The doctrine of the Atonement
In the time since I began my reader training programme, one of the things that has most caught my interest is the great variety of views regarding the atonement. It is a doctrine that strikes at the very heart of what the Christian faith is all about, yet there is no singular view of what exactly the atonement is or what it achieves. The reading I have done displays a very wide range of opinion on the subject, some of it quite contentious at times.
In his book Christian Theology, Alister McGrath has much to say on the subject. He categorises the main views on atonement into four distinct (but not exclusive) areas.[1]
· The cross as a sacrifice
· The cross as a victory
· The cross and forgiveness
· The cross as a demonstration of God’s love
These four basic categories are used by many other theologians also, and demonstrate the main ways in which atonement doctrine is interpreted. The different theories could each warrant an essay in themselves. The view that is particularly dominant (certainly in evangelical circles) is that of sacrifice. This theory holds that Christ was sacrificed in order to placate an angry God who required a perfect, unblemished offering in order to satisfy his wrath at the misdeeds of the human race. A variant on this theme is known as “penal substitution” where Jesus receives the penalty for the sin of the world on behalf of humanity.
The concept of penal substitution has been much debated in recent years, most notably in the UK with the publication of The Lost Message of Jesus by Steve Chalke. Chalke was castigated by many in the evangelical community with his comment that “The fact is the cross isn’t a form of cosmic child abuse – a vengeful Father, punishing his Son for an offence he has not even committed”.[2] This remark parallels what Joel Green and Mark Baker say in Recovering the Scandal of the Cross as they quote Beverley Harrison and Carter Hayward, “As the classical portrait of the punitive character of this divine-human transaction, Anselm of Canterbury’s doctrine of atonement....probably represents the sadomasochism of Christian teaching at its most transparent”. God plays the role of the sadist who wilfully inflicts punishment and Jesus embraces the character of the masochist who willingly suffers it”.[3] Outlandish as this statement may seem I think it sums up how the sacrificial/satisfaction theory of atonement is open to interpretation that can lead one to view God as nothing more than a divine psychopath who is intent on causing pain and punishment on somebody who he fully knows is innocent of any wrongdoing. God in effect demands that an act of violence be performed upon his own Son in order that his indignation be soothed away before he is prepared to grant mercy to lesser mortals.
Mike Higton in Christian Doctrine appears to be slightly sympathetic to Chalke’s charge of “cosmic child abuse”. However, he suggests that by acting together as they do they “provide in their shared mercy the substitute that their shared justice demands”.[4] The position here is that rather than Jesus being subject to the unreasonable demands of the Father, the decision to act is one that is made jointly by both Father and Son.
Given my early Christian background of strongly evangelical Methodist, this view of the atonement was pretty much the only one I was exposed to. I was blissfully unaware of any other way of interpreting the death of Christ upon the cross. So far as I was concerned Jesus died on the cross to pay the penalty for my sins.....a penalty that I should have paid. And God had orchestrated it to be so! It seemed to be quite straight-forward.
The view that held sway in the early church was that of the cross as a victory, often termed “Christus Victor”. This interpretation saw the death and subsequent resurrection of Christ in terms of spiritual warfare against Satan and his forces. McGrath suggests that rather than this actually being a theory of atonement as such “it is more an expression of confidence in the difference that Christ’s death and resurrection have made”.[5] As such it provides groundwork for other atonement theories such as that of ransom as put forward by Origen and Gregory the Great. This states that the devil had acquired “rights” over sinful humanity and the only way this could be broken was by payment of a ransom (Christ). This payment of Christ to the devil would satisfy divine justice yet in being unaware that Jesus was divine as well as human the devil would be overstepping the boundaries and thus forfeit all rights he had to a claim on humanity. Gregory uses the idea of Jesus as some kind of divine bait waiting for the devil to bite and be hooked. The problem that arises here though is that this particular view may lead God open to a charge of deceit (which would go against his own nature) against the devil in order to achieve the desired outcome.
Daniel L. Migliore in Faith Seeking Understanding seems to be more sympathetic to the idea of the atonement being seen as a demonstration of God’s love, as earlier mentioned also by McGrath. Often known as the “moral influence” theory and originally put forward by Abelard, this posits the idea that the reconciliation of humanity to God is effected through the compelling love of Christ which will then be worked out in the life of the transformed believer.[6] Migliore stresses the “unconditional nature and transforming power of God’s love”[7] which demands a response of some kind on our part.
Each of these theories of atonement have something to offer the debate over what the death and resurrection of Christ means and how this is achieved. I no longer accept without question as I once did the seemingly dogmatic view that Jesus was punished on my behalf as put forward in the penal substitution argument. My own leanings tend towards that of the moral influence theory of the atonement as the ultimate act of love by which we too through Christ are able to be reconciled to God. As mentioned earlier however, each of the different theories intersect with one another at various points, and I do take on board the idea that there are elements of each that are able to be present within the doctrine of the atonement.
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