Thanks for bringing this important subject up for discussion. As a former Evangelical Protestant turned Eastern Orthodox over this very issue, I do not believe these are two aspects of a deeper mystery. I believe these are two profoundly different visions of the motivation of God in sending the Son to die in our place on the Cross.

One is completely *orthodox* in the classical Christian sense (i.e., compatible with the thought of the early Fathers of the Church and their understanding of the Apostolic teaching on this issue *as understood in their own context*), and thus also *Orthodox* (capital O). The other is actually blasphemous (from an Orthodox perspective) in how it distorts our understanding of God's motivation in the atonement.

Orthodox profoundly believe in the substitutionary atonement of Christ, but we do not believe in *penal* substitutionary atonement of the Reformers (though we agree that Christ shared, in solidarity with sinners, the natural consequences--"punishment" in this sense--of our sin. It's a fine distinction, but a critical one, IMHO.).

This Evangelical's understanding of substitutionary atonement and the nature of God’s justice IS compatible with the Eastern Orthodox understanding:

http://therebelgod.com/AtonementFathersEQ.pdf

But classic "Penal Substitution" (as depicted in this video and in a popular Evangelical work on the issue, Pierced for Our Transgressions) is actually antithetical to it in its understanding of why it is that Christ had to suffer for our sins.

"The other is actually blasphemous (from an Orthodox perspective) in how it distorts our understanding of God's motivation in the atonement."

Huh, and here I'm thinking both seem to work in accordance to the biblical standard...as I see it, I see nothing blasphemous at all with either set.

Why can't both be true?

Thanks for sharing that.

The Orthodox get a lot right. And I love their desire to NOT change...at all (maybe some change, though, would be a good thing).

They certainly understand the gospel.

I guess my only bone to pick with them is the spiritual ladder climbing project that they set people on. The emphasis on the self and what you should, ought, or must be DOING...seems to me, to errode the assurance in what the good Father has just demonstrated, using the chairs.

And much of Protestanism is engaged in much the same religious ladder climbing.

Not a lot of freedom or assurance in either camp, I would argue.

But it is fun to talk about.

_____________

PS- I love all the iconography and sensual affects of the Orthodox Church...although I do NOT believe there's any external power in those images, as the Orthodox believe. But they are good reminders and encouragers of the faith.

My 2 cents.

Thanks.

I am unclear on the purpose of the cross in the orthodox view in the presentation. Can someone clarify for me?
I did value the orthodox version of God's pursuit of sinful and broken man but I see the same teaching in Protestant theology. But the main difference I saw beside the purpose of Christ's death was how God turns his. Ack on sinful man instead of pursuing him. But Protestants teach the only way sinful man can ever find God and be restored back to Him is if God pursues and gives the sinful man the grace to turn and trust Him.

Any chance you'd read my Christianity Today's Kyria article - I'm attempting to be clever but still good theology?
http://www.kyria.com/topics/marriagefamily/marriage/healthhome/dontsettle.html

He seems more comfortable with the Protestant evangelical view of salvation, or at least articulates it more smoothly. I agree with it except for at the end. In the last chair scene he turns God's chair with it's back to man's chair which is facing God. It should be the other way around - God is facing the man but man has turned his back on God.

In the Orthodox view of salvation, while there is some good allusion to many encounters with Jesus (woman at the well; blind man; Tabitha, etc.) at the end of the presentation, he jumps whole hog into universalism; I mean if this isn't universalism then what is? The Orthodox view seems to ignore a whole bunch of scripture on eternal damnation. Or is there no lake of fire, no hell, no Gehenna, no Hades, no eternal torment? And if not, why are they mentioned in the Bible?

@Dodd, the purpose of the Cross from an Orthodox perspective is also to bring men back to God, and thus "satisfy" God (though “satisfy” is not, properly speaking, biblical terminology and, in Anselm's sense, is a Feudal concept and not a biblical one) and thus end God's "wrath." But the manner in which Orthodox understand this is, I believe, pretty much the reverse of the way popular presentations (and understandings) of Penal Substitution would have it. What satisfies God from an Orthodox perspective is what N.T. Wright describes as Christ’s success in "putting the world to rights," not Christ’s Victimhood in receiving God’s retributive punishment (i.e., the fulfillment of the OT Law in the sense of eye for eye, tooth for tooth, such that God’s cosmic “honor” is, it is alleged in this theory, properly preserved/demonstrated). This is a critical distinction from an Orthodox perspective. IOW, it is the successful healing of mankind's nature through God uniting Himself with it in the Person of Christ that fulfills God’s will and desire for human beings (His righteousness and justice), not the venting of God’s “wrath” (in the way popular Evangelicalism or Reformed Protestantism often seem to present this).

