Because God is Holy, nothing sinful can bear to be in His presence. So, when God’s holy covenant people sin, this creates a serious problem, threatening their relationship with Him. In the Old Testament, God provided a sacrificial system to His people by which they could make “atonement” for their sins, rectifying the threat to their relationship with God caused by their sin. However the New Testament makes it clear that these animal sacrifices were only a stop-gap measure that could never fully deal with the problem of sin (Heb 10:4). It is only through the death and resurrection of Jesus that true Atonement can be made and people can be saved from their sins.
How does Jesus’s death and resurrection atone for sin? Exactly how does Jesus’s death and resurrection save us? The Christian tradition has not provided a single, definitive answer to this question. Instead, various “theories” of atonement have been proposed by Christian theologians throughout history. The most notable of these theories are the Moral Influence Theory, the Christus Victor Theory, and the Penal Substitution Theory. Which of these theories is the correct one?
The Moral Influence Theory goes back to the twelfth century theologian Peter Abelard, and is popular among liberal Christians today. According to the Moral Influence Theory, Jesus’s death on the cross is a demonstration of God’s love for us, which then influences us to love God in return and to stop sinning. On the cross, God humbles and humiliates Himself, entering into the very deepest depths of human suffering and death in solidarity with us, showing the infinite depths God is willing to go to in order to be with us. How can this not move us to repent and to love God in return?
There is much truth in the Moral Influence Theory. The New Testament certainly does speak of the cross of Jesus as a demonstration of God’s love (Rom 5:8), and repeatedly points to the cross of Jesus as an example which we are to follow (e.g. I Pet 2:21). However, by itself, this theory is insufficient. There are many other ways in which God could demonstrate His love for us, and it is unclear how God suffering and dying on a cross actually demonstrates love for us unless He actually was decisively accomplishing something objectively significant through that death. Furthermore, if the effects of Jesus’s death on us are purely subjective, then it cannot be the case that Jesus’s death decisively dealt with sin in a way that makes Jesus’s atoning death necessary for us to be saved from our sin, as the New Testament repeatedly teaches.
The Christus Victor Theory goes back to the early Church Fathers, and is popular among Eastern Orthodox Christians today. According to the Christus Victor Theory, through Jesus’s death and resurrection God won a victory over the powers of evil, and Christians can share in that victory through faith in Jesus. It is undeniable that there are New Testament passages that speak of Jesus winning a victory over the powers of evil, most notably Hebrews 2:14-17: “Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might break the power of him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil— and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death. . . For this reason he had to be made like them, fully human in every way, in order that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God, and that he might make atonement for the sins of the people.” Jesus’s death and resurrection have indeed accomplished a victory over sin, death, and the Devil.
The classic way of articulating the Christus Victor Theory was that, because of sin, humanity was under Satan’s power, so God offered Jesus as a ransom. Once the Divine Jesus was in Satan’s power, though, He overcame the powers of Hell and death, rising triumphantly on the third day, leaving Satan with nothing. Many modern Christians have criticized the classic Christus Victor Theory for suggesting that God had to bargain with Satan and that God won by tricking him. However, a modified, nuanced Christus Victor Theory can avoid these criticisms. Rather than saying that God literally traded Jesus to Satan for us, we can say that the man Christ Jesus overcame death and Hell, and that, through union with Him by faith, we can share in this victory.
By itself, though, the Christus Victor Theory is inadequate insofar as it does not seem to address the important question of how Jesus’s death brings about the forgiveness of our sins. In another New Testament passage that speaks of atonement as a victory, the apostle Paul claims that Jesus’s death is a victory over the spiritual powers of evil because it brings about forgiveness of sins: “When you were dead in your trespasses and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our trespasses, having canceled the debt ascribed to us in the decrees that stood against us. He took it away, nailing it to the cross! And having disarmed the powers and authorities, He made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross” (Col 2:13-15). But how does Jesus’s death bring about our forgiveness?
The theory of the Atonement that provides an answer to this question is the Penal Substitution Theory, which is popular among Western Christians today. According to this theory, all of humanity stands guilty of sin before God and deserving of death. So, God Himself became a human being and took upon Himself the consequences of humanity’s sin, experiencing the penalty of sin when He suffered and died for us on the cross. Consequently, those who put faith in Christ can be forgiven their sins and be free of the penalty of sin.
Some modern Christians have criticized the Penal Substitution Theory as portraying some kind of Divine child abuse, in which a spiteful, vindictive God vents His anger at us by killing an innocent Jesus. However, this is a caricature of the Penal Substitution Theory. We must understand that death is the natural and inevitable consequence of sin, not an extrinsic penalty that God just chooses to inflict on sinners. And we must understand that Jesus and God the Father are one God, and that the cross is the demonstration of the Father’s love for us. Once we understand this, we will see that this modern criticism is wide of the mark.
Another criticism of the Penal Substitution Theory is that it is merely a legal fiction, in which we remain sinful, but our guilt is (somehow) externally transferred to Jesus, and there is no real connection between atonement and our transformation/sanctification. However, if penal substitution is understood within the context of Christians’ union with Christ, this objection can be answered. Those who are saved are “in Christ.” Jesus is one with sinners, taking their sin upon Himself, and then transforming them into His image through their union with Him.
The Moral Influence Theory, the Christus Victor Theory, and the Penal Substitution Theory all have biblical support, and all provide important insights into the saving significance of Jesus’s death and resurrection. Each of them, by itself, is inadequate in explaining the meaning of the Atonement. It is better not to think of them as rival “theories” at all, but as complementary theological analyses of the significance of the cross-resurrection event.
Each of these “theories” answers a different question. The Moral Influence Theory answers the question, “What does Jesus’s death and resurrection say about how I should live?” The Christus Victor Theory answers the question, “What does Jesus’s death and resurrection mean for the cosmic forces of evil?” The Penal Substitution Theory answers the question, “What does Jesus’s death and resurrection mean for my personal guilt before God?”
The Atonement is rich and multifaceted. Fully explaining its significance is probably beyond human capability. We should not think that even these three “theories” together provide a full explanation of what Atonement means. But, together, these three major theories provide a deep and amazing picture of what God has done for us through Jesus’s death and resurrection.