Q155
What does the human race need to be saved or delivered from?
The human race is sick and enslaved by sin, which entered the world through the deceit of the serpent. Sin is a spiritual condition, the Orthodox tradition speaks of it as a disease as much as a crime, with catastrophic consequences, the last of which is death (cf. Rom 5:12; Jas 1:15; see Q168, Q043).
As the Apostle writes: “He likewise shared the same human nature, so that through death he might bring to nothing the one who had the power of death, the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery” (Heb 2:14–15; see Q047, Q168). Christ is thus at once Physician of the sick, Liberator of the enslaved, and Victor over death.