Orthodox understand the Cross as the ultimate proof and demonstration of God’s completely sacrificial, forgiving and all-victorious love that is necessary in a fallen world—not because God had to have an (alternate) Victim for His wrath, but because, in a fallen world, this is the only thing that could reveal and convince fallen and sin-blinded human beings of the quality, extent and the limitlessness of God’s love for us (i.e., ignite saving faith). This love alone is the grace that has the power in itself to transform us from the inside out into the image of Christ, which is God’s will (both from an Orthodox and a Protestant perspective). As the Nicene Creed puts it “Who for us and for our salvation came down from heaven and was incarnate . . .”

@ Dodd (cont.)
This capacity of the Cross to ignite saving faith is necessarily connected also to Christ’s glorious Resurrection, such that you will likely not find an Orthodox puzzling over the issue in confusion, as one of my Fundamentalist Baptist-raised friends did, as to why the bodily Resurrection of Jesus was necessary. From my Fundamentalist-raised friend’s perspective, since the Cross was what (from the Penal Substitution theory angle) seals the deal of the forgiveness of sins which from the Evangelical perspective *equals* “salvation,” and guarantees “heaven” for the “believer,” the bodily Resurrection of Jesus and its centrality in the Gospel narratives and Epistles seemed superfluous to her. (Please note, this was a college educated, Bible-study saturated person!) Whereas, the Orthodox wider understanding (or broader definition) of our “salvation” as being union with God—which includes both our forgiveness and our deification (transformation from the inside out into the likeness of Christ, such that even our bodies will be utterly transfigured from corruptible into incorruptible). Salvation as sanctification in Orthodoxy is not a quasi-optional (according to some Evangelical emphases) add-on, but the flip side of the “coin” of the spiritual reality the NT everywhere refers to as “salvation.” Orthodox understand “salvation” in this broader NT sense as a process, not a one-time event, as it applies to the personal appropriation of it in time. Likely theoretically most Evangelicals will recognize that “believing” in the true NT sense means something other than “holding the strong opinion,” but the fact is I have experienced, as such an Evangelical Protestant, that many times Protestant Evangelicals think, talk, and act, (because of a somewhat distorted and truncated understanding of “salvation,”) that “faith” means “holding a strong opinion” that propositional statements about God and Christ are factual, not that we are actively trusting Christ moment-by-moment as a living Person who both commands and empowers our obedience.

This is also why, despite all the work that Jesus did in the Incarnation, there is no forgiveness of sin for the one who is yet without genuine repentance. It is not that God does not actually in His heart forgive (i.e., fully love) each and every fallen human being even before any have repented; it is just that, as for the Protestants as for the Orthodox, repentance is what enables a human being to receive that forgiveness and love and actualize its power in their own life, in the same way that holding out your hands enables you to receive a material gift, or plugging a cord into the outlet enables the electric power to flow through to the appliance.

The first ("Protestant") view is described correctly, per Scripture. But the "Orthodox" view entirely omits the essential requirements of repentance and faith. God does not just say "I forgive you" to sinners who continue in perpetual rebellion against Him, or He would no longer be Just. His forgiveness is conditioned upon our "repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ" (Acts 20:21). God "commands all men everywhere to repent"; Jesus came to call sinners to repentance, and said those who don't repent will perish (Acts 17:30; Luke 5:32; 13:3).

The speaker is also incorrect in stating that because God is life He says, "All will be raised with Me." All are NOT raised with Christ to life. Rather, "some [are raised] to everlasting life, some to shame and everlasting contempt" (Dan. 12:2). The Bible says, "He who believes in the Son has everlasting life; and he who does not believe the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him" (John 3:36). All unbelievers will be thrown into the lake of fire, "which is the second death" (Rev. 21:8).

