As I told my veteran pastor of my plans to do graduate studies in the doctrine of the atonement, a wry smile creased his face as he asked: ‘So . . . which theory of the atonement do you believe in?’ I responded: ‘All of them!’ The purpose of this book is to offer a more expansive answer to this question, sharing a vision for a fuller understanding of the atonement which is eager to explore, embrace and apply new aspects of God’s work in Christ to reconcile all things to himself.
But by way of preparation, it behoves us to inquire: Why did my pastor ask this particular question? The questions we ask, and the order in which we ask them, are of great importance. They influence which premises we draw upon and which ones we neglect, direct the ensuing line of thought in terms of what will and will not be considered, and determine to a great extent which (re)sources we might turn to for support. ‘Where we begin shapes where we will end up.’1 Through the centuries, theologians, schools and branches of the Church began their accounts of the atonement with certain key questions, which were themselves built upon certain assumptions and premises. This led to well-worn paths of theological discussion and privileged passages of Scripture.2
My pastor asked this question because, until recently, it was a commonplace assumption in theological education, largely due to the influential work of Gustaf Aulén, that throughout the history of the Church there have been roughly three main theories of the atonement.3 This thesis suggests that the early Church held to Christus victor, the medieval Church to satisfaction and the modern Church to exemplarist accounts of the doctrine. Christus victor, a theory affirmed by such theologians as Athanasius, Gregory of Nyssa, Thomas and Calvin, holds that the purpose of Christ’s death and resurrection was to overcome the power of Satan – a work prophesied in Genesis 3:15, and expounded in more depth in Ephesians and Colossians. Satisfaction theories, developed by the likes of Athanasius, Anselm, Thomas and Calvin, diversely explore ways in which the work of Christ satisfies the goodness (Athanasius), honour (Anselm) or justice/righteousness (Calvin) of God in face of our sin, drawing upon such passages as Romans 3:21-26, 2 Corinthians 5:21 and 1 Peter 3:18 for support. Exemplarist theories – affirmed by Athanasius, Peter Abelard, Thomas, Luther and Calvin, and touted by modern theologians such as Ritschl and Harnack – hold that Christ lived, died and rose again in order to be an absolutely unique example for us, that through this example we might be reformed and restored to fellowship with the Father.
Familiar with this debate, my pastor asked his question because such categorization of atonement theories into three main types is the precursor for questions that seek to establish which of the theories one adheres to, why, and whether this theory incorporates aspects of the others or simply stands over and against them. Adherents of Christus victor, for example, might say that Christ offered satisfaction to God (or Satan) in order to rescue us from Satan. This loving work of rescue provides us with a governing paradigm or example for the Christian life (exemplarism), thus accounting for each of the main theories of the atonement within a single overarching theory.4 However, one might emphasize a satisfaction theory, in which Christ’s primary work was to satisfy God’s righteousness. This also resulted in both our release from captivity to Satan and our debt of obedience to live out lives of righteousness within our communities on the basis of Christ’s example.
More telling than the question itself, however, was my pastor’s wry smile – for he knew that his question was a trap. Jesus’ death and resurrection accomplished all three of these things: he defeated Satan, satisfied the goodness, honour and justice of God, and taught us to love God and neighbour by means of his absolutely unique and unprecedented example. Choosing any one of the traditional theories as an answer to his question would have received an immediate rejoinder in favour of the other two theories, accompanied by a list of great theologians touting the theory, and Bible verses supporting it. Not only is each of these theories biblical, it is also quite difficult (if not impossible) to discern which among them is pre-eminent. Did Jesus offer satisfaction in order to free us from Satan (emphasizing Christus victor), or was freeing us from Satan a mere accident of offering satisfaction to God (emphasizing satisfaction)? And was his example a by-product of these, or was it the focus (emphasizing exemplarism), as Christ sought to restore in us the divine image?
While there may be in fact answers to these and other common questions, there are better ways to engage the doctrine, better questions to ask at the beginning of our exploration of the nature and benefits of Christ’s death and resurrection, which encourage us to have a balanced and proportioned interaction with the doctrine as a whole. To do otherwise is to risk delving into culturally significant but ultimately short-sighted questions of less ultimate consequence, dooming such efforts to unnecessary inadequacy and shallowness. Different questions will lead us to new or less-trodden paths at dogmatic, historical and biblical levels, ultimately offering the possibility of significant new insights into and appreciation of the work of Christ. And they will entail significant changes for works building their inquiry upon supposedly competing or antithetical theories – a premise which sidesteps many of the fundamental issues within the doctrine, resulting in highly distorted and parochial accounts of Christ’s work.
Before considering how else we might begin our approach to the doctrine of the atonement, we will take a moment to explore some of the reasons that the above approach is inadequate. I listed Athanasius, Thomas and Calvin as supporting each of the aforementioned theories. What makes this so interesting is that if this is true, we have theologians from the early, medieval and Reformation periods of the Church, each holding to a range of explanations, undermining both the theological and historical plausibility of Aulén’s thesis. In a sample passage, Thomas writes that many things besides deliverance from sin concurred for man’s salvation through Christ’s passion:
In the first place, man knows thereby how much God loves him, and is thereby stirred to love him in return. . . . Secondly, because thereby He set us an example of obedience, humility, constancy, justice, and the other virtues displayed in the Passion, which are requisite for man’s salvation. . . . Thirdly, because Christ by His Passion not only delivered man from sin, but also merited justifying grace for him and the glory of bliss, as shall be shown later. . . . Fourthly, because by this man is all the more bound to refrain from sin. . . . Fifthly, because it redounded to man’s greater dignity, that as man was overcome and deceived by the devil, so also it should be a man that should overthrow the devil; and as man deserved death, so a man by dying should vanquish death. (ST, 3.46.3)
The first, second and fourth points refer to exemplarism, the third to Thomas’ development of Anselm’s satisfaction theory, and the fifth to Christus victor. But if Thomas, perhaps the paradigmatic systematizer of the Church, holds these elements of Christ’s passion in harmony with each other, something must be amiss with assuming from the outset that these views are somehow in competition with each other. Perhaps atonement theories, rather than being seen as competing to offer a comprehensive and sufficient account of the work of Christ, are best understood as mutually complementary accounts of different aspects of the work of Christ, which together work to fill out the substance of the doctrine (more of this in Chapter 2).
