The Wondrous Depictions of Redemption

The Wondrous Depictions of Redemption

Rev. Fr. Dr. Mathew Koshy

This reflection arose from an icon that drew my attention during a recent church consecration service—an icon from the Eastern Orthodox tradition depicting our foremother Eve.

Across many Christian traditions, Eve is often remembered almost exclusively as the symbol of disobedience and curse. In sermons and popular reflections, she is frequently portrayed as the singular cause of humanity’s fall, with suffering and death traced back to her action alone. Such a reading, while widespread, remains incomplete.

Orthodox theology invites us to revisit Eve with a deeper and more redemptive lens. While it does not deny the reality of the fall, it refuses to freeze Eve in her moment of failure. Instead, it views her within the wider horizon of God’s salvific economy. Through the incarnation, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, Eve is not merely forgiven but restored—her humanity healed, her story reopened to holiness and salvation. For this reason, Eve deserves renewed theological attention, not as a perpetual culprit, but as a redeemed human person whose destiny is inseparably bound to Christ.

Eve’s place is integral to God’s act of creation and remains equally significant in the incarnation of the Second Person of the Holy Trinity. Orthodox iconography makes this theology visible.

In the well-known icon of the Resurrection, the Risen Christ is shown grasping the hands of Adam and Eve, lifting them out of the bondage of death and Hades. Eve is not standing at a distance, nor is she excluded or shamed; she is drawn upward by Christ Himself. The icon proclaims that the fall is not the final word—redemption is.

This icon gave rise to two key reflections.

First, Christian theological anthropology affirms that the human person is created in the image and likeness of God. Though sin distorts this likeness, it never annihilates it. The possibility of return, healing, and restoration always remains. Humanity is never fully severed from divine grace. Even when one denies God, grace does not entirely withdraw; repentance remains possible. God’s grace continued to pursue Adam and Eve even after their expulsion from Eden, culminating in the incarnation of the Son of God, through whom they were granted re-entry into Paradise. Eve, therefore, stands not as proof of irreversible failure, but as testimony to God’s relentless mercy.

Second, Orthodox theology understands Adam and Eve as redeemed in Christ. Although they have not been formally canonized, the Church includes them within the communion of saints. During the preparatory service (Thooyobo) of the Holy Qurbana, the Church commemorates all the departed beginning with Adam—an implicit affirmation that redemption reaches back to the very roots of humanity. A Patristic insight captures this ethos powerfully: “If Christ died for you and for the other, how can you judge or blame the other?”

Yet, our language often betrays this theology. We continue to call the “thief on the right” a thief, Zacchaeus a “tax collector,” and Apostle Thomas “Doubting Thomas.” In doing so, we fix people permanently in their past failures, even when the Gospel itself proclaims their transformation.

Modern psychology offers a helpful parallel through the concept of projection. Traits and weaknesses we dislike in ourselves are often unconsciously projected onto others as a way of protecting our ego. The danger arises when this goes unrecognized, leading to self-righteousness without repentance and the unjust labeling of others. Society suffers when individuals who once erred are forever treated as offenders and made objects of ridicule.

Eve, in this light, becomes a mirror held up to us. Our reluctance to revisit her story through the lens of redemption may reveal our own discomfort with grace—especially grace that restores rather than condemns. Orthodox theology calls us to see Eve not as the embodiment of blame, but as a redeemed foremother who stands alongside Adam, lifted by Christ. To renew our view of Eve is, ultimately, to renew our understanding of salvation itself: not as exclusion and shame, but as restoration, healing, and hope for all humanity.