For Us and In Our Place: St. Cyril of Alexandria’s Doctrine of God’s Wrath and Penal Substitutionary Atonement

St. Cyril of Alexandria taught:

As our truly great and all-holy High Priest, Christ appeases the wrath of His Father by His prayers, sacrificing Himself for us. (Commentary on John, Vol 2, Book 11, Chapter 8, paragraph 688, pg 282)

Misunderstanding the Scriptures and the Church Fathers, many people draw faulty conclusions about who God is. Not knowing God’s holiness, they not only end up misunderstanding His nature, they end up misunderstanding His saving work on the Cross. This is why it is so important to take the trouble to understand what the Church has received and taught, because even today many people misunderstand and thereby misrepresent God. One ends up worshiping a caricature, if not a falsehood, and thereby denies the faith, if not explicitly, then implicitly. On the one hand, this makes it easier for error to spread, which attracts heretics and repels those who are seeking to find the truth of “the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints” (Jude 3). That is why it is vital to understand what the Fathers taught about God’s wrath, and about how Christ’s death appeases it. Many people are even ashamed of these doctrines, and so it is all the more important to have a right understanding, so as to strengthen the faithful and resist error. 

But what is the wrath of God? St. Cyril provides a definition, stating that “the torments of the ungodly” are called “the ‘wrath of God’” (Commentary on John, Vol. 1, Book 2, Ch. 4, paragraph 260, pg 116). In other words, “punishment is often called ‘wrath’ in the Holy Scriptures” (ibid). The wrath of God is the punishment with which sinners are met with by divine decree. It does not imply or conceptually allow for a passion to be ascribed to God, nor any kind of anthropomorphism. Now, since St. Cyril does not shy away from the doctrine of God’s wrath against sinners, neither should Orthodox Christians. In fact, we may not.

Denying the vicarious suffering of Christ on our behalf is canonically anathematized, as St. Cyril wrote in the relevant portion of his tenth anathema, of twelve, against Nestorianism:

Divine Scripture says, that Christ became High Priest and Apostle of our confession, and that he offered himself for us a sweet-smelling savour to God the Father. Whosoever shall say that... he offered himself in sacrifice for himself and not rather for us, whereas, being without sin, he had no need of offering or sacrifice: let him be anathema.

In other words, denying the substitutionary sacrifice of Christ is rejected heresy. It is amazing, then, to see the erroneous claim that Substitutionary Atonement is accused by some of Nestorianism! At the very heart of the heart of the Orthodox rejection of Nestorianism is the affirmation of Christ’s substitutionary sacrifice. Any claim of Nestorianism posed against the Orthodox teaching of Substitutionary Atonement is a misunderstanding of it, a strawman meant to cast aspersions on what is necessary to the Orthodox understanding of Christ’s work on the Cross. If bearing the wrath of God to atone for man makes for Nestorianism, then Cyril himself is a Nestorian! But, someone will cavil and say that proving the substitutionary atonement does not demonstrate that it was also forensic or penal in nature. The untenability of this position will be made more than abundantly clear by examining the thought of the composer of the anathema, St. Cyril.

Christ, in Cyril’s words quoted above, has not only appeased the wrath of God, having become a sacrifice for us, but furthermore, “Christ Himself comes to undergo in some way punishment for all… He was crucified in the place of all and for all” (Commentary on John, Vol. 1, Book 4, Ch. 2, paragraph 519, pg 231). That is clearly penal in so far as it is punishment that Christ endured, and it is clearly substitutionary because He died on behalf of and “in place of all.” It is also an atonement, and a legal atonement at that, because it lawfully reunites man to God, “for that which is brought to the divine altar was sanctified, or called holy, according to the law” (ibid, pg 232). In short, “we are justified, since Christ has paid our penalty” (Commentary on John, Vol. 2, Book 12, paragraph 85, pg 345).

Although the Atonement includes other necessary aspects, St. Cyril clearly understands the tenth anathema against Nestorianism to affirm a legal, penal, substitutionary atonement. He continues in his commentary on John, “Therefore, Christ has given his own body for the life of all, and through it he makes life to dwell in us again” (Commentary on John, Vol. 1, Book 4, Ch. 2, paragraph 520, pg 232). It must also be added that Christ’s death is propitiatory, and not only expiatory, in that it was precisely found to appease the wrath of God, as quoted above.