The task of the Church, I suggest, is not to determine which is the theory of the atonement, or which theory of the atonement has pride of place among others. Rather, following Thomas (who stands clearly in line with the majority position of the history of theology), we ought to witness to the fittingness of the atonement: to demonstrate how the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ brings together a wide array of benefits for the sake of the reconciliation of all things to God, that we might have as full an understanding as possible of the work God accomplished in Christ.5 Accordingly, one of the governing images behind this book is one of exceeding riches, of a treasure trove.6 That is to say, it attempts ‘to articulate a theory that explains the saving significance of Jesus’ death without betraying the rich testimonies to the event of his death’.7 We reject the pursuit of the one theory of the atonement that is at the heart of the biblical witness and allows us to account for and systematize the others, and the ensuing temptation to fight skirmishes with other competing theories.8 Rather, the goal of this book is to explore, understand, cherish and employ the abundant riches we have in Christ – the host of necessary, fitting and mutually complementary theories of Christ’s saving work which are founded in Scripture and developed throughout the history of the Church. For ‘it is impossible to designate this dramatic climax in the relations between God and man with a single, isolated concept. . . . There can only be a dénouement when all the dimensions of the mystery are before us’ (TD, 229).
In keeping with the complexity inherent in the doctrine of the atonement, this book aims to delight in and employ the exceedingly abundant riches with which we have been ‘overwhelmed [by the] divine largess’ in Christ.9 For in Christ, the ever-rich God took upon himself a human nature, fully entering our fallen condition and its circumstances, sharing those riches with us in the form of a multidimensional work of atonement, yielding a manifold salvation and reconciliation of all things. As Barth says:
Although theology is certainly confronted with the one God, he is One in the fullness of his existence, action, and revelation. In the school of the witness theology can in no way become monolithic, monomanic, monotonous, and infallibly boring. In no way can it bind or limit itself to one special subject or another. . . . The eternally rich God is the content of the knowledge of evangelical theology. His unique mystery is known only in the overflowing fullness of his counsels, ways and judgments.10
And nowhere is this more the case than in the doctrine of the atonement – for here we have the fullness of God reconciling all things to himself in the fullness of time, in the face of the fullness of our sinful opposition to him and its consequences.11 Our theme is superabundant fullness of riches grounded in the eternally rich God and employed in the saving work of Christ.12 For ‘salvation comes from God, is wrought by God, and is for God’, and it is by dwelling on the riches of this God wrought upon and for us that we properly understand his saving work.13
How does this approach differ from other standard approaches? In the way that it works with the given data of different images and theories throughout the Bible and the history of theology. Rather than focusing on these theories and their relationships as the primary task of the doctrine, our approach is to explore the underlying reason for the complexity of Christ’s saving work – by rooting this diversity in the underlying diversity proper to the eternal life of the triune God, thereby following Barth in allowing ‘the eternally rich God’ to be ‘the content of the knowledge of [an] evangelical’ doctrine of the atonement.14 By means of this approach, we will sample the breadth of answers we should give to the question of why Christ died and rose again. For while the answer is not simple, there is an answer nonetheless – an exceptionally rich, varied and multifaceted answer, rooted in the diversity proper to the God whose act this is, which sheds light upon every area of Christian doctrine and practice.
My talk of dazzling riches may suggest a beautiful and inspiring picture, but I would not be the first theologian accused of overzealously painting on clouds, failing to deliver on the substance of the matter (cf. CDH, I.4), were I to fail in my task. A brief overview of certain key figures in the history of the doctrine will offer a down payment on this promise of riches, to be followed by further disbursements in the ensuing chapters.
Why did Christ die and rise again? Athanasius, as one part of a manifold answer to this question, writes:
For what profit would there be for those who were made, if they did not know their own Maker? Or how would they be rational, not knowing the Word of the Father, in whom they came to be? . . . And why would God have made those by whom he did not wish to be known? (De inc, §11)
The dilemma, for Athanasius, is that it is monstrously unfitting for the Creator that his creature fail to attain its end. Specifically, it is abhorrent to consider that humankind fail to fulfil its purpose as a reasonable creature – to know, love and worship its Creator. We were helpless in our self-inflicted condition of collapse into culpable deceit and irrationality, so what was God to do? Athanasius’ answer: ‘What should be done, except to renew again the “in the image,” so that through it human beings would be able once again to know him? But how could this have occurred except by the coming of the very image of God, our Savior Jesus Christ?’ (De inc, §13). Through his death, Christ did away with our corruption (particularly that of our minds), and through both his life and resurrection, renewed us after his own image by revealing himself to us ‘as the Word of the Father, the ruler and king of the universe’ (De inc, §16). The atonement, in other words, is the re-establishment and culmination of God’s creative purpose of self-communicating, that we might know and worship him thereby. It is a matter of changing the creature’s condition, focused primarily on knowledge and worship of the Creator through our restoration as rational creatures.15
Again we ask: Why did Christ die and rise again? Returning to Athanasius, as a reminder of just how wide-ranging so many doctors of the Church are in their account of Christ’s work, we find him exploring the poetic fittingness of Christ’s crucified position. Prior to canvassing Christ’s elevation in the air as appropriate to one who is thereby defeating Satan and clearing the air that we might ascend to heaven (a strong affirmation of Christus victor), he considers the outstretched arms of Christ:
Therefore it was fitting for the Lord to endure this, and to stretch out his hands, that with the one he might draw the ancient people and with the other those from the Gentiles, and join both together in Himself. This he himself said when he indicated by what manner of his death he was going to redeem all, ‘When I am lifted up, I shall draw all to myself.’ (Jn 12.32; De inc, §25)
While the poetic nature of Athansius’ argument may seem questionable to the modern reader, the underlying insight is a profound one, echoed throughout the New Testament: that Christ died so as to reconcile all peoples with God and with each other.16 While this may seem like a mere implication of the Gospel, I would argue, to the contrary, that it is the message of the Gospel itself. God, who lives in an everlasting triune fellowship, shared this reality with his creatures in the form of a twofold fellowship: fellowship between God and the creature, and fellowship between creatures.17 We, in our sin, pursue distorted and fragmented relationships, which exude animosity and harm towards others, one aspect of which is ethnic conflict. Christ bore this sin and its consequences of violent exclusion, exile and persecution in himself, shunned by Jew and Roman alike, that he might restore all peoples to fellowship by means of their restoration to fellowship with God. Why did Christ die? With Athanasius, we affirm that he died to draw the Jews and Gentiles to each other in himself; and with Paul we affirm that Christ’s ‘purpose was to make the two groups of people become one new people’ through his blood (Eph. 2:13-15; cf. Gal. 3:13-14).