Elegance (and Elsie, this may help you, too), I understand the confusion between the Orthodox understanding of the afterlife and “universalism,” but they are not identical. Orthodoxy says that, in a particular sense, all humankind has been saved through the work of Christ in the Incarnation. This is demonstrated by the fact that rather than dying and ceasing to exist (which would have been the true natural consequence of the Curse, had it been allowed by God to continue indefinitely to its natural conclusion), all human beings continue to exist and will experience the resurrection of their mortal bodies—the reunion of soul with body. On the other hand, everyone’s experience of “salvation” in that sense will be conditioned by what their true heart response has been/will be to the Holy Spirit’s conviction and/or the message of the Gospel (which will have been reflected on some level--of which only God can really plumb the depths and measure since He alone truly sees the heart--in how they have actually lived their lives in this fallen world—Matt. 25). Since people truly have free will, and Jesus everywhere warns of the consequences of the abuse of this free will, we believe that “hell/damnation” are true possibilities. The “fires” of hell or ”wrath” of God are understood to be nothing more nor less than the full Reality of God’s Presence as experienced by the unrepentant. The Love, Light and Truth of God’s Presence that heals, fills and ignites the repentant heart with an answering love is the Love, Light and Truth that scourges and torments the unrepentant heart. In His Light, Love and Truth, all of us will necessarily also fully see ourselves and everything we have been and done truly, rather than “through a glass darkly” as now. Language of God’s wrath, fire of hell, etc., Orthodox understand as real, but in the same sense that Jesus' call to "hate" our mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers is real. IOW, God's "wrath" and the "chasm" between the repentant and unrepentant in the afterlife are not to be understood in an absolutely literalistic sense, but also as metaphors and analogies as far as the biblical language goes for what I have described. To understand these too literally as some Christians seem to do is, I would argue, to understand them anthropomorphically in a bad sense, and to distort the reality of what the Scripture is really teaching (and to distort our understanding of the absolute purity of the Self-giving love of the Godhead in His motivations toward all of His Creation).

I was excited for the potential of this video to enumerate the difference between Orthodox and Protestant ("Evangelical") views of salvation. Unfortunately, when we stand up and try to say anything clearly, it's incumbered by the greatness of God and our own sinful state. That said, I appreciated the attempt.

Like others, I would disagree that God turned His back on His Son, although I agree He laid on Him the sins of the world. God did not turn His back on Jesus which is the point of His resurrection from the dead. That when sin had it's "victory" God being Love overcame even death.

Like others, I also would disagree that in the Protestant view God turns His back on sinners. It's quite the other way around. We refuse God. He extends Himself, we refuse. And this leads us to realize that even in our acceptance of His forgiveness, our confession and repentance, our assured salvation--that He has been at work. God moved toward us first. Yet some will not have Him.

Lastly, I think it's disingenuous to personify the Orthodox view with all the examples and teachings from Jesus' life. We claim them too, and perhaps it's a right criticism that we don't celebrate or emulate them enough. That said, without forgiveness, without repentance, without Christ on the cross for our sins, we are hopeless before Him.

Great conversation, I only wish it were more accurate so I could share it with those who see no distinction at all.

Karen,

Can you clarify how Orthodox believers understand Jesus as "the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world?" Isn't the Lamb analogy very obviously substitutional?

The freedom from having to atone for one's own sin is very powerful. Thus to minimize the atoning nature of the crucifixion robs us of real grace. As much as I agree with the notion that the cross demonstrates God's solidarity with us, even in death, doesn't this version of Orthodox salvation leave out atonement altogether?

I'm not sure I see this theological distinction as the defining theology of Protestantism; is that rather the priesthood of all believers?

Steve Martin (love the name, btw!), what you are describing "the religious ladder climbing" and the "external power" of the holy Icons sounds like a projection of a view of such things that comes out of the debates between the Reformers and Tridentine Roman Catholicism, not what Orthodoxy really teaches in its own context. Can you help me understand what Orthodox sources have given you this impression?

Nate,

It sounds to me like you may be using "subtituional" as shorthand for the Reformers' theory of *Penal* Substition, and I have tried to explain (and also provided a link to suggest how the two are not identical and the same). Correct me if I'm misunderstanding you.

