The Mystical Theology of Penal Substitutionary Atonement

It is vital to clarify the relationship between Orthodox mystical theology and Penal Substitutionary Atonement (PSA). The previous several studies of the Church Fathers, including liturgical hymnography, St. Cyril of Alexandria, St. John of Damascus, St. Symeon the New Theologian, and St. Gregory Palamas, and also later writers such as Patriarch Jeremiah II's response to the Lutherans (with reference to St. John Chrysostom's Commentary on 2 Corinthians), Peter Mogila, and St. Philaret of Moscow, have amply demonstrated, along with other Biblical and theological considerations, also here and here, that PSA is part of the Orthodox understanding of the Atonement. And yet it remains that PSA’s connection with the “inner logic” of Christ’s sacrifice, as it relates to Christian life and praxis, may still appear obscure. Thus this study hopes to shed light on this necessary aspect of PSA, not only distinguishing it from non-Orthodox presentations, but highlighting how the Orthodox Church in her fulness draws fully from the wells of Christ’s Atonement not only as a past fact but as a present reality. In order to show this, the mystical theology of Penal Substitutionary Atonement, we will look together at its relation to theosis, which is to say its bearing on the relation of Christ’s indwelling, transformative presence and work in hesychia and nepsis.

To begin, sin emerges from (agreement with) the passions. Passions have and are energy, and in the Church Fathers passions are often discussed in terms of interior motions or movements. The fact that passions and sins are energetic means that their effect translates into objective reality and so are not simply abstract descriptions. Although evil has no intrinsic or ontological self-existence, passions and sins enact evil in terms of human ontology, which means that man incarnates sin and so gives real energy to evil. This energy, as such, is real and so cannot simply be “ignored” or “forgotten.” It has its own momentum, an energy that gets transferred throughout all of creation. 

God created a real world, and the passions, as internally disordered real energy, thus occur in the real world. In this way they have real effects, for sins are not written, so to speak, on a chalkboard such that the Lord will just “erase” them on behalf of Christ. Only an excessively abstract, arbitrary, and deneutered view of God’s Law would produce such a view. But sin does not exist in the abstract. One does not simply forget or erase a tidal wave. The tidal wave of sin energy, which is to say the real consequences of the passions and sins of man, must be dealt with in a correspondingly real way, and this is precisely where Christ’s atoning work comes into play.

All the energy of man’s passions, all of sin’s consequences, came crashing down on Christ. Remember, passions have real force and effect. They are put in motion by man, and so produce real misery (i.e. curse) and death. The inertial consequence of sin is curse and death, and Christ allowed this tidal wave of real misery and death to crash upon Him. He willed it in agreement with the Father so that the energy of sin, i.e. its penalty, would not destroy man as it did in the prefigurative days of Noah. This is why “in Christ” you are forgiven, the debt paid, the energy of the passions neutralized, the consequence of sin removed, the curse undone, and the blessing restored, for He bore all this destructive energy in His Body on the Cross: “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree... By his wounds you have been healed” (1 Peter 2:24). The Father released the floodgates of divine justice upon Christ, in total agreement and unity with Him, so that man would not be destroyed by the energy man had unleashed through sin. In other words, when He went down into death, all the momentum of our sin, which He bore sinlessly, was neutralized and made to cease.

According to what might be termed the law of sowing and reaping (cf. Galatians 6:7), what man sowed in sin has a necessary consequence which Christ reaped on our behalf, for here also the saying holds true, “One sows and another reaps” (John 4:37). What fallen man sowed of sin unto death, Christ reaped unto righteousness and eternal life. And so without Penal Substitutionary Atonement the realism of the energy of man’s passions and sins are simply ignored. Christ, however, reaps the sin that man labored to sow, Christ takes it on, the totality of sin’s destructive energy, which is to say the Law’s penal consequence, in order to defeat sin and death on our behalf. Without this understanding, sin is reduced to a play of words when in reality it is the force of death: “The sting of death is sin, and the strength (δύναμις) of sin is the law” (1 Corinthians 15:56). This is why rejection of PSA typically entails a weak view of both the Law and sin, for they bear intrinsic witness to each other. 