It is as if the Orthodox affirmation of the penal and substitutionary aspects of the atonement could not be any clearer. In light of the foregoing, reading the Divine Scriptures according to the Church Fathers necessitates that an Orthodox Christian affirm Penal Substitutionary Atonement. But, lest it seem like we have not provided enough by way of example, St. Cyril also writes of Christ:

He was flogged unjustly that he might deliver us from the blows we deserved. He was ridiculed and slapped so that... we might escape the sin of transgression that clings to us. If we think rightly, we will hold that all of Christ’s sufferings happened for us and in our place. (Commentary on John, Vol. 2, Book 12, paragraphs 60-61, pg 333)

According to St. Cyril, Christ’s suffering and death, if rightly understood, which is to say if understood in an orthodox manner, is precisely “for us and in our place.” It was to meet the very “blows we deserved” according to divine law, for Christ’s sufferings “have the power to destroy and ward off what happened to us for good reason because we fell away from God” (ibid). We justly deserved the punishments that Christ bore “for us and in our place.” At best, it would be heterodox to deny this, and at worst, and in reality it is, anathematized heresy to deny it. 

St. Cyril makes it clearer still:

All people on earth, since we have fallen into the nets of sin… have become subject to the accusations of the devil. We were all living a gloomy and miserable life. The inscription contained a “record that stood against us” - the curse that the divine law imposes on transgressors and the sentence that went forth against those who went astray from that ancient command. It is like Adam’s curse, which extended to the entire race in that everyone broke God’s decrees. God was not only angry with Adam when he fell, but he was also angry with those after him who dishonored the decree of the creator. The law’s condemnation of transgressors extended from one to all. We are therefore cursed and condemned by God’s decree due to the transgression of Adam and to the transgression of the law laid down after him. But the Savior wiped out the record against us, nailing the inscription to his cross, which clearly signifies his death on a tree, which he underwent for the life of those who were condemned. He paid our penalty for us. (Commentary on John, Vol. 2, Book 12, John 19:19, paragraph 84, pgs 344-45)

In the foregoing quotation, the legality of the Atonement is affirmed in that the devil is said to have accusations against us due to our sin. Calling to mind the image of legal accusations in a court of law, the atonement is therefore not restricted to being a matter only of dealing with man’s mortality; it is a matter of accusations made on the basis of the devil’s legal standing as an accuser (cf. Revelation 12:10). The curse man bore was rooted in a record that stood against us, a curse that has its ground in divine law, one that is imposed on transgressors of commands, transgressions that result in a sentence (cf. Colossians 2:13-15). All mankind is guilty of breaking the divine decree (cf. Psalm 14:3; Romans 3:19). God was thus angry with all mankind, for all broke the decree; the law therefore condemns all mankind, and so all men are cursed and condemned by the decree of God (cf. Romans 3:9). And yet, Christ wiped out the legal record against us, nailing it to the Cross on which He died, a death He underwent for the legally condemned, thus paying for us the penalty we owed (Isaiah 53:4-6; Colossians 2:14). In the words of St. Philaret of Moscow, “The Son of God took upon Himself the burden which crushed mankind” (Select Sermons, “On the Cross,” pg 55).

In St. Cyril's commentary on the preceding verses of John's Gospel, again he makes this understanding of the Atonement unambiguous. Although it is a longer comment, due to its clarity it is worth reproducing in full:

Bearing on his shoulders the wood on which he was about to be crucified, he went out, condemned already and suffering the sentence of death, even though he was innocent. And he did it for us. He took upon himself the punishment that the law justly assigns to sinners. He became "a curse for us," as it is written, "for cursed is everyone," it says, "who hangs on a tree" (Deuteronomy 21:23; Galatians 3:13). We are all cursed because we cannot fulfill the divine law. "We all sin much," and human nature is very prone to sin. Since the divine law said somewhere, "Cursed is everyone who does not continue in all things written in the book of the law, to do them" (Deuteronomy 27:26; Galatians 3:10), the curse applies to us and not to others. Those who are charged with the transgression of the law and who are very prone to stray from its decrees would be the ones who deserve punishment. So the one who knew no sin was cursed for us in order to rescue us from the ancient curse. God, who is over all, was sufficient to suffer this on behalf of all and to purchase redemption for all through the death of his own flesh.

