The Nature of the Atonement

Four Views

James K. Beilby, Paul R. Eddy, James K. Beilby, Paul R. Eddy

• Publisher: IVP Academic
• Year: 2009
• Print ISBN: 9780830825707
• eBook ISBN: 9780830877287
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Theology

A long history of biblical exegesis and theological reflection has shaped our understanding of the atonement today. The more prominent highlights of this history have acquired familiar names for the household of faith: Christus Victor, penal substitutionary, subjective, and governmental.

Recently the penal substitutionary view, and particularly its misappropriations, has been critiqued, and a lively debate has taken hold within evangelicalism. This Spectrum Multiview volume offers a "panel" discussion of four views of atonement maintained by four evangelical scholars. The proponents and their views are:

• Gregory A. Boyd: Christus Victor view
• Joel B. Green: Kaleidescopic view
• Bruce R. Reichenbach: Healing view
• Thomas R. Schreiner: Penal Substitutionary view

Following an introduction written by the editors, each participant first puts forth the case for their view. Each view is followed by responses from the other three participants, noting points of agreement as well as disagreement.

This is a book that will help Christians understand the issues, grasp the differences and proceed toward a clearer articulation of their understanding of the atonement.

Spectrum Multiview Books offer a range of viewpoints on contested topics within Christianity, giving contributors the opportunity to present their position and also respond to others in this dynamic publishing format.

ONE

Christus Victor View

GREGORY A. BOYD

“The Son of God was revealed for this purpose,

to destroy the works of the devil.”

1 JOHN 3:8

One mark of great intelligence is that a person can solve a number of problems with a single stroke. I believe this is why Paul speaks of the “rich variety” of God’s secret and hidden wisdom in having his Son become incarnate and die on Calvary (Eph 3:10; cf. 1 Cor 1:30; 2:7). Through the incarnation, life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ the infinitely wise God solved a number of problems. Among other things, through Christ God defeated the devil and his cohorts (Heb 2:14; 1 Jn 3:8); revealed the definitive truth about himself (Rom 5:8, cf. Jn 14:7-10); reconciled all things, including humans, to himself (2 Cor 5:18-19; Col 1:20-22); forgave us our sins (Acts 13:38; Eph 1:7); healed us from our sin-diseased nature (1 Pet 2:24); poured his Spirit on us and empowered us to live in relation to himself (Rom 8:2-16); and gave us an example to follow (Eph 5:1-2; 1 Pet 2:21). God’s wisdom is displayed in a “rich variety” indeed!

Given the multifaceted design of Christ’s life, death and resurrection, it is not at all surprising that over time the church created a diversity of conceptual models of the atonement. Hence we have various Christus Victor models, substitutionary models, healing models, exemplary models, apotheosis models, recapitulation models and moral government models of the atonement. Each model legitimately expresses a facet of what the incarnation, life, death and resurrection of Christ accomplished.

Some in our postmodern context argue that we should simply leave it at that. While various cultural and personal contexts may call for one model to be at times emphasized over others, these people argue that we should not attempt to defend any one view as more fundamental than others or attempt to fashion the various models into a single coherent framework. I’m deeply sympathetic to the sentiment. Yet it seems to me perfectly natural and, if carried out with an irenic spirit, potentially beneficial to strive for an encompassing conceptual model that might reveal an “inner logic” to all aspects of Christ’s work. Consider that every advance we have ever made in human understanding has been the result of sticking to the conviction that reality is unified while striving to comprehend it as such. We strive to integrate apparently disparate facts into a unified framework. If we believe in the reality of the atonement, therefore, I do not see why we should avoid trying to integrate the various facets of the “rich variety” of God’s wisdom into a coherent whole.

This is not a merely theoretical interest. As has been the case with every advance in science, matters of practical consequence may be at stake. How we understand the “rich variety” of God’s wisdom behind the atonement may affect how we apply the atonement to areas of our life (a point I will return to at the end of this chapter).

I obviously cannot try to accomplish this unifying task in the limited space of this present essay. Yet I want to at least propose a framework within which such a project might be carried out. More specifically, I’m suggesting that a unifying framework may be found in the view of Christ’s work that dominated the thinking of the church for the first thousand years of its history: namely the Christus Victor model. This model centers on the truth that through the incarnation, life, death and resurrection of Christ, God defeated the devil. In this essay I will argue that this aspect of Christ’s work can plausibly be construed as more fundamental than other aspects of Christ’s work and that other aspects of the “rich variety” of the wisdom behind Christ’s work can be best understood within this context.1

I start by providing the scriptural background for the Christus Victor model. I follow this with a brief examination of those New Testament passages that are most central to this understanding of Christ’s life and work. I then discuss five clues we find in the New Testament that suggest something about how Christ defeated the devil while also revealing that the atonement concerns every aspect of Christ’s life and teaching, not just his death and resurrection. This is followed by a brief sketch of how other facets of Christ’s work might be understood in the context of the Christus Victor model. I conclude by summarizing eight points that I believe support my thesis that the Christus Victor model of the atonement is more fundamental and more encompassing than other atonement models.

