whom? Before the eyes of God, of angels, and of humans. You see, Christian, a fearful and horrible disgrace. Look and discuss the cause of it! The reason for this is our sins. So mine, and yours, and the whole world's sins were cleansed. So God's righteousness was satisfied, which was angered by the sins of the world!
St. Tikhon of Zadonsk (+1783), Spiritual Treasure Collected from the World, Chapter 11
Once upon a time David, the king of Israel, wished to die instead of his son Absalom (O ardent love!) and, weeping for him, he said this: O my son Absalom! My son, my son Absalom! Oh, would that I could die instead of thee, O Absalom my son, O my son! (2 Kngdms. 18:33). So Christ the Son of God and the Son of David according to the flesh, seeing us dead and lost, wept for us, and wished to die and suffer for us, and actually died and suffered in order to revive us dead.
ibid., Chapter 108
God punished sin in men, for as soon as the first man, Adam, disobeyed His commandment, He cast him out of Paradise and condemned him, and us, all of his descendants, to live upon this accursed earth in poverty, with sicknesses, pains, worries, misfortunes, and finally, to experience a painful death, which is against nature. He punished sin, for the sinful men during the time of Noah drowned in the universal cataclysmic flood, and Sodom and Gomorrah burned in another new cataclysm of brimstone and fire. And finally, He condemned unrepentant sinners to eternally burn in the fire of hell, who will never have reprieve from the torments of the demons, and God will never feel for their calamity, never hear their wailings, but will rather oppose and despise them eternally, for those are the pitiful people mentioned by Malachi: The people against whom the Lord hath indignation for ever (Mal. 1:4). Do these punishments seem great to you, my brother? But know that each sin is never punished by God as it deserves, but always with compassion. And even if a sinner is eternally punished, he is punished less severely than he should, and he can say with Job: He has not punished me according to the full amount of my sins (Job 33:27). God also punished sin in the Person of Jesus Christ with such a severe punishment, that all of the abovementioned punishments seem as but a shadow in comparison to it. For only a single light wound in the Person of Jesus Christ, a single thorn from His crown, a single one of His scourges, is a greater punishment than if God destroyed the whole world and cast men, angels, archangels, and every other creature, into the fire of hell. For what has the punishment of all creatures to do with the smallest torment of the Creator, the most innocent One, the Most-holy One, the only-begotten Son? However, in order to destroy sin, His heavenly Father was not pleased that His Son should suffer a light torment, but extreme torments. Do you wish to understand this, sinner? Turn and see how Jesus suffers because of your sin! He is betrayed, slandered, mocked, and dragged to the courts like a criminal. See how His eyes are wounded from the buffets and the blows! How His face is full of spittings! How His cheeks are bruised from the slaps! How His throat is dried up from thirst! See how His lips are embittered from the gall! How His head is pierced from the rigid thorns! How His arms and wrists are bound with strong ropes! How His shoulders are weighed down from the weight of the Cross! How His hands and His feet are nailed with sharp nails! Look, sinner, and see how all His veins are emptied of blood! How His side is pieced with a spear! How all His joints are distended from the extreme tension of the Cross! And how He gave up His spirit hanging upon the rigid nails! See how all His body became a great wound, without form, without human beauty! We saw Him, but He had no form nor beauty (Is. 53:2). Now pass your mind, brother, to the internal part of His soul, in order to see there how much incomparably more His soul suffered than His body, being exceedingly sad on account of so many sins, so many offenses, and on account of the great disregard the very sinners He suffered for and came to save will have for His majesty and for His sufferings. In brief, the interior suffering which Jesus endured for men is so extreme, that it is impossible for someone to understand it in this present life. Only on the day of judgment, according to some teachers, will every single person completely understand it. For the Lord will reveal it then, for all men to see, unto the shame of the reprobate sinners. What have you so say about sin now, beloved? Do you understand how infinite its evil is from the incomprehensible punishment which sweetest Jesus suffered in order to destroy sin?
St. Nikodemos of the Holy Mountain (+1809), Exomologetarion
And so my long-suffering Jesus rightfully exclaims: 'Look, man! - there is no such torment and sorrow as this one that I endure for you; I cry out to you, I, who die for you: behold the executions that I will take up: behold the nails with which my bones are pierced; and despite the fact that such is my external grief, the internal is even more painful when for all these sufferings I find you ungrateful.' The suffering of the soul is another kind of suffering, internal. This inner suffering began even in the Garden of Gethsemane, where He cried out in extreme anguish of spirit: My soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even unto death. And, moreover, why is the sweat bloody? Why the prayer about the cup? Father! let this cup pass from me! Such grief could not but be painful. The causes of sorrow were not only bodily death, the ingratitude of the Jews, the terrible betrayal of Judas, the scattering of the disciples, the threefold denial of Peter, false accusations of fictitious crimes; contempt and stubborn resistance to the priceless merits of His sufferings of a large part of the human race; but also that the sins of the whole world were laid on Jesus Christ; a legal oath prescribed to the whole human race for sins; the greatness of God's wrath, rushing at Him after accepting sins and feeling the punishments of hell. So, Christ endured such sorrows and torments for us that correspond to the torments of hell, or rather - the torments of hell themselves, although not in the very place of the condemned, not in hell, but only in the quality and essence of suffering - hellish. He felt eternal death, though not forever; for what would be eternal for man, he supplemented, rewarded with his greatness, since He was the Son of God, God incarnate. If we consider that the One who is Infinite in His majesty endured such executions and torments, then these torments will not only seem commensurate with the eternal ones, but will even infinitely exceed them. This eternal death, the torment of hell, not after, but before the temporary death, our Savior tasted in the Garden of Gethsemane and on the Cross. Here there was an extreme, profound exhaustion. For He, as God, prayed to God the Father: Lord! let this cup pass; a cup filled with wrath, seething with punishments and torments, ready to be poured out on the whole world, but which the Only Begotten Son of God had to drink to the very bottom. How much Christ suffered for the entire human race is also evidenced by the inexpressible abandonment, which He, hung on the Cross, complains about at the last breath - Jesus cried out in a loud voice: Eli, Eli, lama sabachtha'ni. My God, My God! why hast Thou forsaken Me? ( Matthew 27:46 ) - The reason that prompted Him to cry out like that was nothing else, according to the theologians, than a feeling of the wrath of Justice for the sins of all people, for the sins of all of us. On the Cross, the hanged Christ reveals Himself to us as an Intercessor and High Priest, offering Himself as a sacrifice to God the Father for the purification of the whole world. For He, according to the testimony of the Scriptures, was made a curse for us (Gal. 3:13), and also: He who knew no sin, He became for us a sin offering (2 Cor. 5:21). All our sins are imputed to Christ, and therefore He cries out: O God, my God! Calls God the Father His God according to humanity; calls Him God, while He Himself is God. Then he says: why hast Thou forsaken Me? It cannot be understood here that Jesus Christ, having lost his omnipotence, complained about why He was betrayed into the hands of the Jews, why he was not delivered from them; for He accepted voluntary suffering; but the abandonment, if I may be allowed to explain it, is the deprivation for a time of the divinity's sweet consolation to the humanity joined to Him.
St. Innocent of Penza (+1819), Dogmas of the True Faith
The Lord accepted the cup of drink in his hands, but after tasting it, he gave it back. A cup of cold water, perhaps, He would have drunk, because the prolonged exhaustion of the forces in which He was caused thirst; but the drink that dulls the senses was unworthy of him who alone for all drank the cup of God's wrath.
St. Innocent of Kherson (+1857), The Last Days of the Earthly Life of Our Lord Jesus Christ.
The words Christ died for all mean that Christ died as a redemptive sacrifice for mankind. It means that His death is not merely a teaching on the patient endurance for undeserved misfortunes. No, this is the very death that guilty mankind deserved, and which Jesus underwent in place of all men… By His own will He took upon Himself the guilt of mankind and voluntarily resolved to endure the punishment for it. In what a wondrous light was the glory of the divinity made manifest on Golgotha! If people do not see, one ought to pity them for the fact that they see poorly. The Son of God, having taken upon Himself the person of sinful man, suffered for the sinner.