To many, sin is just an abstract transaction that failed, an arbitrary justice that wasn't met, a nominalist description of what is not itself really that bad, and so in this view the truth regarding the intrinsic relationship between the energy of the passions and the consequence of sin, i.e. death, all according to the force of divine law, is ignored or treated as non-existent. What a travesty! God’s Law is not some abstract or nominalist code, and sin not merely a label randomly assigned to some actions and not to others. No, sin is an energy, a force that produces friction, i.e. suffering (curse), and death, and sin emerges from the agreement of the soul with the energy of the passions, the will’s alignment of the soul with evil, where the passions are rooted in the lies and deception sown into fallen human nature. The realism of sin and its consequences is uniquely retained in PSA, where the “penalty,” the just consequence, the seed sown, is reaped, borne, and suffered by Christ such that in Him the totality of man’s problem is met, and the complete solution delivered.

God doesn't merely forget sin, He forgives it. He doesn't forget and so forgive, He forgives and so forgets. The Father and the Son agreed that all the weight, energy, and force of man’s sin would crash on the Rock that is Christ, and so willed Christ to the Cross in order to funnel and meet it all there. This is the “bruising” of the Suffering Servant, the “crushing” He bore on our behalf. 

Surely He has borne our griefs And carried our sorrows; Yet we esteemed Him stricken, Smitten by God, and afflicted. 5 But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; The chastisement for our peace was upon Him, And by His stripes we are healed. 6 All we like sheep have gone astray; We have turned, every one, to his own way; And the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all. 7 He was oppressed and He was afflicted, Yet He opened not His mouth; He was led as a lamb to the slaughter, And as a sheep before its shearers is silent, So He opened not His mouth. ... 10 Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise Him; He has put Him to grief. When You 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. 11 He shall see the labor of His soul, and be satisfied. By His knowledge My righteous Servant shall justify many, For He shall bear their iniquities. (Isaiah 53:4-7, 10-11)

In other words, the tidal wave of sin-energy fell upon Him and crushed Him, and by being crushed on our behalf, suffering the punishment for our sin in our place, the tidal wave of sin-energy was dissipated and undone. It is forgiven in Christ because Christ met all its inertial consequences, demands, and ramifications, all of its, if you will, fluid dynamics (δύναμις). The totality of the Law's demands and consequences are totally met in Christ, and so in Christ sin is forgotten because it ceases to exist in Christ; it is destroyed, killed. This is why “in Christ” you are forgiven, for He destroyed death by death, which is to say the energy of sin meets Him and dies with Him. Once defeated, He rose from the dead, having exhausted all the inertial demands of sin, i.e. death. This reality is recapitulated in each Christian through Orthodox praxis, for in stillness and watchfulness the man of faith mystically encounters the need for, and the living power of, the Cross. 

The historical and the mystical or inward Cross are one Cross, one reality both historical and transcendental, and that Cross is both Christ’s death and our death, the surrendering of Himself and our self to the Father, and so His life-giving death is mystically the substance of our stillness. Stillness in this way expresses our co-crucifixion with Christ, for “we know that our old self was crucified with (συσταυρόω) him” (Romans 6:6). All the energy of our passions crash there on the Rock of His peace, are poured into that holy stillness, and His peace meets us and dissolves the energy of our passions there. This is the recapitulation of Penal Substitutionary Atonement in the heart of man: He takes our sin and gives us His peace. What He did historically He does also presently in a transcendental unity of history and eternity. 

Christ is our peace, the substance of our stillness, and so this is not a mere natural stillness that is being referred to. His death is our death, and so in Christ’s death, in the stillness which is the laying down of our self-life, all our passions are healed inasmuch as they are placed there on that Cross to die. It is here where the soul touches the Cross, in the depths of stillness, that peace of God which passes all understanding (νοῦς) and puts to naught the wisdom of the wise. It is here where one finds healing from the fever of the passions. The Cross of Christ and inner stillness thus form a mystical unity, and the death of sin in Christ is in this way recapitulated in man when he practices watchfulness and stillness according to the Orthodox phronema. 