Background: The Warfare Motif in Scripture

The Christus Victor view of the atonement cannot be appropriately understood without an appreciation for the broader spiritual warfare motif that runs throughout Scripture. Though the motif of spiritual warfare is rarely given its full due, the biblical narrative could in fact be accurately described as a story of God’s ongoing conflict with and ultimate victory over cosmic and human agents who oppose him and who threaten his creation.2

Hostile waters, monsters and gods. In the Old Testament this warfare is most commonly depicted in terms of God’s battle with hostile waters and vicious sea monsters that were believed to surround and threaten the earth. Whereas non-Israelites looked to various deities (e.g., Marduk and Baal) to resist these sinister cosmic forces, the Hebrews declared that it was Yahweh alone who warred against, rebuked, guarded and trampled on the malevolent waters, and who vanquished the cosmic monsters (e.g., Ps 29:3-4, 10; 74:10-14; 77:16, 19; 89:9-10; 104:2-9; Prov 8:27-29; Job 7:12; 9:8, 17; 26:12-13; 38:6-11; 40:15-34; Ezek 29:3; 32:2; Jer 51:34; Hab 3:8-15; Nahum 1:4).

We also read a great deal about rebel gods in the Old Testament, created spirit beings with whom God and his heavenly host do battle. As is the case with the hostile waters and cosmic monsters, ancient Israelites never separated battles that took place on earth from battles that took place among the gods (e.g., 2 Sam 5:23-24; 1 Chron 12:22; Judg 11:21-24).3 What went on in (what we today would call) the “spiritual realm” affects what transpires in history, and vice versa. So in the ancient Israelite worldview, part of the explanation for why a prayer is not answered quickly, why people suffer injustice and are in poverty and why “natural” disasters fall on someone may have something to do with the contingent activity of these rebel gods (e.g., Dan 10; Ps 82; Job 1—2).4

These depictions of evil in terms of hostile waters, cosmic monsters and rebel gods are in varying degrees clearly influenced by standard ancient Near Eastern mythological imagery. Yet they nevertheless powerfully communicate the understanding that the earth and its inhabitants exist in a cosmic war zone. Order in the cosmos and the preservation of Israel depend on God’s continually fighting against these evil cosmic forces. In contrast to their pagan neighbors, Old Testament authors of course express unprecedented confidence that Yahweh is capable of keeping these cosmic forces of chaos at bay and ultimately overthrowing them. At the same time, however, it’s clear they understand Yahweh’s victory over these forces to be praiseworthy precisely because they believe these opposing cosmic forces are formidable and that the battles in the spiritual realm are real.5

Satan in the New Testament. Owing to a number of historical factors, the understanding that the earth is a war zone between good and evil cosmic forces intensified significantly among Jews in the two centuries leading up to Christ, commonly referred to as the apocalyptic period.6 While there is significant theological diversity among apocalyptic writers, all attribute far more influence to gods, angels and demons than Old Testament canonical writings do.7 What is more, all share an acute awareness that the earth is held hostage by evil forces to such a degree that it can only be freed by a radical in-breaking of God, something they believed was going to happen in the very near future.

It was into this world that Jesus came, and all indications are that he and his earliest followers shared and in some respects intensified still further this apocalyptic worldview. For example, the role given to Satan by Jesus and his followers is without precedent in previous apocalyptic writings. According to John, Jesus believed that Satan was “the ruler of this world” (Jn 12:31; 14:30; 16:11).8 The word translated “ruler” (archōn) customarily referred to “the highest official in a city or a region in the Greco-Roman world.”9 While Jesus and his followers of course believed that God was the ultimate Lord over all creation, they clearly viewed Satan as the functional lord of earth at the present time.

Along the same lines, Satan is depicted as possessing “all the kingdoms of the world”—to the point where he gives authority to rule these kingdoms to anyone he pleases (Lk 4:5-6). In fact, the various kingdoms of the world can be described as a single kingdom under Satan’s rule (Rev 11:15, cf. Rev 13). John goes so far as to claim that the entire world is “under the power of the evil one” (1 Jn 5:19), and Paul does not shy away from labeling Satan “the god of this world” (2 Cor 4:4) and “the ruler of the power of the air” (Eph 2:2). Because of this pervasive and oppressive diabolic influence, Paul, in typical apocalyptic fashion, depicts this present world system as fundamentally evil (Gal 1:4).