St. Philaret of Chernigov (+1866), On the Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ
Therefore as in Adam we had fallen under sin, the curse, and death, so we are delivered from sin, the curse, and death in Jesus Christ. His voluntary suffering and death on the cross for us, being of infinite value and merit, as the death of one sinless, God and man in one person, is both a perfect satisfaction to the justice of God, which had condemned us to death for sin, and a fund of infinite merit, which has obtained him the right, without prejudice to justice, to give us sinners pardon of our sins, and grace to have victory over sin and death.
St. Philaret of Moscow (+1867), Longer Catechism, Question 208
[The heifer] had to be wholly burnt, since Jesus Christ on the altar of the cross was wholly burned inwardly by the fire of love for mankind, and outwardly by the fire of the wrath of God.
id., On the Pentateuch of Moses.
And therefore, if He is exceeding sorrowful, it is on account of our grief, and not His own; if we see Him despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, surely He hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows (Is 53:3-4); the cup which His Father tenders unto Him is the cup of all the iniquities wrought by us, and all of all the punishments prepared unto us, which would have overwhelmed the whole world, if He alone had not taken, held, and drained it.…all these streams of iniquity flowed into one cup of woe and suffering for Jesus: all hell was precipitated upon the heavenly soul, and is it then to be wondered at, that it was exceeding sorrowful even unto death?
ib. Homily V: On the Cross
Walk the path that the torn veil of mysteries reveals to you; enter into the inner sanctuary of the sufferings of Jesus, leaving behind you the outer court, given over to the nations to trample. What's there? Nothing but the holy and blessed love of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit for the sinful and wretched human race. The love of the Father -- crucifying. The love of the Son -- crucified. The love of the Spirit -- triumphing through the power of the cross. God so loved the world (John 3:16)!
id., another Homily on Holy Friday, delivered at the St. Alexander Nevsky Lavra in St. Petersburg on Holy Friday, 1816
The Lord became incarnate so that through the incarnation He would take upon Himself the punishments deserved by mankind, and through the punishment of the all-holy, He would redeem the guilty from punishment.
St. Ignatius (Brianchaninov) (+1867), The Field
On the one hand, love for God and truth demanded that He exterminate the ungrateful human race, as unworthy of His Holiness and Mercy, and on the other hand, love for people demanded that He all at once endure all the punishments that were supposed to weigh on people for all eternity.
St. Innocent of Moscow and Alaska, Enlightener of the Aleuts (+1879), Homily 1 on Holy Friday
When the incarnate Son of God and God-Man, by His free suffering, His Blood, and His death on the Cross, satisfied God's justice for the disobedience of Adam and other human sins, and thus reconciled fallen man with God, then other Psalm words were fulfilled: Righteousness and peace have kissed each other.
St. Ambrose of Optina (+1891), General Festal Greeting 28: Explanation of the Words, "Mercy and Truth are met together"
[Christ:] 'As a Son, although without beginning, I asked mercy to the fallen sons of men from the boundless mercy of God. But the Eternal Truth stood before the throne of God and said: be merciful, but righteous. An insult to boundless greatness must be satisfied with a proportionate sacrifice. The Triune God affirmed this judgment, and I, the one of the Holy Trinity, said then: Behold, I go to do Thy will, O God. I descended to earth, assumed human nature, assimilated all its actions and communicated to them through that divine power. Everything in this body is now Mine: My wounds, My blood, My death. And here is the death of a man with an infinite price. For this is the death of God—My death. Thus the required sacrifice has been made. Rejoice, sons of mankind! I won; and what you now see in Me is the sign of this victory! Come to Me now, everyone! My wounds are for you the storehouses of God's graces, and My death is the source of life.'
St. Theophan the Recluse (+1897), Reflections on Great Friday, before the Holy Shroud
Jesus Christ, despite the fact that he was the Son of God and a completely sinless and innocent man, voluntarily suffered and died, so that, having offered Himself to God as a sacrifice for the sins of all people, to obtain mercy and forgiveness for them, after death rose again, ascended, and is seated at the right hand of God the Father, to become before Him their eternal intercessor and representative. This belief of the Eastern Church, by the way, was clearly expressed in the Epistle of the Eastern Patriarchs and in the Orthodox Confession of the Eastern Catholic and Apostolic Church. The same can be said about the Western Church, in which the aforementioned dogma was also observed in its entirety, although not without a struggle with not a few opinions that were contrary to it. And, since the main and essential formulation of it adopted here was developed by Anselm of Canterbury, we consider it not superfluous, in brief, to state the very doctrine of atonement of this famous scholastic theologian. According to him, the first man, through his fall into sin, infinitely offended God, acting against His will -- not only good and wise, but also righteous and holy -- and also not giving the honor due to Him -- which turned out to be all the more criminal and guilty -- which was accompanied by damage not only to fallen man himself, but also to all his descendants, as well as to all creation. And since every sin, by the very fact that it is sin, must either be punished according to its guilt, or redeemed by the corresponding satisfaction, then the above-mentioned sin, due to its unlimited guilt, must either be punished by eternal perdition and death, or be redeemed by such a kind of satisfaction or a sacrifice that would have infinite value. But it was not pleasing to God to allow the former, and therefore the latter had to take place. But who, one wonders, could bring satisfaction to God, or a sacrifice that fully corresponded to the endless guilt of man? Such a sacrifice could not be made by man himself, as finite and guilty before God, nor by any other created being, nor by an angel himself, because they are all finite, but the infinite God alone, standing above creation, could do this.... This theory, with its extreme scholasticism, containing nothing inconsistent with the thought of the ancient Universal Church, as is well known, was accepted and occupied a dominant position in the Western Church.
St. Sylvester of Kanevsky (+1908), The Experience of Orthodox Dogmatic Theology
Furthermore, He, the pre-eternal God, wished to bear -- on His own human essence -- to bear Himself the eternal torments due to us, to free us from the eternal torments of hell, which in all fairness our eternal souls should have undergone, being slaves to the devil. And thus, as you can see and hear from the Gospel, He suffered these torments for us.
St. John of Kronstadt (+1909), Homily 33, On Holy Friday before the Holy Shroud, from Season of Repentance. Published by Holy Trinity Publications, Jordanville
The tormentors and murderers of the Son of God were not only Jews and pagan Romans: in these torments and in this murder, we all are very, very much to blame. Why? Because the Son of God, Jesus Christ, as the Savior of the world, was the victim of our sins; suffering and dying, He accepted from the all-righteous Heavenly Father, according to humanity, the punishment for the sins of all of us. The Jews did with the God-man what, perhaps, we would have done by our passions if we were in their place -- yea, to tell the truth, what we are doing on a smaller scale and in a different form to others of our neighbors even now. So, look more closely at this divine Sufferer and Dead Man of the three days. This is the sacrifice of our sins. This is the sacrifice of God's infinite love for a world that is perishing in sin, and therefore for me and for you, beloved brother. The Son of God took upon Himself instead of me and instead of you the horrors of eternal justice, the eternal punishment that was set before me and you--drank the cup of the righteous anger and fury of God Almighty, which you and I should have drunk; He took upon Himself all the red-hot sharp arrows from God's quiver, prepared for sinners, which should have eternally struck and burned me and you, the ungrateful and malevolent sinner. The eternal truth and wisdom of God, through people, punished the God-man for people. In horror and reverence, I bow before the justice of God, before the holiness of the Trinitarian Divinity, which -- in sweeping aside the unrighteousness of sin and in sanctifying the human sinner created in the image and likeness of God -- in the person of the Father was pleased to punish the most holy God-man for people, in the person of the Son was pleased to incarnate and take upon Himself punishment for all human iniquity, and in the person of the Holy Spirit was pleased to sanctify penitent sinners, to renew them, to pour out tender and most holy love into their hearts.
id., another teaching before the Holy Shroud on Great Friday
I sinned, and Thou didst take my sins upon Thyself. I am guilty, and Thou didst accept my punishment. I am in debt, and Thou, my Jesus, didst pay my debt for me. I am condemned to eternal death, and Thou didst accept death for me, and, having destroyed it, didst resurrect me through Thyself, for Thou art the Lord of life and resurrection! All of Thy sufferings for me are nothing other than thine endless love for me! How much dishonor and torment Thou didst endure for me willingly, O Lord my God! Who am I, that Thou didst honor me with such love?--earth and ashes, a sinner and an unprofitable servant!
