Atonement theories

Review: Mapping Atonement

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Mapping Atonement: The Doctrine of Reconciliation in Christian History and Theology, William G. Witt and Joel Scandrett. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2022.

Summary: A historical survey of the different models or metaphors for atonement, for what Jesus accomplished in his life, death, and resurrection, looking at leading proponents of those views.

How should we understand what Christ has done through his life, death, and resurrection? The purpose of this volume is to study the multiple ways the church’s theologians have answered this question throughout church history up to the present. The term used for this is “atonement” which the authors differentiate from the overlapping categories of Christology, who Jesus is, and soteriology, how Jesus saves us. They elaborate the domain of atonement as follows:

“The doctrine of the atonement focuses on the ‘work’ of Christ: what Jesus does. Atonement deals with Jesus’s incarnate mission and earthly life, his crucifixion, resurrection, ascension to and session (seating) at the right hand of God, his second coming, and how all of this accomplishes the reconciliation of sinful human beings to God” (p. 4).

The authors make several important observations that frame their discussion. One is that there is no ecumenical consensus on how atonement is accomplished. Second is that the language is varied, metaphorical, and symbolic and there is danger of imposing the logic of metaphor onto the biblical text rather than working from the text’s account of the life of Jesus. This figures greatly in the subsequent discussions. Finally, they note a contemporary debate between constitutive and illustrative understandings of atonement, with the latter more characteristic of modern theology.

The plan of the book is a survey of models under three types:

Type 1: Models that are incarnational and ontological, that emphasize our participation in union with Christ. These include:

  • Incarnational/recapitulation models that focus on the assumption of human nature by God in Christ in which he fulfills (recapitulates) the human telos without sinning. This includes Irenaeus, Athansius and Cyril among the fathers, and Richard Hooker and Lancelot Andrews as well as Thomas Torrance and Hans Urs von Balthasar.
  • The Christus Victor model emphasizing the defeat of sin, death, and Satan through Jesus life, death, resurrection and ascension. Gustav Aulen is the leading proponent of this view, but aspects of this are found in Irenaeus, Origen, Gregory of Nyssa, Gregory the Great, and Rufinus as well as Luther and moderns J. Denny Weaver and Gregory Boyd.

Type 2: These models focus particularly on the death of Jesus and questions of forgiveness of sin, judgment, and guilt. The models are substitutionary and forensic in character.

  • Satisfaction models such as Anselm’s satisfaction of God’s honor/justice through the death of Christ as well as Aquinas in differing ways and contemporaries Walter Kasper and Wolfhart Pannenberg.
  • Substitution models focusing on Jesus’s death for sinners. John Calvin is the primary Reformed model with Luther’s “great exchange” also noted. Charles Hodge represents the development of the idea of penal substitution, which I thought the authors dealt with in a balanced fashion uncharacteristic of today’s dismissive approach to the language of penal substitution. Karl Barth’s “The Judge Judged in our place” approach is also considered.

Type 3: Exemplarist and moral models in which Christ is the example or representative of God’s salvation. These are subjective and illustrative approaches.

  • The moral influence approach. This sees the atonement as the revelation of God’s love eliciting and empowering our love for God. Peter Abelard is the classic figure considered but modern figures who focus on the atonement as revealing God’s love in Christ include John and Charles Wesley, George MacDonald, C.S. Lewis, and Karl Rahner.
  • The moral example approach. This tends to be the approach of the liberal protestantism of Schleiermacher, Bushnell, von Harnack, and Hastings Rashdall, upon whom the authors focus. John Hick, takes this to an extreme in his pluralistic theology.

Chapters offer an in-depth exploration of the thought of chief proponents and critical assessment. As evident even in the above listing, many proponents of a model also incorporate other models and metaphors into their thought. There is an implicit recognition that no one model is adequate to elaborate what Christ has done. They also focus on the idea that in atonement, it was not God who needed to be reconciled to us, but we to God.

The authors conclude with a consideration of the thought of Thomas Torrance, who observes three terms for redemption in the OId Testament: padah, kipper, and goel. Padah focuses on the nature of the redeeming act (for example, redemption from slavery), kipper on the act of redemption (for example, the blotting out of sin), and goel on the person of the redeemer (for example, Boaz in the book of Ruth). This is seen in Jesus in the offices of prophet, priest, and king. Torrance thus moves away from a forensic focus to a more patristic incarnational understanding that sees propitiation as participation in Christ.

The authors treatment avoids caricature of any view, which I’ve often seen in more polemical works advocating for one of the views. They help the reader understand the historical developments contributing to each view, the dangers of pressing any metaphor too far or in an all-inclusive fashion, and the richness of the church’s testimony, while recognizing shortcomings in each view, or particular formulations of those views. This is a valuable resource both for those sorting out the “atonement debates” and for enriching theological reflection on what Christ has done.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher.

Review: The Back Side of the Cross

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The Back Side of the Cross, Diane Leclerc and Brent Peterson, foreword by Lynn Bohecker. Eugene: Cascade Books, 2022.

Summary: A look at the models of the atonement from the back side of the cross, where those abused and abandoned are found, exploring how Jesus died not only for sinners but the sinned against.

Often the atoning work of Jesus on the cross is framed in terms of Jesus death for sinners. Sometimes, this only adds to the burdens of the abused and abandoned, who believe that God is joining the chorus of those heaping blame and shame upon them. The authors of this work consider such people as living on the back side of the cross and what they seek to do is to re-frame the doctrine of the atonement in ways that offer hope and healing for the abused. They do so without tossing out the different models of the atonement but considering ways. Substitutionary atonement means a substitute victim, one who endured abuse and abandonment, violence and scapegoating, nakedness and shame. The cross reveals God’s justice toward those who oppress. Christus Victor offers the hope of justice.

