Atonement History

The Christian Churches attempts to understand Christ’s Atonement and Sacrifice.

The following theories are listed in chronological order. However multiple theories may exist concurrently.

Moral Influence Theory

The Apostolic Fathers About 100-200 AD Vague time frame.

Their chief emphasis is on what Christ imparted to us: new Knowledge, Fresh life, Immortality.

Clement states: Through Him God has called us from darkness to light from ignorance to knowledge of the glory of His name. Clement further says that Christ endured it all on account of us and that His sufferings should bring us to repentance.

Hemas adds that Christ reveals to us the true God. Barnabas notes that He came to abolish death and to demonstrate resurrection from the dead.

Reiterated by Abelard in the 1100’s

Apologists also about 100-200 AD

The ideas stayed much the same with the Apologists with the addition of the concept that not only does God impart saving knowledge and bestow illumination, but principalities and powers are destroyed by Him. Justin says that the aim of the incarnation was the conquest of the serpent. Justin further adds that Christ became a man for our sakes, so that participating in our miseries He might heal them. The essence of the Moral Influence theory is that Christ’s Atoning work is directed to leading man to repentance and faith by revealing the true nature of God

Irenaeus about 180 AD

The Theory of Recapitulation (AKA Physical Theory, Mystical Theory)

This idea presupposes some kind of mystical solidarity or identity, between the father of the race and all his descendants. At the time of the fall they somehow already existed in Adam. Thus Irenaeus states that just as Adam contained in himself all his descendants (which is how all have sinned by Adams sin) so Christ recapitulated in Himself all the dispersed peoples dating back to Adam, all tongues and the whole race of mankind, along with Adam himself. His conclusion is that humanity which was seminally present in Adam has been given the opportunity of making a new start in Christ, the second Adam, through incorporation in his mystical body. The original Adam by disobedience introduced the principle of sin and death, but Christ by His obedience has reintroduced the principle of life and immortality. Because He is identified with the human race at every phase of it existence, He restores fellowship with God to all. To Irenaeus it is obedience that God requires, and in order to exhibit such obedience, Christ had to live His life through all its stages, not excluding death itself.

Origen 184-254

Origen, who had one of the greatest influences on Christian thinking, incorporated a wide range of reasons for Christ’s sacrifice. His views incorporated elements of knowledge and illumination, mysticism, Jesus as model, Ransom to the Devil, and ideas of substitution. Origen was an extremely creative thinker, however many of his ideas border on the bizarre.

Ransom Theory about 350-400

This theory with elements taken from Origen interprets the death of Christ as a Ransom paid by God to Satan in order to secure the redemption of humanity, which has been brought under his dominion by sin.

Different writers had various options on this theory. Some admitted the possession of his captives, and the death is interpreted as a ransom due to the devil on grounds of justice. Others denied the devil has a right to sinners, but by God’s graciousness in being unwilling to take by force that which was rightfully His. Still others felt that man’s deliverance was secured by deception on God’s part. Satan being deceived by the humble appearance of the Redeemer into supposing that he had to do with a mere man. Finding only too late that the Deity whose presence he had not perceived escaped his clutches through the Resurrection.

Some of the adherents to this view include Augustine, Gregory the Great, Gregory of Nyssa. Amazingly enough this theory lasted for several centuries.

Satisfaction Theory 1100

This theory was first produced in a clear coherent manner by Anselm in his treatise, Cur Deus Homo, which translated means Why a Godman? Anselm finds no reason in justice why God was under any obligation to Satan. Anselm maintains that Christ’s Atonement concerns God and not the devil. Man by his sin has violated the honor of God and defiled His handiwork. It is not consistent with the Divine self-respect that He should permit His purpose to be thwarted. Yet this purpose requires the fulfillment by man of the perfect law of God, which by sin man has transgressed. For this transgression, repentance is no remedy. Since penitence, however sincere, cannot atone for the guilt of past sin. Nor can any finite substitute, whether man or angel make reparation. Sin being against the infinite God, is infinitely guilty, and can be atoned for only by an infinite satisfaction. Thus either man must be punished and God’s purpose fail or else man must make an infinite satisfaction, which is impossible. There is only one way of escape, and that is that someone should be found who can unite in his own person the attributes both of humanity and of infinity. This is brought about by the incarnation of Christ. In Christ we have one who is very man, and can therefore make satisfaction to God on behalf of humanity, but who is at the same time very God, and whose person therefore gives infinite worth to the satisfaction which He makes. Christ death which is voluntarily given when it is not due since He was without sin, is the infinite satisfaction which secures the salvation of man.

Substitution Theory 1500’s (AKA Penal Theory)

The Protestant view held many of Anselm's presuppositions regarding Christ’s Atonement. However it was modified in one very substantial way. The central position of the Atonement was interpreted not as satisfaction, but as punishment, and hence given a substitutionary significance. The infinite guilt of man’s sin which has so utterly alienated mankind from the Kingdom of Heaven that none but a person reaching to God can be the medium of restoring peace. Such an efficient mediator is found in Christ alone. Through whose atoning death the price of man’s forgiveness is paid and a way of salvation made open. Calvin considers the Atonement not as a meritorious satisfaction accepted as a substitute for punishment, but as the vicarious endurance by Christ of that punishment itself. Calvin denies that God was ever hostile to Christ or angry with Him, yet in His Divine providence He suffered His Son to go through the experience of those against whom God is thus hostile. In His own consciousness, Christ bore the weight of the Divine anger, was smitten and afflicted, and experienced all the signs of an angry and avenging God.

The Penal Theory was severally criticized by the Socinians, who attacked the entire concept of substitutionary punishment. They held that punishment and forgiveness are inconsistent ideas. If a man is punished he cannot be forgiven, and vice versa. Under the theory of distributive justice, punishment, being a matter of the relation between individual guilt and its consequences, is strictly untransferable. The Socinians held to the Moral Influence Theory as mentioned by the Apostolic Fathers and the Apologists of the second century church.

Governmental Theory (AKA Rectoral Theory)

In response to the Socinians Hugo Grotius wrote a work entitled The Satisfaction of Christ. Grotius was writing in defense of the Penal/Substitution Theory, however he, perhaps unknowingly modified the theory. In this view God does not deal with men as a judge but as a governor, who unlike a judge may temper justice with mercy, but the motives which lead him so to temperate are never arbitrary. Thus Christ’s death is a substitute for punishment, a suffering inflicted by God and voluntarily accepted by Christ, which works upon men by moral influence in order to conserve the ends of righteousness. Such suffering on Christ’s part is necessary, since forgiveness on the basis of repentance alone might be misinterpreted by men and lead to grave carelessness. Among Arminians it has practically supplanted the older Penal Theory.

These constitute the main Salvation/Atonement theories. However there are several variations on each of the above theories, as well as different combinations of the major theories by other Theologians.

Sources:

Early Christian Doctrines J.N.D. Kelly Harper & Row, Pub. New York 1960

pp. 163-183, 375-395

Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics Vol. 5 pp. 640-650

The New Schaff-Herzog Religious Encyclopedia pp. 349-356

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