St. Gabriel of the Seven Lakes Monastery (+1915), Thoughts at the Sight of the Cross
He did not only appear abandoned, but was actually abandoned by God. God indeed turned His merciful face away from Him this time and handed Him over to all the horrors of hell and judgment. I have been poured out like water, and scattered are all my bones; my heart is become like wax melting in the midst of my bowels. My strength is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue hath cleaved to my throat, and into the dust of death hast Thou brought me down. (Ps. 21:15-16). These are the words that the prophetic spirit puts into the mouth of the suffering Christ in the same psalm whose opening words the Savior exclaimed. Do they sound like the words of a man before whom the sun of grace has hidden only apparently, and to a small extent? Is it not rather the cry of a soul that is really given over to all the horrors of hell and judgment, and which bears the wrath of God, the curse of sin?
St. Vladimir, Metropolitan of Kiev and Galicia (+1918), Homilies on the Seven Sayings of Christ
Seven hundred years before the birth of Christ the Prophet Isaiah spoke of this redeeming ministry: the chastisement of our peace was upon Him; (Is. 53:5). The punishment which would return to us the peace with God which we had lost was borne by Him. This peace was broken by the sin of Adam, the first created man, and magnified and repeated over and over again by the individual sins of each man born on earth. The righteousness of God demanded punishment for the sins, and the Redeemer, the Son of God, took that punishment on Himself. Punishment for sins manifests itself in two ways: internally, in the conscience of the sinner, and externally through physical afflictions. Inner torments, such as those experienced by Christ in Gethsemane, are more agonizing and torturous. The accumulated sins of every age, of every man, placed an inexplicably great burden on the conscience of Jesus. He had to bear the pangs of conscience as if He Himself were guilty of each sin. In the words of the Apostle, For He hath made Him to be sin for us, Who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him (II Cor. 5:21). All atheism and unbelief, all pride, all wickedness, all malice and ingratitude, lies, deceptions, sensuality, and every sort of offensive self-love, every vile and ignominious characteristic of sin past, present, and future, from the fall of Adam until the last moment of the earth’s existence — all of this pressed on the sinless soul of the God-man. Without a doubt, He envisioned the assault on virtue, the persecution of His followers, the rivers of blood of the martyrs, the mocking of believers, the enmity against the Church; He beheld he entire abyss of wickedness, passions, and vices which until the end of time would pervert and distort the divinely given and redeemed human soul, which would crucify the Son of God afresh, and put Him to an open shame (Heb. 6:6). All of this amassed evil, all the sins of mankind were poured into the bitter, dreaded cup which the Son of God was called upon to drink. This is something far beyond our comprehension. 'It was something more deadly than death' (Farrar). 'It would not be an exaggeration to say that it was the culmination of all the sufferings and deaths of all mankind. This inner anguish must have been as fierce as the torments of hell, for if even the most base of men are exhausted by the burden of their tortured conscience (e.g., Cain and Judas), tormented only by the thought of their own sinful life, how excruciating it must have been for the most pure soul of the God-man to endure the weight of all the sins of the world, and in such a condition, to ascend the cross and bring redemption through His blood'. But sin is difficult not only because of the gnawing conscience: sin gave birth to the curse, to being banished from God, toward Whom, nevertheless, mankind has always strived and will strive. The Gethsemane passion bearer experienced this exile, this abandonment by the Father. For His sinless soul -- which was accustomed to continuous union with God, which tasted and knew the sweetness, beauty and completeness of this union -- this separation was, of course, inexpressibly difficult. It was the hell with which God threatens the impious, the hell which we simply cannot begin to imagine, the deprivation of life with God. It was this separation which produced the soul-shattering lament of the Sufferer on the cross: My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me? (Matt. 27:46). Thus, Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, He being made a curse for us… (Gal. 3:13).
St. John Vostorgov (+1918), Homily for Cross-Veneration Sunday, The Agony of Our Lord Jesus Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane.
The human (Adam) knows himself to be the cause of Christ's suffering:. ‘Ah Child of mine, what could it be that Thou hast done, O Sweetest One, / To meet this sort of verdict - agh! - this punishment unbearable? / What thing, O All-Beloved Man, couldst Thou have done so as to bear / These sufferings so terrible? What act could be Thy breach of law? / And what could be the deed of Thine that rendereth Thee liable? / What proper cause is there for death? How also can Thy judgement be / Maintained to have been warranted? / Myself alone, yes I alone, have fully been Thy cause of pain, / And for the slaughter of Thy death the reason and the guilty one / Is I, and I alone. / The accusation for the vengeance on Thine every side is I, / And I the pain of all the stripes of Thy distress's sufferings. / Ah what a fearful Mystery! / Ah what an overflowing crime, both strange and paradoxical! / Ah great divine arrangement which is wholly uninterprable! / The violator sinned, and yet the Just One taketh chastening. / The stumbling one hath trespassed, and yet stricken is the Innocent. / The outlaw doth infringe and on the Righteous hath the judgement come. / This worthless one had debts, and yet the Goodly One uplifteth them. / This slave committed evil, and the Lord Himself doth compensate. / This man withal doth have the blame, yet God doth undergo these things. / Extreme indeed, O Son of God, extreme is Thy humility, / Arriving all because of me to condescension's summitpoint; / Withal supremely warming is the love that Thou dost have toward me; / Thy mercy indescribable doth overflow exceedingly; / And unto me Thy goodness doth surpassingly abound as well; / And Thine affection is brought out unto the same extent, O Lord, / As Thy compassion goeth forth. / Though I myself did wrong, yet Thou hast undergone my sentences. / Though I have wrought the evil, yet now Thou art being judged for it. / Through I have erred, yet Thou Thyself art whipped as one in slavery. / Though I the clay lashed out, yet now hast Thou been holden in contempt. / Though I refused to hear, yet Thou submittest now instead of me. / Though I displayed my impotence in gluttony, O Potent One, / Yet Thou wast hungry in my stead. / The tree unlawful once enticed me to consumption long ago; / And to ascend the cross's tree Thine ardent love escorted Thee. / I have partaken of the fruit that was to me prohibited, / And yet the scaffold of the violation Thou didst undertake. / I revel now in pleasure and upon the cross Thou sufferest. / In luxury have I been wasteful, and by nails hast Thou been pierced. / As through the sweetness of the apple I had been beguiled of old, / Because of me hast Thou Thyself now tasted of the sponge with gall. / So Eve doth co-rejoice with me and she co-danceth at my side, / And Mary is lamenting and co-hurting with Thee bitterly.’
St. Nectarios the Wonderworker (+1920), The Kekregarion of the Divine and Sacred Augustine Bishop of Hippo, Being Four Books, Put into Meter according to the Tonic Base from the Translation of Eugene Voulgaris, by the Metropolitan of Pentapolis Nectarios (amateur translation)
What a sad sight before our eyes! Our Savior is in the tomb. In the coffin is our Joy, the Treasure of our heart. But how could You, our Joy, be contained in this small tomb? Is this the place for You? You, living on earth, gave life to everyone, and now You Yourself lie lifeless. You dried up everyone's tears, and now You yourself plunge Your loved ones into tears for Yourself. Do you belong here? This is a place for us mortals, and not for You, the Immortal -- for us with corruptible and sinful bodies, for us sinners worthily condemned to death, and not for You, the Most Holy and Sinless. Brethren! Let us weep and mourn: it was we who, by our sins, imprisoned the Sinless One in the bonds of death, it was we, condemned to death, who forced Him to descend to the gates of death.