"Pascha," the Greek word for "Passover," is the Orthodox name for "Easter," the Feast of Christ's Resurrection, and is the greatest Feast of the Orthodox Christian faith. It is through this Event that we view all other aspects of God's saving acts in history recorded for us in both OT and NT. We recognize that Jesus Christ is the Eternal Reality of which the Jewish Passover was a type and a picture; He is the fulfillment and saving spiritual reality to which it points. Jesus, in His Incarnation, life, death, resurrection, ascension and second advent (the Orthodox view this as one interrelated whole as it pertains to the redemption of the Creation) is indeed our Passover Lamb, and "the One Who takes away the sins of the world," as John the Baptist proclaimed. We just don't think this removal of our sins in its ontological, existential, and essential reality merely as a legal transaction whereby God can overlook our sin (though we continue in it unchanged) because it has been *punished* by being "justly" vicariously visited upon Jesus as its innocent Victim. Rather, we believe the removal of our sins corresponds to the progressive existential reality of our cleansing and increasing freedom from sin that is the result of an active (living) faith in Christ and repentance, made possible, as I described in my comments to Dodd above, through the Cross (and all other aspects of Christ's saving work, but especially and in its depth, the Cross). We agree with Protestants that this active and saving faith is made possible only by and through God's grace and its ultimate demonstration in Jesus Christ.

Does this answer your question?

Nate, sorry, that first closing bracket should have followed the word "link" and not "same" in my comment to you above.

For further reading to help clarify the distinction between the *doctrine* of the Substitionary Atonement of Christ (that all Christians, Orthodox, Roman Catholic and Protestant believe) and the various *theories* by which this doctrine of the Atonement is explained, of which "Penal Substitution" is an example, I suggest you Google Dr. Robin Collins' online work called "Understanding Atonement."

Dr. Collins has an online version of this work that was never formally published and that contains a summary of the history of Atonement theory in the Church (the part of which occurring after the first Millennium A.D. in the West, beginning with Anselm's theory of "Satisfaction" did not occur in the Eastern Orthodox Church). It's long, but it is the best explanation of these distinctions that I am aware of. He also is trained in philosophical reasoning (which I am not) and helps make clear in that work why some of what modern Atonement theory in the West proposes actually opposes clear biblical teaching and our own God-given moral and ethical sensibilities. His explanations are very accessible to the lay person and made perfect sense to me based my own experience with Evangelical teaching emphases and especially in its use of extra-biblical illustration and analogies to explain these theories.

Bil comments: "Lastly, I think it's disingenuous to personify the Orthodox view with all the examples and teachings from Jesus' life. We claim them too, and perhaps it's a right criticism that we don't celebrate or emulate them enough."

Bil, my observation is that this little video demonstration in chairs is necessarily restricted to what Orthodox vs. what Evangelical Protestants *emphasize* as being the core of what constitutes our "salvation," and is the respective lens or context through which other aspects of Christ's acts and teachings in the Gospels tend to be viewed in each tradition. As Steve says somewhat apologetically at the end "It's not perfect" and this is necessarily "in a nutshell," i.e., leaving a lot out. It is necessarily a very broad brush approach, but still useful and instructive I think. There is certainly a lot of overlap as well between what pious and sincere Orthodox and Evangelicals (and Roman Catholics) believe as well.

With regard to the second part of your quote here, in addition to "celebrate" and "emulate," I might add the word "integrate" them properly with Evangelical Atonement theory. In my experience, the Orthodox understanding of the Atonement and our salvation in Christ and the Orthodox interpretation of the Scriptures form one whole integrated cohesive Truth. By comparison, the Evangelical view(s) seem a bit disjointed and sometimes internally inconsistent (though this varies with what stripe of Evangelical you talk to), and this becomes most apparent when they are asked to translate their understanding of the basic outline of the biblical teaching of our redemption using non-biblical, concrete modern analogies, such as using the classic Evangelical model, the "Four Spiritual Laws."

For instance, my daughter's Evangelical Sunday school curriculum had a couple of these extra-biblical analogies. Both of these are supposed to be illustrations of the Second Spiritual Law regarding the problem of sin and how it cuts us off from God:

In the first illustration, we see a group of eager and slightly worried looking people standing on the edge of a cliff facing a deep and uncrossable chasm that separates them from a cliff edge on the other side and toward which they are hopefully staring. The far cliff holds a sign with an arrow pointing in the opposite direction of the people and has the words, "God. Perfect." Here are some questions that this first illustration provokes for me:

Are we, as sinful people lost in our sin, really anxiously seeking God as the people on the cliff appear to be? Is God somewhere out of the picture and moving away from us? We are left to imagine, why? To make sure He keeps well clear of our sin? To a kid’s mind, is this the cosmic equivalent of God being disgusted by the possibility of getting cooties from us? From a more adult perspective, does He care more for His own righteous reputation and glory than about what is happening to us and our anxiety about getting across that chasm?

The second illustration under the same point is a story of "The Muddy Girl" who goes out plays in the mud and is stopped at the door by her father who forbids her to enter the house until he has first hosed off the mud.

