Introduction: Refuting Chapter VIII of “Defending the Ancient Faith”
In his second epistle to Timothy, St. Paul issues a solemn warning regarding those who maintain “a form of godliness, but deny its power” (2 Timothy 3:5). The Apostle sharply contrasts the outward form (morphōsis) with the inherent power and working engine (dynamis). This perfectly describes a modern theological revisionism that reduces the multifaceted mystery of salvation merely to therapeutic healing and the physical conquering of death, entirely stripping away the objective mechanism that makes salvation possible.
Deacon Mihret Melaku’s explanation of salvation in Chapter VIII of Defending the Ancient Faith exemplifies this reductionist approach. Backed by his popularity in apologetics and endorsements from trusted Oriental Orthodox clergy, the book serves as a theological Trojan horse. It smuggles 20th-century revisionism into Orthodox communities by retaining pious vocabulary—such as “sacrifice,” “expiation,” and “healing”—while systematically dismantling the foundational power of the Gospel: Christ’s Godward, substitutionary sacrifice.
By unilaterally anathematizing a doctrine firmly rooted in Scripture and the Church Fathers, the author replaces apostolic soteriology with modern anti-Western polemics. To systematically deconstruct this, the core errors of Chapter VIII are addressed below in order of their theological severity.
1. The Ultimate Error: Denying a Godward Sacrifice
The most catastrophic error in Chapter VIII is the absolute rejection of the Godward direction of Christ’s sacrifice. The author claims that Old Testament sacrifices and Christ’s death carried no propitiatory or Godward value, asserting they were directed strictly toward ceremonial cleansing (expiation) or defeating demons.
This directly contradicts Scripture, which declares Christ “offered Himself without spot to God” (Hebrews 9:14). By stripping the altar of its divine recipient, the author hollows out the Cross. The Church Fathers are explicitly clear:
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St. Athanasius of Alexandria: “He surrendered His body to death instead of all, and offered it to the Father… when He offered His own temple and bodily instrument as a substitute for the life of all, He fulfilled in death all that was required.”
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St. Cyril of Alexandria: “The Father made Him a victim for the sins of the world… so also He paid the debt that was incurred for us, and we ourselves became righteousness in Him…”
2. Denying Vicarious Substitution and the Transfer of Sin
Building on his denial of a Godward offering, the author attacks the very mechanism of salvation, labeling penal substitution “completely ludicrous and downright heretical”. He insists Christ died merely “with us” rather than “instead of us”. He further asserts that divine forgiveness means a debt is “cancelled, not transferred,” explicitly denying that Christ took our legal guilt upon Himself. To support this, he offers a flawed analogy of a hero pushing a man off train tracks and constructs strawmen claiming substitution creates a Trinitarian rupture (the Father hating the Son) or forces Limited Atonement.
This represents a severe departure from the Patristic consensus and the ancient Coptic Liturgical Rite. The substitutionary exchange is the very engine of redemption:
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St. Alexander of Alexandria: Christ gave “life for life, blood for blood, body for body, death for death”.
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St. Cyril of Alexandria: “He transferred to Himself what was our due, and laid down His life, that we might be sent away from death and destruction.”
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Authentic Coptic Liturgy (Fraction to the Son): “We are the ones who sinned, and He is the One who suffered. We are the ones who were indebted to divine justice because of our sins, and He was the One who paid the debts on our behalf.”
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Coptic Liturgical Rite (Choice of the Lamb): “The priest places his hand on the sacrifice while praying… This declares that Jesus Christ… has carried our sins… signify the transfer of sin onto the sacrifice.”
The author attempts to disprove substitution by asking: if Christ substituted us, why do Christians still physically die?. This completely misunderstands the objective. Christ died as our substitute so we would not die condemned. Because He satisfied divine truth, physical death is transformed for the believer. As St. Athanasius writes: “Now, therefore, when we die we no longer do so as men condemned to death, but as those who are even now in process of rising we await the general resurrection of all…”
3. Stripping the Cross of God’s Wrath, Curse, and Punishment
To maintain his anti-juridical framework, the author systematically strips the Cross of its legal weight. He claims the “curse” Christ bore in Galatians 3:13 was merely the general condition of being incarnate in a corruptible world. He argues that in 2 Corinthians 5:21, Christ “became sin” merely by absorbing cosmic decay, entirely rejecting that Christ bore the legal status of a condemned sinner.