St. Alexei Mechev (+1923), Homily on Holy Friday
Man has sinned, man must satisfy the righteousness of God. And so, the Son of God puts on the whole nature of Adam, becomes a perfect man, excluding sin, places all the guilt of man on Himself, and bears all the punishment for him.
St. Macarius (Nevsky) of Moscow (+1926), About Christian Life and Education
Christ the Lord redeemed us from the captivity of the prince of this world, in which we were held for the sin of our forefathers, and the price that He gave for the ransom is His Blood. To whom was the price of Blood paid for our redemption? Christ the Lord repaid it to the righteousness of God, which could not free us from guilt and punishment for sin until satisfaction was given to it. Following the satisfaction of the truth of God and the return of peace with God, the power of Satan over us fell….We have been redeemed from hereditary sinfulness, guilt, and wrath, and the remission of sins has been received by those who have done it themselves. Or so: redemption is God's universal action, and the remission of sins is the application of this redemption to every person who believes. Everyone is redeemed through the remission of his sins by faith in the Only Begotten Son of God crucified for the sins of the whole world. His blood cleanses us from all sin and thereby works redemption in us. This is how the eternal blessing is realized in us and what causes the glory of grace. Everyone is redeemed through the remission of his sins by faith in the Only Begotten Son of God crucified for the sins of the whole world.
St. Peter the Hieromartyr of Voronezh (+1929), An Exegetical Analysis of the First Two Chapters of Paul's Epistle to the Hebrews
Where can you find a father who would die on the cross for the crimes of his children? Usually it is regrettable for the father and he feels sorry for his son, who must be punished for his crimes; but even though he pities his son, he will nevertheless say to him: ‘You did not do well, and you are rightly punished for your bad deeds.’
St. Silouan the Athonite (+1938), as quoted by St. Sophrony of Essex (+1993)
Of the created beings, not one could offer himself as a sacrifice for the whole world, which would fully satisfy the justice of God. This could be done only by the Creator Himself.
ibid.
No one has ever known such suffering as Christ endured. He descended into hell, into the most painful hell of all, the hell of love. This is a sphere of existence which can only be apprehended through spiritual love.
St. Sophrony of Essex, His Life is Mine (see also the Siluan quotes above from Sophrony)
Who will measure the universal and lifeling cross borne by the Author of our salvation? Who will measure its weight? Who can count the multitude of various crosses from which it, like a sea of drops, is made up? This cross was carried not only from Jerusalem to Golgotha with the help of Simon of Cyrene. It is carried from Gethsemane to Jerusalem and to Gethsemane from Bethlehem itself. The whole life of the Author of our salvation was a single cross, and no one touched his burden, except to make it heavier. He alone trampled, as the prophet expresses it, the winepress (Is. 63:3) of the wrath of God (Rev. 14:19), and from the people there was no man with Him (Is. 63:3). For a long time Jesus carried His cross, as if not feeling its weight, but, finally, the weight of this cross also crushes Him on the very threshold to Golgotha, in the garden of Gethsemane. He no longer hides here the weight of His cross, which crushes His soul: Mournful is my soul, says the Divine sufferer to His disciples, even unto death (Mt. 26:38). And a prayerful conversation with the Consubstantial Father does not free Him, but keeps Him under the weight of suffering: My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me. Yet not as I will, but as Thou wilt (Mt. 26:39). He who upholds all things by the word of His power (Heb. 1:3) now Himself needs to be strengthened by an angel (Lk. 22:43). Our word fails, hearers, to see the still great Sufferer from Gethsemane to Jerusalem and Golgotha, from the inner cross to the outer. But the rites performed by the Church today have already traded unto you this path and this last cross. It is so painful that the sun could not look at it, and so heavy that the earth shook under it. To endure in the purest innocence all internal and external torments, the gravest and most vile, and instead of being rewarded for good deeds, to endure suffering; the Most Holy from the most lawless, the Creator from creatures; to suffer for the unworthy, the ungrateful, for the very perpetrators of suffering, to suffer for the glory of God and be forsaken by God - what an immeasurable abyss of suffering! Our God, our God, Thou hast left Thy Beloved! Yea, Lord! You left Him a little, so as not to leave us forever, who left You. From now on, He reigns, clothed in splendor, girded with strength, and establishes the world, but does not move (Ps. 96:1). Having ascended from the earth on a cross, He stretches it out throughout the earth and draws it all to Himself into heaven (John 12:32). How shall we repay Thee, O All-merciful Head of our salvation, for all that Thou hast done for us? Brethren, Christ suffered for us, leaving us an image, that we may follow His steps (1 Pet. 2:21). We have sinned, but He suffered for us, for the sake of our salvation, so that we also suffer for our own sins and through this become partakers of His saving sufferings.
St. Theophan Archbishop of Poltava (+1940), Homily on Holy Friday, adapted heavily from one of St. Philaret of Moscow
Let us refresh and strengthen ourselves with a supply of the fruit of the wood. The fruit is the flesh and blood of our Saviour, who was sacrificed in order to appease the righteous wrath of the Infinite God for the sins of all mankind, beginning with the disobedience of Adam. Shall not our Creator receive us when we humbly and gratefully come to Him together with His infinitely beloved, His Only-begotten, as the Light which is of Light, His Son Jesus Christ?
St. Sebastian of Jackson and San Francisco (+1940), Preaching in the Russian Church: or, lectures and sermons by a priest of the holy Orthodox Church: Homily for the Third Sunday of Lent (this is the original English)
While the soldiers erected and strengthened the crosses for Jesus Christ and for the two thieves condemned with Him, the Savior was offered, according to ancient custom, wine mixed with myrrh. Drinking this did not so much intoxicate as clouded consciousness and clouded reason, as a result of which suffering became less sensitive. To a certain extent it was an act of philanthropy, but the Lord rejected it. Voluntarily accepting suffering and death, He wanted to meet them with a clear conscience, in no way easing for Himself the horror of the torment on the Cross. They took off His clothes and then--- Our Divine Savior and Redeemer, Lord of creation and Lord of glory, was raised to the cross and nailed. Then that terrible, painful agony of suffering on the Cross began, at the price of which our salvation was bought….
St. Basil the Hieroconfessor of Kineshma (+1945), Homilies on the Gospel of Mark
But the heaviest sorrow, the terrible depth of which is completely incomprehensible to us, was, of course, the feeling of sin, voluntarily taken upon Himself by our Savior and weighed down on Him. If on us, sinful people with a coarse soul and a lulled conscience, our sin often falls as an agonizing burden, barely endurable, often leading to despair, then what should the Lord have experienced with His sensitive conscience, with His divinely pure soul that did not know sin, for He knew no sin (1 Peter 2:22)! After all, taking on the sins of people did not at all mean simply paying divine justice with Your blood and suffering for someone else's, extraneous sin in a purely external way, just as we sometimes pay the debts of our friends. No, it meant incomparably more: it meant accepting sin into one’s conscience, experiencing it as one’s own, feeling the full burden of responsibility for it, recognizing the terrible guilt for it before God, as if He Himself had committed this sin. And what a sin! Let us not forget that Jesus Christ was, in the words of John the Baptist, the Lamb of God, take away the sins of the world (John 1:29). The sins of the whole world, of all mankind from the first day of its creation, of all the countless generations of people who have changed on earth over a number of long centurie…all this Jesus Christ took upon Himself and all our sins He Himself bare with His own body on the tree, so that we, being dead to sins, should live for righteousness (1 Pet.2:24). Along with sin, the Savior had to take upon Himself its inevitable consequences, the most terrible for the soul: alienation from God, God-forsakenness and the curse that hung over us as a punishment for sin: Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us, for it is written: Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree (Gal.3:13).
ibid.