Is our sin really like mud in this sense? Being “muddy” is a very benign condition—especially from a child’s perspective. And is God like a fastidious parent more concerned about the cleanliness of his house than what the "mud" is doing to his daughter or son?

With regard to both of these illustrations, which attempt to bring Evangelical teaching on the nature of God, sin, and our salvation to the level of the concrete for elementary children, it is a concern to me that when compared to the narratives of Scripture where our fall and our redemption are pictured for us in concrete ways (stories), what the curriculum illustrations suggest about the posture and attitude of sinful people and of God are diametrically opposed to those scriptural narratives. Consider when Adam and Eve sinned in the Garden, they went away and hid from God, while He came looking for them. (So much for people anxiously wanting to get back to God and God carefully hiding Himself to keep aloof from their sin!). The same is true of Jesus’ Parables of the Lost Sheep, Lost Coin, and the Lost Son (Prodigal Son). Top that off with the reality of the Gospel accounts of God entering our sin-sick world in the Person of His Son and being laid as a newborn, for want of a more appropriate place, in the feeding box of a dirty stable for animals, surrounded by mud, clay, straw, and the stink of animal urine and manure! That was only the beginning of the humiliations (and the “mud”) He endured for our sake.

Anyway, I hope that gives you a better idea of where some of the notions we are discussing come from. Perhaps others can think of other examples. (I'm a concrete thinker, so it is always helpful and instructive to me when things are brought down to this level.)

Karen-

I appreciate your additional insight. I agree with you that there are many very "bad" illustrations of our condition before a holy God, and the two you point out are great examples of that. In fact, I'll confess as to believing them without examination, and in a way this makes my point of this video...I was hoping for more. We have had some Eastern Orthodox teachings circulating in our local church which has spurred some good conversation, so when I saw this link I was excited for some clarity. Unfortunately it didn't bring much new to the table and muddied the water even as it claimed to help.

I think your point (and perhaps the intention of the original video) is that God moves first. But again, I think this is something many Protestants believe even if we do a poor job of remembering that in our cartoonized characterizations. I recently read a post by Pastor Justin Holcomb at Mars Hill that rightly challenges this prevailing slogan that we can "Love God and Love Others" without recognizing/believing/knowing that God first loved us. (http://marshill.com/2012/06/11/how-love-god-and-others-is-a-backward-gospel).

So since we have this common ground, what is the value of this video? To make it worse, Out of Ur posts it under the heading of Rob Bell's "Love Wins" theory of atonement (which I have not read, but heard plenty of the controversy).

In the comments that follow then we get into endless debates about modes of substitution, about how, why, when, and for whom the cross works, but isn't Jesus substitutionary death total regardless? Didn't it involve some penal implication? If not, why do we see Christ in the garden praying that it may be taken from Him? I think as my post my show, there has been little clarity brought to the issue, or perhaps I'm not seeing things rightly. Either way I supposed the conversation is good...I only wish it were better.

BTW, how would you redraw that first cartoon? I love the flaws you point out in its biblical accuracy...

Bil, I appreciate your desire for a more thorough investigation of the nuances of Atonement theories and such and the differences between Orthodoxy and Evangelicalism. There is much in common between the Christian traditions. On the other hand, the distortions I found in aspects of the Evangelical accounts of our salvation in Christ ultimately proved to be a hindrance to me in my approach to God and in my own sanctification, and it was not until I reached this impasse that I was willing or interested to look outside of the Protestant traditions with which I was familiar. To discuss all this in further depth is I think beyond the scope of a forum such as this. IMO, the best thing to do for a curious Evangelical would be to find a local Orthodox priest or friend and ask lots of questions. If you like to read, I can recommend a few books that I found helpful (and I can suggest you follow up on the link and Google search suggestion I made in previous comments). Those have been helpful to me, but I also have had 10+ years now of processing all of this in some depth and doing copious amounts of reading church history, the historical development of Christian doctrine, and learning to understand the theological vocabulary of the early Church Fathers in their own context, including reading tons of stuff online in order to sort it all through for myself. I'm particularly indebted to Fr. Stephen Freeman over at "Glory to God for all Things" blog site for so frequently putting into words the convictions I had been forming over the years that led me into the Orthodox faith and also for considerably deepening my understanding of those things.

As to your last question, I don't think I could redraw the illustration. Instead I would use Jesus' parables and the Biblical narratives themselves--particularly the Genesis 2-3 story. For children (I'm speaking from my own childhood experience), these communicate wonderfully all on their own.

