Atonement: Confidence

There have been several theories of atonement that have been developed in the long history of Christianity. And what is the Bible? It is a collection of stories over several thousand years in the Middle East, which was at the intersection of the major world cultures during those years.

The Bible provides a variety of perspectives and contexts in which God has played a role in human history. We could say that the truth of God that is presented in the Bible is complicated, but not contradictory. It provides a multifaceted yet unified picture of God. God Himself is consistent, but the situations and contexts in which He operates are different and require different opportunities and problems that He deals with. As the theologian John Frame says: God’s truth is multi-perspectival. It can and must be seen from a variety of perspectives in order to be fully understood.

So today we will examine the atonement theory known as Christus Victor, or Christ The Victor or Winner. It was developed in 1931 by Gustaf Aulen, but it originated in the early church, prior to Anslem’s Satisfaction Theory (early 1100s) and the Penal Substitution theory developed by the Reformers in the 1600s. Aulen argued that the Christus Victor theory was closer to the the truth because it was developed earlier. He argued that it was the original theory of the Apostles. But over time this theory was abandoned because of the influence of the history of Western Christianity, particularly Modern American history. …

Christus Victor has two main flaws. First, it suggests the rejection of the theory of the atonement as a biblical legality, rejecting the idea that Christ’s death was necessary because of God’s demand that sin receive punishment. The Bible speaks about the suffering of Christ as a propitiation, or satisfaction (1 John 2:2), so this idea cannot be rejected. But what was satisfied? Anselm said Christ’s death satisfied God’s honor. The Reformers said Christ’s death satisfied God’s wrath and His demand for justice. As for it being God’s desire that Christ die, Isaiah said, “It was the Lord’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer, and . . . the Lord makes his life an offering for sin” (Isaiah 53:10). Notice the emphasis on Christ’s death in all of these theories, as if the death of Christ would satisfy God.

The Christus Victor theory recognizes the importance of Christ’s death—which was absolutely necessary, but puts the emphasis on Christ’s resurrection.