In the state of peace all the energetic motions of passion are brought to a standstill, and in the space of peace they meet Christ, and so they are drawn out and neutralized in His light. This is the mystical or inner reality of Penal Substitutionary Atonement as it is received and recapitulated in the heart. The grace of God carries your sin and all the energy of the passions, and neutralizes them, giving peace where there was anger, love where there was separation, faith where there was fear, joy where there was sorrow. The stillness of Christ in you suffers all this on your behalf so that where there was death, now there is life, for the Spirit of Christ, being the sum and substance of all true stillness, is present in and as stillness.

To conclude, the inner logic of Penal Substitutionary Atonement, which is to say its mystical dimension, works in man to take the energy of passion into stillness, where it is neutralized and where new life is touched. Stillness mystically participates in the Cross of Christ, where the indwelling Spirit of Christ is the sum and substance of one's stillness. This peace which passes all understanding is the experiential dimension of Christ's atoning work being transcendentally applied in and to the soul, sanctifying and making it holy, unto theosis. Through the passions man is ensnared in the carnal mind, which is death (Romans 8:6), and since passions are internal energies, stillness is their functional death. This is how the peace of Christ is made to rule in the heart (Colossians 3:15), for the inner unity between Christ's vicarious atonement and one's present state in Him are made manifest as peace. As the penalty of all sin was placed on Christ and there healed, so in stillness all the energy of the passions are placed on Him (for you have been crucified with Christ; cf. Galatians 2:20) and so cancelled by that same peace of Christ. The historical peace of the Cross is felt as present peace in the heart.

-Fr. Joshua Schooping

Watchfulness and Stillness: The Orthodox Method of Deconstructing the False Self

Following upon the previous article discussing the Gospel and self-acceptance, perhaps the best way to answer the question regarding the manner in which the delusive false self develops might be by giving a few examples, although naturally they will have to be very simple and merely indicative. For instance, say someone as a young child was laughed at and teased a lot, and from those days “learned” either to fight back or to withdraw. This withdrawal, say, rooted in an anxiety about what others might think, say, or do, makes it seem easier and safer to stay away, and so one develops into an introvert. In this way fear of ridicule subtly influences very many decisions and becomes part of one's “personality.” On the other hand, say one “pushed back” against the teasing, and “learned” to use counter-aggression to deal with life, and as a result became extroverted, but also used laughing at others in order to feel “in control” of a situation. These, though very simplified, can point to the type of phenomenon of the projected self. Are they “really” introverts or “really” extroverts, or are these the inheritance of fallen Adam grown in the soil of our experiences and reactions to the fallen human world? Clearly they are not original to human nature as created by God, much less are they motives of the kingdom of God dwelling within the heart, for its motive is righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit.

Another example might be an emotionally intense parent whose reactions are frightening. As a child one “learned” that if one was hyper vigilant at being “perfect” that it would reduce the intensity of the parent's emotional responses, and so from then on the personality develops and is uncomfortable around others who have intense emotions, becomes introverted as a consequence, and is excessively fastidious and perfectionist, always fearing that someone will be excessively displeased with any imperfection. Or, on the other hand, perhaps the child learned to act humorously in order to “distract” or “make” the intense parent “happy.” Thus they become extroverted, and at emotionally difficult moments become humorous, avoiding serious encounters with levity, but always remaining at the surface levels. These are not “really” who they are, but how they've become as a fallen response to life.

Or, maybe they become a “spiritual” version of the above, subtly seeking to control situations by acting “peaceful” and “helpful.” Often these become pastors, chaplains, psychologists, doctors, nurses, etc., all the while thinking they are “only” helping, not realizing that the helpfulness and spirituality are a reactive mechanism trying to control situations and mitigate anxiety. Or maybe they use spirituality, peace, and helping in order to not care, because caring is too risky. For example, if they stopped helping and started listening they may not like what they hear, and so stay “helpful” in order to “keep busy.” Or maybe they were praised for being smart, told that's how to “succeed in the world,” and so use their intelligence for advancement, praise, and ambition, all the while chalking it up to natural intelligence, when really they have an unclean spirit of superiority. Or maybe they were called stupid, and so chose to refuse opportunities out of shame, and did poorly at school, ran with people of a similar profile, partied instead of studying because that stuff “doesn't matter anyway,” and took menial work out of a sense of never being “enough” for anything that might require more concentration.