On the basis of Holy Scripture and patristic teaching, we testified that our Church looks at Christ not only as the Restorer of our fallen nature, but also as an instrument of propitiation or the satisfaction of Divine justice. At the same time, we noted that our very renewal or salvation would never have taken place if this satisfaction had not taken place, and that to deny the need for the latter means to overthrow the entire Divine economy at its foundation. This inconsistent conclusion should be entirely attributed to the words of Archimandrite Sergius, that God does not demand satisfaction from us. Archimandrite Sergius does not want to understand that the Lord does not require satisfaction or propitiation from us personally for Himself, for He does not need anything, but He requires this for our salvation, for without the satisfaction of His Divine justice, the atoning sacrifice of the Son of God on the Cross could not be performed and our own salvation, which is based not only on Divine love, but also on Divine justice, cannot be accomplished. The error of Archimandrite Sergius lies in the fact that he rejects the action of Divine justice in our redemption, and at the same time, he denies the legal understanding of the atoning death of Christ for the whole work of our salvation.
St. Seraphim Sobolev (+1950), The Distortion of Orthodox Truth in Russian Theological Thought
Behold, under the weight of the sins of the entire world, the Lamb of God lay slaughtered and lifeless. O brethren, this is a costly sacrifice even for our sins. The blood of this sinless and meek Lamb was destined for all times and all generations, from the first to the last person on earth. Christ also felt the pains on the Cross for our sins even those of the present day. He also wept in the Garden of Gethsemane for our wickedness, our weakness and our sinfulness. He also destined His blood for us. Brethren let us not then despise this indescribable costly price by which we have been redeemed. Because of these sacrifices of Christ we, indeed, have some worth as people. Without these sacrifices, or if we disavow these sacrifices, our worth, by itself alone, is equal to nothing. It is equal to smoke without a flame or a cloud without light.
St. Nikolai of Zica (+1956), The Prologue of Ohrid, April 1
He died for no sin of His own but for our sins. Eternal justice of God required such an innocent and priceless sacrifice for Adam’s sin and ours.
id., The Faith of the Saints
We know that with His body He endured indescribable sufferings, terrible torments on the cross. We know it. But not everyone understands what the Lord experienced in His heart. Not everyone knows why His prayer to God the Father was so painful. Not everyone knows why bloody sweat dripped from His face. And I have to explain this to you. When does bloody sweat drip from a human face? When do people pray with tears of blood? This is not a metaphor -- this is a reality that they cry with bloody tears, that bloody sweat drips. This happens when human torments reach such a terrible force of tension that no other torments can compare with them. And so, already from the fact that bloody sweat dripped from the face of the Savior, we know how terrible, how amazing were His spiritual sufferings before the bodily sufferings. Why were they so scary? Why did Christ our God languish so in anticipation of His suffering on the Cross? Think, if one of you had to take upon himself the sins of a hundred people around you, and give an answer for them before God, what horror would you be filled with, how the sins of others would crush you with a weight, for which you must answer God. Don't you know that the Lord Jesus Christ took upon Himself the sins of the whole world, of all mankind? Have you never heard the words of the great prophet Isaiah: He was wounded for our sins and tormented for our iniquities; the punishment of our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we were healed (Is. 53:5)? Didn’t you read what was written in the first epistle of the Apostle Peter: He Himself bore our sins with His Body on the tree, so that we, having been delivered from sins, would live for righteousness: by His stripes you were healed (1 Pt. 2:24)? So, already in the Garden of Gethsemane, He languished and suffered under the terrible weight of the sins of the whole world. He was crushed unspeakably, unbearably crushed by the sins of the world, which He took upon Himself, for which He had to become a victim of divine justice before God, for only He and no one else could atone for the sins of the whole world.
St. Luke the Surgeon (+1961), Homily 10 on the Passion
It was necessary for Him to redeem man from sin and death, and reestablish the union of man with God. It was necessary that the sinless Savior should take upon Himself all human sin, so that He, Who had no sins of His own, should feel the weight of the sin of all humanity and sorrow over it in such a way as was possible only for complete holiness, which clearly feels even the slightest deviation from the commandments and Will of God. It was necessary that He, in Whom Divinity and humanity were hypostatically united, should in His holy, sinless humanity experience the full horror of the distancing of man from his Creator, of the split between sinful humanity and the source of holiness and light - God.... Before the gaze of the God-Man all that was to happen was revealed. He voluntarily sacrificed Himself for the salvation of the human race. And now He came for the last time to pray alone to His Heavenly Father. Here He would accomplish that sacrifice which would save the race of men. He would voluntarily give Himself up to sufferings, giving Himself over into the power of darkness. However, this sacrifice would not be saving if He would experience only His personal sufferings—He had to be tormented by the wounds of sin from which mankind was suffering. The heart of the God-Man was filled with inexpressible sorrow. All the sins of men, beginning from the transgression of Adam and ending with those which would be done at the moment of the sounding of the last trumpet—all the great and small sins of all men stood before His mental gaze. They were always revealed to Him as God—all things are manifest before Him—but now their whole weight and iniquity was experienced also by His human nature. His holy, sinless soul was filled with horror. He suffered as the sinners themselves do not suffer, whose coarse hearts do not feel how the sin of man defiles and how it separates him from the Creator. His sufferings were the greater in that He saw this coarseness and embitteredness of heart, the fact that men have blinded their eyes that they should not see, and do not want to hear with their ears and be converted, so that they should be healed. He saw that the whole world was even now turning away from God Who had come to them in human form.
St. John of Shanghai and San Francisco (+1966), Our Lord in the Garden of Gethsemane
In His infinite love for mankind, the All-Merciful Lord endured for us and instead of us all the torments and sorrows that devastated human nature as a result of its fall into sin and death. Enduring this for all people and instead of all people, He wept and grieved for the sins of the whole world, praying until he sweated blood. He did all this not for His own sake, but for the sake of the human race, the sins, sufferings and death of which He voluntarily took upon Himself. All the suffering, all death and punishment brought on by sin on the human race, with all their terrible consequences that irresistibly struck human nature in the form of countless torments, illnesses and sorrows, the merciful God-Man took upon Himself. The immeasurable human sinfulness and all its terrible companions: illnesses, calamities, sorrows, diverse types of death, temporary and eternal torments, tore at the merciful heart of Jesus and, like a bitter cup, appeared before His eyes, pointing to the terrible responsibility of the human race before God. In Him, the true God-Man, human nature wept and sobbed, looking at all that it had done by its overthrow into sin and death. Instead of all of us and for all of us, it was horrified by all its sins and falls. My Father! if possible, let this cup pass from me (Matt. 26:39).
St. Justin Popovich (+1979), Dogmatic Theology
One sinless Righteous One suffered for the unrighteous and instead of the unrighteous, and thus suffered the punishment that weighed on the entire human race for sin, according to the righteous judgment of God. By the death of the sinless Righteous One, which He voluntarily endured in place of the unrighteous, the human race is freed from responsibility for sin, resolved from sin itself -- this only obstacle between it and God, this only enmity towards God -- and is brought to God.
ibid.
When you feel what you read, you will cultivate divine eros. This is the meaning of study. Read the Kekregarion, which is all divine eros. I read it and I weep. What beautiful words, the depth they have! Read such things, and you will delight in them. In this way you will obtain divine eros….Whatever Augustine says here is not his own. It is from divine grace. It is from Holy Scripture. This is why Augustine had such great wealth. He digested Holy Scripture. Whatever he says here, he says it from there.
St. Porphyrios the Foreseer (+1991), Conversation recorded in Discussions about Spiritual Life by Chrysopigis Monastery. And here is something The Mediations of St. Augustine (of which the Greek translation by Evgenios Voulgaris is The Kekregarion) says:
On the Cross Christ cried out with a loud voice, My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me? (Mt. 27:46). He cried out in our stead, specifically because He is the Intercessor. God forsook sinners, but Christ took their place, and on their behalf He cried out to the Father.
