Elder Ephraim: Like Anselm, we must not view the Lord through the prism of legal justice

WHAT manner of justice is that, to give eternal life to one that deserves eternal death?

Whence then, O good God, good both to the good and to the evil, whence is it that Thou savest the
 evil, if to save the evil is not just, and yet Thou doest nothing that is not just? Or is it because Thy goodness is incomprehensible that this lieth hid in that light unapproachable which is Thy dwelling-place?

Verily it is in the most deep and secret abyss of Thy goodness that there lieth hid the fountain, whence floweth the river of Thy mercy.

Anselm of Canterbury, “Proslogion”, Chapter IX, tr. Clement C. J. Webb (1903).

 

Elder Ephraim, Abbot of the Vatopaidi monastery on Mount Athos, greets a fellow monk.

WE must not view the Lord through the prism of legal justice. [...]

God will not inflict punishment. We must abandon the notion of a vindictive God. 

“God is love” (1 Jn 4:8). “Word became flesh” (Jn 1:14) so “that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil” (Heb 2:14).

The purpose and the cause of the divine incarnation, as well as Christ’s emptying Himself on the Cross, was to abolish death, corruption and the Devil, who is the father of deceit and of all sin. 

According to Anselm of Canterbury (1033-1109) Christ, through His sacrifice on the Cross, does not gratify divine justice but “saves the sheep that went astray” (Mt 18:11), reconciles man with God and grants him deification.

St John Chrysostom says that the Lord was never vindictive but it is us, humans, who are spiteful.

The Lord does not need anything. He does not offer salvation in order to gain something. He offers salvation because he loves man; and He loves him because He wants to. 

Elder Ephraim of the Vatopaidi, in Αρχιμ. Εφραίμ Βατοπαιδινού Καθηγουμένου Ι. Μ. Μ. Βατοπαιδίου, Αθωνικός Λόγος, Ιερά Μεγίστη Μονή Βατοπαιδίου, Άγιον Όρος 2010, translated here by Olga Konari Kokkinou. 

O THOU mercy of God, from how abundant a sweetness, from how sweet an abundance flowest thou forth unto us! O boundless goodness of God, how ought we sinners to be moved by love of Thee! 

For Thou savest the just, justice assenting; but deliverest the wicked, when justice condemns them; Thou savest the just by the help of their deserts; Thou deliverest the wicked against their deserts; Thou savest the just, acknowledging in them the good which Thou didst give them; Thou deliverest the wicked, pardoning the evil which Thou hatest. 

O immeasurable goodness, passing all understanding, let that mercy be shed upon me, which proceedeth from the great riches of that goodness!

Anselm of Canterbury, “Proslogion”, Chapter IX, tr. Clement C. J. Webb (1903).

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