Obviously examples could be multiplied, but hopefully it shows how a projected self can emerge and develop. But there is also a false wisdom that can come to play here. For example, maybe one is called weird, and so always feels out of place, and became introverted, made friends with people who have similar profiles, liked the same music, wore the same clothes, but one day they think they are just going to “accept” it, and start dying their hair, getting tattoos, and falling deeply into other behaviors in order to “embrace” their “weirdness,” their “uniqueness,” when really that uniqueness was just a reaction to environmental stressors that became embedded in the person's fallen responses to a fallen world, i.e. a projected personality. In an attempt to deal with guilt and shame they dig their heels deeper into the false projection, to no lasting or profundity of peace. They get “touchy” when this identity is challenged, and add new layers of false development to a false personality. Thus there is an acceptance of a false self, an acceptance that poses as wisdom, tolerance, or broad-mindedness, but really doesn't accept anything real, like piling up mounds of Fool’s Gold.

With that being said, it is important to understand not only how the false self develops, but also how it is to be deconstructed. The problem is that we are grading our own papers, using tests we've composed and grading scales we've subtly designed. The method includes that we have to learn how and why it is essential to quiet down enough to listen and to understand that God assigns our grade, our value, with the value of Christ. This understanding is key, but it is not just a matter of intellectual comprehension. We must quiet ourselves down and become increasingly aware in order to distinguish our self from all of its false constructs and subtle projections. This is the path of stillness and watchfulness, hesychia and nepsis. 

Stillness and watchfulness are not an enthusiastic piety or devotional aesthetic, they are a surgery. The stillness creates a space in which the movement of passions can be identified, and watchfulness is that which can distinguish what is other than the passions and projections. These two, stillness and watchfulness, are the medicine which draws out and dissolves all that is false in us. In the posture of faith we learn to rest, allowing Christ to tell us who we are in Him because we are in a space where the noise of the projections is turned down. While there is inner quiet, we don't attach to the quiet, we watch it, and naturally as passions and projections seek to activate, we are in a space which observes them in their clearly lifeless and mechanical operation. We learn to see that most thoughts are just automated noise. This insight allows a distinction between us and them, and reveals our identification with them such that their inherent futility is made obvious, and as such stillness and watchfulness act like a solvent which separates out and dissolves these passions and projections. Seeing the lie clearly initiates an automatic result of rejection and purgation of that lie. 

Passions and projections are rooted in lies, lies we learned and keep telling ourselves. With stillness we can notice the very moment at which we start to tell ourselves that lie, the moment it arises, and through this awareness we automatically initiate a process of separation from it and open a space in which the truth of Christ can touch us in a healing way. Therefore stillness and watchfulness are vital to the process of healing, but not only because peacefulness “feels good,” or because we are supposed to “accomplish something.” Stillness and watchfulness are the surgery room, so to speak, in which we identify and excise the false spiritual tumors of the passions and projections. Stillness and watchfulness are the presence and light of Christ which functions to cleanse us, and so this requires not dullness but awakeness to the moments at which the passions and false programs initiate, arise, and emerge so that we can disengage from them and their activity, their energy. The superior power of the Spirit is active in and as stillness, the peace which is the fruit, which is to say the presence and energy, of the Spirit, active in our spirit (nous).