Christ, then, does not bear a cross of his own deserving but one that we deserved and that hung over us as far as the condemnation of the law is concerned. Just as he died not for himself but for us, that he might become for us the author of eternal life, destroying in himself the power of death; so also he takes upon himself the cross that we deserved, condemning in himself the condemnation of the law, that all lawlessness may shut its mouth, as the psalmist says (Psalm 107:42), when he who has no sin is condemned for the sin of all. (Commentary on John, Vol. 2, Book 12, John 19:16-18, paragraphs 80-81, pgs 342-43)

Lest this seem like an anomaly in St. Cyril’s thinking, perhaps only restricted to his treatment of John's gospel, he teaches yet again, this time in his commentary on Luke:

When therefore He hung upon the precious cross, two thieves were hung with Him. And what follows from this? It was verily mockery as far as regards the object of the Jews; but the commemoration of prophecy: for it is written, that “He was also numbered with the transgressors.” For our sakes He became a curse, that is, accursed: for it is written again, that “Cursed is every one that hangs on a tree.” But this act of His did away with the curse that was upon us: for we with Him and because of Him are blessed. And knowing this, the blessed David says: “Blessed are we of the Lord, Who made heaven and earth:” for 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.” He too was sick because of our sins, and we are delivered from the sicknesses of the soul. (Commentary on Luke, Sermon 153 on Luke 23:32-43)

And yet more confirmation of the doctrine of PSA could be gathered from across St. Cyril's other works, for we find in his teaching that we, as man, "having drawn upon ourselves our Maker's just wrath" (Festal Letter 21, Section 2, pg 110) due to our sin, deserve a just punishment. Thus wounding man's very nature, "through sin human nature fell into a state of death" (Glaphyra on the Pentateuch, Vol. 1, Book 5: Genesis 30-35, pg 254). Human nature, now wounded, is also under a curse, and the curse therefore rendered all humans subject to punishment: "Human nature came under a curse and the race was subject to punishment" (Glaphyra on the Pentateuch, Vol. 2, Book 12: Numbers, pg 205). This is so for in Adam "the human race was immediately placed under a curse, and sentenced to death and corruption" (Glaphyra on the Pentateuch, Vol. 2, Book 12: Numbers, pg 192). It is thus that "death entered due to wrath" (Glaphyra on the Pentateuch, Vol. 2, Book 11: Leviticus, pg 128). But, "In Christ, however, the charges were taken up and removed... for in him we have been justified" (ibid). This is so because "the Only-Begotten Word of God became a man and endured being slain for all, freeing them from any penalty or punishment" (Glaphyra on the Pentateuch, Vol. 1, Book 2: Genesis 6-14, paragraph 60, pg 89). These types of statements could be multiplied greatly, but they suffice to show the consistency of his thought across the spectrum of his work.

A last portion of St. Cyril's work may be profitably included in the present study. In a letter written to emperor Theodosius, On Easter, reflecting on the sacrifice of Isaac by Abraham, St. Cyril states that just as Isaac was near death, a substitute was sacrificed in his place:

So also were we also rescued from our own death befitting and due by Christ taking it on himself. And he was slain for our sake; and he suffered because of our sins, as saith the prophet Isaiah. (On Easter, "Five Tomes Against Nestorius and Other Works," pg 247)

Remarkably, he does not stop there in his use of the Old Testament, and immediately speaks of Christ as the Scapegoat, "for in the legislation of God foreshewing the force of the mystery as it were in a parable and shadow" (ibid). In other words, this divinely required lawful sacrifice for sin points to Christ as its source. This image is drawn from Leviticus 16:7-10, when Aaron, as the High Priest:

shall take the two goats and present them before the LORD at the door of the tabernacle of meeting. Then Aaron shall cast lots for the two goats: one lot for the LORD and the other lot for the scapegoat. And Aaron shall bring the goat on which the LORD's lot fell, and offer it as a sin offering. But the goat on which the lot fell to be the scapegoat shall be presented alive before the LORD, to make atonement upon it, and to let it go as the scapegoat into the wilderness. ... Then he shall kill the goat of the sin offering, which is for the people, bring its blood inside the veil... and sprinkle it on the mercy seat and before the mercy seat. (Leviticus 16:7-10, 15)

Of this sacrifice Cyril states:

And the name of the one was Lord, but the other was Released. And then the lot having fallen into the priest's hands they slew the one of which the name was Lord, and released from the slaying the one released, that is the other which from being released from the slaying is named Released. But it was for a sign, as I have said, a pattern and type of the Lord's slaying which we affirm him to have suffered after the flesh, in order that we might be released and utterly quit of death and corruption. (On Easter, pg 247-48)

According to St. Cyril, then, Christ took all of the sin we had by nature and by action, and had the punishment we deserved for these laid on Him, all the while remaining sinless by nature, so that He could die in our place as our legal substitute, for "the sentence of death is passed upon Christ" (ibid, 248). To seek, then, on behalf of the holy fathers to deny the divinely legal or forensic aspect of Christ's sacrifice is increasingly misguided and senseless for, as shown here and also in previous studies, it was an essential aspect of the holy fathers' understanding of the divine economy: "For Christ having suffered death in the flesh for our sake, the uses of the legal cult and rite figuratively received their fulfillment" (ibid, 249-50). The entire legal aspect of the Old Testament sacrificial system was predicated on their fulfillment in Christ, in their ability to truthfully point to Him. Christ thus guarantees their forensic meaning, and so to deny the forensic aspect of Christ's atoning work is to deny the continuity between the Old and New Testaments and to diminish their divinely inspired meaning, because in the Cross "there was cancelled and removed for ever the light of legal precept" (ibid, pg 250). In other words, the divinely revealed and instituted legal precept was essential to the meaning of the Cross, and so central to it that the Cross was endured in our stead in order to do away with the Law's power to condemn. St. Cyril uses the Old Testament type of the Scapegoat in his comments on the above-quoted section of Leviticus in his Glaphyra on the Pentateuch:

You can now see how God commanded the sin offering to be sacrificed. A male goat served here as a figure of Christ, who, as I said, became sin for us. For he was counted among the lawless, was crucified with thieves, and was also called a curse. (Glaphyra on the Pentateuch, Vol. 2, Book 11: Leviticus, pg 136)

This is precisely a description of forensic imputation, the legal transfer of sin to the innocent victim, which results in a penal atonement. The following verses from Leviticus spell out more clearly the forensic nature of the imputation:

And when he has made an end of atoning for the Holy Place, the tabernacle of meeting, and the altar, he shall bring the live goat. Aaron shall lay both his hands on the head of the live goat, confess over it all the iniquities of the children of Israel, and all their transgressions, concerning all their sins, putting them on the head of the goat, and shall send it away into the wilderness by the hand of a suitable man. The goat shall bear on itself all their iniquities to an uninhabited land; and he shall release the goat in the wilderness. (Leviticus 16:20-22)

This clearly refers to the forensic imputation of sin, "putting them on the head of the goat," which is a type of Christ. St. Cyril comments again on this section of Scripture:

For according to the Mosaic law two goats were offered, differing in nothing from one another, but alike in size and appearance. Of these, one was called "the lord :" and the other, the "sent-away." And when the lot had been cast for that which was called "lord," it was sacrificed: while the other was sent away from the sacrifice: and therefore had the name of the "sent-away." And Who was signified by this? The Word, though He was God, was in our likeness, and took the form of us sinners, as for as the nature of the flesh was concerned. The goat, then, male or female, was sacrificed for sins. But the death was our desert, inasmuch as by sin we had fallen under the divine curse. But when the Savior of all Himself, so to speak, undertook the charge, He transferred to Himself what was our due, and laid down His life, that we might be sent away from death and destruction. (Commentary on the Gospel According to St. Luke, Sermon 53, on Luke 9:43-45)

Christ "transferred to Himself what was our due," which is to say the punishment for sin was expressly applied to Him so that we might be set free of guilt and punishment. Our sin, curse, and punishment were laid on Him. It is forensic and therefore by imputation because Christ remains essentially and necessarily holy according to His nature, as Cyril reaffirms:

Although in the divine economy he lowered himself in this way on our account, he was and is holy... with respect to his nature, since he himself is God. (ibid)

If Christ did not remain essentially holy, then it would have been impossible for Him to meet the demands of justice, which required a pure sacrifice according to the divinely legal logic of the sacrificial system, hence the need for the imputation of sin to be forensic rather than metaphysical in nature:

Christ, then, although he became sin, remained that which he was, that is to say, he continued to be holy as he was by nature God. (ibid)

