Much of Western Christianity teaches that Christ died to satisfy divine wrath — that God required payment for sin before He could forgive. This legal view turns the Gospel into a courtroom drama. But the Orthodox understanding is simpler and deeper: Christ came not to change Gods attitude toward man, but to change mans condition. Sin brought death and corruption into human nature. We did not merely offend God; we sickened ourselves. Gods response was not vengeance but healing. The Son took on our mortality, entered death itself, and destroyed its power from within. Salvation is therefore not a transaction, but a cure — the restoration of life through union with the Living One. To see salvation as payment keeps the soul in fear and guilt. To see it as healing fills it with gratitude and hope. God does not need to be reconciled to us; we need to be restored to Him. His justice is not retribution but the setting right of what has been broken. This truth reshapes everything: repentance becomes medicine, not punishment; obedience becomes cooperation with healing, not submission to wrath. Christ did not die to satisfy anger, but to conquer decay — to make the dead live again.