Many think of stillness and watchfulness as an exercise in concentration or devotion. But they are the substance of and space in which an applied science of holiness or separation happens, which is also to say purgation or sanctification. Moreover, stillness is stillness of the passions, not inertia of mind. In stillness the mind is awake, alert, and sensitive. When you are both still and watchful, you will be able to notice what is not still, and the more still and watchful one is, the subtler and subtler the motions of the passions one will be able to sense and so draw into the light. The point therefore is not to reduce stillness and watchfulness into an exercise of concentration and calmness because the point is not simply to concentrate and be calm, but to attend to the depths of one’s being where the spirit of man and the Spirit of God commune. In this place all that we have within us that distracts, projects, and impassions is drawn into the light of that attentiveness so the lie can be dissolved in the light of Christ. Thus the lie that, say, we are never enough will assert itself in a space in which Christ can speak His acceptance to the soul. The energy of His grace meets the energy of the lie and unravels it layer by layer until all becomes light in the soul. Thus the attentive watchfulness, together with stillness, moves into deeper spaces of grace, deeper healing through deeper transformation by touching deeper lies and drawing them out into the light of a deeper Christ which is energizing the stillness and illuminating the watchfulness from within. Through perichoresis, or mutual indwelling, the light of Christ interpenetrates the light of the spirit or nous and so Christ in you, the hope of glory, is discovered to be doing the healing through His indwelling Spirit. Thus we find that the Spirit of God is the ground and substance of our stillness, the being in whom we live and move and have our being (Acts 17:27-28).

In stillness we already taste self-acceptance. The apophatic dimension of personal being is touched here. But it must be stressed that the positive content of Christian doctrine must come in to ensure that stillness doesn't get reframed by the ego in some other way, as in the different forms of monism. Thus the truth of the Word of God as taught in the Church becomes vitally necessary to sow truth into our system, a system which has been fed and raised on deception. Thus we utilize the positive content of orthodox doctrine to give positive shape to our soul. Since our life is hid with Christ in God, it is vital in these places of attentive stillness to recall or keep active the knowledge of God's grace and acceptance and valuation of us in Christ. Then when we return to the activities of life we will have deeply sown and watered seeds of who God says we are, not who we say we are. 

It is possible to tell oneself one deserves hell and so remain hopeless, but then try to be peaceful and “okay” with that, and in that way reject God’s giving us the value of His blood. The energy of joy contained in the Gospel is released when we set aside a hopeless peace and let God define us and define what He thinks we deserve. He thought we ought to have the value of His life, so when in stillness we can diminish the noise of the passions we can “hear” what God has been saying all along: “I love you.” In faith and trust we can accept this love, and anchored in this truth from God Himself we can have an internally objective place from which to war against our passions and projections, destroying their strongholds with the truth and love of God rooted in the experience of our souls. Thus acceptance moves from the hypothetical and intellectual level to the experiential heart level.

It is important to remember that the smallest taste, even the desire for stillness, is already the presence of God's wooing of the soul. It is not a God far away that we are trying to get to by being still enough, watchful enough, good enough, etc. God is already in you, and the edge of His presence and approach is experienced as the desire for Him. Your love of Him reflects the same light of His love for you; your want of Him His want of you. Faith is the action you take to draw closer to Him in stillness, and so stillness itself becomes an expression and posture of faith, faith that God is already there, in you, drawing you closer to Him in the depths of your heart where He dwells. In this way you are not “achieving” peace, but manifesting God's already present peace which was already there, and is already there, although it was until then dormant relative to your experience. And God’s peace is all-powerful, and in its light the passions bow their knee; they dissolve in the fire of His peace.

In this way of stillness and watchfulness you discover that you were already loved, always loved, by the God of all grace. The rejection of self was not something real, but was a web of lies, one that concealed God's already and ever present love for you, for while we were yet sinners He died for us, God for the ungodly, so that all His life and all His value could be yours without grudge. He gave and gives it freely and, when the lie is seen through, then the God who has always been there urging you on and calling you through His grace will be recognized in all His sufficiency and provision for your peace and acceptance. You are already accepted in the Beloved, and now it is time simply to taste it and recognize it, soak in it and live it out in your life. That freedom moreover releases all the necessary energy to overcome sin, where holiness appears beautiful. Thus one does not seek to become holy enough to get to God, but receives God and so becomes holy through the fire of His indwelling presence. It is worthwhile to reflect on the order of that operation. Faithful and watchful stillness is an icon of the Gospel, and an engine of sanctification.

