In church history, the earliest theory of the Atonement was the Ransom Theory. Not much of a theory, really. I mean, it wasn't theoretical, because Jesus said, “For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45). “Ransom” wasn’t the early church’s idea; it was His. Paul writes that Christ “redeemed us” from the curse of the law (Gal. 3:13), and Peter assures his readers that “you were not redeemed with perishable things” (1 Pet. 1:18). Same thing: a price is paid to free us.
So this “Ransom Theory” was Jesus’s idea, and the early church decided to let Him have it—even though many today don’t like the idea of “paying for sins” in any way. The question they had, however, was not whether He paid for our atonement, but who He paid. The disagreement was over whether it was Satan or someone else. Origen, Ambrose, and even Augustine (in his earlier writings) supported the view that, when we sinned, Satan took ownership of humanity, and Christ paid off Satan to free us.
Athanasius, Cyril of Alexandria, and—interestingly—later Augustine argued that the payment was made to God, because sin was against God, and Satan, the usurper, had no legitimate right to ownership.
Then Anselm brought out the Satisfaction Theory, claiming that God’s righteousness needed to be satisfied. Sin dishonors God (Rom. 3:23), and His honor needed to be restored. The Reformation gave us the Penal Substitution Theory, where Christ bears the penalty for our sin, and the payment He made (remember, no less than Jesus Himself claimed He came to make a payment) was made to God.
Clearly Christ was victorious, so the Christus Victor view has its merits (Col. 2:15; Heb. 2:14; Col. 1:13; 1 John 3:8). And the idea that Christ paid for our sin with His suffering is irrefutable (Isa. 53:5–6; Gal. 3:13; 1 Pet. 2:24; 2 Cor. 5:21; Rom. 3:25). And that last reference makes it abundantly clear to Whom the price was paid: “God put Him forward as a propitiation by His blood” (Rom. 3:25). The price was paid to God. It satisfied the God who had righteous wrath (Rom. 1:18–19). The Holy God was opposed to sin and needed to be propitiated; Christ did that.
Now… pause there and think about that. We sinned, so God had a problem: how to show mercy to sinners who violated His glory. He had to be just, but He wanted to show mercy. So He sent His Son to die for us (Rom. 5:8). Get that? The angry God sent His Son to pay the price for the sinners. God, rightly wrathful, sent His Son to be the payment—to appease His wrath. Go ahead—wrap your head around that one.
4 comments:
Regarding God’s “problem” as per your final paragraph, I had heard or read something once that suggested this scenario: God the Father essentially stated, “Man has sinned against Us and has incurred Our wrath. Something must be done.” Then God the Son offered, “I will do whatever is necessary to make it right. Here am I; send Me.” I’m not sure if that is 100% theologically accurate, but I can certainly see mercy and justice in that scenario.
Ultimately, I see that all of the Atonement theories have some explanatory value that allows us to gain some insight into how this works. One thing which confuses people is the notion of a debt or price, and as you note, who that price was paid to. To me, Penal Substitution is an expansion of the Ransom theory and I see them fitting together.
I've always found the Moral Example theory to be the least useful and the least supported by Scripture. While we are to follow Jesus' moral teachings, this seems to fail as an Atonement explanation.
What I learned recently was the the debt view of sin was the primary way that 1st century Jews understood the problem of Sin. Earlier in Scripture Sin is described in terms of an almost physical burden. Yet as the economy changed to a monetary system, the understanding of Sin took on this language of debt. Both are describing the same thing accurately, yet I find myself relating to the burden language for some reason.
I think the problem comes when people try to say only one of the redemption models is the correct one. However, I think Reformed folks tend to prefer the Legal Substitution Theory because it feels like the most grandiose option, giving us that sense of awe and glory and mercy that the others, when taken in isolation, diminish. It is not wrong to call what Jesus did a ransom, clearly, but if all you see is some sort of hostage situation, the scope of redemption gets narrowed. The others do similar things. PST is not wholly complete in itself either. Only when we embrace them all in their connection with Scripture do we get a fuller picture of what Christ did.
I agree. There are aspects in each of them which are all True to some degree. I also think that people want to remove Jesus atoning work from the system laid out in the Torah which was how YHWH's people atoned for their sins before Christ. I think that the study of the OT sacrificial/atonement system gives context and explanation to the language of ransom of debt and bring additional clarity to the topic.
But to say that any one of them is the single, best options seems incomplete.
Post a Comment