A third time, we ask: why did Christ die and rise again? John Calvin, as part of his multifaceted answer to this question,18 writes:
But that these things may take root firmly and deeply in our hearts, let us keep sacrifice and cleansing constantly in mind. For we could not believe with assurance that Christ is our redemption, ransom, and propitiation unless he had been a sacrificial victim. Blood is accordingly mentioned wherever Scripture discusses the mode of redemption. Yet Christ’s shed blood served, not only as a satisfaction, but also as a laver [cf. Eph 5:26; Titus 3:5; Rev. 1:5] to wash away our corruption. (Inst, II.xvi.6)
While in the vicinity of this passage Calvin affirms his well-known doctrine of penal substitution, it is worth stopping to consider the significance of the above claim. God is most certainly loving and just, but he is just as much loving and holy – accordingly, he seeks to deal with our sin comprehensively in both its guilt and uncleanness. Jesus came as our sacrifice, then, not merely to pay a penalty (for sacrifices and penalties are distinct though related realities), but to make us clean, to ‘wash away our corruption’ that we might once more rejoice in being fit to enter the presence of our holy God. Christ died and rose again to make us clean and holy, that we might be holy as he is holy (Lev. 20:26; 1 Pet. 1:16).
Once more we ask: Why did Christ die and rise again? Jonathan Edwards, in a series of sermons on the wisdom of God, writes:
So hath the wisdom of God contrived this affair, that the benefit of what he has done therein should be so extensive, as to reach the elect angels. . . . The angels cannot partake in [redemption], having never fallen; yet they have great indirect benefit by it. – God hath so wisely ordered, that what has been done in this directly and especially for men, should redound to the exceeding benefit of all intelligent creatures who are in favour with God. The benefit of it is so diffusive as to reach heaven itself.19
We will explore how the work of Christ benefited the angels in a later chapter. The point to be made here is that Christ died not only for fallen humankind, not only to defeat Satan and his forces, but also for the sake and benefit of the angels in heaven! Scripture provides strong warrant for this incredibly broad understanding of Christ’s work: ‘Through [Christ God sought] to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven’ (Col. 1:20). Why did Christ die and rise again? To accomplish a cosmic reconciliation – a work that would impact every aspect of God’s vast creation, ranging from the earth groaning beneath our feet (Rom. 8:22) to the angels in the highest heavens.
In this brief section we have seen how three theologians from diverse eras of the Church construed the work of Christ in four different ways. To sum up, Christ died that he might (1) restore the image of God in us, (2) accomplish ethnic reconciliation of all peoples in Christ, (3) cleanse us from our filth of sin and (4) effect a cosmic reconciliation, including that of the un-fallen angels to himself. But in touching on these four aspects of the saving work of Christ, we have only begun to develop the many insights that Athanasius, Calvin and Edwards have into the work of Christ – not to mention Irenaeus, Gregory of Nazianzus, John of Damascus, Bernard of Clairvaux and so many other great theologians and pastors in the history of the Church – a treasure trove indeed!
But why, one might ask, am I drawing so heavily from the theologians of the Church, rather than Moses, Isaiah, John and Paul?20 My answer is that this is a false dichotomy: as the biblical references above indicate, I am committed to doing theology on the basis, and after the pattern of Holy Scripture. While the bulk of my argument is theological in nature, theological and biblical studies should be fully integrated: they are (or ought to be) two modes of faith seeking to understand the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the triune God of which it speaks. Both in theology and biblical interpretation, we fall into ruts and patterns of thought which limit our awareness of the whole of the Gospel in all its riches. These ruts and patterns run the risk of over-prioritizing certain passages, themes or books of the Bible, culturally induced misunderstandings of sources, or theological biases misinforming our reading of Scripture.21 My theological focus is an attempt to glean from the insight of biblical scholars throughout the history of the Church, so as to equip the Church today with the vision and resources to strive for an ever-greater understanding of the Gospel and its God, and an ever better reading of Scripture.
And this task is vital, for Scripture’s witness to Christ’s saving work is exceptionally varied. For example, Christ is our ransom (Mk 10:45), propitiation/expiation (Rom. 3:25), Passover lamb (1 Cor. 5:7) and saviour (Phil. 3:20). He is the lamb slain before the foundation of the world (Rev. 13:8), the only Mediator between God and man (1 Tim. 2:5), who accomplished the defeat of Satan (Jn 12:31, 14:30), sought that which was lost (Lk. 15:3-7) and gives us the victory (1 Cor. 15:56). He accomplished our redemption (Gal. 4:5), made purification for sins (Heb. 1:3), paid our debt (Col. 2:14), abolished death and brought life and immortality (2 Tim. 1:10), brought about the reconciliation of all things (Col. 1:20) and asked God to forgive us (Lk. 23:34). He was delivered over for us (Rom. 8:32), became a curse for us (Gal. 3:13) and summed up all things in himself (Eph. 1:10). And to offer such a list is but to scratch the surface.
I emphasize the theological task on the basis of, in dialogue with and for the sake of the Church’s and my own careful reading of Holy Scripture. The present work is an exercise in theological interpretation of Scripture, intended to equip and motivate the Church to further and better study of the Bible by means of a systematic account of the doctrine of the atonement rooted in both the witness of Scripture and its interpretation by theologians over the centuries.22
Aren’t we rich enough? A revised exemplarism
But is this vision too ambitious? Am I the overzealous neighbour who, when asked for a saw, replies: ‘Well . . . do you want a table-saw, jig-saw, band-saw, chop saw, coping saw, radial-arm saw . . . ?’ Don’t we just need a normal handsaw most of the time – the kind you move up and down against a board to cut it in half? Why can’t doctrine be more like that – why can’t we just have one theory of the atonement which can be the basis for our preaching, missions work, statements of faith, etc.? This seems rather like the story of the astronomer who, after Barth’s sermon, said: ‘I’m an astronomer, you know, and as far as I am concerned, the whole of Christianity can be summed up by saying: “Do unto others as you would have others do unto you.”’ Barth’s retort: ‘I am just a humble theologian, and as far as I am concerned the whole of astronomy can be summed up by saying “Twinkle, twinkle little star, how I wonder what you are.”’23 There is something powerful in our longing for simplicity, yet unsatisfying as well, for those who have explored the depth of these realities. ‘An account of the gospel which neglected theological metaphysics,’ the depth and complexity of the realities at play in the atonement, ‘would soon falter in its attempts to speak of the God of the gospel’.24
We could answer the question of whether this vision is overwhelming in a number of different ways, but for our purposes two will suffice: (1) the traditional concept of ‘faith seeking understanding’ and (2) a variation of the exemplarist theory of the atonement. Augustine writes in his Confessions: ‘You stir man to take pleasure in praising you, because you have made us for yourself, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.’ Immediately following this petition, he prays: ‘Grant me Lord to know and understand.’ The ensuing few pages are filled with an impassioned plea for knowledge of God, culminating in: ‘What a wretch I am! In your mercies, Lord God, tell me what you are to me. “Say to my soul, I am your salvation” (Ps. 34:3). . . . Do not hide your face from me (cf. Ps. 26:9). Lest I die, let me die so that I may see it.’25 Why does Augustine implore the God in whom he already believes that he might know and understand him? What is the role of understanding within faith? According to Augustine, faith is by nature a relationship involving motion towards its object through understanding or ‘full vision’: ‘When a mind is filled with the beginning of that faith which works through love, it progresses by a good life even toward vision, in which holy and perfect hearts know that unspeakable beauty, the full vision of which is the highest happiness.’26 Faith is the kind of thing that moves towards a goal – in this case, movement towards God, through knowledge and understanding. Faith embraces understanding because that is its end, its goal.