Hieromartyr Fr. Daniel Sysoev (+2009), Commentary on the Six Psalms
Christ says on behalf of all mankind that the anger of God is made strong upon Him (Ps. 87:8). Why did the anger of God rest upon Christ? He took upon Himself all the sins of the world and its crimes, and so the full punishment of the world came upon Him. He drank the cup of God’s wrath to the dregs, and as a result men receive salvation from their sins in Christ.
ibid.
In the middle of the 2nd century, the heresy of Marcion arose in the Church, who rejected the Old Testament and the righteousness of God. Saint Polycarp of Smyrna called Marcion the firstborn of Satan and excommunicated all the followers of this heresy from the Church. Since then, in every list of condemned heresies, this doctrine has occupied one of the places of honor. But the most surprising thing is that now this heresy is considered almost an expression of authentic Orthodoxy. 'God is love and only love', its supporters say, and argue that it is necessary to discard any mention that God is angry, judges, and acts in justice, as 'Catholic influence', 'unsurmounted paganism', etc. Before us is unfolding a terrible picture of the destruction of historical Christianity and the substitution of the living God with that fantastic image of Santa Claus, who does not punish anyone. The very idea of the knowledge of God among such heretics is completely wild. They think they can construct their ideas about God, and what they don't like in Scripture or the Fathers they call pedagogical devices. The most amazing thing is that the supporters of this heresy call themselves active missionaries and claim that if we do not accept their point of view, we will alienate people from the Church. But at the same time, for some reason, no one asks them - does the Church need their missionary activity if they preach a different God, preach a different Jesus, and give a different Spirit? Why do we need to be in the bosom of the Church? Why not let there be crowds of non-believers? I'm not even talking about the fact that people who actually hear their sermon will calm themselves down, thinking that everything is already possible for them and that their salvation is guaranteed. According to my observations, we have before us a whole new ideology of 'neo-Christianity', which creates a whole alternative dogma and ethics. Let's look at the points of faith that we have left of patristic Orthodoxy…. 6. Without exception, all the neo-Christians reject the atoning sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ, which He offered as a propitiation for our sins. For them, the notion that the truth of God demanded the punishment of sinners, which the Innocent Christ voluntarily took upon Himself, is a sign of 'paganism.'
id., "Thoughts on the New Marcionism"
Jesus exclaimed: It is finished! (John 19:30) The ransom has been paid. The Son of God gave his life for us: Flesh for flesh, Blood for blood, Soul for soul. The punishment of the world was washed away by the sufferings of the God-man. The Great High Priest sacrificed Himself and obtained eternal Redemption.
id., The Law of God
Because of their pride and disobedience, Adam and Eve were banished from the garden of delight and inhabited the land of thorns and thistles. But the infinite love of the Heavenly Father, Who had been forgotten by the human race, sent His only-begotten and beloved Son into the world, to remove man’s enmity towards Him. We see His supreme love leading Him to sacrifice His sweetest Son through a tragic death on the Cross, since this is what the grave fall of guilty mankind required! The Apostle Paul presents this sacrifice with the following words: He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all (Rom. 8:32 ). He also says: He became obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross (Phil. 2:8 ).
Elder Ephraim of Arizona (+2019), Counsels from the Holy Mountain, Chapter XVII
O Lord Jesus Christ, the light of my darkened soul, the goal of my life, how great has our guilt become with the passing of time! One disobedience resulted in bringing God down to earth—and where did it lead Him? To be crucified at Golgotha! And the small taste of the forbidden fruit was paid by the awesome drama of the God-man.
ibid.
The sweet redemption of our Jesus, the light of our troubled souls, His Passion and Life-Giving Resurrection, are re-enacted in every Divine Liturgy through which every sinful soul is delivered. Great indeed is Jesus’ love for us! For He took on our human nature and was hung on the Cross, giving us freedom and thus wiping clean all our debts towards our Heavenly Father.
id., Experiences During the Divine Liturgy
A person making genuine confession beholds before him the Life-Giving Cross and the Holy Gospel. The Gospel is the book containing the Law of God, the commandments of the Lord. It reminds the repentant sinner that he constantly violates this Law, and for this reason he comes to confession, to repent in this violation, all the transgressions are clearly stated in this very Book. The Life-Giving Cross reminds him of the Bloody Price with which the Lord saved our humankind. Be there no Sacrifice of Christ on the Cross, no amount of repentance would remove our guilt for our sin: guilty -- then you must answer; sin -- then you must pay. But the Lord by His mercy loved us sinners so much that He brought Himself to sacrifice for our sins. He took upon Himself the sins of mankind, had them nailed to the Cross, as we say in our prayers, and by this sacrifice created salvation for all of humanity. It is not for the sake of our prayers of repentance, but for the sake of the podvig on the Cross of His Only-Begotten Son that God the Father will accept our repentance, and we will be cleansed of our sins, after which we are prepared to receive the Holy Gifts.
Metropolitan PHILARET (Voznesensky) of ROCOR (+1985), Sermon on the Friday of the First Week of Great Lent
Jesus’ involvement with humanity was the reason for his condescension, in his incarnation taking upon him our form, dying vicariously for our sins. The Apostle Paul said, 'He made him to be our sin-bearer that we might be the righteousness of God in him'.
Fr. Michael Baroudy, St. George Orthodox Church in Vicksburg, Mississippi, "The Seven Sins of Human Society in the Light of Spiritual Truths", The Word magazine, June 1967, p. 19
The intensity of the story [of Gideon] builds up rapidly as the Angel of the Lord extended the end of the staff that was in His hand and touched the meat and the unleavened bread. Fire rose out of the rock and consumed it all, as a token that it was accepted. Then the Angel of the Lord (Adonai) departed out of his sight. Notice that the young goat was consumed as a burnt offering to show what the sinner deserves. The fire that came out of this rock is an emblem of the justice which demands satisfaction for sin. At the same time it turns the offering into a sweet savor acceptable to our merciful God. In this manifestation we recognize the Apostle and High Priest of our profession, Jesus Christ, by whose atonement we are reconciled to God (Heb. 3:1).
Fr. Joseph Sakkab (+2017) Dean of the Prairie Deanery, "A God of Peace and Man of Valor: Christ's Manifestations in the Old Testament", The Word magazine, October 2000, p. 8
Man chose to be alienated from God, but having no life in himself and by himself, he dies. Yet there is no sin and, therefore, no death in Christ. He accepts to die only by love for us. He wants to assume and to share our human condition to the end. He accepts the punishment of our nature, as He assumed the whole burden of human predicament. He dies because He has truly identified Himself with us, has indeed taken upon Himself the tragedy of man's life. His death is the ultimate revelation of His compassion and love. And because His dying is love, compassion and co-suffering, in His death the very nature of death is changed. From punishment it becomes the radiant act of love and forgiveness, the end of alienation and solitude. Condemnation is transformed into forgiveness.
Fr. Alexander Schmemman, A Liturgical Explanation for the Days of Holy Week, found on antiochian.org
If we were to use a liturgy book from the Holy Cross Bookstore we would conclude that Jesus Christ is not our Redeemer because He did not die for our sins. For when we read the words of Institution. This is My Body which is broken for you, for the forgiveness of sins, what else can we assume? The Greek word in this phrase of the Institution is not 'synghorisis' but 'afesis.' The word 'synghorisis' means forgiveness, not remission, as 'afesis' does. Christ remitted our sins. He paid for them, in other words, when He died on the Cross. A rule of thumb for these two words is that forgiveness usually refers to a person, whereas remission definitely refers to the sin itself. Christ our Lord redeemed us by paying for our sins with His blood and His death on the Cross. It was this act which abrogated the old covenant and put into effect the New Covenant (Hebrews 9:16-18). Christ our God made repiration for our sins by giving His very life. This is not merely forgiveness of sins; it is atonement.
