Christus Victor

Fundamental to the Christian faith is the idea that Jesus died for sins (1 Cor 15.3). But what does that mean?

We have looked at the Ransom, Substitution and Moral Influence models and finally we will present the Christus Victor Theory (CV).

CV (Christ victorious) states that Christ's death and resurrection victoriously overcame the hostile powers that held humanity in subjection. Those powers are understood as the devil, sin, the law, and death.

The name CV was coined by Gustaf Aulen in 1931. He argued that it was actually the oldest theory on the atonement, noting that almost every Church Father supported it including Irenaeus, Origen, and Augustine.

Aulen posited that theologians have misunderstood the view of the early Church Fathers, noting that they were less concerned with the actual payment of ransom to the devil (Ransom Theory), and more with the theme of our liberation from sin and death.

What CV does especially well is reject the legal nature of the other models, especially the Substitutionary model (PS) and the problems inherent with them. In PS God is seen (wrongly) as an angry judge and Jesus is our attorney who works out a deal to get us off the hook and out of hell.

All we have to do is believe that the legal transaction has occurred with Jesus as our substitute and we are freed. Because how we live is not key to the legal arrangement it is easy to separate one's belief from one's actions.

In CV, however, what Christ accomplishes for us cannot be divorced from what he then accomplishes in us, namely our participation in the way of life and his cosmic victory over all things that stop us from living as he desires us to live. 

Through Christ, God revealed himself (Rom 5.8, cf. Jn 14.7-10); he reconciled all things, including humans, to himself (2 Cor 5.18-19; Col 1.20-22), he forgave our sins (Ac 13.38; Eph 1.7); gave his Spirit to us allowing us to faithfully represent him (Rom 8.2-16 ); but he also was victorious over the hostile powers of evil, death, and destruction (Jn 12.31; 1 Jn 3.8; 1 Cor 15.25).

Of the four main views, CV is the most comprehensive and seems most able to incorporate all of the positive qualities of the other views, while maintaining Biblical as well as intellectual credibility.

Moral Improvement

Fundamental to the Christian faith is the idea that Jesus died for sins (1 Cor 15.3). But what does that mean?

We have looked at the Ransom and Substitution models and in this post we'll check out the Moral Influence Theory (MIT). 

The MIT suggests that the purpose of Jesus life, death, and resurrection was to bring about positive moral change. To change the world by spreading love from one person to the next (cf. Mt 28.19; Jn 15.13).

This view was held by almost all early church writers including Clement, Ignatius, Origen, Irenaeus, and Augustine. It was reformulated in the 12th century by Peter Abelard in reaction to Anselm's Substitution theory.

It is a "subjective" model where Christ changes humanity vs. an "objective" model, like Substitutionary Atonement, where God is changed by Christ. In the MIT, God does not require Christ's death to satisfy divine justice and so no change in God is effected by the cross.

Instead in the MIT, God is primarily concerned with whether a person's inner character is good or evil. We are to follow Christ's example of selfless love (cf. 1 Pt 2.21), even if as with him, it costs us our lives.

The MIT has many strong points, including its recognition of the numerous passages in the NT that speak of God's final judgment according to moral conduct, as well as those that speak of the life change Jesus came to motivate (cf 1 Cor 3, Mt 25). 

It has been critiqued for not taking sin or God's wrath seriously enough, as well as promoting salvation by works.

The majority of the critiques, though, come from a lens that has been clouded by the Substitution model, where the focus is primarily on Jesus' death. Instead, the MIT focuses on the whole story, including the movement that was birthed out of Jesus' life, death, and resurrection and its trans-formative impact on the world. 

As with all the models, the MIT should not be seen as the only way to view the Christ event, but rather another piece in the beautiful mosaic God created two-thousand years ago. 

Next Post in the Series: the Christus Victor Model

Penal Problems

For the last few days we have been discussing the models used to explain what Jesus did when he "died for sins" (1 Cor 15.3).

First and foremost, we must keep in mind that they are only "models." They seek to direct our attention to the mystery of what happened when God became flesh, died, and then rose again (Rom 11.33ff). 

When speaking about God, we (and the Bible as well) are limited by language. So we use parables, analogies, and metaphors, all in an attempt to paint a picture of what it looks like when the Infinite interacts with the finite.

The last post in the series introduced the Penal Substitution model (PS) and today we will look at it a little closer. As a review, this model essentially says: We deserve punishment for our sin and God punished Jesus instead of us. 

PS is a model we use to point us to the "fact" that our sins are forgiven, but does not explain the intricacies of "how" exactly they are forgiven. When we focus on the "how," all of the models run into problems, but especially PS. 

Take for example the problems that arise when we take passages that speak of Christ's work on our behalf, such as Rom 3.25, 1 Jn 2.2, 4.10, and misinterpret them. Those passages clearly state that Christ is an "atoning sacrifice" (Gk. hilasterion/hilasmos - mercy-seat/sin offering) for us.