Further developed by Anselm and others, we find in Daniel Migliore a delightful summary of this line of thought: ‘Faith and inquiry are inseparable. . . . The work of theology [is] a continuing search for the fullness of the truth of God made known in Jesus Christ.’27 Applying this insight to the concern of this book, the work of the doctrine of the atonement is a continuing search on the part of faith for the fullness of the truth of God made known in Jesus Christ, a search for understanding of the fullness of the work of Christ, and the rest, life and salvation which are bound up with it. The alternative, to rest content with what little knowledge of God we have, would be to violate the very nature of the faith we have been given – to disdain the complex simplicity, which we are offered to delight in both now and in eternity.
A vision of Christian faith inherently and delightedly seeking an understanding of the riches of the Gospel and its God is an ample answer to our question. However, it is fitting for us to turn our attention back to the doctrine of the atonement, for in its richness and diversity, it has its own unique and provocative answer to our question. Recall Thomas’ first two reasons for the death of Christ: ‘In the first place, man knows thereby how much God loves him, and is thereby stirred to love him in return. . . . Secondly, because thereby He set us an example of obedience, humility, constancy, justice, and the other virtues displayed in the Passion, which are requisite for man’s salvation’ (ST, 3.46.3).28 These are two different angles to the exemplarist (or the ‘moral’ or ‘subjective’) theory of the atonement. The first angle is more objective in nature, and explores the way in which Christ makes the Father known to us (that God loves us and that he is love), while the second angle is more subjective in nature, teaching us certain virtues through the example provided by Christ. The second view is popularly attributed to Peter Abelard, who wrote that ‘his Son has taken upon himself our nature and persevered therein in teaching us by word and example even unto death . . . with the result that our hearts should be enkindled by such a gift of divine grace, and true charity should not now shrink from enduring anything from him’.29 In this case, however, we will focus on the first of Thomas’ points: that we know thereby how much God loves us.
How important is it that we know that the life, death and resurrection of Christ was an event in the life of the triune God, an event in which God decisively revealed his love for us?30 We noted earlier that Athanasius explained that the Son fulfilled his work that we might once again know and worship the Father. Is a full and relational knowledge (and the worship flowing from it) really that central to the atonement? Barth would suggest that it is:
We can and must ask about the being of God because as the Subject of His works God is so decisively characteristic for their nature and understanding that without this Subject they would be something quite different from what they are in accordance with God’s Word, and on the basis of the Word of God we can necessarily recognize and understand them only together with this their subject (CD II/1, 260).
That is, the mere event of the death and resurrection of Jesus is not particularly significant apart from the fact that this was an event in the life of God, by the will of God, and a self-revelation of the character of God.31 Without this, it stands as simply another incomprehensible and therefore apparently insignificant event among a host of others (such as the experiences of Enoch, Elisha and Lazarus). Without this knowledge of ‘a divine happening, a divine deed, an absolutely divine action’,32 we have no sense whatsoever of the meaning and significance of this event; our knowledge and understanding is key to God’s purposes for the work of Christ.33 But we must go further still.
The Gospel of John would suggest that we can, and in fact must, emphasize the role of knowledge within the atonement – not merely as the means by which we become aware of this reality, but in the very substance of atonement itself! Christ’s goal is that we hear his word and believe in the one who sent him, that we might have eternal life (5:24); that we labour for that which the Son gives us and which leads to eternal life (6:27); and that we hear his voice, follow him and thereby receive eternal life (12:27-28). This much is clear from these verses: hearing the words of Jesus Christ, knowing the Father through him and receiving eternal life are all intimately connected. But in the high-priestly prayer, Jesus weaves these themes together, specifying that ‘this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent’ (17:3). Continuing, he says: ‘I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do’ (17:4), namely, ‘I have manifested your name to the people whom you gave me’ (17:6). Concluding, Jesus says: ‘I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them’ (17:26).
