[11] Christ undoes the wrong that Adam did and, because of his union with humanity, leads humankind on to eternal life (including moral perfection).
[Emphasis added]There follows two representative quotes from Irenaeus: [Christ] was in these last days, according to the time appointed by the Father, united to His own workmanship, inasmuch as He became a man liable to suffering ...
[18] This Eastern Orthodox theological development out of the recapitulation view of the atonement is called theosis ("deification").
A more contemporary, slightly differing expression of the recapitulation view can be seen in D. E. H. Whiteley's reading of Paul the Apostle's theology.
Whiteley favourably quotes[19] Irenaeus' notion that Christ 'became what we are, that He might bring us to be even what He is Himself',[17] although he never describes Paul's view of the atonement as a recapitulation; rather, he uses the word 'participation': ...if St. Paul can be said to hold a theory of the modus operandi [of the atonement], it is best described as one of salvation through participation: Christ shared all our experience, sin alone excepted, including death, in order that we, by virtue of our solidarity with him, might share his life.