Regarding the practical aspect, stillness and watchfulness are both the method and the expression of God’s presence and perfection, for “in returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and confidence shall be your strength” (Isaiah 30:15). These are the how-to. It is as simple as standing or sitting, and attentively connecting the Jesus Prayer with the gentle, natural breath (no need for deep breathing or breathing exercises). The challenge is to spend enough time for the passions to settle down and for the mind to penetrate through the dullness. As you breathe and pray, seek to make the prayer and the breath more gentle (gentleness is a fruit of the Spirit) and smooth, clear and light. The energy or force is applied not through passionate intensity but through calm, diligent perseverance and sensitivity to the prayer and the breath. These are the basics of the practice.

The prayer passes through the space of the mind, and so the prayer also serves as a feedback mechanism for one’s watchfulness. If the mind is jumpy, distracted, wandering, tumultuous, or peaceful, clear, and focused, the prayer will reflect this. Thus the prayer reflects and reveals the present state of the soul. Watchfulness is simply the noticing of this, plus the maintenance of the continued diligence to keep the mind attending to the prayer and the breath. Word and breath go together as Logos and Spirit go together, and as the Spirit bears witness to the Son, so the breath bears witness to the Son when the prayer is joined to the breath. The breath is an icon of the Spirit. Not only does God breathe in Adam's nostrils in order to make him a living being, but Job also says, “the spirit [or breath] of God is in my nostrils” (Job 27:3). The breath is the place where God’s Spirit and man’s spirit meet. It also continuously rehearses the Gospel, dying and rising, emptying and being filled, surrender and grace. Keeping, then, the breath unforced and gentle both symbolically and physically expresses God's presence, grace, and acceptance, and the surrender of self to God. It also creates a space in which tensions increasingly cannot hide and so must surrender in the face of His present peace. Forced breathing emerges from the ego and often conceals hidden tensions, and these hidden tensions conceal passions, and these passions conceal false projections. Letting go of egoic guidance of the breath, however, and presenting its unforced rhythm conscientiously and systematically to God establishes a synergy between His energy and the person's energy, and slowly disables the force of the false projections because they are given zero energy to feed on. In this way you, by the mercies of God, “present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service” (Romans 12:1). Natural, unfeigned breathing also aids watchfulness because the force of the passions distort the breath and make it uneven. Thus any irregularities that present themselves in unforced breathing thereby reveal latent passions to the light of awareness. This light functions to dissolve them. The holy Name of Jesus, then, focuses the mind and maintains its Godward posture and orientation while the breath threads grace in the unity of body, soul, and spirit. Undirected attention not oriented towards God is to be avoided; one must remain “towards Him.” Stillness is thus not merely about being still, but being still in God. We don't just rest, we rest “in Him.”

When insight dawns, it is like scales falling from the eyes, and one sees clearly, as it were, that one is accepted in the Beloved, that God is your loving, holy Father, your Father. You will, moreover, be enabled to truly “reckon yourself dead to sin” (Romans 6:11) because you will be able to see your energy, the energy of your person, as distinct from sin’s energy. A passion will knock on your door, and you will intuitively sense that you have no need to answer, and you will recall that you have been “crucified with Christ” (Galatians 2:20), that your life is not your own, but His, bought at a precious price, and so you are free to not respond to passions and sin, and to remain inert to sin’s draw and passion's allure. The passions that resisted and dulled your sensing of your acceptance in Christ will appear increasingly foreign, and so these passions will die of starvation, for passions feed on the attention they receive. The insight will dawn in a moment when grace appears, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free. Stillness will enter deeper spaces of real peace, and watchfulness will be fed by the Lord and wisdom will increasingly dawn in your heart. The only remaining question is to set aside the time to follow the path of stillness with watchfulness. Our life is essentially the time we have, and so investing our life means investing our time, and investing our time means investing our life. In this way the truth of who you are already in Christ, your real identity, will manifest in your experience, and you will feel His acceptance in your very bones, by God's grace.

-Fr. Joshua Schooping