What are we to make of this? The purpose of the work of Christ was that we might know his Father – and this knowledge of the Father, a knowledge which occurs in Christ, is itself our salvation, eternal life.34 In this sense, we must affirm that knowledge is salvation, and vice versa. Why did the Son of God become man? That we might know, and in this knowledge partake of salvation. Christ came that we, creatures of the darkness who hate light (3:19), might see (9:39) and know (17:3). The atonement of Jesus Christ was for the sake of enlightenment, or better yet, revelation. Just as significant as overcoming our guilt, shame and sloth was Christ’s mission to overcome our ignorance and blindness – not with knowledge generally, but with knowledge of the Father. And in order to do away with this darkness Christ took upon himself this reality, experiencing the darkness of death, a darkness that is utterly abolished in the resurrection light and ascension to the Father (20:17). John thus leads us to an understanding of the work of Christ as saving by means of revelation, for salvation is the knowledge of the Father in and through Christ.35
To return once more to Thomas:
A stain is properly ascribed to corporeal things, when a comely body loses its comeliness through contact with another body. . . . Now man’s soul has a two-fold comeliness; one from the refulgence of the natural light of reason, whereby he is directed in his actions; the other, from the refulgence of the Divine light. . . . Now, when a soul cleaves to things by love, there is a kind of contact in the soul: and when man sins, he cleaves to certain things, against the light of reason and of the Divine law. . . . Wherefore the loss of comeliness occasioned by this contact, is metaphorically called a stain on the soul. (ST, II.86.1)
Thus far, Thomas has accounted for the nature of sin within epistemic/psychological categories – sinning, or cleaving to certain lesser goods, results in a stain of the soul, by which our use of natural reason and our knowledge of God is dimmed and distorted, such that we become creatures of darkness (Jn 3:19). But ‘as soon as, moved by grace, [the sinner] returns to the Divine light and to the light of reason, the stain is removed’ (ST, II.86.1). This movement of grace, we should add, is rooted in the incarnation of the eternal Son, the divine light himself, who makes the soul comely once more, through his refulgence in the soul. And it is precisely in this movement of grace, the work of Jesus Christ, that the stain is removed and we are brought to knowledge of the Father and the eternal life this knowledge entails. In short, the atonement is revelation for the sake of knowledge of the Father, in which the divine light enlightens us. Jesus lived, died and rose again that we might know God – a revelation theory of the atonement, if you will.36
How does this line of thought relate to the riches of the atonement we seek? Salvation is knowledge of the Father. But our knowledge of the Father is mediated through the person and work of Jesus Christ and his Spirit – which is to say that our knowledge of the Father comes through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, which is at the centre of his earthly mission. Accordingly Christ’s atonement is our salvation because it reveals the Father to us, a revelation which is itself salvation and not merely a by-product of it. The reason we should be hungry to explore, develop and embrace a manifold witness to the work of Christ, to develop an abundance of theories of the atonement, is that each of these theories explores the self-revelation of the Father through the Son from a specific vantage point, which is to say that it explores the reality of our salvation. The riches we have in the manifold nature of Christ’s atoning work are themselves the heavenly riches of the Father, revealed and enacted for us and for our salvation in Christ. To turn away from the riches of the atonement for the sake of expedience or lethargy37 is to squander knowledge of the Father, to turn away from salvation itself; for the riches of the atonement, knowledge of the Father and salvation itself are one and the same thing.
The goal: Gleaning the treasure
Because the faith we have is inherently a faith seeking understanding, and because the atoning work of Christ is a work of self-revelation in which salvation is knowledge and vice versa, we should be eager to collect and employ the treasures we have in Christ. But we should do so with systematic rigour, laying out a vision that equips and sustains the Church for this ongoing work.38 The distinctive feature of this approach is the way I emphasize theological tools for equipping the Church – a move relying upon a specific understanding of the nature of systematic theology. Briefly, I hold that systematic theology makes explicit in its own language and categories the implicit content, premises and patterns of thought found in the Bible and employed by its authors. For instance, the Trinitarian doctrine of appropriations (cf. Chapter 3) is nowhere stated as such in Scripture. Rather, it is a hard-won theological insight making explicit the logic implicit within the biblical authors’ writings about the distinct works of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. But this doctrine, far from a mere summary or abstraction of the biblical material, is a tool for further study of Scripture, allowing us to better read Scripture in conformity with its implicit Trinitarian logic. This book works at precisely this intersection, drawing on theological doctrines as tools for the study of Scripture, within the particular confines of the doctrine of the atonement.
A secondary objective of this book is to develop a number of the different aspects and theories of Christ’s saving work, which can serve as enticements and examples for further work. But what sets this book apart from other introductions to the doctrine is not the development of more theories of the atonement. A volume such as this simply cannot compete with the comprehensive nature of histories of the doctrine. Rather, in a theological environment increasingly sensitive to diversity at every level, the contribution of this book lies in its exploration of the logic, or more specifically, the theo-logic, underlying the riches of Christ’s saving work. Appreciating this logic equips the Church to appropriate the work of theologians throughout the history of the Church, but also (and more importantly) to venture forth into new or underutilized accounts of Christ’s atonement through careful and reinvigorated reading of Scripture, history of doctrine and culture.
But why must explanations of a man’s death and resurrection be such a complicated affair? First, events are often far richer in character than we initially perceive. For instance, when Jesse Owens crossed the finish line in the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, one could explain that Owens won a race. While true, such an account would fail to honour the complexity of the event, which could and should be explained at various levels, including chemistry, physics, sport, race, politics, economics, nationalism and religion to name but a few. Events, and particularly key historical events, are complex in nature, and we are wise to honour them as such. Like any other significant historical happening, Christ’s passion was a complex, multidimensional event, calling for rich exposition at a number of levels, including but not limited to: Jewish religion, Roman politics and law, interpersonal dynamics, Jesus’ self-understanding, Roman execution practices, biological processes relevant to death by crucifixion and social norms involving mockery and shaming.39
A second layer adding complexity and richness to events in general and the atonement in particular involves the complexities inherent in our speech about these events, with particular attention paid to the role of metaphor. While early in the twentieth century metaphor was regarded as an unnecessary husk surrounding a kernel of truth in the atonement,40 it is now commonplace to embrace atonement language as necessarily and constructively metaphorical, based in part on the influence of Colin Gunton (and his employment of Janet Soskice’s work).41 The scholarship on this topic is wide-ranging and complex, and its implications for the doctrine of the atonement are quite significant. In keeping with the constructive focus of this book, however, it suffices to make two points. First, the approach taken in this book is compatible with a range of positions regarding the nature and function of metaphorical language. Second, while discussions concerning the role of metaphor are significant, my goal is to move the discussion to a line of thought which will (1) de-emphasize the debate over the role of metaphor within the atonement, while (2) speaking to many of the same concerns those discussions seek to address.42
Unlike other historical events, however, the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ was uniquely significant and rich, for it was an event in the life of God himself, willed and experienced by Father, Son and Holy Spirit.43 Beyond the complexity proper to any significant historical act mentioned above, and the further complexity of our metaphorical speech about this event, there is an additional and unique diversity proper to this act – the diversity proper to the triune God whose act this was, in the fullness of his divine attributes.44 ‘God was in Christ,’ accomplishing the work of reconciling ‘all things’ (1 Cor. 5:19). God; Father, Son and Holy Spirit; the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob; the God who is merciful, gracious, patient, loving, good, kind, righteous, faithful, constant, wrathful, holy, omniscient . . . . This God, in the fullness of his character, was in Christ, reconciling all things to himself. And by means of this work ‘all things’ are taken up and reconciled to God by means of God himself, by means of the diversity and richness proper to God’s own being and life. This threefold diversity (proper to events generally, intrinsic to the metaphorical nature of speech and founded in the diversity proper to the God whose act this is) provides the explanation for the diversity and complexity inherent to this event, calling forth our multifaceted witness.