The forensic aspect guarantees that Christ was able to bear God's wrath for man's sin without ceasing to be by nature holy. This preserves the unity of His Person in the fullness of His divine and human natures, and so makes salvation possible. In this way, without maintaining the forensic aspect in discussions of the Atonement, the meaning and force of the sacrifice of Christ is distorted and lost. Moreover, this also reveals what was implicit in the anathemas against Nestorius, specifically the tenth anathema which deals directly with the concept of Christ's offering of Himself in sacrifice. To make this point still more clear, in St. Cyril's letter received at the Council of Ephesus together with his anathemas, he stated that it was "on account of us he offered his body as a sweet smelling savour" which he then conceptually ties into the sacrificial system of sin offering (Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, Vol. 14, pg 204). It is "sin for which sacrifices are rightly offered" (ibid). He thus asks: "How then can there be further doubt that the true Lamb died for us and on our account?" (ibid) We might ask the same question today of those deny Christ's vicarious suffering of own sin in sacrifice of Himself on the Cross.

As shown throughout this study, St. Cyril sees the Biblical concept of sacrifice as necessarily including forensic imputation and penal substitution, and as certainly pointing to Christ in this regard. Since this understanding is part of the dogmatic teachings of the Ecumenical Councils, the binding implication is that it is anathema to deny Penal Substitutionary Atonement. It is a wonder why anyone would seek to evade what was obvious not only to St. Cyril, but to the entire body of the Council which affirmed, and of the subsequent councils which reaffirmed it, and therefore the mind of the Fathers and of the Church.

Not only the mind of the Fathers and of the Church, vicarious sacrifice and penal substitutionary atonement is also the mind of God as revealed in His own Word in the God-breathed Scriptures. St. Cyril teaches that the Law was instituted specifically to point to the Mystery of Christ and the nature of His sacrifice:

For God the Father was representing the sacrifices that were to be made for sins, in the Law as on a tablet, outlining yet the mystery of Christ. (Against Nestorius, Tome III, 123).

Thus the sacrifices divinely ordained by God established a, if not the, framework for understanding Christ's atoning work. Through these sacrifices the people of God were "set free from their guilt" (ibid), and so in a divine analogy Christ likewise set us free according to the same holy and inviolable principles on which the sacrifices themselves were established. Not only contradicting the mind of the Fathers, to deny Penal Substitutionary Atonement is to deny the God-breathed Scriptural logic of forensic, substitutionary, atoning sacrifice, and thus the denial functions as a type of movement against the God-breathed nature and authority of the Old Testament Scriptures and their capacity to reveal God's mind concerning the nature of Christ's atoning work:

For a shadow confessedly was the Law, yet hath it the outline (ὑποτύπωσιν) of the mystery Christ-ward and travails with the form of the Truth. (ibid, 122)

In light of the foregoing, the teaching of Penal Substitutionary Atonement has been shown to be integral to St. Cyril’s understanding of the Atonement, and by extension the Patristic heritage. Whether it be spoken of as a propitiatory sacrifice, vicarious suffering, penal substitution, ransom (since He ransomed Himself substitutionarily; cf. Commentary on John, Vol. 1, paragraph 518-19, pg 231), debt payment, or legal satisfaction, the truth is clear that PSA is inextricably linked up with Christ’s Atoning work. Any attempt at sidelining or suppressing this aspect of the Atonement must be considered as under the censure of anathema, by clear implication of St. Cyril's consistent thought on Christ's sacrifice, according to the Council of Ephesus’ acceptation of St. Cyril’s Twelve Anathemas against Nestorianism. An attack on God's word and the teaching of the Church, the seriousness of the denial of PSA cannot be underestimated.

In conclusion, although it is true that PSA does not say everything that is necessary about the Atonement, and we have not touched on St. Cyril's emphasis on participation, the doctrine of PSA cannot be denied without denying not only the God-breathed Scriptures and their unity, but also the binding theological canons of the Church. Those who seek to deny PSA either profoundly misunderstand the doctrine itself, or are seeking to uproot the unchanging and unchangeable teachings of the Scriptures and the Church Fathers. Either way, the doctrine must be affirmed, as has been consistently shown throughout this and previous studies. May St. Cyril’s prayers redound to the protection and furtherance of holy orthodoxy.

-Fr. Joshua Schooping

This study began here, and has extended through several other studies, most recently here.