Hi Karen,

Let me clarify: on a practical level: when I am aware of my own failings, the hurts I have caused others, I feel the need to make amends, to atone for those sins. "How can I make it up to you?" I ask. But there are many things I can not undo. That Jesus is saving the world means that I do not have to. This is what I mean by "substitutional." That we do not have save the world from our own sins, or the sins of others, but we are invited to participate in God's saving the world. I don't think this is incompatible with either the Evangelical or Orthodox understandings presented here.

But I still don't see how the "lamb" imagery is carried through Orthodox soteriology. Merely to say Jesus saves us at Easter just as the Lamb saved the Israelites at Passover misses the specific (and yes, gruesome) elements of sacrifice and blood. Surely we don't call Jesus God's passover lamb simply from the timing of his crucifixion. And the "lamb" imagery can't point to resurrection, but to death (by an innocent). So I see a problem in diluting the sharp focus of that analogy. The must be more than Resurrection = Easter = Passover = Lamb.

How does Jesus' death and resurrection save the world from sin? I suspect the answer is that Jesus as victor means that he has conquered the power of sin in every aspect, being obedient UNTO DEATH, and conquering even death itself, the ultimate punishment of sin. Is that it?

Thanks for the clarifications of your questions, Bil.

For your first and last paragraphs, I would simply say yes, I agree.

A few thoughts on the second: Orthodox and the early Fathers of the Church always look at the OT in the context of the fullness of the revelation of God in Christ, not the other way around, and I don't believe it can be overemphasized for the modern Protestant how critical this is to a proper understanding of what God was up to in the nation of Israel with its worship and sacrificial system in the OT. I do strongly suspect the typical conservative Protestant view of the OT sacrifices is distorted and conditioned by Penal Substitution theory, such that "sin/guilt offerings" are typically understood in a quasi-pagan way (i.e., the innocent substituted--unjustly if we are to use biblical laws regarding proper punishment of human beings as our measure for justice--for the guilty to "appease" an angry god and manipulate such a god into dispensing some blessing or benefit--this understanding is inherently and in essence pagan. At least, this is true to the extent that Protestants understand Christ's death as *changing* something about God in His attitude/actions toward sinners, rather than *demonstrating* something about God in His attitude/actions toward sinners (i.e., He will spare nothing, in His love, to rescue them) and *changing us* making it possible for us to be rescued from our bondage to sin and death. I also think it is impossible to appreciate how Jesus is our true Passover Lamb (which was also eaten) without an understanding of Orthodox Eucharistic theology, in which what is offered is the "unbloody sacrifice" of Christ (i.e., it is not a repeat of the historic crucifixion and death of Christ, but rather a real participation in time/space in that once-for-all Sacrifice, eternally present in the heavens) and that what we receive in the consecrated bread and wine are truly the Body and Blood of Christ (i.e., His Resurrected Self, His Life), without which our spiritual life cannot be nourished and sustained (see John 6:53-58, John 15:1-8, and Gal. 2:20). This act is symbolic of the whole of our life in Christ in which we offer ourselves (in prayer, in repentance from sin, in acts of self-giving love toward others, in almsgiving, in corporate worship, etc., even with all of our brokenness and imperfections) as an acceptable sacrifice to God and in which He in turn offers His sustaining Life to us nourishing our spiritual health toward wholeness, and increasingly as our capacity is enlarged takes up His residence within us.

Holy Week in the Orthodox Church is a walk through all the events of the last week of Christ's life, culminating, of course, with the celebration of the Resurrection. We spend considerable time meditating through the prayers, Scripture readings (OT and NT) and hymns of the Church on the meaning of the events, especially the Cross, in the services of this period. That would be the place to begin to try to understand the Orthodox perspective of Jesus as the (Passover) Lamb of God and how He takes away the sins of the world. You can find the Orthodox Scripture lectionary for the year here (plug in this year's dates for Orthodox Holy Week, it was one week after Western Easter, and you can read online):
http://oca.org/readings

I hope this is helpful!

Karen-

Just to clarify, the most recent posts are a conversation between you and Nate. Godspeed.

Bil, thanks for that clarification! Nate, sorry I missed *you* were the author of that last comment! (Oops!)

Just want to throw out to Karen a big thank you for explaining the Orthodox teaching...it's been fascinating reading, and big thank you to Bil and Nate as well.

Sheer, my pleasure!