Everything Jesus was about was centered on vanquishing this empire, taking back the world that Satan had seized and restoring its rightful viceroys—humans—to their position of guardians of the earth (Gen 1:26-28; cf. 2 Tim 2:12; Rev 5:10). Each one of Jesus’ many healings and deliverances diminished Satan’s hold on the world and liberated people, to whatever degree, from his stronghold.10 Peter succinctly summarized Jesus’ ministry to Cornelius when he said that Jesus “went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil.” (Acts 10:38, emphasis added). Gustaf Wingren captures this central motif well:

When Jesus heals the sick and drives out evil spirits, Satan’s dominion is departing and God’s kingdom is coming (Mt 12:22-29). All Christ’s activity is therefore a conflict with the Devil (Acts 10:38). God’s Son took flesh and became man that he might overthrow the power of the Devil, and bring his works to nought (Heb 2.14f.; I John 3.8).11

The battle against the powers. Intensifying the apocalyptic view of the time, Jesus and the New Testament authors saw demonic influences not only in demonized and diseased people but directly or indirectly in everything that was not consistent with God’s reign. For example, swearing oaths, temptation, lying, legalism, false teachings, anger, spiritual blindness and persecution were all seen as being satanically inspired.12 This ought not surprise us since, again, Jesus and his followers all believed the devil had significant control of the entire world (1 Jn 5:19). The kingdom of the roaring lion (1 Pet 5:8) was an ever-present reality to Jesus and his earliest disciples. For this reason Paul taught that whatever earthly struggles disciples found themselves involved in, they must understand that their real struggle was against “the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places” (Eph 6:12; cf. 2 Cor 10:3-5).

This last Pauline passage brings up a final and very important aspect of the New Testament’s apocalyptic worldview. Beyond the frequent references to Satan and demons throughout the New Testament, we find Paul (and others, e.g., 1 Pet 3:21-22) making reference to other spiritual powers, most of which have their counterpart in the apocalyptic literature of the time. Thus we read about “rulers,” “principalities,” “powers” and “authorities” (Rom 8:38; 13:1; 1 Cor 2:6, 8; 15:24; Eph 1:21; 2:2; 3:10; 6:12; Col 1:16; 2:10, 15), along with “dominions” (Eph 1:21; Col 1:16), “cosmic powers” (Eph 6:12), “thrones” (Col 1:16), “spiritual forces” (Eph 6:12), “elemental spirits” (Col 2:8, 20; Gal 4:3, 8-9) and other spiritual entities.13 For the sake of brevity I will follow the precedent set by Walter Wink and simply refer to this vast array of cosmic powers as “the powers.”

There has been a good deal of discussion surrounding what precisely Paul and others were referring to with these various titles, and while certain matters continue to be debated, there is widespread consensus that these powers are at the very least closely related to (and, some argue, identical with) the destructive spiritual force of various social structures and people groups—nations, governments, religions, classes, races, tribes and other social groups, for example.14

It is arguably for this reason that Paul does not see “sin” first and foremost as a matter of individual behavior, as most modern Westerners do. He rather conceives of “sin” (and related concepts such as the “law” and the “flesh”) as a quasi-autonomous power that holds people groups as well as individuals in bondage (e.g., Rom 3:9; 6:6-12; 7:7-20, 23, 25). This is why people can never hope to break the power of sin and fulfill the law by their own effort. As in much apocalyptic thought, Paul believed what was needed was nothing less than God breaking into human history to destroy the power of sin and rescuing us from the cosmic powers that keep us in bondage to sin. This is precisely what Paul and all early Christians believed happened with the advent of Jesus Christ. And this is the essence of the Christus Victor view of the atonement.

Christ’s Victory over the Powers

For Luther and other Reformers the central theological issue that needed addressing was how individual sinners could be made righteous before an all-holy God who cannot leave sin unpunished. But as numerous scholars in the last several decades have confirmed, this was not the main problem most first century Jews struggled with.15 As was the case with Paul, the central concern of most first-century Jews was over how people could get free from the oppressive and destructive force of the cosmic powers that had seized the world. Most fundamentally it was in these categories that the followers of Jesus came to understand the significance of his life, death and resurrection.

Christ’s victory over enemies. According to the New Testament, the central thing Jesus did was drive out the “ruler of this world” (Jn 12:31). He came to “destroy the works of the devil” (1 Jn 3:8). He came to “destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil” in order to “free those who all their lives were held in slavery by the fear of death...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Dedication Page
• Contents
• The Atonement: An Introduction
• 1 Christus Victor View
• 2 Penal Substitution View
• 3 Healing View
• 4 Kaleidoscopic View
• Contributors
• Scripture Index
• Notes
• Praise for The Nature of the Atonement
• About the Authors
• More Titles from InterVarsity Press
• Spectrum Multiview Books
• Copyright Page