Eastern Orthodox theologians contend that Western Christian doctrines of sin and salvation have been overly dominated by legal, juridical and forensic language and categories. By this they mean the West’s almost exclusive use of terms of divine law and justice to describe salvation; ideas that are perhaps taken from the context of Roman civil law. While we affirm the use of legal metaphors by Saint Paul, the eastern church fathers contend legal concepts should not dominate (as they have in the West), but should be balanced among the many other biblical metaphors used to describe the redemptive work of Christ. An example of how far removed the Christian East and West are in this area is the fact that the doctrine of justification by faith (how guilty people can stand before a just God or Judge), which is so prevalent in the West, is almost entirely absent in the East! Eastern theology does not focus so much on guilt, as on mortality (i.e. death!) as the main problem of humanity. We tend to see the work of Christ more in therapeutic, healing, renewal, or rescue terms than on exclusively or primarily juridical, legal, forensic terms.

Psalm 82:6 says, “I say, ‘You are gods’; you are all sons of the Most High’.” 2 Peter 1:4: “Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature and escape the corruption in the world caused by evil desires.” Saint Cyril of Alexandria commenting on this passage tells us that we are all called to participate in divinity, not just a few “saints”. Although Christ alone is God by nature, all people are called to become God – like, “to participate in the divine nature” (without of course becoming what God is by nature!). To “participate in the divine nature” is how Orthodox Christians understand the full meaning of salvation. Salvation is more than simply saying a “sinner’s prayer”, or belief in or adherence to a set of doctrinal or moral premises. A person becomes the perfect image of God by discovering his or her likeness to God, which is the perfection of the nature common to all human beings. As Metropolitan Kallistos Ware writes, salvation is understood as direct union with the living God, the total transformation of the human person by divine grace and glory – what the Greek fathers termed “deification” or “divinization”.