St. Paul, however, explicitly quotes Deuteronomy 21:23 to show the curse was the specific, penal execution on the tree. Christ submitted to an asymmetrical exchange, taking an unshared penal curse we deserved:
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St. John Chrysostom: “It was like an innocent man’s undertaking to die for another sentenced to death, and so rescuing him from punishment. For Christ took upon Him not the curse of transgression, but the other curse, in order to remove that of others… As then both he who hanged on a tree, and he who transgresses the Law, is cursed… Christ took upon Himself this other curse…”
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St. Ambrose of Milan: “Not so, but, since he assumed our sins, he is called sin. For the Lord is also called an accursed thing, not because the Lord was turned into an accursed thing but because he himself took on our curse.”
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St. Athanasius of Alexandria: “Thou hast made Thy wrath to rest upon me… He suffered for us, and bore in Himself the wrath that was the penalty of our transgression…”
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St. Cyril of Alexandria: “For, in His own Person, He bore the sentence righteously pronounced against sinners by the Law.”
4. The “Expiation Only” Fallacy and Misidentifying the Creditor
The author creates a false dichotomy between juridical justification and therapeutic healing, asserting that sacrificial blood acts merely as a spiritual disinfectant. He points to the Mercy Seat (hilasterion) as a place of ceremonial hygiene. To disprove substitution, he cites the poor man’s bloodless flour offering (Leviticus 5:11) and the release of the live goat and live bird in Levitical cleansing rituals. Finally, he misinterprets Colossians 2, claiming the “record of debt” was owed to demons rather than God.
This relies on shallow sophistry divorced from Patristic typology. Expiation (cleansing the conscience) occurs precisely because propitiation (satisfying the divine sentence of death) has taken place:
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The Flour Offering: St. Justin Martyr explicitly taught this was not an exception to substitution, but rather “a type of the bread of the Eucharist…”—Christ’s substitutionary Body.
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The Two Goats/Birds: These do not represent two separate realities. St. Cyril of Alexandria writes: “one goat suffered the slaughter, and the other lived and was released, to show Him living after suffering.” The live animal is released precisely because the first was slaughtered as a substitute in its place.
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The Mercy Seat (Hilasterion): St. Basil of Caesarea refutes the ceremonial hygiene theory: “…the Man God Jesus Christ, who alone is able to give ransom to God for all of us, because ‘God has set him forth as a propitiation by his blood through faith’…”
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The True Creditor: Satan never held our debt; his power relied on our uncancelled guilt before God. St. Irenaeus of Lyons writes: “For we were debtors to none other than Him whose commandment we had transgressed from the beginning.” When Christ paid this Godward debt, “the mouth of all lawlessness was stopped” (St. Cyril).
5. Distorting Hades, Ransom, and the “Christus Victor” Myth
Lastly, the author imports modern academic novelties to replace authentic theology. He isolates the 20th-century “Christus Victor” model (coined by Gustaf Aulén in 1931) as the exclusive ancient view. To support this, he promotes an unbiblical “return to sender” theory, claiming Christ acted as a waste vessel who carried sin down to Hades to hurl it back at the devil. Consequently, he asserts Christ descended to Hades exclusively to taunt fallen angels and Nephilim, rather than to save human souls.
The Church Fathers unanimously reject this distortion:
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St. Irenaeus of Lyons: “It was for this reason, too, that the Lord descended into the regions beneath the earth, preaching His advent there also, and declaring the remission of sins…”
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St. Clement of Alexandria: “Wherefore, that they might believe and be saved, the Lord preached to those in Hades.”
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St. Gregory of Nazianzus (Refuting Ransom to the Devil): “Now, since a ransom belongs only to him who holds in bondage, I ask, to whom was this offered… If to the Evil One, fie upon the outrage!”
Conclusion: Restoring Both the Form and the Power
Chapter VIII of Defending the Ancient Faith presents a tragic irony: while purporting to defend the “ancient faith,” it actually dismantles it. Deacon Mihret Melaku retains the pious morphōsis (form) of salvation—using the vocabulary of “healing,” “victory,” and “participation”—while systematically destroying the objective dynamis (power) of the Cross.
Authentic Orthodox soteriology does not force reductionist choices between Christ’s victory and His vicarious substitution, or between deification and propitiation. It holds fast to the therapeutic and victorious form of the faith, without ever denying the objective, substitutionary payment that powers that very victory.