I have been attempting to present an Eastern Christian approach to the mind of Christ. In order to understand this, we must begin with the idea that there is an intimate connection between the truth of salvation and the truth of the Incarnation. This means that man’s salvation required the Savior, God’s divine and eternal Son, to become an integral human being. The reality of man’s salvation demanded the reality of the Incarnation. Each of the first seven ecumenical councils declared and defended some aspect of this principle.
This thesis regarding the integrity of the Incarnation, however, is not adequately expressed by saying that God’s Son assumed human nature. It must say, rather, that the Son assumed the full human condition; He entered into and experienced history, not in a general and abstract way, but by the organic insertion of His personal being into a determined time and specific circumstances. Otherwise it would not be the case that “in all things He had to be made like His brethren” (Hebrews 2:17).
As this quote suggests, some of our earliest formulations of this truth come from the Epistle to the Hebrews, a work of incalculable importance in the thinking of the ecumenical councils.
The author of Hebrews, by way of interpreting Psalm 8 (why not look it up), comments that God’s Son “does not assume the nature of angels, but he assumes the seed of Abraham” (2:16). This statement is a striking illustration of this thesis. The author of Hebrews does not say that God’s Son “assumes human nature.” He is said, rather, to assume the conditions of a specific line of history: Abraham’s seed. He did not simply become man; he, rather, became a covenanted descendant of Abraham.
By the Incarnation, God’s Word embraced humanity within a biological and historical framework at a specific point in a stream of revelation unique to the children of Abraham. The Son’s appearance in this world is set in the context of God’s continuing revelation to this particular people: “God, who at various times and in various ways formerly spoke to the fathers by the prophets, has in these final days spoken to us by a Son” (1:1)
Why is this so important? Because it is the context within which Jesus became a sacrifice – a sacrifice as was known in Judaism. The Eastern Church sees this as important and, therefore, has formulated her ideas about salvation in this context!