Orthodox Apologetics

Atonement is therapeutic to the soul.

We see Atonement as genuine and effectual to us individually.
We don’t perceive that God looks at us, but only ‘sees’ Jesus righteousness, as if he was easy to deceive via a divine ‘peek-a-boo’ game.
We believe atonement heals us. Restores to wholeness the image of God in us.

The Barriers Between God and Man

The Orthodox Church sees three barriers between God and man.

Nature, Sin and Death

God is separated from man by His Divine Nature. We have limited mortal nature, and God is existence beyond existence.
By His Incarnation in the flesh, Christ united Divine nature to human nature, in his person. The glorified, resurrected flesh of the God-man Jesus Christ is ‘seated’ at the right hand of the Father to this moment! Christ united the Godhead to humanity in his flesh.
By the cross, Christ destroyed the power of sin – again, in his flesh!
By his Resurrection, Christ destroyed the power of death – again, in his flesh!
OT Sacrificial system: The life is in the blood. The big question about ‘the blood’ of sacrifice was this:

• Is it a propitiary sacrifice – designed to appease an angry deity?
• Or is it an expiatory sacrifice – designed to effect a change in those offering the sacrifice?

The Church’s answer has always been therapeutic – it is an expiatory sacrifice.
The sacrifices of the Old Testament were also expiatory. They were intended to effect a change in those offering the sacrifice. To help heal the interior person.
God himself in many places in Scripture proclaims that he desires no blood of bulls and goats. He neither wants nor needs sacrifices – we need them! For the sacrifice to be complete, especially the Paschal sacrifice, you –with the priest making the sacrifice -had to consume a portion of the sacrifice yourself or you were excluded from the covenant.