Metropolitan ISAIAH (Chronopoulos) of the GOARCH diocese of Denver, "Liturgical Mistranslations"
The more we study the Scriptures, the more we become convinced that the redeeming sufferings on the Cross were the focal point of the earthly life of the incarnate Son of God. By His sufferings, He washed away our sins and repaid our debts to God, or, in the language of Holy Scripture, ‘redeemed’ us. On Golgotha is concealed the unfathomable mystery of God's complete justice and infinite love. The fishermen of Galilee attest with utmost simplicity that the incarnate, Only-Begotten Son of God voluntarily took upon Himself the guilt of mankind and suffered for it by a humiliating and tormented death on the Cross. He took on Himself the punishment we were supposed to receive.
Bishop ALEXANDER (Mileant) of the ROCOR Diocese of Buenos Aires (+2005), Missionary Leaflets
Christ paid the debt of sin that man himself could never pay. The Apostle John writes in his first Epistle: He [Christ] is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world (I John 2:2). And the Apostle Paul tells us: Ye are bought with a price (I Cor. 6:20, 7:23). St. Paul even says that Christ was made to be sin for us and made a curse for us (II Cor. 5:21, Gal. 3:13). Being totally without sin, He bore the penalty of sin on our behalf, so that we would be forgiven and purified of sin and freed from its curse.
Hieromonk Damascene (Christensen), What Christ Accomplished on the Cross, a talk delivered at the Annual Lenten Clergy Confession of the New Gracanica Metropolitanate and the Western American Diocese of the Serbian Orthodox Church, Jackson, California, March 4/17, 2004
The sun goes dark. / The mountains shake. / The tombs are split as Jesus takes / Upon Himself all mankind's curse / The fall of Adam to reverse.
Mother Melania of Holy Assumption Monastery, OCA, The Three-Day Pascha, Part One: Great and Holy Friday
53:5 Christ, who was free from sin, took our chastisement and gave us peace. By His bruise we are saved from an eternity of suffering and estrangement from God.
The Orthodox Study Bible, footnote on Isaiah 53:5
4:20 The Greek word for Anointed is Christos. Christ is symbolized as a victim of the destruction of God’s people brought on by their disobedience.
ibid., footnote on Lamentations of Jeremiah 4:20
A mystery shrouds the scene of Jesus' agony. You must leave your proud reason outside the Garden of Gethsemane, loosen your sandals as Moses did before the burning bush, and free of bias, with humility, enter the sacred realms and listen in faith to the prayer of Jesus of Nazareth. Then you will understand that the cup Jesus was called on to drink was not merely the natural feeling of displeasure or bitterness felt by everyone who comes into contact with death. For Jesus, this was minor.This was one drop of all the bitterness contained in that cup. The horror of the cup consists of something else. The innocent and sinless Jesus, 'who committed no sin, nor was guilt found in His mouth' (I Peter 2:22); Jesus, who to the Jews posed the unique, unanswerable question, 'Which of you convicts Me of sin?' (John, 8:46); Jesus, the only-begotten Son of God, obedient in everything to the will of His heavenly Father; Jesus, upon whom the shadow of sin never fell; Jesus, whose virtue covered the skies, reached the hour -- the most meaningful hour in the story of human redemption -- to descend into the depths, to raise all the weight of humanity's sins, and thus the sinless One would appear as the most sinful of men, as guilty of [i.e. unto] death, death on the cross. This was the cup; none bitterer was ever drunk nor ever will be. In this cup each one of us has thrown our droplets, and I who write and you who read have thrown the bitterness of our sins into Jesus' cup. This is the terrible cup which Jesus was called on to drink dry, and He drank it in all its horridness.
Metropolitan AUGOUSTINOS (Kantiotes) of Florina (+2010), Follow Me
What a tremendous day that must have been when the eternal God, surrounded by all His holy angels, sent out the word: Who will go down and redeem My lost crea tion? In our imagination we can picture them coming for- ward, all the great ones of heaven, the archangels of God. First there was Uriel, the angel of light: 'Father, I will go down. I will show man the light of a perfect example. how he should walk to find favor with Thee; he will follow that light, and so he shall come back to Thee.' But the Father said: Beautiful indeed is thy light, Uriel, but man now loves darkness more than he loves light, and he will not follow. Thy light is mighty indeed, O Uriel, but not mighty enough to save.' And then, perhaps, spoke up Raphael, the of the mind: 'Father, I will go down, and I will reason with man. I will say to him: It does not make sense that you should hate your Creator and be forever lost; and, convinced by his own mind, man will come back to Thee.' But the Father said: 'In vain, Raphael, wilt thou reason with man, for man's mind, his understanding, is now darkened: His eye is blind, his ear is sluggish, his heart is cold. Thou art mighty to reason, O Raphael, but thou art not mighty enough to save.' Then came forward Michael, the angel of the sword, with his great two-edged blade flashing and turning every way: 'Father, I will go down. I will flash before man's eyes my terrible swift sword. I will roll over the world the thunders of the holy Law. Man will tremble in fright and repent and return to Thee.' But the Father said: 'To no avail, Michael, will be the flashings of thy sword, for man's heart is hardened. and he will not be frightened into faith and love toward Me. Thou art mighty with thy sword, O Michael, but not mighty enough to save.' Next came forward Gabriel, the angel of holy song, and he said: 'Father, I will go down. I will flood the earth with all the songs and melodies of heaven, and hearing that music of the other world, man will want to turn and come back to Thee.' But again the Father said: 'Sweet indeed is the music and melody of heaven, Gabriel, but sweeter still to the heart of man is the music of sin and the melodies of earth. Thou art mighty to sing. O Gabriel, but not mighty enough to save.' And so one by one the great archangels came before the Lord, only to learn that what they had to offer was not enough to save sin-cursed mankind! Then finally came forward the Son of God Himself, whom all angels and saints honor and adore. He said, 'My Father, I will go down. I will lay aside the glory which I had with Thee before the foundation of the world. I will humble Myself and take upon Me their own form and flesh, and in their place become obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. I will be disfigured, despised and rejected of men. spit upon, crowned with thorns, pierced with nails, thrust through with a spear. I shall live as man should have lived. I shall die as man deserved to die; and thus, by My living and by My dying. I will redeem mankind.' And now the halls of heaven rang with shouts of the angels and archangels, cherubim and seraphim: 'Eternal Son, go down! go down! go down! Thou alone canst be their substitute! Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace. God will to men!' That is the blessed mystery of Calvary: God's own Son becoming the sin-bearing Substitute for all mankind!
Fr. Anthony Coniaris (+2020), Orthodoxy: A Creed for Today
Is God fair? We ask this question as we contemplate Christ suffering on the Cross for our sins. We are the ones who should have been on the cross. It was our judgment, our sentence, our penalty, our condemnation, yet He bore it for us. Why? To show us that God loves us with a love so great that we shall never be able to comprehend it in its fullness. Justice says, 'Every sin must be paid for.' The Cross says, 'It is God Himself who pays: God Himself has paid the price once for all, and it was the most costly price that could be paid—His own death, in Jesus Christ.'
ibid.