Outline of the book
In keeping with the vision detailed above, this book unfolds in two primary movements. Chapter 2 sets the stage for our inquiry, exploring the question of orthodoxy and the parameters for working out the doctrine of the atonement. Chapters 3 and 4 constitute the first movement, delving into the ways in which the diversity proper to the being and life of God give shape to the doctrine of the atonement. Specifically, Chapter 3 explores the Trinitarian nature and shape of the doctrine of the atonement, while Chapter 4 explores the vital role of a proper understanding of the divine attributes for this doctrine. The second movement takes place in Chapters 5 and 6, which explore the diversity proper to the event at a more generic level. Chapter 5 considers the diversity inherent in the ‘all things’ which are reconciled to Christ, ranging from the earth itself to the angels in the highest heavens, and everything in between. Chapter 6 unfolds the diversity of the atonement as a 3-day event (Good Friday, Holy Saturday and Easter Sunday), considering how the life, death and resurrection of Christ are all essential to his work. Chapter 7 concludes by laying out a vision for further work in exploring the riches we have in Christ and how we might employ those riches by integrating them into other areas of our lives.
Throughout the book we will develop the work of theologians from the history of the Church.45 For two reasons I choose to incorporate my use of the history of doctrine into my systematic account, rather than offering a discrete chapter on the subject. First, in acknowledgement of my limitations, the primary purpose of this book is to offer a systematic thesis, by means of which I hope to equip the readers to re-enter the old discussions through their own historical and biblical studies. A chapter (or set of chapters) on the history of doctrine would eschew the systematic focus of the book, undermining its vision for the integration of biblical, historical and systematic work in the theological task. My goal is to ‘avoid fetishistic repetition of old sacred formulas . . . and seek to understand these formulas, try to capture the reality that they attempt to convey’,46 and to do so by means of a theological approach. Second, the history of the doctrine is so complex and varied that even were I to devote the whole of the present book to the topic, it would be a perverse oversimplification of little benefit to the reader. Other theologians, upon whose work I draw throughout this book, offer valuable surveys of the relevant biblical and historical material. My hope is that the present work will provide a valuable perspective from which the reader will be able to fruitfully re-engage those same materials, furthering our understanding of the doctrine, its foundation and its history. My hope is that this perspective will better enable us to heed Anselm’s exhortation:
Consider where and what is the strength of thy salvation, occupy thyself in meditating thereon, delight thyself in the contemplation thereof; put away thy daintiness, force thyself, give thy mind thereto; taste of the goodness of thy Redeemer, kindle within thyself the love of the Saviour.47
Notes
1Scot McKnight, A Community Called Atonement (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 2007), 15.
2Note, for instance, the way that John McLeod Campbell follows the trajectory of questions asked by the Reformed theologians. John McLeod Campbell, The Nature of the Atonement and Its Relation to Remission of Sins and Eternal Life (London: Macmillan, 1869), 35.
3Gustaf Aulén, Christus Victor: An Historical Study of the Three Main Types of the Idea of Atonement, trans. A. G. Hebert (New York: Macmillan, 1951). Towards the end of the previous century, the tide began to turn against Aulén, in favour of holding to multiple accounts of the atonement simultaneously. Cf. John McIntyre, The Shape of Soteriology: Studies in the Doctrine of the Death of Christ (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1992); Colin E. Gunton, The Actuality of Atonement: A Study of Metaphor, Rationality, and the Christian Tradition (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1989). My work contributes to this movement, providing a distinctly theological emphasis (that is, an emphasis building upon the key features of the doctrine of the Trinity and the divine attributes) as the basis for both the unity and diversity of the work of Christ.
Locating my argument within the trajectory of the last 150 years, one could say that mine is an emphasis on ‘the cross as an event in God’s being’, employed towards a ‘“unified” atonement’, combining the fifth and seventh trajectories noted in: Kevin J. Vanhoozer, ‘Atonement’, in Mapping Modern Theology: A Thematic and Historical Introduction, ed. Kelly M. Kapic and Bruce L. McCormack (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2012), 191–6, 199–201.
4Graham A. Cole, God the Peacemaker (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2009), 233–43.
5Adam Johnson, ‘A Fuller Account: The Role of “Fittingness” in Thomas Aquinas’ Development of the Doctrine of the Atonement’, International Journal of Systematic Theology 12, no. 3 (2010): 304–7. In support of my use of reconciliation as the broadest term for exploring the work of Christ, cf. I. Howard Marshall, Aspects of the Atonement: Cross and Resurrection in the Reconciling of God and Humanity (Colorado Springs: Paternoster, 2007), 98ff. Note, however, Baker and Green’s caution regarding biblical vocabulary and biblical concepts, pertaining to the atonement. Mark D. Baker and Joel B. Green, Recovering the Scandal of the Cross: Atonement in New Testament and Contemporary Contexts (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2003), 36.
6This is opposed to the image of heart, foundation or centre that one often finds in the literature. My thesis works well with other similar arguments, though as we will see I have a distinctive approach rooted in theology proper. For a project working along similar lines, see: McKnight, Community, 114. The danger with the images of treasure is that it is static, whereas a more perfect image would be living, moving towards life in Christ. The image of treasure is merely to communicate the riches, abundance and variety of blessings we have in Christ through his saving work.
7Kevin J. Vanhoozer, ‘Atonement in Postmodernity: Guilt, Goats and Gifts’, in The Glory of the Atonement: Biblical, Historical and Practical Perspectives, ed. Charles E. Hill and Frank A. James (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2004), 369.
8That is to say, I resist ‘the search for a controlling category’, for these run ‘the risk of restricting the other categories’. Charles B. Cousar, A Theology of the Cross: The Death of Jesus in the Pauline Letters (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1990), 54. Jeremy Treat offers a helpful list of terms denoting controlling categories, as used by defendants of penal substitution: Jeremy R. Treat, The Crucified King: Atonement and Kingdom in Biblical and Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2014), 222.
9Ivor J. Davidson, ‘Introduction: God of Salvation’, in God of Salvation, ed. Ivor J. Davidson and Murray A. Rae (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2011), 4. This work, we might say, is a ‘saturated phenomenon’: one ‘so overflowing in meaning as to be in excess of any intention’. Vanhoozer, ‘Atonement in Postmodernity’, 394.