The cross speaks powerfully to abandonment, how the Godhead experiences both abandoning and abandonment. The nakedness and shaming of Jesus (in reality, there were no loinclothes on the crucified), offers hope that God in Christ has entered into these dimensions of the abused. And the resurrection offers the hope of reviving grace, adoption as the beloved of God, the mending of wounds.

One of the chapters that may be challenging is the idea of forgiving God. The abuser struggles with the question of “where was God when they were being abused?” They cried out, and God didn’t save them from their abuser. The back side of the cross becomes the place where God’s “guilt” is addressed and also taken on God’s self in Christ. It allows the possibility of forgiving God.

While we are speaking of forgiveness, the authors discuss the pressure the abused often face to forgive their abuser. They argue there is no true forgiveness without repentance and confession on the abuser’s part. Also, while scripture teaches forgiveness, the authors speak of the long road to forgiveness, one involving their own healing in Christ, and growing in their assurance of the love of Christ. Hasty forgiveness often fails to get at the root of the abuse or wrong and actually further victimizes the victims of abuse, something the church has often done. This chapter may well be one of the most important in the book.

The book concludes with three chapters of pastoral resources. One is the importance of the church in advocating for children and implementing practices that protect children. The second explores the practice of lament, rare in many of our churches and so important in the healing of the abused and abandoned. The third chapter offers liturgical resources including ways the eucharist can signal Christ’s welcome and healing for the abused and abandoned.

This book is valuable in two ways. Unlike some who worked with the abused, this is not a cry to abandon the atonement, labeling it as divine child abuse, but to recognize the ways in which the Triune God has entered into the messiness of abuse and abandonment and the place of the victim at the back side of the cross. It is also a wise book of pastoral counsel in the important work of offering hope and healing for the abused, which begins by allowing them to express the raw feelings, the anger toward God, the sense of betrayal and broken trust. This is substantive theologizing and counsel rather than superficial sugarcoating, that faces the hard theological questions of abuse.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher through Speakeasy.

Review: Defending Substitution

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Defending SubstitutionDefending Substitution: An Essay on Atonement in Paul, Simon Gathercole. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2015.

Summary: Gathercole defends the oft-maligned doctrine of substitutionary atonement, responding to the criticisms and challenges raised and demonstrating from key biblical texts that it can be argued from scripture that “Christ died in our place.”

The idea of “substitution”, that Christ died in our place, for our sins has come in for criticism from many quarters. Some claim this amounts to “divine child abuse.” Others argue that substitution has not necessarily been the church’s understanding of how Christ’s death on the cross atoned for human sinfulness. In this brief “essay”, Simon Gathercole engages this criticism and gives a modest but important argument for the biblical foundations of the idea of substitution.

First of all he contends that substitution is important both for our theological grasp of the gospel, the message of Christ and also pastorally vital in providing Christians assurance of their pardon before and acceptance by God. He defines substitution as “Christ’s death in our place, instead of us.” and sets this apart from other views such as representation and satisfaction. He also defends this idea against various criticisms, particularly that this is immoral by arguing that this was fully an act of Jesus own will, out of love for us, and not forced upon him.

Then he engages three exegetical challenges to substitution. The first is that of Harmut Gese proposing the atonement occurring through “representative place taking.” The second is Morna Hooker’s idea of “interchange” in which Christ becomes what we are so that we become what he is. The third is J. Louis Martyn’s idea of apocalyptic deliverance from Sin. In addressing this latter, he also provides textual evidence that Christ died not only for Sin but for the sins of people. In engaging each of these theories he shows what is of value in our understanding of the work of Christ, what is problematic or actually suggestive of substitution, and at the same time approaches these in such a way that substitution need not exclude other insights into the nature of Christ’s death.

The latter part of the book is concerned with careful exegesis of two key texts, I Corinthians 15:3, and Romans 5:6-8. In the first, he argues for the substitutionary understanding of the idea that Christ died for us, and makes a compelling case that the scriptures according to which this is so include Isaiah 53, where the idea of the servant’s death for Israel is, on the basis of his word study, very clear. In his study of Romans 5:6-8, he takes a very different approach in arguing that the idea of one who would scarcely die for a good man has parallels in the literature of Paul’s day. He appeals to the tale of Alcestis, and also to Philonides, Epictetus, and Seneca for proposing similar “substitutionary” ideas.

In between these two chapters, he includes an excursus on the question of why, if Christ’s death is indeed substitutionary, do Christians still die. His argument considers various senses of “death” and argues that while we die, we do not perish. 

In concluding, he argues for the continuing importance of substitution and that this idea, along with representation, and liberation might be understood as part of Paul’s thought. Perhaps the most winsome aspect of the “defense” he makes is that it is an argument for the “inclusion” of substitution rather than for the “exclusion” of other ideas.

This is a short book, only 128 pages with bibliography and indices. The reason for this is that it is more or less a transcript of Gathercole’s Hayward Lectures at Arcadia University. This concise and readable account, while not covering with the depth some might want all the texts and theories of the atonement, serves as a theological resource for adult education in a variety of contexts, both lay and seminary, around this important Christian doctrine. Above all, it graciously argues why substitution matters, how it may be defended, and pastorally, how important these truths are to proper Christian confidence.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 : “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”