Jesus Christ our companion shares not only in the fullness of human life but also in the fullness of human death. ‘Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows’ (Isa. 53:4) -- all our griefs, all our sorrows. ‘The unassumed is unhealed’: but Christ our healer has assumed into himself everything, even death. Death has both a physical and a spiritual aspect, and of the two it is the spiritual that is the more terrible. Physical death is the separation of man’s body from his soul; spiritual death, the separation of man’s soul from God. When we say that Christ became ‘obedient unto death’ (Phil. 2:8), we are not to limit these words to physical death alone. We should not think only of the bodily sufferings which Christ endured at his Passion -- the scourging, the stumbling beneath the weight of the Cross, the nails, the thirst and heat, the torment of hanging stretched on the wood. The true meaning of the Passion is to the found, not in this only, but much more in his spiritual sufferings -- in his sense of failure, isolation and utter loneliness, in the pain of love offered but rejected. The Gospels are understandably reticent in speaking about this inward suffering, yet they provide us with certain glimpses. First, there is Christ’s Agony in the garden of Gethsemane, when he is overwhelmed by horror and dismay, when he prays in anguish to his Father, ‘If it is possible, let this cup pass from me’ (Matt. 26:39), and when his sweat falls to the ground ‘like great drops of blood’ (Luke 22:44).... Christ is here confronted by a choice. Under no compulsion to die, freely he chooses to do so; and by this act of voluntary self-offering he turns what would have been a piece of arbitrary violence, a judicial murder, into a redemptive sacrifice. But this act of free choice is immensely difficult. Resolving to go forward to arrest and crucifixion, Jesus experiences, in the words of William Law, ‘the anguishing terrors of a lost soul…the reality of eternal death’ [ellipsis in Met. Kallistos’s original]. Full weight must be given to Christ’s words at Gethsemane, ‘My soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even unto death’ (Matt. 26:38). Jesus enters at this moment totally into the experience of spiritual death. He is at this moment identifying himself with all the despair and mental pain of humanity; and this identification is far more important to us than his participation in our physical pain. A second glimpse is given us at the Crucifixion, when Christ cries out with the loud voice, ‘My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?’ (Matt. 27:46). Once again, full weight should be given to these words. Here is the extreme point of Christ’s desolation, when he feels abandoned not only by men but by God. We cannot begin to explain how it is possible for one who is himself the living God to lose awareness of the divine presence. But this at least is evident. In Christ’s Passion there is no play-acting, nothing is done for outward show. Each word from the Cross means what it says. And if the cry ‘My God, my God…’ is to signify anything at all, it must mean that at this moment Jesus is truly experiencing the spiritual death of separation from God. Not only does he shed his blood for us, but for our sakes he accepts even the loss of God.
Metropolitan KALLISTOS (Ware) of Diokleia (+2022), The Orthodox Way, pp. 105-106
He didn’t just issue a pardon: He took the penalty that was due to us and He took it on Himself; He died in our place. When we consider what God has done for us, how can we not love Him?
Fr. John Whiteford, "Tearing Up the Handwriting of our Sins," From the Amvon podcast on Ancient Faith Radio
It is very meet and right that we should, with the whole affection of our heart and mind, and with the service of our lips, give praise unto the invisible God, the Father almighty, and unto his only-begotten Son Jesus Christ our Lord, who paid for us to the eternal Father the debt of Adam’s transgression: and with his dear blood wiped away the reproach of our former offences.
The Exsultet (dating back at the latest to the 600s, possibly to the 300s), used in the Parishes of the Antiochian WR Vicariate as the hymn at the Paschal Vigil
In full atonement of our guilt, / Careless of self, the Saviour trod— / E'en till His heart's best Blood was spilt— / The wine-press of the wrath of God.
the expanded gloss of Salvete Christi vulnera used in the Parishes of the Antiochian WR Vicariate as the hymn at Lauds for the Feast of the Most Precious Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ
Jesus, the new Adam, comes and takes responsibility for sin and suffers God’s wrath against sin so we don’t have to (Isaiah 53:3–8). By becoming the perfect and sinless scapegoat and sin offering, He takes away sin and the resultant sting of death, and prepares the way to paradise and the unending presence of the light and love of God for those who believe.
Fr. Steven Salaris, All Saints of North America Antiochian Orthodox Mission, article “Preaching Christ Crucified at Theophany” on antiochian.org http://ww1.antiochian.org/node/22521
When our Lord suffered and died for our sake, there were a number of things that happened in this great process. One of them was that He cancelled the debt, the cosmic debt, of that first sin…. There are a lot of different levels to our understanding of the atonement. Many different Church Fathers have talked about this theory or that theory. But if we wanted to single out one thing: that the cosmic debt had been repaid, and so humanity was able to return to God.
Fr. Andrew Smith, Holy Annunciation Orthodox Church, ROCOR, in Brisbane, Australia, sermon What the Cross Meant and How We Take Up Our Cross, posted on that parish's YouTube channel
As long as we hold on to the Cross, we'll also remember how terrible sin is -- how really awful our sins are: so awful, that the only way that we could be saved and redeemed was the death of the Son of God on that Cross.
Fr. Josiah Trenham, St. Andrew Antiochian Orthodox Church, sermon "Do Not Let Go of the Cross," Aug 1, 2012, on The Arena Podcast published by Ancient Faith and Patristic Nectar.
And the Cross also bears witness to the all-powerful and immeasurable love that God has for us -- for every single human being -- how unwilling He was to see us perish, how unwilling God was to see us get what we deserve for our sins. And Paul is very clear in the very text that I read from earlier: he says, The wages -- what we deserve, all of us -- of sin is death (Rom. 6:23). God was totally unwilling for us to pay that price, so He paid it on our behalf.
id., "The Precious Cross - Balm of Our Souls," The Arena
And there Jesus took on Him your suffering. He put on His back all of your misery, everything that makes you sad, every failure, every sin, everything that makes you despair of life. He put it on His shoulders. He did that for every person that had ever lived up to that day and ever would live after that day, every single human being -- all of their suffering, all of their sorrow, all of their misery, all of their sin. And it weighed Him down -- only the Son of God could have done this -- it weighed Him down so deeply that He said, My soul grieves deeply unto death (Matt. 26:38). He took it on Himself in order to take it away from us, in order to change everything for us. He bore our weaknesses, our suffering, our sins, so that we could have all of them redeemed.
id., "What You Mean to God," The Arena
He bore our shame, our sicknesses and illnesses, and even our own judgement on Himself.
id, Patristic Nectar YouTube short "Embracing our Shame"
Its [sic] a misnomer that Orthodoxy doesn’t accept substitutionary atonement.
Fr. Stephen DeYoung, comment on his blog post "4 Maccabees: Martyrdom and Reason" The Full Counsel of God, AncientFaith blogs
Slavery in the ancient world was a function of debt. Christ ransoms the lives of humanity from death. Death has a claim on every human being through sin, and so any given human person can only die for their own sins. Christ owed no such debt and so death had no such claim, so he was able to voluntarily lay down his life to destroy death and grant life to the world.
ibid.
When He was crucified, dead, buried, rising from the dead as we’ll see soon, ascending into heaven, He opens that gate of grace, which floods us with purity, pardon, mercy, lovingkindness, reconciliation; He makes us pleasing before God; He covers our sins; He expiates them; He makes propitiation; and He shows favor on us. All. About. Love.
Archimandrite Philip Hall, All Saints of Lincolnshire Antiochian Orthodox Church in Lincoln, England, sermon The High Priesthood of Christ, Apr 10, 2022, posted on his YouTube channel
The cross is not only a place of divine justice; it is also a place for love to the point of death.
Metropolitan SABA (Esber) of North America, Maxims on the Cross
However, it is helpful for us to remember that God’s justice (or righteousness) is indeed a biblical and patristic theme, and that the metaphor of justification (that is, our acquittal) stands alongside others for atonement, both in the Bible and in many ancient fathers. For example, we hear from the mouth of St. John Chrysostom [the following formatting is original], The sentence of the judge was going to be passed …. A letter from the King came down from heaven. Rather, the King himself came. Without examination, without exacting an account, he set all free from the chains of their sins. All, then, who run to Christ are saved by His grace and profit from His gift. But those who wish to be justified by the Law will also fall from grace…. And if any were to cast in prison a person who owed… and another were to come and… to pay down the [debt], and to lead the prisoner into the king’s courts, and to the throne of the highest power, and make him partaker of the highest honor…, the creditor would not be able to remember the [debt]; this is our situation. For Christ has paid down far more than we owe, indeed, like a drop compared with the limitless ocean.
Essential Orthodox Christian Beliefs: A Manual for Adult Instruction, published by the OCA in 2023 (the same book later quotes the above-listed Chrysostom quote on the Ascension, with its mention of the punishment aspect)