10Karl Barth, Evangelical Theology: An Introduction, trans. Grover Foley (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1963), 33–4.
11Throughout the book, I define atonement in a comprehensive manner to encompass the meaning and significance of Christ’s saving work. As such, it builds on the origins of the word, ‘at-one-ment’, including both that which we are saved from, and that which we are saved for. In contrast, some works limit atonement to that which Christ saved us from by means of his death alone. The flexibility has to do with the fact that ‘atonement’ is a word unique to the English language, and as such is not constrained by the meaning of any particular term in Scripture.
12In fact, one could develop a riches theory of the atonement, in which the ever-rich God, in the face of our sin, became poor in Jesus Christ, that in him we might be made rich once more. As a subtext, one could weave in the themes of debt and repayment, recontextualizing what are typically interpreted as judicial themes within a framework of God’s riches and abundance, rather than God’s justice. This would make for interesting dialogue with the work of liberation theologians, as well as those who proclaim a prosperity gospel.
13Davidson, ‘Introduction: God of Salvation’, 14.
14Barth, Evangelical Theology, 33–4.
15As Ivor Davidson puts it, God wills ‘that contingent creation should know its creator still, should yet find its intended telos of peace and fulfillment in communion with him. In the unfathomable love that God is, God does not give up on his world, but moves in mercy to bring it back to himself.’ Davidson, ‘Introduction: God of Salvation’, 1.
16For an entry into this discussion, see: Darrin W. Snyder Belousek, Atonement, Justice, and Peace: The Message of the Cross and the Mission of the Church (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, 2012), 573–86. While the biblical focus is on the reconciliation of Jews and Gentiles, this provides the seeds for ethnic and racial reconciliation generally. Cf. Timothy G. Gombis, ‘Racial Reconciiation and the Christian Gospel’, ACT 3 Review 15, no. 3 (2006): 117–28.
17Think here of Jesus’ two-part summary of the law.
18For a helpful treatment of Calvin’s view(s) of the atonement, cf. Robert A. Peterson, Calvin and the Atonement (Fearne, Scotland: Christian Focus Publications, 2008).
19Jonathan Edwards, ‘The Wisdom of God Displayed in the Way of Salvation’, in The Works of Jonathan Edwards, ed. Henry Rogers, Sereno Edwards Dwight and Edward Hickman (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1998), 147.
20In other words, why not seek to follow in the footsteps of someone like Leon Morris, whose kaleidoscopic approach has strong affinities with my own thesis? Leon Morris, The Cross in the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1965), 395.
21As Kevin Vanhoozer has made amply clear throughout many of his works, the reading of Scripture is itself a thoroughly theological movement. Kevin J. Vanhoozer, The Drama of Doctrine: A Canonical-Linguistic Approach to Christian Theology (Louisville, KY: WJK, 2005); First Theology: God, Scripture and Hermeneutics (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2002); Is There a Meaning in This Text? The Bible, the Reader, and the Morality of Literary Knowledge (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1998). Cf. John Webster, Holy Scripture: A Dogmatic Sketch (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003).
22My commitment to biblical studies is evident in my article on the Temple, which I plan to expand into a book-length treatment on the Old Testament foundation for a proper understanding of Christ’s saving work. Adam Johnson, ‘A Temple Framework of the Atonement’, JETS 54, no. 2 (2011): 225–37. I intend to follow up this work with similar explorations, continuing to develop the role of the Old Testament in our understanding of the work of Christ.
23John D. Godsey, ‘Reminiscences of Karl Barth’, The Princeton Seminary Bulletin (2002): 321.
24John Webster, ‘“It Was the Will of the Lord to Bruise Him”: Soteriology and the Doctrine of God’, in God of Salvation, ed. Ivor J. Davidson and Murray A. Rae (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2011), 25. It was commonplace in the nineteenth and early twentieth century to argue for embracing the fact of the atonement, without the need to speculate about its meaning or necessity. Cf. many of the essays in: Frédéric Louis Godet, The Atonement in Modern Religious Thought, a Theological Symposium (New York: Thomas Whittaker, 1901). To this, Luther would respond: ‘It is not enough to know and accept the fact’ – something the papists do all too well. Rather, ‘one must also accept the function and power of the fact. If we have this, we stand unconquered on the royal road, and the Holy Spirit is present in the face of all sects and deceptions.’ LW17, 223.
25Augustine, Confessions, trans. Henry Chadwick (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991), 3–5.
26The Augustine Catechism: The Enchiridion on Faith, Hope, and Love, ed. Boniface Ramsey, trans. Bruce Harbert (Hyde Park: New City Press, 1999), 34.
27Daniel L. Migliore, Faith Seeking Understanding: An Introduction to Christian Theology (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2004), 1.
28The virtues are a necessary aspect of our salvation – not a necessary step towards our salvation (salvation by works).
29Peter Abelard is supposedly the father of exemplarist theories of the atonement, which were then greatly developed in the Enlightenment and beyond. Recent scholarship argues that Abelard was not in fact an exemplarist, in that he did not explain the work of Christ exclusively as one that provides us with an example. Cf. Thomas Williams, ‘Sin, Grace, and Redemption’, in The Cambridge Companion to Abelard, ed. Jeffrey E. Brower and Kevin Guilfoy (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004); Richard E. Weingart, The Logic of Divine Love: A Critical Analysis of the Soteriology of Peter Abailard (London: Clarendon, 1970); Gregory Anderson Love, ‘In Search of a Non-Violent Atonement Theory: Are Abelard and Girard a Help or a Problem?’, in Theology as Conversation: The Significance of Dialogue in Historical and Contemporary Theology, ed. Bruce L. McCormack and Kimlyn J. Bender (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2009).
The implication is that exemplarism is not one of the historic theories of the atonement, and was a relatively late innovation developed during the Enlightenment and modern period. Alister E. McGrath, ‘The Moral Theory of the Atonement: An Historical and Theological Critique’, Scottish Journal of Theology 38, no. 2 (1985): 205–20.
30‘God has carried out the central events of this economy with the definite intention of making himself known in them.’ Fred Sanders, The Deep Things of God: How the Trinity Changes Everything (Wheaton: Crossway, 2010), 130. As Julian puts it, ‘God wants to be known’, Julian of Norwich, Showings, trans. Edmund Colledge and James Walsh (New York: Paulist Press, 1978), 161. It is this theological perspective which affords us the alternative to a merely anthropological view – an ontological perspective from which to view the work of Christ. Marit Trelstad, ‘Lavish Love: A Covenantal Ontology’, in Cross Examinations: Readings on the Meaning of the Cross Today, ed. Marit Trelstad (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2006), 117.