But the question is: how did the sacrificial system work? Sacrifices in the Hebrew Scriptures did not "take the place" of the wrong-doer, rather they fulfilled cultic rituals as a part of the Covenant and paved the way for forgiveness. It has always been God's forgiveness, often without sacrifice, that restored people to him (cf. Jonah, Mic 6.6-8). 

But Jesus was a sacrifice and one picture we get of him is as the Passover Lamb (John 19). We might think that this picture suggests that Jesus died "in our place," but that's not the role of the lamb in the Passover story. 

There the lamb's blood was used as a sign to mark those who belonged to God and save them from God's wrath. So in the end we see that saying Jesus was a sacrifice for us does not necessarily mean God punished him "in our place."

With that said, there are places in the NT that do speak about Jesus dying "in our place" (Gk anti cf. Mt 20.28, Mk 10.45). But there are many others where language about Jesus dying "for us" does not mean "in our place." Those verses would be much better translated "for our benefit." We should let each passage speak for itself and not force them to say things they are not saying.

Finally, PS argues that Christ died so we don't have to. But what about the very prominent NT theme of participation in Christ's death (cf. Heb 13.11-16, Rom 6.1-4, Gal 2.20), where we put to death the "old way," the way of sin death, and disorder and are "raised" to new life (2 Cor 5.14ff)? In this way Jesus doesn't prevent our death, he actually brings it about.

There are many other critiques of this model, some valid, others not. In the end, PS captures the power behind a number of "pictures" in the NT about the Cross, but it is limited, and we need the other models in order to most fully grasp the beauty of the Christ event. 

Next post: The Moral Influence Theory

For more on this issue check out Packer's well argued view of PS. It covers pros an cons fairly but is limited by its inaccurate understanding of the Mosaic Law.

Substitute

Medal of Honor

Fundamental to the Christian faith is the idea that Jesus died for sins (1 Cor 15.3). But what does that mean? 

Yesterday we looked at the Classic (Ransom) theory, and today we'll tackle the Satisfaction (Substitution) model. This theory started around 1000ce with a monk named Anselm.

Anselm didn't like the Ransom view because it gave the Devil too much power. He had a hard time believing God could owe Satan anything and instead argued that it was we who owed God something: honor. 

Sin had robbed God of honor, but the problem was that humans were incapable of the obedience required to restore that honor, and so only a special being he calls the God-man (Jesus), could save the day. 

In Anselm's day, living rightly stored up honor, almost like a piggy bank. He saw Jesus' perfect life, culminating in his innocent death, as the ultimate piggy bank, able to pay the world's debt to God because of sin. Christ's piggy bank was then substituted on behalf of ours, making God a happy camper again.

But what if the problem wasn't God's lost honor? What if it was God's justice that sin called into question? This idea was developed by people like Thomas Aquinas and John Calvin, who felt that Christ's death did not repay God for lost honor, but rather paid the penalty of death that had been the consequence for sin all along (Gen 2.17, Rom 6.23). This view is known as the Penal-Substitution theory.

The Penal-Substitution theory argues that justice required God to punish humanity for sin, but God sent Jesus to bear the penalty. Jesus was even convicted as a criminal and sentenced to death, which made him the perfect substitute for us and satisfied God's wrath.

But even Aquinas and Calvin disagreed. Aquinas believed that Christ's death paid the penalty for all humanity, whereas Calvin felt it was limited only to those whom God had picked to be saved.

Next Post: Penal Problems

Ransom

Fundamental to the Christian faith is the idea that Jesus died for sins (1 Cor 15.3). But what does that mean? 

Christians have been debating the significance of the Christ event for 2000 years and over that period at least three major theories have surfaced: the Classic (Ransom), the Satisfaction (Substitution), and the Moral Influence (Idealistic).

Over the next few posts I want to look at these three views and ask what it might mean for us that the church has been wrestling with this for 2000 years and continues to do so.

First the Classic or Ransom theory. This theory is the earliest of all and uses passages like Mark 10.45, to argue that Christ was given as a ransom for humanity. The texts do not specify to whom the ransom was paid, although most early Christian writers argued it was to Satan.

According to this theory, Adam and Eve sold humanity to the Devil when they sinned and justice required a ransom be paid to the Devil for our release. God then tricked Satan into taking Christ as a ransom, and justice was satisfied. Poor Devil gets hosed though, because Jesus resurrects, leaving him to play all by himself. 

Before you write this this theory off as absurd, you must know that it was the dominant way of understanding Jesus' death for close to 1000 years, and is still held by some traditions today. 

One of the problems with it is the fact that nowhere does the Bible speak about the ransom being paid to Satan (or God for that matter), so any elaboration on those passages is destined to be conjecture.

It is interesting though, that the majority of Christians found it a valuable way to speak about Jesus for more than a millenia. It may not be how you understand things, but such an observation leads me to ask: I wonder which ideas I have about God will one day been seen as disconnected and inaccurate?

Next Post: The Satisfaction or Substitution Theory