The Victory of the Cross: Salvation in Eastern Orthodoxy

by James R. Payton Jr.

Publisher:

IVP Academic

, 2019

Overview

How can Christians claim that the death of Jesus Christ on the cross is a victory?

Yet the doctrine of salvation affirms precisely that: in his death and his resurrection, Christ is victorious over the power of sin and death. The expression of this eternal truth has taken different shapes throughout the church’s life and history. The Eastern Orthodox church has made its own contributions to the belief in salvation through Christ, but its expressions sometimes sound unfamiliar to Western branches of the church.

Here James Payton, a Western Christian with a sympathetic ear for Eastern Orthodoxy, explores the Orthodox doctrine of salvation. Payton helps Christians of all traditions listen to Orthodox brothers and sisters so that together we might rejoice, “Where, O death, is your victory?”

Key Features

• Explores the Orthodox doctrine of salvation
• Surveys the historic contribution of the Orthodox church
• Utilizes a variety of biblical, patristic, liturgical, and monastic texts

Contents

• Introduction
• Setting the Stage
• The Need for Salvation
• The Focus on the Savior
• The Economy of Salvation: How God Saved Humanity
• Deification: The Goal of Salvation
• Becoming like God: The Path of Salvation
• The Sign of the Cross

Top Highlights

“Chrysostom when he asserted, ‘If wickedness were in people by nature, then one would have the right to make excuses.… It is by free choice that we become either wicked or good.’⁷² Human beings cannot appeal to a supposed depravity of their nature, such that sin is virtually inevitable for them; rather, their human nature inclines them toward God. Thus, sin is always their choice and their responsibility, and so the guilt of their sin is always entirely theirs as well.” (Page 46)

“Orthodoxy does not limit its perspective on salvation just to humanity. While that focus on humanity will be our concern in this volume, it should be noted that a complete Orthodox perspective on salvation includes a robust sense of its impact for the entire creation.” (Page 5)

“St. Athanasius pointed out: ‘Humans are by nature mortal, since they are made out of what is not.’^{29” (Page 29)}

“Guilt? The Eastern church fathers regularly emphasize that a person can only be held guilty for the sin he or she commits; guilt cannot be inherited, even from our first parents. According to Orthodoxy, God does not hold the humanity that issued from Adam and Eve guilty of their sin. We did not participate in that sin ourselves. To be sure, we suffer its consequences, but that is not the same as being held personally guilty of their original sin.” (Page 40)

“Even so, in those treatments we can distinguish four distinct emphases: the incarnation, Christ as the last Adam, death on the cross, and the resurrection, each of which opens up its own vistas on salvation. These four emphases trace out the steps which the ‘Savior, who is Christ the Lord’ (Lk 2:11) took to accomplish salvation.” (Page 76)

Endorsements

James Payton is a theologian skilled in patristic and contemporary thought. He is also a careful and sympathetic reader in all things to do with Eastern Christianity, an area in which he has immersed himself in a deeply insightful manner. In this present study he has surveyed Orthodox thought on salvation in Christ, and the result is an elegant and masterful survey of a major theme at the very heart of the Christian message. His approachable style is unfailingly clear, and this important study will surely be a new standard on the reading lists.

—John A. McGuckin, Oxford University faculty of theology

Professor Payton belongs to a charmed circle of bridge builders working between the Orthodox and evangelical worlds today. This book brings together a wide range of topics related to the doctrine of salvation in the Eastern Church from creation to consummation and compares it with classical Protestant thought. The author’s dependence on original biblical, patristic, liturgical and monastic texts has produced a masterful synthesis of the Orthodox vision of salvation. Free of artificial contrasts between Eastern and Western theology that are too often made today, this book is carefully nuanced and critically reliable. Readers, both East and West, will find it to be an ideal textbook for theology classes as well as a handy resource for understanding selected topics in Eastern Orthodox doctrine.

—Bradley Nassif, professor of biblical and theological studies, North Park University

Product Details

• Title: The Victory of the Cross: Salvation in Eastern Orthodoxy
• Author: James R. Payton Jr.
• Publisher: IVP
• Publication Date: 2019
• Pages: 226
• Christian Group: Orthodox
• Resource Type: Monograph
• Topic: Soteriology

About James R. Payton Jr.

James R. Payton Jr. (PhD, University of Waterloo, Canada) is emeritus professor of history at Redeemer University College in Ancaster, Ontario, Canada. He is the author of Light from the Christian East: An Introduction to the Orthodox Tradition and Getting the Reformation Wrong: Correcting Some Misunderstandings, as well as the editor of A Patristic Treasury: Early Church Wisdom for Today.