31As Hengel notes, ‘What we have here is God’s communication of himself, the free action through which he establishes the effective basis of our salvation. . . . To assert that God himself accepted death in the form of a crucified Jewish manual worker from Galilee in order to break the power of death and bring salvation to all men could only seem [and still seems] folly and madness.’ Martin Hengel, Crucifixion in the Ancient World and the Folly of the Message of the Cross, trans. John Bowden (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1977), 89.
32G. W. F. Hegel, Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion: The Lectures of 1827, trans. Peter Crafts Hodgson and Robert F. Brown (New York: Clarendon Press, 2006), 147.
33Cf. Hans Boersma, Violence, Hospitality, and the Cross: Reappropriating the Atonement Tradition (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2004), 115–32.
34As Hegel puts it, knowledge is more than a ‘simple connection of myself with my object’, for it is deeply relational and transformative, ‘an elevation to God’. Hegel, Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion: The Lectures of 1827, 162.
35Such an account demonstrates the significant limitation of categorizing theories of the atonement as either subjective or objective. Robert Sherman, King, Priest and Prophet: A Trinitarian Theology of Atonement (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 2004), 19; James K. Beilby and Paul R. Eddy, eds, The Nature of the Atonement: Four Views (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2006), 14–20.
36This account of revelation is thoroughly (though not exclusively) indebted to Barth. Cf. Adam Johnson, God’s Being in Reconciliation: The Theological Basis of the Unity and Diversity of the Atonement in the Theology of Karl Barth (New York: T & T Clark, 2012), 85–91. For a similar line of thought, cf. Benedict XVI, Jesus of Nazareth: Holy Week (San Francisco: Ignatius, 2011), 76–102.
37This is precisely what we find in a host of typologies of the doctrine that break the doctrine up into three major types. While Gustaf Aulén’s typology is simplistic, this is compounded disastrously by those who repeat his basic thesis devoid of his research into the history of theology.
38Examples of works which favour concrete development of different theories of the atonement from historical perspectives, in contrast to my methodological emphasis, include: Aulén, Christus Victor; Laurence W. Grensted, A Short History of the Doctrine of the Atonement (London: Longmans, Green & co., 1920); Donald Macleod, ‘The Atonement of the Death of Christ: In Faith, Revelation, and History’, Scottish Journal of Theology 41, no. 4 (1988): 535; Henry Nutcombe Oxenham, The Catholic Doctrine of the Atonement(London: W.H. Allen, 1881); Auguste Sabatier, The Doctrine of the Atonement and Its Historical Evolution; and, Religion and Modern Culture (London: Williams & Norgate, 1904); Ferdinand Christian Baur, Die Christliche Lehre Von Der Versöhnung in Ihrer Geschichtlichen Entwicklung Von Der Ältesten Zeit Bis Auf Die Neueste (Tübingen: C.F. Osiander, 1838); Henry Ernest William Turner, The Patristic Doctrine of Redemption: A Study of the Development of Doctrine During the First Five Centuries (New York: Mowbray, 1952). More recent volumes seeking to capture the diversity inherent to Christ’s saving work include: Peter Schmiechen, Saving Power: Theories of Atonement and Forms of the Church (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2005); McKnight, Community; Baker and Green, Recovering.
39For some of this material, see: Raymond Edward Brown, The Death of the Messiah: From Gethsemane to the Grave (New York: Doubleday, 1994); N. T. Wright, Jesus and the Victory of God (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1996); Hengel, Crucifixion.
40Cf. Adolf von Harnack, What Is Christianity? (New York: Harper, 1957), 55.
41Gunton, Actuality, 27–52; Janet Martin Soskice, Metaphor and Religious Language (Oxford: Oxford, 1985). Just how commonplace this is can be seen in the near ubiquity of chapters or sections on ‘metaphor’ in books on the atonement. E.g. McKnight, Community, 35ff; Boersma, Violence, 99–114. For a helpful essay on the topic, cf. Henri Blocher, ‘Biblical Metaphors and the Doctrine of the Atonement’, Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 47, no. 4 (2004): 629–45. It is worth noting that though metaphor may be an essential and salutary feature of our speech, it is not always good or helpful. Metaphorical language, as Linda Radzik notes, can take on a life of its own, eventually losing its power by its distance and isolation from that which it originally sought to address. Linda Radzik, Making Amends: Atonement in Morality, Law, and Politics (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), 54.
42The primary purpose of discussions concerning metaphors within the atonement is to explain the diversity in the biblical and theological witness to the meaning of Christ’s death and resurrection (cf. Baker and Green, Recovering, 98–9; Gunton, Actuality, 25). As I understand it, there are better and more properly theological explanations for this phenomenon than appeals to the nature of language and culture. Shifting the ground of the discussion will free linguistic and cultural discussion to play their proper role, rather than burdening them (and the doctrine of the atonement) with a weight that they were not meant to carry. McIntyre is likewise uneasy about the prominence of metaphor within soteriological discussions, for distinct though related reasons. Cf. McIntyre, Soteriology, 73–5.
43With regard to ‘mode’, ‘way’, or ‘manner’ of being, I am drawing on Barth’s understanding of that term, as found in CD I/1, pp. 413ff. Cf. Johnson, God’s Being, 70n. 33.
44In this book I use divine ‘perfections’ and ‘attributes’ interchangeably. Barth preferred the former term inasmuch as it speaks of something uniquely God’s, rather than something that he has in common with the being of others. CD II/1, 322.
45Please note that my use of these theologians does not imply I agree with all or even most of their theology. The purpose of this work is to be an irenic and reconciling vision-casting exercise. While I do incorporate some critique in the pages which follow, for the most part I avoid polemic interaction. The overall theological systems of many of the figures included here could not come together into a coherent whole without a great deal of change, but I hope that my use of their works, to which I owe a great debt of gratitude, is nonetheless both faithful and coherent.
46Leonardo Boff, Passion of Christ, Passion of the World: The Facts, Their Interpretation, and Their Meaning Yesterday and Today (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1987), 87.
47Anselm, ‘The Devotions of Saint Anselm’, ed. Clement C. J. Webb (London: Methuen & Co, 1903), 105.